"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual
myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they
may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right. The sensitivity of the poor to injustice is a trivial thing compared
with that of the rich."
John Kenneth Galbraith
The sugar high of the Trump election seems to be wearing a bit thin on Wall Street. I had said at the time that I thought they would
just execute the trading plans they had in place in their supposition that Hillary was going to win. And this is what I think they
did, and have been doing.
And so when the thrill is gone, and dull reality starts sinking in, I suspect we are going to be in for quite a correction.
However, I am tuning out the hysteria from the Wall Street Democrats, especially the pitiful whining emanating from organizations
like MSNBC, CNN, and the NY Times, because they have discredited themselves as reliable, unbiased sources. They really have.
They may just be joining their right-leaning peers in this, but they still do not realize it, and think of themselves as exceptional,
and morally superior. And the same can be said of many pundits, and insiders, and very serious people with important podiums
in the academy and the press.
Hillary was to be their meal ticket. And their anguish at being denied a payday for their faithful service is remarkable.
We are being treated to rumours that Trump is going to appoint this or that despicable person to some key position. I am waiting
for him to show his hand with some actual decisions and appointments.
This is not to say that I am optimistic, not in the least. I am not, and I most certainly did not vote for him (or her for that
matter). But the silliness of the courtiers in the media is just too much, too much whining from those who had their candy of power
and money by association expectations taken away.
I am therefore very interested in seeing who the DNC will choose as chairperson. Liz Warren came out today and endorsed Ellison,
which I believe Bernie Sanders has done as well. He is no insider like Wasserman-Schulz, Brazile, or Dean.
The Democratic party is at a crossroads, in a split between taking policy positions along lines of 'class' or 'identity.'
By class is meant working class of the broader public versus the moneyed interests of financiers and tech monopolists.
Identity implies the working with various minority groups who certainly may deserve redress for real suppression of their
rights and other financial abuses, but in a 'splintering' manner that breaks them down into special interest groups rather than a
broader movement of the disadvantaged.
Why has this been the establishment approach of the heart of the Democratic power circles?
I think the reason for this Democratic strategy has been purely practical. There was no way the Wall Street wing of the Democratic
party could make policy along lines of the middle class and the poor, and keep a straight face, while gorging themselves in a frenzy
of massive soft corruption and enormous donations from the wealthiest few who they were thereby expected to represent and to serve.
And so they lost politically, and badly.
The average American, of whatever identity, finally became sick of them, and rejected the balkanization of their interests into
special identity groups that could be more easily managed and messaged, and controlled.
This was a huge difference that we saw in the Sanders campaign, almost to a fault. Not because he was wrong necessarily, but because
it was so unaccustomed, and insufficiently articulated. Sanders had his heart in the right place, perhaps, but he lacked the charisma
and outspokenness of an FDR. Not to mention that his own party powers were dead set against him, because they wanted to keep the
status quo that had rewarded them so well in place.
It is not at all obvious that the Democrats can find themselves again. Perhaps Mr. Trump, while doing some things well, will take
economic policy matters to an excess, and like the Democrats ignore the insecurity and discontent of the working class. And the people
will find a voice, eventually, in either the Democratic party, or something entirely new.
This is not just an American phenomenon. This has happened with Labour and Brexit in the UK, and is happening in the rest of the
developed nations in Europe. One thing that the ruling elite of the West have had in common is a devotion to corporate globalisation
and inequality.
And that system is not going to 'cohere' as economist Robert Johnson had put it so well.
With all this change and volatility and insecurity, it appears that people will be reaching for some sort of safe haven for themselves
and their resources. So far the Dollar index has benefited from this, not because of its virtues, but from the weakness and foundering
of the others.
I am afraid that the confidence in the Dollar as a safe haven is misplaced, especially if things go as I expect that they will
with the US economy under a Trump administration. But that is still largely in his hand,s to be decided and written. We have yet
to see if he has the will and mind to oppose the vested interests of his own party and the corporate, moneyed interests.
That is an enormous, history-making task, requiring an almost historic moral compass. And so I am not optimistic.
"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual
myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they
may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right. The sensitivity of the poor to injustice is a trivial thing compared
with that of the rich."
John Kenneth Galbraith
The sugar high of the Trump election seems to be wearing a bit thin on Wall Street. I had said at the time that I thought they would
just execute the trading plans they had in place in their supposition that Hillary was going to win. And this is what I think they
did, and have been doing.
And so when the thrill is gone, and dull reality starts sinking in, I suspect we are going to be in for quite a correction.
However, I am tuning out the hysteria from the Wall Street Democrats, especially the pitiful whining emanating from organizations
like MSNBC, CNN, and the NY Times, because they have discredited themselves as reliable, unbiased sources. They really have.
They may just be joining their right-leaning peers in this, but they still do not realize it, and think of themselves as exceptional,
and morally superior. And the same can be said of many pundits, and insiders, and very serious people with important podiums
in the academy and the press.
Hillary was to be their meal ticket. And their anguish at being denied a payday for their faithful service is remarkable.
We are being treated to rumours that Trump is going to appoint this or that despicable person to some key position. I am waiting
for him to show his hand with some actual decisions and appointments.
This is not to say that I am optimistic, not in the least. I am not, and I most certainly did not vote for him (or her for that
matter). But the silliness of the courtiers in the media is just too much, too much whining from those who had their candy of power
and money by association expectations taken away.
I am therefore very interested in seeing who the DNC will choose as chairperson. Liz Warren came out today and endorsed Ellison,
which I believe Bernie Sanders has done as well. He is no insider like Wasserman-Schulz, Brazile, or Dean.
The Democratic party is at a crossroads, in a split between taking policy positions along lines of 'class' or 'identity.'
By class is meant working class of the broader public versus the moneyed interests of financiers and tech monopolists.
Identity implies the working with various minority groups who certainly may deserve redress for real suppression of their
rights and other financial abuses, but in a 'splintering' manner that breaks them down into special interest groups rather than a
broader movement of the disadvantaged.
Why has this been the establishment approach of the heart of the Democratic power circles?
I think the reason for this Democratic strategy has been purely practical. There was no way the Wall Street wing of the Democratic
party could make policy along lines of the middle class and the poor, and keep a straight face, while gorging themselves in a frenzy
of massive soft corruption and enormous donations from the wealthiest few who they were thereby expected to represent and to serve.
And so they lost politically, and badly.
The average American, of whatever identity, finally became sick of them, and rejected the balkanization of their interests into
special identity groups that could be more easily managed and messaged, and controlled.
This was a huge difference that we saw in the Sanders campaign, almost to a fault. Not because he was wrong necessarily, but because
it was so unaccustomed, and insufficiently articulated. Sanders had his heart in the right place, perhaps, but he lacked the charisma
and outspokenness of an FDR. Not to mention that his own party powers were dead set against him, because they wanted to keep the
status quo that had rewarded them so well in place.
It is not at all obvious that the Democrats can find themselves again. Perhaps Mr. Trump, while doing some things well, will take
economic policy matters to an excess, and like the Democrats ignore the insecurity and discontent of the working class. And the people
will find a voice, eventually, in either the Democratic party, or something entirely new.
This is not just an American phenomenon. This has happened with Labour and Brexit in the UK, and is happening in the rest of the
developed nations in Europe. One thing that the ruling elite of the West have had in common is a devotion to corporate globalisation
and inequality.
And that system is not going to 'cohere' as economist Robert Johnson had put it so well.
With all this change and volatility and insecurity, it appears that people will be reaching for some sort of safe haven for themselves
and their resources. So far the Dollar index has benefited from this, not because of its virtues, but from the weakness and foundering
of the others.
I am afraid that the confidence in the Dollar as a safe haven is misplaced, especially if things go as I expect that they will
with the US economy under a Trump administration. But that is still largely in his hand,s to be decided and written. We have yet
to see if he has the will and mind to oppose the vested interests of his own party and the corporate, moneyed interests.
That is an enormous, history-making task, requiring an almost historic moral compass. And so I am not optimistic.
"... Although Russia simply is just a country in the wrong place at the wrong time (which, throughout Russian history, seems to be a theme for them) - there really is a reason the Elite hate Russia. It's not because they're Xenophobic, although there's that too - it's because of several key factors that make Russia a unique power in the world, compared to similar countries. ..."
"... Russia has banned a pro-democracy charity founded by hedge fund billionaire George Soros, saying the organization posed a threat to both state security and the Russian constitution. ..."
"... Plain and simple, the [western] Elite do not control Russia. While there are backchannels of Russian oligarchs that work directly with Western Rothschild interests, for example, they simply don't have the same level of control as they do European countries, like Germany for instance. Or another good example is China, there's this fanatical talk that China can dump US Treasuries blah blah blah the fact is that China is completely dependent on USA and US Dollars, and will be for the rest of our lives. Maybe in 1000 years in the Dong Dynasty still to come they will rule the world but it's not going to happen anytime soon. ..."
Although Russia simply is just a country in the wrong place at the wrong time (which, throughout
Russian history, seems to be a theme for them) - there really is a reason the Elite hate Russia.
It's not because they're Xenophobic, although there's that too - it's because of several key factors
that make Russia a unique power in the world, compared to similar countries.
1. Russia is an independent country. It's not possible to manipulate Russia via external
remote control, like it is most countries. The Elite don't like that!
Russia kicked out Soros "Open Society":
Russia has banned a pro-democracy charity founded by hedge fund billionaire George Soros,
saying the organization posed a threat to both state security and the Russian constitution.
In a statement released Monday morning, Russia's General Prosecutor's Office said two branches
of Soros' charity network - the Open Society Foundations (OSF) and the Open Society Institute
(OSI) - would be placed on a "stop list" of foreign non-governmental organizations whose activities
have been deemed "undesirable" by the Russian state.
2. Russia is not easy to cripple via clandestine means, whether it be CIA, MI6, or outright
military conflict. Some other BRICs however, that's not the case. Say what you will about Russia's
military - it's on par and in many cases, advanced, compared to the US military. And that's not AN
opinion,
that's in the opinion of top US military commanders:
Late in September, we brought you "
US Readies Battle Plans For Baltic War With Russia " in which we described a series of thought
experiments undertaken by The Pentagon in an effort to determine what the likely outcome would
be should something go horribly "wrong" on the way to landing the US in a shooting war with Russia
in the Balkans.
The results of those thought experiments were not encouraging. As a reminder, here's how
Foreign Policy summed up the exercises:
"I would like to present you with a little gift that represents what President Obama and Vice
President Biden and I have been saying and that is: 'We want to reset our relationship, and so
we will do it together.' ...
"We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?" she asked Lavrov, laughing.
"You got it wrong," said Lavrov, as both diplomats laughed.
"It should be "perezagruzka" [the Russian word for reset]," said Lavrov."This says 'peregruzka,'
which means 'overcharged.'"
Yes, it's almost a certainty that if Clinton by some horrible fate is President there will be
Nuclear war. Wars have been started over much more subtle mistakes. One would think, that Clinton
would have had an advisor CHECK THIS before presenting it in a public ceremony, in front of reporters?
How much more blatantly unprofessional can one be? If politicians worked in the private sector, they
wouldn't last a day! How do these people advance so far in politics?
4.Plain and simple, the [western] Elite do not control Russia. While there are backchannels
of Russian oligarchs that work directly with Western Rothschild interests, for example, they simply
don't have the same level of control as they do European countries, like Germany for instance. Or
another good example is China, there's this fanatical talk that China can dump US Treasuries blah
blah blah the fact is that China is completely dependent on USA and US Dollars, and will be for the
rest of our lives. Maybe in 1000 years in the Dong Dynasty still to come they will rule the world
but it's not going to happen anytime soon.
Russia is one of the most highly misunderstood cultures in the West. Which is strange, because
Russia is more like America than any European country:
Both Russia and America share huge landmasses with large undeveloped territory
Both Russia and America are predominantly white Christian majorities (although in last decades,
America tries to be more of a melting pot
Both Russia and America fought against Hitler and the Nazis during World War 2, the defining
event of the last 60 years
There have been numerous interesting situations where Russia helped America and America helped
Russia on a number of levels, to learn more about it checkout the following books:
Most interestingly, during the Nixon administration Kissinger was prodding Nixon to partner with
Russia that would, in Kissinger's view would create an unstoppable alliance, that no one could compete
with such a superpower axis. But, it didn't happen, as there were 'neo-cons' who were against it,
mostly Polish Catholics who have some deep genetic fear of any culture using the Cyrillic alphabet.
Nixon instead chose China (what a mistake!) and created Forex. But the point being that, through
a small slip of fate, "China" may have been in this alternative Kissinger reality the 'Great Evil
Enemy' hacking our elections, as we drive across the Alaskan-Siberian highway without any speed limit,
oil would be ten cents a gallon, and we wouldn't need to war with the Middle East.
"... And this is where The New York Times has lost it. By dropping its veneer and abandoning its
self acclaimed standards of journalism, it has sentenced itself into irrelevance. ..."
"... I also suspect that much like the heads of the Soviet newspapers quickly adapted to the new
rules and new rulers of the game while regular journalists were sentenced to life of unemployment, so
will Sulzberger and Keller adapt to whatever will come while the staff of The New York Times will be
sentenced to their very own "Hall of Shame", much like already happened to their colleague Judith Miller
when her services on propagating for war with Iraq was no longer required. ..."
"... I enclose as a small eulogy the following email exchange with a couple of editors from The
New York Times . The emails are significant if only as examples of how the newspaper stopped living
up to the most basic elements of journalism towards the end of its life. In them editors Bruce Headlam
and Isvett Verde explain that The New York Times does not correct mistakes, does not grant the right
of reply, and does not, as a matter of policy, publish material about its own censorship. ..."
... during the current election cycle in the United States, The New York Times has so clearly
abandoned all rudimentary standards of journalism and alienated its readership so badly, that it
has sentenced itself to wither away into irrelevance. Remembered only in history books as a relic
of the Cold War, much like its sister newspaper Pravda of the Soviet Union.
As a Swedish reader of The New York Times , I may be surprised that the paper has ignored
election rigging in the governing party of the United States serious enough to cause its top five
officials to resign. But it doesn't really matter, since I can read the source material on it via
WikiLeaks. As a foreign journalist I may be surprised that the paper has chosen to downplay the political
bribes of the Clinton Foundation, but it makes little difference because the Associated Press has
made the investigation available for me to report on. As a citizen of a western democracy I may be
surprised that The New York Times so clearly campaigns against Trump and for Clinton, rather
than reports on the policy issues of the candidates, but I can ignore this since I can read and listen
to what they say themselves, while I can get a variety of more enlightened and entertaining campaigns
all over the blogosphere. If I were a US citizen however, I would be more than just surprised.
And this is where The New York Times has lost it. By dropping its veneer and abandoning its
self acclaimed standards of journalism, it has sentenced itself into irrelevance.Because
even if the newspaper has steadily been outflanked by many blogs when it comes to audience size,
it was until recently considered to be an important platform from which the US elites formed their
world-view. But a newspaper with such a small reach, that is no longer taken seriously even by the
main presidential candidates of its own country, a newspaper that doesn't abide by the most fundamental
journalistic standards, namely publishing rather than hiding newsworthy, correct information, has
very little to offer either any powerful people or its own readers. Because even propaganda has to
be good, for it to have any value.
The only question that now remains, is how history will remember the journalists of The New
York Times . Will they be judged leniently as people that just did their jobs, not knowing what
they were doing? Or will they suffer the same fate as the thousands of Soviet journalists who lost
their jobs when the charade at their communist mouthpieces ended? I much suspect that it will be
the latter. But I also suspect that much like the heads of the Soviet newspapers quickly adapted
to the new rules and new rulers of the game while regular journalists were sentenced to life of unemployment,
so will Sulzberger and Keller adapt to whatever will come while the staff of The New York Times will
be sentenced to their very own "Hall of Shame", much like already happened to their colleague Judith
Miller when her services on propagating for war with Iraq was no longer required.
I enclose as a small eulogy the following email exchange with a couple of editors from The
New York Times . The emails are significant if only as examples of how the newspaper stopped living
up to the most basic elements of journalism towards the end of its life. In them editors Bruce Headlam
and Isvett Verde explain that The New York Times does not correct mistakes, does not grant the right
of reply, and does not, as a matter of policy, publish material about its own censorship.
If you have any other documents pertaining to the demise of The New York Times , please
email them to me or send them to WikiLeaks. One of these days I will collect them for a proper obituary.
Johannes Wahlstrφm Award-winning investigative journalist and filmmaker can be reached on
[email protected]
"... This comes in the wake of Evelyn Farkas' television interview last month in which the former Obama deputy secretary of defense said in part: "I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill it was more actually aimed at telling the Hill people, get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration." ..."
Multiple sources tell Fox News that Susan Rice, former national security adviser under then-President
Barack Obama, requested to unmask the names of Trump transition officials caught up in
surveillance.
The unmasked names, of people associated with Donald Trump, were then sent to all those at
the National Security Council, some at the Defense Department, then-Director of National Intelligence
James Clapper and then-CIA Director John Brennan essentially, the officials at the top, including
former Rice deputy Ben Rhodes.
The names were part of incidental electronic surveillance of candidate and President-elect
Trump and people close to him, including family members, for up to a year before he took office.
It was not clear how Rice knew to ask for the names to be unmasked, but the question was being
posed by the sources late Monday.
... ... ...
This comes in the wake of Evelyn Farkas' television interview last month in which the former
Obama deputy secretary of defense said in part: "I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly
speaking, the people on the Hill it was more actually aimed at telling the Hill people, get
as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves
the administration."
... ... ...
As the Obama administration left office, it also approved new rules that gave the NSA much broader
powers by relaxing the rules about sharing intercepted personal communications and the ability
to share those with 16 other intelligence agencies.
... ... ...
Rice is no stranger to controversy. As the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, she appeared on several
Sunday news shows to defend the adminstration's later debunked claim that the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks
on a U.S. consulate in Libya was triggered by an Internet video.
"... Trump is exactly where he is today because he attacked that same party. He called bullshit on the Bush's claims to have made the US safer and called bullshit on the idea that Iraq was something that we should still do in hindsight. He trashed the idea of free trade and TTIP - another Republican shibboleth. He refused to go down the standard Republican route of trashing social security... ..."
"... All he needs to do is call bullshit on this 'evidence' of Russian hacking and remind everyone that it wasn't Russians who manned the planes on 9/11. Trump is a oafish clown - but he's not a standard politician playing standard politics. He can shrug off this oh-so-clever manoeuvre by Obama with no trouble. ..."
"... Sanctions = token gestures that will soon fade into the distance. Much like you know who. Obama is salty because of Kilary getting whupped and Putin out-playing him in Syria. Never thought I would see the day when I sided with Trump over Obama. Interesting times. ..."
"... Yes, the so-called liberals are losing all over. They blame everyone but themselves. The problem is that they have been found out. They were not real liberals at all. They had little bits of liberal policies like "Gay rights" and "bathrooms for Transgenders" and, of course, "Anti-Anti-Semitism Laws" and a few other bits and pieces with which they constructed a sort of camoflage coat, but the core of their policies was Corporatism. Prize exhibits: Tony Blair and Barak Obama. ..."
"... The extreme Left and extreme Right ("Populists") are benefiting by being able to say what they mean, loud and apparently clear. People are not, on the whole, politically sophisticated but they do realise that they have been lied to for a very long time and they are fed up. That is why "Populists are making such a showing in the polls. People don't believe in the centre's "Liberalism" any more. ..."
"... Obama acting like a petulant child that has to leave the game and go home now, so he's kicking the game board and forcing everyone else to clean up his mess. Irresponsible. ..."
"... Obama will be making to many paid speeches to be doing anything of the sort. And frankly I suspect he be silent, because Trump is soon going to know where all the bodies were buried under Obama, just like Obama knows where all the bodies are buried from the Bush area. You are a wishful thinker, if you think Obama is going anything after he leaves office. ..."
"... So the person awarded a Nobel Peace Prize uses his last weeks in office to sour relations between the only 2 superpowers on Earth for - what ? ..."
The president-elect has been consistently ->
skeptical
about the US intelligence ->
consensus that Russia ordered cyber-attacks on Democratic party targets as a way to influence the 2016 election in his favor
the reason for Obama's new sanctions. At one point, he suggested the culprit might have been China, another state or even
a 400lb man in his bedroom .
On taking office in January, Trump might therefore be expected to simply end the Obama sanctions. And as president, he could do
so; presidential orders can simply be repealed by the executive branch.
But the situation is not that simple. If Trump did choose to remove the sanctions, he would find himself at odds with his own
party. Senior Republicans in Congress responded to the Obama sanctions by identifying Russia as a major geopolitical foe and criticizing
the new measures only as a case of too little too late. Some promised a push for further measures in Congress.
Trump may therefore choose not to reverse the new sanctions. If so, he will find himself at odds with the man he so constantly
praises.
On Friday, the Kremlin responded to the moves, including the expulsion of 35 suspected intelligence operatives and the closing
of two Russian facilities in the US,
with
a shrug . Putin, it seems, is willing simply to wait until Trump moves into the Oval Office. Trump's tweet suggested he is too.
But such provocative words could not distract the media and public from another domestic concern for Trump the growing perception
that his predecessor has acted
to
his disadvantage .
"The sanctions were clearly an attempt by the Obama administration to throw a wrench into or [to] box in the next administration's
relationship with Russia,"
All Obama does with his clumsy movements is just attempting to blame Russians for Democrat's loss of elections. Also he is obscuring
peaceful power transition while at it.
All what Trump needs to do is to just call the looser a loser a move on.
White House/StateDep press release on sanctions is ORWELLIAN: corruption within the DNC/Clinton's manager Podesta undermines the
democracy, not its exposure as claimed (let alone the fact that there is still no evidence that the Russian government has anything
to do with the hacks).
The press release also talks about how the security of the USA and its interests were compromised, so Obama in effects says
that national security interest of the country is to have corrupt political system, which is insane.
This argumentation means that even if Russian government has done the hacking, it was a good deed, there is nothing to sanction
Russia for even in such case.
'Fraid both Putin and Trump are a lot smarter than Barry. Putin's move in not retaliating and inviting US kids to the Kremlin
New Year party was an astute judo throw. And Barry is sitting on his backside wondering how it happened.
.. Probably Obama's "exceptionalism" made him so clumsy on international affairs stage..
.. just recently.. snubbed by Fidel.. he refused to meet him..
.. humiliated by Raul Castro, he declined to hug president of USA..
.. Duterte described.. hmm.. his provenance..
.. Bibi told him off in most vulgar way.. several times..
.. and now this..
..pathetic..
P.S.
You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination."
Charles de Gaulle.
Yes, the so-called liberals are losing all over. They blame everyone but themselves. The problem is that they have been found
out. They were not real liberals at all. They had little bits of liberal policies like "Gay rights" and "bathrooms for Transgenders"
and, of course, "Anti-Anti-Semitism Laws" and a few other bits and pieces with which they constructed a sort of camoflage coat,
but the core of their policies was Corpratism. Prize exhibits: Tony Blair and Barak Obama.
The extreme Left and extreme Right ("Populists") are benefiting by being able to say what they mean, loud and apparently clear.
People are not, on the whole, politically sophisticated but they do realise that they have been lied to for a very long time and
they are fed up. That is why "Populists are making such a showing in the polls. People don't believe in the centre's "Liberalism"
any more.
"US intelligence consensus that Russia ordered cyber-attacks on Democratic party targets as a way to influence the
2016 election in his favor "
These people either think that an ex-British Ambassador is not an important witness or they don't want to hear anything that
contradicts the narrative they have been told to spin. It has to be one or the other.
Obama will be making to many paid speeches to be doing anything of the sort. And frankly I suspect he be slient, because Trump
is soon going to know where all the bodies were buried under Obama, just like Obama knows where all the bodies are buried from
the Bush area. You are a wishful thinker, if you think Obama is going anything after he leaves office.
We watched trump defeat republican favourites to get the nomination. He has not really needed them as much as they have felt they
need him. Then he has big oil in his transition team, tillerson if I am not mistaken, connected to exxon which has oil interests
in Russia....
I also think this is Obama's move to direct attention away from the cease fire in Syria. There the US has been supporting all
these groups, flying air missions and dropping special forces in Syria for years now, and the US has no seat at the table of the
cease fire negotiations. That should be very embarrassing for the US, but it apparently is not, because all the media wants to
talk about are these sanctions, which seem pretty trivial to me. The Obama/media machine scores another hollow victory. Can't
wait until this guy is out of office.
Still no proof of any meddling by the Russians. Only a last gasp attempt by a weak president in what is starting to look like
a boys against men tussle with Putin. Add the Syria ceasefire brokered by Turkey and Putin to this to show how Obama is being
outmanouvered at every turn.
Sad to see what a far cry from Obama the candidate Obama the president has turned out to be.
Action makes propaganda's effect irreversible. He who acts in obedience to propaganda can never go back. He is now obliged to
believe in that propaganda because of his past action. He is obliged to receive from it his justification and authority, without
which his action will seem to him absurd or unjust, which would be intolerable. He is obliged to continue to advance in the direction
indicated by propaganda, for action demands more action.
Jacques Ellul:
The Obama administration should be thanking Russian efforts to end the war in Syria. We know the MIC wanted this civil war to
go on for another decade.
PS once you are there, read everything else Craig Murray has written there. This is the ambassador HM government fired for
daring to speak out against the Uzbek government's human rights abuses.
All Americans should be alarmed that their country is now losing its edge in terms of the manipulation of other countries' electoral
processes. This is "unpresidented". Where previously we had implemented such actions ourselves without fear of reciprocation we
should be concerned that we are no longer immune to such machinations by other states. These events may represent a turning point
as regards our accepted global hegemony. Share
Obama has been anti-Russia long before Trump came into the picture.
This article is more of a wish list than anything else.
We are told by 'experts' that 'There is now a public record of what Russia did'
Where is it? I would love to see this.
I do know that the 2 countries that carry out most cyber attacks in the world are the US and it's main ally in the Middle East.
Just ask the Iranians what they did.
Obama complaining about Russian influence in American elections.
Last time I've checked it was Mr. Obama that warned British people against Brexit, wasn't? What about the deposition of an
ELECTED president in Ukraine with their support of Obama and EU? Let's talk also about regime changes in Syria, Lybia and Egypt
undertaken under Obama's administration? Perhaps we could also remember that Obama's agencies spied 3 million of Spanyards, Merkel,
Dilma Rousseff (Brazilian President) and so on... WHAT A HIPOCRISY, OBAMA!!!!
You have hit the nail on the head on all your points. But America and especially the American military needs a boogy man to justify
the trillions of dollars of American tax payer money they request to keep their military empire going. Imagine if there was no
boogy man and the conclusion was to half the American military to a size only equal to the next 6 largest militarys instead of
the present 13. Incidentally, most of the next largest militarys are allies of the United States.
This whole kerfuffle about Russian hacking has the stink of shooting the messenger. What about concentrating on what was in the
leaked e-mails. They showed a high level of deep corruption in the DNC. That is the importance of the hacked e-mails. Whoever
hacked and released them to the American public has done the America public a great favor. If Wasserman Shultz in cohoots with
Hillary had not swung the primaries in favor of Hillary and if Obama had remembered that the constitution says the government
is for the people and by the people (the peoples choice was by a huge margin for Bernie) and come out for Bernie, we wouldn't
be in the CF we are in right now. I thought Obama is a constitutional lawyer. So much for the constitution. The only statesman
in this mess is Putin. Thank heaven for his level headedness. The American pronouncements have the stink of the build up to another
false flag operation (the CIA revelations themselves are probably a false flag operation). I hope Putin can keep his 'cool' in
the face of American provocation.
Well what a spiteful, petty man this Obama has turned out to be! This is the first time his side hasn't 'won' and he can't take
it so throws his toys out the pram and risks further souring relationships with the East. Thank goodness Putin rose above it.
Ha! Obama has obviously nothing to lose and decided to make hay in the limited time he has. More mischief making. Love it. Let's
face it the master spiteful petty man is the one about to occupy the white house.
This just shows the real character of Obama. Queering the pitch for Trump and the incoming administration. But well done Putin
for sidestepping. Clever. Much smarter than Obama. In the end lawyers make bad Presidents and bad Prime Ministers.
Bit of a pot-kettle interface going on here. America leads the way in the hacking of public servers around the world and spying
on friend and enemy alike. Not long ago the CIA tapped into Angela Merkel's mobile phone and I don't remember the same level of
public outcry. Seems like America is affronted that Russia and others are now doing what the US has done for years. And if it
is in fact the Russians - proof not yet forthcoming - this wasn't a hack into the electoral system at all; it was a simple phishing
email that the US officials were silly enough to click onto the link.
And finally - what eventually was released was the truth. Clinton was favoured by the DNC, she did say those things to Goldman
Sachs, a CNN reporter did provide her with the questions before the presidential debates. The truth is that the US elections were
corrupted, but not by the Russians - the culprits lie a little closer to home.
Obama tried to corner Russia, and almost all GOP lawmakers applauded Obama's action. Called it was well overdue. But our smart
president-elect comforted crying Putin right away by calling him a smart man for not taking any actions. It is becoming more and
more clear that Trump and Putin are made for each other. I think Trump is keeping Putin on his side to take air out of overinflated
Chinese balloon. May be he was advised by his team. No one knows his game plan.
Nearly 40 years ago , at the height of the cold war when I joined up to serve my country, never did i dream the day would come
when I had more respect for the leader of Russia than a president of the USA and that I would have more faith in the Russian media
than our own fake media.
Not content with merely stealing the silverware, BO is intent on causing as much mischief as possible before being booted out
of the White House, but the Russians are not falling for it. They will be dealing with Donald Trump in a few weeks, and there
is no need to respond to Barry's diaper baby antics.
I'm sure the Russians are hacking our internet systems, but the DNC emails that went to WikiLeaks did not come from them. The
content, outlining Podesta's plan to discredit Bernie supporters by falsely tying them to violent acts, would indicate that a
disgruntled and disgusted DNC employee was more likely the source.
The liberal media, I can't wait until they claim that Trump has few paths to victory from this trick bag he is in. We are living
in the dying days of the Obama administration. Things will be very different January 20, 2017. Things that appear difficult or
impossible now will suddenly be taken care of with the stroke of a pen. It will be exciting to see. Just a few months ago, Trumps
path to victory was so small that he shouldn't even bother trying, then it was the electors will do something about Trump. It
was all nonsense. This to about Obama limiting Trump is nonsense. Obama's lines in the sand are completely without effect.
It is of course impossible as the USA has the most and claimed most advanced spying network on the planet. It totally surrounds
both friends and foes alike - with such technical ability the only country who could spy and influence (e.g. arm twisting Merkal
is a prime example) on any country at will is the 'exceptional ' US Government.
If there was genuine evidence that Russia had somehow swayed the election, Hilary Clinton - who desires power above all other
things - would now be bringing a legal case to overturn the result and get a re-election.
But there is no evidence - only lies and cynicism. A few weeks ago I was convinced that US politics had hit a nadir and that
it couldn't smell any worse or get any more ridiculous. How wrong I was.
The U.S. has a long history of attempting to influence presidential elections in other countries it's done so as many as
81 times between 1946 and 2000, according to a database amassed by political scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University.
That number doesn't include military coups and regime change efforts following the election of candidates the U.S. didn't
like, notably those in Iran, Guatemala and Chile. Nor does it include general assistance with the electoral process, such as election
monitoring. [...]
In 59% of these cases, the side that received assistance came to power, although Levin estimates the average effect of "partisan
electoral interventions" to be only about a 3% increase in vote share. (
Source
)
I understand why some may find outside interference objectionable, but I reckon many of those who think so fail to recognise
America's far-from-faultless behaviour. Curses are like chickens; they always come home to roost.
Of course had the DNC leadership and the Clinton camp behaved ethically in the primary by not conspiring to tip the scale in
Clinton's favour, the hack would have found nothing. What we have now is Obama forced to divert the public attention because of
yet another messy scandal Hillary finds herself involved in. Clinton must be one of the most blessed people on earth; everyone
bends over backwards to accommodate her ambitions.
Also the CIA-Belgian assassination of Lamumba in 61, Congo's first democratically elected president, for the same 'geopolitical'
aka 'big business' reasons as the overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran in 53, who wanted the nationalize Iranian oil for their people,
and Lumumba had similar 'socialist' ideas for all the vast Congolese resources. To cut out the western business interests. And
think how well the Congo has fared since, one of the worst, saddest places, chaos, civil war, more dead than in Rwanda or anywhere
I think. They have not recovered from that.
And Iran, they were democratic, secular, elected a guy like Mossadegh, they were 'European', but the the US and Britain overthrew
him on behest of British-US oil interests, installed the Shah, their puppet dictator, and the blow-back was the Iranian religious
right-wing revolution and dictatorship some 20 years later. And now the Iranian people and our 'foreign policy' are suffering.
And all these US and CIA 'activities' the government had admitted and declassified, like the Gulf of Tonkin lie and false flag
in Vietnam, because it was so long ago nobody cares, so it's no 'conspiracy' here, just history. But now these Clinton Democrats
they really love and trust anything the CIA says, of course, they are big patriots now, and call people unpatriotic and foreign
agents if they question the so honorable CIA, because they are on Hillary's side now.
And the CIA in cahoots with Bush and Cheney also told us how there were these big, scary WMDs in Iraq, and mushroom clouds, and
how Saddam had links with Al Qaida, all obvious lies, that any amateur who knew basic world history could tell you even then.
And speaking of 'meddling', and overthrowing democratic governments, the US did the same under Obama and Hillary in Honduras
just a few years ago, backed the violent coup of a democratic leftist government there, and they still refuse to call it a coup,
and have legitimized the new corrupt and violent regime, are training their army, etc. Even though the EU and the US ambassador
to Honduras called it a coup at the time.
And for the same reasons, that leftist government didn't want to play ball with big US and western 'business interests', energy
companies, didn't want to sell them their rivers and resources like the new 'good' regime now. And since that coup, 100s of indigenous
activists and environmentalists have been killed, like Berta Caceres, and the violence and corruption has gone up big time under
the new regime, with 1000s more killed 'in general'. Yet Obama is so concerned about 'the integrity of democracy' and elections
and freedom and all that, what a nice guy.
The real question that Americans should be asking why Barack Obummer failed again to provide security in case of hacking Democrat's
emails?
Clinton did not deny that emails published by WikiLeaks were genuine.
That is called freedom of press.
What's wrong with public finding the truth about Clinton? Share
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Haven't you noticed that whole of the West has already moved that way? I do not mean pro-Putin, I mean priority of national interests
at home and some isolationism.
Obama is leaving office with the record of saving American troops lives by the process of using drones which on dodgy information
mainly target wedding parties. Share
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Appears suspiciously likely that Obama is just bitter that his legacy is about to be dumped in the nearest skip on Jan 20, and
wants to make trouble for Trump during his last 3 weeks in office.
Hard to see how Putin could have engineered Hillary Clinton's defeat, given she won the popular vote by 3 million.
Also Obama is extremely hypocritical as the CIA has repeatedly interfered in the affairs of other countries over the past 60
years.
The CIA never released emails of any country's people. It's simply bad tradecraft, meaning that it can't be used when one really
needs it. Share
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The story is that they were 'leaked' to Wikileaks and that only stuff that helps Trump was leaked. There are loads of Republican/Trump
mails that remain secret (presumably). Sounds plausible to me but the how the hell would I know? Share
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Not really. Democrats lost the election, through their own fault, and now Putin is waiting till Trump comes in office. All will
go swimmingly and we can look forward to better relations between the USA-Russia. Win win. Share
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On Thursday, the Arizona senator John McCain and South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham said in a joint statement: "The retaliatory
measures announced by the Obama administration today are long overdue.
That's all I needed to know. If lunatic war monger John McCain wants to ratchet up the tension with a nuclear power - then
it is very wise to do the opposite. Share
Wouldn't it be hilarious if a revolution broke out next year in Russia, over the downward spiralling Russian economy, just when
Putin thinks he has victory in sight?
Ah! The evident effects of sipping too much Death Wish Coffee 64 fl.oz - 3,472 mg of caffeine it could do serious damage to your
brain. Share
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Wow, the Trump/kremlin brigade zoomed in on this comments section faster than greased lightening! Good to know that some people
just love them some fascism! Share
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Red baiting won't close down the debate. There's still no evidence of Russian hacking of the US election.
And fascism is shouting people down who ask for evidence and don't just follow the President because he is attacking the outsiders.
Share
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I don't usually follow American elections but is this the usual way to hand over to a new president is to try to kick him in the
teeth? Share
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It were GOP senators leading the huzzas for invading Iraq too. But Ted Cruz? James Inhoffe? Half of the GOP senators are just
hirelings for big business. Share
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Such a move - did you manage to think this one up by yourself? Or is it just recient history repeating itself - you have only
a one tracked mind, a bit like your icon. Share
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The fact that the Russian sanctions makes things difficult for blowhard Trump is not the issue nor the intent. President Obama
was acting in response to Russia's interference with our diplomats and cyber attacks. This needed to be done. As to Trump, that's
tough. Share
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Why would Russia be happy that Clinton lost? Why would any foreign power be happy that Clinton lost?...
How many years did HRC, in her arrogance-fuelled denial, provide foreign intelligences with literally tonnes of free info??!
Trump might therefore be expected to simply end the Obama sanctions. .... But if he did choose to do so, he would find himself
at odds with his own party.
Trump is exactly where he is today because he attacked that same party. He called bullshit on the Bush's claims to have
made the US safer and called bullshit on the idea that Iraq was something that we should still do in hindsight. He trashed the
idea of free trade and TTIP - another Republican shibboleth. He refused to go down the standard Republican route of trashing social
security...
All he needs to do is call bullshit on this 'evidence' of Russian hacking and remind everyone that it wasn't Russians who
manned the planes on 9/11. Trump is a oafish clown - but he's not a standard politician playing standard politics. He can shrug
off this oh-so-clever manoeuvre by Obama with no trouble.
Simple solution, publish the commenter geolocation and ban proxy, clean the comment section from putinbots. Putin like ASBO's
must stop to do more harm against democracy.
There's still no evidence regarding the origin of the cyber attack. I've seen you posting a link to the report. The first line
in it is a disclaimer: "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information
contained within". Which is very wise from them.
Sanctions = token gestures that will soon fade into the distance. Much like you know who. Obama is salty because of Kilary
getting whupped and Putin out-playing him in Syria. Never thought I would see the day when I sided with Trump over Obama. Interesting
times.
Yes, the so-called liberals are losing all over. They blame everyone but themselves. The problem is that they have been found
out. They were not real liberals at all. They had little bits of liberal policies like "Gay rights" and "bathrooms for Transgenders"
and, of course, "Anti-Anti-Semitism Laws" and a few other bits and pieces with which they constructed a sort of camoflage coat,
but the core of their policies was Corporatism. Prize exhibits: Tony Blair and Barak Obama.
The extreme Left and extreme Right ("Populists") are benefiting by being able to say what they mean, loud and apparently
clear. People are not, on the whole, politically sophisticated but they do realise that they have been lied to for a very long
time and they are fed up. That is why "Populists are making such a showing in the polls. People don't believe in the centre's
"Liberalism" any more.
Ben, I found Glenn Greenwald's take on you quite interesting. Have you responded? And, yes, I know, my polite and pertinent question
will violate the terms here.
Good to see someone with the bollox to call a spade a spade.
More importantly it helps lift the eyelids of those who think our msm tells the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
You just know these people, like Johnny boy, who are pointing fingers at Russia are doing so based upon long laid plans to bind
up Trump from building a healthy relationship with Russia which would put an end to terrorism and likely all of these petty little
wars that are tearing the world to pieces. These people want war because division keeps them in power and war makes them lots
of money. I hope that Trump and Putin can work together and build a trust and foundation as allies in that together we can stamp
out terrorism and stabilize the worlds conflicts. Everything these people do in the next 20 days has a single agenda and that
is to cause instability and roadblocks for Trump and his team. Hope is just around the corner people so let's help usher it in.
Don't trust anyone until you know them. Been married and watched it turn to shit? You can't really trust anyone. The same can
be said for any country member.
"US intelligence consensus that Russia ordered cyber-attacks on Democratic party targets as a way to influence the
2016 election in his favor "
These people either think that an ex-British Ambassador is not an important witness or they don't want to hear anything that
contradicts the narrative they have been told to spin. It has to be one or the other. Share
First... let's see some actual evidence/proof. Oh, that's right, none has been offered up.
Second... everyone is upset that the DNC turd was exposed, but no one upset about the existence of the turd. ?
Obama acting like a petulant child that has to leave the game and go home now, so he's kicking the game board and forcing
everyone else to clean up his mess. Irresponsible.
Hundred times repeated lie will become the truth... that's the US officials policy for decades now. In 8 years, they did nothing,
so they are trying to do "something" in the last minute. For someone, who's using his own brain is all of this just laughable.
United States are not united I guess. Guess, that Merkel is the next on the list...
Hopefully now this will enable senate and congress republicans to prevent these crazy ideas of Russian appeasement take hold and
pursue a hardline against Russia, Hamas, Iran and Cuba.
Obama will be making to many paid speeches to be doing anything of the sort. And frankly I suspect he be silent, because Trump
is soon going to know where all the bodies were buried under Obama, just like Obama knows where all the bodies are buried from
the Bush area. You are a wishful thinker, if you think Obama is going anything after he leaves office.
I think you can blame Obama for underestimating Putin. Remember when he told Putin before the 2012 election off mike that he would
have more leeway after the election. Remember when Romney in 2012 warned us that Russia was a big threat and Obama thought that
was silly. Obama has been outclassed by Putin at every turn. Whatever else you may say about Trump, he recognizes that Putin is
worthy adversary not one to be marginalized. Putin has manage to marginalize the US in Syria despite all the money and effort
we have dumped into it.
The foreign power did the American people a favor when it exposed the corruption within the Democratic Party; something the establishment
media was apparently unable or unwilling to do. Rather than sanctioning Putin, Americans should be thanking him!
His recent announcement (no tit-for-tat) was masterful politicking. Should Trump refuse to do anything, Putin knows he can
wrap Trump around his finger, with the added bonus of both US houses kicking off.
If Trump does do something, relations will sour and Putin can blame the US.
" and decides not to accept it he will have to make it public,"
Solely a presumption on your part, a simple statement by the new agency heads saying that the info is inconclusive and the
method of the investigation will not be revealed cancels your whole argument. Sure the press will howl, but Trumps using Twitter
to talk to the people and unless someone leaks you got nothing.
Seems a no brainer, reverse Obama's ridiculous posturing gesture. As if the US doesn't have a long track record of interfering
in the affairs of other countries.
Personally I think the US should do as it wishes but it's extremely hypocritical to act shocked when the same meddling is returned
by others. Obama is acting foolishly as if the final weeks of his presidency have any genuine traction on future events.
We watched trump defeat republican favourites to get the nomination. He has not really needed them as much as they have felt they
need him. Then he has big oil in his transition team, tillerson if I am not mistaken, connected to exxon which has oil interests
in Russia....if trump removed big oil from his team maybe he can get out of this without escalating the issue or appearing to
be a putin puppet...
If such attempts were really registered, the question is were those attempts to hack US sites from
Russian IP space a false flag operation, probably with participation of Ukrainian secret services?
'
As one commenter noted: "The Ukrainian government have been trying to drive a wedge between the West
and Russia for years for their own political advantage."
If so what is the agenda outside obvious attempt to poison Us-Russian relations just before
Trump assumes presidency. Neocon in Washington are really afraid losing this plush positions.
And there is the whole colony of such "national security professionals" in Washington DC. For
example Robert Kagan can't do anything useful outside his favorite Russophobic agenda and would be an
unemployed along with his wife, who brought us Ukrainian disaster.
Notable quotes:
"... President Obama issued a terse statement seeming to blame Russia for the hack of the Democratic National Committee emails. "These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government," he wrote. ..."
"... The problem with this story is that, like the Iraq-WMD mess, it takes place in the middle of a highly politicized environment during which the motives of all the relevant actors are suspect. Nothing quite adds up. ..."
"... Now we have this sanctions story, which presents a new conundrum. It appears that a large segment of the press is biting hard on the core allegations of electoral interference emanating from the Obama administration. ..."
"... Did the Russians do it? Very possibly, in which case it should be reported to the max. But the press right now is flying blind. ..."
"... Maybe the Russians did hack the DNC, but the WikiLeaks material actually came from someone else? There is even a published report to that effect, with a former British ambassador as a source, not that it's any more believable than anything else here. ..."
"... We ought to have learned from the Judith Miller episode. Not only do governments lie, they won't hesitate to burn news agencies. In a desperate moment, they'll use any sucker they can find to get a point across. ..."
"... The Joint Analysis Report from the FBI contains an appendix that lists hundreds of IP addresses that were supposedly "used by Russian civilian and military intelligence services." While some of those IP addresses are from Russia, the majority are from all over the world, which means that the hackers constantly faked their location. ..."
"... "If I was the Chinese and I wanted to make it look like the Russians did it, I would use Russian language within the code, I would use Russian techniques of breaking into the organization," McAfee said, adding that, in the end, "there simply is no way to assign a source for any attack." ..."
"... I have a problem understanding why the powers that be can't understand the widening gap between their on podium statements and the average persons view. Are they hoping to brainwash, or really believe it, or just leaving a video record for posterity that might sway historical interpretation of the current time? ..."
"... A little OT, but how many people realize that Israel (less than half the population of the former Palestine) has taken complete control of ALL water and has decreed that 3% of that water may be directed to the Palestinians! ..."
"... It's been said that on average Americans are like mushrooms "Keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em shit!" ..."
"... And THAT, from what I've read in OPEN literature (obviously) about what is known by our cyber threat intel community, read on tech sites, and seen on the outstanding documentary program CyberWar about the Eastern European hacking community, is a OUTRIGHT BLATANT LIE. ..."
"... NOTE that he may actually believe that because that is what he may have been TOLD, just as Bush was told there were WMDs in Iraq, but as I've pointed out, the clumsy errors allowing the malware to be so very EASILY traced back to "supposedly" Russia are beyond belief for any state-sponsored outfit, especially a Russian effort. ..."
"... Note that the user info for TWO BILLION Yahoo email accounts was stolen and they left no traces which then led the FBI to conclude that it must have been "state sponsored." ..."
"... We are left with two basic options. Either they are simply stupid or their is a larger agenda at hand. I don't believe they are stupid. They have been setting fires all around this election for months, none of them effective by themselves, but ALL reinforcing the general notion that Trump is unfit and illegitimate. ..."
"... I do not believe this is just random panic and hyperbole. They are "building" something. ..."
"... This is what is must have been like being a Soviet Citizen in 1989 or so. The official media was openly laughed at because its lies were so preposterous. ..."
"... Sadly, the JAR, as the Joint Analysis Report is called, does little to end the debate. Instead of providing smoking guns that the Russian government was behind specific hacks, it largely restates previous private-sector claims without providing any support for their validity. Even worse, it provides an effective bait and switch by promising newly declassified intelligence into Russian hackers' "tradecraft and techniques" and instead delivering generic methods carried out by just about all state-sponsored hacking groups." ..."
"... WORSE than "delivering generic methods carried out by just about all state-sponsored hacking groups." It should have said "by just about anyone using 'in the wild' malware tools." ..."
"... The Russians probably have a lot of information about USG employees, contractors, etc, via hacking, recording, etc than Wikileaks. But, as a general rule, intelligence agencies do not dump it into the public domain because you don't want a potential adversary know what you know about him lest he investigate and close off the means of obtaining that information. The leaks came from elsewhere. ..."
"... Smells like a "false flag" operation, like the USA/NATO Operation Gladio in Europe. ..."
"... McCain and the War Hawks have had it out for Russia for a long time, and the Neo-cons have been closing in on the borders of Russia for some time. What will be interesting is when Trump meets with the CIA/NSA et al. for intel briefings on the alleged hacking. Hopefully, Trump will bring along VP Pence, Mad Dog and the other Marine generals (appointees) for advice. I suspect that the "false flag" nature of the hacking excuse will be evident and revealed as the pretext for the Neo-con anti-Russia agenda moving forward. ..."
"... McCain is the real thug, and an interferer in foreign elections (Kiev) and seems to have no real scruples. ..."
"... After Victoria Nuland brags about the USA spending $5 billion to overthrow the elected Ukraine government, how these Russia-phobes have any credibility is beyond me. Just shows that the consolidation of the media into a few main propaganda outlets under Bill Clinton (who also brought the Neo-cons into foreign policy dominance) has reached its logical apex. The Swamp is indeed a stinking, Corrupt miasma. ..."
"... Russia a country of 170 million surrounded by NATO military bases and 800 million people in the EU and USA is the threat? The US alone spends 12 times as much on its military annually than Russia. It's not Russia invading and overthrowing secular governments in the Muslim world. ..."
"... If I remember correctly the CIA claimed their intelligence sources came from unspecified 'allies'. It seems rather crucial to establish who these allies actually are. If it were Germany that would be one thing, however it is more than likely to be the Ukraine. ..."
"... So if Obama had actually produced evidence that the Russians had hacked Hilary's illegal, unprotected email setup in her Chapaqua basement/closet how would that change the ***content*** of the emails? It wouldn't. ..."
"... Obama is failing to convince the world that Russia is a bunch of whistle blowers on his corrupt regime. All of the emails detailing corruption and fraud are true (unchallenged), however Obama wants to suggest they were obtained illegally from an illegal email server? That is Obama's bullshit defense for the corrupt behavior? ..."
Is there any evidence those expelled are "intelligence operatives"? Any hard evidence Russia was
behind the Hillary hacks? Any credible evidence that Putin himself is to blame?
The answers are No, No, and No. Yet, once again the American press is again asked to co-sign a
dubious intelligence assessment.
In an extraordinary development Thursday, the Obama administration announced a series of sanctions
against Russia. Thirty-five Russian nationals will be expelled from the country. President
Obama issued a terse statement seeming to blame Russia for the hack of the Democratic National
Committee emails. "These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by
the highest levels of the Russian government," he wrote.
The problem with this story is that, like the Iraq-WMD mess, it takes place in the middle
of a highly politicized environment during which the motives of all the relevant actors are suspect.
Nothing quite adds up.
If the American security agencies had smoking-gun evidence that the Russians had an organized
campaign to derail the U.S. presidential election and deliver the White House to Trump, then expelling
a few dozen diplomats after the election seems like an oddly weak and ill-timed response. Voices
in both parties are saying this now.
Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham
noted the "small price" Russia paid for its "brazen attack." The Democratic National Committee,
meanwhile, said Thursday that taken alone, the Obama response is "
insufficient " as a response to "attacks on the United States by a foreign power."
The "small price" is an eyebrow-raiser.
Adding to the problem is that in the last months of the campaign, and also in the time since
the election, we've seen an epidemic of factually loose, clearly politically motivated reporting
about Russia. Democrat-leaning pundits have been unnervingly quick to use phrases like "Russia
hacked the election."
This has led to widespread confusion among news audiences over whether the Russians hacked
the DNC emails (a story that has at least been backed by some evidence, even if it
hasn't always been great evidence ), or whether Russians hacked vote tallies in critical states
(a far more outlandish tale backed by
no credible evidence ).
As noted in The Intercept and other outlets, an Economist/YouGov poll conducted this month
shows that 50 percent of all Clinton voters believe the Russians hacked vote tallies.
And reports by some Democrat-friendly reporters like Kurt Eichenwald, who has birthed some
real head-scratchers this year, including what he admitted was a
baseless claim that Trump spent time in an institution in 1990 have attempted to argue that
Trump surrogates may have been liaising with the Russians because they either visited Russia
or appeared on the RT network. Similar reporting about Russian scheming has been based entirely
on unnamed security sources.
Now we have this sanctions story, which presents a new conundrum. It appears that a large
segment of the press is biting hard on the core allegations of electoral interference emanating
from the Obama administration.
Did the Russians do it? Very possibly, in which case it should be reported to the max.
But the press right now is flying blind.
Maybe the Russians did hack the DNC, but the WikiLeaks material actually came from someone
else? There is even a
published report to that effect, with a former British ambassador as a source, not that it's
any more believable than anything else here.
We just don't know, which is the problem.
We ought to have learned from the Judith Miller episode. Not only do governments lie, they
won't hesitate to burn news agencies. In a desperate moment, they'll use any sucker they can find
to get a point across.
The Joint Analysis Report from the FBI contains an appendix that lists hundreds of IP addresses
that were supposedly "used by Russian civilian and military intelligence services." While some
of those IP addresses are from Russia, the majority are from all over the world, which means that
the hackers constantly faked their location.
McAfee argues that the report is a "fallacy," explaining that hackers can fake their location,
their language, and any markers that could lead back to them. Any hacker who had the skills to
hack into the DNC would also be able to hide their tracks, he said
"If I was the Chinese and I wanted to make it look like the Russians did it, I would use
Russian language within the code, I would use Russian techniques of breaking into the organization,"
McAfee said, adding that, in the end, "there simply is no way to assign a source for any attack."
Question of Patriotism
It's not patriotic to accept accusations as facts, given US history of lies, deceit, meddling,
and wars.
The gullibility and ignorance of the typical media lapdog is appalling, and whores like McCain
and Graham will use them shamelessly to promote their twisted, warmongering agenda. The same old
story, over and over again.
I have a problem understanding why the powers that be can't understand the widening gap between
their on podium statements and the average persons view. Are they hoping to brainwash, or really
believe it, or just leaving a video record for posterity that might sway historical interpretation
of the current time?
Net control very likely in Europe soon with public administration of the web/content. Might at
least help reduce the unemployment rate. Looked over the 2016 Bilderberg attendees too. MSM attendees
interesting vs political bias they exhibit.
Whoever thinks there aren't people behind the scenes with a plan is naive and woe betide anyone
upsetting that plan.
Unemployment rate read last refuge from the official economy. Not the alt. web that takes away
motivation, it is a pressure valve for people who find the official direction nothing short of
insulting. The majority of social media users won't be distracted.
Noticed zh on Italy for you if you had not picked it up
A little OT, but how many people realize that Israel (less than half the population of the
former Palestine) has taken complete control of ALL water and has decreed that 3% of that water
may be directed to the Palestinians!
Over ten million get running water for 12 hrs a week, while in Israel (borders move
every day as the world says nothing) there are no water restrictions zero!
So, while Palestinians
struggle to live in hot barren desert conditions (food and medicine is also denied children die
of treatable cancer often as medication is blocked), a 5 min drive away millions of gallons are
used to create a green, lush paradise for the Jewish Masters!
Did you know US laws were changed in 1968 to allow "Dual Citizens" to be elected and appointed
to government positions and today many of the top posts are citizens of Israel and America WTF?
Trump needs to make a daily dose of Red Pills the law
Oops the 10M fig is a bit high but it's at least double the Jewish population, yet they get 97%
this is slow moving genocide yet it's never even acknowledged
Syria is about gas pipelines. Corporations want to profit from the gas pipeline through the region
and wr the people are supposed to send our children to war over it and pay taxes tpbsupport the
effort. Rissia wants pipelines from their country under the Black sea and Irans pipelines to the
north. The US is supporting Qatar pipeline and LNG from our own shores to the EU.
"These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels
of the Russian government," (Obama) wrote.
And THAT, from what I've read in OPEN literature (obviously) about what is known by our
cyber threat intel community, read on tech sites, and seen on the outstanding documentary program
CyberWar about the Eastern European hacking community, is a OUTRIGHT BLATANT LIE.
NOTE that he may actually believe that because that is what he may have been TOLD, just as
Bush was told there were WMDs in Iraq, but as I've pointed out, the clumsy errors allowing the
malware to be so very EASILY traced back to "supposedly" Russia are beyond belief for any state-sponsored
outfit, especially a Russian effort.
Note that the user info for TWO BILLION Yahoo email accounts was stolen and they left no
traces which then led the FBI to conclude that it must have been "state sponsored."
We are left with two basic options. Either they are simply stupid or their is a larger agenda
at hand. I don't believe they are stupid. They have been setting fires all around this election
for months, none of them effective by themselves, but ALL reinforcing the general notion that
Trump is unfit and illegitimate.
I do not believe this is just random panic and hyperbole. They are "building" something.
Well, it is an established and accepted fact that Richard Nixon was a very intelligent guy. None
of Nixon's detractors ever claimed he was stupid, and Nixon won reelection easily.
Tricky Dick was just a tad "honesty challenged", and so is Obama. They were/are both neo-keynesians,
both took their sweet time ending stupid wars started by their predecessors even after it was
clear the wars were pointless.
Then again, I doubt Obozo is as smart as Nixon. Soros is clearly the puppeteer controlling
what Obama does. Soros is now freaking out that his fascist agenda has been exposed.
This is what is must have been like being a Soviet Citizen in 1989 or so. The official media
was openly laughed at because its lies were so preposterous.
"While security companies in the private sector have said for months the hacking campaign was
the work of people working for the Russian government, anonymous people tied to the leaks have
claimed they are lone wolves. Many independent security experts said there was little way to know
the true origins of the attacks.
Sadly, the JAR, as the Joint Analysis Report is called, does little to end the debate.
Instead of providing smoking guns that the Russian government was behind specific hacks, it largely
restates previous private-sector claims without providing any support for their validity. Even
worse, it provides an effective bait and switch by promising newly declassified intelligence into
Russian hackers' "tradecraft and techniques" and instead delivering generic methods carried out
by just about all state-sponsored hacking groups."
WORSE than "delivering generic methods carried out by just about all state-sponsored hacking
groups." It should have said "by just about anyone using 'in the wild' malware tools."
2015 Bilderberg. Looking down the attendees and subjects covered. Interesting some of the main
anti-Brexit groups had representatives there, suggests HC picked for 2016 US election, Cyber-security
and etc. Look at the key topics. How they all helped define 2016. So many current intertwined
themes.
The Russians probably have a lot of information about USG employees, contractors, etc,
via hacking, recording, etc than Wikileaks. But, as a general rule, intelligence agencies do not
dump it into the public domain because you don't want a potential adversary know what you know
about him lest he investigate and close off the means of obtaining that information. The leaks
came from elsewhere.
Smells like a "false flag" operation, like the USA/NATO Operation Gladio in Europe.
McCain and the War Hawks have had it out for Russia for a long time, and the Neo-cons have
been closing in on the borders of Russia for some time. What will be interesting is when Trump
meets with the CIA/NSA et al. for intel briefings on the alleged hacking. Hopefully, Trump will
bring along VP Pence, Mad Dog and the other Marine generals (appointees) for advice. I suspect
that the "false flag" nature of the hacking excuse will be evident and revealed as the pretext
for the Neo-con anti-Russia agenda moving forward.
The CIA it is now widely believed was part of the Deep State behind the JFK assassination when
JFK took an independent view, so Trump will need the USA Marines on his side. McCain is the
real thug, and an interferer in foreign elections (Kiev) and seems to have no real scruples.
After Victoria Nuland brags about the USA spending $5 billion to overthrow the elected
Ukraine government, how these Russia-phobes have any credibility is beyond me. Just shows that
the consolidation of the media into a few main propaganda outlets under Bill Clinton (who also
brought the Neo-cons into foreign policy dominance) has reached its logical apex. The Swamp is
indeed a stinking, Corrupt miasma.
Perhaps the Clinton Foundation and nascent Obama foundation feel it in their financial
interests to nurture the misma.
Cha-ching, cha-ching. Money to be made in demonizing Russia.
"The CIA it is now widely believed was part of the Deep State behind the JFK assassination when
JFK took an independent view "
All the circumstantial evidence pointed to Oswald. No one has ever proven otherwise, in over
50 years.
After 50 years of being propagandized by conspiracy book writers, it isn't surprising that
anything is widely believed at this point. The former curator of the 6th Floor Museum, Gary Mack,
believed there was a conspiracy, but over time came to realize that it was Oswald, alone.
When liberal Rolling Stone questions the Obama/DNC propaganda, you know for certain that they
have lost even their base supporters (the ones that can still think). The BS has just gotten too
stupid.
Why is the WSJ strongly supporting Obama here but also saying he waited way to long to make this
move? I don't always agree with them nor do I with you.
Ok I haven't read the comments but would only say that when Vladimir Putin the once leader
of the KGB becomes a preacher and starts criticizing the West for abandoning its Christian roots,
it's moral dignity, that for me doesn't just stink, it raises red flags all over the place. I
think Trump and some of the rest of u r being set up here-like lambs to the slaughter. Mish your
naοvetι here surprises me!
Russia a country of 170 million surrounded by NATO military bases and 800 million people
in the EU and USA is the threat? The US alone spends 12 times as much on its military annually
than Russia. It's not Russia invading and overthrowing secular governments in the Muslim world.
If I remember correctly the CIA claimed their intelligence sources came from unspecified 'allies'.
It seems rather crucial to establish who these allies actually are. If it were Germany that would
be one thing, however it is more than likely to be the Ukraine.
The Ukranian government have been trying to drive a wedge between the West and Russia for years
for their own political advantage. If I was Trump then when I took office I would want an extremely
thorough investigation into the activities of the CIA by a third reliable party.
Excerpt: But was it really Russian meddling? After all, how does one prove not only intent
but source in a world of cyberespionage, where planting false flag clues and other Indicators
of Compromise (IOCs) meant to frame a specific entity, is as important as the actual hack.
Robert M. Lee, CEO and founder of cybersecurity company Dragos, which specializes in threats
facing critical infrastructure, also noted that the IOCs included "commodity malware," or hacking
tools that are widely available for purchase.
He said:
1. No they did not penetrate the grid.
2. The IOCs contained *commodity malware* can't attribute based off that alone.
So if Obama had actually produced evidence that the Russians had hacked Hilary's illegal,
unprotected email setup in her Chapaqua basement/closet how would that change the ***content***
of the emails? It wouldn't.
Obama is failing to convince the world that Russia is a bunch of whistle blowers on his
corrupt regime. All of the emails detailing corruption and fraud are true (unchallenged), however
Obama wants to suggest they were obtained illegally from an illegal email server? That is Obama's
bullshit defense for the corrupt behavior?
And as "proportional retaliation" for this Russian whistle blowing, Obozo is evicting 35 entertainment
staff from the Russian embassy summer camp?
I doubt Hollywood or San Francisco has the integrity to admit they backed the wrong loser when
they supported Obozo but they should think about their own credibility after January 20th. Anyone
who is still backing Obozo is just too stupid to tie their own shoes much less vote
If such attempts were really registered, the question is were those attempts to hack US sites from
Russian IP space a false flag operation, probably with participation of Ukrainian secret services?
'
As one commenter noted: "The Ukrainian government have been trying to drive a wedge between the West
and Russia for years for their own political advantage."
If so what is the agenda outside obvious attempt to poison Us-Russian relations just before
Trump assumes presidency. Neocon in Washington are really afraid losing this plush positions.
And there is the whole colony of such "national security professionals" in Washington DC. For
example Robert Kagan can't do anything useful outside his favorite Russophobic agenda and would be an
unemployed along with his wife, who brought us Ukrainian disaster.
Notable quotes:
"... President Obama issued a terse statement seeming to blame Russia for the hack of the Democratic National Committee emails. "These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels of the Russian government," he wrote. ..."
"... The problem with this story is that, like the Iraq-WMD mess, it takes place in the middle of a highly politicized environment during which the motives of all the relevant actors are suspect. Nothing quite adds up. ..."
"... Now we have this sanctions story, which presents a new conundrum. It appears that a large segment of the press is biting hard on the core allegations of electoral interference emanating from the Obama administration. ..."
"... Did the Russians do it? Very possibly, in which case it should be reported to the max. But the press right now is flying blind. ..."
"... Maybe the Russians did hack the DNC, but the WikiLeaks material actually came from someone else? There is even a published report to that effect, with a former British ambassador as a source, not that it's any more believable than anything else here. ..."
"... We ought to have learned from the Judith Miller episode. Not only do governments lie, they won't hesitate to burn news agencies. In a desperate moment, they'll use any sucker they can find to get a point across. ..."
"... The Joint Analysis Report from the FBI contains an appendix that lists hundreds of IP addresses that were supposedly "used by Russian civilian and military intelligence services." While some of those IP addresses are from Russia, the majority are from all over the world, which means that the hackers constantly faked their location. ..."
"... "If I was the Chinese and I wanted to make it look like the Russians did it, I would use Russian language within the code, I would use Russian techniques of breaking into the organization," McAfee said, adding that, in the end, "there simply is no way to assign a source for any attack." ..."
"... I have a problem understanding why the powers that be can't understand the widening gap between their on podium statements and the average persons view. Are they hoping to brainwash, or really believe it, or just leaving a video record for posterity that might sway historical interpretation of the current time? ..."
"... A little OT, but how many people realize that Israel (less than half the population of the former Palestine) has taken complete control of ALL water and has decreed that 3% of that water may be directed to the Palestinians! ..."
"... It's been said that on average Americans are like mushrooms "Keep 'em in the dark and feed 'em shit!" ..."
"... And THAT, from what I've read in OPEN literature (obviously) about what is known by our cyber threat intel community, read on tech sites, and seen on the outstanding documentary program CyberWar about the Eastern European hacking community, is a OUTRIGHT BLATANT LIE. ..."
"... NOTE that he may actually believe that because that is what he may have been TOLD, just as Bush was told there were WMDs in Iraq, but as I've pointed out, the clumsy errors allowing the malware to be so very EASILY traced back to "supposedly" Russia are beyond belief for any state-sponsored outfit, especially a Russian effort. ..."
"... Note that the user info for TWO BILLION Yahoo email accounts was stolen and they left no traces which then led the FBI to conclude that it must have been "state sponsored." ..."
"... We are left with two basic options. Either they are simply stupid or their is a larger agenda at hand. I don't believe they are stupid. They have been setting fires all around this election for months, none of them effective by themselves, but ALL reinforcing the general notion that Trump is unfit and illegitimate. ..."
"... I do not believe this is just random panic and hyperbole. They are "building" something. ..."
"... This is what is must have been like being a Soviet Citizen in 1989 or so. The official media was openly laughed at because its lies were so preposterous. ..."
"... Sadly, the JAR, as the Joint Analysis Report is called, does little to end the debate. Instead of providing smoking guns that the Russian government was behind specific hacks, it largely restates previous private-sector claims without providing any support for their validity. Even worse, it provides an effective bait and switch by promising newly declassified intelligence into Russian hackers' "tradecraft and techniques" and instead delivering generic methods carried out by just about all state-sponsored hacking groups." ..."
"... WORSE than "delivering generic methods carried out by just about all state-sponsored hacking groups." It should have said "by just about anyone using 'in the wild' malware tools." ..."
"... The Russians probably have a lot of information about USG employees, contractors, etc, via hacking, recording, etc than Wikileaks. But, as a general rule, intelligence agencies do not dump it into the public domain because you don't want a potential adversary know what you know about him lest he investigate and close off the means of obtaining that information. The leaks came from elsewhere. ..."
"... Smells like a "false flag" operation, like the USA/NATO Operation Gladio in Europe. ..."
"... McCain and the War Hawks have had it out for Russia for a long time, and the Neo-cons have been closing in on the borders of Russia for some time. What will be interesting is when Trump meets with the CIA/NSA et al. for intel briefings on the alleged hacking. Hopefully, Trump will bring along VP Pence, Mad Dog and the other Marine generals (appointees) for advice. I suspect that the "false flag" nature of the hacking excuse will be evident and revealed as the pretext for the Neo-con anti-Russia agenda moving forward. ..."
"... McCain is the real thug, and an interferer in foreign elections (Kiev) and seems to have no real scruples. ..."
"... After Victoria Nuland brags about the USA spending $5 billion to overthrow the elected Ukraine government, how these Russia-phobes have any credibility is beyond me. Just shows that the consolidation of the media into a few main propaganda outlets under Bill Clinton (who also brought the Neo-cons into foreign policy dominance) has reached its logical apex. The Swamp is indeed a stinking, Corrupt miasma. ..."
"... Russia a country of 170 million surrounded by NATO military bases and 800 million people in the EU and USA is the threat? The US alone spends 12 times as much on its military annually than Russia. It's not Russia invading and overthrowing secular governments in the Muslim world. ..."
"... If I remember correctly the CIA claimed their intelligence sources came from unspecified 'allies'. It seems rather crucial to establish who these allies actually are. If it were Germany that would be one thing, however it is more than likely to be the Ukraine. ..."
"... So if Obama had actually produced evidence that the Russians had hacked Hilary's illegal, unprotected email setup in her Chapaqua basement/closet how would that change the ***content*** of the emails? It wouldn't. ..."
"... Obama is failing to convince the world that Russia is a bunch of whistle blowers on his corrupt regime. All of the emails detailing corruption and fraud are true (unchallenged), however Obama wants to suggest they were obtained illegally from an illegal email server? That is Obama's bullshit defense for the corrupt behavior? ..."
Is there any evidence those expelled are "intelligence operatives"? Any hard evidence Russia was
behind the Hillary hacks? Any credible evidence that Putin himself is to blame?
The answers are No, No, and No. Yet, once again the American press is again asked to co-sign a
dubious intelligence assessment.
In an extraordinary development Thursday, the Obama administration announced a series of sanctions
against Russia. Thirty-five Russian nationals will be expelled from the country. President
Obama issued a terse statement seeming to blame Russia for the hack of the Democratic National
Committee emails. "These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by
the highest levels of the Russian government," he wrote.
The problem with this story is that, like the Iraq-WMD mess, it takes place in the middle
of a highly politicized environment during which the motives of all the relevant actors are suspect.
Nothing quite adds up.
If the American security agencies had smoking-gun evidence that the Russians had an organized
campaign to derail the U.S. presidential election and deliver the White House to Trump, then expelling
a few dozen diplomats after the election seems like an oddly weak and ill-timed response. Voices
in both parties are saying this now.
Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham
noted the "small price" Russia paid for its "brazen attack." The Democratic National Committee,
meanwhile, said Thursday that taken alone, the Obama response is "
insufficient " as a response to "attacks on the United States by a foreign power."
The "small price" is an eyebrow-raiser.
Adding to the problem is that in the last months of the campaign, and also in the time since
the election, we've seen an epidemic of factually loose, clearly politically motivated reporting
about Russia. Democrat-leaning pundits have been unnervingly quick to use phrases like "Russia
hacked the election."
This has led to widespread confusion among news audiences over whether the Russians hacked
the DNC emails (a story that has at least been backed by some evidence, even if it
hasn't always been great evidence ), or whether Russians hacked vote tallies in critical states
(a far more outlandish tale backed by
no credible evidence ).
As noted in The Intercept and other outlets, an Economist/YouGov poll conducted this month
shows that 50 percent of all Clinton voters believe the Russians hacked vote tallies.
And reports by some Democrat-friendly reporters like Kurt Eichenwald, who has birthed some
real head-scratchers this year, including what he admitted was a
baseless claim that Trump spent time in an institution in 1990 have attempted to argue that
Trump surrogates may have been liaising with the Russians because they either visited Russia
or appeared on the RT network. Similar reporting about Russian scheming has been based entirely
on unnamed security sources.
Now we have this sanctions story, which presents a new conundrum. It appears that a large
segment of the press is biting hard on the core allegations of electoral interference emanating
from the Obama administration.
Did the Russians do it? Very possibly, in which case it should be reported to the max.
But the press right now is flying blind.
Maybe the Russians did hack the DNC, but the WikiLeaks material actually came from someone
else? There is even a
published report to that effect, with a former British ambassador as a source, not that it's
any more believable than anything else here.
We just don't know, which is the problem.
We ought to have learned from the Judith Miller episode. Not only do governments lie, they
won't hesitate to burn news agencies. In a desperate moment, they'll use any sucker they can find
to get a point across.
The Joint Analysis Report from the FBI contains an appendix that lists hundreds of IP addresses
that were supposedly "used by Russian civilian and military intelligence services." While some
of those IP addresses are from Russia, the majority are from all over the world, which means that
the hackers constantly faked their location.
McAfee argues that the report is a "fallacy," explaining that hackers can fake their location,
their language, and any markers that could lead back to them. Any hacker who had the skills to
hack into the DNC would also be able to hide their tracks, he said
"If I was the Chinese and I wanted to make it look like the Russians did it, I would use
Russian language within the code, I would use Russian techniques of breaking into the organization,"
McAfee said, adding that, in the end, "there simply is no way to assign a source for any attack."
Question of Patriotism
It's not patriotic to accept accusations as facts, given US history of lies, deceit, meddling,
and wars.
The gullibility and ignorance of the typical media lapdog is appalling, and whores like McCain
and Graham will use them shamelessly to promote their twisted, warmongering agenda. The same old
story, over and over again.
I have a problem understanding why the powers that be can't understand the widening gap between
their on podium statements and the average persons view. Are they hoping to brainwash, or really
believe it, or just leaving a video record for posterity that might sway historical interpretation
of the current time?
Net control very likely in Europe soon with public administration of the web/content. Might at
least help reduce the unemployment rate. Looked over the 2016 Bilderberg attendees too. MSM attendees
interesting vs political bias they exhibit.
Whoever thinks there aren't people behind the scenes with a plan is naive and woe betide anyone
upsetting that plan.
Unemployment rate read last refuge from the official economy. Not the alt. web that takes away
motivation, it is a pressure valve for people who find the official direction nothing short of
insulting. The majority of social media users won't be distracted.
Noticed zh on Italy for you if you had not picked it up
A little OT, but how many people realize that Israel (less than half the population of the
former Palestine) has taken complete control of ALL water and has decreed that 3% of that water
may be directed to the Palestinians!
Over ten million get running water for 12 hrs a week, while in Israel (borders move
every day as the world says nothing) there are no water restrictions zero!
So, while Palestinians
struggle to live in hot barren desert conditions (food and medicine is also denied children die
of treatable cancer often as medication is blocked), a 5 min drive away millions of gallons are
used to create a green, lush paradise for the Jewish Masters!
Did you know US laws were changed in 1968 to allow "Dual Citizens" to be elected and appointed
to government positions and today many of the top posts are citizens of Israel and America WTF?
Trump needs to make a daily dose of Red Pills the law
Oops the 10M fig is a bit high but it's at least double the Jewish population, yet they get 97%
this is slow moving genocide yet it's never even acknowledged
Syria is about gas pipelines. Corporations want to profit from the gas pipeline through the region
and wr the people are supposed to send our children to war over it and pay taxes tpbsupport the
effort. Rissia wants pipelines from their country under the Black sea and Irans pipelines to the
north. The US is supporting Qatar pipeline and LNG from our own shores to the EU.
"These data theft and disclosure activities could only have been directed by the highest levels
of the Russian government," (Obama) wrote.
And THAT, from what I've read in OPEN literature (obviously) about what is known by our
cyber threat intel community, read on tech sites, and seen on the outstanding documentary program
CyberWar about the Eastern European hacking community, is a OUTRIGHT BLATANT LIE.
NOTE that he may actually believe that because that is what he may have been TOLD, just as
Bush was told there were WMDs in Iraq, but as I've pointed out, the clumsy errors allowing the
malware to be so very EASILY traced back to "supposedly" Russia are beyond belief for any state-sponsored
outfit, especially a Russian effort.
Note that the user info for TWO BILLION Yahoo email accounts was stolen and they left no
traces which then led the FBI to conclude that it must have been "state sponsored."
We are left with two basic options. Either they are simply stupid or their is a larger agenda
at hand. I don't believe they are stupid. They have been setting fires all around this election
for months, none of them effective by themselves, but ALL reinforcing the general notion that
Trump is unfit and illegitimate.
I do not believe this is just random panic and hyperbole. They are "building" something.
Well, it is an established and accepted fact that Richard Nixon was a very intelligent guy. None
of Nixon's detractors ever claimed he was stupid, and Nixon won reelection easily.
Tricky Dick was just a tad "honesty challenged", and so is Obama. They were/are both neo-keynesians,
both took their sweet time ending stupid wars started by their predecessors even after it was
clear the wars were pointless.
Then again, I doubt Obozo is as smart as Nixon. Soros is clearly the puppeteer controlling
what Obama does. Soros is now freaking out that his fascist agenda has been exposed.
This is what is must have been like being a Soviet Citizen in 1989 or so. The official media
was openly laughed at because its lies were so preposterous.
"While security companies in the private sector have said for months the hacking campaign was
the work of people working for the Russian government, anonymous people tied to the leaks have
claimed they are lone wolves. Many independent security experts said there was little way to know
the true origins of the attacks.
Sadly, the JAR, as the Joint Analysis Report is called, does little to end the debate.
Instead of providing smoking guns that the Russian government was behind specific hacks, it largely
restates previous private-sector claims without providing any support for their validity. Even
worse, it provides an effective bait and switch by promising newly declassified intelligence into
Russian hackers' "tradecraft and techniques" and instead delivering generic methods carried out
by just about all state-sponsored hacking groups."
WORSE than "delivering generic methods carried out by just about all state-sponsored hacking
groups." It should have said "by just about anyone using 'in the wild' malware tools."
2015 Bilderberg. Looking down the attendees and subjects covered. Interesting some of the main
anti-Brexit groups had representatives there, suggests HC picked for 2016 US election, Cyber-security
and etc. Look at the key topics. How they all helped define 2016. So many current intertwined
themes.
The Russians probably have a lot of information about USG employees, contractors, etc,
via hacking, recording, etc than Wikileaks. But, as a general rule, intelligence agencies do not
dump it into the public domain because you don't want a potential adversary know what you know
about him lest he investigate and close off the means of obtaining that information. The leaks
came from elsewhere.
Smells like a "false flag" operation, like the USA/NATO Operation Gladio in Europe.
McCain and the War Hawks have had it out for Russia for a long time, and the Neo-cons have
been closing in on the borders of Russia for some time. What will be interesting is when Trump
meets with the CIA/NSA et al. for intel briefings on the alleged hacking. Hopefully, Trump will
bring along VP Pence, Mad Dog and the other Marine generals (appointees) for advice. I suspect
that the "false flag" nature of the hacking excuse will be evident and revealed as the pretext
for the Neo-con anti-Russia agenda moving forward.
The CIA it is now widely believed was part of the Deep State behind the JFK assassination when
JFK took an independent view, so Trump will need the USA Marines on his side. McCain is the
real thug, and an interferer in foreign elections (Kiev) and seems to have no real scruples.
After Victoria Nuland brags about the USA spending $5 billion to overthrow the elected
Ukraine government, how these Russia-phobes have any credibility is beyond me. Just shows that
the consolidation of the media into a few main propaganda outlets under Bill Clinton (who also
brought the Neo-cons into foreign policy dominance) has reached its logical apex. The Swamp is
indeed a stinking, Corrupt miasma.
Perhaps the Clinton Foundation and nascent Obama foundation feel it in their financial
interests to nurture the misma.
Cha-ching, cha-ching. Money to be made in demonizing Russia.
"The CIA it is now widely believed was part of the Deep State behind the JFK assassination when
JFK took an independent view "
All the circumstantial evidence pointed to Oswald. No one has ever proven otherwise, in over
50 years.
After 50 years of being propagandized by conspiracy book writers, it isn't surprising that
anything is widely believed at this point. The former curator of the 6th Floor Museum, Gary Mack,
believed there was a conspiracy, but over time came to realize that it was Oswald, alone.
When liberal Rolling Stone questions the Obama/DNC propaganda, you know for certain that they
have lost even their base supporters (the ones that can still think). The BS has just gotten too
stupid.
Why is the WSJ strongly supporting Obama here but also saying he waited way to long to make this
move? I don't always agree with them nor do I with you.
Ok I haven't read the comments but would only say that when Vladimir Putin the once leader
of the KGB becomes a preacher and starts criticizing the West for abandoning its Christian roots,
it's moral dignity, that for me doesn't just stink, it raises red flags all over the place. I
think Trump and some of the rest of u r being set up here-like lambs to the slaughter. Mish your
naοvetι here surprises me!
Russia a country of 170 million surrounded by NATO military bases and 800 million people
in the EU and USA is the threat? The US alone spends 12 times as much on its military annually
than Russia. It's not Russia invading and overthrowing secular governments in the Muslim world.
If I remember correctly the CIA claimed their intelligence sources came from unspecified 'allies'.
It seems rather crucial to establish who these allies actually are. If it were Germany that would
be one thing, however it is more than likely to be the Ukraine.
The Ukranian government have been trying to drive a wedge between the West and Russia for years
for their own political advantage. If I was Trump then when I took office I would want an extremely
thorough investigation into the activities of the CIA by a third reliable party.
Excerpt: But was it really Russian meddling? After all, how does one prove not only intent
but source in a world of cyberespionage, where planting false flag clues and other Indicators
of Compromise (IOCs) meant to frame a specific entity, is as important as the actual hack.
Robert M. Lee, CEO and founder of cybersecurity company Dragos, which specializes in threats
facing critical infrastructure, also noted that the IOCs included "commodity malware," or hacking
tools that are widely available for purchase.
He said:
1. No they did not penetrate the grid.
2. The IOCs contained *commodity malware* can't attribute based off that alone.
So if Obama had actually produced evidence that the Russians had hacked Hilary's illegal,
unprotected email setup in her Chapaqua basement/closet how would that change the ***content***
of the emails? It wouldn't.
Obama is failing to convince the world that Russia is a bunch of whistle blowers on his
corrupt regime. All of the emails detailing corruption and fraud are true (unchallenged), however
Obama wants to suggest they were obtained illegally from an illegal email server? That is Obama's
bullshit defense for the corrupt behavior?
And as "proportional retaliation" for this Russian whistle blowing, Obozo is evicting 35 entertainment
staff from the Russian embassy summer camp?
I doubt Hollywood or San Francisco has the integrity to admit they backed the wrong loser when
they supported Obozo but they should think about their own credibility after January 20th. Anyone
who is still backing Obozo is just too stupid to tie their own shoes much less vote
"... I also think this is Obama's move to divert attention away from the cease fire in Syria. ..."
"... The Obama/media machine scores another hollow victory. Can't wait until this guy is out of office. ..."
"... The Obama administration should be thanking Russian efforts to end the war in Syria. We know the MIC wanted this civil war to go on for another decade. ..."
"... Oh for christ's sake, once again: There were no hacks, the emails were LEAKED! Probably by Democrats disgusted by the way Bernie was treated. ..."
"... All Americans should be alarmed that their country is now losing its edge in terms of the manipulation of other countries' electoral processes. This is "unprecedented". ..."
"... Red baiting won't close down the debate. There's still no evidence of Russian hacking of the US election. And fascism is shouting people down who ask for evidence and don't just follow the President because he is attacking the outsiders. Share Facebook Twitter TheControlLeft -> osprey1957 , 30 Dec 2016 21:12 It's preferable to the Obama brigades sponsorship of Islamic terrorism Share Facebook Twitter monsieur_flaneur , 30 Dec 2016 20:49 Obama, envisioning a spot on Mt Rushmore, exits a laughing stock. Ah well Share Janjii , 30 Dec 2016 20:54 Russia defeated the US in the Ukraine and recently it received an even harder blow Syria. Next think you know the US 'administration' makes a fool of itself by expelling 35 RF officials, who would have though that! Sad to see this beautiful continent is being compromised by someone's puppets in the white house. Nato is crumbling now that Turkey t-he gateway to the Balkans, the Caspian, to the Stannies- rethinks its ties with US/NATO and moves towards Russia. It is crumbling beacuse the world begins to understand that the rationale behind 'operation gladio' /strategy of tension is still ruling the US admin. We could do without NATO, and could use a US government supporting peace rather than an administration creating war. Even Germany starts to realize that, because of the abundance of US military bases in this country, Germany is in fact 'occupied territory', a US colony if you will. The USA has underestimated people on this planet who, as opposed to US politicians, were able to put current politics in a historical perspective. US policymakers took a part of Heidegger, Locke, Freud, Descartes and others without knowing their interpretations were at least incomplete. It results from the way in which US universities teach the discretized model of two extremes with the requirement of choosing one of these without putting both in one perspective: 'Descartes or Pascal' (not both as the French do); 'black or white'; 'with or against us'. The result Americans aimed for was a stable socio-political model, same with 'Neue Sozialismus'. What they obtained was a polarized world, because, a rigid stable model can only be governed by suppression (which the Military industrial Complex is currently doing) and we do not want that. Trump may lack political experience, he may be supported by a group of ideosyncratic wealthy people attracting bad press from 'regulated media'. Equal chance of Trump having a positive or negative effect on US internal and external policy-making, and on the relationship with RF. But, Trump has one advantage: the more the Obama 'administration' barks, the more support Trump will receive to change what Bush-Clinton-Obama have ruined for their electorates; the more to celebrate for the Russians on January 13. LMichelle -> Janjii , 30 Dec 2016 20:57 Bingo. This is not about the integrity of US elections. It's about being punked in Syria this week. The problems with the electoral process in the US were massive before 2016 and never received this many Presidential press conferences. Share ga gamba , 30 Dec 2016 20:55 The U.S. has a long history of attempting to influence presidential elections in other countries it's done so as many as 81 times between 1946 and 2000, according to a database amassed by political scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University. That number doesn't include military coups and regime change efforts following the election of candidates the U.S. didn't like, notably those in Iran, Guatemala and Chile. Nor does it include general assistance with the electoral process, such as election monitoring. [...] In 59% of these cases, the side that received assistance came to power, although Levin estimates the average effect of "partisan electoral interventions" to be only about a 3% increase in vote share. ( Source ) I understand why some may find outside interference objectionable, but I reckon many of those who think so fail to recognise America's far-from-faultless behaviour. Curses are like chickens; they always come home to roost. Of course had the DNC leadership and the Clinton camp behaved ethically in the primary by not conspiring to tip the scale in Clinton's favour, the hack would have found nothing. What we have now is Obama forced to divert the public attention because of yet another messy scandal Hillary finds herself involved in. Clinton must be one of the most blessed people on earth; everyone bends over backwards to accommodate her ambitions. Paull01 -> ga gamba , 30 Dec 2016 21:18 Please provide an example of a political party behaving ethically during an election campaign? You reckon the republicans weren't trying to tip the scales away from Donny? Also, Clinton lost despite getting way more votes so Donny will be president and it is pointless to continue to indulge in bashing Hillary, she is now just another elderly lady enjoying her golden years. Share Facebook Twitter europeangrayling -> ga gamba , 30 Dec 2016 21:23 Also the CIA-Belgian assassination of Lamumba in 61, Congo's first democratically elected president, for the same 'geopolitical' aka 'big business' reasons as the overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran in 53, who wanted the nationalize Iranian oil for their people, and Lumumba had similar 'socialist' ideas for all the vast Congolese resources. To cut out the western business interests. And think how well the Congo has fared since, one of the worst, saddest places, chaos, civil war, more dead than in Rwanda or anywhere I think. They have not recovered from that. And Iran, they were democratic, secular, elected a guy like Mossadegh, they were 'European', but the the US and Britain overthrew him on behest of British-US oil interests, installed the Shah, their puppet dictator, and the blow-back was the Iranian religious right-wing revolution and dictatorship some 20 years later. And now the Iranian people and our 'foreign policy' are suffering. And all these US and CIA 'activities' the government had admitted and declassified, like the Gulf of Tonkin lie and false flag in Vietnam, because it was so long ago nobody cares, so it's no 'conspiracy' here, just history. But now these Clinton Democrats they really love and trust anything the CIA says, of course, they are big patriots now, and call people unpatriotic and foreign agents if they question the so honorable CIA, because they are on Hillary's side now. And the CIA in cahoots with Bush and Cheney also told us how there were these big, scary WMDs in Iraq, and mushroom clouds, and how Saddam had links with Al Qaida, all obvious lies, that any amateur who knew basic world history could tell you even then. And speaking of 'meddling', and overthrowing democratic governments, the US did the same under Obama and Hillary in Honduras just a few years ago, backed the violent coup of a democratic leftist government there, and they still refuse to call it a coup, and have legitimized the new corrupt and violent regime, are training their army, etc. Even though the EU and the US ambassador to Honduras called it a coup at the time. And for the same reasons, that leftist government didn't want to play ball with big US and western 'business interests', energy companies, didn't want to sell them their rivers and resources like the new 'good' regime now. And since that coup, 100s of indigenous activists and environmentalists have been killed, like Berta Caceres, and the violence and corruption has gone up big time under the new regime, with 1000s more killed 'in general'. Yet Obama is so concerned about 'the integrity of democracy' and elections and freedom and all that, what a nice guy. fanUS , 30 Dec 2016 20:58 The real question that Americans should be asking why Barack Obummer failed again to provide security in case of hacking Democrat's emails? Clinton did not deny that emails published by WikiLeaks were genuine. That is called freedom of press. What's wrong with public finding the truth about Clinton? Share Not4TheFaintOfHeart , 30 Dec 2016 20:59 Why would Russia be happy that Clinton lost? Why would any foreign power be happy that Clinton lost?... How many years did HRC, in her arrogance-fuelled denial, provide foreign intelligences with literally tonnes of free info??! Share furiouspurpose , 30 Dec 2016 21:03 Trump might therefore be expected to simply end the Obama sanctions. .... But if he did choose to do so, he would find himself at odds with his own party. Trump is exactly where he is today because he attacked that same party. He called bullshit on the Bush's claims to have made the US safer and called bullshit on the idea that Iraq was something that we should still do in hindsight. He trashed the idea of free trade and TTIP - another Republican shibboleth. He refused to go down the standard Republican route of trashing social security... ..."
"... All he needs to do is call bullshit on this 'evidence' of Russian hacking and remind everyone that it wasn't Russians who manned the planes on 9/11. Trump is a oafish clown - but he's not a standard politician playing standard politics. He can shrug off this oh-so-clever manoeuvre by Obama with no trouble. ..."
On Friday, the Kremlin responded to the moves, including the expulsion of 35 suspected intelligence
operatives and the closing of two Russian facilities in the US, with a shrug. Putin, it seems, is
willing simply to wait until Trump moves into the Oval Office. Trump's tweet suggested he is too.
But such provocative words could not distract the media and public from another domestic concern
for Trump the growing perception that his predecessor has acted to
his disadvantage .
"The sanctions were clearly an attempt by the Obama administration to throw a wrench into or [to]
box in the next administration's relationship with Russia," said Boris Zilberman, a Russia expert
at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
"Putin, in part, saw through that and sidestepped it by playing good cop to [Russian foreign minister
Sergey] Lavrov and the [state] Duma, who were calling for a reciprocal response."
I also think this is Obama's move to divert attention away from the cease fire in Syria.
There the US has been supporting all these groups, flying air missions and dropping special
forces in Syria for years now, and the US has no seat at the table of the cease fire negotiations.
That should be very embarrassing for the US, but it apparently is not, because all the media wants
to talk about are these sanctions, which seem pretty trivial to me.
The Obama/media machine scores another hollow victory. Can't wait until this guy is out
of office.
Still no proof of any meddling by the Russians. Only a last gasp attempt by a weak president in
what is starting to look like a boys against men tussle with Putin. Add the Syria ceasefire brokered
by Turkey and Putin to this to show how Obama is being outmaneuvered at every turn.
Sad to see what a far cry from Obama the candidate Obama the president has turned out to be.
Action makes propaganda's effect irreversible. He who acts in obedience to propaganda can never
go back. He is now obliged to believe in that propaganda because of his past action. He is obliged
to receive from it his justification and authority, without which his action will seem to him
absurd or unjust, which would be intolerable. He is obliged to continue to advance in the direction
indicated by propaganda, for action demands more action.
Jacques Ellul:
The Obama administration should be thanking Russian efforts to end the war in Syria. We know
the MIC wanted this civil war to go on for another decade.
PS once you are there, read everything else Craig Murray has written there. This is the ambassador
HM government fired for daring to speak out against the Uzbek government's human rights abuses.
Share
No, no, you see you just put the word "consensus" before a pathetically transparent lie and then
apparently it magically becomes evidence based and well sourced...
All Americans should be alarmed that their country is now losing its edge in terms of the
manipulation of other countries' electoral processes. This is "unprecedented".
Where previously we had implemented such actions ourselves without fear of reciprocation we
should be concerned that we are no longer immune to such machinations by other states. These events
may represent a turning point as regards our accepted global hegemony.
Obama has been anti-Russia long before Trump came into the picture.
This article is more of a wish list than anything else.
We are told by 'experts' that 'There is now a public record of what Russia did'
Where is it? I would love to see this.
I do know that the 2 countries that carry out most cyber attacks in the world are the US and it's
main ally in the Middle East. Just ask the Iranians what they did. Share
I think all American presidents are anti Russian. Sounds like you was born 2005 or you just doing
your British citizenship. You don't know much so read this
Life in the uk test Share
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Obama complaining about Russian influence in American elections.
Last time I've checked it was Mr. Obama that warned British people against Brexit, wasn't?
What about the deposition of an ELECTED president in Ukraine with their support of Obama and EU?
Let's talk also about regime changes in Syria, Lybia and Egypt undertaken under Obama's administration?
Perhaps we could also remember that Obama's agencies spied 3 million of Spanyards, Merkel, Dilma
Rousseff (Brazilian President) and so on... WHAT A HIPOCRISY, OBAMA!!!! Share
You have hit the nail on the head on all your points. But America and especially the American
military needs a boogy man to justify the trillions of dollars of American tax payer money they
request to keep their military empire going. Imagine if there was no boogy man and the conclusion
was to half the American military to a size only equal to the next 6 largest militarys instead
of the present 13. Incidentally, most of the next largest militarys are allies of the United States.
This whole kerfuffle about Russian hacking has the stink of shooting the messenger. What about
concentrating on what was in the leaked e-mails. They showed a high level of deep corruption in
the DNC. That is the importance of the hacked e-mails. Whoever hacked and released them to the
American public has done the America public a great favor. If Wasserman Shultz in cohoots with
Hillary had not swung the primaries in favor of Hillary and if Obama had remembered that the constitution
says the government is for the people and by the people (the peoples choice was by a huge margin
for Bernie) and come out for Bernie, we wouldn't be in the CF we are in right now. I thought Obama
is a constitutional lawyer. So much for the constitution. The only statesman in this mess is Putin.
Thank heaven for his level headedness. The American pronouncements have the stink of the build
up to another false flag operation (the CIA revelations themselves are probably a false flag operation).
I hope Putin can keep his 'cool' in the face of American provocation.
It starts to look as if Putin and Trump wipe their shoes on Obama at this point, and it is Obama
who asked for it. Embarrassing. Share
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I've read Guardian's article on Russia's response to Obama's tantrum. Yep, it's clear why Obama
lost to Russians and can't cope with it. Now use your own advice, Barry. Go to the back of the
queue. Share
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They were gossipy emails ffs. If that was all it took for H. Clinton to lose to Trump, then the
Democrats really need to do an autopsy on itself. Or, here's a thought, VISIT the states where
you need the support to win. This is becoming soooooo boring! Share
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Well what a spiteful, petty like man this Obama has turned out to be! This is the first time his
side hasn't 'won' and he can't take it so throws his toys out the pram and risks further souring
relationships with the East. Thank goodness Putin rose above it. Share
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Few words left.....the future presidency and its administration is an absolute farce....a 'free
for all' for Trump and his cronies. Watch the rich get even richer and the poor get screwed. America
chose....they have to deal with it.
Unfortunately for those of us who aren't are going to be screwed as well. Lack of tact and ignorance
of diplomacy could ignite a power keg. Share
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The problem is no one trusts the agencies you mentioned anymore based on their past record....
As regards the FBI being no friend of the democrats, didn't they just let her off for storing
thousands of classified emails on a private server?
Besides, the whole world knows that the US have been sponsoring changes of Govs around the world
so it comes across as completely hypocritical.
This appears to be a smokescreen for numerous embarrassing issues relating to the election
& foreign policy.
For the record, I'm not a putin bot or fan if DT. So tired of the same old hackie responses
to anyone who questions the narrative. It's getting really boring. Share
This just shows the real character of Obama. Queering the pitch for Trump and the incoming administration.
But well done Putin for sidestepping. Clever. Much smarter than Obama. In the end lawyers make
bad Presidents and bad Prime Ministers. Share
Bit of a pot-kettle interface going on here. America leads the way in the hacking of public servers
around the world and spying on friend and enemy alike. Not long ago the CIA tapped into Angela
Merkel's mobile phone and I don't remember the same level of public outcry. Seems like America
is affronted that Russia and others are now doing what the US has done for years. And if it is
in fact the Russians - proof not yet forthcoming - this wasn't a hack into the electoral system
at all; it was a simple phishing email that the US officials were silly enough to click onto the
link.
And finally - what eventually was released was the truth. Clinton was favoured by the DNC, she
did say those things to Goldman Sachs, a CNN reporter did provide her with the questions before
the presidential debates. The truth is that the US elections were corrupted, but not by the Russians
- the culprits lie a little closer to home.
Obama tried to corner Russia, and almost all GOP lawmakers applauded Obama's action. Called it
was well overdue. But our smart president-elect comforted crying Putin right away by calling him
a smart man for not taking any actions. It is becoming more and more clear that Trump and Putin
are made for each other. I think Trump is keeping Putin on his side to take air out of overinflated
Chinese balloon. May be he was advised by his team. No one knows his game plan. Share
He is a great tactician. It certainly makes Obama look less threatening.
But he is a horrible strategist. A good strategy doesn't surprise. It makes plain to one's
opponent that things will only get worse--and one had better accommodate sooner rather than later.
It was at the heart of Reagan's strategy, which destroyed the SU.
And this is exactly the situation that Putin faces with or without sanctions. The renewed fracking
is going to keep oil and gas at lows not seen since the 90s. What was interesting was that even
Putin's stooge in the UK, Krassnov, said that Russia faced a very dire economic future. Whatever
Trump does, few Republicans are going to be accommodating after:
1) Crimea and Donbass
2) Blasting Aleppo to smithereens
3) Trying to throw the US election
The latter is an existential threat to every lawmaker, and they are hopping mad at the thought
that it could happen again.
Ironically, Putin is proving ever more clearly that Obama should have used air power in 2013,
as Putin has done in 2016.
It is a lesson that will not be lost on a Republican Congress.
1) situation caused by US Newland causing havoc in Ukraine by spending millions on regime change.
2) caused by US arming terrorists
3) lol - no serious person believes the Reds had any influence. It was the candidate. (If interference
in someone else's election was an international crime, the US would be in the dock every 6 months!)
The fool trump cannot do any worse than what's been occurring the last 15 years! Wars, invasions,
terrorist support and dossiers on mythical WMDs! It's been a disaster. US foreign policy is heavily
influenced by the CFR. He won't have a say in it. They will continue in the same diabolical fashion.
Nearly 40 years ago , at the height of the cold war when I joined up to serve my country, never
did i dream the day would come when I had more respect for the leader of Russia than a president
of the USA and that I would have more faith in the Russian media than our own fake media.
Not content with merely stealing the silverware, BO is intent on causing as much mischief as possible
before being booted out of the White House, but the Russians are not falling for it. They will
be dealing with Donald Trump in a few weeks, and there is no need to respond to Barry's diaper
baby antics.
I'm sure the Russians are hacking our internet systems, but the DNC emails that went to WikiLeaks
did not come from them. The content, outlining Podesta's plan to discredit Bernie supporters by
falsely tying them to violent acts, would indicate that a disgruntled and disgusted DNC employee
was more likely the source. Share
Of course everyone on here decrying Obama's actions knows far more and understands the cyber-attacks/election
interference issue far better than the combined resources and considered judgement of the US intelligence
community.
Of course you do. Goes without saying, all you have to do is cite an example of incompetence or
malfeasance by US intelligence agencies in the past and you rest your case.
Or maybe it's like parents who can't accept their child has been a bully or a general shit at
school. If you are a fan of the Trump-Putin axis you'll go through any self-deceiving contortions
necessary to avoid accepting reality.
Stop defending the indefensible. It happened, Obama acted (albeit slowly) and now Trump quite
properly will be expected to justify any softening of position.
Talking about self-deceiving contortions while performing your own mental gymnastics. It's quite
a show.
You say "stop defending the indefensible", while waving away any past instances of malfeasance
by US intelligence agencies in the past. To be explicit: yes, that includes meddling in other
countries' political affairs. Share
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It is of course impossible as the USA has the most and claimed most advanced spying network on
the planet. It totally surrounds both friends and foes alike - with such technical ability the
only country who could spy and influence (e.g. arm twisting Merkal is a prime example) on any
country at will is the 'exceptional ' US Government.
Appears suspiciously likely that Obama is just bitter that his legacy is about to be dumped in
the nearest skip on Jan 20, and wants to make trouble for Trump during his last 3 weeks in office.
Hard to see how Putin could have engineered Hillary Clinton's defeat, given she won the popular
vote by 3 million.
Also Obama is extremely hypocritical as the CIA has repeatedly interfered in the affairs of
other countries over the past 60 years.
On Thursday, the Arizona senator John McCain and South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham said
in a joint statement: "The retaliatory measures announced by the Obama administration today
are long overdue.
That's all I needed to know. If lunatic war monger John McCain wants to ratchet up the tension
with a nuclear power - then it is very wise to do the opposite. Share
Red baiting won't close down the debate. There's still no evidence of Russian hacking of the
US election.
And fascism is shouting people down who ask for evidence and don't just follow the President
because he is attacking the outsiders. Share
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Russia defeated the US in the Ukraine and recently it received an even harder blow Syria. Next
think you know the US 'administration' makes a fool of itself by expelling 35 RF officials, who
would have though that!
Sad to see this beautiful continent is being compromised by someone's puppets in the white
house. Nato is crumbling now that Turkey t-he gateway to the Balkans, the Caspian, to the Stannies-
rethinks its ties with US/NATO and moves towards Russia. It is crumbling beacuse the world begins
to understand that the rationale behind 'operation gladio' /strategy of tension is still ruling
the US admin. We could do without NATO, and could use a US government supporting peace rather
than an administration creating war. Even Germany starts to realize that, because of the abundance
of US military bases in this country, Germany is in fact 'occupied territory', a US colony if
you will.
The USA has underestimated people on this planet who, as opposed to US politicians, were able
to put current politics in a historical perspective. US policymakers took a part of Heidegger,
Locke, Freud, Descartes and others without knowing their interpretations were at least incomplete.
It results from the way in which US universities teach the discretized model of two extremes with
the requirement of choosing one of these without putting both in one perspective: 'Descartes or
Pascal' (not both as the French do); 'black or white'; 'with or against us'. The result Americans
aimed for was a stable socio-political model, same with 'Neue Sozialismus'. What they obtained
was a polarized world, because, a rigid stable model can only be governed by suppression (which
the Military industrial Complex is currently doing) and we do not want that.
Trump may lack political experience, he may be supported by a group of ideosyncratic wealthy
people attracting bad press from 'regulated media'. Equal chance of Trump having a positive or
negative effect on US internal and external policy-making, and on the relationship with RF. But,
Trump has one advantage: the more the Obama 'administration' barks, the more support Trump will
receive to change what Bush-Clinton-Obama have ruined for their electorates; the more to celebrate
for the Russians on January 13.
Bingo. This is not about the integrity of US elections. It's about being punked in Syria this
week.
The problems with the electoral process in the US were massive before 2016 and never received
this many Presidential press conferences. Share
The U.S. has a long history of attempting to influence presidential elections in other countries
it's done so as many as 81 times between 1946 and 2000, according to a database amassed by political
scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University.
That number doesn't include military coups and regime change efforts following the election
of candidates the U.S. didn't like, notably those in Iran, Guatemala and Chile. Nor does it include
general assistance with the electoral process, such as election monitoring. [...]
In 59% of these cases, the side that received assistance came to power, although Levin estimates
the average effect of "partisan electoral interventions" to be only about a 3% increase in vote
share. (
Source )
I understand why some may find outside interference objectionable, but I reckon many of those
who think so fail to recognise America's far-from-faultless behaviour. Curses are like chickens;
they always come home to roost.
Of course had the DNC leadership and the Clinton camp behaved ethically in the primary by not
conspiring to tip the scale in Clinton's favour, the hack would have found nothing. What we have
now is Obama forced to divert the public attention because of yet another messy scandal Hillary
finds herself involved in. Clinton must be one of the most blessed people on earth; everyone bends
over backwards to accommodate her ambitions.
Please provide an example of a political party behaving ethically during an election campaign?
You reckon the republicans weren't trying to tip the scales away from Donny?
Also, Clinton lost despite getting way more votes so Donny will be president and it is pointless
to continue to indulge in bashing Hillary, she is now just another elderly lady enjoying her golden
years. Share
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Also the CIA-Belgian assassination of Lamumba in 61, Congo's first democratically elected president,
for the same 'geopolitical' aka 'big business' reasons as the overthrow of Mossadegh in Iran in
53, who wanted the nationalize Iranian oil for their people, and Lumumba had similar 'socialist'
ideas for all the vast Congolese resources. To cut out the western business interests. And think
how well the Congo has fared since, one of the worst, saddest places, chaos, civil war, more dead
than in Rwanda or anywhere I think. They have not recovered from that.
And Iran, they were democratic, secular, elected a guy like Mossadegh, they were 'European',
but the the US and Britain overthrew him on behest of British-US oil interests, installed the
Shah, their puppet dictator, and the blow-back was the Iranian religious right-wing revolution
and dictatorship some 20 years later. And now the Iranian people and our 'foreign policy' are
suffering.
And all these US and CIA 'activities' the government had admitted and declassified, like the
Gulf of Tonkin lie and false flag in Vietnam, because it was so long ago nobody cares, so it's
no 'conspiracy' here, just history. But now these Clinton Democrats they really love and trust
anything the CIA says, of course, they are big patriots now, and call people unpatriotic and foreign
agents if they question the so honorable CIA, because they are on Hillary's side now.
And the CIA in cahoots with Bush and Cheney also told us how there were these big, scary WMDs
in Iraq, and mushroom clouds, and how Saddam had links with Al Qaida, all obvious lies, that any
amateur who knew basic world history could tell you even then.
And speaking of 'meddling', and overthrowing democratic governments, the US did the same under
Obama and Hillary in Honduras just a few years ago, backed the violent coup of a democratic leftist
government there, and they still refuse to call it a coup, and have legitimized the new corrupt
and violent regime, are training their army, etc. Even though the EU and the US ambassador to
Honduras called it a coup at the time.
And for the same reasons, that leftist government didn't want to play ball with big US and
western 'business interests', energy companies, didn't want to sell them their rivers and resources
like the new 'good' regime now. And since that coup, 100s of indigenous activists and environmentalists
have been killed, like Berta Caceres, and the violence and corruption has gone up big time under
the new regime, with 1000s more killed 'in general'. Yet Obama is so concerned about 'the integrity
of democracy' and elections and freedom and all that, what a nice guy.
The real question that Americans should be asking why Barack Obummer failed again to provide security
in case of hacking Democrat's emails?
Clinton did not deny that emails published by WikiLeaks were genuine.
That is called freedom of press.
What's wrong with public finding the truth about Clinton? Share
Why would Russia be happy that Clinton lost? Why would any foreign power be happy that Clinton
lost?...
How many years did HRC, in her arrogance-fuelled denial, provide foreign intelligences with literally
tonnes of free info??! Share
Trump might therefore be expected to simply end the Obama sanctions. .... But if he did
choose to do so, he would find himself at odds with his own party.
Trump is exactly where he is today because he attacked that same party. He called bullshit
on the Bush's claims to have made the US safer and called bullshit on the idea that Iraq was something
that we should still do in hindsight. He trashed the idea of free trade and TTIP - another Republican
shibboleth. He refused to go down the standard Republican route of trashing social security...
All he needs to do is call bullshit on this 'evidence' of Russian hacking and remind everyone
that it wasn't Russians who manned the planes on 9/11. Trump is a oafish clown - but he's not
a standard politician playing standard politics. He can shrug off this oh-so-clever manoeuvre
by Obama with no trouble.
Firstly, this coup is not against a standing President, but targets an elected president set to
take office on January 20, 2017. Secondly, the attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the
political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus,
with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the FBI supporting the incoming
President Trump and the constitutional process. Thirdly, the evolving coup is a sequential process,
which will build momentum and then escalate very rapidly.
Notable quotes:
"... In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential power by unconstitutional means, which may help illustrate some of the current moves underway in Washington. These are especially interesting since the Obama Administration served as the 'midwife' for these 'regime changes'. ..."
"... Firstly, this coup is not against a standing President, but targets an elected president set to take office on January 20, 2017. Secondly, the attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus, with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the FBI supporting the incoming President Trump and the constitutional process. Thirdly, the evolving coup is a sequential process, which will build momentum and then escalate very rapidly. ..."
"... In the wake of her resounding defeat, Candidate Stein usurped authority from the national Green Party and rapidly raked in $8 million dollars in donations from Democratic Party operatives and George Soros-linked NGO's (many times the amount raised during her Presidential campaign). This dodgy money financed her demand for ballot recounts in selective states in order to challenge Trump's victory. The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump. It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite and liberal activists. ..."
"... The 'Big Lie' was repeated and embellished at every opportunity by the print and broadcast media. The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC, NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa. The great American Empire looked increasingly like a 'banana republic'. ..."
"... The coup intensified as Trump-Putin became synonymous for "betrayal" and "election fraud". As this approached a crescendo of media hysteria, President Barack Obama stepped in and called on the CIA to seize domestic control of the investigation of Russian manipulation of the US election essentially accusing President-Elect Trump of conspiring with the Russian government. Obama refused to reveal any proof of such a broad plot, citing 'national security'. ..."
"... Obama's last-ditch effort will not change the outcome of the election. Clearly this is designed to poison the diplomatic well and present Trump's incoming administration as dangerous. Trump's promise to improve relations with Russia will face enormous resistance in this frothy, breathless hysteria of Russophobia. ..."
"... Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations. He wants to force a continuation of his grotesque policies onto the incoming Trump Administration. ..."
"... Trump's success at thwarting the current 'Russian ploy' requires his forming counter alliances with Washington plutocrats, many of whom will oppose any diplomatic agreement with Putin. Trump's appointment of hardline economic plutocrats who are deeply committed to shredding social programs (public education, Medicare, Social Security) could ignite the anger of his mass supporters by savaging their jobs, health care, pensions and their children's future. ..."
"... If Trump defeats the avalanching media, CIA and elite-instigated coup (which interestingly lack support from the military and judiciary), he will have to thank, not only his generals and billionaire-buddies, but also his downwardly mobile mass supporters (Hillary Clinton's detested 'basket of deplorables'). ..."
"... He embarked on a major series of 'victory tours' around the country to thank his supporters among the military, workers, women and small business people and call on them to defend his election to the presidency. He will have to fulfill some of his promises to the masses or face 'the real fire', not from Clintonite shills and war-mongers, but from the very people who voted for him. ..."
"... It is true there is breaking news today but you certainly won't hear it from the mainstream media. While everyone was enjoying the holidays president Obama signed the NDAA for fiscal year 2017 into law which includes the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" and in this video Dan Dicks of Press For Truth shows how this new law is tantamount to "The Records Department of the Ministry of Truth" in George Orwell's book 1984. ..."
"... What we have to do is prove that there is an organization that includes George Soros, but is not limited to him personallyyou know, a kosher nostra! ..."
"... I would dearly like to know what Moscow and Tel Aviv know about 9-11. I suspect they both know more than almost anyone else. ..."
"... Those dastardly Russkies have informed and enlightened the American public for long enough! This shall not stand! ..."
"... What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia. ..."
"... Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason. ..."
A coup has been underway to prevent President-Elect Donald Trump from
taking office and fulfilling his campaign promise to improve US-Russia relations. This 'palace coup'
is not a secret conspiracy, but an open, loud attack on the election.
The coup involves important US elites, who openly intervene on many levels from the street to
the current President, from sectors of the intelligence community, billionaire financiers out to
the more marginal 'leftist' shills of the Democratic Party.
The build-up for the coup is gaining momentum, threatening to eliminate normal constitutional
and democratic constraints. This essay describes the brazen, overt coup and the public operatives,
mostly members of the outgoing Obama regime.
The second section describes the Trump's cabinet appointments and the political measures that
the President-Elect has adopted to counter the coup. We conclude with an evaluation of the potential
political consequences of the attempted coup and Trump's moves to defend his electoral victory and
legitimacy.
The Coup as 'Process'
In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential
power by unconstitutional means, which may help illustrate some of the current moves underway in
Washington. These are especially interesting since the Obama Administration served as the 'midwife'
for these 'regime changes'.
Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras and Haiti experienced coups, in which the elected Presidents were ousted
through a series of political interventions orchestrated by economic elites and their political allies
in Congress and the Judiciary.
President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton were deeply involved in these operations as part
of their established foreign policy of 'regime change'. Indeed, the 'success' of the Latin American
coups has encouraged sectors of the US elite to attempt to prevent President-elect Trump from taking
office in January.
While similarities abound, the on-going coup against Trump in the United States occurs within
a very different power configuration of proponents and antagonists.
Firstly, this coup is not against a standing President, but targets an elected president set to
take office on January 20, 2017. Secondly, the attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the
political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus,
with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the FBI supporting the incoming
President Trump and the constitutional process. Thirdly, the evolving coup is a sequential process,
which will build momentum and then escalate very rapidly.
Coup-makers depend on the 'Big Lie' as their point of departure accusing President-Elect Trump
of
being a Kremlin stooge, attributing his electoral victory to Russian intervention against his
Democratic Party opponent, Hillary Clinton and
blatant voter fraud in which the Republican Party
prevented minority voters from casting their ballot for Secretary Clinton.
The first operatives to emerge in the early stages of the coup included the marginal-left Green
Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein, who won less than 1% of the vote, as well as the mass
media.
In the wake of her resounding defeat, Candidate Stein usurped authority from the national Green
Party and rapidly raked in $8 million dollars in donations from Democratic Party operatives and George
Soros-linked NGO's (many times the amount raised during her Presidential campaign). This dodgy money
financed her demand for ballot recounts in selective states in order to challenge Trump's victory.
The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump.
It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite
and liberal activists.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's
$8 million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media
and NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the
American voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
The 'Big Lie' was repeated and embellished at every opportunity by the print and broadcast media.
The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts
and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly
described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC,
NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa. The great American
Empire looked increasingly like a 'banana republic'.
Like the Billionaire Soros-funded 'Color Revolutions', from Ukraine, to Georgia and Yugoslavia,
the 'Rainbow Revolt' against Trump, featured grass-roots NGO activists and 'serious leftists', like
Jill Stein.
The more polished political operatives from the upscale media used their editorial pages to question
Trump's illegitimacy. This established the ground work for even higher level political intervention:
The current US Administration, including President Obama, members of the US Congress from both parties,
and current and former heads of the CIA jumped into the fray. As the vote recount ploy flopped, they
all decided that 'Vladimir Putin swung the US election!' It wasn't just lunatic neo-conservative
warmongers who sought to oust Trump and impose Hillary Clinton on the American people, liberals and
social democrats were screaming 'Russian Plot!' They demanded a formal Congressional investigation
of the 'Russian cyber hacking' of Hillary's personal e-mails (where she plotted to cheat her rival
'Bernie Sanders' in the primaries). They demanded even tighter economic sanctions against Russia
and increased military provocations. The outgoing Democratic Senator and Minority Leader 'Harry'
Reid wildly accused the FBI of acting as 'Russian agents' and hinted at a purge.
ORDER IT NOW
The coup intensified as Trump-Putin became synonymous for "betrayal" and "election fraud". As this approached a crescendo of media hysteria, President Barack Obama stepped in and called
on the CIA to seize domestic control of the investigation of Russian manipulation of the US election
essentially accusing President-Elect Trump of conspiring with the Russian government. Obama refused
to reveal any proof of such a broad plot, citing 'national security'.
President Obama solemnly declared the Trump-Putin conspiracy was a grave threat to American democracy
and Western security and freedom. He darkly promised to retaliate against Russia, " at a time and
place of our choosing".
Obama also pledged to send more US troops to the Middle East and increase arms shipments to the
jihadi terrorists in Syria, as well as the Gulf State and Saudi 'allies'. Coincidentally, the Syrian
Government and their Russian allies were poised to drive the US-backed terrorists out of Aleppo
and defeat Obama's campaign of 'regime change' in Syria.
Trump Strikes Back: The Wall Street-Military Alliance
Meanwhile, President-Elect Donald Trump did not crumple under the Clintonite-coup in progress.
He prepared a diverse counter-attack to defend his election, relying on elite allies and mass supporters.
Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing
the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He appointed three
retired generals to key Defense and Security positions indicating a power struggle between the
highly politicized CIA and the military. Active and retired members of the US Armed Forces have been
key Trump supporters. He announced that he would bring his own security teams and integrate them
with the Presidential Secret Service during his administration.
Although Clinton-Obama had the major mass media and a sector of the financial elite who supported
the coup, Trump countered by appointing several key Wall Street and corporate billionaires into his
cabinet who had their own allied business associations.
One propaganda line for the coup, which relied on certain Zionist organizations and leaders (ADL,
George Soros et al), was the bizarre claim that Trump and his supporters were 'anti-Semites'. This
was were countered by Trump's appointment of powerful Wall Street Zionists like Steven Mnuchin as
Treasury Secretary and Gary Cohn (both of Goldman Sachs) to head the National Economic Council. Faced
with the Obama-CIA plot to paint Trump as a Russian agent for Vladimir Putin, the President-Elect
named security hardliners including past and present military leaders and FBI officials, to key security
and intelligence positions.
The Coup: Can it succeed?
In early December, President Obama issued an order for the CIA to 'complete its investigation'
on the Russian plot and manipulation of the US Presidential election in six weeks right up to the
very day of Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017! A concoction of pre-cooked 'findings' is already
oozing out of secret clandestine CIA archives with the President's approval. Obama's last-ditch effort
will not change the outcome of the election. Clearly this is designed to poison the diplomatic well
and present Trump's incoming administration as dangerous. Trump's promise to improve relations with
Russia will face enormous resistance in this frothy, breathless hysteria of Russophobia.
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations. He wants to force a continuation of his grotesque
policies onto the incoming Trump Administration. Will Trump succumb? The legitimacy of his election
and his freedom to make policy will depend on overcoming the Clinton-Obama-neo-con-leftist coup with
his own bloc of US military and the powerful Wall Street allies, as well as his mass support among
the 'angry' American electorate. Trump's success at thwarting the current 'Russian ploy' requires
his forming counter alliances with Washington plutocrats, many of whom will oppose any diplomatic
agreement with Putin. Trump's appointment of hardline economic plutocrats who are deeply committed
to shredding social programs (public education, Medicare, Social Security) could ignite the anger
of his mass supporters by savaging their jobs, health care, pensions and their children's future.
If Trump defeats the avalanching media, CIA and elite-instigated coup (which interestingly lack
support from the military and judiciary), he will have to thank, not only his generals and billionaire-buddies,
but also his downwardly mobile mass supporters (Hillary Clinton's detested 'basket of deplorables').
He embarked on a major series of 'victory tours' around the country to thank his supporters among
the military, workers, women and small business people and call on them to defend his election to
the presidency. He will have to fulfill some of his promises to the masses or face 'the real fire',
not from Clintonite shills and war-mongers, but from the very people who voted for him.
A very insightful analysis. The golpistas will not be able to prevent Trump from taking power.
But will they make the country ungovernable to the extent of bringing down not just Trump but the
whole system?
If the coup forces President Trump to abandon his America First campaign promises by appointing globalists
eager to invade-the-world/invite-the-world, then the coup is a success and the Trump campaign was a
failure.
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the
top. Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance
of the Camelot image?
Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for
the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his
wife and kids?
Replies:
@Skeptikal I expect Obama loves his kids.
Great analysis from Petras.
So many people have reacted with "first=level" thinking only as Trump's appointments have been announced:
"This guy is terrible!" Yes, but . . . look at the appointment in the "swamp" context, in the "veiled
threat" context. Harpers mag actually put a picture on its cover of Trump behind bars. That is one of
those veiled invitations like Henry II's "Will no one rid me of this man?"
I think Trump understands quite well what he is up against.
I agree completely with Petras that the compromises he must make to take office on Jan. 20 may in the
end compromise his agenda (whatever it actually is). I would expect Trump to play things by ear and
tack as necessary, as he senses changes in the wind. According to the precepts of triage, his no. 1
challenge/task now is to be sworn in on Jan. 20. All else is secondary.
Once he is in the White House he will have incomparably greater powers to flush out those who are trying
to sideline his presidency now. The latter must know this. He will be in charge of the whole Executive
Branch bureaucracy (which includes the Justice Department). ,
@animalogic Oh, yes, Robert -- To read the words "Obama" & "legacy" in the same sentence is to LOL.
What a god-awful president.
An 8 year adventure in failure, stupidity & ruthlessness.
The Trump-coup business: what a (near treasonous) disgrace. The "Russians done it" meme: "let's show
the world just how stupid, embarrassing & plain MEAN we can be". A trillion words -- & not one shred
of supporting evidence.... ?! And I thought that the old "Obama was not born in the US" trope was shameless
stupidity --
If there is any bright side here, I hope it has convinced EVERY American conservative that the neo-con's
& their identical economic twin the neoliberals are treasonous dreck who would flush the US down the
drain if they thought it to their political advantage.
Excellent analysis! Mr. Petras, you delved right into the crux of the matter of the balance of forces
in the U.S.A. at this very unusual political moment. I have only a very minor correction to make, and
it is only a language-related one: you don't really want to say that Trump's "illegitimacy" is being
questioned, but rather his legitimacy, right?
Another thing, but this time of a perhaps idiosyncratic nature: I am a teeny-weeny bit more optimistic
than you about the events to come in your country. (Too bad I cannot say this about my own poor country
Brazil, which is going faster and faster down the drain.)
@John Gruskos If the coup forces President Trump to abandon his America First campaign promises
by appointing globalists eager to invade-the-world/invite-the-world, then the coup is a success and
the Trump campaign was a failure.
The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump.
It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite
and liberal activists.
On the contrary, this first salvo from the anti-American forces resulted in more friendly fire hits
on the attackers than it did on its intended targets. Result: a strengthening of Trump's position. It
also serve to sap morale and energy from the anti-American forces, helping dissipate their momentum.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory.
And it backfired, literally strengthening it (Trump gained votes), while undermining the anti-American
forces' legitimacy.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's
$8 million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media
and NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the
American voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
This was simply a continuation of Big Media's Full Capacity Hate Machine (thanks to Whis for the
term; this is the only time I will acknowledge the debt) from the campaign. It has been running since
before Trump clinched the nomination. It will be no more effective now, than it was then. Americans
are fed up with Big Media propaganda in sufficient numbers to openly thwart its authors' will.
The big lie, as you refer to it, hasn't even produced the alleged "report" in question. The CIA supposedly
in lockstep against Trump (I don't buy that), and they can't find one hack willing to leak this "devastating"
"report"? It must suck. Probably a nothing burger.
This is all much ado about nothing. Big Media HATES Trump. They want to make sure Trump and the American
people don't forget that they HATE Trump. It's a broken strategy, doomed to failure (it will only cause
Trump to dig in and go about his agenda without their help; it certainly will not break him, or endear
him to their demands). Trump's voters all voted for him in spite of it, so it won't win them
over, either. Personally, I think Trump's low water mark of support is well behind him. Obviously subject
to future events.
Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing
the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
CIA mouthpieces have been pointing and sputtering in response that it was not they who cooked the
books, but parallel neoconservative chickenhawk groups in the Bush administration. The trouble with
this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to
assent by way of silence.
Personally, I sort of doubt this imagined comity between Hussein and the CIA Ever seen Zero Dark
Thirty ? How much harder did Hussein make the CIA's job? I doubt it was Kathryn Bigelow who chose
to go out of her way to make that movie hostile to Hussein; it's far more likely that this is simply
where the material led her. I similarly doubt that the intelligence community difficulties owed to Hussein
were in any way limited to the hunt for UBL.
The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative,
instead choosing to assent by way of silence.
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to undermine
the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it. At that time, the neocons controlled the ranking
civilian positions at the Pentagon, but did not yet fully control the CIA This changed after Bush's
re-election, when Porter Goss was made DCI to purge all the remaining 'realists' and 'arabists' from
the agency. Now the situation in the opposite: the CIA is totally neocon, while the Pentagon is a bit
less so.
So even if what Trump is saying is technically inaccurate, it's still true at a deeper level: it was
the neocons who lied to us about WMD, just as it is now the neocons who are lying to us about
Russia.
I think Obama's right-in-the-open [a week or so ago] authorization for the sale and shipping [?]
of "man pads" to various Syrian rebel and terrorist forces is insane, and may be contrary to law.
Yes, I have no trouble calling it TREASON. It is certainly felony support for terrorists.
Man pads are shoulder held missile launchers that can destroy high and fast aircraft .such as commercial
passenger airlines [to be blamed on Russia?] and also any nations' fighter/bombers .such as Russia's
Air Force planes operating in Syria stillthat were invited to do so by the elected government of Syria
which is still under attack by US proxy [terrorist] forces. Syria is a member in good standing of the
UN.
Given this I think we are all in very great danger todaynow AND I think we have to press hard
to reverse the insane Obama move vis a vis these man pads.
This truly is an emergency.
TULSI GABBARD'S BILL MAY BE TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. It may even be just window dressing or PR. [That
could be the reason Peter Welch has agreed to co-sponsor it.... The man never does anything that is
real and substantive and decent or courageous.]
IN ANY EVENT both Gabbard and Welch via this bill have now acknowledged
that Obama and the US are supporting terrorists in Syria [and elsewhere]a felony under existing laws.
Quite possibly an impeachable offense.
"Misprision" of treason or misprision of a felony IS ITSELF A FELONY.
If Gabbard and Welch KNOW that the man-pad authorization and other US support
for terrorists in Syria and elsewhere is presently occurring, I THINK THEY NEED TO FORCE PROSECUTION
UNDER EXISTING LAWS NOW, rather than just sponsoring a sure-to-fail NEW LAW that will prevent such things
in the far fuzzy futureor NOT.
Respectfully,
Dennis Morrisseau
US Army Officer [Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR
FOR TRUMP
Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion
FIRECONGRESS.org
Second Vermont Republic
POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT USA 05775 [email protected]
802 645 9727
Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.
Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer
in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big,
and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as
we speak.
Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent
to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.
BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.
I think Obama's right-in-the-open [a week or so ago] authorization for the sale and shipping [?] of
"man pads" to various Syrian rebel and terrorist forces is insane, and may be contrary to law.
Yes, I have no trouble calling it TREASON. It is certainly felony support for terrorists.
Man pads are shoulder held missile launchers that can destroy high and fast aircraft ....such as commercial
passenger airlines [to be blamed on Russia?] and also any nations' fighter/bombers....such as Russia's
Air Force planes operating in Syria still--that were invited to do so by the elected government of Syria
which is still under attack by US proxy [terrorist] forces. Syria is a member in good standing of the
UN.
Given this......I think we are all in very great danger today--now-- AND I think we have to press hard
to reverse the insane Obama move vis a vis these man pads.
This truly is an emergency.
TULSI GABBARD'S BILL MAY BE TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. It may even be just window dressing or PR. [That could
be the reason Peter Welch has agreed to co-sponsor it.... The man never does anything that is real and
substantive and decent or courageous.]
IN ANY EVENT both Gabbard and Welch via this bill have now acknowledged
that Obama and the US are supporting terrorists in Syria [and elsewhere]--a felony under existing laws.
--Quite possibly an impeachable offense.
"Misprision" of treason or misprision of a felony IS ITSELF A FELONY.
If Gabbard and Welch KNOW that the man-pad authorization and other US support
for terrorists in Syria and elsewhere is presently occurring, I THINK THEY NEED TO FORCE PROSECUTION
UNDER EXISTING LAWS NOW, rather than just sponsoring a sure-to-fail NEW LAW that will prevent such things
in the far fuzzy future--or NOT.
Respectfully,
Dennis Morrisseau
US Army Officer [Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR
--FOR TRUMP--
Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion
FIRECONGRESS.org
Second Vermont Republic
POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT USA 05775 [email protected]
802 645 9727
The Man Pad Letter is brilliant!
It needs to be published as a feature story.
Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.
Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer
in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big,
and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as
we speak.
Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent
to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.
BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.
Replies:
@El Dato Hmmm.... If I were GRU I would offer Uber services to the recipients of the manpads all
the way up to West European airports (not that this is needed, just take a truck, any truck).
What will the EU say if smouldering wreckage happens?
Especially as Obama won't be there to set the overall tone.
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some
balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trumpnot Obamathat's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trumpout of fear and necessityrun with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?Or
will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say.
Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
In general, I agree with a good portion of your analysis. A few minor quibbles and
qualifications, though:
Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel.
Not really. Since he's a lame-duck president and the election is over, he's not really risking anything
here. After all, opposition to settlements in the occupied territories has been official US policy for
nearly 50 years, and when has that ever stopped Israel from founding/expanding them? No, this is just
more empty symbolism.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
It's been dead foreever. The One State solution will replace it, and that will really freak out all
the Zios.
They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena.
Trump understands this all-too-well.
Oderint dum metuant ("Let them hate, so long as they fear.") - Caligula ,
Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political
foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both
sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I'm hoping that Trump is running with the neocons just as far as is necessary to pressure congress to
confirm his cabinet appointments and make sure he isn't JFK'd before he gets into office and can set
about putting security in place to protect his own and his family's lives.
For John McBloodstain to vote for a SoS that will make nice with his nemesis; Putin, will require massive
amounts of Zio-pressure. The only way that pressure will come is if the Zio-cons are convinced that
Trump is their man.
Once his cabinet appointments are secured, then perhaps we might see some independence of action. Not
until. At least that is my hope, however naοve.
It isn't just the Zio-cons that want to poke the Russian bear, it's also the MIC. Trump has to navigate
a very dangerous mine field if he's going to end the Endless Wars and return sanity and peace to the
world. He's going to have to wrangle with the devil himself (the Fiend), and outplay him at his own
game. , @map
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance
on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is
a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel
remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to
do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained.
How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors. ,
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office.
Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right . "
THEN WHY DOESN'T HE DO WHAT'S RIGHT? As Seamus Padraig pointed out, the UN abstention is "just more
empty symbolism." Meanwhile... The Christmas Eve attack on the First Amendment The approval of arming terrorists in Syria
The fake news about Russian hacking throwing Killary's election
Aid to terrorists is a felony. Obama should be indicted.
Most of the Western world is much sicker of the head-choppers in charge of our 'human rights'
at the UN (thanks to Obama and the UK) than it is of Israel. It is they, not we, who have funded ISIS
directly.
The real issue at stake is that Presidential control of the system is non existent, and although
Trump understands this and has intimated he is going to deal with it, it is clear his hands will now
be tied by all the traitors that run the US.
You need a Nuremburg type show trial to deal with all the (((usual suspects))) that have usurped
the constitution. (((They))) arrived with the Pilgrim Fathers and established the slave trade buying
slaves from their age old Muslim accomplices, and selling them by auction to the goyim.
(((They))) established absolute influence by having the Fed issue your currency in 1913 and forcing
the US in to three wars: WWI, WWII and Vietnam from which (((they))) made enormous profits.
You have to decide whether you want these (((professional parasitical traitors))) in your country
or not. It is probably too late to just ask them to leave, thus you are faced with the ultimate reality:
are you willing to fight a civil war to free your nation from (((their))) oppression of you?
This is the elephant in the room that none of you will address. All the rest of this subject matter
is just window dressing. Do you wish to remain economic slaves to (((these people))) or do you want
to be free [like the Syrians] and live without (((these traitor's))) usurious, inflationary and dishonest
policies based upon hate of Christ and Christianity?
My guess: the outgoing Obama administration is in a last ditch killing frenzy, to revenge Aleppo
loss!
The Berlin bus blowup, The Russian ambassador in Turkey killed and the Red army's most eminent Alexandrov's
choir send to the bottom of the black sea.
Typical CIA ops to threaten world leaders to comply with the incumbent US elite.
Watch Mike Morell (CIA) threaten world leaders:
Replies:
@annamaria The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the
so-called "elites" in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real
"deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not
do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy
home and abroad. The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the
US government is the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell - who has never been
in combat and never demonstrated any intellectual vigor - is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly
educated opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
Correct me if I am wrong . plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
It seems you may be on to something:
RICO also permits a private individual "damaged in his business or property" by a "racketeer" to
file a civil suit. The plaintiff must prove the existence of an "enterprise". The defendant(s) are
not the enterprise; in other words, the defendant(s) and the enterprise are not one and the same.[3]
There must be one of four specified relationships between the defendant(s) and the enterprise: either
the defendant(s) invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity into the enterprise
(18 U.S.C. § 1962(a)); or the defendant(s) acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of,
the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (b)); or the defendant(s)
conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise "through" the pattern of racketeering
activity (subsection (c)); or the defendant(s) conspired to do one of the above (subsection (d)).[4]
In essence, the enterprise is either the 'prize,' 'instrument,' 'victim,' or 'perpetrator' of the
racketeers.[5] A civil RICO action can be filed in state or federal court.[6]
In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential
power by unconstitutional means Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras and Haiti experienced coups
The US is not at the stage of these countries yet. To compare them to us, politically, is moronic.
In another several generations it likely will be different. But by then there won't be any "need" for
a coup.
If things keep up, the US "electorate" will be majority Third World. Then, these people will
just vote as a bloc for whomever promises them the most gibs me dat. That candidate will of course be
from the oligarchical elite. Trump is likely the last white man (or white man with even marginally white
interests at heart) to be President. Unless things drastically change, demographically.
Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.
Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer
in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big,
and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as
we speak.
Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent
to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.
BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.
Hmmm . If I were GRU I would offer Uber services to the recipients of the manpads all the way up
to West European airports (not that this is needed, just take a truck, any truck).
What will the EU say if smouldering wreckage happens?
Especially as Obama won't be there to set the overall tone.
@Mark Green This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
Okay so you voted twice for BO, and now for HC, so what else is new.
Authenticjazzman, "Mensa" society member of forty-plus years and pro jazz artist.
D.C. has passed their propaganda bill so I am not shocked.
Dec 27, 2016 "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" Signed Into Law! (NDAA 2017)
It is true there is breaking news today but you certainly won't hear it from the mainstream media.
While everyone was enjoying the holidays president Obama signed the NDAA for fiscal year 2017 into law
which includes the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" and in this video Dan Dicks of Press
For Truth shows how this new law is tantamount to "The Records Department of the Ministry of Truth"
in George Orwell's book 1984.
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the top.
Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance of the
Camelot image?
Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for
the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his
wife and kids? https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/barry-we-hardly-knew-ye/
I expect Obama loves his kids.
Great analysis from Petras.
So many people have reacted with "first level" thinking only as Trump's appointments have been announced:
"This guy is terrible!" Yes, but . . . look at the appointment in the "swamp" context, in the "veiled
threat" context. Harpers mag actually put a picture on its cover of Trump behind bars. That is one of
those veiled invitations like Henry II's "Will no one rid me of this man?"
I think Trump understands quite well what he is up against.
I agree completely with Petras that the compromises he must make to take office on Jan. 20 may in the
end compromise his agenda (whatever it actually is). I would expect Trump to play things by ear and
tack as necessary, as he senses changes in the wind. According to the precepts of triage, his no. 1
challenge/task now is to be sworn in on Jan. 20. All else is secondary.
Once he is in the White House he will have incomparably greater powers to flush out those who are trying
to sideline his presidency now. The latter must know this. He will be in charge of the whole Executive
Branch bureaucracy (which includes the Justice Department).
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the top.
Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance of the
Camelot image?
Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for
the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his
wife and kids? https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/barry-we-hardly-knew-ye/
Oh, yes, Robert -- To read the words "Obama" & "legacy" in the same sentence is to LOL.
What a god-awful president. An 8 year adventure in failure, stupidity & ruthlessness.
The Trump-coup business: what a (near treasonous) disgrace. The "Russians done it" meme: "let's show
the world just how stupid, embarrassing & plain MEAN we can be". A trillion words - & not one shred
of supporting evidence . ?! And I thought that the old "Obama was not born in the US" trope was shameless
stupidity -- If there is any bright side here, I hope it has convinced EVERY American conservative that the neo-con's
& their identical economic twin the neoliberals are treasonous dreck who would flush the US down the
drain if they thought it to their political advantage.
The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump.
It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite
and liberal activists.
On the contrary, this first salvo from the anti-American forces resulted in more friendly fire hits
on the attackers than it did on its intended targets. Result: a strengthening of Trump's position. It
also serve to sap morale and energy from the anti-American forces, helping dissipate their momentum.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory.
And it backfired, literally strengthening it (Trump gained votes), while undermining the anti-American
forces' legitimacy.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's $8
million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media and
NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the American
voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
This was simply a continuation of Big Media's Full Capacity Hate Machine (thanks to Whis for the term;
this is the only time I will acknowledge the debt) from the campaign. It has been running since before
Trump clinched the nomination. It will be no more effective now, than it was then. Americans are fed
up with Big Media propaganda in sufficient numbers to openly thwart its authors' will.
The big lie, as you refer to it, hasn't even produced the alleged "report" in question. The CIA supposedly
in lockstep against Trump (I don't buy that), and they can't find one hack willing to leak this "devastating"
"report"? It must suck. Probably a nothing burger.
This is all much ado about nothing. Big Media HATES Trump. They want to make sure Trump and the American
people don't forget that they HATE Trump. It's a broken strategy, doomed to failure (it will only cause
Trump to dig in and go about his agenda without their help; it certainly will not break him, or endear
him to their demands). Trump's voters all voted for him in spite of it, so it won't win them
over, either. Personally, I think Trump's low water mark of support is well behind him. Obviously subject
to future events.
Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing
the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
CIA mouthpieces have been pointing and sputtering in response that it was not they who cooked the books,
but parallel neoconservative chickenhawk groups in the Bush administration. The trouble with this is
that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to assent
by way of silence.
Personally, I sort of doubt this imagined comity between Hussein and the CIA Ever seen Zero Dark
Thirty ? How much harder did Hussein make the CIA's job? I doubt it was Kathryn Bigelow who chose
to go out of her way to make that movie hostile to Hussein; it's far more likely that this is simply
where the material led her. I similarly doubt that the intelligence community difficulties owed to Hussein
were in any way limited to the hunt for UBL.
The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative,
instead choosing to assent by way of silence.
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to undermine
the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it. At that time, the neocons controlled the ranking
civilian positions at the Pentagon, but did not yet fully control the CIA This changed after Bush's
re-election, when Porter Goss was made DCI to purge all the remaining 'realists' and 'arabists' from
the agency. Now the situation in the opposite: the CIA is totally neocon, while the Pentagon is a bit
less so.
So even if what Trump is saying is technically inaccurate, it's still true at a deeper level: it
was the neocons who lied to us about WMD, just as it is now the neocons who are lying to us about
Russia.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
In general, I agree with a good portion of your analysis. A few minor quibbles and qualifications,
though:
Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel.
Not really. Since he's a lame-duck president and the election is over, he's not really risking anything
here. After all, opposition to settlements in the occupied territories has been official US policy for
nearly 50 years, and when has that ever stopped Israel from founding/expanding them? No, this is just
more empty symbolism.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
It's been dead for ever. The One State solution will replace it, and that will really freak out all
the Zios.
They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena.
Trump understands this all-too-well.
Oderint dum metuant ("Let them hate, so long as they fear.") Caligula
@Karl
the "shot across the bow" was the "Not My President!" demonstrations, which were long before
Dr Stein's recount circuses.
They spent a lot of money on buses and box lunches - it wouldn't fly.
Nothing else they try will fly.
Correct me if I am wrong.... plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
Correct me if I am wrong . plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
It seems you may be on to something:
RICO also permits a private individual "damaged in his business or property" by a "racketeer"
to file a civil suit. The plaintiff must prove the existence of an "enterprise". The defendant(s)
are not the enterprise; in other words, the defendant(s) and the enterprise are not one and the same.[3]
There must be one of four specified relationships between the defendant(s) and the enterprise: either
the defendant(s) invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity into the enterprise
(18 U.S.C. § 1962(a)); or the defendant(s) acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of,
the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (b)); or the defendant(s)
conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise "through" the pattern of racketeering
activity (subsection (c)); or the defendant(s) conspired to do one of the above (subsection (d)).[4]
In essence, the enterprise is either the 'prize,' 'instrument,' 'victim,' or 'perpetrator' of the
racketeers.[5] A civil RICO action can be filed in state or federal court.[6]
@Max Havelaar
My guess: the outgoing Obama administration is in a last ditch killing frenzy, to
revenge Aleppo loss!
The Berlin bus blowup, The Russian ambassador in Turkey killed and the Red army's most eminent Alexandrov's
choir send to the bottom of the black sea.
Typical CIA ops to threaten world leaders to comply with the incumbent US elite.
Watch Mike Morell (CIA) threaten world leaders:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZK2FZGKAd0
The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the so-called "elites"
in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the
US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does
not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the US government is
the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell who has never been in combat and
never demonstrated any intellectual vigor is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly educated
opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have
brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not
follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
It is corrupt, annamaria, corrupt to the very core, corrupt throughout. Any talk of elections, honest
candidates, devoted elected representatives, etc., is sappy naivete. They're crooks; the sprinkling
of decent reps is minuscule and ineffective.
So, what to do? ,
@Max Havelaar
A serial killer, paid by US taxpayers. By universal human rights laws he would hang.
I agree with some, mostly the pro-Constitutionalist and moral spirit of the essay, but differ as
to when the Coup D'etat is going to or has already taken place .
The coup D'etat that destroyed our American Republic, and its last Constitutional President, John
F. Kennedy, took place 53 years ago on November 22, 1963. The coup was consolidated at the cost of 2
million Vietnamese and 1 million Indonesians (1965). The assassinations of JF Kennedy's brother, Robert
Kennedy, R. Kennedy's ally, Martin L. King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, John Lennon, and many others, followed.
Mr. Petras, the Coup D'etat has already happened.
Our mission must be the Restore our American Republic! This is The Only Road for us. There
are no shortcuts. The choice we were given (for Hollywood President), in 2016, between a psychotic Mass
Murderer, and a mid level Mafioso Casino Owner displayed the lack of respect the Oligarchs have for
the American Sheeple. Until we rise, we will never regain our self-respect, our Honor.
I enclose a copy of our Flier, our Declaration, For The Restoration of the Republic below,
for your perusal. We (of the Anarchist Collective), have distributed it as best we can.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal governments are instituted
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute
new government, laying its foundation on such principles "
The above is a portion of the Declaration of Independence , written by Thomas Jefferson.
We submit the following facts to the citizens of the United States.
The government of the United States has been a Totalitarian Oligarchy since the military financial aristocracy
destroyed the Democratic Republic on November 22, 1963, when they assassinated the last democratically
elected president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy , and overthrew his government. All following governments
have been unconstitutional frauds. Attempts by Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King to restore the
Republic were interrupted by their murder.
A subsequent 12 year colonial war against Vietnam , conducted by the murderers of Kennedy,
left 2 million dead in a wake of napalm and burning villages.
In 1965 , the U.S. government orchestrated the slaughter of 1 million unarmed Indonesian civilians.
In the decade that followed the CIA murdered 100,000 Native Americans in Guatemala.
In the 1970s , the Oligarchy began the destruction and looting of America's middle class,
by encouraging the export of industry and jobs to parts of the world where workers were paid bare subsistence
wages. The 2008, Bailout of the Nation's Oligarchs cost American taxpayers $13trillion. The long
decline of the local economy has led to the political decline of our hard working citizens, as well
as the decay of cities, towns, and infrastructure, such as education.
The impoverishment of America's middle class has undermined the nation's financial stability. Without
a productive foundation, the government has accumulated a huge debt in excess of $19trillion . This debt will have to be paid, or suffered by future generations. Concurrently, the top 1% of the
nation's population has benefited enormously from the discomfiture of the rest. The interest rate has
been reduced to 0, thereby slowly robbing millions of depositors of their savings, as their savings
cannot stay even with the inflation rate.
The government spends the declining national wealth on bloody and never ending military adventures,
and is or has recently conducted unconstitutional wars against 9 nations. The Oligarchs maintain 700
military bases in 131 countries; they spend as much on military weapons of terror as the rest of the
nations of the world combined. Tellingly, more than half the government budget is spent on the military
and 16 associated secret agencies.
The nightmare of a powerful centralized government crushing the rights of the people, so feared by the
Founders of the United States, has become a reality. The government of Obama/Biden, as with previous
administrations such as Bush/Cheney, and whoever is chosen in November 2016, operates a Gulag of dozens
of concentration camps, where prisoners are denied trials, and routinely tortured. The Patriot Act
and The National Defense Authorizations Act , enacted by both Democratic and Republican factions
of the oligarchy, serve to establish a legal cover for their terror.
The nation's media is controlled , and, with the school systems, serve to brainwash the population;
the people are intimidated and treated with contempt.
The United States is No longer Sovereign
The United States is no longer a sovereign nation. Its government, The Executive, and Congress, is
bought, utterly owned and controlled by foreign and domestic wealthy Oligarchs, such as the Rothschilds,
Rockefellers, and Duponts , to name only a few of the best known.
The 2016 Electoral Circus will anoint new actors to occupy the same Unconstitutional Government,
with its controlling International Oligarchs. Clinton, Trump, whomever, are willing accomplices for
imperialist international murder, and destruction of nations, including ours.
For Love of Country
The Restoration of the Republic will be a Revolutionary Act, that will cancel all previous debts
owed to that unconstitutional regime and its business supporters. All debts, including Student Debts,
will be canceled. Our citizens will begin, anew, with a clean slate.
As American Founder, Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a letter to James Madison:
"I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, 'that the earth belongs in usufruct
to the living':"
"Then I say the earth belongs to each of these generations, during it's course, fully, and in their
own right. The 2d. Generation receives it clear of the debts and incumberances of the 1st. The 3d of
the 2d. and so on. For if the 1st. Could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead
and not the living generation."
Our Citizens must restore the centrality of the constitution, establishing a less powerful government
which will ensure President Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms , freedom of speech and expression,
freedom to worship God in ones own way, freedom from want "which means economic understandings which
will secure to every nation a healthy peace time life for its inhabitants " and freedom from fear "which means
a world-wide reduction of armaments "
Once restored: The Constitution will become, once again, the law of the land and of a free people.
We will establish a government, hold elections, begin to direct traffic, arrest criminal politicians
of the tyrannical oligarchy, and, in short, repair the damage of the previous totalitarian governments.
For the Democratic Republic! Sons and Daughters of Liberty [email protected]
@annamaria
The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the
so-called "elites" in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real
"deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not
do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy
home and abroad. The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the
US government is the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell - who has never been
in combat and never demonstrated any intellectual vigor - is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly
educated opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have
brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not
follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
It is corrupt, annamaria, corrupt to the very core, corrupt throughout. Any talk of elections, honest
candidates, devoted elected representatives, etc., is sappy naivete. They're crooks; the sprinkling
of decent reps is minuscule and ineffective.
So, what to do?
Replies:
@Bill Jones
The corruption is endemic from top to bottom.
My previous residence was in Hamilton Township in Monroe County, PA . Population about 8,000.
The 3 Township Supervisors appointed themselves to township jobs- Road master, Zoning officer etc and
pay themselves twice the going rate with the occupant of the job under review abstaining while his two
palls vote him the money. Anybody challenging this is met with a shit-storm of propaganda and a mysterious
explosion in voter turn-out: guess who runs the local polls?
The chief of the local volunteer fire company has to sign off on the sprinkler systems before any occupation
certificate can be issued for a commercial building. Conveniently he runs a plumbing business. Guess
who gets the lion's share of plumbing jobs for new commercial buildings?
As they climb the greasy pole, it only gets worse.
Meanwhile the routine business of looting continues:
My local rag (an organ of the Murdoch crime family) had a little piece last year about the new 3 year
contract for the local county prison guards. I went back to the two previous two contracts and discovered
that by 2018 they will have had 33% increases over nine years. Between 2008 and 2013 (the latest years
I could find data for) median household income in the county decreased by 13%.
At some point some rogue politician will start fighting this battle.
If the US is split between Trump and Clinton supporters, then the staffs of the CIA and FBI are probably
split the same way.
The CIA and FBI leadership may take one position or another, but many CIA and FBI employees joined
these agencies in the first place to serve their country not to assist Neo-con MENA Imperial projects,
and they know a lot more than the general public about what is really going on.
Employees can really mess things up if they have a different political orientation to their employers.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political
foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both
sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I'm hoping that Trump is running with the neocons just as far as is necessary to pressure congress
to confirm his cabinet appointments and make sure he isn't JFK'd before he gets into office and can
set about putting security in place to protect his own and his family's lives.
For John McBloodstain to vote for a SoS that will make nice with his nemesis; Putin, will require
massive amounts of Zio-pressure. The only way that pressure will come is if the Zio-cons are convinced
that Trump is their man.
Once his cabinet appointments are secured, then perhaps we might see some independence of action.
Not until. At least that is my hope, however naοve.
It isn't just the Zio-cons that want to poke the Russian bear, it's also the MIC. Trump has to navigate
a very dangerous mine field if he's going to end the Endless Wars and return sanity and peace to the
world. He's going to have to wrangle with the devil himself (the Fiend), and outplay him at his own
game.
I do not like saying it, but the appointment of the Palestinian hating Jew as ambassador to Israel
has disarmed the Jew community they can no longer call Trump an anti-Semite the most power two words
in America. The result is that the domestic side of the coup is over.
The Russian thing has to play out. The Jew forces will try and make bad blood between America and
Russia hopefully Trump and Putin will let it play out, but really ignore it.
If we get past the inauguration, the CIA is going to be toast. GOOD!
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) - doing his best to screw things up before
Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?
Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at war
with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act - providing
aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.
A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII.
Francis Boyle writes:
"... I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put
in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great
Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP.
Just have
the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax)
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to
undermine the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it.
It seems that our POTUS has just chosen to eject 35 Russian diplomats from our country, on grounds
of hacking the election against Hillary.
Is this some weird, preliminary "shot across the bow" in preparation for the coming "coup attempt"
you seem to believe is in the offing ?
It seem the powers-that-be are pulling out all the stops to prevent an authentic rapprochement with
Moscow.
What for ?
It makes you wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye, something beyond the sanguine disgruntlement
of the party bosses and a desire for payback against Hillary's big loss ?
Does anyone know if Russia is more aware than most Americans of certain classified details pertaining
to stuff ..like 9-11 ?
Why is cooperation between the new administration and Moscow so scary to these people that they would
initiate a preemptive diplomatic shut down ?
They seem to be dead set on welding shut every single diplomatic door to the Kremlin there is , before
Trumps inauguration.
Perhaps something "else "is being planned ..Does anyone have any ideas whats going on ?
@Tomster
What does Russian intelligence know? Err ... perhaps something like that the US/UK have
sold nukes to the head-choppers of the riyadh caliphate, say (knowing how completely mad their incestuous
brains are?). Who knows? - but such a fact could explain many inexplicable things.
@Art
I do not like saying it, but the appointment of the Palestinian hating Jew as ambassador to
Israel has disarmed the Jew community they can no longer call Trump an anti-Semite the most power
two words in America. The result is that the domestic side of the coup is over.
The Russian thing has to play out. The Jew forces will try and make bad blood between America and Russia
hopefully Trump and Putin will let it play out, but really ignore it.
If we get past the inauguration, the CIA is going to be toast. GOOD!
Peace --- Art
"If we get past the inauguration ."
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) doing his best to screw things up
before Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?
Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at
war with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act providing
aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.
A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII. Francis Boyle writes:
" I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put
in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great
Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP. Just have
the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax)
This is much ado about nothing - in a NYT's article today - they said that the DNC was told about
being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 - they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!
The RNC got smart - not the DNC - it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.
Really - how pissed off can they be?
Peace --- Art
p.s. I do not blame Obama he had to do something looks like he did the minimum.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance on
Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It
is a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if
Israel remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis
to do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers,
drive the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors.
Replies:
@joe webb
masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer
moms on the Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever,
but probably did not come from Trump.
As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist
claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either
"solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced
security stance and quality of life for Israelis."
That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty
with Israel, and then continue to press their claims...Israel would have the moral high ground to beat
hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public
opinion.
Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and
morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs
is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.
I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now. Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains
for the jews.
Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big
time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he
is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but...
Joe Webb ,
@RobinG
"A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers,
drive the nails, throw out the trash."
"The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts
and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly
described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC,
NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa."
You left out Fox, most of their news anchors and pundits are rabidly pro Israel and anti Russia.
There is a pretty good chance, since all else has failed so far, Obama will declare 'a special situation
martial law'. And you can be sure many on both sides of Congress will comply. This will once again demonstrate
who is on the power elite payroll. If this happens hopefully the military will be on Trumps side and
round up those responsible and proper justice meted out.
@map
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance
on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is
a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel
remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to
do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors.
masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer moms on the
Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever, but probably
did not come from Trump.
As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist
claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either
"solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced
security stance and quality of life for Israelis."
That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty
with Israel, and then continue to press their claims Israel would have the moral high ground to beat
hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public
opinion.
Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and
morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs
is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.
I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now. Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains
for the jews.
Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big
time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he
is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but
Joe Webb
Replies:
@map
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think
their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling
will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result
in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board
going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a
lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
@Realist
"The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented
any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly
described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC,
NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa."
You left out Fox, most of their news anchors and pundits are rabidly pro Israel and anti Russia.
There is a pretty good chance, since all else has failed so far, Obama will declare 'a special situation
martial law'. And you can be sure many on both sides of Congress will comply. This will once again demonstrate
who is on the power elite payroll. If this happens hopefully the military will be on Trumps side and
round up those responsible and proper justice meted out.
The obscenity of the US behavior abroad leads directly to an alliance of ziocons and war profiteers.
Here is a highly educational paper on the exceptional amorality of the US administration:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article194709.html
"The existence of a NATO bunker in East Aleppo confirms what we have been saying about the role of NATO
LandCom in the coordination of the jihadists The liberation of Syria should continue at Idleb the
zone is de facto governed by NATO via a string of pseudo-NGO's. At least, this is what was noted last
month by a US think-tank. To beat the jihadists there, it will be necessary first of all to cut their
supply lines, in other words, close the Turtkish frontier. This is what Russian diplomacy is currently
working on." Well. After wasting the uncounted trillions of US dollars on the war on terror and after filling the
VA hospitals with the ruined young men and women and after bringing death a destruction on apocalyptic
scale to the Middle East in the name of 9/11, the US has found new bosom buddies the hordes of fanatical
jihadis.
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) - doing his best to screw things up before
Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?
Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at war
with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act - providing
aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.
A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII. Francis Boyle writes: "... I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put
in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great
Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP. Just have
the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone)
217-244-1478 (fax)
Hi RobinG,
This is much ado about nothing in a NYT's article today they said that the DNC was told about
being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!
The RNC got smart not the DNC it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.
Really how pissed off can they be?
Peace - Art
p.s. I do not blame Obama he had to do something looks like he did the minimum.
I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking
is nil.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine,
his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin,
and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates
in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.
The feds have now released their reports, detailing how the dastardly Russians darkly influenced
the 2016 presidential election by releasing Democrats' emails, and giving the American public a peek
inside the Democrat machine.
Those dastardly Russkies have informed and enlightened the American public for long enough! This
shall not stand!
This is much ado about nothing - in a NYT's article today - they said that the DNC was told about
being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 - they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!
The RNC got smart - not the DNC - it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.
Really - how pissed off can they be?
Peace --- Art
p.s. I do not blame Obama he had to do something looks like he did the minimum.
Hi Art,
I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking
is nil.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in
Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization
of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates
in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in
Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization
of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
RobinG --- Agree 100% - some times I get things crossed up --- Peace Art
I assume that everyone agrees that the final outcome of the security breach was that 'Wikileaks'
leaked internal emails of Clinton Campaign Manager Pedesta and DNC emails regarding embarrassing behavior.
No one is suggesting that the leaked information is 'fake news'.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic
campaign itself.
Given that Podesta's password was 'P@ssw0rd' - does it take Russian deep state security to hack?
Though CAP is still having issues with my email and computer, yours is good to go. jpodesta p@ssw0rd
The report is 13 pages of mostly nothing.
Note the Disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: This report is provided "as is" for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.
DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This
document is distributed as TLP:WHITE: Subject to standard copyright rules, TLP:WHITE information may
be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic Light Protocol, see
https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp .
@annamaria
The obscenity of the US behavior abroad leads directly to an alliance of ziocons and
war profiteers. Here is a highly educational paper on the exceptional amorality of the US administration:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article194709.html
"The existence of a NATO bunker in East Aleppo confirms what we have been saying about the role of NATO
LandCom in the coordination of the jihadists... The liberation of Syria should continue at Idleb ...
the zone is de facto governed by NATO via a string of pseudo-NGO's. At least, this is what was noted
last month by a US think-tank. To beat the jihadists there, it will be necessary first of all to cut
their supply lines, in other words, close the Turtkish frontier. This is what Russian diplomacy is currently
working on."
Well. After wasting the uncounted trillions of US dollars on the war on terror and after filling the
VA hospitals with the ruined young men and women and after bringing death a destruction on apocalyptic
scale to the Middle East in the name of 9/11, the US has found new bosom buddies - the hordes of fanatical
jihadis.
@joe webb
masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer
moms on the Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever,
but probably did not come from Trump.
As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist
claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either
"solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced
security stance and quality of life for Israelis."
That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty
with Israel, and then continue to press their claims...Israel would have the moral high ground to beat
hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public
opinion.
Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and
morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs
is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.
I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now. Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains
for the jews.
Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big
time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he
is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but...
Joe Webb
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think their
land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling will not
change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result in is a
comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on
board going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose
a lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
Replies:
@Tomster
"treated very shabbily" indeed, by other Arabs - who have done virtually nothing for them.
,
@joe webb
good points. Yet, Palestinians ..."They should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim
Middle East." sounds pretty much like an Israel talking point. How about Israel should be dissolved and the Jews repatriated around Europe and the US?
Not being an Idea world, but a Biological World, revanchism is true enough up to a point. Of course
The Revanchists of All Time are the jews, or the zionists, to speak liberalize.
As for feelings that don't change, there is a tendency for feelings to change over time, especially
when a "legal" document is signed by the participating parties. I have long advocated that the Jews
pay for the land they stole, and that that payment be made to a new Palestinian state. A Palestinian
with a home, a job, a family, and a nice car makes a lot of difference, just like anywhere else.
(We paid the Mexicans in a treaty that presumably ended the Mexican war. This is a normal state of affairs.
Mexico only "owned" California, etc, for about 25 years, and I do not think paid the injuns anything
for their land at the time. Also, if memory serves, I think Pat Buchanan claimed somewhere that there
were only about 10,000 Mexicans in California at the time, or maybe in the whole area under discussion..)
How Palestine stolen property, should be evaluated I leave to the experts. Jews would appear to have
ample resources and could pony up the dough.
The biggest problem is the US evangelicals and equally important, the nice Episcopalians and so on,
even the Catholic Church which used to Exclude Jews now luving them. This is part of our National Religion.
The Jews are god's favorites, and nobody seems to mind. Kill an Arab for Christ is the national gut
feeling, except when it gets too expensive or kills too many Americans.
As I have said, Trump is in between the rock and the hard place. If he wants to end the Jewish Wars
in the ME, he cannot luv the jews, and especially he cannot start lobbing bombs around too much...even
over Isis and the dozens of jihadist groups, especially now in Syria.
Sorry but your "comfortably repatriated" is a real howler. There is no comfort to be had by anybody
in the ME. And, like Jews with regard to your points about revanchism in general, Palestinians have
not blended into the general Arab populations of other countries, like Lebanon, etc.. Using your own
logic, the Palestinians will continue to nurse their grievances no matter where they are, just like
the Jews.
The neocon goals of failed states in the Arab World has been largely accomplished and the only way humpty-dumpty
will be put back together again is for tough Arab Strong Men to reestablish order. Like Assad, like
Hussein, etc. Arab IQ is about 85 in general. There is not going to be democracy/elections/civics lessons per the White countries's genetic predisposition.\
For that matter, Jews are not democrats. Left alone Israel, wherever it is, reverts to Rabbinic Control
and Jehovah, the Warrior God, reigns. Fact is , that is where Israel is heading anyway. Jews never invented free speech and rule of law, nor did Arabs, or any other race on the planet.
The Jews With Nukes is of World Historical Importance. And Whites have given them the Bomb, just as
Whites have given Third World inferior races, access to the Northern Cornucopia of wealth, both spiritual
and material. They will , like the jews, exploit free speech and game the economic system.
All Semites Out! Ditto just about everybody else, starting with the Chinese.
finally, if the jews had any real brains, they would get out of a neighborhood that hates them for their
jewishness, their Thefts, and their Wars. Otoh, Jews seem to thrive on being hated more than any other
race or ethnic group. Chosen to Always Complain.
I assume that everyone agrees that the final outcome of the security breach was that 'Wikileaks'
leaked internal emails of Clinton Campaign Manager Pedesta and DNC emails regarding embarrassing behavior.
No one is suggesting that the leaked information is 'fake news'.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic
campaign itself.
Given that Podesta's password was 'P@ssw0rd' -- does it take Russian deep state security to hack?
Though CAP is still having issues with my email and computer, yours is good to go. jpodesta p@ssw0rd
The report is 13 pages of mostly nothing.
Note the Disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: This report is provided "as is" for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.
DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This
document is distributed as TLP:WHITE: Subject to standard copyright rules, TLP:WHITE information may
be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic Light Protocol, see https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the
Democratic campaign itself.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
"Was" is the operative word:
Julian Assange Suggests That DNC's Seth Rich Was Murdered For Being a Wikileaker
https://heatst.com/tech/wikileaks-offers-20000-for-information-about-seth-richs-killer/ ,
@alexander
Given all the hoaky, "evidence free" punitive assaults being launched against Moscow
today ....combined with the profusion of utterly fraudulent narratives foisted down the throats of the
American people over the last sixteen years...
Its NOT outside of reason to take a good hard look at the "Seth Rich incident" and reconstruct an
outline of events(probably) much closer to the truth than the big media would ever be willing to discuss
or admit.
Namely, that Seth Rich, a young decent kid (27) who was working as the data director for the campaign,
came across evidence of "dirty pool" within the voting systems during the DNC nomination ,which were
fraudulently (and maybe even blatantly) tilting the results towards Hillary.
He probably did the "right thing" by notifying one of the DNC bosses of the fraud ..who informed
him he would look into it and that he should keep it quite for the moment...
.I wouldn't be surprised if Seth reached out to a reporter , too, probably at the at the NY Times,
who informed his editor...who, in turn, had such deep connections to the Hillary corruption machine...that
he placed a call to a DNC backroom boss ... who , at some point, made the decision to take steps to
shut Seth's mouth, permanently...."just make it look like a robbery (or something)"
Seth, not being stupid, and knowing he had the dirt on Hillary that could crush her (as well as the
reputation of the entire democratic party)......probably reached out to Julian Assange, too, to hedge
his bets.
In the interview Julian gave shortly after Seth's death, he intimated that Seth was the leak, although
he did not state it outright.
Something like this sequence of events (with perhaps a few alterations ) is probably quite close
to what actually happened.
So here we have a scenario, where the D.N.C. Oligarchs , so corrupt, so evil, so disdainful of the
electorate, and the democratic process , rig the nomination results (on multiple levels) for Hillary..and
when the evidence of this is found, by a decent young kid with his whole life ahead of him, they had
him shot in the back.....four times...
And then "Big Media for Hillary", rather than investigate this horrific tragedy and expose the dirty
malevolence at play within the DNC , quashes the entire narrative and grafts in its place the"substitute"
Putin hacks..... demanding faux accountability... culminating with sanctions and ejections of the entire
Russian diplomatic corp.......all on the grounds of attempting to "sully American Democracy"
.
But hey, that's life in the USA....Right, Seamus ?
"what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled by anti-nationalist
policies. "
The longer Israel persists in its "facts-on-the-ground" thievery, the less moral standing it has
for its white country. And it is a racist state also within its own "borders."
A pathetic excuse for a country. Without the USA it wouldn't exist.
A black mark on both countries' report cards.
@map
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance
on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is
a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel
remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to
do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by?
The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors.
"A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash."
Perhaps you'd like to discuss why so much of this and other "scut work" is done by Palestinians,
while an increasing number of Israeli Jews are on the dole.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
"As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right . "
THEN WHY DOESN'T HE DO WHAT'S RIGHT? As Seamus Padraig pointed out, the UN abstention is "just more
empty symbolism." Meanwhile The Christmas Eve attack on the First Amendment The approval of arming terrorists in Syria
The fake news about Russian hacking throwing Killary's election
Aid to terrorists is a felony. Obama should be indicted.
I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking
is nil.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine,
his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin,
and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates
in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup
in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization
of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
RobinG - Agree 100% some times I get things crossed up - Peace Art
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
Most of the Western world is much sicker of the head-choppers in charge of our 'human rights' at
the UN (thanks to Obama and the UK) than it is of Israel. It is they, not we, who have funded ISIS directly.
It seems that our POTUS has just chosen to eject 35 Russian diplomats from our country, on grounds of
hacking the election against Hillary.
Is this some weird, preliminary "shot across the bow" in preparation for the coming "coup attempt" you
seem to believe is in the offing ?
It seem the powers-that-be are pulling out all the stops to prevent an authentic rapprochement with
Moscow.
What for ?
It makes you wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye, something beyond the sanguine disgruntlement
of the party bosses and a desire for payback against Hillary's big loss ?
Does anyone know if Russia is more aware than most Americans of certain classified details pertaining
to stuff.....like 9-11 ?
Why is cooperation between the new administration and Moscow so scary to these people that they would
initiate a preemptive diplomatic shut down ?
They seem to be dead set on welding shut every single diplomatic door to the Kremlin there is , before
Trumps inauguration.
Perhaps something "else "is being planned........Does anyone have any ideas whats going on ?
What does Russian intelligence know? Err perhaps something like that the US/UK have sold nukes
to the head-choppers of the riyadh caliphate, say (knowing how completely mad their incestuous brains
are?). Who knows? but such a fact could explain many inexplicable things.
@map
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think
their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling
will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result
in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board
going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a
lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
"treated very shabbily" indeed, by other Arabs who have done virtually nothing for them.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic
campaign itself.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
Given all the hoaky, "evidence free" punitive assaults being launched against Moscow today .combined
with the profusion of utterly fraudulent narratives foisted down the throats of the American people
over the last sixteen years
Its NOT outside of reason to take a good hard look at the "Seth Rich incident" and reconstruct an
outline of events(probably) much closer to the truth than the big media would ever be willing to discuss
or admit.
Namely, that Seth Rich, a young decent kid (27) who was working as the data director for the campaign,
came across evidence of "dirty pool" within the voting systems during the DNC nomination ,which were
fraudulently (and maybe even blatantly) tilting the results towards Hillary.
He probably did the "right thing" by notifying one of the DNC bosses of the fraud ..who informed
him he would look into it and that he should keep it quite for the moment
.I wouldn't be surprised if Seth reached out to a reporter , too, probably at the at the NY Times,
who informed his editor who, in turn, had such deep connections to the Hillary corruption machine that
he placed a call to a DNC backroom boss who , at some point, made the decision to take steps to shut
Seth's mouth, permanently ."just make it look like a robbery (or something)"
Seth, not being stupid, and knowing he had the dirt on Hillary that could crush her (as well as the
reputation of the entire democratic party) probably reached out to Julian Assange, too, to hedge his
bets.
In the interview Julian gave shortly after Seth's death, he intimated that Seth was the leak, although
he did not state it outright.
Something like this sequence of events (with perhaps a few alterations ) is probably quite close
to what actually happened.
So here we have a scenario, where the D.N.C. Oligarchs , so corrupt, so evil, so disdainful of the
electorate, and the democratic process , rig the nomination results (on multiple levels) for Hillary..and
when the evidence of this is found, by a decent young kid with his whole life ahead of him, they had
him shot in the back ..four times
And then "Big Media for Hillary", rather than investigate this horrific tragedy and expose the dirty
malevolence at play within the DNC , quashes the entire narrative and grafts in its place the"substitute"
Putin hacks .. demanding faux accountability culminating with sanctions and ejections of the entire
Russian diplomatic corp .all on the grounds of attempting to "sully American Democracy"
.
@map
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think
their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling
will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result
in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board
going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a
lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
good points. Yet, Palestinians "They should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East." sounds pretty much like an Israel talking point. How about Israel should be dissolved and the Jews repatriated around Europe and the US?
Not being an Idea world, but a Biological World, revanchism is true enough up to a point. Of course
The Revanchists of All Time are the jews, or the zionists, to speak liberalize.
As for feelings that don't change, there is a tendency for feelings to change over time, especially
when a "legal" document is signed by the participating parties. I have long advocated that the Jews
pay for the land they stole, and that that payment be made to a new Palestinian state. A Palestinian
with a home, a job, a family, and a nice car makes a lot of difference, just like anywhere else.
(We paid the Mexicans in a treaty that presumably ended the Mexican war. This is a normal state of
affairs. Mexico only "owned" California, etc, for about 25 years, and I do not think paid the injuns
anything for their land at the time. Also, if memory serves, I think Pat Buchanan claimed somewhere
that there were only about 10,000 Mexicans in California at the time, or maybe in the whole area under
discussion..)
How Palestine stolen property, should be evaluated I leave to the experts. Jews would appear to have
ample resources and could pony up the dough.
The biggest problem is the US evangelicals and equally important, the nice Episcopalians and so on,
even the Catholic Church which used to Exclude Jews now luving them. This is part of our National Religion.
The Jews are god's favorites, and nobody seems to mind. Kill an Arab for Christ is the national gut
feeling, except when it gets too expensive or kills too many Americans.
As I have said, Trump is in between the rock and the hard place. If he wants to end the Jewish Wars
in the ME, he cannot luv the jews, and especially he cannot start lobbing bombs around too much even
over Isis and the dozens of jihadist groups, especially now in Syria.
Sorry but your "comfortably repatriated" is a real howler. There is no comfort to be had by anybody
in the ME. And, like Jews with regard to your points about revanchism in general, Palestinians have
not blended into the general Arab populations of other countries, like Lebanon, etc.. Using your own
logic, the Palestinians will continue to nurse their grievances no matter where they are, just like
the Jews.
The neocon goals of failed states in the Arab World has been largely accomplished and the only way
humpty-dumpty will be put back together again is for tough Arab Strong Men to reestablish order. Like
Assad, like Hussein, etc. Arab IQ is about 85 in general. There is not going to be democracy/elections/civics lessons per the White countries's genetic predisposition.\
For that matter, Jews are not democrats. Left alone Israel, wherever it is, reverts to Rabbinic Control
and Jehovah, the Warrior God, reigns. Fact is , that is where Israel is heading anyway.
Jews never invented free speech and rule of law, nor did Arabs, or any other race on the planet.
The Jews With Nukes is of World Historical Importance. And Whites have given them the Bomb, just
as Whites have given Third World inferior races, access to the Northern Cornucopia of wealth, both spiritual
and material. They will , like the jews, exploit free speech and game the economic system.
All Semites Out! Ditto just about everybody else, starting with the Chinese.
finally, if the jews had any real brains, they would get out of a neighborhood that hates them for
their jewishness, their Thefts, and their Wars. Otoh, Jews seem to thrive on being hated more than any
other race or ethnic group. Chosen to Always Complain. Joe Webb
Trump has absolutely no support in the media. With the Fox News and Fox Business, first string, talking
heads on vacation (minimal support) the second and third string are insanely trying to push the Russian
hacking bullshit. Trump better realize that the only support he has are the people that voted for him.
January 2017 will be a bad month for this country and the rest of 2017 much worse.
Sorry Joe, the "whites" did not give the Jews the atomic bomb. In truth, the Jews were critically
important in developing the scientific ideas and technology critical to making the first atomic bomb.
I can recognize Jewish malfeasance where it exists, but to ignore their intellectual contributions
to Western Civilization is sheer blindness.
"... In the wake of her resounding defeat, Candidate Stein usurped authority from the national Green Party and rapidly raked in $8 million dollars in donations from Democratic Party operatives and George Soros-linked NGO's (many times the amount raised during her Presidential campaign). This dodgy money financed her demand for ballot recounts in selective states in order to challenge Trump's victory. The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump. It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite and liberal activists. ..."
"... The 'Big Lie' was repeated and embellished at every opportunity by the print and broadcast media. The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC, NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa. The great American Empire looked increasingly like a 'banana republic'. ..."
"... The coup intensified as Trump-Putin became synonymous for "betrayal" and "election fraud". As this approached a crescendo of media hysteria, President Barack Obama stepped in and called on the CIA to seize domestic control of the investigation of Russian manipulation of the US election essentially accusing President-Elect Trump of conspiring with the Russian government. Obama refused to reveal any proof of such a broad plot, citing 'national security'. ..."
"... Obama's last-ditch effort will not change the outcome of the election. Clearly this is designed to poison the diplomatic well and present Trump's incoming administration as dangerous. Trump's promise to improve relations with Russia will face enormous resistance in this frothy, breathless hysteria of Russophobia. ..."
"... Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations. He wants to force a continuation of his grotesque policies onto the incoming Trump Administration. ..."
"... Trump's success at thwarting the current 'Russian ploy' requires his forming counter alliances with Washington plutocrats, many of whom will oppose any diplomatic agreement with Putin. Trump's appointment of hardline economic plutocrats who are deeply committed to shredding social programs (public education, Medicare, Social Security) could ignite the anger of his mass supporters by savaging their jobs, health care, pensions and their children's future. ..."
"... If Trump defeats the avalanching media, CIA and elite-instigated coup (which interestingly lack support from the military and judiciary), he will have to thank, not only his generals and billionaire-buddies, but also his downwardly mobile mass supporters (Hillary Clinton's detested 'basket of deplorables'). ..."
"... He embarked on a major series of 'victory tours' around the country to thank his supporters among the military, workers, women and small business people and call on them to defend his election to the presidency. He will have to fulfill some of his promises to the masses or face 'the real fire', not from Clintonite shills and war-mongers, but from the very people who voted for him. ..."
"... It is true there is breaking news today but you certainly won't hear it from the mainstream media. While everyone was enjoying the holidays president Obama signed the NDAA for fiscal year 2017 into law which includes the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" and in this video Dan Dicks of Press For Truth shows how this new law is tantamount to "The Records Department of the Ministry of Truth" in George Orwell's book 1984. ..."
"... What we have to do is prove that there is an organization that includes George Soros, but is not limited to him personallyyou know, a kosher nostra! ..."
"... I would dearly like to know what Moscow and Tel Aviv know about 9-11. I suspect they both know more than almost anyone else. ..."
"... Those dastardly Russkies have informed and enlightened the American public for long enough! This shall not stand! ..."
"... What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia. ..."
"... Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason. ..."
A coup has been underway to prevent President-Elect Donald Trump from
taking office and fulfilling his campaign promise to improve US-Russia relations. This 'palace coup'
is not a secret conspiracy, but an open, loud attack on the election.
The coup involves important US elites, who openly intervene on many levels from the street to
the current President, from sectors of the intelligence community, billionaire financiers out to
the more marginal 'leftist' shills of the Democratic Party.
The build-up for the coup is gaining momentum, threatening to eliminate normal constitutional
and democratic constraints. This essay describes the brazen, overt coup and the public operatives,
mostly members of the outgoing Obama regime.
The second section describes the Trump's cabinet appointments and the political measures that
the President-Elect has adopted to counter the coup. We conclude with an evaluation of the potential
political consequences of the attempted coup and Trump's moves to defend his electoral victory and
legitimacy.
The Coup as 'Process'
In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential
power by unconstitutional means, which may help illustrate some of the current moves underway in
Washington. These are especially interesting since the Obama Administration served as the 'midwife'
for these 'regime changes'.
Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras and Haiti experienced coups, in which the elected Presidents were ousted
through a series of political interventions orchestrated by economic elites and their political allies
in Congress and the Judiciary.
President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton were deeply involved in these operations as part
of their established foreign policy of 'regime change'. Indeed, the 'success' of the Latin American
coups has encouraged sectors of the US elite to attempt to prevent President-elect Trump from taking
office in January.
While similarities abound, the on-going coup against Trump in the United States occurs within
a very different power configuration of proponents and antagonists.
Firstly, this coup is not against a standing President, but targets an elected president set to
take office on January 20, 2017. Secondly, the attempted coup has polarized leading sectors of the
political and economic elite. It even exposes a seamy rivalry within the intelligence-security apparatus,
with the political appointees heading the CIA involved in the coup and the FBI supporting the incoming
President Trump and the constitutional process. Thirdly, the evolving coup is a sequential process,
which will build momentum and then escalate very rapidly.
Coup-makers depend on the 'Big Lie' as their point of departure accusing President-Elect Trump
of
being a Kremlin stooge, attributing his electoral victory to Russian intervention against his
Democratic Party opponent, Hillary Clinton and
blatant voter fraud in which the Republican Party
prevented minority voters from casting their ballot for Secretary Clinton.
The first operatives to emerge in the early stages of the coup included the marginal-left Green
Party Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein, who won less than 1% of the vote, as well as the mass
media.
In the wake of her resounding defeat, Candidate Stein usurped authority from the national Green
Party and rapidly raked in $8 million dollars in donations from Democratic Party operatives and George
Soros-linked NGO's (many times the amount raised during her Presidential campaign). This dodgy money
financed her demand for ballot recounts in selective states in order to challenge Trump's victory.
The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump.
It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite
and liberal activists.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's
$8 million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media
and NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the
American voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
The 'Big Lie' was repeated and embellished at every opportunity by the print and broadcast media.
The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts
and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly
described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC,
NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa. The great American
Empire looked increasingly like a 'banana republic'.
Like the Billionaire Soros-funded 'Color Revolutions', from Ukraine, to Georgia and Yugoslavia,
the 'Rainbow Revolt' against Trump, featured grass-roots NGO activists and 'serious leftists', like
Jill Stein.
The more polished political operatives from the upscale media used their editorial pages to question
Trump's illegitimacy. This established the ground work for even higher level political intervention:
The current US Administration, including President Obama, members of the US Congress from both parties,
and current and former heads of the CIA jumped into the fray. As the vote recount ploy flopped, they
all decided that 'Vladimir Putin swung the US election!' It wasn't just lunatic neo-conservative
warmongers who sought to oust Trump and impose Hillary Clinton on the American people, liberals and
social democrats were screaming 'Russian Plot!' They demanded a formal Congressional investigation
of the 'Russian cyber hacking' of Hillary's personal e-mails (where she plotted to cheat her rival
'Bernie Sanders' in the primaries). They demanded even tighter economic sanctions against Russia
and increased military provocations. The outgoing Democratic Senator and Minority Leader 'Harry'
Reid wildly accused the FBI of acting as 'Russian agents' and hinted at a purge.
ORDER IT NOW
The coup intensified as Trump-Putin became synonymous for "betrayal" and "election fraud". As this approached a crescendo of media hysteria, President Barack Obama stepped in and called
on the CIA to seize domestic control of the investigation of Russian manipulation of the US election
essentially accusing President-Elect Trump of conspiring with the Russian government. Obama refused
to reveal any proof of such a broad plot, citing 'national security'.
President Obama solemnly declared the Trump-Putin conspiracy was a grave threat to American democracy
and Western security and freedom. He darkly promised to retaliate against Russia, " at a time and
place of our choosing".
Obama also pledged to send more US troops to the Middle East and increase arms shipments to the
jihadi terrorists in Syria, as well as the Gulf State and Saudi 'allies'. Coincidentally, the Syrian
Government and their Russian allies were poised to drive the US-backed terrorists out of Aleppo
and defeat Obama's campaign of 'regime change' in Syria.
Trump Strikes Back: The Wall Street-Military Alliance
Meanwhile, President-Elect Donald Trump did not crumple under the Clintonite-coup in progress.
He prepared a diverse counter-attack to defend his election, relying on elite allies and mass supporters.
Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing
the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He appointed three
retired generals to key Defense and Security positions indicating a power struggle between the
highly politicized CIA and the military. Active and retired members of the US Armed Forces have been
key Trump supporters. He announced that he would bring his own security teams and integrate them
with the Presidential Secret Service during his administration.
Although Clinton-Obama had the major mass media and a sector of the financial elite who supported
the coup, Trump countered by appointing several key Wall Street and corporate billionaires into his
cabinet who had their own allied business associations.
One propaganda line for the coup, which relied on certain Zionist organizations and leaders (ADL,
George Soros et al), was the bizarre claim that Trump and his supporters were 'anti-Semites'. This
was were countered by Trump's appointment of powerful Wall Street Zionists like Steven Mnuchin as
Treasury Secretary and Gary Cohn (both of Goldman Sachs) to head the National Economic Council. Faced
with the Obama-CIA plot to paint Trump as a Russian agent for Vladimir Putin, the President-Elect
named security hardliners including past and present military leaders and FBI officials, to key security
and intelligence positions.
The Coup: Can it succeed?
In early December, President Obama issued an order for the CIA to 'complete its investigation'
on the Russian plot and manipulation of the US Presidential election in six weeks right up to the
very day of Trump's inauguration on January 20, 2017! A concoction of pre-cooked 'findings' is already
oozing out of secret clandestine CIA archives with the President's approval. Obama's last-ditch effort
will not change the outcome of the election. Clearly this is designed to poison the diplomatic well
and present Trump's incoming administration as dangerous. Trump's promise to improve relations with
Russia will face enormous resistance in this frothy, breathless hysteria of Russophobia.
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations. He wants to force a continuation of his grotesque
policies onto the incoming Trump Administration. Will Trump succumb? The legitimacy of his election
and his freedom to make policy will depend on overcoming the Clinton-Obama-neo-con-leftist coup with
his own bloc of US military and the powerful Wall Street allies, as well as his mass support among
the 'angry' American electorate. Trump's success at thwarting the current 'Russian ploy' requires
his forming counter alliances with Washington plutocrats, many of whom will oppose any diplomatic
agreement with Putin. Trump's appointment of hardline economic plutocrats who are deeply committed
to shredding social programs (public education, Medicare, Social Security) could ignite the anger
of his mass supporters by savaging their jobs, health care, pensions and their children's future.
If Trump defeats the avalanching media, CIA and elite-instigated coup (which interestingly lack
support from the military and judiciary), he will have to thank, not only his generals and billionaire-buddies,
but also his downwardly mobile mass supporters (Hillary Clinton's detested 'basket of deplorables').
He embarked on a major series of 'victory tours' around the country to thank his supporters among
the military, workers, women and small business people and call on them to defend his election to
the presidency. He will have to fulfill some of his promises to the masses or face 'the real fire',
not from Clintonite shills and war-mongers, but from the very people who voted for him.
A very insightful analysis. The golpistas will not be able to prevent Trump from taking power.
But will they make the country ungovernable to the extent of bringing down not just Trump but the
whole system?
If the coup forces President Trump to abandon his America First campaign promises by appointing globalists
eager to invade-the-world/invite-the-world, then the coup is a success and the Trump campaign was a
failure.
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the
top. Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance
of the Camelot image?
Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for
the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his
wife and kids?
Replies:
@Skeptikal I expect Obama loves his kids.
Great analysis from Petras.
So many people have reacted with "first=level" thinking only as Trump's appointments have been announced:
"This guy is terrible!" Yes, but . . . look at the appointment in the "swamp" context, in the "veiled
threat" context. Harpers mag actually put a picture on its cover of Trump behind bars. That is one of
those veiled invitations like Henry II's "Will no one rid me of this man?"
I think Trump understands quite well what he is up against.
I agree completely with Petras that the compromises he must make to take office on Jan. 20 may in the
end compromise his agenda (whatever it actually is). I would expect Trump to play things by ear and
tack as necessary, as he senses changes in the wind. According to the precepts of triage, his no. 1
challenge/task now is to be sworn in on Jan. 20. All else is secondary.
Once he is in the White House he will have incomparably greater powers to flush out those who are trying
to sideline his presidency now. The latter must know this. He will be in charge of the whole Executive
Branch bureaucracy (which includes the Justice Department). ,
@animalogic Oh, yes, Robert -- To read the words "Obama" & "legacy" in the same sentence is to LOL.
What a god-awful president.
An 8 year adventure in failure, stupidity & ruthlessness.
The Trump-coup business: what a (near treasonous) disgrace. The "Russians done it" meme: "let's show
the world just how stupid, embarrassing & plain MEAN we can be". A trillion words -- & not one shred
of supporting evidence.... ?! And I thought that the old "Obama was not born in the US" trope was shameless
stupidity --
If there is any bright side here, I hope it has convinced EVERY American conservative that the neo-con's
& their identical economic twin the neoliberals are treasonous dreck who would flush the US down the
drain if they thought it to their political advantage.
Excellent analysis! Mr. Petras, you delved right into the crux of the matter of the balance of forces
in the U.S.A. at this very unusual political moment. I have only a very minor correction to make, and
it is only a language-related one: you don't really want to say that Trump's "illegitimacy" is being
questioned, but rather his legitimacy, right?
Another thing, but this time of a perhaps idiosyncratic nature: I am a teeny-weeny bit more optimistic
than you about the events to come in your country. (Too bad I cannot say this about my own poor country
Brazil, which is going faster and faster down the drain.)
@John Gruskos If the coup forces President Trump to abandon his America First campaign promises
by appointing globalists eager to invade-the-world/invite-the-world, then the coup is a success and
the Trump campaign was a failure.
The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump.
It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite
and liberal activists.
On the contrary, this first salvo from the anti-American forces resulted in more friendly fire hits
on the attackers than it did on its intended targets. Result: a strengthening of Trump's position. It
also serve to sap morale and energy from the anti-American forces, helping dissipate their momentum.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory.
And it backfired, literally strengthening it (Trump gained votes), while undermining the anti-American
forces' legitimacy.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's
$8 million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media
and NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the
American voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
This was simply a continuation of Big Media's Full Capacity Hate Machine (thanks to Whis for the
term; this is the only time I will acknowledge the debt) from the campaign. It has been running since
before Trump clinched the nomination. It will be no more effective now, than it was then. Americans
are fed up with Big Media propaganda in sufficient numbers to openly thwart its authors' will.
The big lie, as you refer to it, hasn't even produced the alleged "report" in question. The CIA supposedly
in lockstep against Trump (I don't buy that), and they can't find one hack willing to leak this "devastating"
"report"? It must suck. Probably a nothing burger.
This is all much ado about nothing. Big Media HATES Trump. They want to make sure Trump and the American
people don't forget that they HATE Trump. It's a broken strategy, doomed to failure (it will only cause
Trump to dig in and go about his agenda without their help; it certainly will not break him, or endear
him to their demands). Trump's voters all voted for him in spite of it, so it won't win them
over, either. Personally, I think Trump's low water mark of support is well behind him. Obviously subject
to future events.
Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing
the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
CIA mouthpieces have been pointing and sputtering in response that it was not they who cooked the
books, but parallel neoconservative chickenhawk groups in the Bush administration. The trouble with
this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to
assent by way of silence.
Personally, I sort of doubt this imagined comity between Hussein and the CIA Ever seen Zero Dark
Thirty ? How much harder did Hussein make the CIA's job? I doubt it was Kathryn Bigelow who chose
to go out of her way to make that movie hostile to Hussein; it's far more likely that this is simply
where the material led her. I similarly doubt that the intelligence community difficulties owed to Hussein
were in any way limited to the hunt for UBL.
The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative,
instead choosing to assent by way of silence.
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to undermine
the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it. At that time, the neocons controlled the ranking
civilian positions at the Pentagon, but did not yet fully control the CIA This changed after Bush's
re-election, when Porter Goss was made DCI to purge all the remaining 'realists' and 'arabists' from
the agency. Now the situation in the opposite: the CIA is totally neocon, while the Pentagon is a bit
less so.
So even if what Trump is saying is technically inaccurate, it's still true at a deeper level: it was
the neocons who lied to us about WMD, just as it is now the neocons who are lying to us about
Russia.
I think Obama's right-in-the-open [a week or so ago] authorization for the sale and shipping [?]
of "man pads" to various Syrian rebel and terrorist forces is insane, and may be contrary to law.
Yes, I have no trouble calling it TREASON. It is certainly felony support for terrorists.
Man pads are shoulder held missile launchers that can destroy high and fast aircraft .such as commercial
passenger airlines [to be blamed on Russia?] and also any nations' fighter/bombers .such as Russia's
Air Force planes operating in Syria stillthat were invited to do so by the elected government of Syria
which is still under attack by US proxy [terrorist] forces. Syria is a member in good standing of the
UN.
Given this I think we are all in very great danger todaynow AND I think we have to press hard
to reverse the insane Obama move vis a vis these man pads.
This truly is an emergency.
TULSI GABBARD'S BILL MAY BE TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. It may even be just window dressing or PR. [That
could be the reason Peter Welch has agreed to co-sponsor it.... The man never does anything that is
real and substantive and decent or courageous.]
IN ANY EVENT both Gabbard and Welch via this bill have now acknowledged
that Obama and the US are supporting terrorists in Syria [and elsewhere]a felony under existing laws.
Quite possibly an impeachable offense.
"Misprision" of treason or misprision of a felony IS ITSELF A FELONY.
If Gabbard and Welch KNOW that the man-pad authorization and other US support
for terrorists in Syria and elsewhere is presently occurring, I THINK THEY NEED TO FORCE PROSECUTION
UNDER EXISTING LAWS NOW, rather than just sponsoring a sure-to-fail NEW LAW that will prevent such things
in the far fuzzy futureor NOT.
Respectfully,
Dennis Morrisseau
US Army Officer [Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR
FOR TRUMP
Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion
FIRECONGRESS.org
Second Vermont Republic
POB 177, W. Pawlet, VT USA 05775 [email protected]
802 645 9727
Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.
Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer
in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big,
and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as
we speak.
Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent
to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.
BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.
I think Obama's right-in-the-open [a week or so ago] authorization for the sale and shipping [?] of
"man pads" to various Syrian rebel and terrorist forces is insane, and may be contrary to law.
Yes, I have no trouble calling it TREASON. It is certainly felony support for terrorists.
Man pads are shoulder held missile launchers that can destroy high and fast aircraft ....such as commercial
passenger airlines [to be blamed on Russia?] and also any nations' fighter/bombers....such as Russia's
Air Force planes operating in Syria still--that were invited to do so by the elected government of Syria
which is still under attack by US proxy [terrorist] forces. Syria is a member in good standing of the
UN.
Given this......I think we are all in very great danger today--now-- AND I think we have to press hard
to reverse the insane Obama move vis a vis these man pads.
This truly is an emergency.
TULSI GABBARD'S BILL MAY BE TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. It may even be just window dressing or PR. [That could
be the reason Peter Welch has agreed to co-sponsor it.... The man never does anything that is real and
substantive and decent or courageous.]
IN ANY EVENT both Gabbard and Welch via this bill have now acknowledged
that Obama and the US are supporting terrorists in Syria [and elsewhere]--a felony under existing laws.
--Quite possibly an impeachable offense.
"Misprision" of treason or misprision of a felony IS ITSELF A FELONY.
If Gabbard and Welch KNOW that the man-pad authorization and other US support
for terrorists in Syria and elsewhere is presently occurring, I THINK THEY NEED TO FORCE PROSECUTION
UNDER EXISTING LAWS NOW, rather than just sponsoring a sure-to-fail NEW LAW that will prevent such things
in the far fuzzy future--or NOT.
Respectfully,
Dennis Morrisseau
US Army Officer [Vietnam era] ANTI-WAR
--FOR TRUMP--
Lieutenant Morrisseau's Rebellion
FIRECONGRESS.org
Second Vermont Republic
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The Man Pad Letter is brilliant!
It needs to be published as a feature story.
Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.
Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer
in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big,
and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as
we speak.
Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent
to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.
BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.
Replies:
@El Dato Hmmm.... If I were GRU I would offer Uber services to the recipients of the manpads all
the way up to West European airports (not that this is needed, just take a truck, any truck).
What will the EU say if smouldering wreckage happens?
Especially as Obama won't be there to set the overall tone.
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some
balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trumpnot Obamathat's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trumpout of fear and necessityrun with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his campaign?Or
will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible to say.
Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
In general, I agree with a good portion of your analysis. A few minor quibbles and
qualifications, though:
Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel.
Not really. Since he's a lame-duck president and the election is over, he's not really risking anything
here. After all, opposition to settlements in the occupied territories has been official US policy for
nearly 50 years, and when has that ever stopped Israel from founding/expanding them? No, this is just
more empty symbolism.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
It's been dead foreever. The One State solution will replace it, and that will really freak out all
the Zios.
They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena.
Trump understands this all-too-well.
Oderint dum metuant ("Let them hate, so long as they fear.") - Caligula ,
Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political
foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both
sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I'm hoping that Trump is running with the neocons just as far as is necessary to pressure congress to
confirm his cabinet appointments and make sure he isn't JFK'd before he gets into office and can set
about putting security in place to protect his own and his family's lives.
For John McBloodstain to vote for a SoS that will make nice with his nemesis; Putin, will require massive
amounts of Zio-pressure. The only way that pressure will come is if the Zio-cons are convinced that
Trump is their man.
Once his cabinet appointments are secured, then perhaps we might see some independence of action. Not
until. At least that is my hope, however naοve.
It isn't just the Zio-cons that want to poke the Russian bear, it's also the MIC. Trump has to navigate
a very dangerous mine field if he's going to end the Endless Wars and return sanity and peace to the
world. He's going to have to wrangle with the devil himself (the Fiend), and outplay him at his own
game. , @map
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance
on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is
a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel
remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to
do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained.
How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors. ,
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office.
Therefore, Obama is finally free to do what's right . "
THEN WHY DOESN'T HE DO WHAT'S RIGHT? As Seamus Padraig pointed out, the UN abstention is "just more
empty symbolism." Meanwhile... The Christmas Eve attack on the First Amendment The approval of arming terrorists in Syria
The fake news about Russian hacking throwing Killary's election
Aid to terrorists is a felony. Obama should be indicted.
Most of the Western world is much sicker of the head-choppers in charge of our 'human rights'
at the UN (thanks to Obama and the UK) than it is of Israel. It is they, not we, who have funded ISIS
directly.
The real issue at stake is that Presidential control of the system is non existent, and although
Trump understands this and has intimated he is going to deal with it, it is clear his hands will now
be tied by all the traitors that run the US.
You need a Nuremburg type show trial to deal with all the (((usual suspects))) that have usurped
the constitution. (((They))) arrived with the Pilgrim Fathers and established the slave trade buying
slaves from their age old Muslim accomplices, and selling them by auction to the goyim.
(((They))) established absolute influence by having the Fed issue your currency in 1913 and forcing
the US in to three wars: WWI, WWII and Vietnam from which (((they))) made enormous profits.
You have to decide whether you want these (((professional parasitical traitors))) in your country
or not. It is probably too late to just ask them to leave, thus you are faced with the ultimate reality:
are you willing to fight a civil war to free your nation from (((their))) oppression of you?
This is the elephant in the room that none of you will address. All the rest of this subject matter
is just window dressing. Do you wish to remain economic slaves to (((these people))) or do you want
to be free [like the Syrians] and live without (((these traitor's))) usurious, inflationary and dishonest
policies based upon hate of Christ and Christianity?
My guess: the outgoing Obama administration is in a last ditch killing frenzy, to revenge Aleppo
loss!
The Berlin bus blowup, The Russian ambassador in Turkey killed and the Red army's most eminent Alexandrov's
choir send to the bottom of the black sea.
Typical CIA ops to threaten world leaders to comply with the incumbent US elite.
Watch Mike Morell (CIA) threaten world leaders:
Replies:
@annamaria The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the
so-called "elites" in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real
"deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not
do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy
home and abroad. The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the
US government is the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell - who has never been
in combat and never demonstrated any intellectual vigor - is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly
educated opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
Correct me if I am wrong . plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
It seems you may be on to something:
RICO also permits a private individual "damaged in his business or property" by a "racketeer" to
file a civil suit. The plaintiff must prove the existence of an "enterprise". The defendant(s) are
not the enterprise; in other words, the defendant(s) and the enterprise are not one and the same.[3]
There must be one of four specified relationships between the defendant(s) and the enterprise: either
the defendant(s) invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity into the enterprise
(18 U.S.C. § 1962(a)); or the defendant(s) acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of,
the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (b)); or the defendant(s)
conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise "through" the pattern of racketeering
activity (subsection (c)); or the defendant(s) conspired to do one of the above (subsection (d)).[4]
In essence, the enterprise is either the 'prize,' 'instrument,' 'victim,' or 'perpetrator' of the
racketeers.[5] A civil RICO action can be filed in state or federal court.[6]
In the past few years Latin America has experienced several examples of the seizure of Presidential
power by unconstitutional means Brazil, Paraguay, Honduras and Haiti experienced coups
The US is not at the stage of these countries yet. To compare them to us, politically, is moronic.
In another several generations it likely will be different. But by then there won't be any "need" for
a coup.
If things keep up, the US "electorate" will be majority Third World. Then, these people will
just vote as a bloc for whomever promises them the most gibs me dat. That candidate will of course be
from the oligarchical elite. Trump is likely the last white man (or white man with even marginally white
interests at heart) to be President. Unless things drastically change, demographically.
Yes finally someone has the guts to say it: Obama is a traitor and terrorist.
Said by a true antiwar hero, Lt. Morrisseau who said no to Vietnam, while in uniform, as an officer
in the U.S. Army. The New York Times and CBS Evening News picked it up back in the day. It was big,
and this is bigger, same war though, just a different name: Its called World War III, smouldering as
we speak.
Again I do urge Unz to contact Denny and get this letter up as a feature. Note that it has been sent
to Rep. Gabbard and Rep. Welch. so it is a vital, historic action, may it be recognized.
BTW Rep. Tulsi Gabbards Bill is the Stop Arming Terrorist Act.
Hmmm . If I were GRU I would offer Uber services to the recipients of the manpads all the way up
to West European airports (not that this is needed, just take a truck, any truck).
What will the EU say if smouldering wreckage happens?
Especially as Obama won't be there to set the overall tone.
@Mark Green This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
Okay so you voted twice for BO, and now for HC, so what else is new.
Authenticjazzman, "Mensa" society member of forty-plus years and pro jazz artist.
D.C. has passed their propaganda bill so I am not shocked.
Dec 27, 2016 "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" Signed Into Law! (NDAA 2017)
It is true there is breaking news today but you certainly won't hear it from the mainstream media.
While everyone was enjoying the holidays president Obama signed the NDAA for fiscal year 2017 into law
which includes the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" and in this video Dan Dicks of Press
For Truth shows how this new law is tantamount to "The Records Department of the Ministry of Truth"
in George Orwell's book 1984.
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the top.
Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance of the
Camelot image?
Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for
the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his
wife and kids? https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/barry-we-hardly-knew-ye/
I expect Obama loves his kids.
Great analysis from Petras.
So many people have reacted with "first level" thinking only as Trump's appointments have been announced:
"This guy is terrible!" Yes, but . . . look at the appointment in the "swamp" context, in the "veiled
threat" context. Harpers mag actually put a picture on its cover of Trump behind bars. That is one of
those veiled invitations like Henry II's "Will no one rid me of this man?"
I think Trump understands quite well what he is up against.
I agree completely with Petras that the compromises he must make to take office on Jan. 20 may in the
end compromise his agenda (whatever it actually is). I would expect Trump to play things by ear and
tack as necessary, as he senses changes in the wind. According to the precepts of triage, his no. 1
challenge/task now is to be sworn in on Jan. 20. All else is secondary.
Once he is in the White House he will have incomparably greater powers to flush out those who are trying
to sideline his presidency now. The latter must know this. He will be in charge of the whole Executive
Branch bureaucracy (which includes the Justice Department).
Ultimately, President Obama is desperate to secure his legacy, which has consisted of disastrous
and criminal imperial wars and military confrontations
The current wave of icon polishing we constantly are being asked to indulge seems a bit over the top.
Why is our president more devoted to legacy than Jackie Kennedy was to the care and maintenance of the
Camelot image?
Have we ever seen as fine a behind-the-curtain, Wizard of Oz act, as performed by Barrack Obama for
the past eight years? Do we know anything at all about this man aside from the fact that he loves his
wife and kids? https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2016/12/09/barry-we-hardly-knew-ye/
Oh, yes, Robert -- To read the words "Obama" & "legacy" in the same sentence is to LOL.
What a god-awful president. An 8 year adventure in failure, stupidity & ruthlessness.
The Trump-coup business: what a (near treasonous) disgrace. The "Russians done it" meme: "let's show
the world just how stupid, embarrassing & plain MEAN we can be". A trillion words - & not one shred
of supporting evidence . ?! And I thought that the old "Obama was not born in the US" trope was shameless
stupidity -- If there is any bright side here, I hope it has convinced EVERY American conservative that the neo-con's
& their identical economic twin the neoliberals are treasonous dreck who would flush the US down the
drain if they thought it to their political advantage.
The recounts failed to change the outcome, but it was a 'first shot across the bow', to stop Trump.
It became a propaganda focus for the neo-conservative mass media to mobilize several thousand Clintonite
and liberal activists.
On the contrary, this first salvo from the anti-American forces resulted in more friendly fire hits
on the attackers than it did on its intended targets. Result: a strengthening of Trump's position. It
also serve to sap morale and energy from the anti-American forces, helping dissipate their momentum.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory.
And it backfired, literally strengthening it (Trump gained votes), while undermining the anti-American
forces' legitimacy.
The purpose was to undermine the legitimacy of Trump's electoral victory. However, Jill Stein's $8
million dollar shilling for Secretary Clinton paled before the oncoming avalanche of mass media and
NGO propaganda against Trump. Their main claim was that anonymous 'Russian hackers' and not the American
voters had decided the US Presidential election of November 2016!
This was simply a continuation of Big Media's Full Capacity Hate Machine (thanks to Whis for the term;
this is the only time I will acknowledge the debt) from the campaign. It has been running since before
Trump clinched the nomination. It will be no more effective now, than it was then. Americans are fed
up with Big Media propaganda in sufficient numbers to openly thwart its authors' will.
The big lie, as you refer to it, hasn't even produced the alleged "report" in question. The CIA supposedly
in lockstep against Trump (I don't buy that), and they can't find one hack willing to leak this "devastating"
"report"? It must suck. Probably a nothing burger.
This is all much ado about nothing. Big Media HATES Trump. They want to make sure Trump and the American
people don't forget that they HATE Trump. It's a broken strategy, doomed to failure (it will only cause
Trump to dig in and go about his agenda without their help; it certainly will not break him, or endear
him to their demands). Trump's voters all voted for him in spite of it, so it won't win them
over, either. Personally, I think Trump's low water mark of support is well behind him. Obviously subject
to future events.
Trump denounced the political elements in the CIA, pointing out their previous role in manufacturing
the justifications (he used the term 'lies') for the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
CIA mouthpieces have been pointing and sputtering in response that it was not they who cooked the books,
but parallel neoconservative chickenhawk groups in the Bush administration. The trouble with this is
that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative, instead choosing to assent
by way of silence.
Personally, I sort of doubt this imagined comity between Hussein and the CIA Ever seen Zero Dark
Thirty ? How much harder did Hussein make the CIA's job? I doubt it was Kathryn Bigelow who chose
to go out of her way to make that movie hostile to Hussein; it's far more likely that this is simply
where the material led her. I similarly doubt that the intelligence community difficulties owed to Hussein
were in any way limited to the hunt for UBL.
The trouble with this is that the CIA did precious little to counter the chickenhawks' narrative,
instead choosing to assent by way of silence.
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to undermine
the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it. At that time, the neocons controlled the ranking
civilian positions at the Pentagon, but did not yet fully control the CIA This changed after Bush's
re-election, when Porter Goss was made DCI to purge all the remaining 'realists' and 'arabists' from
the agency. Now the situation in the opposite: the CIA is totally neocon, while the Pentagon is a bit
less so.
So even if what Trump is saying is technically inaccurate, it's still true at a deeper level: it
was the neocons who lied to us about WMD, just as it is now the neocons who are lying to us about
Russia.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
In general, I agree with a good portion of your analysis. A few minor quibbles and qualifications,
though:
Incredibly, Obama has finally gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel.
Not really. Since he's a lame-duck president and the election is over, he's not really risking anything
here. After all, opposition to settlements in the occupied territories has been official US policy for
nearly 50 years, and when has that ever stopped Israel from founding/expanding them? No, this is just
more empty symbolism.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
It's been dead for ever. The One State solution will replace it, and that will really freak out all
the Zios.
They may be hated (and appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena.
Trump understands this all-too-well.
Oderint dum metuant ("Let them hate, so long as they fear.") Caligula
@Karl
the "shot across the bow" was the "Not My President!" demonstrations, which were long before
Dr Stein's recount circuses.
They spent a lot of money on buses and box lunches - it wouldn't fly.
Nothing else they try will fly.
Correct me if I am wrong.... plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
Correct me if I am wrong . plain ole citizens can start RICO suits against the likes of Soros.
It seems you may be on to something:
RICO also permits a private individual "damaged in his business or property" by a "racketeer"
to file a civil suit. The plaintiff must prove the existence of an "enterprise". The defendant(s)
are not the enterprise; in other words, the defendant(s) and the enterprise are not one and the same.[3]
There must be one of four specified relationships between the defendant(s) and the enterprise: either
the defendant(s) invested the proceeds of the pattern of racketeering activity into the enterprise
(18 U.S.C. § 1962(a)); or the defendant(s) acquired or maintained an interest in, or control of,
the enterprise through the pattern of racketeering activity (subsection (b)); or the defendant(s)
conducted or participated in the affairs of the enterprise "through" the pattern of racketeering
activity (subsection (c)); or the defendant(s) conspired to do one of the above (subsection (d)).[4]
In essence, the enterprise is either the 'prize,' 'instrument,' 'victim,' or 'perpetrator' of the
racketeers.[5] A civil RICO action can be filed in state or federal court.[6]
@Max Havelaar
My guess: the outgoing Obama administration is in a last ditch killing frenzy, to
revenge Aleppo loss!
The Berlin bus blowup, The Russian ambassador in Turkey killed and the Red army's most eminent Alexandrov's
choir send to the bottom of the black sea.
Typical CIA ops to threaten world leaders to comply with the incumbent US elite.
Watch Mike Morell (CIA) threaten world leaders:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZK2FZGKAd0
The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the so-called "elites"
in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the
US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does
not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the US government is
the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell who has never been in combat and
never demonstrated any intellectual vigor is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly educated
opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have
brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not
follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
It is corrupt, annamaria, corrupt to the very core, corrupt throughout. Any talk of elections, honest
candidates, devoted elected representatives, etc., is sappy naivete. They're crooks; the sprinkling
of decent reps is minuscule and ineffective.
So, what to do? ,
@Max Havelaar
A serial killer, paid by US taxpayers. By universal human rights laws he would hang.
I agree with some, mostly the pro-Constitutionalist and moral spirit of the essay, but differ as
to when the Coup D'etat is going to or has already taken place .
The coup D'etat that destroyed our American Republic, and its last Constitutional President, John
F. Kennedy, took place 53 years ago on November 22, 1963. The coup was consolidated at the cost of 2
million Vietnamese and 1 million Indonesians (1965). The assassinations of JF Kennedy's brother, Robert
Kennedy, R. Kennedy's ally, Martin L. King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, John Lennon, and many others, followed.
Mr. Petras, the Coup D'etat has already happened.
Our mission must be the Restore our American Republic! This is The Only Road for us. There
are no shortcuts. The choice we were given (for Hollywood President), in 2016, between a psychotic Mass
Murderer, and a mid level Mafioso Casino Owner displayed the lack of respect the Oligarchs have for
the American Sheeple. Until we rise, we will never regain our self-respect, our Honor.
I enclose a copy of our Flier, our Declaration, For The Restoration of the Republic below,
for your perusal. We (of the Anarchist Collective), have distributed it as best we can.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal governments are instituted
among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute
new government, laying its foundation on such principles "
The above is a portion of the Declaration of Independence , written by Thomas Jefferson.
We submit the following facts to the citizens of the United States.
The government of the United States has been a Totalitarian Oligarchy since the military financial aristocracy
destroyed the Democratic Republic on November 22, 1963, when they assassinated the last democratically
elected president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy , and overthrew his government. All following governments
have been unconstitutional frauds. Attempts by Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King to restore the
Republic were interrupted by their murder.
A subsequent 12 year colonial war against Vietnam , conducted by the murderers of Kennedy,
left 2 million dead in a wake of napalm and burning villages.
In 1965 , the U.S. government orchestrated the slaughter of 1 million unarmed Indonesian civilians.
In the decade that followed the CIA murdered 100,000 Native Americans in Guatemala.
In the 1970s , the Oligarchy began the destruction and looting of America's middle class,
by encouraging the export of industry and jobs to parts of the world where workers were paid bare subsistence
wages. The 2008, Bailout of the Nation's Oligarchs cost American taxpayers $13trillion. The long
decline of the local economy has led to the political decline of our hard working citizens, as well
as the decay of cities, towns, and infrastructure, such as education.
The impoverishment of America's middle class has undermined the nation's financial stability. Without
a productive foundation, the government has accumulated a huge debt in excess of $19trillion . This debt will have to be paid, or suffered by future generations. Concurrently, the top 1% of the
nation's population has benefited enormously from the discomfiture of the rest. The interest rate has
been reduced to 0, thereby slowly robbing millions of depositors of their savings, as their savings
cannot stay even with the inflation rate.
The government spends the declining national wealth on bloody and never ending military adventures,
and is or has recently conducted unconstitutional wars against 9 nations. The Oligarchs maintain 700
military bases in 131 countries; they spend as much on military weapons of terror as the rest of the
nations of the world combined. Tellingly, more than half the government budget is spent on the military
and 16 associated secret agencies.
The nightmare of a powerful centralized government crushing the rights of the people, so feared by the
Founders of the United States, has become a reality. The government of Obama/Biden, as with previous
administrations such as Bush/Cheney, and whoever is chosen in November 2016, operates a Gulag of dozens
of concentration camps, where prisoners are denied trials, and routinely tortured. The Patriot Act
and The National Defense Authorizations Act , enacted by both Democratic and Republican factions
of the oligarchy, serve to establish a legal cover for their terror.
The nation's media is controlled , and, with the school systems, serve to brainwash the population;
the people are intimidated and treated with contempt.
The United States is No longer Sovereign
The United States is no longer a sovereign nation. Its government, The Executive, and Congress, is
bought, utterly owned and controlled by foreign and domestic wealthy Oligarchs, such as the Rothschilds,
Rockefellers, and Duponts , to name only a few of the best known.
The 2016 Electoral Circus will anoint new actors to occupy the same Unconstitutional Government,
with its controlling International Oligarchs. Clinton, Trump, whomever, are willing accomplices for
imperialist international murder, and destruction of nations, including ours.
For Love of Country
The Restoration of the Republic will be a Revolutionary Act, that will cancel all previous debts
owed to that unconstitutional regime and its business supporters. All debts, including Student Debts,
will be canceled. Our citizens will begin, anew, with a clean slate.
As American Founder, Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a letter to James Madison:
"I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, 'that the earth belongs in usufruct
to the living':"
"Then I say the earth belongs to each of these generations, during it's course, fully, and in their
own right. The 2d. Generation receives it clear of the debts and incumberances of the 1st. The 3d of
the 2d. and so on. For if the 1st. Could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead
and not the living generation."
Our Citizens must restore the centrality of the constitution, establishing a less powerful government
which will ensure President Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms , freedom of speech and expression,
freedom to worship God in ones own way, freedom from want "which means economic understandings which
will secure to every nation a healthy peace time life for its inhabitants " and freedom from fear "which means
a world-wide reduction of armaments "
Once restored: The Constitution will become, once again, the law of the land and of a free people.
We will establish a government, hold elections, begin to direct traffic, arrest criminal politicians
of the tyrannical oligarchy, and, in short, repair the damage of the previous totalitarian governments.
For the Democratic Republic! Sons and Daughters of Liberty [email protected]
@annamaria
The prominence of the "perfumed prince" Morell is the most telling indictment of the
so-called "elites" in the US. The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real
"deciders" in the US have brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not
do diplomacy, does not follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy
home and abroad. The proliferation of the incompetent and opportunists in the highest echelons of the
US government is the consequence of the lack of responsibility on the top. Morell - who has never been
in combat and never demonstrated any intellectual vigor - is a prime example of a sycophantic and poorly
educated opportunist that is endangering the US big time.
The arrogant, irresponsible (and untouchable) imbeciles among the real "deciders" in the US have
brought the country down to a sub-civilization status when the US does not do diplomacy, does not
follow international law, and does not keep with even marginal aspects of democracy home and abroad.
It is corrupt, annamaria, corrupt to the very core, corrupt throughout. Any talk of elections, honest
candidates, devoted elected representatives, etc., is sappy naivete. They're crooks; the sprinkling
of decent reps is minuscule and ineffective.
So, what to do?
Replies:
@Bill Jones
The corruption is endemic from top to bottom.
My previous residence was in Hamilton Township in Monroe County, PA . Population about 8,000.
The 3 Township Supervisors appointed themselves to township jobs- Road master, Zoning officer etc and
pay themselves twice the going rate with the occupant of the job under review abstaining while his two
palls vote him the money. Anybody challenging this is met with a shit-storm of propaganda and a mysterious
explosion in voter turn-out: guess who runs the local polls?
The chief of the local volunteer fire company has to sign off on the sprinkler systems before any occupation
certificate can be issued for a commercial building. Conveniently he runs a plumbing business. Guess
who gets the lion's share of plumbing jobs for new commercial buildings?
As they climb the greasy pole, it only gets worse.
Meanwhile the routine business of looting continues:
My local rag (an organ of the Murdoch crime family) had a little piece last year about the new 3 year
contract for the local county prison guards. I went back to the two previous two contracts and discovered
that by 2018 they will have had 33% increases over nine years. Between 2008 and 2013 (the latest years
I could find data for) median household income in the county decreased by 13%.
At some point some rogue politician will start fighting this battle.
If the US is split between Trump and Clinton supporters, then the staffs of the CIA and FBI are probably
split the same way.
The CIA and FBI leadership may take one position or another, but many CIA and FBI employees joined
these agencies in the first place to serve their country not to assist Neo-con MENA Imperial projects,
and they know a lot more than the general public about what is really going on.
Employees can really mess things up if they have a different political orientation to their employers.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
Trump will go Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political
foundation. I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both
sides of America's political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I'm hoping that Trump is running with the neocons just as far as is necessary to pressure congress
to confirm his cabinet appointments and make sure he isn't JFK'd before he gets into office and can
set about putting security in place to protect his own and his family's lives.
For John McBloodstain to vote for a SoS that will make nice with his nemesis; Putin, will require
massive amounts of Zio-pressure. The only way that pressure will come is if the Zio-cons are convinced
that Trump is their man.
Once his cabinet appointments are secured, then perhaps we might see some independence of action.
Not until. At least that is my hope, however naοve.
It isn't just the Zio-cons that want to poke the Russian bear, it's also the MIC. Trump has to navigate
a very dangerous mine field if he's going to end the Endless Wars and return sanity and peace to the
world. He's going to have to wrangle with the devil himself (the Fiend), and outplay him at his own
game.
I do not like saying it, but the appointment of the Palestinian hating Jew as ambassador to Israel
has disarmed the Jew community they can no longer call Trump an anti-Semite the most power two words
in America. The result is that the domestic side of the coup is over.
The Russian thing has to play out. The Jew forces will try and make bad blood between America and
Russia hopefully Trump and Putin will let it play out, but really ignore it.
If we get past the inauguration, the CIA is going to be toast. GOOD!
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) - doing his best to screw things up before
Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?
Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at war
with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act - providing
aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.
A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII.
Francis Boyle writes:
"... I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put
in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great
Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP.
Just have
the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax)
That's not entirely accurate. CIA people like Michael Scheuer and Valery Plame were trying to
undermine the neocon narrative about Iraq and WMD, not bolster it.
It seems that our POTUS has just chosen to eject 35 Russian diplomats from our country, on grounds
of hacking the election against Hillary.
Is this some weird, preliminary "shot across the bow" in preparation for the coming "coup attempt"
you seem to believe is in the offing ?
It seem the powers-that-be are pulling out all the stops to prevent an authentic rapprochement with
Moscow.
What for ?
It makes you wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye, something beyond the sanguine disgruntlement
of the party bosses and a desire for payback against Hillary's big loss ?
Does anyone know if Russia is more aware than most Americans of certain classified details pertaining
to stuff ..like 9-11 ?
Why is cooperation between the new administration and Moscow so scary to these people that they would
initiate a preemptive diplomatic shut down ?
They seem to be dead set on welding shut every single diplomatic door to the Kremlin there is , before
Trumps inauguration.
Perhaps something "else "is being planned ..Does anyone have any ideas whats going on ?
@Tomster
What does Russian intelligence know? Err ... perhaps something like that the US/UK have
sold nukes to the head-choppers of the riyadh caliphate, say (knowing how completely mad their incestuous
brains are?). Who knows? - but such a fact could explain many inexplicable things.
@Art
I do not like saying it, but the appointment of the Palestinian hating Jew as ambassador to
Israel has disarmed the Jew community they can no longer call Trump an anti-Semite the most power
two words in America. The result is that the domestic side of the coup is over.
The Russian thing has to play out. The Jew forces will try and make bad blood between America and Russia
hopefully Trump and Putin will let it play out, but really ignore it.
If we get past the inauguration, the CIA is going to be toast. GOOD!
Peace --- Art
"If we get past the inauguration ."
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) doing his best to screw things up
before Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?
Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at
war with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act providing
aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.
A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII. Francis Boyle writes:
" I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put
in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great
Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP. Just have
the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA
217-333-7954 (phone) 217-244-1478 (fax)
This is much ado about nothing - in a NYT's article today - they said that the DNC was told about
being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 - they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!
The RNC got smart - not the DNC - it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.
Really - how pissed off can they be?
Peace --- Art
p.s. I do not blame Obama he had to do something looks like he did the minimum.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance on
Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It
is a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if
Israel remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis
to do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers,
drive the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors.
Replies:
@joe webb
masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer
moms on the Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever,
but probably did not come from Trump.
As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist
claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either
"solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced
security stance and quality of life for Israelis."
That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty
with Israel, and then continue to press their claims...Israel would have the moral high ground to beat
hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public
opinion.
Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and
morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs
is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.
I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now. Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains
for the jews.
Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big
time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he
is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but...
Joe Webb ,
@RobinG
"A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers,
drive the nails, throw out the trash."
"The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented any facts
and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly
described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC,
NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa."
You left out Fox, most of their news anchors and pundits are rabidly pro Israel and anti Russia.
There is a pretty good chance, since all else has failed so far, Obama will declare 'a special situation
martial law'. And you can be sure many on both sides of Congress will comply. This will once again demonstrate
who is on the power elite payroll. If this happens hopefully the military will be on Trumps side and
round up those responsible and proper justice meted out.
@map
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance
on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is
a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel
remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to
do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by? The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors.
masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer moms on the
Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever, but probably
did not come from Trump.
As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist
claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either
"solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced
security stance and quality of life for Israelis."
That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty
with Israel, and then continue to press their claims Israel would have the moral high ground to beat
hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public
opinion.
Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and
morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs
is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.
I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now. Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains
for the jews.
Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big
time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he
is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but
Joe Webb
Replies:
@map
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think
their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling
will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result
in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board
going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a
lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
@Realist
"The 'experts' were trotted out voicing vitriolic accusations, but they never presented
any facts and documentation of a 'rigged election'. Everyday, every hour, the 'Russian Plot' was breathlessly
described in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Financial Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, BBC,
NPR and their overseas followers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Oceana and Africa."
You left out Fox, most of their news anchors and pundits are rabidly pro Israel and anti Russia.
There is a pretty good chance, since all else has failed so far, Obama will declare 'a special situation
martial law'. And you can be sure many on both sides of Congress will comply. This will once again demonstrate
who is on the power elite payroll. If this happens hopefully the military will be on Trumps side and
round up those responsible and proper justice meted out.
The obscenity of the US behavior abroad leads directly to an alliance of ziocons and war profiteers.
Here is a highly educational paper on the exceptional amorality of the US administration:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article194709.html
"The existence of a NATO bunker in East Aleppo confirms what we have been saying about the role of NATO
LandCom in the coordination of the jihadists The liberation of Syria should continue at Idleb the
zone is de facto governed by NATO via a string of pseudo-NGO's. At least, this is what was noted last
month by a US think-tank. To beat the jihadists there, it will be necessary first of all to cut their
supply lines, in other words, close the Turtkish frontier. This is what Russian diplomacy is currently
working on." Well. After wasting the uncounted trillions of US dollars on the war on terror and after filling the
VA hospitals with the ruined young men and women and after bringing death a destruction on apocalyptic
scale to the Middle East in the name of 9/11, the US has found new bosom buddies the hordes of fanatical
jihadis.
Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats today (effective Friday) - doing his best to screw things up before
Trump takes office. Will he start WWIII, then say Trump can't transition during war?
Obama has authorized transfer of weapons, including MANPADS, to terrorist affiliates. If we are at war
with terrorists, isn't this Treason? It is most certainly a felony under the Patriot Act - providing
aid, directly or indirectly, to terrorists.
A Bill of Impeachment against Obama might stave off WWIII. Francis Boyle writes: "... I am willing to serve as Counsel to any Member of the US House of Representatives willing to put
in a Bill of Impeachment against Obama as soon as Congress reconvenes-just as I did to the late, great
Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez on his Bill to Impeach Bush Sr. on the eve of Gulf War I. RIP. Just have
the MOC get in touch with me as indicated below.
Francis A. Boyle Law Building 504 E. Pennsylvania Ave. Champaign IL 61820 USA 217-333-7954 (phone)
217-244-1478 (fax)
Hi RobinG,
This is much ado about nothing in a NYT's article today they said that the DNC was told about
being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!
The RNC got smart not the DNC it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.
Really how pissed off can they be?
Peace - Art
p.s. I do not blame Obama he had to do something looks like he did the minimum.
I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking
is nil.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine,
his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin,
and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates
in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.
The feds have now released their reports, detailing how the dastardly Russians darkly influenced
the 2016 presidential election by releasing Democrats' emails, and giving the American public a peek
inside the Democrat machine.
Those dastardly Russkies have informed and enlightened the American public for long enough! This
shall not stand!
This is much ado about nothing - in a NYT's article today - they said that the DNC was told about
being hacked in the fall or winter of 2015 - they all knew the Russian were hacking all along!
The RNC got smart - not the DNC - it is 100% their fault. Right now they look real stupid.
Really - how pissed off can they be?
Peace --- Art
p.s. I do not blame Obama he had to do something looks like he did the minimum.
Hi Art,
I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking
is nil.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in
Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization
of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates
in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in
Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization
of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
RobinG --- Agree 100% - some times I get things crossed up --- Peace Art
I assume that everyone agrees that the final outcome of the security breach was that 'Wikileaks'
leaked internal emails of Clinton Campaign Manager Pedesta and DNC emails regarding embarrassing behavior.
No one is suggesting that the leaked information is 'fake news'.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic
campaign itself.
Given that Podesta's password was 'P@ssw0rd' - does it take Russian deep state security to hack?
Though CAP is still having issues with my email and computer, yours is good to go. jpodesta p@ssw0rd
The report is 13 pages of mostly nothing.
Note the Disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: This report is provided "as is" for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.
DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This
document is distributed as TLP:WHITE: Subject to standard copyright rules, TLP:WHITE information may
be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic Light Protocol, see
https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp .
@annamaria
The obscenity of the US behavior abroad leads directly to an alliance of ziocons and
war profiteers. Here is a highly educational paper on the exceptional amorality of the US administration:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article194709.html
"The existence of a NATO bunker in East Aleppo confirms what we have been saying about the role of NATO
LandCom in the coordination of the jihadists... The liberation of Syria should continue at Idleb ...
the zone is de facto governed by NATO via a string of pseudo-NGO's. At least, this is what was noted
last month by a US think-tank. To beat the jihadists there, it will be necessary first of all to cut
their supply lines, in other words, close the Turtkish frontier. This is what Russian diplomacy is currently
working on."
Well. After wasting the uncounted trillions of US dollars on the war on terror and after filling the
VA hospitals with the ruined young men and women and after bringing death a destruction on apocalyptic
scale to the Middle East in the name of 9/11, the US has found new bosom buddies - the hordes of fanatical
jihadis.
@joe webb
masterful interpretation here. But I doubt it , in spades. Trump cooled out the soccer
moms on the Negroes by yakking about Uplift. And he reduced the black vote a tad. That was very clever,
but probably did not come from Trump.
As for "The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those revanchist
claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return. Either
"solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly reduced
security stance and quality of life for Israelis."
That is a huge claim which is not substantiated with argument. If the Palestinians sign a peace treaty
with Israel, and then continue to press their claims...Israel would have the moral high ground to beat
hell out of them. Clearly, the jews got the guns, and the Palestinians got nothing but world public
opinion.
Please present an argument on just how Palestinians and other Arabs could continue to logically and
morally challenge Israel. Right now, the only thing preventing Israel from cleansing Israel of Arabs
is world public opinion. That public opinion is real and a huge factor.
I have been arguing that T. may be outfoxing the jews, but I doubt it now. Don't forget the Christian evangelical vote and Christians generally who have a soft spot in their brains
for the jews.
Also, T's claim that he will end the ME wars is a big problem if he is going to go after Isis, big
time, in Syria or anywhere else. He has put himself in the rock/hard place position. I don't think he
is that smart. I voted for him of course and sent money, but...
Joe Webb
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think their
land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling will not
change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result in is a
comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on
board going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose
a lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
Replies:
@Tomster
"treated very shabbily" indeed, by other Arabs - who have done virtually nothing for them.
,
@joe webb
good points. Yet, Palestinians ..."They should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim
Middle East." sounds pretty much like an Israel talking point. How about Israel should be dissolved and the Jews repatriated around Europe and the US?
Not being an Idea world, but a Biological World, revanchism is true enough up to a point. Of course
The Revanchists of All Time are the jews, or the zionists, to speak liberalize.
As for feelings that don't change, there is a tendency for feelings to change over time, especially
when a "legal" document is signed by the participating parties. I have long advocated that the Jews
pay for the land they stole, and that that payment be made to a new Palestinian state. A Palestinian
with a home, a job, a family, and a nice car makes a lot of difference, just like anywhere else.
(We paid the Mexicans in a treaty that presumably ended the Mexican war. This is a normal state of affairs.
Mexico only "owned" California, etc, for about 25 years, and I do not think paid the injuns anything
for their land at the time. Also, if memory serves, I think Pat Buchanan claimed somewhere that there
were only about 10,000 Mexicans in California at the time, or maybe in the whole area under discussion..)
How Palestine stolen property, should be evaluated I leave to the experts. Jews would appear to have
ample resources and could pony up the dough.
The biggest problem is the US evangelicals and equally important, the nice Episcopalians and so on,
even the Catholic Church which used to Exclude Jews now luving them. This is part of our National Religion.
The Jews are god's favorites, and nobody seems to mind. Kill an Arab for Christ is the national gut
feeling, except when it gets too expensive or kills too many Americans.
As I have said, Trump is in between the rock and the hard place. If he wants to end the Jewish Wars
in the ME, he cannot luv the jews, and especially he cannot start lobbing bombs around too much...even
over Isis and the dozens of jihadist groups, especially now in Syria.
Sorry but your "comfortably repatriated" is a real howler. There is no comfort to be had by anybody
in the ME. And, like Jews with regard to your points about revanchism in general, Palestinians have
not blended into the general Arab populations of other countries, like Lebanon, etc.. Using your own
logic, the Palestinians will continue to nurse their grievances no matter where they are, just like
the Jews.
The neocon goals of failed states in the Arab World has been largely accomplished and the only way humpty-dumpty
will be put back together again is for tough Arab Strong Men to reestablish order. Like Assad, like
Hussein, etc. Arab IQ is about 85 in general. There is not going to be democracy/elections/civics lessons per the White countries's genetic predisposition.\
For that matter, Jews are not democrats. Left alone Israel, wherever it is, reverts to Rabbinic Control
and Jehovah, the Warrior God, reigns. Fact is , that is where Israel is heading anyway. Jews never invented free speech and rule of law, nor did Arabs, or any other race on the planet.
The Jews With Nukes is of World Historical Importance. And Whites have given them the Bomb, just as
Whites have given Third World inferior races, access to the Northern Cornucopia of wealth, both spiritual
and material. They will , like the jews, exploit free speech and game the economic system.
All Semites Out! Ditto just about everybody else, starting with the Chinese.
finally, if the jews had any real brains, they would get out of a neighborhood that hates them for their
jewishness, their Thefts, and their Wars. Otoh, Jews seem to thrive on being hated more than any other
race or ethnic group. Chosen to Always Complain.
I assume that everyone agrees that the final outcome of the security breach was that 'Wikileaks'
leaked internal emails of Clinton Campaign Manager Pedesta and DNC emails regarding embarrassing behavior.
No one is suggesting that the leaked information is 'fake news'.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic
campaign itself.
Given that Podesta's password was 'P@ssw0rd' -- does it take Russian deep state security to hack?
Though CAP is still having issues with my email and computer, yours is good to go. jpodesta p@ssw0rd
The report is 13 pages of mostly nothing.
Note the Disclaimer:
DISCLAIMER: This report is provided "as is" for informational purposes only. The Department of Homeland
Security (DHS) does not provide any warranties of any kind regarding any information contained within.
DHS does not endorse any commercial product or service referenced in this advisory or otherwise. This
document is distributed as TLP:WHITE: Subject to standard copyright rules, TLP:WHITE information may
be distributed without restriction. For more information on the Traffic Light Protocol, see https://www.us-cert.gov/tlp.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the
Democratic campaign itself.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
"Was" is the operative word:
Julian Assange Suggests That DNC's Seth Rich Was Murdered For Being a Wikileaker
https://heatst.com/tech/wikileaks-offers-20000-for-information-about-seth-richs-killer/ ,
@alexander
Given all the hoaky, "evidence free" punitive assaults being launched against Moscow
today ....combined with the profusion of utterly fraudulent narratives foisted down the throats of the
American people over the last sixteen years...
Its NOT outside of reason to take a good hard look at the "Seth Rich incident" and reconstruct an
outline of events(probably) much closer to the truth than the big media would ever be willing to discuss
or admit.
Namely, that Seth Rich, a young decent kid (27) who was working as the data director for the campaign,
came across evidence of "dirty pool" within the voting systems during the DNC nomination ,which were
fraudulently (and maybe even blatantly) tilting the results towards Hillary.
He probably did the "right thing" by notifying one of the DNC bosses of the fraud ..who informed
him he would look into it and that he should keep it quite for the moment...
.I wouldn't be surprised if Seth reached out to a reporter , too, probably at the at the NY Times,
who informed his editor...who, in turn, had such deep connections to the Hillary corruption machine...that
he placed a call to a DNC backroom boss ... who , at some point, made the decision to take steps to
shut Seth's mouth, permanently...."just make it look like a robbery (or something)"
Seth, not being stupid, and knowing he had the dirt on Hillary that could crush her (as well as the
reputation of the entire democratic party)......probably reached out to Julian Assange, too, to hedge
his bets.
In the interview Julian gave shortly after Seth's death, he intimated that Seth was the leak, although
he did not state it outright.
Something like this sequence of events (with perhaps a few alterations ) is probably quite close
to what actually happened.
So here we have a scenario, where the D.N.C. Oligarchs , so corrupt, so evil, so disdainful of the
electorate, and the democratic process , rig the nomination results (on multiple levels) for Hillary..and
when the evidence of this is found, by a decent young kid with his whole life ahead of him, they had
him shot in the back.....four times...
And then "Big Media for Hillary", rather than investigate this horrific tragedy and expose the dirty
malevolence at play within the DNC , quashes the entire narrative and grafts in its place the"substitute"
Putin hacks..... demanding faux accountability... culminating with sanctions and ejections of the entire
Russian diplomatic corp.......all on the grounds of attempting to "sully American Democracy"
.
But hey, that's life in the USA....Right, Seamus ?
"what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled by anti-nationalist
policies. "
The longer Israel persists in its "facts-on-the-ground" thievery, the less moral standing it has
for its white country. And it is a racist state also within its own "borders."
A pathetic excuse for a country. Without the USA it wouldn't exist.
A black mark on both countries' report cards.
@map
I wish people would stop making a big deal out of John Kerry's and Barack Obama's recent stance
on Israel. Neither of them are concerned about whatever injustice happened to the Palestinians.
What they are concerned with is Israeli actions discrediting the anti-white, anti-national globalism
program before it has successfully destroyed all of the white nations. That is the real reason why they
want a two-state solution or a right of return. If nationalists can look at the Israeli example as a
model for how to proceed then that will cause a civil war among leftists and discredit the entire left-wing
project.
Trump, therefore, pushing support for Israel's national concerns is not him bending to AIPAC. It is
a shrewd move that forces an internecine conflict between left-wing diaspora Jews and Israeli Jews.
It is a conflict Bibi is willing to have because the pet project of leftism would necessarily result
in Israel either being unlivable or largely extinct for its Jewish population. This NWO being pushed
by the diaspora is not something that will be enjoyed by Israeli Jews.
Consider the problem. The problem is that Palestinians have revanchist claims against Israel. Those
revanchist claims do not go away just because they get their own country or they get a right of return.
Either "solution" actually strengthens the Palestinian claim against Israel and results in a vastly
reduced security stance and quality of life for Israelis. The diaspora left is ok with that because
they want to continue importing revanchist groups into Europe and America to break down white countries.
So, Israel makes a small sacrifice for the greater good of anti-whitism, a deal that most Israelis do
not consider very good for themselves. Trump's support for Israeli nationalism short-circuits this project.
Of course, one could ask: why don't the Israeli Jews just move to America? What's the big deal if Israel
remains in the middle east? The big deal is the kind of jobs and activities available for Israelis to
do. A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash. Everyone can't be a doctor, a lawyer or a banker. Tradesmen, technicians,
workers are all required to get a project like Israel off the ground and maintained. How many of these
Israelis doing scut work in Israel for a greater good want to do the same scut work in America just
to get by?
The problem operates in reverse for American Jews. A Jew with an American law degree is of
no use to Israelis outside of the money he brings and whether he can throw out the trash. Diaspora Jews,
therefore, have no reason to try and live and work in Israel.
So, again, we see that Trump's move is a masterstroke. Even his appointment to counter the coup with
Zionists is brilliant, since these Zionists are rich enough to both live anywhere and indulge their
pride in nationalist endeavors.
"A real nation requires a lot of scut work. Someone has to do the plumbing, unplug the sewers, drive
the nails, throw out the trash."
Perhaps you'd like to discuss why so much of this and other "scut work" is done by Palestinians,
while an increasing number of Israeli Jews are on the dole.
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
"As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right . "
THEN WHY DOESN'T HE DO WHAT'S RIGHT? As Seamus Padraig pointed out, the UN abstention is "just more
empty symbolism." Meanwhile The Christmas Eve attack on the First Amendment The approval of arming terrorists in Syria
The fake news about Russian hacking throwing Killary's election
Aid to terrorists is a felony. Obama should be indicted.
I try to write clearly, but if this is your response I've failed miserably. My interest in the hacking
is nil.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup in Ukraine,
his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization of Putin,
and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
Obama has been providing weapons, training, air support and propaganda for Terrorists via their affiliates
in Syria, and now directly. This is a felony, if not treason.
What I have against Obama is his regime-change war in Syria, his State Department enabled coup
in Ukraine, his support of Saudi war/genocide against Yemen, his destruction of Libya, his demonization
of Putin, and his bringing us to a status near war in our relations with Russia.
RobinG - Agree 100% some times I get things crossed up - Peace Art
@Mark Green
This is a good article but there's been a sudden shift. Incredibly, Obama has finally
gotten some balls in his dealings with Israel. And Trump is starting to sound like a neocon!
Maybe Trump is worried enough about a potential coup to dump his 'America First' platform (at least
for now) to shore up vital Jewish support for his teetering inauguration. This ploy will require a lot
of pro-Zionist noise and gesturing. Consequently, Trump is starting to play a familiar political role.
And the Zio-friendly media is holding his feet to the fire.
Has the smell of fear pushed Trump over the edge and into the lap of the Zionist establishment? It's
beginning to look that way.
Or is Trump just being a fox?
Let's face it: nobody can pull out all the stops better than Israel's Fifth Column. They've got the
money, the organization skills, the media leverage, and the raw intellectual moxie to make political
miracles/disasters happen. Trump wants them on his side. So he's is tacitly cutting a last-minute deal
with the Israelis. Trump's Zionized rhetoric (and political appointments) prove it.
This explains the apparent reversal that's now underway. Obama's pushing back while Trump is accommodating.
And, as usual, the Zions are dictating the Narrative.
As Israel Shamir reminds us: there's nothing as liberating to a politician as leaving office. Therefore,
Obama is finally free to do what's right. Trump however is facing no such luxury. And Bibi is more defiant
than ever. This is high drama. And Trump is feeling the heat.
Indeed, outgoing Sec. John Kerry just delivered a major speech where he reiterated strongly US support
for a real 'Two State' solution in Israel/Palestine.
And I thought the Two State Solution was dead.
Didn't you?
Kerry also criticized Israel's ongoing confiscation of the Occupied Territories. It was a brilliant
analysis that Kerry gave without the aid of a teleprompter. Hugely impressive. Even so, Kerry did not
throw Israel under the bus, as claimed. His speech was extremely fair.
This renewed, steadfast American position, coupled with the UNSC's unanimous vote against Israel
(which Obama permitted by not casting the usual US veto) has set the stage for a monumental showdown.
Israel has never been more isolated. But it's Trump--not Obama--that's looking weak in the face of Israeli
pressure.
Indeed, the international Jewish establishment remains uniquely powerful. They may be hated (and
appropriately so) but they get things accomplished in the political arena. Trump understands this all-too-well.
Will Trump--out of fear and necessity--run with the mega-powerful Jews who tried to sabotage his
campaign?--Or will he stay strong with America First and avoid "any more disasterous wars". It's impossible
to say. Trump is speaking out of both sides of his mouth.
I get the feeling that even Trump is unsure of where all this is going. But the situation is fast
approaching critical mass. Something's gotta give. The entire world is fed up with Israel.
Will Trump blink and take the easy road with the Zions?--Or will he summon Putin's independent, nationalistic
spirit and stay the course of 'America First'?
Unfortunately, having scrutinized the Zions in action for decades, I'm fearful that Trump will go
Pure Washington and run with the Israeli-Firsters. This will fortify his shaky political foundation.
I hope that I'm wrong about this but the Zions are brilliantly equipped to play both sides of America's
political divide. No politician is immune to their machinations.
Most of the Western world is much sicker of the head-choppers in charge of our 'human rights' at
the UN (thanks to Obama and the UK) than it is of Israel. It is they, not we, who have funded ISIS directly.
It seems that our POTUS has just chosen to eject 35 Russian diplomats from our country, on grounds of
hacking the election against Hillary.
Is this some weird, preliminary "shot across the bow" in preparation for the coming "coup attempt" you
seem to believe is in the offing ?
It seem the powers-that-be are pulling out all the stops to prevent an authentic rapprochement with
Moscow.
What for ?
It makes you wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye, something beyond the sanguine disgruntlement
of the party bosses and a desire for payback against Hillary's big loss ?
Does anyone know if Russia is more aware than most Americans of certain classified details pertaining
to stuff.....like 9-11 ?
Why is cooperation between the new administration and Moscow so scary to these people that they would
initiate a preemptive diplomatic shut down ?
They seem to be dead set on welding shut every single diplomatic door to the Kremlin there is , before
Trumps inauguration.
Perhaps something "else "is being planned........Does anyone have any ideas whats going on ?
What does Russian intelligence know? Err perhaps something like that the US/UK have sold nukes
to the head-choppers of the riyadh caliphate, say (knowing how completely mad their incestuous brains
are?). Who knows? but such a fact could explain many inexplicable things.
@map
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think
their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling
will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result
in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board
going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a
lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
"treated very shabbily" indeed, by other Arabs who have done virtually nothing for them.
An alternative hypothesis is that the Wikileaks material was, in fact, leaked by members of the Democratic
campaign itself.
His name was Seth Rich, and he did software for the DNC.
Given all the hoaky, "evidence free" punitive assaults being launched against Moscow today .combined
with the profusion of utterly fraudulent narratives foisted down the throats of the American people
over the last sixteen years
Its NOT outside of reason to take a good hard look at the "Seth Rich incident" and reconstruct an
outline of events(probably) much closer to the truth than the big media would ever be willing to discuss
or admit.
Namely, that Seth Rich, a young decent kid (27) who was working as the data director for the campaign,
came across evidence of "dirty pool" within the voting systems during the DNC nomination ,which were
fraudulently (and maybe even blatantly) tilting the results towards Hillary.
He probably did the "right thing" by notifying one of the DNC bosses of the fraud ..who informed
him he would look into it and that he should keep it quite for the moment
.I wouldn't be surprised if Seth reached out to a reporter , too, probably at the at the NY Times,
who informed his editor who, in turn, had such deep connections to the Hillary corruption machine that
he placed a call to a DNC backroom boss who , at some point, made the decision to take steps to shut
Seth's mouth, permanently ."just make it look like a robbery (or something)"
Seth, not being stupid, and knowing he had the dirt on Hillary that could crush her (as well as the
reputation of the entire democratic party) probably reached out to Julian Assange, too, to hedge his
bets.
In the interview Julian gave shortly after Seth's death, he intimated that Seth was the leak, although
he did not state it outright.
Something like this sequence of events (with perhaps a few alterations ) is probably quite close
to what actually happened.
So here we have a scenario, where the D.N.C. Oligarchs , so corrupt, so evil, so disdainful of the
electorate, and the democratic process , rig the nomination results (on multiple levels) for Hillary..and
when the evidence of this is found, by a decent young kid with his whole life ahead of him, they had
him shot in the back ..four times
And then "Big Media for Hillary", rather than investigate this horrific tragedy and expose the dirty
malevolence at play within the DNC , quashes the entire narrative and grafts in its place the"substitute"
Putin hacks .. demanding faux accountability culminating with sanctions and ejections of the entire
Russian diplomatic corp .all on the grounds of attempting to "sully American Democracy"
.
@map
The revanchist claim that I refer to is psychological, not moral or legal. Palestinians think
their land was stolen in the same way Mexicans think Texas and California were stolen. That feeling
will not change just because they get a two-state solution or a right of return. What it will result
in is a comfortable base from which to continue to operate against Israel, one that Israel can't afford.
It is Nationalism 101 not to allow revanchist groups in your country.
The leftists are being consistent in their ideology by opposing Israel, because they are fully on board
going after what looks like a white country attacking brown people and demanding not to be dismantled
by anti-nationalist policies. Trump suggesting the capital go to Jerusalem and supporting Bibi is just
triangulation against the left.
I feel sorry for the Palestinians and I think they have been treated very shabbily. They did lose a
lot as any refugee population would and they should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East. I don't know who is using them or for what purpose.
good points. Yet, Palestinians "They should be comfortably repatriated around the Muslim Middle
East." sounds pretty much like an Israel talking point. How about Israel should be dissolved and the Jews repatriated around Europe and the US?
Not being an Idea world, but a Biological World, revanchism is true enough up to a point. Of course
The Revanchists of All Time are the jews, or the zionists, to speak liberalize.
As for feelings that don't change, there is a tendency for feelings to change over time, especially
when a "legal" document is signed by the participating parties. I have long advocated that the Jews
pay for the land they stole, and that that payment be made to a new Palestinian state. A Palestinian
with a home, a job, a family, and a nice car makes a lot of difference, just like anywhere else.
(We paid the Mexicans in a treaty that presumably ended the Mexican war. This is a normal state of
affairs. Mexico only "owned" California, etc, for about 25 years, and I do not think paid the injuns
anything for their land at the time. Also, if memory serves, I think Pat Buchanan claimed somewhere
that there were only about 10,000 Mexicans in California at the time, or maybe in the whole area under
discussion..)
How Palestine stolen property, should be evaluated I leave to the experts. Jews would appear to have
ample resources and could pony up the dough.
The biggest problem is the US evangelicals and equally important, the nice Episcopalians and so on,
even the Catholic Church which used to Exclude Jews now luving them. This is part of our National Religion.
The Jews are god's favorites, and nobody seems to mind. Kill an Arab for Christ is the national gut
feeling, except when it gets too expensive or kills too many Americans.
As I have said, Trump is in between the rock and the hard place. If he wants to end the Jewish Wars
in the ME, he cannot luv the jews, and especially he cannot start lobbing bombs around too much even
over Isis and the dozens of jihadist groups, especially now in Syria.
Sorry but your "comfortably repatriated" is a real howler. There is no comfort to be had by anybody
in the ME. And, like Jews with regard to your points about revanchism in general, Palestinians have
not blended into the general Arab populations of other countries, like Lebanon, etc.. Using your own
logic, the Palestinians will continue to nurse their grievances no matter where they are, just like
the Jews.
The neocon goals of failed states in the Arab World has been largely accomplished and the only way
humpty-dumpty will be put back together again is for tough Arab Strong Men to reestablish order. Like
Assad, like Hussein, etc. Arab IQ is about 85 in general. There is not going to be democracy/elections/civics lessons per the White countries's genetic predisposition.\
For that matter, Jews are not democrats. Left alone Israel, wherever it is, reverts to Rabbinic Control
and Jehovah, the Warrior God, reigns. Fact is , that is where Israel is heading anyway.
Jews never invented free speech and rule of law, nor did Arabs, or any other race on the planet.
The Jews With Nukes is of World Historical Importance. And Whites have given them the Bomb, just
as Whites have given Third World inferior races, access to the Northern Cornucopia of wealth, both spiritual
and material. They will , like the jews, exploit free speech and game the economic system.
All Semites Out! Ditto just about everybody else, starting with the Chinese.
finally, if the jews had any real brains, they would get out of a neighborhood that hates them for
their jewishness, their Thefts, and their Wars. Otoh, Jews seem to thrive on being hated more than any
other race or ethnic group. Chosen to Always Complain. Joe Webb
Trump has absolutely no support in the media. With the Fox News and Fox Business, first string, talking
heads on vacation (minimal support) the second and third string are insanely trying to push the Russian
hacking bullshit. Trump better realize that the only support he has are the people that voted for him.
January 2017 will be a bad month for this country and the rest of 2017 much worse.
Sorry Joe, the "whites" did not give the Jews the atomic bomb. In truth, the Jews were critically
important in developing the scientific ideas and technology critical to making the first atomic bomb.
I can recognize Jewish malfeasance where it exists, but to ignore their intellectual contributions
to Western Civilization is sheer blindness.
One thing lost in all the hullabaloo about Russian hacks is that the Obama
administration's record on cyber security has been terrible. Off the top of my
head I can think of several compromising cases:
* Anything having to do with HRC's bathroom server, of course
* The Sony hack that Obama said was North Korea, but other experts say was
probably just Trump's 400 lb fat guy on a bed.
* The alleged Chinese hacking of OPM
* And undoubtedly the "CYBER 911!!" of the alleged Russian interference in the
election.
I don't see anyone talking about the fact that cyber infrastructure looks
like it's been hit by birdshot. All the while, Obama's intelligence teams are
mining information on Americans as extralegally as possible.
"Russia tampered with vote tallies to help Donald Trump"
Yeah, that seems like a clear statement, but when you consider that the vast majority of people
do not habitually read closely and interpret things literally, I can see how this would easily
be misinterpreted.
Russia tampered with the election to help Donald Trump. That's a fairly well established fact.
It's not the same as "tampered with vote tallies" but an inattentive poll respondent might assume
the question was about the former. And most people are inattentive.
"Russia tampered with the election to help Donald Trump. That's a fairly well established fact."
You are funny. Especially with your "well established fact" nonsense.
In such cases the only source of well established facts is a court of law or International
observers of the elections. All other agencies have their own interest in distorting the truth.
For example, to get additional funding.
And that list includes President Obama himself, as a player, because he clearly was a Hillary
supporter and as such can not be considered an impartial player and can politically benefit from
shifting the blame for fiasco to Russia.
Also historically, he never was very truthful with American people, was he? As in case of his
"Change we can believe in!" bait and switch trick.
There were several other important foreign players in the US elections: for example KAS and
Israel. Were their actions investigated? Especially in the area of financial support of candidates.
And then FYI there is a documented history of US tampering in Russian Presidential election
of 2011-2012 such as meetings of the US ambassador with the opposition leaders, financing of opposition
via NGO, putting pressure by publishing election pools produced by US financed non-profits, and
so on and so forth. All in the name of democracy, of course. Which cost Ambassador McFaul his
position; NED was kicked out of the country.
As far as I remember nobody went to jail in the USA for those activities. There was no investigation.
So it looks like the USA authorities considered this to be a pretty legal activity. Then why they
complain now?
And then there is the whole rich history of CIA subverting elections in Latin America.
So is not this a case of "the pot calling the kettle black"?
I don't know. But I would avoid your simplistic position. The case is too complex for this.
At least more complex that the narrative the neoliberal MSMs try to present us with. It might
be Russian influence was a factor, but it might be that it was negligible and other factors were
in play. There is also a pre-history and there are other suspects.
You probably need to see a wider context of the event.
Some perspective: For most of human history, power was rooted in
possession
of land. After the
Industrial Revolution , power lay in controlling in the means of production. But today, the main
source of power is control of information.
Having the power to control information (what Steve Sailer calls
The Megaphone ) gives you the ability to determine what issues will be discussed, what
viewpoints are considered legitimate, and who is allowed to participate in polite society. It
ultimately allows you to push an entire code of morality on others. And morality is, ultimately,
a weapon more terrible than can be found in any arsenal [
Weaponized Morality , by Gregory Hood, Radix, October 12, 2016].
The 2016 election was ultimately a battle between the
commanding heights of media (newspapers, networks, and web portals) and what we could call the
guerillas of media (/pol, forums, hackers,
right wing trolls , and independent media outlets like us). The latter lacked power on their
own, but they united behind Donald Trump, a man whose brand was so well-established that the Establishment
couldn't ignore him. It was
Fourth Generation Warfare this time over information.
And just as guerillas have been frustrating established armies all around the world on real-world
battlefields, so did the online commandos frustrate and eventually overcome the seemingly invincible
Fourth Estate.
But this victory wasn't inevitable. From day one,
the MSM tried to destroy Donald Trump , including his business empire, because of his stated
views on immigration.
Since that failed, they have started turning on his supporters with three tactics.
First , a blatant attempt to pathologize dissentespecially the Alt Right.
Soon after the election, the Leftist Think Progress blog announced that the Alt Right should
only be called "white nationalist" or "white supremacist". [
Think Progress will no longer describe racists as "alt-right" , November 22, 2016]
The AP dutifully echoed this pronouncement days later, warning journalists not to use the term and
instead to stick to pejoratives. [
AP issues guidelines for using the term 'alt-right,' by Brent Griffiths, Politico,
November 28, 2016]
This is a literally
Orwellian attempt to eliminate Crimethink through
linguistic control
. Of course, no such guidelines will apply to non-white Identitarian groups such as the National
Council of La Raza, which will continue to be called an "advocacy" or "progressive grass-roots immigration-reform
organization" [
NCLR head: Obama 'deporter-in-chief, ' by Reid Epstein, Politico, March 4,
2016].
Secondly , a meme has been invented about so-called
"Fake News," which will be used to shut down
dissident media outlets.
Needless to say, most the rationale for this is not just fake, but comically, obviously, wrong.
Thus the Washington Post
reported that VDARE.com (and many other sites) was a "Russian propaganda effort" based on no
evidence at all. We ask: where is our vodka?
Rolling Stone, which
pushed one of the most disgusting hoaxes in
modern journalism at the University
of Virginia, is having
meetings with President
Obama to discuss "fake news." The Guardian
fell for what appears to be a hoax decrying "online hate" precisely because it is impossible
to tell the difference today between the latest virtue signaling craze and satire.
Actual attacks on Trump supporters are not covered, while unsourced, unverified claims of a wave
of "hate crimes," which mostly consists of handwritten notes most likely written by the supposed
"victims" or
incidents so trivial normal people wouldn't even notice , dominate the headlines.
This is a far more insidious form of "fake news" than anything "the Russians" are promoting. And
what about the lie of "
hands up, don't shoot ?"
Another example: supposedly mainstream outlets are comfortable leveling wild charges Steve Bannon
is somehow a "white nationalist." Bannon on the evidence is actually a
civic nationalist who has specifically denounced racism and, if anything, is showing troubling
signs of moving towards the
"DemsRRealRacist"- style talking points which led Conservatism Inc. to disaster. There are absolutely
no statements by Bannon actually calling for, say, a white ethnostate.
Thirdly , the Trump victory is clearly leading to increased attempts at outright
repression.
Or, as VDARE.com Editor Peter Brimelow
told the NPI conference: "What we are going to see in the next few years is an intensified Reign
Of Terror."
For example, Buzzfeed's latest masterpiece of journalism: the shocking revelation that
reality stars Chip and Joanna Gaines attend a church that disagrees with homosexual marriage [
Chip and Joanna Gaines' Church Is Firmly Against Same-Sex Marriage , by Kate Aurthur,
Buzzfeed, November 29, 2016]. You knowlike every Christian church for about 2000 years. The
obvious agenda: to get the show canceled or the Gaines to disavow their own pastor.
This is the goal of most "journalism" todayto get someone fired or to get someone to disavow
someone. The
Southern Poverty Law Center (
$PLC to VDARE.com) makes a
lucrative income from
policing speech . ( Right, a graph of their endowment fund.)And journalists today are no different
than the $PLC. They do not report, they do not provide information, and rather than ensuring freedom
they are the willing tools of repression.
And this repression only goes one way.
If you wouldn't invite
some communist demonstrator into your meeting, why would you invite an MSM journalist? They have
the same beliefs, the same motivations, and increasingly, they rely on the same tactics. Aside from
the occasional throwing of feces (as Richard Spencer learned at NPI), the preferred tactic of "Antifa"
consists of pearl-clutching blog posts.
Since the election, journalists have been paying tribute to their own courage, promising to hold
Trump accountable. But there is no greater enemy to free speech than reporters. Shutting down the
networks and shuttering the newspapers would be a boon to independence of thought, not an obstacle.
For his own sake, to defend his own Administration, Trump has to delegitimize the MSM, just as
he did during the campaign. He should continue to use his Twitter account and speak straight to the
people. He should not
hold press conferences with national MSM and speak only to local reporters before holding rallies.
If Twitter bans him, as Leftists are urging, he should nationalize it as a utility and make it a
free speech zone.[
Twitter has become a utility , by Alan Kohler, The Australian, October 17,
2016]
And Trump's supporters need to act the same way. Stop giving reporters access. Stop pretending
you can play the MSM for your own benefit. Stop acting like these people are anything other than
hostile political activists whose only interest in life is to make yours worse.
Stop giving them what they want.
Your career, family, and entire life may depend on it. And so does the life of the nation.
James Kirkpatrick [
Email him]
is a Beltway veteran and a refugee from Conservatism Inc.
"... "The lockstep zombies for the sleaze and global mayhem of the Clinton Machine and Dem Party gangsters are on the march. These liberals for US Empire are showing their reverence and fanboy love for the CIA and FBI and McCarthyism. ..."
"... They either cheered or shrugged when the Clinton thugs stole the primary from Bernie (with his obsequious assent) or snored when Obama/Clinton staged coups and installed fascists in Honduras and Ukraine but oh how they bellow and shake their fists at the *alleged* hacking by Russia that amounts to providing info on just how sleazy the Democratic Party is. ..."
"... THAT form of fake news is not only acceptable it is to be embraced and taught to our fucking children. If the NYT or WaPo tells us all bad things come from Putin these shock troops for the Democratic Party click their heels and salute. ..."
"... The risk of WWIII is not enough to deter these fucking maniacs from doing all they can to keep their team in power. Meanwhile their leaders want to "work with" Trump and "give him a chance." Who are the fascists in this shit show?? Such a clusterfuck of incoherence. ..."
"... If it's true the "Russians" (who be that by the way?) did what the professional liars in the intelligence agencies say they did it doesn't even amount to a parking violation compared to the billions and billions of dollars spent by the US over the last 70 years rigging and crushing democracy (literally with murder) across the globe. ..."
This post by Leftie on facebook offers glimpse into chasm on the other side.
It's Progs vs Globs. ProGlob is coming apart.
"The lockstep zombies for the sleaze and global mayhem of the Clinton Machine and Dem Party gangsters
are on the march. These liberals for US Empire are showing their reverence and fanboy love for the CIA
and FBI and McCarthyism.
They either cheered or shrugged when the Clinton thugs stole the primary from Bernie (with his obsequious
assent) or snored when Obama/Clinton staged coups and installed fascists in Honduras and Ukraine but
oh how they bellow and shake their fists at the
*alleged*
hacking by Russia that amounts
to providing info on just how sleazy the Democratic Party is.
The "fake news" (it's called free speech you fucking assholes) that the Rooskies pumped into our
helpless and confused brains is a threat to the Republic but "capitalism means freedom and democracy",
WMD's, yellow cake, mobile weapons labs, babies torn from incubators, the international monolithic communist
conspiracy, Gaddafi supplying viagra to his troops, the headchoppers Obama gives arms and sends into
Syria to destroy yet another nation are "moderates", KONY 2012, the filthy Hun is coming to kill us
all in 1917, "Duck and cover!!" Gulf of Tonkin, Ho Chi Min's soldiers are going to spring from their
canoes on the beaches of Malibu to rape your wife and make you wear pajamas, "superpredators" and on
and on etc etc etc
THAT form of fake news is not only acceptable it is to be embraced and taught to our fucking children.
If the NYT or WaPo tells us all bad things come from Putin these shock troops for the Democratic Party
click their heels and salute.
The risk of WWIII is not enough to deter these fucking maniacs from doing all they can to keep their
team in power. Meanwhile their leaders want to "work with" Trump and "give him a chance." Who are the
fascists in this shit show?? Such a clusterfuck of incoherence.
If it's true the "Russians" (who be
that by the way?) did what the professional liars in the intelligence agencies say they did it doesn't
even amount to a parking violation compared to the billions and billions of dollars spent by the US
over the last 70 years rigging and crushing democracy (literally with murder) across the globe.
And
the whole obscene carnival engulfing the nation is of course to be blamed on the racist knuckle-dragging
"basket of deplorables.""
A Wikileaks envoy today claims he personally received Clinton campaign emails in Washington
D.C. after they were leaked by 'disgusted' whisteblowers - and not hacked by Russia.
Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan and a close associate of Wikileaks founder
Julian Assange, told Dailymail.com that he flew to Washington, D.C. for a clandestine hand-off
with one of the email sources in September.
'Neither of [the leaks] came from the Russians,' said Murray in an interview with Dailymail.com
on Tuesday. ' The source had legal access to the information. The documents came from inside leaks,
not hacks.'
His account contradicts directly the version of how thousands of Democratic emails were published
before the election being advanced by U.S. intelligence.
Americans steeped in a culture of 'politics' are again being fooled, this election wasn't about
party or state lines, "Republicans" didn't win over "Democrats" - this election was about a wild
card, a non-politician, non-Establishment candidate winning by a landslide if going by the polls
(Trump was given 5% chance of winning up until the night of election).
When Peρa Nieto won, Sepϊlveda began destroying evidence. He drilled holes in flash drives,
hard drives, and cell phones, fried their circuits in a microwave, then broke them to shards with
a hammer. He shredded documents and flushed them down the toilet and erased servers in Russia
and Ukraine rented anonymously with Bitcoins. He was dismantling what he says was a secret history
of one of the dirtiest Latin American campaigns in recent memory.
For eight years, Sepϊlveda, now 31, says he traveled the continent rigging major political
campaigns. With a budget of $600,000, the Peρa Nieto job was by far his most complex. He led a
team of hackers that stole campaign strategies, manipulated social media to create false waves
of enthusiasm and derision, and installed spyware in opposition offices, all to help Peρa Nieto,
a right-of-center candidate, eke out a victory. On that July night, he cracked bottle after bottle
of Colσn Negra beer in celebration. As usual on election night, he was alone.
Sepϊlveda's career began in 2005, and his first jobs were small-mostly defacing campaign websites
and breaking into opponents' donor databases. Within a few years he was assembling teams that
spied, stole, and smeared on behalf of presidential campaigns across Latin America. He wasn't
cheap, but his services were extensive. For $12,000 a month, a customer hired a crew that could
hack smartphones, spoof and clone Web pages, and send mass e-mails and texts. The premium package,
at $20,000 a month, also included a full range of digital interception, attack, decryption, and
defense. The jobs were carefully laundered through layers of middlemen and consultants. Sepϊlveda
says many of the candidates he helped might not even have known about his role; he says he met
only a few.
His teams worked on presidential elections in Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, Colombia,
Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Venezuela. Campaigns mentioned in this story were contacted
through former and current spokespeople; none but Mexico's PRI and the campaign of Guatemala's
National Advancement Party would comment.
The point here, well there are several points. One, Sepulveda is not the only guy in the world
doing this. The CIA even has a team of social media trolls and the NSA has a department that only
develops robots to do the same thing Sepulveda was doing and better. The age of 'spies' has transformed
into an electronic, digital, online version - much like the internet has transformed life and business
it has also changed the way the intelligence establishment deals with controlling the population.
Oh how the FBI has evolved since the days of Hoffman and Cointelpro!
Many of Sepϊlveda's efforts were unsuccessful, but he has enough wins that he might be able
to claim as much influence over the political direction of modern Latin America as anyone in the
21st century. "My job was to do actions of dirty war and psychological operations, black propaganda,
rumors-the whole dark side of politics that nobody knows exists but everyone can see," he says
in Spanish, while sitting at a small plastic table in an outdoor courtyard deep within the heavily
fortified offices of Colombia's attorney general's office. He's serving 10 years in prison for
charges including use of malicious software, conspiracy to commit crime, violation of personal
data, and espionage, related to hacking during Colombia's 2014 presidential election. He has agreed
to tell his full story for the first time, hoping to convince the public that he's rehabilitated-and
gather support for a reduced sentence.
Usually, he says, he was on the payroll of Juan Josι Rendσn, a Miami-based political consultant
who's been called the Karl Rove of Latin America. Rendσn denies using Sepϊlveda for anything illegal,
and categorically disputes the account Sepϊlveda gave Bloomberg Businessweek of their relationship,
but admits knowing him and using him to do website design. "If I talked to him maybe once or twice,
it was in a group session about that, about the Web," he says. "I don't do illegal stuff at all.
There is negative campaigning. They don't like it-OK. But if it's legal, I'm gonna do it. I'm
not a saint, but I'm not a criminal." While Sepϊlveda's policy was to destroy all data at the
completion of a job, he left some documents with members of his hacking teams and other trusted
third parties as a secret "insurance policy."
We don't need a degree in cybersecurity to see how this was going on against Trump all throughout
the campaign. Not only did they hire thugs to start riots at Trump rallies and protest, a massive
online campaign was staged against Trump.
Rendσn, says Sepϊlveda, saw that hackers could be completely integrated into a modern political
operation, running attack ads, researching the opposition, and finding ways to suppress a foe's
turnout. As for Sepϊlveda, his insight was to understand that voters trusted what they thought
were spontaneous expressions of real people on social media more than they did experts on television
and in newspapers. He knew that accounts could be faked and social media trends fabricated, all
relatively cheaply. He wrote a software program, now called Social Media Predator, to manage and
direct a virtual army of fake Twitter accounts. The software let him quickly change names, profile
pictures, and biographies to fit any need. Eventually, he discovered, he could manipulate the
public debate as easily as moving pieces on a chessboard-or, as he puts it, "When I realized that
people believe what the Internet says more than reality, I discovered that I had the power to
make people believe almost anything."
Sepϊlveda managed thousands of such fake profiles and used the accounts to shape discussion
around topics such as Peρa Nieto's plan to end drug violence, priming the social media pump with
views that real users would mimic. For less nuanced work, he had a larger army of 30,000 Twitter
bots, automatic posters that could create trends. One conversation he started stoked fear that
the more Lσpez Obrador rose in the polls, the lower the peso would sink. Sepϊlveda knew the currency
issue was a major vulnerability; he'd read it in the candidate's own internal staff memos.
While there's no evidence that Rendon or Sepulveda were involved in the 2016 election, there is
also no evidence that Russian hackers were involved in the 2016 election. There's not even false
evidence. There isn't a hint of it. There isn't a witness, there isn't a document, there's nothing
- it's a conspiracy theory! And a very poor one.
Russian hackers would have had the same or better (probably much better) tools, strategies, and
resources than Sepulveda. But none of this shows up anywhere. If anything, this is an example of
how NOT to hack an election.
Thanks. Right. Hillary's official electronic communications is more correct than Hillary's emails.
(And the "wipe them, you mean like with a rag?" from Hillary, after having been in government
all her adult life and after having presented herself as a modern Secretary of State who knew
all about how government and modern technology worked would have been a funny joke if it hadn't
obviously been intended to cover up enormous crimes.)
Whoever is running the world with all of this fake stuff and all of the monitoring of people and
petty false propganda, they pretty much suck at it. it is as if they are claiming to be running
the world using "training wheels". As a substitute for God they stink! Grade D-!
The tale doesn't have to be a good one for the TV addicted masses to believe it, it only has to
be presented by the only sources these imbeciles are willing to use: their fucking TV sets. Most
people are so deluded by their main source of entertainment and information that they wouldn't
give a shit if incontrovertible evidence that their TV information source was lying was presented
to them.
Most people I know don't want to know anything that can't be spoonfed to them on a TV screen.
"The tale doesn't have to be a good one for the TV addicted masses to believe it..."
Like the tale that the only steel highrise buildings to ever collapse due to fires (turning
into dust at near freefall speed) ocurred on a single day 15 years ago, orchestrated, along with
everything else on that fateful day, by a man in a cave half a world away.
and that after every airport was closed and every single commercial plane was grounded, that man's
entire extended family resident in the u.s., some two dozen individuals, was given fbi protection,
rented cars and chartered planes, and flown out of the country without ever being interviewed,
at all, by any law enforcement branch of the government of the united states which, needless to
say, had absolutely no involvement with the deadliest foreign attack on u.s. soil since the war
of 1812, killing nearly 600 more than died at pearl harbor.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bin-laden-family-evacuated/
this was known at the time it happened. what took longer to discover was that the source of
the foreign attack was not a cave in afghanistan or even saudi arabia or the muslim world generally.
all along it was our trusted ally, brave little israel.
Anti-semitism enables one to ignore the elephant in the room, namely the Saudis who have been
spending billions promoting Wahhabism and terrorism, to blame a tiny little country for everything,
without ever having to bother about evidence. Seek help.
"... "Fake news was a term specifically about people who purposely fabricated stories for clicks and revenue," said David Mikkelson, the founder of Snopes, the myth-busting website. "Now it includes bad reporting, slanted journalism and outright propaganda. And I think we're doing a disservice to lump all those things together." ..."
"... "What I think is so unsettling about the fake news cries now is that their audience has already sort of bought into this idea that journalism has no credibility or legitimacy," ..."
"... The market in these divided times is undeniably ripe. "We now live in this fragmented media world where you can block people you disagree with. You can only be exposed to stories that make you feel good about what you want to believe," Mr. Ziegler, the radio host, said. "Unfortunately, the truth is unpopular a lot. And a good fairy tale beats a harsh truth every time." ..."
.... As reporters were walking out of a Trump rally this month in Orlando, Fla., a man heckled them with shouts of "Fake news!"
Until now, that term had been widely understood to refer to fabricated news accounts that are meant to spread virally online.
But conservative cable and radio personalities, top Republicans and even Mr. Trump himself, incredulous about suggestions that fake
stories may have helped swing the election, have appropriated the term and turned it against any news they see as hostile to their
agenda.
In defining "fake news" so broadly and seeking to dilute its meaning, they are capitalizing on the declining credibility of all
purveyors of information, one product of the country's increasing political polarization. And conservatives, seeing an opening to
undermine the mainstream media, a longtime foe, are more than happy to dig the hole deeper.
"Over the years, we've effectively brainwashed the core of our audience to distrust anything that they disagree with. And now
it's gone too far," said John Ziegler, a conservative radio host, who has been critical of what he sees as excessive partisanship
by pundits. "Because the gatekeepers have lost all credibility in the minds of consumers, I don't see how you reverse it."
Journalists who work to separate fact from fiction see a dangerous conflation of stories that turn out to be wrong because of
a legitimate misunderstanding with those whose clear intention is to deceive. A report, shared more than a million times on social
media, that the pope had endorsed Mr. Trump was undeniably false. But was it "fake news" to report on data models that showed Hillary
Clinton with overwhelming odds of winning the presidency? Are opinion articles fake if they cherry-pick facts to draw disputable
conclusions?
"Fake news was a term specifically about people who purposely fabricated stories for clicks and revenue," said David Mikkelson,
the founder of Snopes, the myth-busting website. "Now it includes bad reporting, slanted journalism and outright propaganda. And
I think we're doing a disservice to lump all those things together."
The right's labeling of "fake news" evokes one of the most successful efforts by conservatives to reorient how Americans think
about news media objectivity: the move by Fox News to brand its conservative-slanted coverage as "fair and balanced." Traditionally,
mainstream media outlets had thought of their own approach in those terms, viewing their coverage as strictly down the middle. Republicans
often found that laughable. As with Fox's ubiquitous promotion of its slogan, conservatives' appropriation of the "fake news" label
is an effort to further erode the mainstream media's claim to be a reliable and accurate source.
"What I think is so unsettling about the fake news cries now is that their audience has already sort of bought into this idea
that journalism has no credibility or legitimacy," said Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters, a liberal group that
polices the news media for bias. "Therefore, by applying that term to credible outlets, it becomes much more believable."
.... ... ...
Mr. Trump has used the term to deny news reports, as he did on Twitter recently after various outlets said he would stay on as
the executive producer of "The New Celebrity Apprentice" after taking office in January. "Ridiculous & untrue - FAKE NEWS!" he wrote.
(He will be credited as executive producer, a spokesman for the show's creator, Mark Burnett, has said. But it is unclear what work,
if any, he will do on the show.)
Many conservatives are pushing back at the outrage over fake news because they believe that liberals, unwilling to accept Mr.
Trump's victory, are attributing his triumph to nefarious external factors.
"The left refuses to admit that the fundamental problem isn't the Russians or Jim Comey or 'fake news' or the Electoral College,"
said Laura Ingraham, the author and radio host. "'Fake news' is just another fake excuse for their failed agenda."
Others see a larger effort to slander the basic journalistic function of fact-checking. Nonpartisan websites like Snopes and Factcheck.org
have found themselves maligned when they have disproved stories that had been flattering to conservatives.
When Snopes wrote about a State Farm insurance agent in Louisiana who had posted a sign outside his office that likened taxpayers
who voted for President Obama to chickens supporting Colonel Sanders, Mr. Mikkelson, the site's founder, was smeared as a partisan
Democrat who had never bothered to reach out to the agent for comment. Neither is true.
"They're trying to float anything they can find out there to discredit fact-checking," he said.
There are already efforts by highly partisan conservatives to claim that their fact-checking efforts are the same as those of
independent outlets like Snopes, which employ research teams to dig into seemingly dubious claims.
Sean Hannity, the Fox News host, has aired "fact-checking" segments on his program. Michelle Malkin, the conservative columnist,
has a web program, "Michelle Malkin Investigates," in which she conducts her own investigative reporting.
The market in these divided times is undeniably ripe. "We now live in this fragmented media world where you can block people
you disagree with. You can only be exposed to stories that make you feel good about what you want to believe," Mr. Ziegler, the radio
host, said. "Unfortunately, the truth is unpopular a lot. And a good fairy tale beats a harsh truth every time."
Economist was always adamantly anti-Russian and, especially, anti-Putin. The use of people like
Sergey Guriev (recent emigrant to Paris, who excape to avoid the danger of criminal procecution for skolkovao machinations) is just an icing on the cake.
Notable quotes:
"... During the 2015-16 recession, GDP. fell by more than 4 percent and real incomes declined by 10 percent. That is significant, but much less serious than, say, the 40 percent drop in GDP that Russia experienced during the first half of the 1990s. Despite a dramatic decline in oil prices and the burden of sanctions imposed by Western governments after the Crimea crisis, the Putin administration has managed to avert economic disaster by pursuing competent macroeconomic policies. ..."
"... As the sanctions cut off Russia's access to global financial markets, the government set out to cover the budget deficit by undertaking major austerity measures and tapping its substantial sovereign funds. In early 2014, the Reserve Fund (created to mitigate fiscal shocks caused by drops in oil prices) and the National Welfare Fund (set up to address shortfalls in the pension system) together held the equivalent of 8 percent of GDP. ..."
LONDON - The Russian economy is in trouble - "in tatters," President Obama has said - so why
aren't Russians more upset with their leaders? The country underwent a major recession recently.
The ruble lost half of its value. And yet, according to a leading independent pollster in Russia,
President Vladimir V. Putin's approval ratings have consistently exceeded 80 percent during the
past couple of years.
One reason is that while the Russian economy is struggling, it is not falling apart, and many
Russians remember times when it was in a much worse state. Another, perhaps more important, explanation
is that Mr. Putin has convinced them that it's not the economy, stupid, anymore.
Thanks largely to the government's extensive control over information, Mr. Putin has rewritten
the social contract in Russia. Long based on economic performance, it is now about geopolitical
status. If economic pain is the price Russians have to pay so that Russia can stand up to the
West, so be it.
It wasn't like this in the 1990s and 2000s. Back then the approval ratings of Russian leaders
were closely correlated with economic performance, as the political scientist Daniel Treisman
has demonstrated. When the economy began to recover from the 1998 financial crisis, Mr. Putin's
popularity increased. It dipped when growth stalled. It climbed again in 2005, after the global
price of oil - Russia' main export commodity - rose, foreign investment flowed in and domestic
consumption boomed. And it fell substantially after growth rates slowed in 2012-13.
Russia's intervention in Crimea in early 2014 changed everything. Within two months, Mr. Putin's
popularity jumped back to more than 80 percent, where it has stayed until now, despite the recession.
One might argue that these figures are misleading: Given the pressures faced by the Kremlin's
political opponents, aren't respondents in polls too afraid to answer questions honestly? Hardly,
according to a recent study co-written by the political scientist Tim Frye, based on an innovative
method known as "list experiments." It found that, even after adjusting for respondents' reluctance
to openly acknowledge any misgivings about specific leaders, Mr. Putin's popularity really is
very high: around 70 percent.
During the 2015-16 recession, GDP. fell by more than 4 percent and real incomes declined
by 10 percent. That is significant, but much less serious than, say, the 40 percent drop in GDP
that Russia experienced during the first half of the 1990s. Despite a dramatic decline in oil
prices and the burden of sanctions imposed by Western governments after the Crimea crisis, the
Putin administration has managed to avert economic disaster by pursuing competent macroeconomic
policies.
As the sanctions cut off Russia's access to global financial markets, the government set
out to cover the budget deficit by undertaking major austerity measures and tapping its substantial
sovereign funds. In early 2014, the Reserve Fund (created to mitigate fiscal shocks caused by
drops in oil prices) and the National Welfare Fund (set up to address shortfalls in the pension
system) together held the equivalent of 8 percent of GDP.
The government also adopted sound monetary policy, including the decision to fully float the
ruble in 2014. Because of the decline in oil prices and large net capital outflows - caused by
the need to repay external corporate debt and limited foreign investment in Russia - the currency
depreciated by 50 percent within a year. Although a weaker ruble hurt the living standards of
ordinary Russians, it boosted the competitiveness of Russia's companies. The Russian economy is
now beginning to grow again, if very modestly - at a projected 1 to 1.5 percent per year over
the next few years.
This performance comes nowhere near meeting Mr. Putin's election-campaign promises of 2012,
when he projected GDP. growth at 6 percent per year for 2011-18. But it isn't catastrophic either,
and the government has managed to explain it away.
Thanks partly to its near-complete control of the press, television and the internet, the government
has developed a grand narrative about Russia's role in the world - essentially promoting the view
that Russians may need to tighten their belts for the good of the nation. The story has several
subplots. Russian speakers in Ukraine need to be defended against neo-Nazis. Russia supports President
Bashar al-Assad of Syria because he is a rampart against the Islamic State, and it has helped
liberate Aleppo from terrorists. Why would the Kremlin hack the Democratic Party in the United
States? And who believes what the CIA says anyway?
The Russian people seem to accept much of this or not to care one way or the other. This should
come as no surprise. In a recent paper based on data for 128 countries over 10 years, Professor
Treisman and I developed an econometric model to assess which factors affect a government's approval
ratings and by how much. We concluded that fully removing internet controls in a country like
Russia today would cause the government's popularity ratings to drop by about 35 percentage points.
...
This Russian hacking thing is being discussed entirely out of realistic context.
Cyber security
is a serious risk management operation that firms and governments spend outrageous sums of money
on because hacking attempts, especially from sources in China and Russia, occur in vast numbers
against every remotely desirable target corporate or government each and every day. At my former
employer, the State of Virginia, the data center repelled over two million hacking attempts from
sources in China each day. Northrop Grumman, the infrastructure management outsourcer for the
State of Virginia's IT infrastructure, has had no known intrusions into any Commonwealth of Virginia
servers that had been migrated to their standard security infrastructure thus far since the inception
of their contract in July 2006. That is almost the one good thing that I have to say about NG.
Some state servers, notably the Virginia Department of Health Professions, not under protection
of the NG standard network security were hacked and had private information such as client SSNs
stolen. Retail store servers are hacked almost routinely, but large banks and similarly well protected
corporations are not. Security costs and it costs a lot.
Even working in a data center with an excellent intrusion protection program as part of that
program I had to take an annual "securing the human" computer based training class. Despite all
of the technical precautions we were retrained each year to among other things NEVER put anything
in an E-Mail that we did not want to be available for everyone to read; i.e., to never assume
privacy is protected in an E-Mail. Embarrassing E-Mails need a source. We should assume that there
will always be a hacker to take advantage of our mistakes.
The reality is that all the major world powers (and some minor ones), including us, do this routinely
and always have. While it is entirely appropriate to be outraged that it may have materially determined
the election (which I think is impossible to know, though it did have some impact), we should
not be shocked or surprised by this.
"...I would suggest attacks on Putin's personal business holdings all over the world..."
[My guess is that has been being done a long time ago considering the direction of US/Russian
foreign relations over NATO expansion, the Ukraine, and Syria.
Long before TCP/IP the best way to prevent dirty secrets from getting out was not to have dirty
secrets. It still works.
The jabbering heads will not have much effect on the political opinions of ordinary citizens
because 40 million or more US adults had their credit information compromised by the Target hackers
three years ago. Target had been saving credit card numbers instead of deleting them as soon as
they obtained authorizations for transfers, so that the 40 million were certainly exposed while
more than twice that were probably exposed. Establishment politicians having their embarrassing
E-mails hacked is more like good fun family entertainment than something to get all riled up about.]
Voting machines are public and for Federal elections then tampering with them is elevated to a
Federal crime. Political parties are private. The Federal government did not protect Target or
Northrop Grumman's managed infrastructure for the Commonwealth of Virginia although either one
can take forensic information to the FBI that will obtain warrants for prosecution. Foreign criminal
operations go beyond the immediate domestic reach of the FBI. Not even Interpol interdicts foreign
leaders unless they are guilty of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.
The Federal government can do what it will as there are not hard guidelines for such clandestine
operations and responses. Moreover, there are none to realistically enforce against them, which
inevitably leads to war given sufficient cycles of escalation. Certainly our own government has
done worse (political assassinations and supporting coups with money and guns) with impunity merely
because of its size, reach, and power.
BTW, "the burglar that just ransacked your house" can be arrested and prosecuted by a established
regulated legal system with absolutely zero concerns of escalating into a nuclear war, trade war,
or any other global hostility. So, not the same thing at all. Odds are good though that the burglar
will get away without any of that because when he does finally get caught it will be an accident
and probably only after dozen if not hundreds of B&E's.
There is a line. The US has crossed that line, but always in less developed countries that
had no recourse against us. Putin knows where the line is with the US. He will dance around it
and lean over it, but not cross it. We have him outgunned and he knows it. Putin did not tamper
with an election, a government function. Putin tampered with private data exposing incriminating
information against a political party, which is a private entity rather than government entity.
Whatever we do should probably stay within the rule of law as it gets messy fast once outside
those boundaries.
As far as burglars go I live in a particular working class zip code that has very few burglaries.
It is a bad risk/reward deal unless you are just out to steal guns and then you better make sure
that no one is home. Most people with children still living at home also have a gun safe. Most
people have dogs.
There are plenty burglaries in a lower income zip code nearby and lots more in higher income
zip codes further away, the former being targets of opportunity with less security and possible
drug stashes, which has a faster turnover than fencing big screen TV's. High income neighborhoods
are natural targets with jewelry, cash, credit cards, and high end electronics, but far better
security systems. I don't know much about their actual crime stats because they are on the opposite
side of the City of Richmond VA from me, but I used to know a couple of burglars when I lived
in the inner city. They liked the upscale homes near the University of Richmond on River Road.
"They kept telling us the e-mail didn't reveal anything and now they say the e-mail determined
the election"
And those two statement are not in conflict unless you are a brain dead Fox bot. Big nothing-burgers
like Bhengazi or trivial emails can easily be blown up and affect a few hundred thousand voters.
When the heck are you going to grow up and get past your 5 stages of Sanders grief?
I know - and there used to be some signs of a functional brain. Now it is all "they are all the
same" ism and Hillary derangement syndrome on steroids. Someone who cares need to do an intervention
before it becomes he get gobbled up by "ilsm" ism.
ABC video interview by Martha Raddatz of Donna Brazile 2:43
Adding the following FACTS, not opinion, to the Russian Hacking debate at the DNC
Russian hacks of the DNC began at least as early as April, the FBI informed the DNC in May
of the hacks, NO ONE in the FedGovt offered to HELP the DNC at anytime (allowed it to continue),
and Russia's Putin DID NOT stop after President Obama told Putin in September to "Cut it Out",
despite Obama's belief otherwise
"DNC Chair Says Russian Hackers Attacked The Committee Through Election Day"
'That goes against Obama's statement that the attacks ended after he spoke to Putin in September'
by Dave Jamieson Labor Reporter...The Huffington Post...12/18/2016...10:59 am ET
"The chair of the Democratic National Committee said Sunday that the DNC was under constant
cyber attack by Russian hackers right through the election in November. Her claim contradicts
President Barack Obama's statement Friday that the attacks ended in September after he issued
a personal warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"No, they did not stop," Donna Brazile told Martha Raddatz on ABC's "This Week." "They came
after us absolutely every day until the end of the election. They tried to hack into our system
repeatedly. We put up the very best cyber security but they constantly [attacked]."
Brazile said the DNC was outgunned in its efforts to fend off the hacks, and suggested the
committee received insufficient protection from U.S. intelligence agencies. The CIA and FBI have
reportedly concluded that Russians carried out the attacks in an effort to help Donald Trump defeat
Hillary Clinton.
"I think the Obama administration ― the FBI, the various other federal agencies ― they informed
us, they told us what was happening. We knew as of May," Brazile said. "But in terms of helping
us to fight, we were fighting a foreign adversary in the cyberspace. The Democratic National Committee,
we were not a match. And yet we fought constantly."
In a surprising analogy, Brazile compared the FBI's help to the DNC to that of the Geek Squad,
the tech service provided at retailer Best Buy ― which is to say well-meaning, but limited.
"They reached out ― it's like going to Best Buy," Brazile said. "You get the Geek Squad, and
they're great people, by the way. They reached out to our IT vendors. But they reached us, meaning
senior Democratic officials, by then it was, you know, the Russians had been involved for a long
time."..."
This new perspective and set of facts is more than distressing it details a clear pattern of Executive
Branch incompetence, malfeasance, and ineptitude (perhaps worse if you are conspiratorially inclined)
im1dc -> im1dc... , -1
The information above puts in bold relief President Obama's denial of an Electoral College briefing
on the Russian Hacks
There is now no reason not to brief the Electors to the extent and degree of Putin's help for
demagogue Donald
(wired.co.uk)
270 Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday November 27, 2016 @03:34AM from the help-me-hive-mind
dept. Upworthy co-founder Eli Pariser is leading a group of online volunteers hunting for ways to
respond to the spread of fake news. An anonymous reader quotes Wired UK: Inside a Google Doc,
volunteers
are gathering ideas and approaches to get a grip on the untruthful news stories. It is part analysis,
part brainstorming, with those involved being encouraged to read widely around the topic before contributing.
"This is a massive endeavour but well worth it," they say...
At present, the group is coming up with
a list of potential solutions and approaches . Possible methods the group is looking at include:
more human editors, fingerprinting viral stories then training algorithms on confirmed fakes, domain
checking, the blockchain, a reliability algorithm, sentiment analysis, a Wikipedia for news sources,
and more.
The article also suggests this effort may one day spawn fake news-fighting tech startups.
(pcworld.com)
83
Posted by msmash
on Tuesday December 06, 2016 @11:00AM
from the
business-as-usual
dept.
Security experts consider the aging FTP and Telnet protocols unsafe, and HP has
decided to clamp down on access to networked printers through the remote-access
tools
. From a report on PCWorld:
Some of HP's new business printers
will, by default, be closed to remote access via protocols like FTP and Telnet.
However, customers can activate remote printing access through those protocols
if needed. "HP has started the process of closing older, less-maintained
interfaces including ports, protocols and cipher suites" identified by the U.S.
National Institute of Standards and Technology as less than secure, the company
said in a statement. In addition, HP also announced firmware updates to
existing business printers with improved password and encryption settings, so
hackers can't easily break into the devices.
(bleepingcomputer.com)
207
Posted by
BeauHD
on Tuesday December 06, 2016 @08:25PM
from the
hidden-in-plain-sight
dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer:
For the past two
months, a new exploit kit has been
serving malicious code hidden in the pixels of banner ads via a malvertising
campaign
that has been active on several high profile websites.
Discovered by security researchers from ESET
, this new exploit kit is named
Stegano, from the word
steganography
, which is a technique of hiding content inside other files.
In this particular scenario, malvertising campaign operators hid malicious code
inside PNG images used for banner ads. The crooks took a PNG image and altered
the transparency value of several pixels. They then packed the modified image
as an ad, for which they bought ad displays on several high-profile websites.
Since a large number of advertising networks allow advertisers to deliver
JavaScript code with their ads, the crooks also included JS code that would
parse the image, extract the pixel transparency values, and using a
mathematical formula, convert those values into a character. Since images have
millions of pixels, crooks had all the space they needed to pack malicious code
inside a PNG photo. When extracted, this malicious code would redirect the user
to an intermediary ULR, called gate, where the host server would filter users.
This server would only accept connections from Internet Explorer users. The
reason is that the gate would exploit the CVE-2016-0162 vulnerability that
allowed the crooks to determine if the connection came from a real user or a
reverse analysis system employed by security researchers. Additionally, this IE
exploit also allowed the gate server to detect the presence of antivirus
software. In this case, the server would drop the connection just to avoid
exposing its infrastructure and trigger a warning that would alert both the
user and the security firm. If the gate server deemed the target valuable, then
it would redirect the user to the final stage, which was the exploit kit
itself, hosted on another URL. The Stegano exploit kit would use three Adobe
Flash vulnerabilities (CVE-2015-8651, CVE-2016-1019 or CVE-2016-4117) to attack
the user's PC, and forcibly download and launch into execution various strains
of malware.
(pcworld.com)
55
Posted by msmash
on Wednesday December 07, 2016 @12:20PM
from
the
security-woes
dept.
Many network security cameras made by Sony could be taken over by hackers and
infected with botnet malware if their firmware is not updated to the latest
version. Researchers from SEC Consult have
found two backdoor accounts that exist in 80 models of professional Sony
security cameras
, mainly used by companies and government agencies given
their high price, PCWorld reports. From the article:
One set of hard-coded
credentials is in the Web interface and allows a remote attacker to send
requests that would enable the Telnet service on the camera, the SEC Consult
researchers said in an advisory Tuesday. The second hard-coded password is for
the root account that could be used to take full control of the camera over
Telnet. The researchers established that the password is static based on its
cryptographic hash and, while they haven't actually cracked it, they believe
it's only a matter of time until someone does. Sony released a patch to the
affected camera models last week.
(zdnet.com)
30
Posted by msmash
on Thursday December 08, 2016 @11:45AM
from the
security-woes-and-fixes
dept.
Yahoo says it has fixed a severe security vulnerability in its email service
that
allowed an attacker to read a victim's email inbox
. From a report on ZDNet:
The cross-site scripting (XSS) attack only required a victim to view an email
in Yahoo Mail. The internet giant paid out $10,000 to security researcher Jouko
Pynnonen for privately disclosing the flaw through the HackerOne bug bounty, In
a write-up, Pynnonen said that the flaw was similar to last year's Yahoo Mail
bug, which similarly let an attacker compromise a user's account. Yahoo filters
HTML messages to ensure that malicious code won't make it through into the
user's browser, but the researcher found that the filters didn't catch all of
the malicious data attributes.
(onthewire.io)
25
Posted by
BeauHD
on Friday December 09, 2016 @05:00AM
from the
out-of-the-woodwork
dept.
Trailrunner7
quotes a report
from On the Wire:
Malware gangs, like sad wedding bands bands, love to play
the hits. And one of the hits they keep running back over and over is the Zeus
banking Trojan, which has been in use for many years in a number of different
forms. Researchers have
unearthed a new piece of malware called Floki Bot that is based on the
venerable Zeus source code
and is being used to infect point-of-sale
systems, among other targets. Flashpoint
conducted the analysis
of Floki Bot with Cisco's Talos research team, and
the two organizations said that the author behind the bot maintains a presence
on a number of different underground forums, some of which are in Russian or
other non-native languages for him. Kremez said that attackers sometimes will
participate in foreign language forums as a way to expand their knowledge.
Along with its PoS infection capability, Floki Bot also has a feature that
allows it to use the Tor network to communicate.
"During our analysis of
Floki Bot, Talos identified modifications that had been made to the dropper
mechanism present in the leaked Zeus source code in an attempt to make Floki
Bot more difficult to detect. Talos also observed the introduction of new code
that allows Floki Bot to make use of the Tor network. However, this
functionality does not appear to be active for the time being," Cisco's Talos
team
said in its analysis
.
A patch was pushed to the mainline Linux kernel December 2, four days after it
was privately disclosed. Pettersson has developed a proof-of-concept exploit
specifically for Ubuntu distributions, but told Threatpost his attack could be
ported to other distros with some changes. The vulnerability is a race
condition that was discovered in the
af_packet
implementation in the
Linux kernel, and Pettersson said that a local attacker could exploit the bug
to gain kernel code execution from unprivileged processes. He said the bug
cannot be exploited remotely.
"Basically it's a bait-and-switch," the researcher told Threatpost. "The bug
allows you to trick the kernel into thinking it is working with one kind of
object, while you actually switched it to another kind of object before it
could react."
(securityledger.com)
147
Posted by EditorDavid
on Sunday December 11, 2016 @01:34PM
from the
nixing-the-network
dept.
"By convincing a user to visit a specially crafted web site, a remote attacker
may execute arbitrary commands with root privileges on affected routers," warns
a new vulnerability notice
from Carnegie Mellon University's CERT. Slashdot reader
chicksdaddy
quotes Security
Ledger's story about certain models of Netgear's routers:
Firmware version
1.0.7.2_1.1.93 (and possibly earlier) for the R7000 and version 1.0.1.6_1.0.4
(and possibly earlier) for the R6400 are
known to contain the arbitrary command injection vulnerability
. CERT cited
"community reports" that indicate the R8000, firmware version 1.0.3.4_1.1.2, is
also vulnerable... The flaw was found in new firmware that runs the Netgear
R7000 and R6400 routers. Other models and firmware versions may also be
affected, including the R8000 router, CMU CERT warned.
With no work around to the flaw, CERT recommended that Netgear customers
disable their wifi router until a software patch from the company that
addressed the hole was available... A search of the public internet using the
Shodan search engine finds around 8,000 R6450 and R7000 devices that can be
reached directly from the Internet and that would be vulnerable to takeover
attacks. The vast majority of those are located in the United States.
Proof-of-concept exploit code was released by a Twitter user who, according to
the article, said "he informed Netgear of the flaw more than four months ago,
but did not hear back from the company since then."
(bleepingcomputer.com)
137
Posted by
BeauHD
on Wednesday December 14, 2016 @07:45PM
from
the
connected-devices
dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BleepingComputer:
Malicious ads are
serving exploit code to infect routers
, instead of browsers, in order to
insert ads in every site users are visiting. Unlike previous malvertising
campaigns that targeted users of old Flash or Internet Explorer versions, this
campaign focused on Chrome users, on both desktop and mobile devices. The
malicious ads included in this malvertising campaign contain exploit code for
166 router models, which allow attackers to take over the device and insert ads
on websites that didn't feature ads, or replace original ads with the
attackers' own. Researchers
haven't yet managed to determine an exact list of affected router models
,
but some of the brands targeted by the attackers include Linksys, Netgear,
D-Link, Comtrend, Pirelli, and Zyxel. Because the attack is carried out via the
user's browser, using strong router passwords or disabling the administration
interface is not enough. The only way users can stay safe is if they update
their router's firmware to the most recent versions, which most likely includes
protection against the vulnerabilities used by this campaign.
The
"campaign" is called DNSChanger EK and works when attackers buy ads on
legitimate websites and insert malicious JavaScript in these ads, "which use a
WebRTC request to a Mozilla STUN server to determine the user's local IP
address," according to BleepingComputer. "Based on this local IP address, the
malicious code can determine if the user is on a local network managed by a
small home router, and continue the attack. If this check fails, the attackers
just show a random legitimate ad and move on. For the victims the crooks deem
valuable, the attack chain continues. These users receive a tainted ad which
redirects them to the DNSChanger EK home, where the actual exploitation begins.
The next step is for the attackers to send an image file to the user's browser,
which contains an AES (encryption algorithm) key embedded inside the photo
using the technique of steganography. The malicious ad uses this AES key to
decrypt further traffic it receives from the DNSChanger exploit kit. Crooks
encrypt their operations to avoid the prying eyes of security researchers."
(vice.com)
33
Posted by
BeauHD
on Wednesday December 14, 2016 @08:25PM
from
the
buy-one-get-one
dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard:
The Shadow Brokers --
a hacker or group of hackers that stole computer exploits from the National
Security Agency -- has been quiet for some time. After their auction and
crowd-funded approach for selling the exploits met a lukewarm reception, the
group seemingly stopped posting new messages in October. But a newly uncovered
website, which includes a file apparently signed with The Shadow Brokers'
cryptographic key, suggests the group is
trying to sell hacking tools directly to buyers one by one
, and a cache of
files appears to include more information on specific exploits. On Wednesday,
someone calling themselves Boceffus Cleetus
published a Medium post
called "Are the Shadow Brokers selling NSA tools on
ZeroNet?" Cleetus, who has
an American flag with
swastikas
as their profile picture, also tweeted the post from a Twitter
account created this month. The site includes a long list of supposed items for
sale, with names like ENVOYTOMATO, EGGBASKET, and YELLOWSPIRIT. Each is sorted
into a type, such as "implant," "trojan," and "exploit," and comes with a price
tag between 1 and 100 bitcoins ($780 -- $78,000). Customers can purchase the
whole lot for 1000 bitcoins ($780,000). The site also lets visitors download a
selection of screenshots and files related to each item. Along with those is a
file signed with a PGP key with an identical fingerprint to that linked to the
original Shadow Brokers dump of exploits from August. This newly uncovered file
was apparently signed on 1 September; a different date to any of The Shadow
Brokers'
previously signed messages
.
(netgear.com)
26
Posted by EditorDavid
on Saturday December 17, 2016 @10:34AM
from the
but-they-might-not-work
dept.
The Department of Homeland Security's CERT issued a warning last week that
users
should "strongly
consider"
not using some models of NetGear routers, and the list expanded
this week to include 11 different models. Netgear's now updated their web page,
announcing eight "beta" fixes, along with three more "production" fixes.
chicksdaddy
writes:
The
company said the new [beta] firmware has not been fully tested and "
might
not work for all users
." The company offered it as a "temporary solution"
to address the security hole. "Netgear is working on a production firmware
version that fixes this command injection vulnerability and will release it as
quickly as possible," the company said in a post to its online knowledgebase
early Tuesday.
The move follows publication of a warning from experts at Carnegie Mellon on
December 9 detailing a serious "arbitrary command injection" vulnerability in
the latest version of firmware used by a number of Netgear wireless routers.
The security hole could allow a remote attacker to take control of the router
by convincing a user to visit a malicious web site... The vulnerability was
discovered by an individual...who says
he contacted Netgear about the flaw four months ago
, and went public with
information on it after the company failed to address the issue on its own.
Posted by EditorDavid
on Saturday December 17, 2016 @05:34PM
from the
jeopardized-in-June
dept.
mask.of.sanity
writes:
A
researcher has reported
10 vulnerabilities in McAfee's VirusScan Enterprise for Linux
that when
chained together result in root remote code execution. McAfee took six months
to fix the bugs issuing a patch December 9th.
Citing the
security note
,
CSO adds that "one of the issues
affects Virus Scan Enterprise for Windows version 8.7i through at least 8.8
."
The vulnerability was reported by Andrew Fasano at MIT's federally-funded
security lab, who said he targeted McAfee's client because "it runs as root, it
claims to make your machine more secure, it's not particularly popular, and it
looks like it hasn't been updated in a long time."
Posted by EditorDavid
on Saturday December 17, 2016 @06:34PM
from the
catch-me-if-you-can
dept.
"Following a failed takedown attempt, changes made to the Mirai malware variant
responsible for building one of today's biggest botnets of IoT devices will
make it incredibly harder for authorities and security firms to shut it down,"
reports Bleeping Computer. An anonymous reader writes:
Level3 and others"
have been very close to taking down one of the biggest Mirai botnets around,
the same one that attempted to
knock the Internet offline in Liberia
, and also hijacked 900,000 routers
from
German ISP Deutsche Telekom
.The botnet narrowly escaped due to the fact
that its maintainer, a hacker known as BestBuy, had implemented a
domain-generation algorithm to generate random domain names where he hosted his
servers.
Currently, to avoid further takedown attempts from similar security firms,
BestBuy has
started moving the botnet's command and control servers to Tor
. "It's all
good now. We don't need to pay thousands to ISPs and hosting. All we need is
one strong server," the hacker said. "Try to shut down .onion 'domains' over
Tor," he boasted, knowing that nobody can.
(neowin.net)
35
Posted by EditorDavid
on Sunday December 18, 2016 @02:34PM
from the
profile-views
dept.
Less than four weeks after Microsoft formally
acquired LinkedIn for $26 billion
, there's been a database breach. An
anonymous reader writes:
LinkedIn is sending emails to 9.5 million users of
Lynda.com, its online learning subsidiary,
warning the users of a database breach by "an unauthorized third party"
.
The affected database included contact information for at least some of the
users. An email to customers says "while we have no evidence that your specific
account was accessed or that any data has been made publicly available, we
wanted to notify you as a precautionary measure." Ironically, the breach comes
less than a month after Russia
blocked access to LinkedIn over privacy concerns
.
LinkedIn has also reset the passwords for 55,000 Lynda.com accounts (though
apparently many of its users don't have accounts with passwords).
(bleepingcomputer.com)
211
Posted by EditorDavid
on Sunday December 18, 2016 @04:44PM
from the
denial-of-liberty-counterattack
dept.
This week the FBI arrested a 26-year-old southern California man for launching
a DDoS attack against online chat service Chatango at the end of 2014 and in
early 2015 -- part of a new crackdown on the customers of "DDoS-for-hire"
services. An anonymous reader writes:
Sean Krishanmakoto Sharma, a computer
science graduate student at USC, is now
facing up to 10 years in prison
and/or a fine of up to $250,000.
Court documents
describe a service called Xtreme Stresser as "basically a
Linux botnet DDoS tool," and allege that Sharma rented it for an attack on
Chatango, an online chat service. "Sharma is now free on a $100,000 bail,"
reports Bleeping Computer, adding "As part of his bail release agreement,
Sharma is banned from accessing certain sites such as HackForums and tools such
as VPNs..."
"Sharma's arrest is part of
a bigger operation against DDoS-for-Hire services, called Operation Tarpit
,"
the article points out. "Coordinated by Europol, Operation Tarpit took place
between December 5 and December 9, and concluded with the arrest of 34 users of
DDoS-for-hire services across the globe, in countries such as Australia,
Belgium, France, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,
Romania, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States." It grew out
of an earlier investigation into a U.K.-based DDoS-for-hire service which had
400 customers who ultimately launched 603,499 DDoS attacks on 224,548 targets.
Most of the other suspects arrested were under the age of 20.
(reuters.com)
101
Posted by
BeauHD
on Thursday December 22, 2016 @06:25PM
from the
come-out-come-out-wherever-you-are
dept.
schwit1
quotes a report from
Reuters:
A hacking group linked to the Russian government and high-profile
cyber attacks against Democrats during the U.S. presidential election likely
used a
malware implant on Android devices to track and target Ukrainian artillery
units
from late 2014 through 2016, according to a
new report
released Thursday. The malware was able to retrieve
communications and some locational data from infected devices, intelligence
that would have likely been used to strike against the artillery in support of
pro-Russian separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine, the report from cyber
security firm CrowdStrike found. The hacking group, known commonly as Fancy
Bear or APT 28, is believed by U.S. intelligence officials to work primarily on
behalf of the GRU, Russia's military intelligence agency. The implant leveraged
a legitimate Android application developed by a Ukrainian artillery officer to
process targeting data more quickly, CrowdStrike said. Its deployment "extends
Russian cyber capabilities to the front lines of the battlefield," the report
said, and "could have facilitated anticipatory awareness of Ukrainian artillery
force troop movement, thus providing Russian forces with useful strategic
planning information."
(techcrunch.com)
122
Posted by
BeauHD
on Thursday November 24, 2016 @08:00AM
from the
proof-of-concept
dept.
As if we don't already have enough devices that can listen in on our
conversations, security researchers at Israel's Ben Gurion University have
created malware that will turn your headphones into microphones
that can
slyly record your conversations. TechCrunch reports:
The proof-of-concept,
called "
Speake(a)r
," first
turned headphones connected to a PC into microphones and then tested the
quality of sound recorded by a microphone vs. headphones on a target PC. In
short, the headphones were nearly as good as an unpowered microphone at picking
up audio in a room. It essentially "retasks" the RealTek audio codec chip
output found in many desktop computers into an input channel. This means you
can plug your headphones into a seemingly output-only jack and hackers can
still listen in. This isn't a driver fix, either. The embedded chip does not
allow users to properly prevent this hack which means your earbuds or nice cans
could start picking up conversations instantly. In fact, even if you disable
your microphone, a computer with a RealTek chip could still be hacked and
exploited without your knowledge. The sound quality, as shown by this chart, is
pretty much the same for a dedicated microphone and headphones.
The
researchers have
published a video
on YouTube demonstrating how this malware works.
(reuters.com)
57
Posted by msmash
on Thursday November 24, 2016 @10:04AM
from the
security-woes
dept.
Hackers gained access to sensitive information, including Social Security
numbers,
for
134,386 current and former U.S. sailors, the U.S. Navy has said
. According
to Reuters:
It said a laptop used by a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services
employee working on a U.S. Navy contract was hacked. Hewlett Packard informed
the Navy of the breach on Oct. 27 and the affected sailors will be notified in
the coming weeks, the Navy said. "The Navy takes this incident extremely
seriously - this is a matter of trust for our sailors," Chief of Naval
Personnel Vice Admiral Robert Burke said in a statement.
(arstechnica.com)
30
Posted by
BeauHD
on Tuesday November 29, 2016 @09:05PM
from the
thank-God-for-backups
dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica:
The attacker who
infected servers and desktop computers
at the San Francisco Metropolitan
Transit Agency (SFMTA) with ransomware on November 25 apparently
gained access to the agency's network by way of a known vulnerability in an
Oracle WebLogic server
. That vulnerability is similar to the one used to
hack a Maryland hospital network's systems in April and infect multiple
hospitals with crypto-ransomware. And evidence suggests that SFMTA wasn't
specifically targeted by the attackers; the agency just came up as a target of
opportunity through a vulnerability scan. In an e-mail to Ars, SFMTA
spokesperson Paul Rose said that on November 25, "we became aware of a
potential security issue with our computer systems, including e-mail." The
ransomware "encrypted some systems mainly affecting computer workstations," he
said, "as well as access to various systems. However, the SFMTA network was not
breached from the outside, nor did hackers gain entry through our firewalls.
Muni operations and safety were not affected. Our customer payment systems were
not hacked. Also, despite media reports, no data was accessed from any of our
servers." That description of the ransomware attack is not consistent with some
of the evidence of previous ransomware attacks by those behind the SFMTA
incident -- which Rose said primarily affected about 900 desktop computers
throughout the agency. Based on communications uncovered from the ransomware
operator behind the Muni attack published by
security reporter Brian Krebs
, an SFMTA Web-facing server was likely
compromised by what is referred to as a "deserialization" attack after it was
identified by a vulnerability scan. A security researcher told Krebs that he
had been able to gain access to the mailbox used in the malware attack on the
Russian e-mail and search provider Yandex by guessing its owner's security
question, and he provided details from the mailbox and another linked mailbox
on Yandex. Based on details found in e-mails for the accounts, the attacker ran
a server loaded with open source vulnerability scanning tools to identify and
compromise servers to use in spreading the ransomware,
known as HDDCryptor and Mamba
, within multiple organizations' networks.
(reuters.com)
88
Posted by msmash
on Friday December 02, 2016 @12:20PM
from the
hmmm
dept.
Russia said on Friday it had uncovered a plot by foreign spy agencies to sow
chaos in Russia's banking system via a
coordinated wave of cyber attacks and fake social media reports about banks
going bust
. From a report on Reuters:
Russia's domestic intelligence
agency, the Federal Security Service (FSB), said that the servers to be used in
the alleged cyber attack were located in the Netherlands and registered to a
Ukrainian web hosting company called BlazingFast. The attack, which was to
target major national and provincial banks in several Russian cities, was meant
to start on Dec. 5, the FSB said in a statement. "It was planned that the cyber
attack would be accompanied by a mass send-out of SMS messages and publications
in social media of a provocative nature regarding a crisis in the Russian
banking system, bankruptcies and license withdrawals," it said. "The FSB is
carrying out the necessary measures to neutralize threats to Russia's economic
and information security."
(rollingstone.com)
335
Posted by EditorDavid
on Sunday December 04, 2016 @12:39PM
from the
ghosts-of-Joseph-McCarthy
dept.
MyFirstNameIsPaul
was one
of several readers who spotted this disturbing instance of fake news about fake
news. An anonymous reader writes:
Last week the Washington Post described
"independent researchers" who'd identified "more than 200 websites as
routine peddlers of Russian propaganda
" that they estimated were viewed
more than 200 million times on Facebook. But the researchers insisted on
remaining anonymous "to avoid being targeted by Russia's legions of skilled
hackers," and when criticized on Twitter,
responded
"Awww, wook at all the angwy Putinists, trying to change the
subject -- they're so vewwy angwy!!"
The group "seems to have been in existence for just a few months,"
writes Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi
, calling the Post's article an
"astonishingly lazy report". (Chris Hedges, who once worked on a Pulitzer
Prize-winning team at the New York Times, even found his site
Truthdig
on the group's dubious list of over 200 "
sites
that reliably echo Russian propaganda
," along with other long-standing
sites like
Zero
Hedge
,
Naked
Capitalism
, and the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.) "By
overplaying the influence of Russia's disinformation campaign, the report also
plays directly into the hands of the Russian propagandists
that it hopes to
combat," complains Adrian Chen, who in 2015 documented real Russian propaganda
efforts which he traced to "a building in St. Petersburg where
hundreds
of young Russians worked to churn out propaganda
."
The Post's article was picked up by other major news outlets (
including
USA Today
), and included an ominous warning that "The
sophistication of the Russian tactics may complicate efforts by Facebook and
Google to crack down on 'fake news'."
Sometimes a case looks weak because there is no "smoking gun"-no obvious, direct evidence of conspiracy,
malfeasance or evil intent-but once you tally up all the evidence it forms a coherent and damning
picture. And so it is with the Obama administration vis ΰ vis Russia: by feigning hostile intent
it did everything possible to further Russia's agenda. And although it is always possible to claim
that all of Obama's failures stem from mere incompetence, at some point this claim begins to ring
hollow; how can he possibly be so utterly competent at being incompetent? Perhaps he just used incompetence
as a veil to cover his true intent, which was always to bolster Russia while rendering the US maximally
irrelevant in world affairs. Let's examine Obama's major foreign policy initiatives from this angle.
Perhaps the greatest achievement of his eight years has been the destruction of Libya. Under the
false pretense of a humanitarian intervention what was once the most prosperous and stable country
in the entire North Africa has been reduced to a rubble-strewn haven for Islamic terrorists and a
transit point for economic migrants streaming into the European Union. This had the effect of pushing
Russia and China together, prompting them to start voting against the US together as a block in the
UN Security Council. In a single blow, Obama assured an important element of his legacy as a Russian
agent: no longer will the US be able to further its agenda through this very important international
body.
Next, Obama presided over the violent overthrow of the constitutional government in the Ukraine
and the installation of an American puppet regime there. When Crimea then voted to rejoin Russia,
Obama imposed sanctions on the Russian Federation. These moves may seem like they were designed to
hurt Russia, but let's look at the results instead of the intentions.
First, Russia regained control of an important, strategic region.
Second, the sanctions and the countersanctions allowed Russia to concentrate on import replacement,
building up the domestic economy. This was especially impressive in agriculture, and Russia now earns
more export revenue from foodstuffs than from weapons.
Third, the severing of economic ties with the Ukraine allowed Russia to eliminate a major economic
competitor.
Fourth, over a million Ukrainians decided to move to Russia, either temporarily or permanently,
giving Russia a major demographic boost and giving it access to a pool of Russian-speaking skilled
labor. (Most Ukrainians are barely distinguishable from the general Russian population.)
Fifth, whereas before the Ukraine was in a position to extort concessions from Russia by playing
games with the natural gas pipelines that lead from Russia to the European Union, now Russia's hands
have been untied, resulting in new pipeline deals with Turkey and Germany.
In effect, Russia reaped all the benefits from the Ukrainian stalemate, while the US gained an
unsavory, embarrassing dependent.
Obama's next "achievement" was in carefully shepherding the Syrian conflict into a cul de sac.
(Some insist on calling it a civil war, although virtually all of the fighting there has between
the entire Syrian nation and foreign-funded outside mercenaries). To this end, Obama deployed an
array of tactics. He simultaneously supported, armed, trained and fought various terrorist groups,
making a joke of the usual US technique of using "terrorism by proxy." He made ridiculous claims
that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against its own people, which immediately reminded
everyone of similarly hollow claims about Saddam's WMDs while offering Russia a legitimate role to
play in resolving the Syrian conflict. He made endless promises to separate "moderate opposition"
from dyed-in-the-wool terrorists, but repeatedly failed to do so, thus giving the Russians ample
scope to take care of the situation as they saw fit. He negotiated several cease fires, then violated
them.
There have been other achievements as well. By constantly talking up the nonexistent "Russian
threat" and scaremongering about "Russian aggression" and "Russian invasion" (of which no evidence
existed), and by holding futile military exercises in Eastern Europe and especially in the geopolitically
irrelevant Baltics, Obama managed to deprive NATO of any residual legitimacy it once might have had,
turning it into a sad joke.
But perhaps Obama's most significant service on behalf of the Russian nation was in throwing the
election to Donald Trump. This he did by throwing his support behind the ridiculously inept and corrupt
Hillary Clinton. She outspent Trump by a factor of two, but apparently no amount of money could buy
her the presidency. As a result of Obama's steadfast efforts, the US will now have a Russia-friendly
president who is eager to make deals with Russia, but will have to do so from a significantly weakened
negotiating position.
As I have been arguing for the last decade, it is a foregone conclusion that the United States
is going to slide from its position of global dominance. But it was certainly helpful to have Obama
grease the skids, and now it's up to Donald Trump to finish the job. And since Obama's contribution
was especially helpful to Russia, I propose that he be awarded the Russian Federation's Order of
Friendship, to go with his Nobel Peace Prize.
Sometimes a case looks weak because there is no "smoking gun"-no obvious, direct evidence of conspiracy,
malfeasance or evil intent-but once you tally up all the evidence it forms a coherent and damning
picture. And so it is with the Obama administration vis ΰ vis Russia: by feigning hostile intent
it did everything possible to further Russia's agenda. And although it is always possible to claim
that all of Obama's failures stem from mere incompetence, at some point this claim begins to ring
hollow; how can he possibly be so utterly competent at being incompetent? Perhaps he just used incompetence
as a veil to cover his true intent, which was always to bolster Russia while rendering the US maximally
irrelevant in world affairs. Let's examine Obama's major foreign policy initiatives from this angle.
Perhaps the greatest achievement of his eight years has been the destruction of Libya. Under the
false pretense of a humanitarian intervention what was once the most prosperous and stable country
in the entire North Africa has been reduced to a rubble-strewn haven for Islamic terrorists and a
transit point for economic migrants streaming into the European Union. This had the effect of pushing
Russia and China together, prompting them to start voting against the US together as a block in the
UN Security Council. In a single blow, Obama assured an important element of his legacy as a Russian
agent: no longer will the US be able to further its agenda through this very important international
body.
Next, Obama presided over the violent overthrow of the constitutional government in the Ukraine
and the installation of an American puppet regime there. When Crimea then voted to rejoin Russia,
Obama imposed sanctions on the Russian Federation. These moves may seem like they were designed to
hurt Russia, but let's look at the results instead of the intentions.
First, Russia regained control of an important, strategic region.
Second, the sanctions and the countersanctions allowed Russia to concentrate on import replacement,
building up the domestic economy. This was especially impressive in agriculture, and Russia now earns
more export revenue from foodstuffs than from weapons.
Third, the severing of economic ties with the Ukraine allowed Russia to eliminate a major economic
competitor.
Fourth, over a million Ukrainians decided to move to Russia, either temporarily or permanently,
giving Russia a major demographic boost and giving it access to a pool of Russian-speaking skilled
labor. (Most Ukrainians are barely distinguishable from the general Russian population.)
Fifth, whereas before the Ukraine was in a position to extort concessions from Russia by playing
games with the natural gas pipelines that lead from Russia to the European Union, now Russia's hands
have been untied, resulting in new pipeline deals with Turkey and Germany.
In effect, Russia reaped all the benefits from the Ukrainian stalemate, while the US gained an
unsavory, embarrassing dependent.
Obama's next "achievement" was in carefully shepherding the Syrian conflict into a cul de sac.
(Some insist on calling it a civil war, although virtually all of the fighting there has between
the entire Syrian nation and foreign-funded outside mercenaries). To this end, Obama deployed an
array of tactics. He simultaneously supported, armed, trained and fought various terrorist groups,
making a joke of the usual US technique of using "terrorism by proxy." He made ridiculous claims
that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against its own people, which immediately reminded
everyone of similarly hollow claims about Saddam's WMDs while offering Russia a legitimate role to
play in resolving the Syrian conflict. He made endless promises to separate "moderate opposition"
from dyed-in-the-wool terrorists, but repeatedly failed to do so, thus giving the Russians ample
scope to take care of the situation as they saw fit. He negotiated several cease fires, then violated
them.
There have been other achievements as well. By constantly talking up the nonexistent "Russian
threat" and scaremongering about "Russian aggression" and "Russian invasion" (of which no evidence
existed), and by holding futile military exercises in Eastern Europe and especially in the geopolitically
irrelevant Baltics, Obama managed to deprive NATO of any residual legitimacy it once might have had,
turning it into a sad joke.
But perhaps Obama's most significant service on behalf of the Russian nation was in throwing the
election to Donald Trump. This he did by throwing his support behind the ridiculously inept and corrupt
Hillary Clinton. She outspent Trump by a factor of two, but apparently no amount of money could buy
her the presidency. As a result of Obama's steadfast efforts, the US will now have a Russia-friendly
president who is eager to make deals with Russia, but will have to do so from a significantly weakened
negotiating position.
As I have been arguing for the last decade, it is a foregone conclusion that the United States
is going to slide from its position of global dominance. But it was certainly helpful to have Obama
grease the skids, and now it's up to Donald Trump to finish the job. And since Obama's contribution
was especially helpful to Russia, I propose that he be awarded the Russian Federation's Order of
Friendship, to go with his Nobel Peace Prize.
"... Another thing: it will be clear how serious they take the allegations of Russian hacking, by how they address the problem of auditing electronic voting machines. ..."
"... If the 2018 elections aren't all with voter verified paper ballots, accompanied by random auditing and auditing all close elections, we know the accusations of Russian hacking were blatant lies. ..."
Another thing: it will be clear how serious they take the allegations of Russian hacking,
by how they address the problem of auditing electronic voting machines.
If the 2018 elections aren't all with voter verified paper ballots, accompanied by random auditing
and auditing all close elections, we know the accusations of Russian hacking were blatant lies.
"... The use of the term, however, rather naοvely implies that it is possible for a government agency to not be politicized. A non -political government agency, it is assumed, acts without regard to how its actions and claims affect its political standing among powerful interests in Washington. Such an agency has never existed. ..."
"... Indeed, when a government agency relies on taxpayer funding, Congressional lawmaking, and White House politics to sustain itself, it is absurd to expect that agency to somehow remain not "politicized." That is, it's a logical impossibility to think it possible to set up a government agency that relies on government policymakers to sustain it, and then think the agency in question will not attempt to influence or curry favor with those policymakers. ..."
"... Does the organization depend on taxpayer funding for a substantial amount of its budget? ..."
"... Does the organization engage in what would be illegal activities were it not for protective government legislation? ..."
Anonymous leakers at the CIA continue to make claims about Russia and the 2016 election. In response to demands to provide evidence,
the CIA has declined to offer any, refusing to meet with Congressional intelligence committees, and refusing to issue any documents
offering evidence. Instead, the CIA, communicating via leaks, simply says the equivalent of "trust us."
Not troubled by the lack of evidence, many in the media and in the Democratic party have been repeating unsubstantiated CIA claims
as fact.
Of course, as
I've noted before , the history of CIA intelligence is largely a history of missing the forest for the trees. Sometimes, the
failures have been spectacular.
One of the questions that immediately arises in the media in situations like these, however, is "
has the CIA been politicized ?"
When used in this way, the term "politicized" means that the CIA is involved in helping or hurting specific political factions
(e,g., specific ideological groups, pressure groups, or presidential administrations) in order to strengthen the CIA's financial
or political standing.
All Government Agencies Are Politicized
The use of the term, however, rather
naοvely implies that it is possible for a government agency to not be politicized. A non -political government agency, it is
assumed, acts without regard to how its actions and claims affect its political standing among powerful interests in Washington.
Such an agency has never existed.
Indeed, when a government agency relies on taxpayer funding, Congressional lawmaking, and White House politics to sustain
itself, it is absurd to expect that agency to somehow remain not "politicized." That is, it's a logical impossibility to think it
possible to set up a government agency that relies on government policymakers to sustain it, and then think the agency in question
will not attempt to influence or curry favor with those policymakers.
This idea might seem plausible to school children in junior-high-school civics classes, but not to anyone who lives in the real
world.
In fact, if we wish to ascertain whether or not an institution or organization is "politicized" we can simply ask ourselves a
few questions:
Does the organization depend on a legal monopoly to accomplish its mission? That is, does the organization benefit from a
government prohibition on other organizations - especially private-sector ones - doing the same thing?
Does the organization depend on taxpayer funding for a substantial amount of its budget?
Was the organization created by government legislation?
Are senior officials appointed by government policymakers (i.e., the President)?
Does the organization engage in what would be illegal activities were it not for protective government legislation?
If the answer to any of these questions is "yes" then you are probably dealing with a politicized organization. If the answer
to all of these questions is "yes" - as is the case with the CIA - then you're definitely dealing with a very politicized organization.
(Other "non-political" organizations that fall well within this criteria as well include so-called "private" organizations such as
the Federal Reserve System and Fannie Mae.)
So, it has always been foolish to ask ourselves if the CIA is "politicized" since the answer is obviously "yes" for anyone who
is paying attention.
Nevertheless, the myth that the CIA and agencies like it can be non-political continues to endure, although in many cases, the
charge has produced numerous helpful historical analysis of just how politicized the CIA has been in practice.
Recent Narratives on CIA Politicization
Stories of CIA politicization take at least two forms: One type consists of anti-CIA writers attempting to illustrate how the
CIA acts to manipulate political actors to achieve its own political ends. The other type consists of pro-CIA writers attempting
to cast the CIA as an innocent victim of manipulation by senior Washington officials.
Of course, it doesn't matter whether the provenance of CIA politicking comes from within the agency or outside it. In both cases,
the fact remains that the Agency is a tool for political actors to deceive, manipulate, and attack political enemies.
With CIA leaks apparently attempting to call the integrity of the 2016 election into question, the CIA is once again being accused
of politicization. Consequently, articles in the
Washington
Times , the
Daily Caller , and
The Intercept all question the CIA's motivation and present numerous examples of the Agency's history of deception.
The current controversy is hardly the first time the Agency has been accused of being political, and during the build up to the
Iraq invasion in 2003, for example, the CIA worked with the Bush Administration to essentially manufacture "intelligence."
In his book Failure of Intelligence , Melvin Allan Goodman writes:
Three years after the invasion of Iraq, a senior CIA analyst, Paul Pillar, documented the efforts of the Bush administration
to politicize the intelligence of the CIA on Iraqi WMD and so-called links between Iraq and al Qaeda. Pillar accused the Bush
administration of using policy to drive intelligence production, which was the same argument offered by the chief of British intelligence
in the Downing Street memorandum prior to the war, and aggressively using intelligence to win public support for the decision
to go to war....Pillar does not explain why no senior CIA official protested, let alone resigned in the wake of the president's
misuse of intelligence on Iraq's so-called efforts to obtain uranium ore in Africa. Pillar falsely claimed "for the most part,
the intelligence community's own substantive judgments do not appear to have been compromised," when it was clear that the CIA
wa wrong on every conclusion and had to politicize the intelligence to be so egregiously wrong."
Since then, CIA officials have attempted to rehabilitate the agency by claiming the agency was the hapless victim of the Administration.
But, as Goodman notes, we heard no protests from the Agency when such protests would have actually mattered, and the fact is the
Agency was easily used for political ends. Whether or not some agents wanted to participate in assisting the Bush administration
with trumping up evidence against Iraq remains irrelevant. The fact remains the CIA did it.
Moreover, according to documents compiled by John Prados
at the George Washington University , "The U.S. intelligence community buckled sooner in 2002 than previously reported" and that
"Under the circumstances, it is difficult to avoid the impression that the CIA and other intelligence agencies defended themselves
against the dangers of attack from the Bush administration through a process of self-censorship. That is the very essence of politicization
in intelligence."
In other words, to protect its own budgets and privileges, the CIA reacted quickly to shape its intelligence to meet the political
goals of others.
Journalist Robert Parry has also
attempted to go the CIA-as-victim
route in his own writings. In an article written before the Iraq War debacle, Parry looks at how the Agency was used by both
Reagan and Clinton, and claims that what is arguably of the CIA's biggest analytical errors - repeatedly overstating the economic
strength of the Soviet Union - was the result of pressure applied to the Agency by the Reagan administration. (Parry may be mistaken
here, as the CIA
was
wrong about the Soviet economy long before the Reagan Administration .)
While attempting to defend the CIA, however, Parry is merely providing a list of the many ways in which the CIA serves to manufacture
false information that are useful for political officials.
In this essay for the Center for
International Policy, Goodman further lists many examples of politicization and concludes "Throughout the CIA's 60-year history,
there have been many efforts to slant analytical conclusions, skew estimates, and repress evidence that challenged a particular policy
or point of view. As a result, the agency must recognize the impact of politicization and introduce barriers to protect analysts
from political pressures. Unfortunately, the CIA has largely ignored the problem."
It is difficult to ascertain whether past intelligence failures were due to pressure form the administration or whether they originated
from within the Agency itself. Nevertheless, the intelligence failures are numerous, including:
The CIA was wrong about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
The fact that politicization occurs might help explain some of these failures, but simply claiming "politicization" doesn't erase
the legacy of failure, and it hardly serves as an argument in favor of allowing the CIA to continue to
command huge budgets and essentially
function unsupervised. Regardless of fanciful claims of non-political professionalism, it is undeniable that, as an agency of the
US government, the CIA is a political institution.
The only type of organization that is not politicized is a private-sector organization under a relatively laissez-faire regime.
Heavily regulated private industries and all government agencies are politicized by nature because they depend heavily on active
assistance from political actors to sustain themselves.
It should be assumed that politicized organizations seek to influence policymakers, and thus all the actions and claims of these
organization should be treated with skepticism and a recognition that these organizations benefit from further taxation and expanded
government powers inflicted on ordinary taxpayers and other productive members of society outside the privileged circles of Washington,
DC.
Perimetr -> Chupacabra-322 Dec 23, 2016 11:34 AM
Is the CIA politicized?
...Is the pope catholic?
How many more presidents does the CIA have to kill to answer your question?
Oldwood -> DownWithYogaPants Dec 23, 2016 11:26 AM
How could the CIA NOT be politicized? They collect "intelligence" and use it to influence policy makers without ANY accountability
and no real proof. The CIA operates on CONJECTURE that is completely subjective to bias and agenda. Is that ANYTHING BUT political?
TeaClipper's picture -> TeaClipper Dec 23, 2016 11:24 AM
The CIA was not wrong about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, it lied about them. That is a very big distinction.
Old Poor Richard Dec 23, 2016 12:13 PM
The question is whether the CIA is puppeteer and not the puppet.
The Snowden report, jam packed with provably false scurrilous accusations, demonstrates that not only is the US intelligence
community entirely lacking in credibility, but that they believe themselves so powerful that they can indefinitely get away with
baldfaced lies.
The thing is, the deep state can only keep up the charade when they completely control the narrative, the way China does. Hence
the attacks on the first amendment that are accelerating as fast as the attacks on the second amendment. Majority of Americans
don't believe the Russian hacking hoax and it make the CIA increasingly hysterical.
DarthVaderMentor Dec 23, 2016 12:33 PM
The CIA has been politicized. In fact, all the way down to the COS level, and in concert with the State Department. Brennan and
Moran are nothing but Clinton surrogates.
In one embassy in a country where IEDs keep blowing up, there were millions of taxpayer dollars spent and continue to be spent
in "safe spaces" and "comfort food and liquor" inside an embassy (taking away space from the US Marine Giuards for it) to let
"Democrat snowflakes" in senior embassy and CIA positions recover from the Trump elections.
The real reaon for the loss of the Phillipines as an ally may eventually come out that a gay senior embassy official made a
pass at the President of the country. Just like it happened with the gay ambassador in the Dominican Republic.
That Libral You Hate Dec 23, 2016 12:41 PM
I would say the simple answer to the question asked in the headline of this article is "yes" but it is important to actually understand
the nuance of the langer answer.
The critical nuance is that: politics didn't conquor the CIA, but rather the CIA injected itself into politics. I.e. the CIA
aren't political stooges, but act political because they have injected political stooges into politics and they have to act political
to protect them to protect their interests. Thus while the answer is "yes" the question is phrased wrong as: "Has the CIA Been
Politicized," the appropriate question is "Has politics been co-opted by the CIA"
insanelysane Dec 23, 2016 12:50 PM
The first post is spot on except the CIA was in Southeast Asia stirring stuff up to get us into a war. War is big business.
The entire reason for Vietnam was "If Vietnam falls the commies will be marching down Main Street USA afterwards."
Well we fucking lost Vietnam and the commies still aren't marching down Main Street and yet the assessment is still being peddled
by the Corporation.
Kennedy was killed because, even though he was fucking totally drugged up, he still saw Vietnam for what it was.
The Corporation gave Johnson and offer he couldn't refuse, take the keys to the kingdom, just keep "fighting" in Vietnam. I
say fighting because we were just fucking around there. No one in charge wanted to risk winning the war.
And here we are today, 23rd, December, 2016, "fighting" in the Middle East and the Corporation not willing to risk winning
the war. Just need to keep it hot enough for the weapons and ammunition to be used in a nice steady pace to keep business going.
Fox Business News discusses a potential investigation involving CIA Director John Brennan over whether
he leaked information about the Russian hacking investigation to the media
John Brennan takes his cues directly from Barack Obama, which means the entire CIA, Russian hack
investigation, was initiated and conducted under Obama's direct order.
The Russian hack, media spin, has been and remains a political play. National security has very
little to do with it.
There certainly are experts in the field who should know
about the alleged hacking, but they are not allowed to disrupt mainstream media's Russophobe
frenzy. Bet you never saw William Binney on mainstream media. Who is Binney? He is the guy who
put together the NSA's elaborate worldwide surveillance system. He has publicly stated on
alternative news sites, that if something was "hacked", the NSA would instantly know who, when,
and whether the info was passed on to another party. He designed the system. He argues, there was
no hacking for that very reason. Binney insists the e-mails had to have been leaked by an
"insider" who had access to the data. Never heard him on mainstream media huh? Next comes Craig
Murray a former US Ambassador who claims he knows who leaked the e-mails, because he met with the
individual in Washington D.C. Never heard him on mainstream media either huh? Finally, Julian
Assange, the man who released the e-mails. He insisted all along he never got the e-mails from
Russia. Another no show on mainstream media. Whatever happened to the journalistic adage of going
to the source? Assange is the source, but no mainstream media journalist, and I use the term very
loosely, has ventured to speak with him. The accusation has been repeated countless times,
without any evidence, or consulting with any of the above three experts.
Because the big lie has been repeated so many times by
corporate media, about half of the US public, according to a recent poll, believes Russia
interfered, even though there is not a bit of evidence to support it. Once again they take the
bait; hook, line, and sinker.
For believers of Russian hacking, I offer the following analogy. It might, but I doubt it will
help, because you cannot undo the effect of propaganda. You are put on trial for murder that you
did not commit. The prosecutor and judge simply say they have reached a "consensus view", the
phrase offered by intelligence agencies, that you committed the murder and are guilty. You ask
for proof. They offer none. They just keep repeating that you did it. You challenge and ask how
do you know I did it? Answer: we have anonymous sources, but we cannot tell you who they are, nor
can we show you proof.
Just as in the fake run-up to the Iraq war, the expert voices of the opposition are not tolerated
on mainstream media. Do these folks really want a war with Russia? Are they so upset with Trump's
pronouncement that he wanted better relations with Russia? What sane person would not? Hmmm.
It appears there is a war already raging between the Russophobes, who do not want better
relations with Russia, and are doing their best to smear and demonize Putin, and those who do.
This is the same tactic used with Manuel Noriega of Panama, Muarmar Gaddafi, and Saddam Hussein,
before they made war on all three. Demonize, then make war.
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Shame on those who buy into propaganda
without any proof.
The oddity of the above author's first paragraph is that the
CIA was not lying in 2001-03. The CIA said Iraq/Saddam had no
wmds.
In fact, if you lived through it then perhaps you recall the
words cherry-picking and stove-piped intel. Now, I understand
he's CIA so there's no reason to believe them, but ask Larry
Johnson (I know, great name for CIA).
Actually he didn't mention the CIA in the first paragraph.
However in late 2002 CIA director George Tenet and United
States Secretary of State Colin Powell both cited attempts
by Hussein to obtain uranium from Niger in their September
testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
using intelligence Italy, Britain, and France.
Days before the Iraq invasion, the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) voiced serious doubt on the
authenticity of the documents to the UN Security Council,
judging them counterfeit but the CIA while having
suspicions, largely kept them to themselves.
The author of the above article, Joe Clifford is referring
to what CIA Chief George Tenet who represented US
intelligence, said: it was "Slam Dunk" Iraq had WMD. Tenet
was quoted over and over again by Bush-Dick regime to
justify US war against Iraq. After Tenet said those words,
CIA neither contradicted him nor corrected him which meant
that they went along with the "Slam Dunk" Iraq had WMD.
Tenet, representing US intelligence, even sat quietly
behind Powell at the UNSC when Powell was spewing his lies
about Iraq's nonexistent WMD.
Not only to officials repeat false assertions over and over,
but those who hear the falsities, themselves start repeating
them. The more outrageous, the more they are repeated.
You forgot former Yugoslavia.There they "sharpened "their
tools.They "demonized" that country,demonized their
President,trained and financed those local soldiers and then
destroyed that country while "peace making".Filthy
BASTARDS.And you people call USA a decent country?They lied
when they created that country and still their mouths and
deeds are full of lies,murder and plunder.And their Churches
are cheer leaders in that endeavour yet they will proclaim
even this Christmas "Peace to the world" while they will plot
more of the same.They preach one thing but their actions are
totally opposite.They leave wrecked countries behind them and
those people end up feeding from containers.I hope that they
choke on that stolen turkey.
The counter tactic for the "big lie" is the "big truth."
Ordinary people have access to e-mail, social media and
website comments. No secret organization is needed. Just make
counter-bullturdism part of your personal routine.
This takes time. Most people invest little thought into
the news they digest. Quite often, news (or "news") is not
even digested at all, just internalised. They know this.
The CIA, th eDNC, all of them. They rely on public apathy
to survive.
This the the lie the liberals love just like Iraq's wmd was
the lie so dear to the conservatives. It's sickening the way
these partisan idiots are so easily manipulated.
It doesn't matter who hacked the emails one bit! That right
there is the point the powers that be want us to argue about
endlessly, because it draws attention away from what actually
matters: What matters is that the emails revealed the truth
about the democratic party, and that they rigged their
primaries. What matters is that the press did not reveal this
and since the reveal, they have been trying to distract
people from the truth. It is the press and the Democratic
party that were influencing the 2016 election by lying and
cheating, not the Russians or whoever hacked the email.
The e-mails were not hacked: they were leaked. Every time
anyone refers to the "hacked" e-mails, it raises the
question "Who dunnit ?" This is a wild goose chase. The
e-mails were leaked by a disgusted insider.
The contents of the leaks/hacks were almost never claimed to
be false. Even the very faint cries of "the e-mails were
doctored" eventually died out. Nobody has stepped in to claim
that the information was false since. This means that all
Wikileaks revealed was true. Whoever was responsible for
providing this information has done a very valuable public
service. Yes, even if it (somehow) was the Russians. To deny
that the leak/hack was beneficial to the public is insane.
Not that we didn't know beforehand that the CIA are quite
crazy, but still. I would at least have expected them to
welcome this 4th detente. I mean, they have thus far shown
that their intelligence gathering efforts in Russia are
laughably bad. Do they not want some respite form the
humiliation? It would at least be good PR.
"... The use of the term, however, rather naοvely implies that it is possible for a government agency to not be politicized. A non -political government agency, it is assumed, acts without regard to how its actions and claims affect its political standing among powerful interests in Washington. Such an agency has never existed. ..."
"... Indeed, when a government agency relies on taxpayer funding, Congressional lawmaking, and White House politics to sustain itself, it is absurd to expect that agency to somehow remain not "politicized." That is, it's a logical impossibility to think it possible to set up a government agency that relies on government policymakers to sustain it, and then think the agency in question will not attempt to influence or curry favor with those policymakers. ..."
"... Does the organization depend on taxpayer funding for a substantial amount of its budget? ..."
"... Does the organization engage in what would be illegal activities were it not for protective government legislation? ..."
Anonymous leakers at the CIA continue to make claims about Russia and the 2016 election. In response to demands to provide evidence,
the CIA has declined to offer any, refusing to meet with Congressional intelligence committees, and refusing to issue any documents
offering evidence. Instead, the CIA, communicating via leaks, simply says the equivalent of "trust us."
Not troubled by the lack of evidence, many in the media and in the Democratic party have been repeating unsubstantiated CIA claims
as fact.
Of course, as
I've noted before , the history of CIA intelligence is largely a history of missing the forest for the trees. Sometimes, the
failures have been spectacular.
One of the questions that immediately arises in the media in situations like these, however, is "
has the CIA been politicized ?"
When used in this way, the term "politicized" means that the CIA is involved in helping or hurting specific political factions
(e,g., specific ideological groups, pressure groups, or presidential administrations) in order to strengthen the CIA's financial
or political standing.
All Government Agencies Are Politicized
The use of the term, however, rather
naοvely implies that it is possible for a government agency to not be politicized. A non -political government agency, it is
assumed, acts without regard to how its actions and claims affect its political standing among powerful interests in Washington.
Such an agency has never existed.
Indeed, when a government agency relies on taxpayer funding, Congressional lawmaking, and White House politics to sustain
itself, it is absurd to expect that agency to somehow remain not "politicized." That is, it's a logical impossibility to think it
possible to set up a government agency that relies on government policymakers to sustain it, and then think the agency in question
will not attempt to influence or curry favor with those policymakers.
This idea might seem plausible to school children in junior-high-school civics classes, but not to anyone who lives in the real
world.
In fact, if we wish to ascertain whether or not an institution or organization is "politicized" we can simply ask ourselves a
few questions:
Does the organization depend on a legal monopoly to accomplish its mission? That is, does the organization benefit from a
government prohibition on other organizations - especially private-sector ones - doing the same thing?
Does the organization depend on taxpayer funding for a substantial amount of its budget?
Was the organization created by government legislation?
Are senior officials appointed by government policymakers (i.e., the President)?
Does the organization engage in what would be illegal activities were it not for protective government legislation?
If the answer to any of these questions is "yes" then you are probably dealing with a politicized organization. If the answer
to all of these questions is "yes" - as is the case with the CIA - then you're definitely dealing with a very politicized organization.
(Other "non-political" organizations that fall well within this criteria as well include so-called "private" organizations such as
the Federal Reserve System and Fannie Mae.)
So, it has always been foolish to ask ourselves if the CIA is "politicized" since the answer is obviously "yes" for anyone who
is paying attention.
Nevertheless, the myth that the CIA and agencies like it can be non-political continues to endure, although in many cases, the
charge has produced numerous helpful historical analysis of just how politicized the CIA has been in practice.
Recent Narratives on CIA Politicization
Stories of CIA politicization take at least two forms: One type consists of anti-CIA writers attempting to illustrate how the
CIA acts to manipulate political actors to achieve its own political ends. The other type consists of pro-CIA writers attempting
to cast the CIA as an innocent victim of manipulation by senior Washington officials.
Of course, it doesn't matter whether the provenance of CIA politicking comes from within the agency or outside it. In both cases,
the fact remains that the Agency is a tool for political actors to deceive, manipulate, and attack political enemies.
With CIA leaks apparently attempting to call the integrity of the 2016 election into question, the CIA is once again being accused
of politicization. Consequently, articles in the
Washington
Times , the
Daily Caller , and
The Intercept all question the CIA's motivation and present numerous examples of the Agency's history of deception.
The current controversy is hardly the first time the Agency has been accused of being political, and during the build up to the
Iraq invasion in 2003, for example, the CIA worked with the Bush Administration to essentially manufacture "intelligence."
In his book Failure of Intelligence , Melvin Allan Goodman writes:
Three years after the invasion of Iraq, a senior CIA analyst, Paul Pillar, documented the efforts of the Bush administration
to politicize the intelligence of the CIA on Iraqi WMD and so-called links between Iraq and al Qaeda. Pillar accused the Bush
administration of using policy to drive intelligence production, which was the same argument offered by the chief of British intelligence
in the Downing Street memorandum prior to the war, and aggressively using intelligence to win public support for the decision
to go to war....Pillar does not explain why no senior CIA official protested, let alone resigned in the wake of the president's
misuse of intelligence on Iraq's so-called efforts to obtain uranium ore in Africa. Pillar falsely claimed "for the most part,
the intelligence community's own substantive judgments do not appear to have been compromised," when it was clear that the CIA
wa wrong on every conclusion and had to politicize the intelligence to be so egregiously wrong."
Since then, CIA officials have attempted to rehabilitate the agency by claiming the agency was the hapless victim of the Administration.
But, as Goodman notes, we heard no protests from the Agency when such protests would have actually mattered, and the fact is the
Agency was easily used for political ends. Whether or not some agents wanted to participate in assisting the Bush administration
with trumping up evidence against Iraq remains irrelevant. The fact remains the CIA did it.
Moreover, according to documents compiled by John Prados
at the George Washington University , "The U.S. intelligence community buckled sooner in 2002 than previously reported" and that
"Under the circumstances, it is difficult to avoid the impression that the CIA and other intelligence agencies defended themselves
against the dangers of attack from the Bush administration through a process of self-censorship. That is the very essence of politicization
in intelligence."
In other words, to protect its own budgets and privileges, the CIA reacted quickly to shape its intelligence to meet the political
goals of others.
Journalist Robert Parry has also
attempted to go the CIA-as-victim
route in his own writings. In an article written before the Iraq War debacle, Parry looks at how the Agency was used by both
Reagan and Clinton, and claims that what is arguably of the CIA's biggest analytical errors - repeatedly overstating the economic
strength of the Soviet Union - was the result of pressure applied to the Agency by the Reagan administration. (Parry may be mistaken
here, as the CIA
was
wrong about the Soviet economy long before the Reagan Administration .)
While attempting to defend the CIA, however, Parry is merely providing a list of the many ways in which the CIA serves to manufacture
false information that are useful for political officials.
In this essay for the Center for
International Policy, Goodman further lists many examples of politicization and concludes "Throughout the CIA's 60-year history,
there have been many efforts to slant analytical conclusions, skew estimates, and repress evidence that challenged a particular policy
or point of view. As a result, the agency must recognize the impact of politicization and introduce barriers to protect analysts
from political pressures. Unfortunately, the CIA has largely ignored the problem."
It is difficult to ascertain whether past intelligence failures were due to pressure form the administration or whether they originated
from within the Agency itself. Nevertheless, the intelligence failures are numerous, including:
The CIA was wrong about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
The fact that politicization occurs might help explain some of these failures, but simply claiming "politicization" doesn't erase
the legacy of failure, and it hardly serves as an argument in favor of allowing the CIA to continue to
command huge budgets and essentially
function unsupervised. Regardless of fanciful claims of non-political professionalism, it is undeniable that, as an agency of the
US government, the CIA is a political institution.
The only type of organization that is not politicized is a private-sector organization under a relatively laissez-faire regime.
Heavily regulated private industries and all government agencies are politicized by nature because they depend heavily on active
assistance from political actors to sustain themselves.
It should be assumed that politicized organizations seek to influence policymakers, and thus all the actions and claims of these
organization should be treated with skepticism and a recognition that these organizations benefit from further taxation and expanded
government powers inflicted on ordinary taxpayers and other productive members of society outside the privileged circles of Washington,
DC.
Perimetr -> Chupacabra-322 Dec 23, 2016 11:34 AM
Is the CIA politicized?
...Is the pope catholic?
How many more presidents does the CIA have to kill to answer your question?
Oldwood -> DownWithYogaPants Dec 23, 2016 11:26 AM
How could the CIA NOT be politicized? They collect "intelligence" and use it to influence policy makers without ANY accountability
and no real proof. The CIA operates on CONJECTURE that is completely subjective to bias and agenda. Is that ANYTHING BUT political?
TeaClipper's picture -> TeaClipper Dec 23, 2016 11:24 AM
The CIA was not wrong about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, it lied about them. That is a very big distinction.
Old Poor Richard Dec 23, 2016 12:13 PM
The question is whether the CIA is puppeteer and not the puppet.
The Snowden report, jam packed with provably false scurrilous accusations, demonstrates that not only is the US intelligence
community entirely lacking in credibility, but that they believe themselves so powerful that they can indefinitely get away with
baldfaced lies.
The thing is, the deep state can only keep up the charade when they completely control the narrative, the way China does. Hence
the attacks on the first amendment that are accelerating as fast as the attacks on the second amendment. Majority of Americans
don't believe the Russian hacking hoax and it make the CIA increasingly hysterical.
DarthVaderMentor Dec 23, 2016 12:33 PM
The CIA has been politicized. In fact, all the way down to the COS level, and in concert with the State Department. Brennan and
Moran are nothing but Clinton surrogates.
In one embassy in a country where IEDs keep blowing up, there were millions of taxpayer dollars spent and continue to be spent
in "safe spaces" and "comfort food and liquor" inside an embassy (taking away space from the US Marine Giuards for it) to let
"Democrat snowflakes" in senior embassy and CIA positions recover from the Trump elections.
The real reaon for the loss of the Phillipines as an ally may eventually come out that a gay senior embassy official made a
pass at the President of the country. Just like it happened with the gay ambassador in the Dominican Republic.
That Libral You Hate Dec 23, 2016 12:41 PM
I would say the simple answer to the question asked in the headline of this article is "yes" but it is important to actually understand
the nuance of the langer answer.
The critical nuance is that: politics didn't conquor the CIA, but rather the CIA injected itself into politics. I.e. the CIA
aren't political stooges, but act political because they have injected political stooges into politics and they have to act political
to protect them to protect their interests. Thus while the answer is "yes" the question is phrased wrong as: "Has the CIA Been
Politicized," the appropriate question is "Has politics been co-opted by the CIA"
insanelysane Dec 23, 2016 12:50 PM
The first post is spot on except the CIA was in Southeast Asia stirring stuff up to get us into a war. War is big business.
The entire reason for Vietnam was "If Vietnam falls the commies will be marching down Main Street USA afterwards."
Well we fucking lost Vietnam and the commies still aren't marching down Main Street and yet the assessment is still being peddled
by the Corporation.
Kennedy was killed because, even though he was fucking totally drugged up, he still saw Vietnam for what it was.
The Corporation gave Johnson and offer he couldn't refuse, take the keys to the kingdom, just keep "fighting" in Vietnam. I
say fighting because we were just fucking around there. No one in charge wanted to risk winning the war.
And here we are today, 23rd, December, 2016, "fighting" in the Middle East and the Corporation not willing to risk winning
the war. Just need to keep it hot enough for the weapons and ammunition to be used in a nice steady pace to keep business going.
During the third and last presidential debate between Republican Donald Trump and
Democrat Hillary Clinton, debate moderator Chris Wallace
pulled a quote from a speech
Clinton had given to Brazilian bankers, noting the
information had been made available to the public via WikiLeaks.
Instead of
answering the question, Clinton blamed the Russian government for the leaks
,
alleging "
[t]he Russian government has engaged in espionage against Americans
,"
hacking "
American websites, American accounts of private people, of institutions
in an effort, as 17 of our intelligence agencies have confirmed, to influence our
election
."
Following the claim,
Clinton criticized Trump for
saying
"
[Clinton] has no idea whether it's Russia, China, or anybody else
,"
repeating her assertion that 17 U.S. intelligence agencies had determined the Russian
government had been behind the Democratic National Committee (DNC) hack.
Despite her claim, reality couldn't be more different.
Instead of 17 agencies, only the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI)
and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have
offered the public
any input on this matter, claiming the DNC attacks "
are
consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts
."
Without offering any evidence, these two - not 17 - agencies hinted that the
Kremlin
could
be behind the cyber attack.
But saying they
believe
the hacks come from the Russians is far short of saying they
know
the Russians
were behind them.
During an
interview on Aaron Klein's Sunday radio program
, former high-ranking NSA
intelligence official-turned-whistleblower,
William Binney
, discussed the alleged Russian involvement in our elections,
suggesting the cyber attack against the DNC may not have originated from the Russian
government. Instead, Binney says, a
"
disgruntled U.S. intelligence worker
"
is likely behind the breach.
According to Binney, what Mueller meant is that
the FBI has access to the NSA
database and that it's accessed without any oversight, meaning the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA), as well as the FBI, have open access to anything the NSA has access to. "
So
if the FBI really wanted [Clinton's and the DNC emails] they can go into that database
and get them right now
," Binney
told
Klein.
Asked
if he believed the NSA had copies of all Clinton's emails,
"
including
the deleted correspondence
,"
Binney said:
"
Yes. That would be my point. They have them all and the FBI can get
them right there
."
While Binney seems to be the only intelligence insider who has come forward with this
type of analysis, a young man from Russia whose servers were implicated in the recent
hacking of the DNC sites says he has information that will lead to the hacker - yet the
FBI won't knock on his door.
In a conversation with the
New York Times
, Vladimir M. Fomenko said his server rental company, King
Servers, is oftentimes used by hackers. Fomenko added that the hackers behind the attack
against computerized election systems in Arizona and Illinois - which, like the DNC
hack, were
also linked to the Russian government by the FBI
- had used his servers.
According to the 26-year-old entrepreneur,
"[w]e have the information.
If the F.B.I. asks, we are ready to supply the I.P. addresses, the logs, but nobody
contacted us."
"
It's like nobody wants to sort this out,
"
he
added
.
After learning that two renters using the nicknames Robin Good and Dick Robin had
used his servers to hack the Arizona and Illinois voting systems, Fomenko
released a statement
saying he learned about the problem through the news and shut
down the two users down shortly after.
While he
told the
New York Times
he doesn't know who the hackers are, he used his
statement to report that the hackers are not Russian security agents.
"
The analysis of the internal data allows King Servers to confidently
refute any conclusions about the involvement of the Russian special services in this
attack
,"
he
said
on September 15, the
New York Times
reported.
According to Fomenko, he found a trail left by the hackers through their contact with
King Servers' billing page, which leads to the next step in the chain
"
to
bring investigators in the United States closer to the hackers
."
The clients used about 60 I.P. addresses to contact Fomenko, including addresses
belonging to server companies in Finland, France, Italy, Norway, Britain, and Sweden.
With these addresses in hand, authorities could track the hackers down.
But while this information is somewhat recent, few news organizations found it
necessary to report on the King Servers link. In the past, however, at least one major
news network mentioned Binney.
In August 2016, Judge Andrew Napolitano
commented
on
the DNC hack.
On "Judge Napolitano Chambers," the Judge said that while the DNC, government
officials, and the Clinton campaign all accuse the Russians of hacking into the DNC
servers,
"
the Russians had nothing to do with it.
"
"A group of retired senior intelligence officials, including the NSA whistleblower
William Binney (former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis,
NSA), have posted an open letter on consortiumnews.com that destroys the Obama
administration's "Russian hacking" narrative.
Within the letter, Binney argues that, thanks to the NSA's "extensive domestic
data-collection network," any data removed remotely from Hillary Clinton or DNC
servers would have passed over fiber networks and therefore would have been captured
by the NSA who could have then analyzed packet data to determine the origination
point and destination address of those packets. As Binney further notes, the only way
the leaks could have avoided NSA detection is if they were never passed over fiber
networks but rather downloaded to a thumb drive by someone with internal access to
servers."
In response to the latest imposition of US sanctions on Russia, the Kremlin said on Wednesday that
the new sanctions would further damage relations between the two countries and that Moscow would
respond with its own measures. "We regret that Washington is continuing on this destructive path,"
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.
As a reminder, on Tuesday the United States widened sanctions against Russian businessmen and
companies adopted after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the conflict in Ukraine.
"We believe this damages bilateral relations ... Russia will take commensurate measures."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov
Then again, it is difficult to see how sanctions between the two administration could be any more
"damaged": also on Wednesday, the Kremlin said it did not expect the incoming U.S. administration
to reject NATO enlargement overnight and that almost all communications channels between Russia and
the United States were frozen, the RIA news agency reported.
" Almost every level of dialogue with the United States is frozen. We don't communicate with one
another, or (if we do) we do so minimally ," Peskov said.
Additionally, RIA said that according to Peskov "he did not know whether President Vladimir Putin
would seek re-election in 2018."
"Everyone's heads are aching because of work and with projects and nobody is thinking or talking
about elections," Peskov said.
Then again, the sanctions may soon be history.
According to a Bloomberg report , the U.S. will start easing its penalties, imposed over the
showdown in Ukraine in 2014, during the next 12 months, according to 55 percent of respondents in
a Bloomberg survey, up from 10 percent in an October poll. Without the restrictions, Russia's economic
growth would get a boost equivalent to 0.2 percentage point of gross domestic product next year and
0.5 percentage point in 2018, according to the median estimates in the poll.
"It's still a toss-up whether the U.S. will ease sanctions quickly, with the EU lagging, but the
direction of travel is toward easier sanctions or less enforcement, which could reduce financing
costs," said Rachel Ziemba, the New York-based head of emerging markets at 4CAST-RGE. "We think the
macro impact would be greater in the medium term than short term as it facilitates a rate easing
trend that is already on course. In the longer term, it gives more choice of investment."
Trump, who's called President Vladimir Putin a better leader than Barack Obama, has said he
may consider recognizing Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and lifting the curbs. While
dogged by concerns that Russia intervened to tip this year's elections in the Republican candidate's
favor, Trump has already showed his hand by planning to stack his administration with officials
supportive of closer cooperation with the Kremlin, from Michael Flynn, the president-elect's national
security adviser, to Exxon Mobil Corp. chief Rex Tillerson, a candidate for secretary of state.
An equally important consequence of any policy change by Trump would be its affect on the EU's
own penalties on Russia, with more economists saying the bloc will follow suit. Forty percent
of respondents said in the Dec. 16-19 survey that the EU will begin easing sanctions in the next
12 months, compared with 33 percent in October.
"If the U.S. eases sanctions, it won't be possible to achieve a consensus among EU member states
to keep their sanctions regime in place as currently formulated," said Charles Movit, an economist
at IHS Markit in Washington.
And although it is always possible to claim that all of Obama's failures stem from mere
incompetence, at some point this claim begins to ring hollow; how can he possibly be so utterly
competent at being incompetent?
Obama is not a Russian agent but could very well be a Soviet agent.
Being a dumb fuck whose only skill is reading a teleprompter, he has no idea how to resolve
the change in the world since the Soviet Union disintegrated.
A Russian in Crimea told me of a recent past winter near disaster when Ukraine shut off the power
(and water) - somewhat covered here on ZH. Only a truly heroic effort by Russia to bring
in generators kept them from living in dangerous conditions. Crimea is more solidly pro-Russian
than it was before the vote to secede.
All Ukrainians should understand that the NWO (controlled by the elite and their Western banks)
will subjugate the Ukraine. Evidence for this is abundant, but the most striking example
is the willingness to accept millions of non-European refugees, while few Ukrainians are allowed
into Western countries.
Yes, there is genuine reason for resentment (Holodomar), but this terror was executed by the
Bolshevik Lazar Kaganovich (which means son of Kagan - as in Ron Kagan - husband of Nudelman -
understand the connection?). More Russians died under this same type of Bolshevik terror
than any other ethnicity in the USSR.
Russia is no longer the USSR, and seeks to return to a society of Christian values. Ukrainians
should seek peace with their Russian brothers. It would be to the benefit of all Western
countries, which is why the NWO is trying everything to prevent it.
The UN Mediator for Palestine, "The U.S. appointed Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden" was assassinated
in 1948 in Jerusalam by the likudnik-future izraeli Prime Ministers Begin & Shamir....
FACT:
"Folke Bernadotte ,
Count of Wisborg
( Swedish : Greve
af Wisborg ; 2 January 1895 17 September 1948) was a Swedish
diplomat and nobleman. During
World War II he negotiated
the release of about 31,000 prisoners from German
concentration camps
including 450 Danish Jews from the
Theresienstadt camp.
They were released on 14 April 1945. [1]
[2] [3] In 1945, he received a German surrender offer from
Heinrich Himmler
, though the offer was ultimately rejected.
After the war, Bernadotte was unanimously chosen to be the
United
Nations Security Council mediator in the
ArabIsraeli conflict
of 19471948. He was assassinated in
Jerusalem in 1948 by the
militant Zionist group
Lehi while pursuing
his official duties. Upon his death,
Ralph Bunche took up
his work at the UN, but was removed from the post around six months after Bernadotte was assassinated,
at the critical period of recognition of the fledgling state. ....."
Likudniks like present-day murderer & chief Benny-Boy Nutandyahoo!!!
It's 100% bonefide fuckin' TERRORISTS that are the leaders of the rothschild colony & real
estate project in the eastern Mediterranean.
Wow! Those are some stringent sources! Wikipedia, where you can edit the text to read however
you wish before citing it, ...great source! ( Seriously? A wiki cite ends the discussion for me
every single time. Dead. (Kind of like interviewing an architect who says Fisher-Price is his
inspiration). Next up is the legendary duckduckgo. Move over Library of Congress! And of course
WhatReallyHappened is the next up on the hit parade. Jeeze, I spent a cargoload of time and money
earning a masters in history. I wish I had had wiki. It would have been so much easier, AND I
would be as smart as this guy telling us all about how stupid we all are. LOL!. X_in_Sweden, go
to Wiki and look up "Useful Idiot" while standing in front of a mirror.
Zionists are also behind the use of Saudi wahabbists. It's a twofer. It clears land that Israel
covets and is part of the plan to get Christians to fight Muslims, wipping each other out.
Well Mr Chumbawamba let me congratulate you on joining the big club of anti-jewish fascism, you
share a honorable position together with Nazism and Islamic Fascism. Fuck off paranoid religitard.
I have done business with Israelis Most of them think that they are in a crunch existential
mess.
The reality is that the tech and arms business is pretty cushy and they are reluctant to give
it up.
If they get a decent guarantee of their space (and maybe a couple more settlements) they might
scale down a tad.
They can do an up-front deal with the head choppers in Riyadh any time they want because the
princes do not want to live on a sea of radioactive glass.
Obama and the current congress already locked this in until 2026 (see below) which takes
us past 2 terms of Trump. Doubt Trump could change/drain this if he wanted (?) as
current congress not only did the deal but added $500M per year to the previous Bush 10 year deal
which was set to expire in 2018. Dem/Rep... it is going to happen no matter.
"The United States has finalized a $38 billion package of military aid for
Israel
over the next 10 years, the largest of its kind ever, and the two allies plan to sign the
agreement on Wednesday, American and Israeli officials said". NY Times Sept 2016,
When I was a kid, we had a pump to fill the water trough for the animals. There was a coffee
can near it, that you used to take some of the water that was left in the water trough and pour
it into the pump. This was known as "priming the pump". You had to do this to allow
the pump to pump more water into the trough from the well.
America is a money-well for Israel. They take a little bit of the money that we flood
them with, and they donate to enough politicians campaign to insure that those politicians will
vote to turn on the money spigot, filling up Israels trough with money. Don't worry, they'll
save a coffee can or two of it to prime the pump again next time.
I really don't care if Israel lives or dies. If they live and prosper, that's just fine
with me. But what pisses me off is this system that allows them to pump money from us, just
by using a tiny portion of it to bribe our politicians with campaign contributions. This
bribing results in not just lost treasure, but also lost blood, as we fight wars to weaken Israels
neighbors, again, only because our politicians are being bribed with foreign donations.
I would prefer we find ways to jail any politician that gets money from foreign countries.
I would also prefer we put an end to Super PACs, since the foreign money will simply migrate to
those. It is bullshit that our system is set up so that the honest politicians that refuse
to sell out are promptly voted out of office because their competitor, who is willing to sell
out, is flooded with campaign money. This ends up giving us representatives who do not represent
our interests at all.
My greatest fear in Trump being a plant is that he is supposed to calm relations with Russia,
which will open up the opportunity for the big event. This gives them more time on the surface
while the deep state continues spreading chaos along Russia's borders.
I suspect Russia would be aware of this possibility however.
Trump is going to keep allowing Israelis to bribe American politicians.
Aid money goes full circle. The tax payers are the losers as usual. Trump needs to look into
the dual citizanship of congress stoolies. Drain that swamp first to put that coin into merican
infrastructure renewal/upgrades.=.jobs.
Biden's son in Ukraine couldn't help things much. How cool was the "invasion" of Crimea?
I thought it was cool. I was kind of wishing Texas would pull something like that, maybe
with NJ.
I know you have "invasion" written in a way that shows you know it was NOT an invasion. The speed
a decisiveness was certainly impressive, shame the Donbass has been relegated to the roll of dead
buffer zone though. I understand the strategic benefit of letting the Ukrainian `Army` bog down
there and bleed resources, but a lot of Ethnic Russians are dying and suffering as a result.
The Ukro-Nazis have just tried to re-run the attack on Debaltsevo, where there were put through
the meat grinder last winter. Guess what, they ended up in the grinder again, even though the
Novorossians are following Minsk rules on sending heavy armor away from the front. The Ukrops
lost up to 100 dead, a large number just left on the ground as the survivors fled. The wounded
were airlifted to Kharkov military hospital.
One Ukrop unit reported 25 dead in 3 hours of fighting.
"... Only John F. Kennedy directly challenged it, firing CIA Director Allen Dulles after the Bay of Pigs disaster. He was assassinated, and whether or not CIA involvement is ever conclusively proven, the allegations have been useful to the agency, keeping politicians in line. The Deep State also co-opted the media, keeping it in line with a combination of fear and favor. ..."
"... Why has the US been involved in long, costly, bloody, and inconclusive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? ..."
"... Why should the US get involved in similar conflicts in Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Iran, and other Middle Eastern and Northern African hotspots? ..."
"... Isn't such involvement responsible for blowback terrorism and refugee flows in both Europe and the US? ..."
"... Have "free trade" agreements and porous borders been a net benefit or detriment to the US? Why is the banking industry set up for periodic crises that inevitably require government bail-outs? ..."
"... How has encouraging debt and speculation at the expense of savings and investment helped the US economy? ..."
"... The shenanigans in the US after Trump's election-violent protests, hysterical outbursts, the vote recount effort, the proof-free Russian hacking allegations, "fake news," and the attempt to sway electoral college electors-are the desperate screams of those trapped inside. ..."
"... Regrettably, the building analogy is imperfect, because it implies that those inside are helpless and that the collapse will only harm them. In its desperation, incompetence, and corrupt nihilism, the Deep State can wreak all sorts of havoc, up to and including the destruction of humanity. Trump represents an opportunity to strike a blow against the Deep State, but the chances it will be lethal are minimal and the dangers obvious. ..."
The pathetic attempts to undo Donald Trump's victory are signs of desperation, not strength, in
the Deep State.
The post World War II consensus held that the USSR's long-term goal was world domination. That
assessment solidified after the Soviets detonated an atomic bomb in 1949. A nuclear arms race, a
space race, maintenance of a globe-spanning military, political, and economic confederation, and
a huge expansion of the size and power of the military and intelligence complex were justified by
the Soviet, and later, the Red Chinese threats. Countering those threats led the US to use many of
the same amoral tactics that it deplored when used by its enemies: espionage, subversion, bribery,
repression, assassination, regime change, and direct and proxy warfare.
Scorning principles of limited government, non-intervention in other nations' affairs, and individual
rights, the Deep State embraced the anti-freedom mindset of its purported enemies, not just towards
those enemies, but toward allies and the American people. The Deep State gradually assumed control
of the government and elected officials were expected to adhere to its policies and promote its propaganda.
Only John F. Kennedy directly challenged it, firing CIA Director Allen Dulles after the Bay of
Pigs disaster. He was assassinated, and whether or not CIA involvement is ever conclusively proven,
the allegations have been useful to the agency, keeping politicians in line. The Deep State also
co-opted the media, keeping it in line with a combination of fear and favor.
Since its ascension in the 1950s, the biggest threat to the Deep State has not been its many and
manifest failures, but rather what the naive would regard as its biggest success: the fall of the
Soviet Union in 1991. Much of the military-industrial complex was suddenly deprived of its reason
for existence-the threat was gone. However, a more subtle point was lost.
The Soviet Union has been the largest of statism's many failures to date. Because of the Deep
State's philosophical blinders, that outcome was generally unforeseen. The command and control philosophy
at the heart of Soviet communism was merely a variant on the same philosophy espoused and practiced
by the Deep State. Like the commissars, its members believe that "ordinary" people are unable to
handle freedom, and that their generalized superiority entitles them to wield the coercive power
of government.
With "irresponsible" elements talking of peace dividends and scaling back the military and the
intelligence agencies, the complex was sorely in need of a new enemy . Islam suffers the same critical
flaw as communism-command and control-and has numerous other deficiencies, including intolerance,
repression, and the legal subjugation of half its adherents. The Deep State had to focus on the world
conquest ideology of some Muslims to even conjure Islam as a plausible foe. However, unlike the USSR,
they couldn't claim that sect and faction-ridden Islam posed a monolithic threat, that the Islamic
nations were an empire or a federation united towards a common goal, or that their armaments (there
are under thirty nuclear weapons in the one Islamic nation, Pakistan, that has them) could destroy
the US or the entire planet.
There was too much money and power at stake for the complex to shrink. While on paper Islam appeared
far weaker than communism, the complex had one factor in their favor: terrorism is terrifying. In
the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Americans surrendered liberties and gave the Deep State carte blanche
to fight a war on terrorism that would span the globe, target all those whom the government identified
as terrorists, and never be conclusively won or lost. Funding for the complex ballooned, the military
was deployed on multiple fronts, and the surveillance state blossomed. Most of those who might have
objected were bought off with expanded welfare state funding and programs (e.g. George W. Bush's
prescription drug benefit, Obamacare).
What would prove to be the biggest challenge to the centralization and the power of the Deep State
came, unheralded, with the invention of the microchip in the late 1950s. The Deep State could not
have exercised the power it has without a powerful grip on information flow and popular perception.
The microchip led to widespread distribution of cheap computing power and dissemination of information
over the decentralized Internet. This dynamic, organically adaptive decentralization has been the
antithesis of the command-and-control Deep State, which now realizes the gravity of the threat. Fortunately,
countering these technologies has been like trying to eradicate hordes of locusts.
The gravest threat, however, to the Deep State is self-imposed: it's own incompetence. Even the
technologically illiterate can ask questions for which it has no answers.
Why has the US been involved in long, costly, bloody, and inconclusive wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq?
Why should the US get involved in similar conflicts in Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Iran,
and other Middle Eastern and Northern African hotspots?
Isn't such involvement responsible for blowback terrorism and refugee flows in both
Europe and the US?
Have "free trade" agreements and porous borders been a net benefit or detriment to the
US? Why is the banking industry set up for periodic crises that inevitably require government
bail-outs? (SLL claims no special insight into the nexus between the banking-financial sector
and the Deep State, other than to note that there is one.) Why does every debt crisis result in
more debt?
How has encouraging debt and speculation at the expense of savings and investment helped
the US economy?
The Deep State can't answer or even acknowledge these questions because they all touch on its
failures.
Brexit, Donald Trump, other populist, nationalist movements catching fire, and the rise of the
alternative media are wrecking balls aimed at an already structurally unsound and teetering building
that would eventually collapse on its own. The shenanigans in the US after Trump's election-violent
protests, hysterical outbursts, the vote recount effort, the proof-free Russian hacking allegations,
"fake news," and the attempt to sway electoral college electors-are the desperate screams of those
trapped inside.
Regrettably, the building analogy is imperfect, because it implies that those inside are helpless
and that the collapse will only harm them. In its desperation, incompetence, and corrupt nihilism,
the Deep State can wreak all sorts of havoc, up to and including the destruction of humanity. Trump
represents an opportunity to strike a blow against the Deep State, but the chances it will be lethal
are minimal and the dangers obvious.
The euphoria over his victory cannot obscure a potential consequence: it may hasten and amplify
the destruction and resultant chaos when the Deep State finally topples . Anyone who thinks Trump's
victory sounds an all clear is allowing hope to triumph over experience and what should have been
hard-won wisdom.
"War on Terror" + "Refugee Humanitarian Crisis" =European Clusterfuck
Or
"War on Drugs" + "Afghan Opium/Nicaraguan Cocaine" =Police State America
Both hands (Left/Right) to crush Liberty
Mano-A-Mano -> Cheka_Mate Dec 22, 2016 8:54 PM
The DEEP STATE pretends they hate Trump, gets him in office, hoodwinks the sheeple into
believing they voted for him, while they still retain control.
Voila!
TeamDepends -> unrulian Dec 22, 2016 8:55 PM
Remember the Maine! Remember the Lusitania! Remember the USS Liberty! Remember the Gulf of
Tonkin! Never forget.
Withdrawn Sanction Dec 22, 2016 8:52 PM
"In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Americans surrendered liberties and gave the Deep State
carte blanche..."
What a load of crap. The Deep State CAUSED 9/11 and then STOLE Americans' liberties.
StraightLineLogic: Linear thinker, indeed.
WTFUD Dec 22, 2016 8:56 PM
Shakespeare would have had a field-day with this Material; Comic Tragedy!
BadDog Dec 22, 2016 9:00 PM
Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
red1chief Dec 22, 2016 9:09 PM
Funny how a guy loading up his administration with Vampire Squids is thought to be disliked
by the Deep State. Deep State psy ops never ceases to amaze.
Russia, Iran and Turkey met in Moscow on Tuesday to work toward a political accord to end Syria's
nearly six-year war, leaving the United States on the sidelines as the countries sought to drive
the conflict in ways that serve their interests.
Secretary of State John Kerry was not invited. Nor was the United Nations consulted.
With pro-government forces having made critical gains on the ground, ...
(Note: The last sentence originally and correctly said "pro-Syrian forces ...", not "pro-government
forces ...". It
was altered after
I noted the "pro-Syrian" change of tone on Twitter.)
Russia kicked the U.S. out of any further talks about Syria after the U.S. blew a deal which,
after long delaying negotiations, Kerry had made with the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov.
In a recent interview Kerry
admits that it was opposition from the Pentagon, not Moscow or Damascus, that had blown up his
agreement with Russia over Syria:
More recently, he has clashed inside the administration with Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.
Kerry negotiated an agreement with Russia to share joint military operations, but it fell apart.
"Unfortunately we had divisions within our own ranks that made the implementation of that extremely
hard to accomplish ," Kerry said. "But I believe in it, I think it can work, could have worked."
Kerry's agreement with Russia did not just "fell apart". The Pentagon actively sabotaged it by
intentionally and perfidiously attacking the Syrian army.
The deal with Russia was made in June. It envisioned coordinated attacks on ISIS and al-Qaeda
in Syria, both designated as terrorist under two UN Security Council resolutions which call upon
all countries to eradicate them. For months the U.S. failed to separate its CIA and Pentagon trained,
supplied and paid "moderate rebel" from al-Qaeda, thereby blocking the deal. In September the deal
was modified and finally ready to be implemented.
The Pentagon still
did not like it but had been overruled by the White House:
The agreement that Secretary of State John Kerry announced with Russia to reduce the killing in
Syria has widened an increasingly public divide between Mr. Kerry and Defense Secretary Ashton
B. Carter, who has deep reservations about the plan for American and Russian forces to jointly
target terrorist groups.
Mr. Carter was among the administration officials who pushed against the agreement on a conference
call with the White House last week as Mr. Kerry, joining the argument from a secure facility
in Geneva, grew increasingly frustrated. Although President Obama ultimately approved the effort
after hours of debate, Pentagon officials remain unconvinced.
...
"I'm not saying yes or no," Lt. Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, commander of the United States Air
Forces Central Command , told reporters on a video conference call. "It would be premature to
say that we're going to jump right into it."
The CentCom general threatened to not follow the decision his Commander of Chief had taken. He
would not have done so without cover from Defense Secretary Ash Carter.
Three days later U.S. CentCom Air Forces and allied
Danish airplanes attack Syrian army positions near the ISIS besieged city of Deir Ezzor. During
37 air attacks within one hour between 62 and 100 Syrian Arab Army soldiers were killed and many
more wounded. They had held a defensive positions on hills overlooking the Deir Ezzor airport. Shortly
after the U.S. air attack ISIS forces stormed the hills and have held them since. Resupply for the
100,000+ civilians and soldiers in Deir Ezzor is now endangered if not impossible. The CentCom
attack enabled ISIS to eventually conquer Deir Ezzor and to establish the
envisioned "Salafist principality" in east Syria.
During the U.S. attack the Syrian-Russian operations center had immediately tried to contact the
designated coordination officer at U.S. Central Command to stop the attack. But that officer could
not be reached and those at CentCom taking the Russian calls just hanged up:
By time the Russian officer found his designated contact - who was away from his desk - and explained
that the coalition was actually hitting a Syrian army unit, "a good amount of strikes" had already
taken place, U.S. Central Command spokesman Col. John Thomas told reporters at the Pentagon Tuesday.
Until the attack the Syrian and Russian side had, as agreed with Kerry, kept to a ceasefire to
allow the separation of the "marbled" CIA and al-Qaeda forces. After the CentCom air attack the Kerry-Lavrov
deal
was off :
On the sidelines of an emergency UN Security Council meeting called on the matter, tempers were
high. Russia's permanent UN representative, Vitaly Churkin, questioned the timing of the strikes,
two days before Russian-American coordination in the fight against terror groups in Syria was
to begin.
"I have never seen such an extraordinary display of American heavy-handedness," he said, after
abruptly leaving the meeting.
The Pentagon launched one of its usual whitewash investigations and a heavily
redacted summary report (pdf) was released in late November.
The report, released by US Central Command on 29 November, shows that senior US Air Force officers
at the Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) at al-Udeid Airbase in Qatar, who were responsible
for the decision to carry out the September airstrike at Deir Ezzor:
misled the Russians about where the US intended to strike so Russia could not warn that
it was targeting Syrian troops
ignored information and intelligence analysis warning that the positions to be struck were
Syrian government rather than Islamic State
shifted abruptly from a deliberate targeting process to an immediate strike in violation
of normal Air Force procedures
The investigation was led by a Brigade General. He was too low in rank to investigate or challenge
the responsible CentCom air-commander Lt. Gen. Harrington. The name of a co-investigator was redacted
in the report and marked as "foreign government information". That officer was likely from Denmark.
Four days after the investigation report was officially released the Danish government, without
giving any public reason,
pulled back its air contingent from any further operations under U.S. command in Iraq and Syria.
With the attack on Deir Ezzor the Pentagon has:
enabled ISIS to win the siege in Deir Ezzor where 100,000+ civilians and soldiers are under
threat of being brutally killed
cleared the grounds for the establishment of an ISIS ruled "Salafist principality" in east-Syria
deceived a European NATO ally and lost its active cooperation over Syria and Iraq
ruined Kerry's deal with Russia about a coordinated fight against UN designated terrorists
in Syria
kicked the U.S. out of further international negotiations about Syria
It is clear that the responsible U.S. officer for the attack and its consequences is one Lt. Gen.
Jeffrey L. Harrigian who had earlier publicly spoken out against a deal that his Commander in Chief
had agreed to. He likely had cover from Defense Secretary Ash Carter.
The White House did not react to this public military insubordination and undermining of its diplomacy.
Emptywheel
notes that, though on a different issue, the CIA is also in quite open insurrection against the
President's decisions:
[I]t alarms me that someone decided it was a good idea to go leak criticisms of a [presidential]
Red Phone exchange. It would seem that such an instrument depends on some foundation of trust
that, no matter how bad things have gotten, two leaders of nuclear armed states can speak frankly
and directly.
though on a different issue, the CIA is also in quite open insurrection against the President's
decisions:
It merely confirms or reinforces what was known now for quite some, rather long, time--Obama
is a shallow and cowardly amateur who basically abandoned the duty of governing the nation to
all kinds of neocon adventurists and psychopaths. So, nothing new here. Results are everywhere
on display for everyone to see.
https://twitter.com/BilalKareem/status/811216051656658944
Here's Bilal (American CIA agent) pointing out another terrorist scumbag has an explosive belt
to avoid getting captured. Notice his face is covered and he appears western? Likely the American
David Scott Winner or Israeli aDavid Shlomo Aram. They're going to explode their way out of Aleppo.
SAA should have just exterminated the rats rather than let them leave, Bilal included
Then again, it is difficult to see how sanctions between the two administration could be
any more "damaged": also on Wednesday, the Kremlin said it did not expect the incoming U.S. administration
to reject NATO enlargement overnight and that almost all communications channels between Russia
and the United States were frozen, the RIA news agency reported.
"Almost every level of dialogue with the United States is frozen. We don't communicate
with one another, or (if we do) we do so minimally," Peskov said.
The only thing worse than not using a weapon is using it ineffectively. And if he does choose
to retaliate, he has insisted on maintaining what is known as "escalation dominance," the ability
to ensure you can end a conflict on your terms.
Mr. Obama hinted as much at his news conference on Friday, as he was set to leave for his annual
Hawaii vacation, his last as president.
"Our goal continues to be to send a clear message to Russia or others not to do this to us because
we can do stuff to you," he said. "But it is also important to us to do that in a thoughtful,
methodical way. Some of it, we will do publicly. Some of it we will do in a way that they know,
but not everybody will."
On Monday 19 December, there was a hit captured on video and played worldwide. It was not by
droning.
This post confirms that neocon Ash Carter was at the heart of the attack on Deir Ezzor and that
the pro-Israel faction at the Pentagon will defy the chief executive if it achieves their political
objectives.
I don't know how anyone can review the details of this incident and not conclude that the split
in the US government is nearing a climax-point where the removal of an obstinate president is
a real possibility.
the fact this division in power is happening in the usa today is indeed scary... why is this
fucker ash carter still in any position of power, let alone the dipshit Jeffrey L. Harrigian?
both these military folks might be serving israels interests very well, not to mention saudi arabia
and gcc's but they sure ain't representing the usa's... or is the usa still a country with a leadership
command? doesn't look like it..
The trolls of the empire are feeding on each other. And this is a good thing ... why?
Because on their own the sheople of the US are incapable of a revolt no matter how righteous
their cause. The oligarchs and their minions thrive on discord and chaos. Thus we have the beginnings
of a major breakdown (at long last) as some states (California in the lead) contemplate an exit
by trying to establish embassies.
My, my!
We've never had a revolution in this country. Once upon a time we had a revolt by one group
of oligarchs against the other (called a civil war, and its predecessor called the revolution).
But a real bloody, kill off the oligarchs (as per France and Russia) revolt? No way Jose!
No ... we stupidly accept the tripe/trope of being too damned good ... recently called exceptionalism.
Implosion! The rest of the world (like me) can't wait!
So that's it? Deir Ezzor is just a write off? Putin is publicly talking about "wrapping up" the
Russian mission in Syria, Iran wants to turn the military focus westward, towards Idlib. At least
this is what they say in public.
I think the Deir EzZor attack was more of a dying gasp from the CIA/CENTCOM than anything of immense
strategic value. A last shot at prepping their east Syrian head-chopper partition, but a futile
one at that. Palmyra and the attack on the Syrian oil/gas hub give that same impression, too.
Neither was very well though out and both efforts are proving to be failures.
All this while the Obama administration is pushing for the SF 'cleaners' to erase any left-over
intel and al Qaeda/al Nusra leaders as the head-choppers flee Aleppo. The CIA/CENTCOM are obviously
in on this, while they still fancy some safe place for their spies and collaborators to escape
and continue the fight.
Russia's Turkish ambassador? Maybe he was an unfortunate part of the U.S. clean-up operation.
He would have certainly been privy to a lot of damaging info on U.S. involvement. Obama announced
the clean-up operation in mid-November - recall the unexpected 'targeting key ISIS and al Nusra
leaders' spiel, followed by the dispatch of U.S. SF (and U.K. SAS) kill-teams.
The ugly part of U.S. CIA/CENTCOM support for head-choppers is that they must control them.
If they can't corral them in an east Syrian Pipelanistan, then they have to kill them and eliminate
evidence of U.S. (and cronies') involvement. All at a time when a lame-duck U.S. administration
is packing their belongings and cleaning out their offices.
The current CIA leaders and current neocon CENTCOM lackeys are pretty much out
of business in the Middle East when Trump gets in. If they can't eliminate Trump, he will eliminate
them. Current CENTCOM commanders will be purged and replaced with fresh Israeli-firsters for the
war with Iran. Trump's stated plans to pour more money into 'strengthening' the U.S. military
means plenty of jobs for the departing generals.
MacDill AFB (CENTCOM's home) must be crawling with defense industry executive recruiters looking
for some fresh meat. The Pentagram is probably going to get an enema as well. Pretty soon, there
will be unshaven, dirty generals standing near freeway on-ramps in Arlington begging for change,
holding crudely-lettered cardboard signs that say, "Unemployed. Will wage war for sheckels.
God bless you!" [I'll have my baseball bat ready...]
Russia's Turkish ambassador? Maybe he was an unfortunate part of the U.S. clean-up operation.
He would have certainly been privy to a lot of damaging info on U.S. involvement.
If he was privy, so were, simultaneously, all intelligence people working under cover and,
as a consequence, Russia's military-political top. There are some really strong indications of
Karlov's assassination being a "parting gift" by US neocon mafia who, especially after Trump's
victory and liberation of Aleppo, is the main loser (not that they ever won anything realistically)
in a major geopolitical shift which is taking place as I type this.
One of your best posts ever, b. Certainly, it shows what a terrible mess has been created by the
deceptive, infamous lot, who have added fuel to the fire in this war in Syria.
I should imagine that if you Google Bethania Palma's name (she's also known as Bethania Palma
Markus), you will find that as a freelance writer she will have social media accounts (Facebook,
Twitter, possibly LinkedIn) and you and others can try to contact her through those.
Palma has also written rubbish pieces on the Syrian White Helmets and former UK ambassador
Craig Murray's claims that the DNC emails leaks were the work of a Washington insider.
The more she writes such pieces for Snopes.com, laying out the details of the issue and then
blithely dismissing them as having no credibility, the more the website's reputation for objective
investigation will fall anyway. Palma will be her own worst enemy. So perhaps we need not bother
trying to argue with her.
I have never before seen a US President as weak as Obama to the point where his own military disregards
his command. the fact that anyone at the Pentagon would still have a job after openly defying
the commander in chief shows you the pathetic state of affairs in a crumbling US.
While it speaks to a serious changing of the guard in the US military with Trump I hold little
hope that it in anyway signals a lessening of the goals of empire.....just a change in approach.
Those owning private finance are still leading our "parade" into extinction, IMO It sure looks
to me like the acolytes of Trump have primary fealty to the God of Mammon.
Then, about 35 or so comments down, an excellent and rather devastating analysis of the Snopes
attack, by one "sleepd." In it he discusses the background of the Snopes "report's" author:
"Let's look at the background of Bethania Palmer, the author of the Snopes piece. It claims
she worked as a "journalist" for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, which is a media company that
has been purchased by a holding company called Digital First (previously Media News Group) that
was run by a private equity company managed by a hedge funder. They are known for purchasing local
run small newspapers and cutting staff and consolidating content into corporate-friendly ad sales
positions. She also claims work for LAist, a local style and events blog in Los Angeles, and the
OC Weekly, a somewhat conservative-leaning local weekly that survives on advertising. Nothing
in her background that speaks towards expertise in the Middle East, or even awareness of differences
in populations there. Considering that, we have to rate her credibility as below Barlett's when
it comes to reporting on Middle Eastern affairs."
Obama had the Secretary of Defense he wanted, Chuck Hagel, in the office for a while. But for
some reason he was unable to resist the pressure that was put on him to replace Hagel with Carter.
Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that in this day and age where everyone has a phone
camera there exists not one picture of the alleged gore that occurred in France and German truck
attacks???
Also possessing identification documents, leaving them at the scene, appears to be a special
talent required of all pseudo terr'ists.
I even saw a report in Tagesspiegel yesterday that said the authorities did not have a video.
Pretty hard to believe. The place was packed with tourists. Just about everybody has a cellphone
these days.
I commented on it on a site yesterday, but I don't remember which one. Might have been here.
Good stuff, b. As much as I dislike Obama, I imagine he has to feel relieved his presidency is
coming to an end so he doesn't have to deal with idiots like Ash Carter every day.
The General should have been publicly fired by the Secretary immediately after that video conference.
It didn't happen so the CIC should have fired the SOD and found someone to fire the General. Defying
the CIC, what a message to the world!
The CentCom general threatened to not follow the decision his Commander of Chief had taken.
He would not have done so without cover from Defense Secretary Ash Carter.
Ash Carter is certainly a neo-con, an insubordinate traitor, and is likely a CIA mole in the Pentagon.
He has 29 days of monkey-wrenching left at the Pentagon.
Beneath your heading 'With the attack on Deir Ezzor the Pentagon has:' add effected a coup
against the POTUS.
I agree with @12 wwinsti and @13 paveway ... at least i wanna believe that Ash 'CIA' Carter
has managed to throw in his monkey-wrenches but that 'the Deir EzZor attack was more of a dying
gasp from the CIA/CENTCOM than anything of immense strategic value'.
@17 danny801
Reagan was the same ... just that he was non compos mentis from the start, so didn't know he
was just the cardboard cutout that he was. Obama knew, took the job anyway.
@20 lysias
i don't know who controls us nukes ... but it ain't Barack Obama. he'll just do as he's told.
@22 blues
agree with your wish ... unfortunately Ash 'CIA' Carter has already fired Barack Obama. we
get coal in our stockings ... or we get turned into radioactive coal by AC, CIA
todays daily press briefing, lol.. no mention of ash carter...
"QUESTION: Okay. All right. I wanted to go back for a second to an interview that Secretary
Kerry gave to The Globe, The Boston Globe, in which he admitted that the deal with the Russians
over Syria was basically killed here because of the divisions within the Administration. Who was
that what was the agency that killed the deal? Was it the Pentagon?
MR KIRBY: I don't think that that's what the Secretary said. I think the Secretary acknowledged
what we've long acknowledged; there was nothing new in this interview. He's been very open and
candid that even amongst the interagency here in the United States we haven't all agreed on the
way forward in Syria. I'm also not sure why that should be shocking to anybody. Every federal
agency has a different view --
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says Iran, Russia and Turkey have started the
process of finding a political solution to the Syria crisis.
According to the Islamic State's official media wing, their forces foiled the massive Turkish
Army led assault, killing and wounding more than 50 military personnel in the process.
The primary cause of these high casualties was a suicide attack that was initiated by an
Islamic State terrorist west of the Al-Farouq Hospital.
For nearly a month now, the Turkish Army has attempted to enter the key city of Al-Bab;
however, they have been repeatedly repelled by the terrorist forces each time.
Local sources said that Mahmud Akhtarini was arrested by a group of Zenki militants at midnight
on charges of being a member of the ISIS terror organization. Four hours later, Mahmud was
reported dead after being brutally tortured.
The sources confirmed that the victim was mentally retarded.
The Turkish backed group is notorious for beheading a 12 year-old boy in Aleppo city, for
allegedly being a fighter of the Palestinian Liwaa Al Quds (Al-Quds Brigade).
... has Erdogan finally been taught the facts of life? or have all the other Turks in Turkey,
and will they soon put the sultan on his magic carpet in a real, made in Turkey, coup? Terrorism
at home, and abroad - with nothing to show for it - must be getting old for ordinary Turks.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't military 'assets' operating covertly in a country that
that is 'hostile' to US interests be under the command of the CIA?
We have been using "False Flag" operations to expand land since we were colonies and used white
slaves kidnapped from European countries to work for the Elite 1% land owners in the 16th, 17th,
18th, 19, 20th, and continuing in the 21st Century when the 911 False Flag Operation to further
erode the everyday people and further enrich the elite 1% and Masonic and Zionist ideologies.
https://mycommonsenseparty.com
"The Dow's initial move down in January of 2017 was very sharp and within a month, it was off
1900 points or almost 10%. As it is apparent from the chart, the Dow's slide was extremely volatile
with big losing streaks often followed by sharp rallies. In the meantime, the Russiagate scandal
was beginning to grow, as top Trump aides resigned at the end of April amid charges of obstruction
of justice. The Dow's fall continued until late August when it finally bottomed at 16,357 to complete
a seven month loss of almost 3600 points (over 18%). From this point, the Dow surged ahead so
rapidly that the Fools were likely lulled by Wall Street traitors into believing that a new leg
up was occurring. Amid October's renewed Ukraine-Syria War, Vice President Pence's forced resignation
for incompetence, and an Arab oil glut sending WTI to the mid-$30s, the Dow closed at 19,387 near
the end of that month for a gain of 15% off of its summer lows. The huge, two month rally left
the Dow just 6% below its all time high of 20,247 set back in January, but the NYSE's advance/decline
line was still in shambles. In addition, higher Fed interest rates were taking their toll on the
US economy which officially re-entered a recession in November. The divergence between the large-cap
stocks and smaller-cap stocks was resolved over the next five weeks as the markets experienced
a brutal pounding and the Dow plunged 4000 points or over 20%. The Dow bottomed at 15,788 in early
December of 2017 when NATO units were routed in Crimea by superior Russian forces, and Trump was
finally forced to resign in early 2018 for corporate malfeasance of office, but this did not bring
any relief to the Dow which continued to trade near the 15,000 level through most of the 2018
Recession."
Play by play, verbatim, from the last time a Republican President joined at the hip with Tel
Aviv, back in 1972. It's a' comin'!
I think b is being very subtle here, as these two statements are not consistent:
The White House did not react to this public military insubordination and undermining of
its diplomacy.
Emptywheel notes that ... the CIA is also in quite open insurrection against the President's
decisions
This might be hard to decipher for those who have not been paying attention. Suffice it to
say that skepticism that Obama/Kerry ever really wanted any deal is more than warranted. Was this
bungled deal just a delaying action?
Obama apologists have been making excuses this empty suit for years: 11-dimensional
chess, elite factions undermining him, his focus on his "legacy", etc. Yet Obama/Kerry really
don't seem too upset by the "failures" that have occurred on their watch. They don't really attempt
to recover from/rectify these failures. At some point one must ask: are those "failures" intentional?
the article contain at least one blatant lie which discredits its connect: the assertion the Sony
attack was from North Korea. No mentioning of Flame and Stixnet. Another proof that NYT is a part
of Clinton campaign and became a neocons mouthpiece...
Notable quotes:
"... How many of us have signed petitions to exonerate Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning for letting us know what our govt was doing? Didn't they do us all, and democracy, a great service? ..."
"... I'm happy to know how the DNC operated, the astounding and unprecedented conflation of a national party committee with one candidate's campaign organization. ..."
"... What they were doing to Bernie Sanders, and the use they were making of national media was just wrong. ..."
"... Clinton herself was involved (via her neocon undersecretary, formerly Cheney's chief foreign policy aide) in overthrowing the elected president of Ukraine, a friend of Russia, and installing a US-capitalist friendly fellow in his stead. ..."
"... What goes around comes around. If we wanted to stop all this cyber warfare, the time to do it was by treaty BEFORE we risked Iranian lives with the Stuxnet virus. ..."
"... The release of e-mails was embarrassing for Secretary Clinton and the Democratic Party, but I don't think it tipped the election. How many longtime Democratic voters stayed home on November 9th because of the release of these e-mails? How many working class voters switched their vote because of the release of these e-mails? ..."
"... If the hacking had tampered with voting, I would be extremely concerned, but since it only involved email systems, I am not concerned. ..."
"... The hacked and subsequently published emails revealed the dishonest, deceitful, and unethical practices of the Democrats, especially in the treatment of Sanders, who should have ditched the Democrats run for president as an Independent. ..."
"... The emails also revealed that Obama was a participant in HRC's use of a nongovernmental email system when he stated emphatically that the first time he had ever heard of it was when the media first reported it. ..."
"... That's not the first and probably not the last time he will lie to the public. And the emails revealed the satanic practices of Podesta. The published emails made the election interesting and entertaining. But it is over and mow its time to put this issue to rest, accept the fact that Donald Trump is our next President, the leader of the freest county in the free world, and get on with governing this blessed great nation. Thank you. ..."
"... I suppose Hillary's email server could have been hacked like this too. Could this be the reason for Comey's stern reprimand of her? It is a little ironic, isn't it, that the DNC, while down playing Hillary's issues with her private server and criticizing Comey for his handling of the investigation, should itself suffer a damaging security breach of its own servers at the hands of a foreign power, which was exactly Comey's concern. Not to mention the fact that the NYT, which told us enough was enough with Hillary's email, is now up in arms about exactly that issue with the shoe on the other foot ..."
"... I am struggling with how to react to this, just as i do with the Edward Snowden disclosures. On the one hand Russian meddling in a US election is certainly a concern, and should be investigated. On the other hand the disclosures laid bare things many people had suspected, let the sunlight in, so to speak. ..."
"... Would Hillary even have had the nomination were it not for the favoritism shown by the DNC to her campaign at the expense of the Sanders campaign? What was more meddlesome, the Russian hack and release or the DNC's unfair treatment of Bernie? There is no suggestion that the leaked documents were altered. The effect of the hack was to reveal the truth. Is that the Russian goal, to delegitimize the election process by revealing the truth? ..."
"... I suppose we finally got a taste of our own medicine -- countless governments overthrown and elections influenced at the hand of the United States. Not fun is it? Perhaps we can learn a lesson from this. ..."
An aspect that truly surprises me is the hopeless ineptitude of the DNC response (which could
easily have parallels in the RNC).
Irrespective of who the cyber-attacker is, it's astounding in this day and age that sensitive
organizations do not pre-arm themselves with the highest security, and treat every sign of interference
(eg, an actual FBI WARNING PHONE CALL) as a major alarm.
Sadly, that this response is probably replicated all over the place underscores a theory I've
held for some time: Technology will kill democracy. Maybe it already has.
I'm surprised at what's missing here. How many of us have signed petitions to exonerate Edward
Snowden and Chelsea Manning for letting us know what our govt was doing? Didn't they do us all,
and democracy, a great service?
I'm happy to know how the DNC operated, the astounding and unprecedented
conflation of a national party committee with one candidate's campaign organization.
What they
were doing to Bernie Sanders, and the use they were making of national media was just wrong.
Assange
and Putin (if he was involved) revealed the truth. And since Clinton took no care to guard her
private emails, mixed with public communications, how much sympathy is she owed?
Clinton herself
was involved (via her neocon undersecretary, formerly Cheney's chief foreign policy aide) in overthrowing
the elected president of Ukraine, a friend of Russia, and installing a US-capitalist friendly
fellow in his stead. We do this sort of thing all the time, so if the Russians "interfere" in
our electoral process by revealing true stuff (far short of fomenting a coup like we did in Ukraine),
isn't that just tit for tat? We even hacked into the communications of European leaders and international
organizations. We were the first to use cyber warfare (Stuxnet, v. Iran), so how can we play holier
than thou? What goes around comes around. If we wanted to stop all this cyber warfare, the time
to do it was by treaty BEFORE we risked Iranian lives with the Stuxnet virus.
The release of e-mails was embarrassing for Secretary Clinton and the Democratic Party, but
I don't think it tipped the election. How many longtime Democratic voters stayed home on November
9th because of the release of these e-mails? How many working class voters switched their vote
because of the release of these e-mails?
The bigger issue for me is that because we are now politicizing this hacking (i.e. making the
argument that the hacking helped Republicans), many Republicans are opposed to investigating it.
If the hacking had tampered with voting, I would be extremely concerned, but since it only
involved email systems, I am not concerned.
The hacked and subsequently published emails revealed
the dishonest, deceitful, and unethical practices of the Democrats, especially in the treatment
of Sanders, who should have ditched the Democrats run for president as an Independent.
The emails
also revealed that Obama was a participant in HRC's use of a nongovernmental email system when
he stated emphatically that the first time he had ever heard of it was when the media first reported
it.
That's not the first and probably not the last time he will lie to the public. And the emails
revealed the satanic practices of Podesta. The published emails made the election interesting
and entertaining. But it is over and mow its time to put this issue to rest, accept the fact that
Donald Trump is our next President, the leader of the freest county in the free world, and get
on with governing this blessed great nation. Thank you.
I suppose Hillary's email server could have been hacked like this too. Could this be the reason
for Comey's stern reprimand of her? It is a little ironic, isn't it, that the DNC, while down
playing Hillary's issues with her private server and criticizing Comey for his handling of the
investigation, should itself suffer a damaging security breach of its own servers at the hands
of a foreign power, which was exactly Comey's concern. Not to mention the fact that the NYT, which
told us enough was enough with Hillary's email, is now up in arms about exactly that issue with
the shoe on the other foot
I am struggling with how to react to this, just as i do with the Edward Snowden disclosures. On
the one hand Russian meddling in a US election is certainly a concern, and should be investigated.
On the other hand the disclosures laid bare things many people had suspected, let the sunlight
in, so to speak.
Would Hillary even have had the nomination were it not for the favoritism shown
by the DNC to her campaign at the expense of the Sanders campaign? What was more meddlesome, the
Russian hack and release or the DNC's unfair treatment of Bernie? There is no suggestion that
the leaked documents were altered. The effect of the hack was to reveal the truth. Is that the
Russian goal, to delegitimize the election process by revealing the truth?
I suppose we finally got a taste of our own medicine -- countless governments overthrown and
elections influenced at the hand of the United States. Not fun is it? Perhaps we can learn a lesson
from this.
The agent could have walked over to the DNC headquarters and shown the DNC IT consultant his
badge. Or he could have invited the DNC IT consultant to his office--confirming his true identity.
Instead, the two communicated for several months just by phone, and as a result, the DNC IT consultant
did not fully believe he was speaking to an FBI agent, and so he did not act as aggressively to
search for the possible cyber intrusion.
She lost, get over it. Yes the Electoral College is obsolete. Yes some voting machines can
be hacked, but no-one is claiming that in states with tight results. Let's see what the official
investigation says, and who says it.
For better or worse Mr. Trump will be our next President because he won the election. Personally
I'm delighted that he may damp down the over-the-top Russophobia that is swirling around DC, "defense"
contractor Congressional shills, & the offices of the NYT but nowhere else in the country.
It's time for progressives to emerge from Obama-daze and convince the rest of the country that
they have a better vision for this country's future than that offered by conservatives/reactionaries.
One that doesn't involve bombing hapless foreigners. Articulate your policies as best you can,
learn from your defeats and from your victories. Onward!
If the hacking had tampered with voting, I would be extremely concerned, but since it only
involved email systems, I am not concerned. The hacked and subsequently published emails revealed
the dishonest, deceitful, and unethical practices of the Democrats, especially in the treatment
of Sanders, who should have ditched the Democrats run for president as an Independent. The emails
also revealed that Obama was a participant in HRC's use of a nongovernmental email system when
he stated emphatically that the first time he had ever heard of it was when the media first reported
it. That's not the first and probably not the last time he will lie to the public. And the emails
revealed the satanic practices of Podesta. The published emails made the election interesting
and entertaining. But it is over and mow its time to put this issue to rest, accept the fact that
Donald Trump is our next President, the leader of the freest county in the free world, and get
on with governing this blessed great nation. Thank you.
"... Can you please explain to me why you are thinking that this was a hack, not a leak by an insider? ..."
"... Yes, of course, Russians are everywhere, much like Jews in traditional anti-Semitic propaganda. ..."
"... Or in good McCarthyism tradition, they are under each bed. This evil autocrat Putin (who actually looks like yet another corrupt neoliberal ruler, who got Russia into WTO mousetrap and invests state money in the USA debt) manages to get everywhere, control everything and at the same time (German elections, Ukraine, Syria, world oil prices, Chechnya Islamic insurgence, US Presidential election, US stock market, you name it.) Amazing fit for a man over 60. ..."
"... And citing NYT article as for Russian hacks is probably not so much different from citing The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to support anti-Semitic propaganda. NYT was and still is one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Hillary campaign. Hardly a neutral observer. ..."
"... This level of anti-Russian hysteria that several people here are demonstrating is absolutely disgusting. Do you really want a military confrontation with Russia in Syria as most neocons badly want (but would prefer that other fought for them in the trenches) ? ..."
Former British Ambassador and current Wikileaks operative Craig Murray recently said he has
met the person who leaked DNC and Clinton campaign emails, and they aren't Russian.
While he is highly critical of Wikileaks, he suggests that without NSA coming forward with
hard data obtained via special program that uncover multiple levels of indirection, those charges
are just propaganda and insinuations.
And BTW after the fact it is usually impossible to discover who obtained the information, as
they use multiple levels of indirection and Russia might be just one of those indirection levels.
Use of Russian IP-space or Russian IPS might be just an attempt to create a false trail and to
implicate a wrong party.
As in any complex case you should not jump to conclusions so easily.
Or you can explain why you believe strange Faux news conspiracy stories with absolutely no evidence
that this person was in a position to hack the computers? Or why do you believe the obvious hugely
conflicted statements from Wikileaks operatives, who would never want to admit that they were
played by the Russians? Or a guy like Snowden who's life depend on Putins charity? Why would those
sources make anybody question the clear evidence already presented?
The fact that NSA is not going to publish all its evidence, is not a surprise. No need to tell
the Russians and other hackers how they can avoid detection. But it is not just the government
that conclude Russian involvement. Private company experts have reached the same conclusion. The
case for a Russian government hack is about as good as it can get.
Yes, of course, Russians are everywhere, much like Jews in traditional anti-Semitic propaganda.
Or in good McCarthyism tradition, they are under each bed. This evil autocrat Putin (who actually
looks like yet another corrupt neoliberal ruler, who got Russia into WTO mousetrap and invests
state money in the USA debt) manages to get everywhere, control everything and at the same time
(German elections, Ukraine, Syria, world oil prices, Chechnya Islamic insurgence, US Presidential
election, US stock market, you name it.) Amazing fit for a man over 60.
And citing NYT article as for Russian hacks is probably not so much different from citing
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to support anti-Semitic propaganda. NYT was and still
is one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Hillary campaign. Hardly a neutral observer.
This level of anti-Russian hysteria that several people here are demonstrating is absolutely
disgusting. Do you really want a military confrontation with Russia in Syria as most neocons badly
want (but would prefer that other fought for them in the trenches) ?
That's what this hysteria is now about, I think.
RC AKA Darryl, Ron -> likbez... , -1
The NSA is very good at finding the source of intrusion attempts because they happen all the time
every day from China, Russia, North Korea and just little island backwaters in the Pacific.
Doing
something to stop or punish the perpetrators is what is hard. Individual US installation instances
must each be protected by their own firewalls and then still monitored for unusual variations
in traffic patterns through firewalls to detect IP spoofing.
Juannie @ 16, You say Putin is the leading moral & ideological voice of his time. I'll leave
the "moral" aside for the moment. His ideology is to applaud the IMF, the WTO, and the UN-- all
Western controlled. Even if they were not Western-controlled they are the first three floors of
the global governance edifice which usurps national sovereignties, preventing the emergence of
any variant of democracy. Not long ago Putin wanted to join EU and NATO, not disband them.
Russia's development continues hostage to the international banking cabal, as her issuance
of her own currency & credits is limited by the Fed/IMF rules under which her Central Bank has
no function except to support the dollar-ruble conversion rate, and the Central Bank "reserves"
may not even be used as collateral. let alone as capital. So Russia is not truly owner of her
own "reserves".
Putin's ideology is to support every institution of the emerging global oligarchy. Including
the neoliberal economics of Russian austerity and the privatization of remaining State assets.
He is demonized so that you will exclude from your mind the possibility that the Russian oligarchs
are in substantial cooperation w the Western ones in producing the NWO.
It is not very different than the MSM demonizing Trump as a way to establish him as an "outsider,"
a person against the establishment.
If only you could acknowledge that heavy aircraft parts that fall from the sky must gouge holes
in the sand of the Sinai and the soft farmland of the Donbass. Indeed the engines must half-bury
themselves, as in real plane crashes, shown here
http://killtown.911review.org/flight93/crash-comparisons.html
what the impact craters of real plane crashes look like.
In the Sinai "crash" and the MH17 hoax there had to be collusion between the West and the Russian
govt.
We should not expect the truth from the corrupted establishment who fiercely fought Bernie Sanders,
for example. We should expect it from someone who supported him. Indeed, the Congresswoman Tulsi
Gabbard, who resigned as DNC vice-chair on February 28, 2016, in order to endorse Bernie Sanders
for the Democratic presidential nomination, and actually was the first female US Representative to
endorse Sanders, 'dared' to introduce bill so that the US to stop arming terrorists!
Her words left no doubt of who is behind the dirty war in Syria and the chaos in the Middle East:
Mr. speaker, under US law, it is illegal for you, or me, or any American, to provide any
type of assistance to Al-Qaeda, ISIS, or other terrorist groups. If we broke this law, we'll be
thrown in jail.
Yet the US government has been violating this law for years, directly and indirectly supporting
allies and partners of groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, with money, weapons, intelligence and other
support in their fight to overthrow the Syrian government .
A recent NY Times article, confirmed that rebel groups supported by the US 'have entered
into battlefield alliances with the affiliate of al-Qaeda in Syria, formerly known as al Nusra.'
The Wall Street Journal reports that rebel groups are 'doubling down on their alliance with al-Qaeda'.
This alliance has rendered the phrase 'moderate rebels' meaningless .
We must stop this madness.We must stop arming terrorists .
I'm introducing the Stop Arming Terrorists act today, to prohibit taxpayer dollars for being
used to support terrorists.
Speaking on
CNN , Gabbard specifically named CIA as the agency that supports terrorist groups in
the Middle East:
The US government has been providing money, weapons, intel. assistance and other types of
support through the CIA, directly to these groups that are working with and are affiliated with
Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
Also, Gabbard specifically named the allies through which the US assist these terrorist groups:
We've also been providing that support through countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar
...
Speaking
on NPR , Gabbard explained that she was working on the issue of the US interventionist,
regime-change wars for years since she has been in Congress. Therefore, her position coincides with
that of Donald Trump who repeatedly declared his opposition to these wars. This was also the main
reason for which she endorsed Bernie Sanders:
SIMON: You and President-elect Trump are obviously of different parties. But don't you kind
of have the same position on Syria?
GABBARD: I have heard him talk about his opposition to continuing interventionist, regime-change
wars. I want to be clear, though, that this is an issue that I have been working on for years
since I have been in Congress. And it's one...
SIMON: It's why you endorsed Senator Sanders, isn't it?
GABBARD: It's - correct. It was a clear difference between Senator Sanders and Secretary
Clinton. I am hopeful that this new administration coming in will change these policies so that
we don't continue making these destructive decisions, as have been made in the past.
This is really a unique moment, showing the absolute failure of the US obsolete, dirty policies
and the degree of degeneration of the 'idealistic' picture of the Unites States as the number one
global power. We can't remember any moment in the past in which a congressman was seeking to pass
a bill to prohibit the US government funding terrorists, or, a newly elected president who, in his
campaigns, was stating clearly that the previous administration created many terrorist groups.
"... What we ordinary folk think of as "American" interests are those interests as expressed by an entrenched foreign policy establishment to which the price of admission isn't only graduate studies in an expensive university. No, you have to walk within the lines. There's nothing as old under the sun as "group-think". ..."
"... he served a purpose when he diverged from long established consensus and said that maybe, just maybe, getting on with the Russians might not be that hard. Or that NATO is an out-dated, dead-weight non-alliance of the unwilling. Or that border-less trade ruined heartland America. ..."
The way things are supposed to work on this planet is like this: in the United States, the power
structures (public and private) decide what they want the rest of the world to do. They communicate
their wishes through official and unofficial channels, expecting automatic cooperation. If cooperation
is not immediately forthcoming, they apply political, financial and economic pressure. If that still
doesn't produce the intended effect, they attempt regime change through a color revolution or a military
coup, or organize and finance an insurgency leading to terrorist attacks and civil war in the recalcitrant
nation. If that still doesn't work, they bomb the country back to the stone age. This is the way
it worked in the 1990s and the 2000s, but as of late a new dynamic has emerged.
In the beginning it was centered on Russia, but the phenomenon has since spread around the world
and is about to engulf the United States itself. It works like this: the United States decides what
it wants Russia to do and communicates its wishes, expecting automatic cooperation. Russia says "Nyet."
The United States then runs through all of the above steps up to but not including the bombing campaign,
from which it is deterred by Russia's nuclear deterrent. The answer remains "Nyet." One could perhaps
imagine that some smart person within the US power structure would pipe up and say: "Based on the
evidence before us, dictating our terms to Russia doesn't work; let's try negotiating with Russia
in good faith as equals." And then everybody else would slap their heads and say, "Wow! That's brilliant!
Why didn't we think of that?" But instead that person would be fired that very same day because,
you see, American global hegemony is nonnegotiable. And so what happens instead is that the Americans
act baffled, regroup and try again, making for quite an amusing spectacle.
The whole Edward Snowden imbroglio was particularly fun to watch. The US demanded his extradition.
The Russians said: "Nyet, our constitution forbids it." And then, hilariously, some voices in the
West demanded in response that Russia change its constitution! The response, requiring no translation,
was "Xa-xa-xa-xa-xa!" Less funny is the impasse over Syria: the Americans have been continuously
demanding that Russia go along with their plan to overthrow Bashar Assad. The unchanging Russian
response has been: "Nyet, the Syrians get to decide on their leadership, not Russia, and not the
US." Each time they hear it, the Americans scratch their heads and try again. John Kerry was just
recently in Moscow, holding a marathon "negotiating session" with Putin and Lavrov. Above is a photo
of Kerry talking to Putin and Lavrov in Moscow a week or so ago and their facial expressions are
hard to misread. There's Kerry, with his back to the camera, babbling away as per usual. Lavrov's
face says: "I can't believe I have to sit here and listen to this nonsense again." Putin's face says:
"Oh the poor idiot, he can't bring himself to understand that we're just going to say 'nyet' again."
Kerry flew home with yet another "nyet."
What's worse, other countries are now getting into the act. The Americans told the Brits exactly
how to vote, and yet the Brits said "nyet" and voted for Brexit. The Americans told the Europeans
to accept the horrendous corporate power grab that is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
(TTIP), and the French said "nyet, it shall not pass." The US organized yet another military coup
in Turkey to replace Erdoǧan with somebody who won't try to play nice with Russia, and the Turks
said "nyet" to that too. And now, horror of horrors, there is Donald Trump saying "nyet" to all sorts
of things-NATO, offshoring American jobs, letting in a flood of migrants, globalization, weapons
for Ukrainian Nazis, free trade
The corrosive psychological effect of "nyet" on the American hegemonic psyche cannot be underestimated.
If you are supposed to think and act like a hegemon, but only the thinking part still works, then
the result is cognitive dissonance. If your job is to bully nations around, and the nations can no
longer be bullied, then your job becomes a joke, and you turn into a mental patient. The resulting
madness has recently produced quite an interesting symptom: some number of US State Department staffers
signed a letter, which was promptly leaked, calling for a bombing campaign against Syria in order
to overthrow Bashar Assad. These are diplomats. Diplomacy is the art of avoiding war by talking.
Diplomats who call for war are not being exactly diplomatic. You could say that they are incompetent
diplomats, but that wouldn't go far enough (most of the competent diplomats left the service during
the second Bush administration, many of them in disgust over having to lie about the rationale for
the Iraq war). The truth is, they are sick, deranged non-diplomatic warmongers. Such is the power
of this one simple Russian word that they have quite literally lost their minds.
But it would be unfair to single out the State Department. It is as if the entire American body
politic has been infected by a putrid miasma. It permeates all things and makes life miserable. In
spite of the mounting problems, most other things in the US are still somewhat manageable, but this
one thing-the draining away of the ability to bully the whole world-ruins everything. It's mid-summer,
the nation is at the beach. The beach blanket is moth-eaten and threadbare, the beach umbrella has
holes in it, the soft drinks in the cooler are laced with nasty chemicals and the summer reading
is boring and then there is a dead whale decomposing nearby, whose name is "Nyet." It just ruins
the whole ambiance!
The media chattering heads and the establishment politicos are at this point painfully aware of
this problem, and their predictable reaction is to blame it on what they perceive as its ultimate
source: Russia, conveniently personified by Putin. "If you aren't voting for Clinton, you are voting
for Putin" is one recently minted political trope. Another is that Trump is Putin's agent. Any public
figure that declines to take a pro-establishment stance is automatically labeled "Putin's useful
idiot." Taken at face value, such claims are preposterous. But there is a deeper explanation for
them: what ties them all together is the power of "nyet." A vote for Sanders is a "nyet" vote: the
Democratic establishment produced a candidate and told people to vote for her, and most of the young
people said "nyet." Same thing with Trump: the Republican establishment trotted out its Seven Dwarfs
and told people to vote for any one of them, and yet most of the disenfranchised working-class white
people said "nyet" and voted for Snow White the outsider.
It is a hopeful sign that people throughout the Washington-dominated world are discovering the
power of "nyet." The establishment may still look spiffy on the outside, but under the shiny new
paint there hides a rotten hull, with water coming in though every open seam. A sufficiently resounding
"nyet" will probably be enough to cause it to founder, suddenly making room for some very necessary
changes. When that happens, please remember to thank Russia or, if you insist, Putin.
NowhereMan said... Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 7:13:00 AM EDT
Beautiful! I'm going to start using that word in conversation now just to gauge people's
reactions. Nyet!!! I have one particularly stuffy friend who's just baffled by the Trump
phenomenon. He's an old school GOP conservative at heart who's chagrined that he's had to
abandon the grand old party in favor of HRC and can't understand for the life of him why the
"dirt people" are so enamored with Trump and Sanders. I just laugh and tell him that they're
abandoning the Dems for the same reasons that he's embracing them.
The rich and the near rich (which seems to include just about everybody these days, if only in
their imaginations) here in the US all suffer from fundamental attribution bias - the idea
that their own exceptionalism is why they are doing well - rather than realizing that it's all
mostly just the luck of the draw - or even worse - their own willingness to carry corporate
water like the good little Nazi's they are that has allowed them to temporarily advance their
station in life.
Fortunately for us all, the sun is setting on America's empire as we speak, and fevered dreams
of US hegemony for the rest of time will be short lived indeed, although homo sapiens' time
might be limited as well. If history keeps recording in the aftermath, US nuclear enabled
hegemony will be but a brief blip on the historical radar, and like the legend of Atlantis
before us, we'll be remembered chiefly as a society gone mad with our technologies, who
aspired to reach out and touch the face of god, but instead settled for embracing our many
inner devils. We won't be missed.
Happy Unicorn said... Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 9:26:00 AM EDT
A vote for Trump is a vote for Putin? Wouldn't THAT be nice!
Dave Stockton said... Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 9:36:00 AM EDT
This whole, "a vote against Hillary is a vote for Putin", is the best thing that could have
happened this election. The US population will now have a debate and get to vote on whether we
truly want to start World War Three. Hopefully the powers that be will be surprised by the
response... NYET!
Unknown said... Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 12:23:00 PM EDT
Nice...
Putin recently made fun of Lavrov, that he is becoming like Gromyko....
...and Gromyko was called Mr. NYET. :-)
Vyse Legendaire said... Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 12:37:00 PM EDT
I hope someone would volunteer to design a 'Nyet!' T-shirt on teepublic for advocates to
show their unity to the cause.
Shawn Sincoski said... Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 4:44:00 PM EDT
I really hope that the next time the TBTF banks need a handout, somebody, somewhere reacts
with a 'NFW' that resonates with the other plebes. Such a powerful word. But I am doubtful
that such an event will occur. With all that is going on with Hillary the house should be on
fire by now, but it is not (I am not advocating Trump by disparaging HRC). I suspect that the
coming American experience will be unique and (dis)proportionate to their apathy.
Cortes said... Tuesday, July 26, 2016 at 9:01:00 PM EDT
Herbert Marcuse: The first word of freedom is "No"
Irene Parousis said... Wednesday, July 27, 2016 at 6:58:00 AM EDT
BRILLIANT!!!
Wednesday, July 27, 2016 at 12:12:00 AM EDT
d94c074a-53e8-11e6-947a-073bf9f943f9 said...
Excellent.
There is a minor twist: "The corrosive psychological effect of "nyet" on the American
hegemonic psyche cannot be underestimated". Probably GWB's "misunderestimated" left some local
linguistic traume in your brain popping up in your otherwise perfect comment. I guess you
meant "cannot be overestimated". Nevermind, you message is clear and convincing anyway :-)
Mister Roboto said... Wednesday, July 27, 2016 at 8:07:00 AM EDT
This sums up why all the usual poppycock and folderol about why I need to vote for Hillary
that always succeeded in getting under my intellectual skin in the past is now just the mere
noise of screeching cats outside the window to me: There just comes a point where, if you have
any integrity at all, you have to say, "Nyet!"
Mark said...
Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 5:42:00 AM EDT
At some point, voting for a major party candidate is just throwing away your vote.
Roger said...
Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 7:11:00 AM EDT
I always enjoy Dmitry's blogs and the fact that he pushes the Russian perspective, as a relief
from the Russophobic drivel put out by the mainstream. However, a word of caution to the wise.
Obama, Kerry, Clinton, Trump et al. are, in fact, extremely unfunny. Charlie Chaplin lampooned
the funny little man with the moustache in the Great Dictator, xa! xa! xa! The truth came out
later. Do not be afraid of Neocon America, but please remember these are dangerous people. Be
vigilant always.
Bruno said...
Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 10:55:00 AM EDT
Loved.
And sad because Brasil didn't say NYET to the coup planted here by USA.
Unknown said...
Thursday, July 28, 2016 at 1:02:00 PM EDT
"Putin recently made fun of Lavrov, that he is becoming like Gromyko....
...and Gromyko was called Mr. NYET. :-)"
Even better, Lavrov was subsequently quoted in the press as saying "don't make me say the four
letter word".
What a tag team!
Marty said...
Friday, July 29, 2016 at 9:20:00 AM EDT
I really believe that you have hit the crux of the issue, the Neocon psychopaths are besides
themselves over the Nyets, and they find themselves to be a once powerful now toothless lion,
the are being laughed at, even by the American people.
I hope so because the worst of the bunch is Mrs. Clinton, she is just a crazy and stupid enough
to burn it all down, perhaps the only thing that would prevent her from doing so is that this
would interfere with her Diabolical Narcissistic need to be seen as the Kleptocrat she is and
to get away with being the biggest grifter in American history.
Turkey shows that they can't even organize a proper coup any more, even when they have a major
base in the country of the government to be compromised. The NeoCons must be so disappointed.
This failed coup was probably also was a big disappointment to those Fed Banksters who were
counting on looting the Bank if Turkey's 500 or so Tonnes of gold, as they did with Ukraine.
Roger said...
Friday, July 29, 2016 at 12:53:00 PM EDT
Leon Panetta sez "we know how to do this" despite an exuberant flourishing of evidence to the
contrary. But there's a glimmer of hope, even if it comes from a way down the ranks, because
there's a Col Bacevitch who begs to differ and sez "with all due respect, we DON'T know how to
do this."
You ask, know how to do WHAT exactly? Well, the topic at issue in a PBS panel discussion was
destroying the Islamic State. But knowing how to do it or NOT knowing how to do it could refer
equally to a series of monumental American foreign policy muffs. How could it be, that America
with all its military force, screws up so mightily and predictably? Because it's as Mr Orlov
asserts, there's a lot of NYETS out there and the American foreign policy establishment can't
fathom it.
But what they most crucially can't fathom is that those damn furriners have their own
interests at heart just like the Americans have their own interests. Americans from the street
level to the highest echelons view the world through Americentric lens resulting in
ludicrously distorted fun-house views of the world.
For example, why doesn't the Iranian see things the way Americans want him to? Why is it
always "nyet" coming out of Teheran? Why are Iranians so belligerent? Americans seemingly
can't comprehend that Iran is an ancient imperial power whose roots go back millennia, right
to the origins of civilization. But could it possibly be that Iranian concerns have got more
to do with goings-on in their geographic locale and pretty much nothing to do with the United
States? And that the Iranian is highly irritated that Americans stick their noses into matters
that concern Americans only tangentially or not at all? Could it be that the Iranian has his
own life pathways in age-old places that Americans know nothing about? Could it be that an
Iranian is educated in his own traditions in ancient academies that far pre-date anything on
American soil? You can replace the words "Iranian" and "Iran" with "Chinese" and "China" or
"Japanese" and "Japan" or dozens of other places and societies including "Russian" and
"Russia". American incomprehension goes deep.
Maybe some of the world is Washington-dominated. But maybe some this domination is more
apparent than real. Maybe it only seems Washington-dominated because in many of these places
there's a concordance of interests with the United States. But in most of the globe the
interests of Americans are not the same as those of the locals. And America has not got the
will nor the reach to make it otherwise.
Happy Unicorn said...
Roger: "But in most of the globe the interests of Americans are not the same as those of the
locals."
Most of the globe, including America itself! The interests of the Americans you're talking
about are usually not the same as mine or anyone's that I know ("the locals" in America). I
suspect the people of the USA who aren't brainwashed would have a lot in common with everybody
else in the world, because the first colony of any would-be empire (colony 0, let's say) is
always the country it originated from. More and more of us are saying nyet too, though the
utterance usually takes the less exotic form also enumerated by Dmitry awhile back: "No,
because we hate you."
Friday, July 29, 2016 at 3:03:00 PM EDT
flops said...
Saturday, July 30, 2016 at 7:22:00 AM EDT
In good wronglish:
There's America, Americans, USA.
And, in some point of our decolonized memory, there's Pacha Mama, our Mother Earth, the name
given to our land by the older people.
Not by chance, the unique country in Pacha Mama continents that have a pre-colonial language
as its official - Paraguay's Guarani - was the initial focus of this antidemocratic wave
attacking our countries.
We, the united states of...? What?
"Pacha Mama" is our best nyet!
Not anymore south and central americas, south and central "americans". Pacha Mama is our real
continents' name! We are The United States of Pacha Mama!
When mentioning people from brazil, angentine, chile, bolivia, peru paraguay
colombiavenezuelahaiti,surinamepanamacubamexico and so, please call us Pachamamists. That'
what we are.
Roger said...
Saturday, July 30, 2016 at 11:27:00 AM EDT
HappyUnicorn, of course you're right.
What we ordinary folk think of as "American" interests are those interests as expressed by an
entrenched foreign policy establishment to which the price of admission isn't only graduate
studies in an expensive university. No, you have to walk within the lines. There's nothing as
old under the sun as "group-think".
The lines are long established. Just think of it: globalization, off-shoring millions of jobs,
on-shoring millions of dirt-poor immigrants, legal and otherwise. Nothing warms the cockles of
the oligarch's heart like a desperate underclass.
I know Trump is a buffoon. But he served a purpose when he diverged from long established
consensus and said that maybe, just maybe, getting on with the Russians might not be that
hard. Or that NATO is an out-dated, dead-weight non-alliance of the unwilling. Or that
border-less trade ruined heartland America.
You saw the venomous reaction. A lot of people staked a career on the status-quo. Is the
best-before expired as Trump suggested? I'll bet that if it hadn't been a blustering clown
that raised it, many more people on the street would agree.
Some regional interests are historic and easily visible for example, along the Mason-Dixon
line. But even on either side of that old divide I think that the disparity is more an
artifact of opposing elites determined to not get along. Why don't they get along? Well,
there's a country to loot. You need distractions and diversions while pension funds and
treasuries are emptied.
And so we're off chasing our tails on burning problems like gender neutral washrooms.
Brilliant, don't you think? Kudos to the Obama regime for that one. And so it's God fearin',
gun packin' "conservative" versus enlightened, high-minded "progressive". What a joke, what a
con. Yet, predictably, we fell for it. You name it, school prayer, abortion, evolution, and
now washrooms, we fall for it, we always do.
Robert T. said...
Saturday, July 30, 2016 at 1:52:00 PM EDT
It would be very nice if someone could write a piece on what life in Russia, in all its
levels, is really like nowadays. I suspect that it is not just "nyet" that terrifies the
Empire, but rather what Russia herself is now increasingly coming to represent.
A lot of people, myself included, had been brought up thinking that Russia, while indeed a
superpower, isn't and cannot be on the same page as the US. But now here are reports saying
that a good and strong leader has pulled Russia out of the rut, and made things better. What's
more, this leader did it in a manner that seems antithetical to the Empire. And what's even
better is that this new Russia can't be easily rocked, like how the other countries had been
rocked and thrown into chaos. The Empire therefore is at its wit's end. If people from other
parts of the Earth, especially in those many places where democracy has failed miserably,
begin to see that there is indeed an alternative to the empirical system, won't they then
start to follow Russia's footsteps?
Headsails said... Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 2:07:00 AM EDT
Just like a spoiled rotten child that needs to learn some manners. It needs to learn the
meaning of no. But in this case, instead of a spankng they would be chain ganged for life.
Brain Parasite Gonna Eatcha!
I've been experiencing some difficulties with commenting on the current political situation in the
US, because it's been a little too funny, whereas this is a very serious blog. But I have decided
that I must try my best. Now, these are serious matters, so as you read this, please refrain from
any and all levity and mirth.
You may have heard by now that the Russians stole the US presidential election; if it wasn't for
them, Hillary Clinton would have been president-elect, but because of their meddling we are now stuck
with Donald Trump and his 1001 oligarchs running the federal government for the next four years.
There are two ways to approach this question. One is to take the accusation of Russian hacking
of the US elections at face value, and we will certainly do that. But first let's try another way,
because it's quicker. Let's consider the accusation itself as a symptom of some unrelated disorder.
This is often the best way forward. Suppose a person walks into a doctor's office, and says, "Doctor,
I believe I have schizophrenium poisoning." Should the doctor summon the hazmat team, or check for
schizophrenia first?
And so let's first consider that this "Russians did it" refrain we keep hearing is a symptom of
something else, of which Russians are not the cause. My working hypothesis is that this behavior
is being caused by a brain parasite. Yes, this may seem outlandish at first, but as we'll see later
the theory that the Russians stole the election is no less outlandish.
Brain parasites are known to alter the behavior of the organisms they infest in a variety of subtle
ways. For instance, Toxicoplasma gondii alters the behavior of rodents, causing them to lose
fear of cats and to become attracted to the smell of cat urine, making it easy for the cats to catch
them. It also alters the behavior of humans, causing them to lavish excessive affection on cats and
to compulsively download photographs of cute kittens playing with yarn.
My hypothesis is that this particular brain parasite was specifically bioengineered by the US
to make those it infects hate Russia. I suspect that the neurological trigger it uses is Putin's
face, which the parasite somehow wires into the visual cortex. This virus was first unleashed on
the unsuspecting Ukrainians, where its effect was plain to see. This historically Russian, majority
Russian-speaking, culturally Russian and religiously Russian Orthodox region suddenly erupted in
an epidemic of Russophobia. The Ukraine cut economic ties with Russia, sending its economy into a
tailspin, and started a war with its eastern regions, which were quite recently part of Russia and
wish to become part of Russia again.
So far so good: the American bioengineers who created this virus achieved the effect they wanted,
turning a Russian region into an anti-Russian region. But as happens so often with biological agents,
it turned out to be hard to keep under control. Its next victims turned out to be NATO and the Pentagon,
whose leadership started compulsively uttering the phrase "Russian aggression" in a manner suggestive
of Tourette's Syndrome, entirely undeterred by the complete absence of evidence of any such aggression
that they could present for objective analysis. They, along with the by now fit-to-be-tied Ukrainians,
kept prattling on about "Russian invasion," waving about decades-old pictures of Russian tanks they
downloaded from their friends on Facebook.
From there the brain parasite spread to the White House, the Clinton presidential campaign, the
Democratic National Committee, and its attendant press corps, who are now all chattering away about
"Russian hacking." The few knowledgeable voices who point out that there is absolutely no hard evidence
of any such "Russian hacking" are being drowned out by the Bedlam din of the rest.
This, to me, seems like the simplest explanation that fits the facts. But to be fair and balanced,
let us also examine the other perspective: that claims of "Russian hacking" should be taken at face
value. The first difficulty we encounter is that what is being termed "Russian hacking" is not hacks
but leaks. Hacks occur where some unauthorized party breaks into a server and steals data. Leaks
occur where an insider-a "whistleblower"-violates rules of secrecy and/or confidentiality in order
to release into the public domain evidence of wrongdoing. In this case, evidence of leaking is prima
facie: Was the data in question evidence of wrongdoing? Yes. Was it released into the public domain?
Yes. Has the identity of said leaker or leakers remained secret? Yes, with good reason.
But this does not rule out hacking, because what a leaker can do, a hacker can also do, although
with difficulty. Leakers have it easy: you see evidence of wrongdoing, take umbrage at it, copy it
onto a thumb drive, smuggle it off premises, and upload it to Wikileaks through a public wifi hotspot
from an old laptop you bought off Craislist and then smashed. But what's a poor hacker to do? You
hack into server after server, running the risk of getting caught each time, only to find that the
servers contain minutes of public meetings, old press releases, backups of public web sites and-incriminating
evidence!-a mother lode of pictures of fluffy kittens playing with yarn downloaded by a secretary
afflicted with Toxicoplasma gondii .
The solution, of course, is to create something that's worth hacking, or leaking, but this is
a much harder problem. What the Russians had to do, then, was take the incorruptible, squeaky-clean
goody-two-shoes faithful public servant Hillary Clinton, infiltrate the Clinton Foundation, Hillary's
presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, and somehow manipulate them all into
doing things that, when leaked (or hacked) would reliably turn the electorate against Clinton. Yes
Sir, Tovarishch Putin!
Those Russians sure are clever! They managed to turn the DNC into an anti-Bernie Sanders operation,
depriving him of electoral votes through a variety of underhanded practices while appealing to anti-Semitic
sentiments in certain parts of the country. They managed to manipulate Donna Brazile into handing
presidential debate questions to the Clinton campaign. They even managed to convince certain Ukrainian
oligarchs and Saudi princes to bestow millions upon the Clinton foundation in exchange for certain
future foreign policy concessions. The list of these leak-worthy Russian subterfuges goes on and
on But who can stop them?
And so clearly the Russians had to first corrupt the Clinton Foundation, the Clinton Presidential
campaign and the Democratic National Committee, just in order to render them hackworthy. But here
we have a problem. You see, if you can hack into a server, so can everyone else. Suppose you leave
your front door unlocked and swinging in the breeze, and long thereafter stuff goes missing. Of course
you can blame the neighbor you happen to like least, but then why would anyone believe you? Anybody
could have walked through that door and taken your shit. And so it is hard to do anything beyond
lobbing empty accusations at Russia as far as hacking is concerned; but the charge of corrupting
the incorruptible Hillary Clinton is another matter entirely.
Because here the ultimate Russian achievement was in getting Hillary Clinton to refer to over
half of her electorate as "a basket of deplorables," and this was no mean feat. It takes a superpower
to orchestrate a political blunder of this magnitude. This she did in front of an LGBT audience in
New York. Now, Hillary is no spring chicken when it comes to national politics: she's been through
quite a few federal elections, and she has enough experience to know that pissing off over half of
your electorate in one fell swoop is not a particularly smart thing to do. Obviously, she was somehow
hypnotized into uttering these words no doubt by a hyperintelligent space-based Russian operative.
The Russian covert operation into subverting American democracy started with the Russians sending
an agent into the hitherto unexplored hinter regions of America, to see what they are like. Hunched
over his desk, Putin whipped out a map of the US and a crayon, and lightly shaded in an area south
of the Mason-Dixon line, west of New York and Pennsylvania, and east of the Rockies.
Let me come clean. I have split loyalties. I have spent most of my life hobnobbing with transnational
elites on the East Coast, but I have also spent quite a few years working for a very large midwestern
agricultural equipment company, and a very large midwestern printing company, so I know the culture
of the land quite well. I am sure that what this Russian agent reported back is that the land is
thickly settled with white people of Anglo-Irish, Scottish, German and Slavic extraction, that they
are macho, that their women (for it is quite a male-centric culture) tend to vote same way as the
men for the sake of domestic tranquility, that they don't much like dark-skinned people or gays,
and that plenty of them view the East Coast and California as dens of iniquity and corruption, if
not modern-day Sodoms and Gomorras.
And what if Vladimir Putin read this report, and issued this order: "Get Clinton to piss them
all off." And so it was done: unbeknownst to her, using nefarious means, Hillary was programmed,
under hypnosis, to utter the phrase "a basket of deplorables." A Russian operative hiding in the
audience of LGBT activists flashed a sign triggering the program in Hillary's overworked brain, and
the rest is history. If that's what actually happened, then Putin should be pronounced Special Ops
Officer of the Year, while all the other "world leaders" should quietly sneak out the back entrance,
sit down on the ground in the garden and eat some dirt, then puke it up into their hands and rub
it into their eyes while wailing, because how on earth can they possibly ever hope to beat that?
Or we can just go back to my brain parasite theory. Doesn't it seem a whole lot more sane now?
Not only is it much simpler and more believable, but it also has certain predictive merits that the
"Russian hacking" theory lacks. You see, when there is parasitism involved, there is rarely just
one symptom. Usually, there is a whole cluster of symptoms. And so, just for the sake of comparison,
let's look at what has happened to the Ukraine since it was infected with the Ukrainian Brain Parasite,
and compare that to what is happening to the US now that the parasite has spread here too.
1. The Ukraine is ruled by an oligarch-Petro Poroshenko, the "candy king"-along with a clique
of other oligarchs who have been handed regional governorships and government ministries. And now
the US is about to be ruled by an oligarch-Trump, the "casino king"-along with a clique of other
oligarchs, from ExxonMobile to Goldman Sachs.
2. The Ukraine has repudiated its trade agreements with Russia, sending its economy into free-fall.
And now Trump is promising to repudiate, and perhaps renegotiate, a variety of trade agreements.
For a country that has run huge structural trade deficits for decades and pays for them by constantly
issuing debt this is not going to be easy or safe.
3. The Ukraine has been subjected to not one but two Color Revolutions, promoted by none other
than that odious oligarch George Soros. The US is now facing its own Color Revolution-the Purple
Revolution-paid for by that same Soros, with the goal of overturning the results of the presidential
election and derailing the inauguration of Donald Trump through a variety of increasingly desperate
ploys including paid-for demonstrations, vote recounts and attempts to manipulate the Electoral College.
4. For a couple of years now the Ukraine has been mired in a bloody and futile civil war. To this
day the Ukrainian troops (with NATO support) are lobbing missiles into civilian districts in the
east of the country, and getting decimated in return. So far, Trump's victory seems to have appeased
the "deplorables," but should the Purple Revolution succeed, the US may also see major social unrest,
possibly escalating into a civil war.
The Ukrainian Brain Parasite has devastated the Ukraine. It is by now too far gone for much of
anything to be done about it. All of the best people have left, mostly for Russia, and all that's
left is a rotten, hollow shell. But does it have to end this way for the US? I hope not!
There are, as I see it, two possibilities. One is to view those who are pushing the "Russian hacking"
or "Russian aggression" story as political adversaries. Another is to view them as temporarily mentally
ill. Yes, their brains are infected with the Ukrainian Brain Parasite, but that just means that their
opinions are to be disregarded-until they feel better. And since this particular brain parasite specifically
influences social behavior, if we refuse to reward that behavior with positive reinforcement-by acknowledging
it-we will suppress its most debilitating symptoms, eventually forcing the parasite to evolve toward
a more benign form. As with many infectious diseases, the fight against them starts with improved
hygiene-in this case, mental hygiene. And so that is my prescription: when you see someone going
on about "Russian hacking" or "Russian aggression" be merciful and charitable toward them as individuals,
because they are temporarily incapacitated, but do not acknowledge their mad ranting, and instead
try to coax them into learning to control it.
"... Republican leaders in Congress are already sending Trump a subtle but clear warning: accept our business-as-usual Chamber of Commerce agenda or we will join Democrats to impeach you. ..."
"... Impeachment has been the goal of Democrats since the day after Trump won the election, and the Republican establishment will use the veiled threat as leverage to win concession after concession from the Trump White House. ..."
"... There are at least four Trump campaign promises which, if not dropped or severely compromised, could generate Republican support for impeachment: Trump's Supreme Court appointments, abandoning the Trans Pacific Partnership, radical rollback of Obama regulatory projects, and real enforcement of our nation's immigration laws. ..."
"... On regulatory rollback, Congress can legitimately insist on negotiating the details with Trump. But on the other three, immigration, the TPP, and Supreme Court nominees, Trump's campaign promises were so specific - and so popular - that he need not accept congressional foot-dragging. ..."
"... Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell announced this week he will oppose Trump's tax reforms. Senator Lindsey Graham is joining Democrats in sponsoring new legislation to protect the "Dreamers" from deportation after their unlawfully granted legal status and work permits expire. Senator Susan Collins will oppose any restrictions on Muslim refugees, no matter how weak and inadequate the vetting to weed out jihadists. Senator Lamar Alexander aims to protect major parts of Obamacare, despite five years of voluminous Republican promises to "repeal and replace" it if they ever had the power to do so. ..."
"... on the House side, we have the naysayer-in-chief, Speaker Paul Ryan, who refused to campaign with Donald Trump in Wisconsin, and who has vowed to obstruct Trump's most important and most popular campaign promise - an end to open borders and vigorous immigration law enforcement. ..."
"... Donald Trump won a electoral mandate to change direction and put American interests first, beginning with border security. If the congressional Republican establishment chooses to block the implementation of that electoral mandate, it would destroy not only Trump's agenda, it would destroy the Republican Party. ..."
Several months ago I was asked what advice I would give to the Trump campaign.
I said, only half joking, that he had better pick a vice presidential candidate the establishment
hates more than it hates him. That would be his only insurance against impeachment. Those drums have
already begun to beat, be it ever so subtly.
Is anyone surprised how quickly the establishment that Donald Trump campaigned against has announced
opposition to much of his policy agenda? No. But few understand that the passionate opposition includes
a willingness to impeach and remove President Trump if he does not come to heel on his America First
goals.
Ferocious opposition to Trump from the left was expected and thus surprises nobody. From the comical
demands for vote recounts to street protests by roving bands of leftist hate-mongers and condescending
satire on late-night television, hysterical leftist opposition to Trump is now part of the cultural
landscape.
But those are amusing sideshows to the main event, the Republican establishment's intransigent
opposition to key pillars of the Republican president's agenda.
Republican leaders in Congress are already sending Trump a subtle but clear warning: accept our
business-as-usual Chamber of Commerce agenda or we will join Democrats to impeach you.
If you think talk of impeachment is insane when the man has not even been sworn into office yet,
you have not been paying attention. Impeachment has been the goal of Democrats since the day after
Trump won the election, and the Republican establishment will use the veiled threat as leverage to
win concession after concession from the Trump White House.
What are the key policy differences that motivate congressional opposition to the Trump agenda?
There are at least four Trump campaign promises which, if not dropped or severely compromised, could
generate Republican support for impeachment: Trump's Supreme Court appointments, abandoning the Trans
Pacific Partnership, radical rollback of Obama regulatory projects, and real enforcement of our nation's
immigration laws.
On regulatory rollback, Congress can legitimately insist on negotiating the details with Trump.
But on the other three, immigration, the TPP, and Supreme Court nominees, Trump's campaign promises
were so specific - and so popular - that he need not accept congressional foot-dragging.
Yet, while the President-elect 's transition teams at the EPA, State Department and Education
Department are busy mapping ambitious changes in direction, Congress's Republican leadership is busy
doubling down on dissonance and disloyalty.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell announced this week he will oppose Trump's tax reforms.
Senator Lindsey Graham is joining Democrats in sponsoring new legislation to protect the "Dreamers"
from deportation after their unlawfully granted legal status and work permits expire. Senator Susan
Collins will oppose any restrictions on Muslim refugees, no matter how weak and inadequate the vetting
to weed out jihadists. Senator Lamar Alexander aims to protect major parts of Obamacare, despite
five years of voluminous Republican promises to "repeal and replace" it if they ever had the power
to do so.
And then, on the House side, we have the naysayer-in-chief, Speaker Paul Ryan, who refused to
campaign with Donald Trump in Wisconsin, and who has vowed to obstruct Trump's most important and
most popular campaign promise - an end to open borders and vigorous immigration law enforcement.
It is no exaggeration to say that Trump's success or failure in overcoming the opposition to immigration
enforcement will determine the success or failure of his presidency. If he cannot deliver on his
most prominent and most popular campaign promise, nothing else will matter very much.
So, the bad news for President Trump is this: If he keeps faith with his campaign promises on
immigration, for example to limit Muslim immigration from terrorism afflicted regions, which is within
his legitimate constitutional powers as President, he will risk impeachment. However, his congressional
critics will face one enormous hurdle in bringing impeachment charges related to immigration enforcement:
about 90 percent of what Trump plans to do is within current law and would require no new legislation
in Congress. Obama disregarded immigration laws he did not like, so all Trump has to do is enforce
those laws.
Now, if you think talk of impeachment is ridiculous because Republicans control Congress, you
are underestimating the depth of Establishment Republican support for open borders.
The first effort in the 21st century at a general amnesty for all 20 million illegal aliens came
in January 2005 from newly re-elected President George Bush. The "Gang of Eight" amnesty bill passed
by the US Senate in 2013 did not have the support of the majority of Republican senators, and now
they are faced with a Republican president pledged to the exact opposite agenda, immigration enforcement.
And yet, do not doubt the establishment will sacrifice a Republican president to protect the globalist,
open borders status quo.
The leader and spokesman for that establishment open borders agenda is not some obscure backbencher,
it is the Republican Speaker of the House. Because the Speaker controls the rules and the legislative
calendar, if he chooses to play hardball against Trump on immigration he can block any of Trump's
other policy initiatives until Trump abandons his immigration enforcement goals.
What all this points to is a bloody civil war within the Republican Party fought on the battlefield
of congressional committee votes.
Donald Trump won a electoral mandate to change direction and put American interests first, beginning
with border security. If the congressional Republican establishment chooses to block the implementation
of that electoral mandate, it would destroy not only Trump's agenda, it would destroy the Republican
Party.
"... The CIA says it has "high confidence" that Russia was trying to get Trump elected, and, according to The Washington Post, the directors of the F.B.I. and national intelligence agree with that conclusion. ..."
"... Now we come to the most reckless step of all: This Russian poodle is acting in character by giving important government posts to friends of Moscow, in effect rewarding it for its attack on the United States. ..."
"... Rex Tillerson, Trump's nominee for secretary of state, is a smart and capable manager. Yet it's notable that he is particularly close to Putin, who had decorated Tillerson with Russia's "Order of Friendship." ..."
In 1972, President Richard Nixon's White House dispatched burglars to bug Democratic Party offices. That Watergate burglary and
related "dirty tricks," such as releasing mice at a Democratic press conference and paying a woman to strip naked and shout her love
for a Democratic candidate, nauseated Americans - and impelled some of us kids at the time to pursue journalism.
Now in 2016 we have a political scandal that in some respects is even more staggering. Russian agents apparently broke into the
Democrats' digital offices and tried to change the election outcome. President Obama on Friday suggested that this was probably directed
by Russia's president, saying, "Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin."
In Watergate, the break-in didn't affect the outcome of the election. In 2016, we don't know for sure. There were other factors,
but it's possible that Russia's theft and release of the emails provided the margin for Donald Trump's victory.
The CIA says it has "high confidence" that Russia was trying to get Trump elected, and, according to The Washington Post,
the directors of the F.B.I. and national intelligence agree with that conclusion.
Both Nixon and Trump responded badly to the revelations, Nixon by ordering a cover-up and Trump by denouncing the CIA and, incredibly,
defending Russia from the charges that it tried to subvert our election. I never thought I would see a dispute between America's
intelligence community and a murderous foreign dictator in which an American leader sided with the dictator.
Let's be clear: This was an attack on America, less lethal than a missile but still profoundly damaging to our system. It's not
that Trump and Putin were colluding to steal an election. But if the CIA is right, Russia apparently was trying to elect a president
who would be not a puppet exactly but perhaps something of a lap dog - a Russian poodle.
In Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair was widely (and unfairly) mocked as President George W. Bush's poodle, following him loyally
into the Iraq war. The fear is that this time Putin may have interfered to acquire an ally who likewise will roll over for him.
Frankly, it's mystifying that Trump continues to defend Russia and Putin, even as he excoriates everyone else, from CIA officials
to a local union leader in Indiana.
Now we come to the most reckless step of all: This Russian poodle is acting in character by giving important government posts
to friends of Moscow, in effect rewarding it for its attack on the United States.
Rex Tillerson, Trump's nominee for secretary of state, is a smart and capable manager. Yet it's notable that he is particularly
close to Putin, who had decorated Tillerson with Russia's "Order of Friendship."
Whatever our personal politics, how can we possibly want to respond to Russia's interference in our election by putting American
foreign policy in the hands of a Putin friend?
Tillerson's closeness to Putin is especially troubling because of Trump's other Russia links. The incoming national security adviser,
Michael Flynn, accepted Russian money to attend a dinner in Moscow and sat near Putin. A ledger shows $12.7 million in secret payments
by a pro-Russia party in Ukraine to Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort. And the Trump family itself has business connections
with Russia.
"... "Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials who have seen it. ..."
"... Comment: The FBI now flip-flops from its previous assessment: FBI rejects CIA assessment that Russia influenced presidential election ..."
FBI and National Intelligence chiefs both agree with the CIA assessment that Russia interfered with
the 2016 US presidential elections partly in an effort to help Donald Trump win the White House,
US media report.
FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper are both convinced
that Russia was behind cyberattacks that targeted Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton
and her campaign chairman, John Podesta,
The Washington Post and reported Friday, citing a message sent by CIA Director John Brennan
to his employees.
"Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper,
and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in
our presidential election," the message said, according to officials who have seen it.
"The three of us also agree that our organizations, along with others, need to focus on completing
the thorough review of this issue that has been directed by President Obama and which is being led
by the DNI," it continued.
"... To whom do US intelligence agencies owe protection against hackers? The DNC was informed that the Russians or someone pretending to be the Russians was on them. To put your political dirty tricks or your apprehensions about the possible discovery of apparent pay-to-play games in your client's foundation in your emails after being warned was just plain foolish. ..."
"... The Clintons' venality has been an open secret for 30 years, though Dem-leaning pundits prefer to ignore it or attribute it to the evil right wing conspiracy. From the Arkansas arrangements permitting the purchase of influence by engaging as attorney the wife of the AG or the Governor, the miraculous commodity investment, the Marc Rich and other pardons all stunk. ..."
"... That the Clinton Foundation and its generous support for Clinton political operators might be a pay-to-play operation was not a surprise to longtime observers. I thought it was admirably bold and clever myself. Nobody else has been able to organize a tax-exempt political slush fund under personal control except even in Illinois where we have a lot of smart lawyers in politics. I suspect we will see a lot more political slush funds disguised as foundations in the future. ..."
"... We also need to think about what political parties actually are. Then are not government agencies or acting on behalf of government agencies or the people at large. Political parties are large private lobbying firms for a set of loosely affiliated private interests that promote an agenda and communications expressly triangulated to satisfy both their donor class and voting majority constituencies. They are more like corporations with owners, employees, and clients than any public entity. ..."
"... Former British Ambassador and current Wikileaks operative Craig Murray recently said he has met the person who leaked DNC and Clinton campaign emails, and they aren't Russian. ..."
"... And BTW after the fact it is usually impossible to discover who obtained the information, as they use multiple levels of indirection and Russia might be just one of those indirection levels. Use of Russian IP-space or Russian IPS might be just an attempt to create a false trail and to implicate a wrong party. ..."
It was only after listening to the Donna Brazile interview that I decided to comment on the hacking
because of how wrong that Donna Brazile was in so many ways. What responsibility do you think
that the Federal government should have for protecting the data of a private political operation?
What legal or regulatory responsibility do you think that the Federal government has towards the
protection of data for private civilian entities? The second question is rhetorical only to put
the first question in perspective since they are materially exactly the same thing according to
law. How difficult do you think it is to avoid exposure of incriminating or covert E-mails simply
by not having such things?
To whom do US intelligence agencies owe protection against hackers? The DNC was informed that
the Russians or someone pretending to be the Russians was on them. To put your political dirty
tricks or your apprehensions about the possible discovery of apparent pay-to-play games in your
client's foundation in your emails after being warned was just plain foolish.
The Clintons' venality
has been an open secret for 30 years, though Dem-leaning pundits prefer to ignore it or attribute
it to the evil right wing conspiracy. From the Arkansas arrangements permitting the purchase of
influence by engaging as attorney the wife of the AG or the Governor, the miraculous commodity
investment, the Marc Rich and other pardons all stunk.
HRC was elected senator from NY despite
that. That the Clinton Foundation and its generous support for Clinton political operators might
be a pay-to-play operation was not a surprise to longtime observers. I thought it was admirably
bold and clever myself. Nobody else has been able to organize a tax-exempt political slush fund
under personal control except even in Illinois where we have a lot of smart lawyers in politics.
I suspect we will see a lot more political slush funds disguised as foundations in the future.
THANKS! We better get used to Republicans, at least until they "d'oh" their way out of political
power just like the Democrats did. Democrats will never get it back on their own.
I think there was a serious lack of IT competence in the DNC playing a big role. One being with
the obvious incompetence of their cyber-security contractor and another the lack of supervision
or procedures set for this person:
I agree that the procedures and rules at the FBI could have been much better. Why the FBI agent
didn't (or maybe (s)he did) send the information up higher in the chain (all the way to the President)
is a bit of a mystery. Hacking of one of our two major parties should have been Presidential level
info, or at least cabinet level.
How about the possibility of not even having any E-mails incriminating Democrats of political
corruption? Would that have been to hard? I am not saying that they should not be corrupt, just
don't put it in an E-mail for Christ's sake.
[Interesting that Putin is the bad guy here for exposing the behavior of the DNC. Why so much
talk of Russians and so little talk of what was in those Emails?]
The 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak is a collection of Democratic National Committee
(DNC) emails leaked to and subsequently published by WikiLeaks on July 22, 2016. This collection
included 19,252 emails and 8,034 attachments from the DNC, the governing body of the United States'
Democratic Party.[1] The leak includes emails from seven key DNC staff members, and date from
January 2015 to May 2016.[2] The leak prompted the resignation of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz
before the Democratic National Convention.[3] After the convention, DNC CEO Amy Dacey, CFO Brad
Marshall, and Communications Director Luis Miranda also resigned in the wake of the controversy.[4]
WikiLeaks did not reveal its source; a self-styled hacker going by the moniker Guccifer 2.0
claimed responsibility for the attack. On July 25, 2016, the FBI announced that it would investigate
the hack[5][6][7][8][9][10][11] The same day, the DNC issued a formal apology to Bernie Sanders
and his supporters, stating, "On behalf of everyone at the DNC, we want to offer a deep and sincere
apology to Senator Sanders, his supporters, and the entire Democratic Party for the inexcusable
remarks made over email," and that the emails did not reflect the DNC's "steadfast commitment
to neutrality during the nominating process."[12] On November 6, 2016, WikiLeaks released a second
batch of DNC emails, adding 8,263 emails to its collection.[13]
On December 9, 2016, the CIA told U.S. legislators that the U.S. Intelligence Community concluded
Russia conducted operations during the 2016 U.S. election to assist Donald Trump in winning the
presidency.[14] Multiple U.S intelligence agencies concluded people with direct ties to the Kremlin
gave WikiLeaks hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee...
...Bernie Sanders' campaign
In the emails, DNC staffers derided the Sanders campaign.[45] The Washington Post reported:
"Many of the most damaging emails suggest the committee was actively trying to undermine Bernie
Sanders's presidential campaign. Basically, all of these examples came late in the primary-after
Hillary Clinton was clearly headed for victory-but they belie the national party committee's stated
neutrality in the race even at that late stage."[46]
In a May 2016 email chain, the DNC chief financial officer (CFO) Brad Marshall told the DNC
chief executive officer, Amy Dacy, that they should have someone from the media ask Sanders if
he is an atheist prior to the West Virginia primary.[46][47] In another email, Wasserman Schultz
said of Bernie Sanders, "He isn't going to be president."[45]
On May 21, 2016, DNC National Press Secretary Mark Paustenbach sent an email to DNC Spokesman
Luis Miranda mentioning a controversy that ensued in December 2015 when the National Data Director
of the Sanders campaign and three subordinate staffers accessed the Clinton campaign's voter information
on the NGP VAN database.[48] (The party accused Sanders' campaign of impropriety and briefly limited
their access to the database. The Sanders campaign filed suit for breach of contract against the
DNC; they dropped the suit on April 29, 2016.)[47][49][50] Paustenbach suggested that the incident
could be used to promote a "narrative for a story, which is that Bernie never had his act together,
that his campaign was a mess." (The suggestion was rejected by the DNC.) [46][47] The Washington
Post wrote: "Paustenbach's suggestion, in that way, could be read as a defense of the committee
rather than pushing negative information about Sanders. But this is still the committee pushing
negative information about one of its candidates."...
...Financial and donor information
The New York Times wrote that the cache included "thousands of emails exchanged by Democratic
officials and party fund-raisers, revealing in rarely seen detail the elaborate, ingratiating
and often bluntly transactional exchanges necessary to harvest hundreds of millions of dollars
from the party's wealthy donor class. The emails capture a world where seating charts are arranged
with dollar totals in mind, where a White House celebration of gay pride is a thinly disguised
occasion for rewarding wealthy donors and where physical proximity to the president is the most
precious of currencies."[60] As is common in national politics, large party donors "were the subject
of entire dossiers, as fund-raisers tried to gauge their interests, annoyances and passions."[60]
In a series of email exchanges in April and May 2016, DNC fundraising staff discussed and compiled
a list of people (mainly donors) who might be appointed to federal boards and commissions.[61]
Center for Responsive Politics senior fellow Bob Biersack noted that this is a longstanding practice
in the United States: "Big donors have always risen to the top of lists for appointment to plum
ambassadorships and other boards and commissions around the federal landscape."[61] The White
House denied that financial support for the party was connected to board appointments, saying:
"Being a donor does not get you a role in this administration, nor does it preclude you from getting
one. We've said this for many years now and there's nothing in the emails that have been released
that contradicts that."...
That does not make Putin a good guy. I was not a fan of Snowden's either. But it is easier for
me to avoid incriminating myself in Emails than it is to get a foreign leader half way around
the world to not expose my self-incrimination if it is in his self-interest to do so and he has
the resources to do so.
We also need to think about what political parties actually are. Then are not government agencies
or acting on behalf of government agencies or the people at large. Political parties are large
private lobbying firms for a set of loosely affiliated private interests that promote an agenda
and communications expressly triangulated to satisfy both their donor class and voting majority
constituencies. They are more like corporations with owners, employees, and clients than any public
entity.
So a bunch of nothing burgers about how the sausage is made. You don't say that there is actually
people in the DNC that have their own personal favorite among the primary candidates - shocking???
And campaign donations in exchange for the ability to gain influence -- almost half a chocking
as the K-Street project - and a quarter as shocking as the revelation that donating to the Clinton
foundation could NOT give the donors what they wanted from the State Department (what an absurdly
incompetent scheme of corruption - how could we let her run the gobinment).
I am sure that the Russian governments hack of the GOP didn't find anything like that - and
that's the reason they didn't make those emails public.
The general advice that you should not send anything by email that you don't want the public
to know should have been headed by all involved. Maybe the DNC could learn from Hillary - who
had > 30K emails examined and not a single one where she had said anything not good for public
consumption.
"...Maybe the DNC could learn from Hillary - who had > 30K emails examined and not a single one
where she had said anything not good for public consumption."
[Now you are starting to come around.
NO, I did not find anything in the Emails shocking. None of it was a surprise at all to me.
However, it was enough for a lot of other people to be influenced in their voting (likely to stay
home and maybe it helped the Green Party get a few more votes), otherwise no one would care that
they were hacked.
Observer's comment just down thread shows that he got it. Now he was not a Hillary supporter
and more likely than not a Libertarian of sorts, but the principle here is universal, simple risk
management where there was nothing to be gained and everything to lose.
Also, going to war over the hacked Emails of any political party is probably off the table:<)
Where Hillary made a mistake was making an enemy that had one of the worlds most aggressive state
sponsored internet hacking programs (China and the US being the only ones that are more capable,
but still less aggressive and more covert).]
You have exhaustively proven that there was no crime or wrong doing committed by the DNC or Hillary.
Thanks.
You have provided evidence that politics is politics and like sausage making you don't want
to actually see it up close and personal.
Nothing here, nothing at all.
Except for Marshall McLuhan's observation that the media is the message. In this case the Russian
leaked emails to Assange lead Wikileaks calculated to dribble out over the months and weeks before
the November election to suggest there were illegalities and criminal behavior being covered up
by Hillary and the DNC at EXACTLY the same time Donald Trump is jetting around the country telling
everybody who listened that the election was rigged, Hillary is a crook, and the MSM was out to
get him.
Wow, how did you miss that and the implications derived from it?
Former British Ambassador and current Wikileaks operative Craig Murray recently said he has
met the person who leaked DNC and Clinton campaign emails, and they aren't Russian.
While he is highly critical of Wikileaks, he suggests that without NSA coming forward with
hard data obtained via special program that uncover multiple levels of indirection, those charges
are just propaganda and insinuations.
And BTW after the fact it is usually impossible to discover who obtained the information, as
they use multiple levels of indirection and Russia might be just one of those indirection levels.
Use of Russian IP-space or Russian IPS might be just an attempt to create a false trail and to
implicate a wrong party.
As in any complex case you should not jump to conclusions so easily.
ilsm -> im1dc... , -1
Nothing Ron says is clearing.
The e-mail thing is about safeguarding and preserving public records. The content of mishandled records is not an issue.
The public demanded to know what government does. Congress passed the federal records act. The crime has nothing to do with content.
That is one felony Comey could complain about justice whitewashing. The elements of friendly information released must never be discussed, that would make the
breeches worse. Except in closed, secure rooms with no electronic bugging devices.
Israel does not recognize the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation and is jointly planning
with Ukraine steps for its de-occupation. This was stated by President of Israel Reuven Rivlin and
the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko at a joint press conference in Kiev.
"Israel did not recognize the illegal annexation of Crimea and is not going to do either and we
have a plan to take the city back from Russia dictator club ," Rivlin said. According to him, Russia
violated international law in this matter.
Comment: What a hypocrite. When has Israel EVER had any respect for international law, unless
it expressly suits Israel.
"Mr President (of Israel) supported the joint steps aimed at the de-occupation of Crimea. For
this plan we will work together in the framework of international organizations on the basis of new
international formats, including the format of "Geneva+" with the participation of the guarantors
of the Budapest Memorandum, Israel and Ukraine", - quotes "Interfax" from the words of the President
of Ukraine.
"... Moderate: one who carries guns and heavy weapons, terrifies and kills in pursuit of US/NATO/Gulf States/Israeli policy. ..."
"... Of course this was the action of moderates. Radical islam would have burned them when they were full of people going the other direction. I have to wonder where they get the "volunteers" to drive them. ..."
"... "Rebels" are by definition "moderates", and therefore friends of Obama, Hillary, McCain, and Lindsey Graham, and therefore DO NOT burn people. "Rebels" use fire to drive the devils out of people , which frees the people's souls up to where Jehovah can get a good look at them and ask them why they were in a bus in Aleppo instead of in a limo pulling up to CometPizza. Freeing, not burning. Big difference. ..."
While the UN condemns Syrian and Russian "atrocities" in the battle over East Aleppo, which as
noted previously was a key victory for the Assad regime in the past week, one which will end
the stalemate and sway the balance of power in the ongoing war between regime forces and US-coalition
armed rebels, little attention had been paid to the subversive tactics employed by such "moderate
rebels" as the al Qaeda linked al-Nusra front.
That may change after five buses en route to evacuate the sick and injured from two government-held
villages in Syria's Idlib province were attacked and burned by rebels.
PHOTOS: Reports coming in that an "unknown rebel group" has attacked buses going to evacuate
civilians from Kafraya and Fuah - @Ald_Aba
pic.twitter.com/7xMPhumeu5
Five buses were attacked and burned by "armed terrorists" while en route to militant-held villages
after an evacuation deal was struck between the Syrian government and rebels, Syrian state television
has reported. According to Reuters, the deal was reached earlier on Sunday, citing al-Ikhbariya TV
news. It will see the remaining militants and their families evacuated from east Aleppo in return
for the evacuation of people in militant-held villages in Idlib province, al-Foua and Kafraya.
Syrian state television has reported that five buses were attacked and burned by "armed terrorists"
while en route to al-Foua and Kefraya. However, most of them, as well as Red Crescent vehicles, reached
the entrance to the villages, the report said.
Syrian state news agency SANA reported earlier that evacuation buses had entered the last militant-held
district of eastern Aleppo, Ramousah, under the supervision of the International Committee of the
Red Cross (ICRC) and the Syrian Arab Red Cross. State television showed live footage of buses and
a van bearing a Syrian Arab Red Crescent flag parked next to a highway intersection in Ramousah .
Several large white cars marked with Red Crescent and Red Cross symbols also appeared in the footage.
As
BBC adds, the convoy was traveling to Foah and Kefraya, besieged by rebel fighters. Pro-government
forces have been demanding that people be allowed to leave the mainly Shia villages in order for
the evacuation of east Aleppo to restart, with thousands of people waiting to leave in desperate
conditions, reports say.
The initial plan to evacuate eastern Aleppo collapsed on Friday, leaving civilians stranded at
various points along the route out without access to food or shelter.
PHOTOS: Other buses have however arrived in Kafraya and Fuah -
@sayed_ridha
Despite delays caused by disagreements over the new evacuation plan, convoys were said to be traveling
to both eastern Aleppo and the government-held villages in Idlib province on Sunday. However, UK-based
monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said six buses were attacked and torched
on the way to Foah and Kefraya.
Jaish Fateh militants have set fire to several buses that were going towards Fuah-Kafraya in
Idlib countryside pic.twitter.com/wud4CNQp1u
It had reported earlier that the "moderate rebel" group Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, formerly known as
the Nusra Front, was preventing buses entering the villages.
As a reminder, earlier in the year, Jabhat Al-Nusra, rebranded itself Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham, a
cosmetic change which was apparently sufficient to convince the US government to brand them "moderates"
and send them arms and equipment, equipment which today may have been used against innocent Syrian
citizens.
Syrian state media said "armed terrorists" attacked five buses, burned and destroyed them.
More pics of the buses which were burned by militants near Sarmin south of Binnish, Idlib
pic.twitter.com/by7g7wf5tP
Rebel groups have not yet commented on the attack. Subsequent to the attack, it was reported that
more buses have been sent to Fuah-Kafraya to replace those that were burnt, although it was unclear
if the "rebels" would allow them passage.
Meanwhile, later on Sunday, the United Nations Security Council is set to vote on a French-drafted
resolution aimed at ensuring that UN officials can monitor the evacuations from Aleppo and the safety
of the remaining civilians. Reuters reported that those evacuated on Thursday and Friday morning
had been taken to rebel-held districts in the countryside west of Aleppo.
As RT notes
, a draft of the resolution "emphasizes that the evacuations of civilians must be voluntary and
to final destinations of their choice, and protection must be provided to all civilians who choose
or who have been forced to be evacuated and those who opt to remain in their homes."
It was not immediately clear how Russia will vote. "If it is a sensible initiative and we see
it on paper, why not entertain this initiative?" Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said
on Friday.
i HAVE TO ASK A QUESTION: Didn't the US back the rebels and how deep is the US ( under the Pervert
in the WH ) involved and is the US (CIA) responsible?
JUST MAKES ME SICK ... AS THOMAS JEFFERSON ONCE SAID:
"I TREMBLE FOR MY NATION WHEN I KNOW THAT GOD IS JUST AND HIS JUSTICE CANNOT SLEEP FOREVER."
While the rebels may well be connected to terrorist group, this incident does sound odd.
"State television showed live footage of buses and a van bearing a Syrian Arab Red Crescent
flag parked next to a highway intersection in Ramousah. Several large white cars marked with Red
Crescent and Red Cross symbols also appeared in the footage."
No rebel approached or attacked the state television crew? Hidden camera? Invisibility cloak?
"Moderate" Rebels. Your tax dollars at work. I hope Trump gets rid of all of the sick fucks in
our government who are behind all of this shit in the Middle East.
Meh, empires rise and fall...the Romans at Palmyra, more recently the Ottomans, "we" really don't
have a dog in the fight, from a western perspective, it was a French Mandate after the Ottomans
crashed & burned so maybe Hollande should nuke it...lol...joking of course.
Make no mistake, to me Assad Jr is the same as his daddy before him but its not our fight,
the imposed borders mean nothing to the people who actually live there, the lines are just lines
on a map and bunch of sand & rock isn't worth a war with Russia over, no matter what the west
might think of an Assad (and my opinion is clear on him) there was some structure (or order)...for
better or worse.
No one ever said "order & structure" is always angelic, its just order & structure, as opposed
to the lack of and they know that more than anyone ;-)
Of course this was the action of moderates. Radical islam would have burned them when they were
full of people going the other direction. I have to wonder where they get the "volunteers" to
drive them.
"Rebels" are by definition "moderates", and therefore friends of Obama, Hillary, McCain, and Lindsey
Graham, and therefore DO NOT burn people. "Rebels" use fire to drive the devils out of people
, which frees the people's souls up to where Jehovah can get a good look at them and ask them
why they were in a bus in Aleppo instead of in a limo pulling up to CometPizza. Freeing,
not burning. Big difference.
"... These allegations were followed Wednesday by a press briefing in which White House spokesman Josh Earnest declared that media outfits in the US, in reporting on the Democratic Party emails released by WikiLeaks, "essentially became the arms of Russian intelligence." ..."
"... Later that day, President Obama threatened to retaliate against Russia, telling National Public Radio, "I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections, that we need to take action and we will." ..."
"... The Times followed up its inflammatory article with an editorial Thursday all but accusing the president-elect of acting as a Russian agent. ..."
"... There are bitter and raging conflicts within the state, and a faction of the military-intelligence apparatus is determined that there be no retreat from an aggressive confrontation with Russia. This is connected to anger over the debacle of the CIA-led regime-change operation in Syria. ..."
"... Bound up with this internecine conflict within the ruling class, there is a concerted effort to politically bludgeon the American people into supporting further military escalation, both in the Middle East and against Russia itself. ..."
The American population is being subjected to a furious barrage of propaganda by the media and
political establishment aimed at paving the way to war.
The campaign was sharply escalated this week, beginning with Wednesday's publication of a lead
article in the New York Times . Based entirely on unnamed sources and flimsy and concocted
evidence, it was presented as definitive proof of Russia's hacking of Democratic Party emails and
waging of "cyberwar" against the United States.
These allegations were followed Wednesday by a press briefing in which White House spokesman
Josh Earnest declared that media outfits in the US, in reporting on the Democratic Party emails released
by WikiLeaks, "essentially became the arms of Russian intelligence."
On Thursday, Earnest declared that president-elect Trump had encouraged "Russia to hack his opponent
because he believed it would help his campaign." Later that day, President Obama threatened to
retaliate against Russia, telling National Public Radio, "I think there is no doubt that when any
foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our elections, that we need to take action and
we will."
These warmongering comments by the Obama administration were accompanied by editorials in leading
US and international newspapers denouncing Trump's accommodative stance toward Russia and clamoring
for a more aggressive response to the alleged hacking. News reports, based on unnamed intelligence
officials, breathlessly proclaim that Russian President Vladimir Putin directly ordered and oversaw
the hacking.
The Times followed up its inflammatory article with an editorial Thursday all but accusing
the president-elect of acting as a Russian agent. "There could be no more 'useful idiot,' to
use Lenin's term of art, than an American president who doesn't know he's being played by a wily
foreign power," the Times declared. The editorial further defined Russia as "one of our oldest, most
determined foreign adversaries," adding, "Kremlin meddling in the 2016 election" justifies "retaliatory
measures."
The declarations by the Times and other media outlets combine all of the noxious elements
of 1950s McCarthyism, with capitalist Russia replacing the Soviet Union: hysterical denunciation
of "wily" Russia, shameless lying and attacks on domestic opponents as spies, traitors and agents
of foreign governments.
There are bitter and raging conflicts within the state, and a faction of the military-intelligence
apparatus is determined that there be no retreat from an aggressive confrontation with Russia. This
is connected to anger over the debacle of the CIA-led regime-change operation in Syria. Trump
has packed his cabinet with generals and is planning a massive escalation of war, but he has also
indicated a preference for greater accommodation with Russia.
Bound up with this internecine conflict within the ruling class, there is a concerted effort
to politically bludgeon the American people into supporting further military escalation, both in
the Middle East and against Russia itself.
The propaganda campaign alleging Russian interference in the US election parallels a related media
blitzkrieg claiming that Syrian government troops, backed by Russia, are carrying out massacres as
they retake the Syrian city of Aleppo.
The Times ' lead editorial on Thursday, titled "Aleppo's Destroyers: Assad, Putin, Iran,"
declares: "After calling on Mr. Assad to 'step aside' in 2011, Mr. Obama was never able to make it
happen, and it may never have been in his power to make it happen, at least at a cost acceptable
to the American people." The front-page lead of Thursday's Times bemoans the fact that efforts
to whip up public support for US military intervention in Syria have "not resonated" as much as previous
propaganda campaigns.
The international press has joined in the hysteria. An op-ed in Germany's Der Spiegel bitterly
complains that "Obama sought a diplomatic, not a military solution" to the crisis in Syria. It "made
him popular, both in the United States and here [in Germany]," the piece states, but adds that such
"self-righteousness is wrong."
Such media propaganda campaigns are not new. Without exception, they have preceded every bloody
military adventure: the attempts to blame Afghanistan for the September 11 terrorist attacks in the
run-up to that country's invasion in 2001; the lying claims about "weapons of mass destruction" before
the 2003 invasion of Iraq; and the reports of an imminent massacre of civilians in Benghazi that
preceded the US bombing and destruction of Libya in 2011.
The difference now, however, is that this campaign is directed not at a virtually defenseless
and impoverished former colony, but at Russia, the world's second-ranked nuclear power. None of the
figures carrying out this campaign care to explain how a war against Russia should be fought, how
many people will die, and how such a war could avoid a nuclear exchange leading to the destruction
of human civilization.
Behind the banner headlines and vituperative editorials, real steps are being taken to prepare
for warfare on a scale not seen for 60 years. Earlier this year, US Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark
A. Milley told the Association of the United States Army that the military must prepare for wars
against great powers, which will be "very highly lethal, unlike anything our Army has experienced
since World War II."
The campaign that has developed over the past two weeks makes clear what the policy of a Clinton
administration would have been. The Democratic Party and its allied media outlets have rooted their
opposition to Trump not on the basis of his losing the popular vote by nearly three million ballots,
or that he is appointing a cabinet dominated by right-wing, reactionary billionaires, bankers, business
executives and generals, but on the charge that he is "soft" on Russia. That is, the Democratic Party
has managed to attack Trump from the right.
Whatever the outcome of the conflict within the state, the American ruling class is preparing
for war. The dissolution of the USSR 25 years ago was greeted with enraptured declarations of an
era of perpetual peace, in which a world under the unrivaled hegemony of the United States would
be free of the wars that plagued mankind in the 20th century. Now, after a quarter century of bloody
regional conflicts, the blood-curdling declarations of the press make it clear that a new world war
is in the making.
Among broad sections of workers and young people, there is deep skepticism toward government
lies and hostility to war. However, this opposition can find no reflection within any faction of
the political establishment. The building of a new anti-war movement, based on the international
unity of the working class in opposition to capitalism and all the political parties of the ruling
class, is the urgent task.
Last week we reported that the State of Georgia had traced an attempted break-in to its voter
registration database to none other than the famous Russian government agency, the Department of
Homeland Security.
Now it has been revealed that Kentucky and West Virginia "have confirmed suspected cyberattacks
linked to the same U.S. Department of Homeland Security IP address as last month's massive attack
in Georgia". There must be some way to blame Moscow:
While there could be an "innocent" explanation for such attacks (testing network security, for
example), the Department of Homeland Security did not inform any of these states - before or
after the attacks - that they had been conducted, for security-checking purposes or otherwise. In
other words: These states still don't know why DHS targeted, and they're still waiting for an
answer:
In the past week, the Georgia Secretary of State's Office has confirmed 10 separate
cyberattacks on its network over the past 10 months that were traced back to DHS addresses.
"We're being told something that they think they have it figured out, yet nobody's really
showed us how this happened," Kemp said. "We need to know."
He says the new information from the two other states presents even more reason to be
concerned.
"So now this just raises more questions that haven't been answered about this and continues to
raise the alarms and concern that I have," Kemp said.
Georgia's Secretary of State says he has already sent an appeal to the incoming Trump
administration, asking for assistance in resolving this bizarre string of cyber attacks.
"... Danielle Ryan is an Irish freelance writer, journalist and media analyst. She has lived and traveled extensively in the US, Germany, Russia and Hungary. Her byline has appeared at RT, The Nation, Rethinking Russia, The BRICS Post, New Eastern Outlook, Global Independent Analytics and many others. She also works on copywriting and editing projects. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook or at her website www.danielleryan.net. ..."
According to the anonymous sources inside the anonymous US intelligence agency,
Putin's objectives were multifaceted, but the whole thing began as a "vendetta"
against Hillary Clinton because she said some mean things about him a few
times. Putin is also an "immature 12 year-old child," a former US official with
links to the defense industry, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed
(with high confidence).
The high level, anonymous and completely trustworthy sources also told a major
US news agency that Putin himself had piloted a specially-designed Russian spy
plane across the Atlantic to personally direct the still-ongoing hacking
operations from the air.
via GIPHY
Satellite images seen by a separate anonymous NASA whistleblower are believed
to show Putin in the cockpit of the spy plane alongside his co-pilot Boris, a
lifelike robotic bear which has been under secret development in the depths of
Siberia and has been programmed to attack Putin's enemies on command using a
variety of lethal methods.
The NASA whistleblower did not provide journalists with photographic evidence,
but the editors had a chat about it in their morning meeting and concluded that
it's probably still true.
In fact, the American news agency could not verify any of the claims from the
officials who commented for the story, but given that their sources used the
term "high confidence" they took this to mean the evidence must be "nearly
incontrovertible" and relayed the information to the public with this
implication. An understandable decision, since, as we all know, only 100
percent factual information is ever released by anonymous intelligence
officials.
Okay, let's rewind.
Obviously that bit about the bear and the plane was
fake news. And maybe a few other bits, too. But it all demonstrates a point.
I've provided you with about the same amount of evidence as NBC has in its
story this week
claiming Putin personally rigged
the US election:
I made some allegations, I cited anonymous sources and then I conveyed it to
you readers as "nearly incontrovertible" and suggested no further digging or
investigation, or even a bit of healthy skepticism, was necessary.
Journalism is dying
There was a time when journalists needed more than 'maybes' and 'probablys'
before deciding what their sources told them was "incontrovertible" and
delivering half-baked conspiracy theories to the public. That time has
apparently long gone.
Imagine for a moment that RT published a story about, oh, let's say Barack
Obama personally hacking into Putin's computer. Now imagine the only evidence
RT provided was "anonymous FSB officials" and told its readers the story was
therefore practically indisputable because these anonymous sources were
"confident" in the legitimacy of their secret evidence. Imagine the laughs that
would get from sneering Western journalists. Well, that's pretty much exactly
what NBC did. And they're not alone. The
Washington Post
has been at
it too,
reporting on a "secret" CIA assessment that Russia worked to get Donald
Trump elected, quoting anonymous "top officials" and like NBC, providing no
evidence.
Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but for something to be presented to the
public as indisputable fact, there must be evidence made available to back it
up. Neither the CIA or the FBI have provided any such evidence to the public.
Perhaps the saddest thing though is having to acknowledge that all our debates
over fake news and real news really don't matter because the very people we are
told to trust are the people who will most adeptly use the public's concerns
over fake news to manipulate them. The CIA, for example, is hardly known for
its long history of telling the truth. Its employees are literally trained in
the art of deception and disinformation. They are hardly averse to creating a
bit of fake news or making up 'evidence' where needed. Anything they say or do
can be forgiven once someone utters the words "national security".
NBC's story claimed Putin not only wanted to embarrass Clinton with the DNC
leaks, but to highlight corruption in the American political system; the emails
showing, for example, how the DNC colluded with the Clinton campaign to ensure
Clinton, not Bernie Sanders, would be the Democratic nominee.
Now, what better way to encourage people to ignore the corruption in
the system than to focus their attention on the idea that Putin is the one who
told them about it? Are people really reading these stories and convincing
themselves that the CIA is the most credible source of public information on
what the Russians are doing?
Clinton's long-shot
We've been hearing about Russian hacking for months, long before the election
results in November, so why the sudden confidence in all this new and secret
evidence? Why the new assertions that Putin himself directed the hacking? Look
at your calendar. The Electoral College votes on Monday and it may be Clinton's
last hope. It's a long shot, but in true Clinton character, she won't go down
without a fight to the last gasp. Her best hope is to convince the Electoral
College that Trump's win was influenced by a foreign power, is therefore
illegitimate and that national security will be at stake if he takes office.
Amazingly, in the midst of all this, while Clinton's camp is still trying to
get her elected through back-door tactics, Obama has pretty much called the
election results
legitimate .
Members of the Electoral College are expected to vote the way their states
voted, but they are not required to. If Clinton can get enough members to flip
their votes, Trump is deprived of the 270 votes he needs to become president.
That's what this is really all about - and the media is serving as Clinton's
willing accomplice.
Danielle Ryan is an Irish freelance writer, journalist and media analyst.
She has lived and traveled extensively in the US, Germany, Russia and Hungary.
Her byline has appeared at RT, The Nation, Rethinking Russia, The BRICS Post,
New Eastern Outlook, Global Independent Analytics and many others. She also
works on copywriting and editing projects. Follow her on Twitter or Facebook or
at her website www.danielleryan.net.
"... this will probably be in tomorrow's washington post. "how putin sabotaged the election by hacking yahoo mail". and "proton" and "putin" are 2 syllable words beginning with "p", which is dispositive according to experts who don't want to be indentified. ..."
"... [Neo]Liberals have gone truly insane, I made the mistake of trying to slog through the comments the main "putin did it" piece on huffpo out of curiosity. Big mistake, liberals come across as right wing nutters in the comments, I never knew they were so very patriotic, they never really expressed it before. ..."
"... Be sure and delete everything from your Yahoo account BEFORE you push the big red button. They intentionally wait 90 days to delete the account in order that ECPA protections expire and content can just be handed over to the fuzz. ..."
"... It's a good thing for Obama that torturing logic and evasive droning are not criminal acts. ..."
"... "Relations with Russia have declined over the past several years" I reflexively did a Google search. Yep, Victoria Nuland is still employed. ..."
"... With all the concern expressed about Russian meddling in our election process why are we forgetting the direct quid pro quo foreign meddling evidenced in the Hillary emails related to the seldom mentioned Clinton Foundation or the more likely meddling by local election officials? Why have the claims of Russian hacking received such widespread coverage in the Press? ..."
"... I watched it too and agree with your take on it. For all the build up about this press conference and how I thought we were going to engage in direct combat with Russia for these hacks (or so they say it is Russia, I still wonder about that), he did not add any fuel to this fire. ..."
"... The whole thing was silly the buildup to this press conference and then how Obama handled the hacking. A waste of time really. I don't sense something is going on behind the scenes but it is weird that the news has been all about this Russian hacking. He did not get into the questions about the Electoral College either and he made it seem like Trump indeed is the next President. I mean it seems like the MSM was making too much about this issue but then nothing happened. ..."
this will probably be in tomorrow's washington post. "how putin sabotaged the election
by hacking yahoo mail". and "proton" and "putin" are 2 syllable words beginning with "p",
which is dispositive according to experts who don't want to be indentified.
[Neo]Liberals have gone truly insane, I made the mistake of trying to slog through the
comments the main "putin did it" piece on huffpo out of curiosity. Big mistake, liberals come
across as right wing nutters in the comments, I never knew they were so very patriotic, they never
really expressed it before.
Be sure and delete everything from your Yahoo account BEFORE you push the big red button. They
intentionally wait 90 days to delete the account in order that ECPA protections expire and content
can just be handed over to the fuzz.
I don't think I've looked at my yahoo account in 8-10 years and I didn't use their email; just
had an address. I don't remember my user name or password. I did get an email from them (to my
not-yahoo address) advising of the breach.
I was amazed as I watched a local am news show in Pittsburgh recommend adding your cell phone
number in addition to changing your password. Yeah, that's a great idea, maybe my ss# would provide
even more security.
I use yahoo email. Why should I move? As I understood the breach it was primarily a breach
of the personal information used to establish the account. I've already changed my password -
did it a couple of days after the breach was reported. I had a security clearance with DoD which
requires disclosure of a lot more personal information than yahoo had. The DoD data has been breached
twice from two separate servers.
As far as reading my emails - they may prove useful for phishing but that's about all. I'm
not sure what might be needed for phishing beyond a name and email address - easily obtained from
many sources I have no control over.
So - what am I vulnerable to by remaining at yahoo that I'm not already exposed to on a more
secure server?
Yeah, it isn't like Mr. 'We go high' is going to admit our relationship has declined because
we have underhandedly tried to isolate and knee cap them for pretty much his entire administration.
Are you referring to Obama's press conference? If so, I am glad he didn't make a big deal out
of the Russian hacking allegations - as in it didn't sound like he planned a retaliation for the
fictional event and its fictional consequences. He rose slightly in stature in my eyes - he's
almost as tall as a short flea.
With all the concern expressed about Russian meddling in our election process why are we forgetting
the direct quid pro quo foreign meddling evidenced in the Hillary emails related to the seldom
mentioned Clinton Foundation or the more likely meddling by local election officials? Why have
the claims of Russian hacking received such widespread coverage in the Press?
Why is a lameduck
messing with the Chinese in the South China sea? What is the point of all the "fake" news hogwash?
Is it related to Obama's expression of concern about the safety of the Internet? I can't shake
the feeling that something is going on below the surface of these murky waters.
I watched it too and agree with your take on it. For all the build up about this press conference
and how I thought we were going to engage in direct combat with Russia for these hacks (or so
they say it is Russia, I still wonder about that), he did not add any fuel to this fire.
He did
respond at one point to a reporter that the hacks from Russia were to the DNC and Podesta but
funny how he didn't say HRC emails. Be it as it may, I think what was behind it was HRC really
trying to impress all her contributors that Russia really did do her in, see Obama said so, since
she must be in hot water over all the money she has collected from foreign governments for pay
to play and her donors.
The whole thing was silly the buildup to this press conference and then
how Obama handled the hacking. A waste of time really. I don't sense something is going on behind
the scenes but it is weird that the news has been all about this Russian hacking. He did not get
into the questions about the Electoral College either and he made it seem like Trump indeed is
the next President. I mean it seems like the MSM was making too much about this issue but then
nothing happened.
Unfortunately the nightly news is focusing on Obama says Russia hacked the DNC and had it in
for Clinton!!! He warned them to stay out of the vote! There will be consequences! Russia demands
the evidence and then a story about the evidence. (This one might have a few smarter people going
"huh, that's it?!?!")
I do like the some private some public on that consequences and retaliation thing. You either
have to laugh or throw up about the faux I've got this and the real self-righteousness. Especially
since it is supposedly to remind people we can do it to you. Is there anyone left outside of America
who doesn't think they already do do it to anyone Uncle Sam doesn't want in office and even some
they do? Mind you I'm not sure how many harried people watching the news are actually going to
laugh at that one because they don't know how how much we meddle.
"... Shorter Paul Krugman: nobody acted more irresponsibly in the last election than the New York Times. ..."
"... Looks like Putin recruited the NYT, the FBI and the DNC. ..."
"... Dr. Krugman is feeding this "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality. He comes across as increasingly shrill and even unhinged - it's a slide he's been taking for years IMO, which is a big shame. ..."
"... It is downright irresponsible and dangerous for a major public intellectual with so little information to cast the shadow of legitimacy on a president ("And it means not acting as if this was a normal election whose result gives the winner any kind of a mandate, or indeed any legitimacy beyond the bare legal requirements.") This kind of behavior is EXACTLY what TRUMP and other authoritarians exhibit - using pieces of information to discredit institutions and individuals. Since foreign governments have and will continue to try to influence U.S. policy through increasingly sophisticated means, this opens the door for anyone to declare our elections and policies as illegitimate in the future. ..."
"... Any influence Russian hacking had was entirely a consequence of U.S. media obsession with celebrity, gotcha and horse race trivia and two-party red state/blue state tribalism. ..."
"... Without the preceding, neither Trump nor Clinton would have been contenders in the first place. Putin didn't invent super delegates, Citizens United, Fox News, talk radio, Goldman-Sachs, etc. etc. etc. If Putin exploited vulnerabilities, it is because preserving those vulnerabilities was more important to the elites than fostering a democratic political culture. ..."
"... It's not a "coup". It's an election result that didn't go the way a lot of people want. That's it. It's probably not optimal, but I'm pretty sure that democracy isn't supposed to produce optimal results. ..."
"... All this talk about "coups" and "illegitimacy" is nuts, and -- true to Dem practice -- incredibly short-sighted. For many, voting for Trump was an available way to say to those people, "We don't believe you any more. At all." Seen in that light, it is a profoundly democratic (small 'd') response to elites that have most consistently served only themselves. ..."
"... Post Truth is Pre-Fascism. The party that thinks your loyalty is suspect unless you wear a flag pin fuels itself on Post Truth. Isnt't this absurdity the gist of Obama's Russia comments today!?! ..."
"... Unless the Russians or someone else hacked the ballot box machines, it is our own damn fault. ..."
"... The ship of neo-liberal trade sailed in the mid-2000's. That you don't get that is sad. You can only milk that so far the cow had been milked. ..."
"... The people of the United States did not have much to choose between: Either a servant of the Plutocrats or a member of the Plutocratic class. The Dems brought this on us when they refused to play fair with Bernie. (Hillary would almost certainly have won the nomination anyway.) ..."
"... The Repubs brought this on, by refusing to govern. The media brought this on: I seem to remember Hillary's misfeasances, once nominated, festering in the media, while Trump's were mentioned, and then disappeared. (Correct me if I'm wrong in this.) Also, the media downplayed Bernie until he had no real chance. ..."
"... The government brought this on, by failing to pursue justice against the bankers, and failing to represent the people, especially the majority who have been screwed by trade and the plutocratic elite and their apologists. ..."
"... The educational system brought this on, by failing to educate the people to critical thought. For instance: 1) The wealthy run the country. 2) The wealthy have been doing very well. 3) Everybody else has not. It seems most people cannot draw the obvious conclusion. ..."
"... Krugman is himself one of those most useful idiots. I do not recall his clarion call to Democrats last spring that "FBI investigation" and "party Presidential nominee" was bound to be an ugly combination. Some did; right here as I recall. Or his part in the official "don't vote for third party" week in the Clinton media machine....thanks, hundreds of thousands of Trump votes got the message. ..."
"... It's too rich to complain about Russia and Wikileaks as if those elements in anyway justified Clinton becoming President. Leaks mess with our democracy? Then for darn sure do not vote for a former Sec. of State willing to use a home server for her official business. Russia is menacing? Just who has been managing US-Russia relations the past 8 years? I voted for her anyway, but the heck if I think some tragic fate has befell the nation here. Republicans picked a better candidate to win this thing than we Democrats did. ..."
"... The truth of the matter is that Clinton was a very weak candidate with nothing to offer but narcissism ("I'm with her"). It's notable that Clinton has still not accepted responsibility for her campaign, preferring to throw the blame for the loss anywhere but herself. Sociopathy much? ..."
[ I find it terrifying, simply terrifying, to refer to people as "useful idiots" after all
the personal destruction that has followed when the expression was specifically used in the past.
To me, using such an expression is an honored economist intent on becoming Joseph McCarthy.
]
To demean a person as though the person were a communist or a fool of communists or the like,
with all the personal harm that has historically brought in this country, is cruel beyond my understanding
or imagining.
Well, not really. For example he referred to "the close relationship between Wikileaks and Russian
intelligence." But Wikileaks is a channel. They don't seek out material. They rely on people to
bring material to them. They supposedly make an effort to verify that the material is not a forgery,
but aside from that what they release is what people bring to them. Incidentally, like so many
people you seem to not care whether the material is accurate or not -- Podesta and the DNC have
not claimed that any of the emails are different from what they sent.
ZURICH - If Putin the Thug gets away with crushing Ukraine's new democratic experiment and
unilaterally redrawing the borders of Europe, every pro-Western country around Russia will be
in danger....
Yup, like the other elections, the bases stayed solvent and current events factored into the turnout
and voting patterns which spurred the independent vote.
When people were claiming Clinton was going to win big, I thought no Republican and Democratic
voters are going to pull the lever like a trained monkey as usual. Only difference in this election
was Hillary's huge negatives due entirely by her and Bill Clinton's support for moving manufacturing
jobs to Mexico and China in the 90s.
To Understand Trump, Learn Russian http://nyti.ms/2hLcrB1
NYT - Andrew Rosenthal - December 15
The Russian language has two words for truth - a linguistic quirk that seems relevant to our
current political climate, especially because of all the disturbing ties between the newly elected
president and the Kremlin.
The word for truth in Russian that most Americans know is "pravda" - the truth that seems evident
on the surface. It's subjective and infinitely malleable, which is why the Soviet Communists called
their party newspaper "Pravda." Despots, autocrats and other cynical politicians are adept at
manipulating pravda to their own ends.
But the real truth, the underlying, cosmic, unshakable truth of things is called "istina" in
Russian. You can fiddle with the pravda all you want, but you can't change the istina.
For the Trump team, the pravda of the 2016 election is that not all Trump voters are explicitly
racist. But the istina of the 2016 campaign is that Trump's base was heavily dependent on racists
and xenophobes, Trump basked in and stoked their anger and hatred, and all those who voted for
him cast a ballot for a man they knew to be a racist, sexist xenophobe. That was an act of racism.
Trump's team took to Twitter with lightning speed recently to sneer at the conclusion by all
17 intelligence agencies that the Kremlin hacked Democratic Party emails for the specific purpose
of helping Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton. Trump said the intelligence agencies got it wrong
about Iraq, and that someone else could have been responsible for the hack and that the Democrats
were just finding another excuse for losing.
The istina of this mess is that powerful evidence suggests that the Russians set out to interfere
in American politics, and that Trump, with his rejection of Western European alliances and embrace
of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, was their chosen candidate.
The pravda of Trump's selection of Rex Tillerson, head of Exxon Mobil, as secretary of state
is that by choosing an oil baron who has made billions for his company by collaborating with Russia,
Trump will make American foreign policy beholden to American corporate interests.
That's bad enough, but the istina is far worse. For one thing, American foreign policy has
been in thrall to American corporate interests since, well, since there were American corporations.
Just look at the mess this country created in Latin America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and
the Middle East to serve American companies.
Yes, Tillerson has ignored American interests repeatedly, including in Russia and Iraq, and
has been trying to remove sanctions imposed after Russia's seizure of Crimea because they interfered
with one of his many business deals. But take him out of the equation in the Trump cabinet and
nothing changes. Trump has made it plain, with every action he takes, that he is going to put
every facet of policy, domestic and foreign, at the service of corporate America. The istina here
is that Tillerson is just a symptom of a much bigger problem.
The pravda is that Trump was right in saying that the intelligence agencies got it wrong about
Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction.
But the istina is that Trump's contempt for the intelligence services is profound and dangerous.
He's not getting daily intelligence briefings anymore, apparently because they are just too dull
to hold his attention.
And now we know that Condoleezza Rice was instrumental in bringing Tillerson to Trump's attention.
As national security adviser and then secretary of state for president George W. Bush, Rice was
not just wrong about Iraq, she helped fabricate the story that Hussein had nuclear weapons.
Trump and Tillerson clearly think they are a match for the wily and infinitely dangerous Putin,
but as they move foward with their plan to collaborate with Russia instead of opposing its imperialist
tendencies, they might keep in mind another Russian saying, this one from Lenin.
"There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience," he wrote. "A scoundrel may be
of use to us just because he is a scoundrel."
Putin has that philosophy hard-wired into his political soul. When it comes to using scoundrels
to get what he wants, he is a professional, and Trump is only an amateur. That is the istina of
the matter.
If nothing else, Russia - with a notably un-free press - has shrewdly used our own 'free press'
against US.
RUSSIA'S UNFREE PRESS
The Boston Globe - Marshall Goldman - January 29, 2001
AS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION DEBATES ITS POLICY TOWARD RUSSIA, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS SHOULD BE
ONE OF ITS MAJOR CONCERNS. UNDER PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN THE PRESS IS FREE ONLY AS LONG AS IT
DOES NOT CRITICIZE PUTIN OR HIS POLICIES. WHEN NTV, THE TELEVISION NETWORK OF THE MEDIA GIANT
MEDIA MOST, REFUSED TO PULL ITS PUNCHES, MEDIA MOST'S OWNER, VLADIMIR GUSINSKY, FOUND HIMSELF
IN JAIL, AND GAZPROM, A COMPANY DOMINATED BY THE STATE, BEGAN TO CALL IN LOANS TO MEDIA MOST.
Unfortunately, Putin's actions are applauded by more than 70 percent of the Russian people. They
crave a strong and forceful leader; his KGB past and conditioned KGB responses are just what they
seem to want after what many regard as the social, political, and economic chaos of the last decade.
But what to the Russians is law and order (the "dictatorship of the law," as Putin has so accurately
put it) looks more and more like an old Soviet clampdown to many Western observers.
There is no complaint about Putin's promises. He tells everyone he wants freedom of the press.
But in the context of his KGB heritage, his notion of freedom of the press is something very different.
In an interview with the Toronto Globe and Mail, he said that that press freedom excludes the
"hooliganism" or "uncivilized" reporting he has to deal with in Moscow. By that he means criticism,
especially of his conduct of the war in Chechnya, his belated response to the sinking of the Kursk,
and the heavy-handed way in which he has pushed aside candidates for governor in regional elections
if they are not to Putin's liking.
He does not take well to criticism. When asked by the relatives of those lost in the Kursk
why he seemed so unresponsive, Putin tried to shift the blame for the disaster onto the media
barons, or at least those who had criticized him. They were the ones, he insisted, who had pressed
for reduced funding for the Navy while they were building villas in Spain and France. As for their
criticism of his behavior, They lie! They lie! They lie!
Our Western press has provided good coverage of the dogged way Putin and his aides have tried
to muscle Gusinsky out of the Media Most press conglomerate he created. But those on the Putin
enemies list now include even Boris Berezovsky, originally one of Putin's most enthusiastic promoters
who after the sinking of the Kursk also became a critic and thus an opponent.
Gusinsky would have a hard time winning a merit badge for trustworthiness (Berezovsky shouldn't
even apply), but in the late Yeltsin and Putin years, Gusinsky has earned enormous credit for
his consistently objective news coverage, including a spotlight on malfeasance at the very top.
More than that, he has supported his programmers when they have subjected Yeltsin and now Putin
to bitter satire on Kukly, his Sunday evening prime-time puppet show.
What we hear less of, though, is what is happening to individual reporters, especially those
engaged in investigative work. Almost monthly now there are cases of violence and intimidation.
Among those brutalized since Putin assumed power are a reporter for Radio Liberty who dared to
write negative reports about the Russian Army's role in Chechnia and four reporters for Novaya
Gazeta. Two of them were investigating misdeeds by the FSB (today's equivalent of the KGB), including
the possibility that it rather than Chechins had blown up a series of apartment buildings. Another
was pursuing reports of money-laundering by Yeltsin family members and senior staff in Switzerland.
Although these journalists were very much in the public eye, they were all physically assaulted.
Those working for provincial papers labor under even more pressure with less visibility. There
are numerous instances where regional bosses such as the governor of Vladivostok operate as little
dictators, and as a growing number of journalists have discovered, challenges are met with threats,
physical intimidation, and, if need be, murder.
True, freedom of the press in Russia is still less than 15 years old, and not all the country's
journalists or their bosses have always used that freedom responsibly. During the 1996 election
campaign, for example, the media owners, including Gusinsky conspired to denigrate or ignore every
viable candidate other than Yeltsin. But attempts to muffle if not silence criticism have multiplied
since Putin and his fellow KGB veterans have come to power. Criticism from any source, be it an
individual journalist or a corporate entity, invites retaliation.
When Media Most persisted in its criticism, Putin sat by approvingly as his subordinates sent
in masked and armed tax police and prosecutors. When that didn't work, they jailed Gusinsky on
charges that were later dropped, although they are seeking to extradite and jail him again. along
with his treasurer, on a new set of charges. Yesterday the prosecutor general summoned Tatyana
Mitkova, the anchor of NTV's evening news program, for questioning. Putin's aides are also doing
all they can to prevent Gusinsky from refinancing his debt-ridden operation with Ted Turner or
anyone else in or outside of the country.
According to one report, Putin told one official, You deal with the shares, debts, and management
and I will deal with the journalists. His goal simply is to end to independent TV coverage in
Russia. ...
"Unfortunately, Putin's actions are applauded by more than 70 percent of the Russian people"
Exactly; the majority of people are so stupid and/or lazy that they cannot be bothered understanding
what is going on; and how their hard won democracy is being subjugated. But thank God that is
in Russia not here in the US - right?
"Pravda" is etymologically derived from "prav-" which means "right" (as opposed to "left", other
connotations are "proper", "correct", "rightful", also legal right). It designates the social-construct
aspect of "righteousness/truthfulness/correctness" as opposed to "objective reality" (conceptually
independent of social standards, in reality anything but). In formal logic, "istina" is used to
designate truth. Logical falsity is designated a "lie".
It is a feature common to most European languages that rightfulness, righteousness, correctness,
and legal rights are identified with the designation for the right side. "Sinister" is Latin for
"left".
If you believe 911 was a Zionist conspiracy, so where the Paris attacks of November 2015, when
Trump was failing in the polls as the race was moving toward as you would expect, toward other
candidates. After the Paris attacks, his numbers reaccelerated.
If "ZOG" created the "false flag" of the Paris attacks to start a anti-Muslim fervor, they
succeeded, much like 911. Bastille day attacks were likewise, a false flag. This is not new, this
goes back to when the aristocracy merged with the merchant caste, creating the "bourgeois". They
have been running a parallel government in the shadows to effect what is seen.
There used to be something called Usenet News, where at the protocol level reader software could
fetch meta data (headers containing author, (stated) origin, title, etc.) independently from comment
bodies. This was largely owed to limited download bandwidth. Basically all readers had "kill files"
i.e. filters where one could configure that comments with certain header parameters should not
be downloaded, or even hidden.
The main application was that the reader would download comments in the background when headers
were already shown, or on demand when you open a comment.
Now you get the whole thing (or in units of 100) by the megabyte.
A major problem is signal extraction out of the massive amounts of noise generated by the media,
social media, parties, and pundits.
It's easy enough to highlight this thread of information here, but in real time people are
being bombarded by so many other stories.
In particular, the Clinton Foundation was also regularly being highlighted for its questionable
ties to foreign influence. And HRC's extravagant ties to Wall St. And so much more.
The media's job was to sell Trump and denounce Clinton. The mistake a lot of people make is thinking
the global elite are the "status quo". They are not. They are generally the ones that break the
status quo more often than not.
The bulk of them wanted Trump/Republican President and made damn sure it was President. Buffering
the campaign against criticism while overly focusing on Clinton's "crap". It took away from the
issues which of course would have low key'd the election.
Not much bullying has to be applied when there are "economic incentives". The media attention
economy and ratings system thrive on controversy and emotional engagement. This was known a century
ago as "only bad news is good news". As long as I have lived, the non-commercial media not subject
(or not as much) to these dynamics have always been perceived as dry and boring.
I heard from a number of people that they followed the campaign "coverage" (in particular Trump)
as gossip/entertainment, and those were people who had no sympathies for him. And even media coverage
by outlets generally critical of Trump's unbelievable scandals and outrageous performances catered
to this sentiment.
First, let me disclose that I detest TRUMP and that the Russian meddling has me deeply concerned.
Yet...
We only have assertions that the Russian hacking had some influence. We do not know whether
it likely had *material* influence that could have reasonably led to a swing state(s) going to
TRUMP that otherwise would have gone to HRC.
Dr. Krugman is feeding this "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality. He comes across
as increasingly shrill and even unhinged - it's a slide he's been taking for years IMO, which
is a big shame.
It is downright irresponsible and dangerous for a major public intellectual with so little
information to cast the shadow of legitimacy on a president ("And it means not acting as if this
was a normal election whose result gives the winner any kind of a mandate, or indeed any legitimacy
beyond the bare legal requirements.") This kind of behavior is EXACTLY what TRUMP and other authoritarians
exhibit - using pieces of information to discredit institutions and individuals. Since foreign
governments have and will continue to try to influence U.S. policy through increasingly sophisticated
means, this opens the door for anyone to declare our elections and policies as illegitimate in
the future.
It is quite clear that the Russians intervened on Trump's behalf and that this intervention had
an impact. The problem is that we cannot actually quantify that impact.
"We only have assertions that the Russian hacking had some influence."
Any influence Russian hacking had was entirely a consequence of U.S. media obsession with
celebrity, gotcha and horse race trivia and two-party red state/blue state tribalism.
Without the preceding, neither Trump nor Clinton would have been contenders in the first
place. Putin didn't invent super delegates, Citizens United, Fox News, talk radio, Goldman-Sachs,
etc. etc. etc. If Putin exploited vulnerabilities, it is because preserving those vulnerabilities
was more important to the elites than fostering a democratic political culture.
But this is how influence is exerted - by using the dynamics of the adversary's/targets organization
as an amplifier. Hierarchical organizations are approached through their management or oversight
bodies, social networks through key influencers, etc.
I see this so much and it's so right wing cheap: I hate Trump, but assertions that Russia intervened
are unproven.
First, Trump openly invited Russia to hack DNC emails. That is on its face treason and sedition.
It's freaking on video. If HRC did that there would be calls of the right for her execution.
Second, a NYT story showed that the FBI knew about the hacking but did not alert the DNC properly
- they didn't even show up, they sent a note to a help desk.
This was a serious national security breach that was not addressed properly. This is criminal
negligence.
This was a hacked election by collusion of the FBI and the Russian hackers and it totally discredits
the FBI as it throwed out chum and then denied at the last minute. Now the CIA comes in and says
PUTIN, Trump's bff, was directly involved in manipulating the timetable that the hacked emails
were released in drip drip form to cater to the media - creating story after story about emails.
It was a perfect storm for a coup. Putin played us. And he will play Trump. And God knows how
it ends. But it doesn't matter b/c we're all screwed with climate change anyway.
"It was a perfect storm for a coup. Putin played us. And he will play Trump. And God knows how
it ends. But it doesn't matter b/c we're all screwed with climate change anyway."
It's not a "coup". It's an election result that didn't go the way a lot of people want.
That's it. It's probably not optimal, but I'm pretty sure that democracy isn't supposed to produce
optimal results.
All this talk about "coups" and "illegitimacy" is nuts, and -- true to Dem practice --
incredibly short-sighted. For many, voting for Trump was an available way to say to those people,
"We don't believe you any more. At all." Seen in that light, it is a profoundly democratic (small
'd') response to elites that have most consistently served only themselves.
Trump and his gang will be deeply grateful if the left follows Krugman's "wisdom", and clings
to his ever-changing excuses. (I thought it was the evil Greens who deprived Clinton of her due?)
Post Truth is Pre-Fascism. The party that thinks your loyalty is suspect unless you wear a
flag pin fuels itself on Post Truth. Isnt't this absurdity the gist of Obama's Russia comments
today!?!
"On Wednesday an editorial in The Times described Donald Trump as a "useful idiot" serving Russian
interests." I think that is beyond the pale. Yes, I realize that Adolph Hitler was democratically
elected. I agree that Trump seems like a scary monster under the bed. That doesn't mean we have
too pee our pants, Paul. He's a bully, tough guy, maybe, the kind of kid that tortured you before
you kicked the shit out of them with your brilliance. That's not what is needed now.
What really is needed, is a watchdog, like Dean Baker, that alerts we dolts of pending bills and
their ramifications. The ship of neo-liberal trade bullshit has sailed. Hell, you don't believe
it yourself, you've said as much. Be gracious, and tell the truth. We can handle it.
The experience of voting for the Hill was painful, vs Donald Trump.
The Hill seemed like the least likely aristocrat, given two choices, to finish off all government
focus on the folks that actually built this society. Two Titans of Hubris, Hillary vs Donald,
each ridiculous in the concept of representing the interests of the common man.
At the end of the day. the American people decided that the struggle with the unknown monster
Donald was worth deposing the great deplorable, Clinton.
The real argument is whether the correct plan of action is the way of FDR, or the way of the industrialists,
the Waltons, the Kochs, the Trumps, the Bushes and the outright cowards like the Cheneys and the
Clintons, people that never spent a day defending this country in combat. What do they call it,
the Commander in Chief.
My father was awarded a silver and a bronze star for his efforts in battle during WW2. He was
shot in the face while driving a tank destroyer by a German sniper in a place called Schmitten
Germany.
He told me once, that he looked over at the guy next to him on the plane to the hospital in
England, and his intestines were splayed on his chest. It was awful.
What was he fighting for ? Freedom, America. Then the Republicans, Ronald Reagan, who spent the
war stateside began the real war, garnering the wealth of the nation to the entitled like him.
Ronald Reagan was a life guard.
Anthony Weiner
Podesta
Biden (for not running)
Tim Kaine (for accepting the nomination instead of deferring to a latino)
CNN and other TV news media (for giving trump so much coverage- even an empty podium)
Donna Brazile
etc.
The people of the United States did not have much to choose between: Either a servant of the
Plutocrats or a member of the Plutocratic class. The Dems brought this on us when they refused
to play fair with Bernie. (Hillary would almost certainly have won the nomination anyway.)
The Repubs brought this on, by refusing to govern. The media brought this on: I seem to
remember Hillary's misfeasances, once nominated, festering in the media, while Trump's were mentioned,
and then disappeared. (Correct me if I'm wrong in this.) Also, the media downplayed Bernie until
he had no real chance.
The government brought this on, by failing to pursue justice against the bankers, and failing
to represent the people, especially the majority who have been screwed by trade and the plutocratic
elite and their apologists.
The educational system brought this on, by failing to educate the people to critical thought.
For instance: 1) The wealthy run the country. 2) The wealthy have been doing very well. 3) Everybody
else has not. It seems most people cannot draw the obvious conclusion.
The wealthy brought this on. For 230 years they have, essentially run this country. They are
too stupid to be satisfied with enough, but always want more.
The economics profession brought this on, by excusing treasonous behavior as efficient, and
failing to understand the underlying principles of their profession, and the limits of their understanding.
(They don't even know what money is, or how a trade deficit destroys productive capacity, and
thus the very ability of a nation to pay back the debts it incurs.)
The people brought this on, by neglecting their duty to be informed, to be educated, and to
be thoughtful.
Anybody else care for their share of blame? I myself deserve some, but for reasons I cannot
say.
What amazes me now is, the bird having shown its feathers, there is no howl of outrage from
the people who voted for him. Do they imagine that the Plutocrats who will soon monopolize the
White House will take their interests to heart?
As far as I can tell, not one person of 'the people' has been appointed to his cabinet. Not
one. But the oppressed masses who turned to Mr Trump seem to be OK with this.
I can only wonder, how much crap will have to be rubbed in their faces, before they awaken to
the taste of what it is?
Eric377 : , -1
Krugman is himself one of those most useful idiots. I do not recall his clarion call to Democrats
last spring that "FBI investigation" and "party Presidential nominee" was bound to be an ugly
combination. Some did; right here as I recall. Or his part in the official "don't vote for third
party" week in the Clinton media machine....thanks, hundreds of thousands of Trump votes got the
message.
It's too rich to complain about Russia and Wikileaks as if those elements in anyway justified
Clinton becoming President. Leaks mess with our democracy? Then for darn sure do not vote for
a former Sec. of State willing to use a home server for her official business. Russia is menacing?
Just who has been managing US-Russia relations the past 8 years? I voted for her anyway, but the
heck if I think some tragic fate has befell the nation here. Republicans picked a better candidate
to win this thing than we Democrats did.
The truth of the matter is that Clinton was a very weak candidate with nothing to offer
but narcissism ("I'm with her"). It's notable that Clinton has still not accepted responsibility
for her campaign, preferring to throw the blame for the loss anywhere but herself. Sociopathy
much?
This has made me cynical. I used to think that at least *some* members of the US political
elite had the best interests of ordinary households in mind, but now I see that it's just ego
vs. ego, whatever the party.
As for democracy being on the edge: I believe Adam Smith over Krugman: "there is a lot of ruin
in a nation". It takes more than this to overturn an entrenched institution.
I think American democracy will survive a decade of authoritarianism, and if it does not, then
H. L. Mencken said it best: "The American people know what they want, and they deserve to get
it -- good and hard."
Given that the Donald Trump victory already made Yahoo less attractive for
Verizon, the latest billion-account-hack at Yahoo could let Verizon dump their
buy-out and still collect a
$145 million break-up fee .
Yahoo's stock plunged
over 6 percent after the company
admitted its customer data had been hacked again, with at least 1 billion
accounts exposed in 2014. The horribly bad news for Yahoo followed an equally bad
news report in September that
500 million e-mail account were hacked in 2013. Yahoo unfortunately now has
the distinction of suffering both of the history's largest client hacks.
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Verizon's top lawyer told reporters after the first Yahoo hack that the
disclosure constituted a "
potential material adverse event
" that would
allow for the mobile powerhouse to pull out of the $4.83 billion deal they
announced on July 25, 2016.
Less than 24 hours after Yahoo
disclosed the
even larger hack of client accounts by a "state-sponsored actor," Bloomberg
reported
that Verizon is "
exploring a price cut or possible exit
" from its
proposed Yahoo acquisition.
Breitbart
reported that Google and other Silicon Valley companies were huge corporate
winners when Chairman Tom Wheeler and the other two Democrat political appointees
on the FCC voted on a party-line vote in mid-February 2015 for a new regulatory
structure called '
Net
Neutrality .
' Although Wheeler claimed, "
These enforceable,
bright-line rules will ban paid prioritization, and the blocking and throttling of
lawful content and services
," they were a huge economic disaster for
Verizon's high-speed broadband business model.
Verizon responded last year by paying
$4.4 billion to buy AOL in order to pick up popular news sites, large
advertising business, and more than 2 million Internet dial-up subscribers. Buying
Yahoo was expected to give the former telephone company to achieve "scale" by
controlling a second web content pioneer.
After President and CEO Marissa Mayer began organizing an auction in March,
Yahoo stock doubled from $26 a share to $51 by September. But she announced on
Wednesday the new hack, Yahoo's stock has been plunging to $38.40 in after-market
trading.
The buyer normally has to pay a break-up fee if an acquisition fails. But Yahoo
chose to run its own
auction that "
communicated with a total of 51 parties to evaluate their
interest in a potential transaction
." Then between February and April 2016, a
"short list" of "
32 parties signed confidentiality agreements with Yahoo
,"
including 10 strategic parties and 22 financial sponsors.
Yahoo's
13D proxy statement filed with the SEC was mostly boilerplate disclosure, but
it seemed that something must have been a potential problem at Yahoo for the
company to offer a $145 million termination fee to Verizon if the deal did not
close.
Yahoo on Wednesday issued a statement saying personal information from more
than a billion user accounts was stolen in 2014. The news followed the company's
announcement in September that hackers had stolen personal data from at least half
a billion accounts in 2013. Yahoo said it believes the two thefts were by
different parties.
Yahoo admitted that both hacks were so extensive that they included users'
names, email addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, scrambled passwords and
security questions and answers. But Yahoo stated, "
Payment card data and bank
account information are not stored in the system the company believes was affected
."
Yahoo said they have invalidated unencrypted security questions and answers in
user accounts. They are in the process of notifying potentially affected users and
is requiring them to change their passwords.
Yahoo was already facing nearly two dozen class-action lawsuits over the first
breach and the company's failure to report it on a timely basis. A federal 3 judge
panel last week consolidated 5 of the suits into a mass tort in the San Jose U.S.
District Court.
Undoubtedly, there will be a huge number of user lawsuits filed against Yahoo
in the next few weeks.
The agitprop out of the White House isn't working these days, thanks to the advent of fake
news of course. Following weeks of hysteria, following Donald J. Trump's triumphant victory of
Hillary Clinton and Obama's legacy, Obama took to the podium for one last time to divide
Americans -- this time invoking the revered late President Ronald Reagan -- saying he'd be
'rolling over in his grave' now had he known that over a third of republicans approve of Putin in
some random poll.
If Obama truly wants to know why Americans are willing to accept the words of Putin,
undoubtedly a strong man leader, over his -- he should take a look in the mirror and then gander
over to his computer to re-read all of the Wikileaks from John Podesta's email that Putin so
graciously made available to us all. They speak volumes about the corruptness and the rot
permeating in our capitol. Even without the emails, we see the neocon strategy of persistent war
and deceit hollowing out this nation -- devouring its resources, emptying its treasury, and there
is nothing redeeming about it.
During the press conference, Obama provided his media with incontrovertible evidence that
Russia was behind the WikiLeaks, saying 'not much happens in Russia without Putin's approval.'
Russia has a land mass of 6,592,800 sq miles and Putin controls every single inch of it. This is
retard level thinking.
Moreover, Obama says he told Putin to 'cut it out' when he last saw him in China, warning him
of serious consequences. Luckily for us, Putin got scared and ceased all further hackings.
However, the damage had already been done and the Wikileaks released.
I suppose this type of lazy thinking appeals to a certain subset of America, else why would he
make such infantile statements?
The Divider in Chief, one last time reminding himself and the press that XENOPHOBIA against
Russians is good. The Russians are a useless sort, who produce nothing of interest, a very small
and weak country, only capable of wiping out the entirety of America 10x over via very large
nuclear detonations. Oh, and you pesky republicans love Putin because you're sooo political.
This is what some might call 'idiotic diplomacy', mocking and deriding a rival nation to the
point of war, a war that could exterminate life on planet earth for at least a millennia. Genius.
Assuming these "rogue-Electors" from the Electoral College
get a briefing on the "Russian election-hack" from the CIA
, and assuming the
Electors have a few working brain cells, and assuming they care, here are the top 11
questions they should ask the CIA presenter.
Questions One through Three (repeated with enthusiasm and fervor):
Are you just
going to feed us generalities and tell us you can't detail specifics because that would
compromise your methods and personnel? We can read the generalities in the Washington
Post, whose owner, Jeff Bezos, chief honcho at Amazon, has a $600 million contract with
the CIA to provide cloud computing services, so he and the Post and the CIA are in bed
together.
Question Four:
We need a precise
distinction here. How did "Russia hacked the DNC, Hillary, Podesta, and Weiner emails
and fed the emails to WikiLeaks who released them" suddenly morph into "Russia hacked
the election vote"?
Question Five:
The security systems
that protected the DNC, Hillary, Podesta, and Weiner emails were so feeble a child could
have gotten past them in a few minutes. Why should we assume high-level Russian agents
were involved?
Question Six:
Not only does the CIA
have a history of lying to the American people, lying is part of your job description.
Why should we believe you? Take your time. We can have food brought in.
Question Seven:
We're getting the
feeling you're talking down to us as if we're the peasants and you're the feudal barons.
Why is that? Do you work for us, or do we work for you? Once upon a time, before you
went to work for the Agency, were you like us, or were you always arrogant and
dismissive?
Question Eight:
Let's put aside for a
moment the question of who leaked all those emails. What about the substance and content
of the emails? Was all that forged or was it real? If you claim there was forgery, prove
it. Put a dozen emails up on that big screen and take us through them, piece by piece,
and show us where and how the forgery occurred. By the way, why didn't you allow us to
bring several former NSA analysts into this briefing? Are we living in the US or the
USSR?
Question Nine:
Are you personally a
computer expert, sir? Or are you merely relaying what someone else at the CIA told you?
Would you spell your name for us again? What is your job description at the Agency? Do
you work in public information? Are you tasked with "being convincing"?
Question Ten:
Do you think we're
completely stupid?
Question Eleven:
Let's all let our
hair down, okay? Forget facts and specifics. Of course we want to overthrow the election
and install Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office. So do you. We're on the same team. But
we need you to give us something, anything. So far, this briefing is embarrassing. Once
we get out of here, we want to tell a few persuasive lies. Give us a Russian name, any
name. Or a location in Russia we can use. The brand name of a Russian vodka. Caviar.
Something that sounds Russian. Make up a code with letters and numbers. Help us out. How
about the name of an American who who's actually a Russian spy? You could shoot him
later today in a "gun battle at a shopping mall." That would work.
Good luck.
(To read about Jon's mega-collection,
Power
Outside The Matrix
,
click here
.)
We encourage you to share and republish our reports, analyses,
breaking news and videos (
Click
for details ).
Contributed by Jon Rappoport of
No More Fake News .
The author of an explosive collection,
THE
MATRIX REVEALED , Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the
29th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an
investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health
for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines
in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics,
health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world.
Podesta essentially gave up his email due to committed by him blunder: sending his password to the
attacker. As such it was far from high-end hacking, which can be attributed to intelligence
agencies. It is more like a regular, primitive phishing expedition
which became successful due to Podesta blunder. So this is not hacking but phishing
expedition... That makes big difference.
Notable quotes:
"... The DNC hackers inserted the name of the founder of Russian intelligence, in Russian, in the metadata of the hacked documents. Why would the G.R.U., Russian military intelligence do that? ..."
"... If the hackers were indeed part of Russian intelligence, why did they use a free Russian email account, or, in the hack of the state election systems, a Russian-owned server? Does Russian intelligence normally display such poor tradecraft? ..."
"... Why would Russian intelligence, for the purposes of hacking the election systems of Arizona and Illinois, book space on a Russian-owned server and then use only English, as documents furnished by Vladimir Fomenko, proprietor of Kings Servers, the company that owned the server in question, clearly indicate? ..."
"... Numerous reports ascribe the hacks to hacking groups known as APT 28 or "Fancy Bear" and APT 29 or "Cozy Bear." But these groups had already been accused of nefarious actions on behalf of Russian intelligence prior to the hacks under discussion. Why would the Kremlin and its intelligence agencies select well-known groups to conduct a regime-change operation on the most powerful country on earth? ..."
"... The joint statement issued by the DNI and DHS on October 7 2016 confirmed that US intelligence had no evidence of official Russian involvement in the leak of hacked documents to Wikileaks, etc, saying only that the leaks were " consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts." Has the US acquired any evidence whatsoever since that time regarding Russian involvement in the leaks? ..."
It is being reported that John Podesta, Chairman of the defeated $1.2 billion Clinton presidential
campaign, is supporting the call by various officials, including at least forty Electors, that the
members of the Electoral College be given a classified intelligence briefing on the alleged Russian
hacking before the College votes on December 19.
In the event such a briefing comes to pass, it might be helpful if the Electors had some informed
questions to ask the CIA
The DNC hackers inserted the name of the founder of Russian intelligence, in Russian,
in the metadata of the hacked documents. Why would the G.R.U., Russian military intelligence
do that?
If the hackers were indeed part of Russian intelligence, why did they use a free Russian
email account, or, in the hack of the state election systems, a Russian-owned server?
Does Russian intelligence normally display such poor tradecraft?
Why would Russian intelligence, for the purposes of hacking the election systems of Arizona
and Illinois, book space on a Russian-owned server and then use only English, as documents furnished
by Vladimir Fomenko, proprietor of Kings Servers, the company that owned the server in question,
clearly indicate?
Numerous reports ascribe the hacks to hacking groups known as APT 28 or "Fancy Bear" and
APT 29 or "Cozy Bear." But these groups had already been accused of nefarious actions on
behalf of Russian intelligence prior to the hacks under discussion. Why would the Kremlin
and its intelligence agencies select well-known groups to conduct a regime-change operation on
the most powerful country on earth?
It has been reported in the New York Times , without attribution, that U.S. intelligence
has identified specific G.R.U. officials who directed the hacking. Is this true, and if so, please
provide details (Witness should be sworn)
The joint statement issued by the DNI and DHS on October 7 2016 confirmed that US intelligence
had no evidence of official Russian involvement in the leak of hacked documents to Wikileaks,
etc, saying only that the leaks were " consistent with the methods and motivations
of Russian-directed efforts." Has the US acquired any evidence whatsoever since that time
regarding Russian involvement in the leaks?
Since the most effective initiative in tipping the election to Donald Trump was the intervention
of FBI Director Comey, are you investigating any possible connections he might have to Russian
intelligence and Vladimir Putin?
by
Gary Leupp
Mainstream TV news anchors including MSNBC's Chris Hayes are reporting as fact---with
fuming indignation---that Russia (and specifically Vladimir Putin) not only sought to
influence the U.S. election (and---gosh!---promote "doubt" about the whole legitimacy
of the U.S. electoral system) but to throw the vote to Donald Trump.
The main
accusation is that the DNC and Podesta emails leaked through Wikileaks were provided
by state-backed Russian hackers (while they did not leak material hacked from the
Republicans). I have my doubts on this. Former U.S. ambassador to Uzbekistan and
torture whistle-blower Craig Murray, a friend of Julian Assange, has stated that the
DNC emails were leaked by a DNC insider whose identity he knows. The person, Murray
contends, handed the material over to him, in a D.C. park. I have met Murray, admire
and am inclined to believe him. (I just heard now that John Bolton, of all people,
has also opined this was an inside job.)
Putin Lashes Out At Obama: "Show Some Proof Or Shut Up"
Tyler Durden
Dec 16, 2016 9:09 AM
0
SHARES
Putin has had enough of the relentless barrage of US accusations that he, personally,
"hacked the US presidential election."
The Russian president's spokesman, Dmitry
Peskov, said on Friday that the US must either stop accusing Russia of meddling in its
elections or prove it. Peskov said it was "indecent" of the United States to
"groundlessly" accuse Russia of intervention in its elections.
"You need to either stop talking about it, or finally show some kind of
proof. Otherwise it just looks very indecent
", Peskov told Reporters in Tokyo
where Putin is meeting with Japan PM Abe, responding to the latest accusations that
Russia was responsible for hacker attacks.
Peskov also warned that Obama's threat to "retaliate" to the alleged Russian hack is
"against both American and international law", hinting at open-ended escalation should
Obama take the podium today at 2:15pm to officially launch cyberwar against Russia.
Previously, on Thursday, Peskov told the AP the report was "
laughable
nonsense
", while Russian foreign ministry spox Maria Zakharova accused "Western
media" of being a "shill" and a "mouthpiece of various power groups", and added that
"it's not the general public who's being manipulated," Zakharova said. "the general
public nowadays can distinguish the truth. It's the mass media that is manipulating
themselves."
Meanwhile, on Friday Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister told state television
network, Russia 24, he was "dumbstruck" by the NBC report which alleges that Russian
President Vladimir Putin was personally involved in an election hack.
The report cited U.S. intelligence officials that now believe with a "high level of
confidence" that Putin became personally involved in a secret campaign to influence the
outcome of the U.S. presidential election.
"I think this is just silly, and the
futility of the attempt to convince somebody of this is absolutely obvious,"
Lavrov added, according to the news outlet.
As a reminder,
last night Obama vowed retaliatory
action against Russia for its meddling in the US
presidential election last month. "I think there is no doubt that when any foreign
government tries to impact the integrity of our elections that we need to take action
and we will at a time and place of our own choosing," Obama told National Public Radio.
US intelligence agencies in October pinned blame on Russia for election-related
hacking. At the time, the White House vowed a "proportional response" to the
cyberactivity, though declined to preview what that response might entail. Meanwhile,
both President-elect Donald Trump, the FBI,
and the ODNI
have dismissed the CIA's intelligence community's assessment, for the
the same reason Putin finally lashed out at Obama: there is no proof.
That, however, has never stopped the US from escalating a geopolitical conflict to
the point of war, or beyond, so pay close attention to what Obama says this afternoon.
According to an
NBC report
, a team of analysts at Eurasia Group said in a note on Friday that they
believe the outgoing administration
is likely to take action which could result
in a significant barrier for Trump's team once he takes office in January
.
"It is unlikely that U.S. intelligence reports will change Trump's intention to
initiate a rapprochement with Moscow,
but the congressional response following
its own investigations could obstruct the new administration's effort
," Eurasia
Group analysts added.
At the same time, Wikileaks offered its "validation" services, tweeting that "
Obama
should submit any Putin documents to WikiLeaks to be authenticated to our standards if
he wants them to be seen as credible.
"
Obama should submit any Putin documents to WikiLeaks to be
authenticated to our standards if he wants them to be seen as credible.
And orchestrated by Mossad/CIA Millions upon millions of
ordinary folks just got up and voted to take out the trash, and
by God their will be done. If we don't remove the cancerous
tumors now, they will regrow and regroup and in our weakened
state it will be GAME OVER.
The sad part is they are spinning this as election tampering when
in fact there was none, some decent human beings found out the
truth of how corrupt, evil, and treasonous these people are and
wanted the American public to know.
You can tell they are
desperate now, I just hope the law enforcement community is ready
to uphold their oath.
False testimony to Congress on NSA surveillance programs
[
edit
]
Excerpt of James Clapper's testimony before the Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence
On March 12, 2013, during a
United
States Senate
Select
Committee on Intelligence
hearing, Senator
Ron
Wyden
quoted the keynote speech at the 2012
DEF
CON
by the director of the NSA,
Keith
B. Alexander
. Alexander had stated that "Our job is foreign
intelligence" and that "Those who would want to weave the story that we have
millions or hundreds of millions of dossiers on people, is absolutely
false From my perspective, this is absolute nonsense." Senator Wyden then
asked Clapper, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or
hundreds of millions of Americans?" He responded "No, sir." Wyden asked "It
does not?" and Clapper said "Not wittingly. There are cases where they could
inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but not wittingly."
[30]
When
Edward
Snowden
was asked during his January 26, 2014 TV interview in Moscow
what the decisive moment was or why he blew the whistle, he replied: "Sort
of the breaking point was seeing the Director of National Intelligence,
James Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress. Seeing that really
meant for me there was no going back."
[31]
This is the man reponsible for the newest lie to the American people. Are
you serious?
This asshole jack off obozo wants to start WW3 with Russia for Soros and all
his globalist neocon pals BEFORE he leaves office. His pals shoveled out way
too much money to get that dirty corrupt, crooked pig Hillary elected. The
anti-Trump street protests, riots, burning, pillaging and looting didn't work.
The recount directed by the Hillary stooge Jill Stein actually got Trump more
votes so this didn't work. So now we go with "fake news" accusations against
Russia and Putin. The assholes in our goverment pushing this theme are the
dirty fucking crooks we voted against by voting for Donald Trump. They won't go
down without a fight. So today at 2:15PM ET Obozo will do his best to get the
actual war with Russia on deck!!!
The war mongering neocons won't stop until we have
literally minutes to live. Russia has underground facilitities for 70% of the
citizens in the Russian Federation. In the US only the so-called elites have
some underground place to hide. Like that would save them anyway as it would be
delayed death from Cobalt bombs. We peons and serfs will simply be vaporized
immediately into non-existance. Obozo and his minions and handlers know this
and don't give a fuck.
Obozo and those around him are insane and believe that a
nuclear war with Russia is winnable. The truth is that the world will not even
be fit for human life after a full scale nuclear, chemical and biological
exchange. Who thinks it stops at nuclear? Russia inherited the WMD arsenal of
the Soviet Union. There are enough chemical and biological weapons in the
Russian Federation to kill everyone on earth twenty times.
This is real simple. Obama and Hillary got their asses kicked by Putin in the
Ukraine, Crimea, and Syria because Putin was honest and acted out of integrity
and real concern for his people, and Obama and Hillary were evil and
pathological liars and up to no good, and acted out of a lust for power,
control over others, and stealing their resources. And now the two pathetic
losers want revenge. And this is their vile attempt at trying to get it.
We're laughing at you Hillary and Obama. You are a disgrace to your country and
the human race.
You must remember something here - we laid it on for Vlad / Serg. Our
governments made it so easy for them to play the white knights, they didn't
even need to try. Russian administration is just like any other - the
machine - but we fucked up so tragically bad in our foreign policy conduct
that just going against the unilateral actions of US / NATO / UN has won
Russians major support in Western societies, sick to the back teeth of the
media game BS.
Our elites came to believe that the world is theirs. That
they can take what they want. Citizenry hasn't been best pleased due to
cognitive dissonance ("shining house on the hill" =/= 500k dead Iraqis
"worth it"). Enter the Russians: central admin personnel = expert level 120,
conservative social values, non-interventionist foreign policy, always
stressing legality / due process. They showed us up. Simple as. They were
the first to dare point at our naked emperors.
They also have guns. Lots of guns, and big ones too. We will never really
fight them head on - we wouldn't stand a chance. Not with their society
coalescing around the govt, and ours hating the guts out of our elites. We'd
get stomped.
To quote Joseph Goebbels "If you tell a lie big enough and keep
repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." There are several
things going on. MSM and deep state were counting on a Hillary Clinton victory
and continued US bellicose posturing against Russia. The deep state is also
apoplectic about the military debacle in Syria. The ministry of propaganda-
corporate media (owned by 6 large corporations; Link:
www.wakingtimes.com/2015/08/28/the-illusion-of-choice-90-of-american-media-controlled-by-6-corporations
)
has been saturating the airwaves and social media with ongoing stories about
Russian "hacking" which are probably nonsense. A far more likely scenario is
this "hacking" was carried out by people with intimate knowledge of Hillary
Clinton's background, her email correspondence and location of servers where
this information was stored/archived, such as people in the FBI, CIA, DHS or
State Dept. These hacked messages were then forwarded to Judicial Watch,
WikiLeaks or contacts in Russia or China to cover their tracks.
This might be of interest-
Former NSA Officer CIA Lying About Russians Hacking DNC By Jim W. Dean Dec
14, 2016; Link:
www.veteranstoday.com/2016/12/14/former-nsa-officer-cia-lying-about-russians-hacking-dnc
Bottom line is that fierce battles are going on between completing
economic factions who run the US. Both groups are pursuing increasingly
reckless and bellicose foreign policies which are likely to lead to direct
military confrontations with Russia and China.
I'm a cyber security professional with over 30 years experience and several
certifications. Hackers with apparent Russian ties (not necessarily the
Russian government) have been involved in global hacking efforts for many
years. So have the Chinese. So has everyone else, including the US.
None of
this may be true at all, because hackers that know what they're doing never
leave a trail behind. EVER. And if they do leave a trail, it's almost always
a false flag -- which means that what you think you see is not actually where
it came from. It's highly unlikely that sophisticated hackers connected with
the Russian government would be stupid enough to leave anything behind that
identified who they were or where they operated from.
I'm calling BS on this whole thing, for two reasons. One -- the
"election" wasn't hacked, the DNC was -- and their extremely dirty laundry
aired. We now know for certain that the Democrats are a bunch of liars,
thieves, and hooligans that could care less about the country. And two -- the
politicization of this by Obama is nauseating. The likelihood that anyone knows
for certain that the Russian government was behind it is about zero or less.
Yesterday, Julian Assange emphatically stated on Sean Hannity's radio show that
the Russians had absolutely no involvement in the Wikileaks hacks. I'll
believe Assange before the Obama administration or US media shills. Assange
has never been proven wrong.
The Associated Press and the New York Times are repeating, word for word,
whatever CIA and CIA-in-Chief says, and then all Vatican-controlled
newspapers are printing the AP and NYT articles. Big dose of CIA in my
local newspaper today, and yesterday, and every day since, at least,
Merrimack College pointed the way toward The One True Propaganda, with its
junior-professor-of-how-Hollywood-and-TV-portray-overweight-people's
omniscient and omnipotent list of "Fake News Sites". Still waiting for the
Pope to endorse this list: maybe when Rome Freezes Over.
The article nails an important point. The purpose of this exercise is to
sabotage any Trump attempts for a rapprochement with Russia. Peace with major
powers is bad for business and Obama's Zionist masters need war to advance
their one world government plans.
Obama knows no moral compass and will
do anything, say anything, to get the treats from his masters that a faithful
lap dog believes it deserves.
Some of the racist quotes here I can't uptick, that said it was classic Obama
from the trump speech telling EVERYONE in advance what he was going to do
military wise. That is disapointing. Lets assume that China, Russia, and many
other capable state actors did hack Hillary's server? Lets go the route of
occums razor and assume that as a truth. That does not excuse the behavior and
sheer stupidity of:
Setting up an illegal server anyway, AFTER hillary
requested and was denied a phone like the POTUS.
Emails show NSA rejected Hillary Clinton's request for secure smartphone
So let us start here! Keep in mind she lost numerous devices, the stupid
cunt kept loosing her phones and misplacing them.
Then Hillary hell bent on having her own private communication system
circumvents the DOS and sets up her own! At the point where that decision was
made there was no longer any attack against the United States of America but
instead an attack against a politician leaking state level data on a non-secure
media. If anyone should be held accountable it should be Hillary despite
INTENT, yes Hillary.
But it gets better folks!
Then we have the DNC and Weiner hacks, and the DNC and the RNC are not
actual offices of government, There is no fucking .gov address behind the DNC
or GOP. The nice lady who runs the local GOP isn't a vetted government
employee and used some poor habits in her handling of data, she was ignorant of
a BCC and the security of doing so. (to her credit she learned quickly) ***
side note
And then finally there was Weiners emails. These emails were on a
non-government device/computer and seemed to have been traversed by yahoo. So
you have these stupid fucking people doing the following: Using Yahoo, DNC,
and Gov systems utilizing the same passwords. BUT IT GETS BETTER
So now a phishing attack at one account podesta becomes a swiss cheese
attack as numerous vectors are exploited, did the Russians hack weiner and put
the emails on his device? It is with password complexity, password expiration,
and non-passowrd reuse that government can ensure that you don't use the same
password on Yahoo that you use at .gov sites. It is by using multi-factor
authentication and geo location that a .gov account can be authenticated and
authorized.
But what we have is a bunch of assholes who mishandled the peoples data or
governmnet data and it was never their personal data! It was either the data
of the united states in which case Hillary should be fucking charged or it was
not and she is a stupid fucking victim like the other billion or so yahoo
hacks.
So now we got Obama just like Trump said, telling the world what we are
going to do before we do it for optimal results.. lets tell russia in
advance.. we will attack at noon...for what has been characterized as yoga
emails on non-government systems by the attorney general.
This is why I hate the elites, this is why I never needed Russia to do
anything to votes against these incompetent and ridiculous assholes.
As Obama leaves offce remember that this observation is concise and made
from an educated and unbiased persepctive of handling government data.
The echo cjhamber that Obama lives in has become as insular as that of
Hillary. And damn these people for their confusion of conviction with fact.
And finally.. we beat the democrats in PA the good old fashioned way.. we were
grassroots and not astro-turf.
***** The local GOP website was being cyber-squated when I volunteered, an
email of so from me on blacklisting it and there ads would not have shut them
down, but it would have hit them in the pocket and caused monetary disruption,
they released the expired domain and stopped squatting, the local head of the
GOP, defintly not .gov but "GOP" was being blocked by email systems because she
would send out GOP emails to an email list with 100 or so recipients and the
spam filters thought it was spam or a virus. So I explained to her how to use
BCC tools, and our communication improved. I didn't want my email shared with
everyone anyway! But the DNC and GOP ain't fucking government.. at best these
people are like televangelists which is like hollywood for ugly people.
I can say this, I have an ENORMOUS respect for the local GOP, I have come to
like many of them. I don't agree with them on everything but never has so few,
worked so hard, to empower so many more to volunteer and win an election. And
to their credit shown the right way changed, they didn't piss and moan.
Good observations, sir. People like you are the reason ZH is so useful for
enlightenment.
I should add that if Hillary was claiming to lose her
phone, then Hillary probably wasn't losing her phone all the time. She was
probably periodically destroying it to destroy evidence. Burn phones or
burners are a common technique among criminals to minimize the evidence
available if/when they get caught.
Looks to me like Obola and his cabal are trying to cause as much friction as
possible with Russia before he leaves office.
This garbage allegation about
Putin being personally involved in hacking the US election, the recent
announcement of supplying more weapons to terrorists in Syria, recent wild
allegations of Russian genocide in Syria (whilst ignoring Syrian people waving
and cheering when the SAA arrived in Allepo) and threats to begin a cyberwar
are all designed to do this.
Obama has acted like a CIA employee for 8 years. He lied to get into office
and he's lied ever since, just like the CIA teaches its employees to do. The
CIA is not bound by US or international law and they could give a shit about
our Constitution, our laws, or our elections, as long as their preferred
candidate gets in of course. Are we currently any better than the Nazis?
Conquering other countries is the same regardless if you do it covertly or
not, regardless of how many lies you say or not. These people must be stopped.
Unfortunately it might take mass civil unrest to bring the changes we need.
Stealing the election from Trump and handing it to a criminal like Clinton may
be the spark. Let's hope there are enough people left with integrity and
intelligence in DC to do the right thing.
There is no concept of a open courtroom to decide contentious technical issues
like. This . Cozy bear, whatever bear
'more than i can' bear. A jury of fair minded people can decide when a good
adversarial courtroom encounter occurs.
I would like to see Trey Gowdy defending Putin against whatever CIA stooge they
send up. Obama has a lot of gall to complain about hacking when Hillary,
Podesta, and the run DNC gang was so careless that a very amateur
hacking/phishing effort would be sufficient to do this break in. Then there is
the assertion that some disgruntled democratic people leaked the whole works-
from the inside- being mad at Hillary over Bernie I guess.
If the US wants as gentlemen agreement not to read each others mail, maybe
we could pursue that but hacking Putin and sending NGO's to undermine him, the
numerous color revolutions from George Soros in Ukraine, Georgia, ... make it
seem to me that Putin is the aggrieved party here, now being threatened by
Obama personally. Everybody snoops on everybody. Israel, Russia, US and the
five eyes, China, ... but when it gets personal like this Putin Obama threat
thing, we could cross a line, like an obscure assassination of the Austrian
Archduke by some Serbian did. Putin is a serious fellow and not somebody to
threaten without consequences. We may think he sees it as just posturing, and
we better hope it stops right there. If the Clinton mob can't win, they may
decide to bring the house down on everybody.
Obama: "I am, of course, not speaking about the real, live Vladimir Putin. I
am speaking about our CIA cardboard-cutout caricature of Vladimir Putin. We
ALWAYS have a number of cardboard-cutouts in stock, of various people, to blame
for whatever goes wrong next.
"....while Russian foreign ministry spox Maria Zakharova accused "Western
media" of being a "shill" and a "mouthpiece of
various power groups
",
and added that "it's not the general public who's being manipulated," Zakharova
said. "
the general public nowadays can distinguish the truth
. It's the
mass
media that is manipulating themselves
.""
Can you effin believe
such a statement made by the Russian gubmint - and that it is
true
?
This whole affair screams one thing and one thing only: politics. And dirty,
childish, Democrat politics at that. COULD the Russian government have hacked
the DNC? Sure, anything is possible. Is it likely? NO. Government-sponsored
hackers don't leave telltale signs as to who they are, they leave false flags
and a trail of breadcrumbs that lead nowhere or to places they want you to
think the hack came from. Anyone smart enough to hack the DNC isn't going to
do anything to reveal who they are. Not even accidentally.
As the Worm Turns!
For all those Amurican rubes out there who beleived that Homeland Security was protecting them
against foreign terrorists ha hahahahahaha!
So Tillerson, ex-Oil cheese & apparently 'pro-Russian', is nominated USDoS
honcho by Trump.
On the other hand we have Trump trolling China over Taiwan. In this case,
it to me looks more like asymmetric diplomacy or 'hybrid warfare' as others
may call it, as the US cannot take on China financially, Trump's strategy is
to threaten to unpick all those things that China holds dear, such as the
'One China' policy to push Beijing out of its comfort zone and try and
destabilize its decision making. An interesting strategy that won't work.
But, by making apparently pro-Russia, anti-China choices it looks like a
divide and rule strategy. The US cannot take on both Russian and China, and
it has been China that has been backing Russia solidly politically and
economically against the West's threats. By offering sanctions relief,
Washington would expect something in return maybe distancing itself from
China The thing is, not only have the sanctions done quite a bit of damage,
but how is lifting them actually that useful any more now that (yet again) a
threat from the outside has made Russia carry out fundamental changes it
should have already made before (developing domestic produce industry etc.)
and even sabotaging those nascent industries for western imports? In short,
if it is Trump's strategy, too little too late.
I think though that a strategy of opportunistic disruption would
continue. What I would like to see from Trump is a rolling back of NATO and
removing US nukes from Europe permanently in return for a new nuclear arms
agreement and a de-escalation on the continent. What exactly does Washington
get from a riled up EU and its constant squealing for US support but without
pay up? None as far as I can see. Hopefully this is NATO's last hurrah.
Washington cannot offer sanctions relief without coming out into the open
as the EU's puppetmaster. Although we know that to be true, not everyone
does, or not everyone will stipulate to it, and the sanctions imposed by
Washington as purely American are harmless. It is the EU's sanctions
which cause trade damage, and as you accurately point out, many of those
markets will never again reach their former potential. I imagine there
would be a prompt return to trade with Europe if EU sanctions were
lifted, but quite a few people have lost their taste for European
products considering what false friends the Europeans have turned out to
be, and Russia likely fears their spinelessness would bring new sanctions
at Washington's bidding. I don't think European sales to Russia will
return to their previous levels, perhaps ever, and Russia will always
have a backup plan in future so that loss of European products will not
hurt it.
Many people in China feel that Trump trolling China over Taiwan is not a
bad thing. At least, maybe it will finally knock away the illusions about
America that many in the government still have. (There are plenty of
those illusions, in part because the generation of Chinese currently
between 40 and 65, overall, are probably the most shall we say
"psychologically disadvantaged" toward the West.
Meanwhile, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Moscow was fed up of calls from
the US to halt the fighting. "We are tired of hearing this whining from our American colleagues
in the current administration," he told journalists.
"I think it is secret to no one if I say that we know about written instructions in the
European Union as to how each country, including candidates to join it, should speak publicly
at any mention of Russia," the diplomat said.
"It is written there that it is an absolute must for all these countries to pronounce as
mantra the terms 'annexation of Crimea', 'occupation of Donbass' and so on," he said. "It seems
that this instruction is binding," he added.
The kreakl with whom I have to work told me yesterday in all seriousness that Lavrov
is only foreign minister because he does everything Putin tells him to do.
He must think that a minister of state should act independently of and contrary to the wishes
of the chief executive of the administration of the state.
That's what he must think they do in the Golden West.
We live in a sea of lies. Per NPR this morning French officials are demanding that Russia
stop the intense bombing of the huge masses of civilians seeking shelter in the last remaining
rebel areas in Aleppo. They demand that a humanitarian corridor 5 kilometers wide be created for
their escape [where to, I wonder] protected by NATO/EU troops. The barbarity of the Russians and
Syrians are is simply impossible to describe per the report.
NPR and other MSM channels have adopted a relatively clever strategy they simply pass along
reports from important sounding organizations like the Observatory for Human Rights while ignoring
any alternative information sources. They sort of learned their lesson from the WMD fiasco don't
manufacture the lie, let someone else do it. So the MSM is simply a component in the supply chain
of lies.
I have not ever experienced a #fakenews onslaught as today. Every mainstream media and agency
seems to have lost all inhibitions and is reporting any rumor claim regarding east-Aleppo as fact.
Consider this BBC headline and opener:
Aleppo battle: UN says 82 civilians shot on the spot
Syrian pro-government forces have been entering homes in eastern Aleppo and killing those inside,
including women and children, the UN says.
The UN's human rights office said it had reliable evidence that in four areas 82 civilians
were shot on sight.
1. A UN human rights office does not exists. What the BBC means is the Office of the U.N. High
Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR). That commissioner is the Jordanian Prince Zeid Ra'ad Al
Hussein, a Hashemite educated in the UK and U.S. and a relative of the Jordanian dictator king.
That is relevant to note as Jordan is heavily involved in the supporting the "rebels" against
the Syrian government.
2. The office has not "said" that "82 civilians were shot" or other such gruesome stuff. It
said that there were "sources" that have "reports" that such happened. From its press statement
today:
Multiple sources have reports that tens of civilians were shot dead yesterday in al-Ahrar
Square in al-Kallaseh neighbourhood, and also in Bustan al-Qasr, by Government forces and their
allies, including allegedly the Iraqi al-Nujabaa armed group .
####
At least 93 reportedly killed and hundreds injured near Palmyra, with witnesses saying many child
victims suffocated
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is seriously concerned about
claims that at least 93 people were killed by a gas attack in central Syria when airstrikes hit
a cluster of five villages.
Up to 300 people were also reported to have been injured in the strikes on Monday morning around
130 miles west of the city of Palmyra, which was retaken from Syrian forces by the Islamic State
group. Witnesses to the attacks say that none of those who died had blast injuries
The high death toll is not consistent with the spate of chlorine gas attacks across Syria
in recent years, which have killed scores of people in total but have not caused mass casualties
at this scale.
Photographs purportedly taken after the attacks show rows of children lying on the ground.
All appear to be dead and foam is apparent near the nose of one young boy.
The images resemble those taken in the aftermath of an attack that killed more than 1,300
people in the suburbs of Damascus in August 2013, which the United Nations said was 'indisputably'
caused by sarin gas. On that occasion the US, UK and France blamed the Assad regime. The UN said
the sarin used had probably come from regime stockpiles
####
So it didn't take so long after all. ISIS/ISIL/DAESH/Whatever can kill as creatively as they
wish and the Pork Pie News Networks will consistently report is as being done 'by Assad'. ISIS
forced them in to cellars then gassed them, only to have 'sources' present it as an
"These libertarians, isolationists and realists see an opportunity to pull back America's
commitments around the world, spend less money on foreign aid and "nation-building," curtail
expensive military campaigns and troop deployments and intervene militarily only to protect American
interests."(
The Hill
) But will they prevail?
Notable quotes:
"... First of all, I don't think that President Putin is foolish enough to believe the rhetoric. He is a serious political person and has been through too many lies and deceptions from Washington in many different forms to be naive about some nice sunny words, even if the Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg starts purveying friendly sounds about Russia after Trump's election. ..."
"... But I think it is very important that Russian leaders have in mind the ultimate agenda of this patriarchy in the United States that is one of war, and Donald Trump's mission is to prepare United States for that war and to win. And that is no nice prospect. Russia should not in the slightest instant forget that threat. ..."
"... Thus, take the advantage that you can from this deception, but do not be deceived that Donald Trump's America is in any sense a true friend of Russia. People in Washington still care about the interests of the American hegemony and that's it. ..."
First of all, I don't think that President Putin is foolish enough to believe the
rhetoric. He is a serious political person and has been through too many lies and deceptions from
Washington in many different forms to be naive about some nice sunny words, even if the Secretary
General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg starts purveying friendly sounds about Russia after Trump's
election.
Of course, it is intelligent for Russia to gain as much advantage from this apparently friendly
period of Trump's presidency as possible. Perhaps it is reasonable to ask for taking US and NATO
troops away from the borders of Russia and Belarus. They will do that, I have no doubt.
But I think it is very important that Russian leaders have in mind the ultimate agenda of
this patriarchy in the United States that is one of war, and Donald Trump's mission is to prepare
United States for that war and to win. And that is no nice prospect. Russia should not in the
slightest instant forget that threat.
Take advantage of this time, build the Russian economy as you have been doing, show the door to
the neoliberal economists, take them out of the ministries, and put genuine Russians who want to
do good for the Russian economy in those positions.
The Central Bank of Russia needs to be renationalized. That's an urgent priority for Russia's
economy. The reason I think it hasn't been done so far is that the political power of those
American-linked oligarchs up until now has been strong enough to make it very difficult for
Russia to clean up house. I think we are already going in that direction.
The development of indigenous Russian non-GMO agriculture needs to go forward regardless of
what the EU does with their sanctions. Russia needs to prohibit the import of food from the
European Union.
Also, Russia should leave the World Trade Organization. This organization was created by
Washington in the interests of American and European multinationalism and not in the interests of
free and fair trade.
Russia should free itself from undesirable NGOs as it has been doing and watch the anger of
Washington who use those NGOs to do so-called "democracy projects".
Thus, take the advantage that you can from this deception, but do not be deceived that Donald
Trump's America is in any sense a true friend of Russia. People in Washington still care about
the interests of the American hegemony and that's it.
So Tillerson, ex-Oil cheese & apparently 'pro-Russian', is nominated USDoS
honcho by Trump.
On the other hand we have Trump trolling China over Taiwan. In this case,
it to me looks more like asymmetric diplomacy or 'hybrid warfare' as others
may call it, as the US cannot take on China financially, Trump's strategy is
to threaten to unpick all those things that China holds dear, such as the
'One China' policy to push Beijing out of its comfort zone and try and
destabilize its decision making. An interesting strategy that won't work.
But, by making apparently pro-Russia, anti-China choices it looks like a
divide and rule strategy. The US cannot take on both Russian and China, and
it has been China that has been backing Russia solidly politically and
economically against the West's threats. By offering sanctions relief,
Washington would expect something in return maybe distancing itself from
China The thing is, not only have the sanctions done quite a bit of damage,
but how is lifting them actually that useful any more now that (yet again) a
threat from the outside has made Russia carry out fundamental changes it
should have already made before (developing domestic produce industry etc.)
and even sabotaging those nascent industries for western imports? In short,
if it is Trump's strategy, too little too late.
I think though that a strategy of opportunistic disruption would
continue. What I would like to see from Trump is a rolling back of NATO and
removing US nukes from Europe permanently in return for a new nuclear arms
agreement and a de-escalation on the continent. What exactly does Washington
get from a riled up EU and its constant squealing for US support but without
pay up? None as far as I can see. Hopefully this is NATO's last hurrah.
Washington cannot offer sanctions relief without coming out into the open
as the EU's puppetmaster. Although we know that to be true, not everyone
does, or not everyone will stipulate to it, and the sanctions imposed by
Washington as purely American are harmless. It is the EU's sanctions
which cause trade damage, and as you accurately point out, many of those
markets will never again reach their former potential. I imagine there
would be a prompt return to trade with Europe if EU sanctions were
lifted, but quite a few people have lost their taste for European
products considering what false friends the Europeans have turned out to
be, and Russia likely fears their spinelessness would bring new sanctions
at Washington's bidding. I don't think European sales to Russia will
return to their previous levels, perhaps ever, and Russia will always
have a backup plan in future so that loss of European products will not
hurt it.
Many people in China feel that Trump trolling China over Taiwan is not a
bad thing. At least, maybe it will finally knock away the illusions about
America that many in the government still have. (There are plenty of
those illusions, in part because the generation of Chinese currently
between 40 and 65, overall, are probably the most shall we say
"psychologically disadvantaged" toward the West.
The overseers of the U.S. intelligence community have not embraced a CIA assessment that Russian
cyber attacks were aimed at helping Republican President-elect Donald Trump win the 2016 election,
three American officials said on Monday.
While the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) does not dispute the CIA's analysis
of Russian hacking operations, it has not endorsed their assessment because of a lack of conclusive
evidence that Moscow intended to boost Trump over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, said the officials,
who declined to be named .
An ODNI spokesman declined to comment on the issue.
"ODNI is not arguing that the agency (CIA) is wrong, only that they can't prove intent," said
one of the three U.S. officials. "Of course they can't, absent agents in on the decision-making in
Moscow."
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose evidentiary standards require it to make cases that
can stand up in court, declined to accept the CIA's analysis a deductive assessment of the available
intelligence for the same reason, the three officials said
But all of them, without exception, accept that the Democrats' server was hacked by Russia, and
that it was Russia who leaked the information through Wikileaks, and that Russia also hacked the
Republicans but declined to release incriminating or influential material it had in its possession.
There is, to my knowledge, no evidence of this, either.
"These libertarians, isolationists and realists see an opportunity to pull back America's
commitments around the world, spend less money on foreign aid and "nation-building," curtail
expensive military campaigns and troop deployments and intervene militarily only to protect American
interests."(
The Hill
) But will they prevail?
Notable quotes:
"... First of all, I don't think that President Putin is foolish enough to believe the rhetoric. He is a serious political person and has been through too many lies and deceptions from Washington in many different forms to be naive about some nice sunny words, even if the Secretary General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg starts purveying friendly sounds about Russia after Trump's election. ..."
"... But I think it is very important that Russian leaders have in mind the ultimate agenda of this patriarchy in the United States that is one of war, and Donald Trump's mission is to prepare United States for that war and to win. And that is no nice prospect. Russia should not in the slightest instant forget that threat. ..."
"... Thus, take the advantage that you can from this deception, but do not be deceived that Donald Trump's America is in any sense a true friend of Russia. People in Washington still care about the interests of the American hegemony and that's it. ..."
First of all, I don't think that President Putin is foolish enough to believe the
rhetoric. He is a serious political person and has been through too many lies and deceptions from
Washington in many different forms to be naive about some nice sunny words, even if the Secretary
General of NATO Jens Stoltenberg starts purveying friendly sounds about Russia after Trump's
election.
Of course, it is intelligent for Russia to gain as much advantage from this apparently friendly
period of Trump's presidency as possible. Perhaps it is reasonable to ask for taking US and NATO
troops away from the borders of Russia and Belarus. They will do that, I have no doubt.
But I think it is very important that Russian leaders have in mind the ultimate agenda of
this patriarchy in the United States that is one of war, and Donald Trump's mission is to prepare
United States for that war and to win. And that is no nice prospect. Russia should not in the
slightest instant forget that threat.
Take advantage of this time, build the Russian economy as you have been doing, show the door to
the neoliberal economists, take them out of the ministries, and put genuine Russians who want to
do good for the Russian economy in those positions.
The Central Bank of Russia needs to be renationalized. That's an urgent priority for Russia's
economy. The reason I think it hasn't been done so far is that the political power of those
American-linked oligarchs up until now has been strong enough to make it very difficult for
Russia to clean up house. I think we are already going in that direction.
The development of indigenous Russian non-GMO agriculture needs to go forward regardless of
what the EU does with their sanctions. Russia needs to prohibit the import of food from the
European Union.
Also, Russia should leave the World Trade Organization. This organization was created by
Washington in the interests of American and European multinationalism and not in the interests of
free and fair trade.
Russia should free itself from undesirable NGOs as it has been doing and watch the anger of
Washington who use those NGOs to do so-called "democracy projects".
Thus, take the advantage that you can from this deception, but do not be deceived that Donald
Trump's America is in any sense a true friend of Russia. People in Washington still care about
the interests of the American hegemony and that's it.
So Tillerson, ex-Oil cheese & apparently 'pro-Russian', is nominated USDoS
honcho by Trump.
On the other hand we have Trump trolling China over Taiwan. In this case,
it to me looks more like asymmetric diplomacy or 'hybrid warfare' as others
may call it, as the US cannot take on China financially, Trump's strategy is
to threaten to unpick all those things that China holds dear, such as the
'One China' policy to push Beijing out of its comfort zone and try and
destabilize its decision making. An interesting strategy that won't work.
But, by making apparently pro-Russia, anti-China choices it looks like a
divide and rule strategy. The US cannot take on both Russian and China, and
it has been China that has been backing Russia solidly politically and
economically against the West's threats. By offering sanctions relief,
Washington would expect something in return maybe distancing itself from
China The thing is, not only have the sanctions done quite a bit of damage,
but how is lifting them actually that useful any more now that (yet again) a
threat from the outside has made Russia carry out fundamental changes it
should have already made before (developing domestic produce industry etc.)
and even sabotaging those nascent industries for western imports? In short,
if it is Trump's strategy, too little too late.
I think though that a strategy of opportunistic disruption would
continue. What I would like to see from Trump is a rolling back of NATO and
removing US nukes from Europe permanently in return for a new nuclear arms
agreement and a de-escalation on the continent. What exactly does Washington
get from a riled up EU and its constant squealing for US support but without
pay up? None as far as I can see. Hopefully this is NATO's last hurrah.
Washington cannot offer sanctions relief without coming out into the open
as the EU's puppetmaster. Although we know that to be true, not everyone
does, or not everyone will stipulate to it, and the sanctions imposed by
Washington as purely American are harmless. It is the EU's sanctions
which cause trade damage, and as you accurately point out, many of those
markets will never again reach their former potential. I imagine there
would be a prompt return to trade with Europe if EU sanctions were
lifted, but quite a few people have lost their taste for European
products considering what false friends the Europeans have turned out to
be, and Russia likely fears their spinelessness would bring new sanctions
at Washington's bidding. I don't think European sales to Russia will
return to their previous levels, perhaps ever, and Russia will always
have a backup plan in future so that loss of European products will not
hurt it.
Many people in China feel that Trump trolling China over Taiwan is not a
bad thing. At least, maybe it will finally knock away the illusions about
America that many in the government still have. (There are plenty of
those illusions, in part because the generation of Chinese currently
between 40 and 65, overall, are probably the most shall we say
"psychologically disadvantaged" toward the West.
Meanwhile, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Moscow was fed up of calls from
the US to halt the fighting. "We are tired of hearing this whining from our American colleagues
in the current administration," he told journalists.
"I think it is secret to no one if I say that we know about written instructions in the
European Union as to how each country, including candidates to join it, should speak publicly
at any mention of Russia," the diplomat said.
"It is written there that it is an absolute must for all these countries to pronounce as
mantra the terms 'annexation of Crimea', 'occupation of Donbass' and so on," he said. "It seems
that this instruction is binding," he added.
The kreakl with whom I have to work told me yesterday in all seriousness that Lavrov
is only foreign minister because he does everything Putin tells him to do.
He must think that a minister of state should act independently of and contrary to the wishes
of the chief executive of the administration of the state.
That's what he must think they do in the Golden West.
As the Worm Turns!
For all those Amurican rubes out there who beleived that Homeland Security was protecting them
against foreign terrorists ha hahahahahaha!
Vladimir Putin's Valdai Speech at the XIII Meeting (Final Plenary Session) of the Valdai International
Discussion Club (Sochi, 27 October 2016)
As is his usual custom, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech at the final session
of the annual Valdai International Discussion Club's 13th meeting, held this year in Sochi, before
an audience that included the President of Finland Tarja Halonen and former President of South Africa
Thabo Mbeki. The theme for the 2016 meeting and its discussion forums was "The Future in Progress:
Shaping the World of Tomorrow" which as Putin noted was very topical and relevant to current developments
and trends in global politics, economic and social affairs.
Putin noted that the previous year's Valdai Club discussions centred on global problems and crises,
in particular the ongoing wars in the Middle East; this fact gave him the opportunity to summarise
global political developments over the past half-century, beginning with the United States' presumption
of having won the Cold War and subsequently reshaping the international political, economic and social
order to conform to its expectations based on neoliberal capitalist assumptions. To that end, the
US and its allies across western Europe, North America and the western Pacific have co-operated in
pressing economic and political restructuring including regime change in many parts of the world:
in eastern Europe and the Balkans, in western Asia (particularly Afghanistan and Iraq) and in northern
Africa (Libya). In achieving these goals, the West has either ignored at best or at worst exploited
international political, military and economic structures, agencies and alliances to the detriment
of these institutions' reputations and credibility around the world. The West also has not hesitated
to dredge and drum up imaginary threats to the security of the world, most notably the threat of
Russian aggression and desire to recreate the Soviet Union on former Soviet territories and beyond,
the supposed Russian meddling in the US Presidential elections, and apparent Russian hacking and
leaking of emails related to failed US Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton's conduct as
US Secretary of State from 2008 to 2012.
After his observation of current world trends as they have developed since 1991, Putin queries
what kind of future we face if political elites in Washington and elsewhere focus on non-existent
problems and threats, or on problems of their own making, and ignore the very real issues and problems
affecting ordinary people everywhere: issues of stability, security and sustainable economic development.
The US alone has problems of police violence against minority groups, high levels of public and private
debt measured in trillions of dollars, failing transport infrastructure across most states, massive
unemployment that either goes undocumented or is deliberately under-reported, high prison incarceration
rates and other problems and issues indicative of a highly dysfunctional society. In societies that
are ostensibly liberal democracies where the public enjoys political freedoms, there is an ever-growing
and vast gap between what people perceive as major problems needing solutions and the political establishment's
perceptions of what the problems are, and all too often the public view and the elite view are at
polar opposites. The result is that when referenda and elections are held, predictions and assurances
of victory one way or another are smashed by actual results showing public preference for the other
way, and polling organisations, corporate media with their self-styled "pundits" and "analysts" and
governments are caught scrambling to make sense of what just happened.
Putin points out that the only way forward is for all countries to acknowledge and work together
on the problems that challenge all humans today, the resolution of which should make the world more
stable, more secure and more sustaining of human existence. Globalisation should not just benefit
a small plutocratic elite but should be demonstrated in concrete ways to benefit all. Only by adhering
to international law and legal arrangements, through the charter of the United Nations and its agencies,
can all countries hope to achieve security and stability and achieve a better future for their peoples.
To this end, the sovereignty of Middle Eastern countries like Iraq, Syria and Yemen should be
respected and the wars in those countries should be brought to an end, replaced by long-term plans
and programs of economic and social reconstruction and development. Global economic development and
progress that will reduce disparities between First World and Third World countries, eliminate notions
of "winning" and "losing", and end grinding poverty and the problems that go with it should be a
major priority. Economic co-operation should be mutually beneficial for all parties that engage in
it.
Putin also briefly mentioned in passing the development of human potential and creativity, environmental
protection and climate change, and global healthcare as important goals that all countries should
strive for.
While there's not much in Putin's speech that he hasn't said before, what he says is typical of
his worldview, the breadth and depth of his understanding of current world events (which very, very
few Western politicians can match), and his preferred approach of nations working together on common
problems and coming to solutions that benefit all and which don't advantage one party's interests
to the detriment of others and their needs. Putin's approach is a typically pragmatic and cautious
one, neutral with regards to political or economic ideology, but one focused on goals and results,
and the best way and methods to achieve those goals.
One interesting aspect of Putin's speech comes near the end where he says that only a world with
opportunities for everyone, with access to knowledge to all and many ways to realise creative potential,
can be considered truly free. Putin's understanding of freedom would appear to be very different
from what the West (and Americans in particular) understand to be "freedom", that is, being free
of restraints on one's behaviour. Putin's understanding of freedom would be closer to what 20th-century
Russian-born British philosopher Isaiah Berlin would consider to be "positive freedom", the freedom
that comes with self-mastery, being able to think and behave freely and being able to choose the
government of the society in which one lives.
The most outstanding point in Putin's speech, which unfortunately he does not elaborate on further,
given the context of the venue, is the disconnect between the political establishment and the public
in most developed countries, the role of the mass media industry in reducing or widening it, and
the dangers that this disconnect poses to societies if it continues. If elites continue to pursue
their own fantasies and lies, and neglect the needs of the public on whom they rely for support (yet
abuse by diminishing their security through offshoring jobs, weakening and eliminating worker protection,
privatising education, health and energy, and encouraging housing and other debt bubbles), the invisible
bonds of society what might collectively be called "the social contract" between the ruler and
the ruled will disintegrate and people may turn to violence or other extreme activities to get
what they want.
An English-language transcript of the speech can be found at
this link .
"... "The weirdest speech to me was the one by the US representative which built her statement as if she is Mother Theresa herself. Please, remember which country you represent. Please, remember the track record of your country." ..."
"... "I shouldn't want to remind this Western trio [France, US, UK] , which has called for today's meeting and carried it out in a raised voice, about your role in the creation of ISIS as a result of US and UK intervention in Iraq", Churkin said. ..."
"... "I don't want to remind these three countries about their role in unwinding the Syrian crisis, which led to such difficult consequences, and let terrorists spread in Syria and Iraq. ..."
"... Russia's public positions are getting progressively less 'diplomatic' and more direct. The west has been inviting Russia to take a swing with deliberately insulting language for a long time, but Russia is beginning to answer in kind. I smell a lifelong enemies situation, and that's unfortunate because Russia cannot be said to have not tried repeatedly to keep things civil. ..."
In response, Vitaly Churkin advised his colleague from the United States to remember the actions
of her own country.
"The weirdest speech to me was the one by the US representative which built her statement as
if she is Mother Theresa herself. Please, remember which country you represent. Please, remember
the track record of your country."
"I shouldn't want to remind this Western trio [France, US, UK] , which has called for today's
meeting and carried it out in a raised voice, about your role in the creation of ISIS as a result
of US and UK intervention in Iraq", Churkin said.
"I don't want to remind these three countries about their role in unwinding the Syrian crisis,
which led to such difficult consequences, and let terrorists spread in Syria and Iraq.
Churkin's actual words re the Mother Theresa wannabe, namely "Outraged" Powers:
"Особенно странным мне показалось выступление представителя Соединенных Штатов, которая построила
свое выступление, как будто она мать Тереза", - заявил он.
Especially strange to me appeared the speech by the representative of the United States,
who constructed her statement as though she were Mother Theresa", he stated.
[You see, Denis Denisovich uses the subjunctive mood, unlike those CNN dickheads! :-)]
Russia's public positions are getting progressively less 'diplomatic' and more direct. The west
has been inviting Russia to take a swing with deliberately insulting language for a long time,
but Russia is beginning to answer in kind. I smell a lifelong enemies situation, and that's unfortunate
because Russia cannot be said to have not tried repeatedly to keep things civil.
Classic, Lyttenburgh, very droll. I hope Churkin was able to negotiate a pay increase or some
sort of bonus for himself for having to sit through and reply to Samantha Power's rants. For a
professional diplomat it must be beyond painful to try and work with her and her ilk.
I wonder if she prays for the souls of those innocents, about whose estimated half-a-million lives,
sacrificed as a result of US sanctions imposed by the USA on Iran, were infamously considered
by her fellow countrywoman as a "price well worth it" as regards the furtherance of the the policies
of the "Exceptional Nation"?
Moscow Exile, yes, it's interesting what examples she picks as the epitome of evil that stains
consciences Halabja, Rwanda, Srebrenica etc. All of them non-western. How about Hiroshima, Nagasaki,
Agent Orange (the gift that's still giving today), the saturation bombing of Cambodia, the extraordinary
destruction wrecked on North Korea, the genocides of South and Central America carried out by
those trained and shielded by the US and so on and so on is she unaware of the history of her
own country?
Indeed, Northern Star, the US along with many of its allies had a hand in all of the examples
of 'irredeemable evil' Powers named. My point was that she chose examples where the immediate
perpetrators were not western actors.
Not to mention of course that 7-year-old boy her motorcade knocked over and killed while she was
racing to a photo-shoot in Cameroon. The child's family did get compensation but you wonder how
much guilt Samantha Power feels over an incident that would never have occurred had she not been
so eager to meet and be photographed with former Boko Haram victims just so she could have bragging
rights among the Washington social set.
On watching the "Keiser Report " on the imperial blowback against independent media, it strikes me
that the MSM are as to the Papacy as the new media are to Martin Luther:
Yahoo has discovered a 3-year-old security breach that enabled a hacker to compromise more than 1
billion user accounts, breaking the company's own humiliating record for the biggest security breach
in history.
The digital heist disclosed Wednesday occurred in August 2013, more than a year before a separate
hack that Yahoo announced nearly three months ago . That breach affected at least 500 million users,
which had been the most far-reaching hack until the latest revelation.
Yahoo has more than a billion monthly active users, although some have multiple accounts and others
have none at all. An unknown number of accounts were affected by both hacks.
In both attacks, the stolen information included names, email addresses, phone numbers, birthdates
and security questions and answers. The company says it believes bank-account information and payment-card
data were not affected.
"... That those scheming Russians were clever enough to hack into voting machines, but not clever enough to cover their tracks? ..."
"... It's strangely reminiscent of the days of the Red scare, minus the Reds. ..."
"... The displaced machinists in the industrial midwest, whose votes helped put Trump in the White House, believe that free trade deals are responsible for their economic woes and they never trusted Clinton's turn against the TPP. ..."
"... was Clinton's campaign for you, bereft of principle and pathologically concerned with "optics" at the expense of substance. ..."
"... They were so confident of their inevitable victory that they wrote off the old industrial states in favor of luring upscale suburbanites who normally vote Republican. They hoped they would be so revolted by Trump that they would vote for her, but they didn't. ..."
"... It's panic over loss of control. They aren't pondering ways to make things better for the American people. Not in the Beltaway. Not the duoploy. The handwringing is strictly about control and pasification of the population. ..."
"... The long, long list of dodgy-donors to The Clinton Foundation told large numbers of Democrat voters everything they needed to know about a potential Hillary Clinton presidency. This, and the 'knifing' of Bernie, sealed her fate. ..."
"... America will never, and should never, forgive Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. ..."
"... At last! Someone on this newspaper talking common sense. ..."
"... Absurd! She was a rich white hawkish neolib who has no one but herself and the Democratic Pary to blame for the terrible loss which will seal the supreme court for years. Face facts!! She couldn't even beat Trump and was widely viewed as a fraud. ..."
"... The person who lost the Presidential Election in USA is Hillary Clinton. She, like Blair is a war monger. I, if I had a vote, would not have voted for her. ..."
"... If she had been elected we would have had bigger and better wars in the Middle East. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan never ended despite Obama calling the Iraq war a "strategic mistake". One that continued for another eight years. To those two we have added Syria and Lybia. ..."
"... " ...reflecting on how baseless our self-image as the world's greatest democracy is. " The rest of the world has known that for decades. ..."
"... I don't understand how accurate reporting by Wikileaks of politicians' emails is considered 'interference' with the US elections. To me, it seems helpful. If a US newspaper made the report, they would probably get a prize. If a foreign organization made the report, so what? People abroad are free (I hope) to comment on US matters, and people in the US are free to read it or not. ..."
"... Perhaps they mean the Guardian's politics. Identity politics has been thoroughly rejected and instead of learning from the experience, Guardian has been electing to throw more of the same tactics, except louder ..."
"... Americans across the political spectrum are happy to use Putin to distract them from reflecting on how baseless our self-image as the world's greatest democracy is. ..."
"... You're absolutely right. Putin is the boogeyman for every ill, real or purported, of his own society, and when the American political system and its institutions prove to be broken, Putin gets to be the boogeyman for that, too. What a powerful man! He must be pleased. ..."
"... This is an ultimate truth because it explains why Merkel will not be elected. These days Putin is in full control of the world and is responsible for everything. ..."
"... Let's thank Hillary for that. There is a very good news: on the 20th January we'll cut all Saudi supply channels to the IS and kill all the bastards within 2 months. ..."
"... In the modern world it is enough to do nothing to be a good man, eg if Bush, Blair, Obama and Clinton didn't create ISIS, the world would be a much better place. You do not even need to be smart to understand this. ..."
"... It's crazy. Even if the Russian hacking claims are legitimate, the leaks still revealed things about the Democrats that were true. It's like telling your friend that their spouse is cheating on them, and then the spouse blaming you for ruining the marriage. ..."
"... The Clinton campaign spent like drunken sailors, on media. This is a new role for the media giants that took care of Clinton's every need, including providing motivational research and other consultants. ..."
"... The ongoing scenario that now spins around Putin as a central figure is a product of "after shock media". ..."
"... To weave fictional reality in real time for a mass audience is a magnum leap from internet fake news. This drama is concocted to keep DNC from going into seclusion until the inauguration. ..."
"... Doug Henwood is absolutely correct. This obsession with the supposed foreign interference is baseless. All the real culprits operate within our own system. ..."
"... Trump's embrace of Russia and decision to end the neocon-neoliberal agenda of regime change skewer two of the corporate establishment's cash cows - arms sales to the numerous conflicts in the Middle East initiated by the corporate cabal, and arms sales to NATO and all the new post Cold War NATO members to continue the buildup of armaments on Russia's borders." ..."
"... I'd love to be pleasantly surprised, and I note that already Trump's campaign has put down TWO odious political dynasties, AND the TPP -- all very healthy developments. ..."
"... The only thing that kept the contest somehow close was the unprecedented all-media fear campaign against Trump. ..."
"... It was always Hillary's election to lose and she lost it simply because she was not to be trusted. Her very public endorsement by gangster capitalist Jay-Z told you all you needed to know about who she represented. ..."
"... I was dubious before, but I'm now actively concerned. This crop of Democrats and their deep state cohorts are unhinged and dangerous. They see me and my families' lives as an externality in their eventual war with Russia. As Phyrric a victory as there could possibly be. They are psychotic; not only waging countless coups and intelligence operations abroad, but now in plain sight on American soil. The mainstream media seems to invoke the spirit of Goebbels more vividly with each passing day. Their disdain and manipulation of the general populace is chilling. They see us not as people to be won-over, but as things to be manipulated, tricked and coerced. Nothing new for politicians (particularity the opposition) - but the levels here are staggering. ..."
"... January couldn't come soon enough - and I say that as strong critic of Trump. ..."
"... A good article to counterbalance the reams of rubbish we are hearing in the US election post-mortem. Anyone who had neural activity should have known that when you steal the candidacy, you certainly won't get the votes. Clinton effectively handed the election to Trump by not having the humility, humanity and honesty to admit defeat by Benie Sanders. ..."
"... There's always the possibility of course, that the US establishment realised Clinton's blatant warmongering wasn't 'good for business'. ..."
"... So maybe, they thought, we can get the Russkies 'on side', deal with China (ie. reduce it to a 'client state'/ turn it into an ashtray) - and then move on Russia and grab all those lovely resources freed up by global warming.... ..."
"... Only her campaign volunteers knew, her message to the public was "dont vote for Trump" which translates to, I could lose to him, vote for me! ..."
"... The Podesta emails confirmed what many people already suspected and knew of Hillary and her campaign. Those who were interested in reading them had to actually look for them, since MSM was not reporting on them. It's not as if an avid MSNBC or CNN watcher was going to be exposed. ..."
"... It's hilarious how the major Left outlets (Washington Post) are now telling it's readers how Russia is to blame for people voting against Hillary due to the Podesta emails, when they didn't even report on the emails in the first place. ..."
"... EVERYTHING about the system all halfway decent people detest, is summed up in the figure of Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... Like Donald said, she had 'experience', but it was all BAD 'experience'. ..."
"... she is a frail, withered old woman who needs to retire - def the wrong democrat choice, crazy -- Berni.S would have won if for them - he is far more sincere ..."
"... "The displaced machinists... believe that free trade deals are responsible for their economic woes and they never trusted Clinton's turn against the TPP. But that was Clinton's campaign for you, bereft of principle and pathologically concerned with "optics" at the expense of substance." ..."
"... This argument is as asinine as the one the author opposes. It was a collusion of events that led to this result, including the failure of both parties to adapt to an evolving economic and social climate over decades. The right wing hailing the collapse of liberalism as a result of decades of liberal mismanagement conveniently forget their own parties have held the reins for half that time, and failed just as miserably as the left.... ..."
"... It's quite bizarre to see "progressives" openly side with the military industrial complex, which is threatened by a president elect weary of more warfare. ..."
"... It's to be expected from career politicians like McCain who is kicking and screaming, but it's shameful to see supposed liberally-minded people help spread the Red Scare storyline. ..."
"... Obama has behaved dreadfully, first he or his office gets one of its poodles namely MI6 to point the finger at Putin re cyberwar, which was swiftly followed by the International Olympic Committee looking at Russia for 2012 Olympic games, the elections in the US and the Democrats CIA coming out with unsubstantiated nonsense (funny how they never like, providing collaborative evidence - on this or anything that supposedly Russia has done) then there is Syria, and Obama and the Democrats were the cheerleader for regime change, because they have been out manoeuvred in that sphere. All of it in less than a week. ..."
"... If Obama, the administration, and the CIA were smart they would have realised that a concerted effort to blame Putin / Russia would be seen for what it is - a liar and one of trying to discredit both the outcome of the US elections, the dislike of HRC, and her association with Wall St. - she raised more money for her campaign than Trump and Sanders put together (if the Democrats had chosen Sanders, then they would have stood a chance) and that their hawk would not be in a position to create WW111 - thank goodness. The Democrats deserved what they got. ..."
"... This organ of the liberal media (no scare quotes required - it is socially liberal and economically neoliberal), along with many others, dogmatically supported Clinton against Sanders to the point of printing daily and ridiculous dishonesty, even going so far as to make out as if anyone who supports any form of wealth redistribution is a racist, sexist, whitesplaining dude-bro. ..."
"... The Wikileaks emails proved the votes were rigged against Sanders, it why Debbie W Shulz had to resign ..."
"... The election was close, and if one less thing had gone wrong for Hillary she would have won. However I think an important thing that lost her the election was identity politics. She patronized Afro-Americans and Hispanics, by tell them that because they are Trump-threatened minorities, they should vote for her. In the same vein, gays and women were supposed to vote for her. But what she was really telling these groups was that they should revel in their supposed victimhood, which was not a great message. ..."
"... Completely agreed! The onus for defeat belongs to the Democrat party leadership as well. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders both understood where the momentum of the election was headed before anyone else did. The election was won and lost in the white blue collar Midwest. A place that decided that diet corporatism is decidedly worse than a populist right wing extremist. ..."
"... No one here believed the ridiculous about-face Hillary pulled on the question of the TPP. I guarantee you Bernie would have cleaned Trump's clock in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and perhaps Ohio and Iowa. ..."
"... "Our self-image as the world's greatest democracy...." Well, speaking for myself and plenty of other Americans, I never said anything like that about us. In fact, like a lot of people I wish we would stick to our own business, quit trying to be the world's cop, and cease meddling in other countries' affairs. ..."
"... Assuming that it really was the Russians who done it, I guess they had a better game plan than the Saudis. ..."
"... Her 'deplorables' comment was every bit as telling as Mitt Romney's '47%'. We really needed to know about her 'public versus private positions', even if it only confirmed what everybody already knew. I am not 100% sure the system made the worst choice in raising up Donald Trump. ..."
"... The American voters heard a steady stream of these arguments. Some may have simply ignored them. Others took them into consideration, but concluded that they wanted drastic change enough to put them aside. White women decided that Trump's comments, while distasteful, were things they'd heard before. ..."
"... Reliance on the sanctity of racial and gender pieties was a mistake. Not everyone treats these subjects as the holiest of holies. The people who would be most swayed by those arguments never would have voted for Trump anyways. ..."
"... Colin Powell said Clinton destroys everything she touches with hubris. Seeing as how she destroyed the democrat "blue wall" and also had low turnout which hurt democrats down the ticket I agree. ..."
"... All this hysteria about the USA and Russia finally working together than apart doesn't help either for it appears that the [neoliberal] lefties want a perpetual war rather than peace. ..."
"... The CIA being outraged about a foreign state intervening in an election is quite funny. They have intervened so many times, especially in Latin America, to install puppet regimes. ..."
"... As for hacking... does anybody believe the CIA has never hacked anybody? ..."
Hillary Clinton was the symbol of neoliberal globalization and contept of neoliberal for common
poeple (aka deplorable). That's why she lost. this is more of the first defeat of neoliberal
candidate in the USA then personal defeat of Hillary. She was just a symbol, or puppet, if you wish.
... ... ...
And what exactly are the claims made by these Putin-did-it stories? That were it not for Russian
chicanery, Hillary Clinton would have won the popular vote by five million and not almost three million?
That displaced machinists on the banks of Lake Erie were so incensed by the Podesta emails that they
voted for Trump instead of Clinton? That Putin was pulling FBI director James Comey's strings in
his investigation of the Clinton emails? That those scheming Russians were clever enough to hack
into voting machines, but not clever enough to cover their tracks?
It's strangely reminiscent of the days of the Red scare, minus the Reds.
... ... ...
The displaced machinists in the industrial midwest, whose votes helped put Trump in the White
House, believe that free trade deals are responsible for their economic woes and they never trusted
Clinton's turn against the TPP. But that was Clinton's campaign for you, bereft of principle
and pathologically concerned with "optics" at the expense of substance.
They were so confident of their inevitable victory that they wrote off the old industrial
states in favor of luring upscale suburbanites who normally vote Republican. They hoped they would
be so revolted by Trump that they would vote for her, but they didn't.
... ... ...
Of course there are questions about our voting machines. The American balloting system is a chaotic
mess, with an array of state and local authorities conducting elections under a vast variety of rules
using technologies ranging from old-fashioned paper ballots to sleek touch-screen devices.
The former take forever to count, and the latter are unauditable we can have no idea whether
the counts are accurate. The whole system is a perfect example of a quote attributed (probably falsely)
to Joseph Stalin: "The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide
everything." It's not a system that inspires trust, but we barely discuss that.
It's panic over loss of control. They aren't pondering ways to make things better for the
American people. Not in the Beltaway. Not the duoploy. The handwringing is strictly about control
and pasification of the population.
And you're shocked? I'm shocked you expected more.
The really amazing story about the presidential elections 2016 was actually not Clinton or Trump.
It was how close the US actually got to get its first socialist, or factually rather social-democratic
president. Americans are craving for more justice and equality.
And no, Clinton does not stand for any "left values". Therefore the media favored her.
The long, long list of dodgy-donors to The Clinton Foundation told large numbers of Democrat
voters everything they needed to know about a potential Hillary Clinton presidency. This, and
the 'knifing' of Bernie, sealed her fate. A reincarnated Tricky Dicky would have trounced
her, too.
Weird in your mind only. A letter just before the election suggesting that Clinton might be indicted?
And was she? Of course not. Match the letter's release with the polls at the time to see it's
influence.
Clinton's problems such as her email server were nothing compared to all the baggage that Trump
carries, yet Trump's problems were blithely ignored by many because they thought Trump would make
a difference.
At last! Someone on this newspaper talking common sense.
For the last twenty years, (way before we even knew Putin's name) the Republican Party have
promoted, fomented and instigated the most ludicrous lies and calumnies about the Democratic Party
and particularly Hilary Clinton, who they quite rightly recognised as a future Democratic Presidential
candidate.
They have politicised: education, defense, Federal Parks, water, race, religion and even the
air we breath in their efforts to ensure victory and to this end, they bought and paid for populist
uprisings against Democratic politicians, like the now abandoned Tea Party.
The problem was that even when Republicans were elected, they obviously couldn't keep their
own nonsensical promises to their now rabid audience who no longer trusted their own elected Government.
When Trump, a disestablishment, anti-Government candidate came along, the electorate (naively)
saw a possibility of the change they have been promised.
Of course the Russians prefer Trump over Clinton, since they can see the destruction he can
cause their geopolitical adversary and Putin would say as much as he can to support Trump...errr....even
though it would be counter-productive with conservative voters...but it is unlikely that he bears
anywhere near the blame that the Republican Party does, who foolishly allowed their own 'attack
dog' to bite them on the arse.
I'm sorry to say that the Republican Party (and the US) has to suck this one up and admit...(to
mix my hackneyed metaphors) that they've blown themselves up with their own petard!
I think with hindsight Bernie Sanders is going to be blamed for dividing the Democratic Party
and bolstering the Republican propaganda against the Clintons. If only we had stuck together with
Clinton we wouldn't be facing the Trump disaster now. Hillary Clinton is not evil and she was
very highly qualified--to paraphrase Brando, we could have had progress instead of a disaster,
which is what we have now.
Absurd! She was a rich white hawkish neolib who has no one but herself and the Democratic
Pary to blame for the terrible loss which will seal the supreme court for years. Face facts!!
She couldn't even beat Trump and was widely viewed as a fraud.
You fool, the Libertarian party is the largest third party in the US and they mostly take votes
from the Republicans. Stop blaming third parties when their existence demonstrably helps the Democrats.
Or perhaps you dream of a world where conservatives still support their third party just as much
as they ever did but lefties all move in perfect lockstep? If so, it's time for a reality check.
Up jumped Hilary Benn with the theory that Jeremy Corbyn had caused the Brexit vote. His resignation
and the denunciation of 172 Labour MP's based on an "indisputable fact" that nobody believes to
be true today. The person who lost the Presidential Election in USA is Hillary Clinton. She,
like Blair is a war monger. I, if I had a vote, would not have voted for her.
If she had been elected we would have had bigger and better wars in the Middle East. The
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan never ended despite Obama calling the Iraq war a "strategic mistake".
One that continued for another eight years. To those two we have added Syria and Lybia. The
west, like Russia, is dabbling in other people's wars. They have been made one hundred times worse.
What Hillary would not have dabbled in is the industrial decline in the "Rust Belt" states.
She is proposing to do nothing. So they had the prospect of no rectification at home with yet
more wars abroad. No wonder they stayed at home. Hillary and Nu Labour are the same: belligerancy
in the Middle East coupled with tame pussy cat against failing capitalism at home. The middle
east has got total destruction from the west and total nothingness but austerity (ie more failure)
as the action plan for capitalism. They are on the "same page" then!
I don't understand how accurate reporting by Wikileaks of politicians' emails is considered
'interference' with the US elections. To me, it seems helpful. If a US newspaper made the report,
they would probably get a prize. If a foreign organization made the report, so what? People abroad
are free (I hope) to comment on US matters, and people in the US are free to read it or not.
It could be argued that only reporting democratic emails is distorting the truth: I'd say its
a step towards the whole truth. I welcome all disclosures that are pertinent to a good decision
by US voters.
Perhaps they mean the Guardian's politics. Identity politics has been thoroughly rejected
and instead of learning from the experience, Guardian has been electing to throw more of the same
tactics, except louder
Citizens of the UK are by far the most heavily surveilled in the western world. This has been
the case since long before the ubiquitous introduction of CCTV cameras.
Americans across the political spectrum are happy to use Putin to distract them from
reflecting on how baseless our self-image as the world's greatest democracy is.
You're absolutely right. Putin is the boogeyman for every ill, real or purported, of his
own society, and when the American political system and its institutions prove to be broken, Putin
gets to be the boogeyman for that, too. What a powerful man! He must be pleased.
Only, the thing is, the American political system and its institutions - American democracy
- weren't undermined overnight. It took several decades and it was done by Americans who weren't
so keen on democracy. Can't fob that off on Putin, try as they might.
If American power takes a big fat fall like Humpty Dumpty, don't look to Vladimir Putin, look
in a fucking mirror. That's where you'll find the culprit.
This is an ultimate truth because it explains why Merkel will not be elected. These days Putin
is in full control of the world and is responsible for everything.
Let's thank Hillary for that. There is a very good news: on the 20th January we'll cut all
Saudi supply channels to the IS and kill all the bastards within 2 months.
In the modern world it is enough to do nothing to be a good man, eg if Bush, Blair, Obama
and Clinton didn't create ISIS, the world would be a much better place. You do not even need to
be smart to understand this.
Your Donald.
From where you'd rather be.
With love.
It's crazy. Even if the Russian hacking claims are legitimate, the leaks still revealed things
about the Democrats that were true. It's like telling your friend that their spouse is cheating
on them, and then the spouse blaming you for ruining the marriage.
The Clinton campaign spent like drunken sailors, on media. This is a new role for the media
giants that took care of Clinton's every need, including providing motivational research and other
consultants.
The ongoing scenario that now spins around Putin as a central figure is a product of "after
shock media". Broadcast media bounced America back and forth from sit-com to gun violence
for decades, giving fiction paramount value. To weave fictional reality in real time for a
mass audience is a magnum leap from internet fake news. This drama is concocted to keep DNC from
going into seclusion until the inauguration.
Doug Henwood is absolutely correct. This obsession with the supposed foreign interference
is baseless. All the real culprits operate within our own system.
Maybe, in four years, Trump's administration can oversee a secure election. Unlike the Obama folks,
who seem to make a calamity out of any project bigger than making a sandwich.
This hullabaloo really highlights the disdain the establishment has for the American voter. They
thought they had it tied up. They thought they had pulled one over on the American people. They
are not interested in what the voter actually wants.
And this raises questions about why our servicemen and women are making sacrifices. The establishment
story-line talks about our brave soldiers dying so we can have free elections. Or something like
that. The establishment does not care about free and fair elections. In fact, this hullabaloo
should have demonstrated to everybody that the establishment does not respect or accepts the results
of elections that don't go their way.
Look at WikiLeaks. They died so Hillary could present her ever-so-clever "tick-tock on Libya"
and make fools think she's a constructive foreign policy force.
H. Clinton would have started a war against Russia in Syria come January; and war against Russia
in The Ukraine shortly after. Trump could yet end civilization as we know it: thereagain the CIA
might 'JFK' him early doors before he's able to.
Fully agree with you. Trump's victory is certain to have incalculable consequences for life on
earth. I believe he will give Netenyahu the green light to use tactical nuclear weapons against
Iranian nuclear and military facilities. I am no fan of Trump.
American 'exceptionalism;' The World's Policeman; The greatest country on earth. Descriptions
believed and espoused by the USA. So Exceptional is America that it claims a God-given right to
interfere with or sabotage political parties, foriegn governments (democratically-elected or not)
and sovereign states anywhere it chooses. Now we have the hilarious spectacle of a historically
blood-drenched CIA (Fake News Central) squawking and squealing completely fabricated nonsense
about Kremlin interference in Trump's election victory. Tell that to the tens of millions slaughtered
in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and the many other nations and people's around the globe who have
had first hand experience of American Exceptionalism. You could not make it up..
Arguably, Clinton and the DNC themselves showed very little respect for democracy, as we know
from leaks. And now they are whining because of a democratic outcome they don't like.
We should discuss two things:
- the content of the mails
- and the ethical question: did the hacker, whoever it is, did democracy rather a service than
a disservice? From when on is a piece of information so valuable that its origins don't matter
anymore?
Media, at least in times when msm still had some moral clout, often relied in their investigative
journalism on source which by themselves were not necessarily ethically bona fide - but the public
interest, the common good benefited by the information.
Had Clinton won the election and we only found out now about the trickery that aided in her
success we would have a major dilemma. We would have to have endless discussions now about her
legitimacy.
I am one who firmly believes that Clinton lost this election because of Clinton's and the DNC's
ineptitude and hubris.
But that doesn't mean the Russians weren't running a psy-ops campaign of fake news stories
and misinformation about Clinton and this election on Facebook.
Which was more responsible for Clinton's loss? Most probably Clinton's ineptitude but the fake
news campaigns on Facebook had some effect. It needs to be addressed...
But hadn't Hillary made it personal by saying Trump was Putin's puppet etc?
She even refused to state whether she'd seek to impose a no-fly zone over Syria; this despite
leading Generals telling her it would mean going to war with Russia and Syria.
Given all that, it's hardly surprising the Russian Duma broke into spontaneous applause upon
the confirmation of her defeat. She'd very much cast herself as the enemy of Russia in the campaign.
With the naming of Rex Tillerson, a close business, and personal, friend of Putin, to be Secy.
of State I am not sure the argument can be made that she was wrong in her assessment.
This article is absolutely right. Trump was not a good candidate and for him to beat Clinton should
be setting alarm bells ringing in Democrat HQ. The left though does have an entrenched culture
of deluding itself and convincing itself that its a victim of things beyond its control. That
lack of self awareness and inability to be brutally honest with itself is a major reason why the
left wins many fewer elections than the left. It is also why there are never shock wins for the
Democrats or Labour because they always assume too much. The Tories and Republicans are very good
at understanding their weaknesses and mitigating them to win elections.
It's absurd to consider Clinton and the mainstream Democrats as part of "the Left". Even the best
of the Democrats are generally more on the Right than on the Left, in that they are pro-capitalist
and defend the national interests of U.S. imperialism. Add to that their almost unanimous support
for the settler colony called "Israel" and there's very little leftism to be found among them.
Cunning of Putin to go back in time and persuade the framers of the US constitution to institute
an electoral college, so that he could put his own candidate in place all those hundreds of years
later.
No. Both candidates fought an election under the same rules. In the run up to the vote, Hillary's
spokesmen often argued that even if the vote was close, they had the electoral college sewn up.
She has nobody to blame but herself.
There are plenty of villains who contributed to the electoral downfall of HRC, mostly, though,
it's HRC who is primarily responsible, with a big assist from an arrogant & politically inept
DNC. Hillary won a bare majority of women, plus the average income of Trump voters exceeded that
of Hillies' supporters. Then all the groundwork for the deplorables was laid by Bill, who got
rid of Glass-Steagell. Too much is being made of the machinist from Erie & the deplorables generally
& if the Dems don't take a serious look at themselves we'll have Agent Orange for 8 rather than
4 deplorable years.
For goodness sake, it is not foreign governments , it is information. With advance of social media
and internet it became so much harder to control the information that gets out.
That is where we are in a post-propaganda world. You are not only receiving your government approved
daily portion of brainwashing but propaganda and brainwashing and information from various sources,
all with their various interests. It is your job a s an individual to decide what to believe.
You can't put the jinni back in the box.
It is all about a narrative to suit the agenda. Had Trump outspent Clinton 2:1 he would now be
reviled as the candidate of arms industry, pharmaceuticals and big banks. Had Clinton defeated
him it would be celebrated as a successful setback for the aforementioned industries; the intelligence
of the voters would have been praised. But then supposedly, Clinton was more supported by disadvantaged
groups, albeit they then also would be disadvantaged with regards to their education.
It will always end up in absurdity. However, the notion that "Putin" (never with first name,
or Mr, preferably pronounced "Poot'n") decided the US presidency is, interesting.
Usually the issue simply is, crap candidate, crap result.
Had Sanders been the candidate and had he lost to Trump, I doubt very much he'd have started all
this blaming the Russians nonsense.
Ultimately, Hilary had terrible trustworthiness ratings from nearly 25 years in frontline politics;
every shortcoming ruthlessly exploited along the way by her and her husband's political opponents.
Ignoring all that historic baggage(dating back to the early '90s) as irrelevant and blaming defeat
on the Russians makes everyone supporting that theory look equally absurd.
In the 2016 Presidential election, in the 49 States other than California, Trump won the popular
vote and enough electoral votes to win the election.
In California, the most populous State in America, the popular vote was so overwhelmingly in favor
of Hillary Clinton that she ended up winning the overall popular vote.
The electoral college is working exactly as the Founding Fathers intended.
In Shakespeare's book "Julius Caesar" the dictator was told not to go to the Capitol where he
will be murdered. His wife warned him, the soothsayer warned him but he ignored it. Caesar's wisdom
was consumed in confidence...confidence that he will be crowned king, confidence that all Romans
(most stupid people then) loved him, and confidence that those who surround him are his 'friends.'
He adamantly went to the Capitol and was murdered.
Clinton ignored most rural areas and I totally agree with the writer along this line "They
were so confident of their inevitable victory that they wrote off the old industrial states in
favor of luring upscale suburbanites who normally vote Republican." Clinton and her team paid
dearly for it just like Caesar did. Blaming Russian for the loss is like "You made me do it."
In the UK, Rupert Murdoch accesses a Prime Minister as readily as any government minister and
wields at least as much influence. At least he is open and honest about this. Similar oligarchs
exert their power more discretely. Murdoch's an Australian born US citizen (for business reasons)
with a truly global empire.
A country's big rich have always ruled it's politics. Imperial powers have intervened
in their spheres of influence . But now the big rich are international and, it seems,
1st world electorates are getting a taste of what 3rd world people have become used to.
What strikes me is the reluctance of the US political elite (including Obama) to intervene,
even when there's a suspicion of vote rigging. The right of the rich and powerful to control the
electoral process (as they have long done) trumps the national-interest (US v. rival powers)
side of politics.
Hilary Clinton won the popular vote. More people voted for her. What is the deal with the electoral
college? How is it possible to have such a huge discrepancy between the two. What is the point
of blaming the candidate when they can lose while winning?
And what is the point of blaming the candidate for their campaign when large numbers of Americans
are prepared to believe the most random bullshit? What did you want her to do, lie more often?
Because apparently, that's what it takes.
From my comment above... "In the 2016 Presidential election, in the 49 States other than California,
Trump won the popular vote and enough electoral votes to win the election.
In California, the most populous State in America, the popular vote was so overwhelmingly in favor
of Hillary Clinton that she ended up winning the overall popular vote.
The electoral college is working exactly as the Founding Fathers intended."
The election is decided by Electoral Votes. Everyone including Hillary knew that. Complaining
that she won the popular vote while losing in the Electoral College would be similar to the loser
of a soccer match complaining they lost 1-nil even though they outshot the victor by a 6-1 margin.
Whine all you want about the popular vote, it is irrelevant.
Hillary Clinton visited Arizona in the last week of the election, while visiting Wisconsin
ZERO times in the general election campaign. The trip to Arizona was a waste of time.
She lost because she was a horrible candidate with terrible strategy. All these people bleating
about "Putin" and or the "popular vote" make me laugh.
With respect, you're going to have to back up some of those claims in the second paragraph and
how they could apply to Russia.
As for the first paragraph, a few things come to mind.
Firstly, it's a huge simplification - there are things like public interest laws to be borne
in mind when talking about the press having to obey the law. I don't think there is much doubt
that this was in the public interest. I mean what Clinton did with the email server was actually
illegal. If someone hacked into a mob boss' computer, got evidence of his/her crimes, and leaked
them to the press, would you criticise the hacker or the mob boss?
Secondly, how on earth was this selectively released to favour one side? How do you favour
one side over the other when you only have information on one side. You are literally saying that
you shouldn't report on one side's wrongdoings if you can't find anything wrong about the other's!
If these are genuine - which absolutely no-one to do with Clinton has denied - then that is all
there is to it. Reality isn't partisan.
Or are you talking about how it was released? You mean dumped en masse onto Wikileaks? How
was that showing bias in any way? I just don't understand what you are trying to claim here.
Finally this comment makes me suspect you don't appreciate the American political climate:
But, given the result, the section of the press that would investigate hasn't got the money
or power to do so. You can be assured the Fox network would have devoted billions to the investigation
had HRC won though.
Fox News aren't the only people with money - indeed, Clinton vastly outspent Trump in the election...
by roughly half a billion(!) dollars.
O -- The Director of the CIA says it, then it must be true? Forgive me, but isn't this an organisation
created to spread disinformation around the world, overthrow foreign governments, and subvert
democracy? Which elections in the world has the CIA not tried to influence? Time Magazine openly
boasts that the US government and agencies had a direct role in securing the election of President
Yeltsin (who sold off a significant share of the country's assets under US advice, and plunged
Russia into the worst recession since the 1930s). Hillary Clinton openly supported the management
of the elections for the Palestine National Authority in 2006. Bill Clinton openly agitated for
the overthrow of President Aristide.
Now that the CIA's most assiduous supporters have lost office, up pops the CIA, blaming the Russians,
like we were in some bad 1950s Cold War pastiche. Get real. Take responsibility for your own failures,
Democrats. Time to cleanse the stables.
Where is even the proof of Russian propaganda? It all seems to come from an "Anonymous source",
without verfication I don't see how this is any more legitimate than the rest of the post truth
fake news out there that people believe just because it confirms their biases.
The CIA claim to know that Russian hackers leaked the Clinton campaign emails to Assange. You
can, of course, disbelieve them, but they're not a random anonymous source exactly.
Putin extremely powerful man. Make regime change in Amerika without needing invasion or rebels.
Soon regime change also in many Europan countries by sending copies of emails to small room in
embassy of little country in London.
You know how powerful Putin? Last week even show finger to Chuck Norris! Chuck Norris now call
Putin "sir".
Thank you, Doug Henwood for pointing out what the wholly-owned corporate "pundits" choose not
to divulge to coincide with their own agendas.
Hillary was a disastrous choice for the "Democratic" party, but the vast majority of Democratic
politicians were just too feckless to support Bernie Sanders, so now we have an equally terrible
choice in Donald Trump.
That Clinton and Trump even competed for the presidency is in itself an indication of just
how disconnected and undemocratic U.S. politics has become.
Moreover, as Henwood (a frequent and unsparing critic of Clinton, Inc. over the years) has
pointed out both Democrats and Republicans are supporting the Russia conspiracy theory in a cowardly
attempt to distract the U.S. public from the real and far more dire crisis, which is Washington's
enormous political dysfunction not Russia's complicity. (Read Henwood's essay: Stop Hillary! Vote
no to a Clinton Dynasty in Harper's Magazine, November 2014 - one article a month is free for
reading).
Yes, the electoral college is a ridiculous throwback to slavery which should be abolished,
but its dissolution is just one of many things I'd like to see eradicated from a governing body
that has long stopped representing the interests of working class Americans; unless, of course
you have the influence and money for such access.
The non-violent and powerful Black Lives Matter, Moral Mondays in North Carolina and Standing
Rock protesters (reinforced by U.S. veterans and other supporters) have demonstrated that change
is possible if we're carefully focused on uprooting and replacing government corruption.
The West support for regimes like Israel and Saudi Arabia makes it hard to present a credible
case against Putin on any issues but, rigging the election is just absurd. These days people are
more clued up and know Hillary lost because she was not trusted, carried baggage and was funded
by big banks. It is rather worrying that we've gone backward and Nazi propaganda tactics are the
norm again.
There was a 50/50 chance the Democrats would take the fall from grace; both parties are out of
touch with mainstream, middle-class America, it's just coincidence Trump manifested himself when
he did. Neither party had a good message or a good messenger; the dark phenomenon of Trump could
have come from either party, the nation was so desperate for change. Yet the GOP really maneuvered
for Jeb Bush to begin with; the Democrats, with a significantly smaller field, laid their bet
on Clinton. The public's rejection of both Bush and Clinton left the door open for a GOP interloper,
Trump; and Clinton was pushed on the Democrats rather than Sanders.
Even the GOP will have buyers remorse if/when they cannot temper Trump.
As someone who wanted Hilary to win, it is difficult to disagree with any of this.
If she couldn't beat Trump - who about three times a day said something idiotic or repugnant,
then she really was the wrong candidate
Since he won Trump has actually sounded miles more sensible. I can't help feel that if he had
adopted his current tone before the election that he would have won by a landslide
"This was the strategy not because Clinton was was incompetent; it was the strategy because all
available data pointed to the fact that it was working."
What a joke.
She had a billion dollars in her campaign fund. The money she spent on "data" was just money
flushed down the sewer. (No doubt various Clinton hangers-on got very nice "consulting" fees.)
She was a Democrat who publicly bragged about her devotion to **Henry Kissinger**.
She lost to **Donald Trump**. I think even Martin O'Malley could've beaten Trump; I'm certain
Sanders could. Only Hillary Clinton had the "magic" necessary to lose to a casino and real estate
huckster.
She was always a lousy candidate, and she's an incompetent politician as well. Dems can face
that, face reality, or keep going as they are, in which case there won't **be** a Democratic Party
before long.
Agreed. HRC, DNC and the Clintonistas are the only ones responsible for her loss. But there's
more to their post-election pushback than just shifting the blame, a lot more.
Demonizing Russia isn't just about seeking a scapegoat. Trump's embrace of Russia and decision
to end the neocon-neoliberal agenda of regime change skewer two of the corporate establishment's
cash cows - arms sales to the numerous conflicts in the Middle East initiated by the corporate
cabal, and arms sales to NATO and all the new post Cold War NATO members to continue the buildup
of armaments on Russia's borders.
That's a lot of anticipated arms sales and a lot of every bit as anticipated political "donations"
from the corporate establishment.
" Trump's embrace of Russia and decision to end the neocon-neoliberal agenda of regime change
skewer two of the corporate establishment's cash cows - arms sales to the numerous conflicts in
the Middle East initiated by the corporate cabal, and arms sales to NATO and all the new post
Cold War NATO members to continue the buildup of armaments on Russia's borders."
That's a mighty optimistic forecast, but it's not impossible. I think Trump is likely to be
a disaster, and even if he isn't, an unleashed Republican gang is a horrible thing to imagine.
Still, I'd love to be pleasantly surprised, and I note that already Trump's campaign has put
down TWO odious political dynasties, AND the TPP -- all very healthy developments.
Hillary Clinton lost because the majority of the voters were nauseated by her by her fake perma-
smile which might as well have been installed by cosmetic surgery. The well rehearsed, worn-out,
hollow on-message crap she spouted had zilch credibility and as much resonance. She had nothing
to say to the electorate.
That the Clinton spent about twice as much as the Trump camp in this case did not work to her
favour: every appearance on tv made her lose voters.
The only thing that kept the contest somehow close was the unprecedented all-media fear
campaign against Trump.
I have never had any doubt that that Trump would get the job. What surprised me though, is
that only one in 200 eligible voters bothered with the Green's Jill Stein: they are supposedly
relatively highly committed to their causes.
Another mistake of the Clinton campaign, btw. was to focus on scandal. My experience of 45
years of campaigning tells me "scandal" does not win any campaigns.
99% of the weapons in the Trump arsenal were Trumped up Hillary "scandals"
They did not decide it. Neither did the new "sexual victim" paraded every couple of days by
the Clinton camp. Scandal and counter-scandal are part of every campaign and ignored by non-committed
voters.
What did it for Trump was, that he spoke unscripted, thus came across a somewhat more genuine,
and at least acknowledged the victims of de-industrialisation, for which he could not be blamed,
but Clinton could. Clinton did not have anything she could present apart from "better equipped
because of experience" - with an undistinguished actual record. The name Clinton can be blamed
for the plight of the "rust-belt".
Americans have paid a heavy price because of free trade deals and they want a different direction.
In the last 15 years there is a noticeable difference in opportunity and wages and most of our
politicians don't care. Hillary lost this because she supported most free trade and outsourcing
jobs to India and China. They DNC has a chance to reform but they choose not to. I hope Bernie
starts a new party and leaves the neo liberals behind. Who knows where Trump will take us but
if he adds to the swamp he will be a one term president. Right now it looks like he is repaying
his Wall Street fundraisers and big oil super pacs. Our politicians deserve the embarrassment
for ignoring our citizens struggles.
Steven Mnuchin with ties to Wall Street stepped in when no one else would and fund raised for
Trump. Mnuchin is picked as secretary of treasury. Big oil supported Cruz and moved to Trump with
a few superpacs that Kellyanne Conway managed. Both Wall Street and energy will be deregulated.
Also tax reform for corporations. He will have to follow through on new trade deals, tax on imports
and immigration or he will only help the 1%. We will see if he follows through...
I bet in Moscow they're quite enjoying this notion Putin can simply dismiss any govt on earth
by simply letting loose a few hackers and propagandists. And probably thinking if only.
The west looks like its collectively losing its marbles. Political systems, like tastes and
fashion change naturally over time. Our two party systems struggle to cope with any change, thus
the bewildered politicians within these parties lash out.
On November 25, 2016, the Obama administration said the results from November 8, "accurately reflect
the will of the American people." The following day, the White House released another statement
saying, "the federal government did not observe any increased level of malicious cyberactivity
aimed at disrupting our electoral process on Election Day."
And? Does anybody claim that any foreign power hacked the voting machines themselves?
The claim is that Russian directed operatives hacked the DNC, etc. in an attempt to find embarrassing
material that would damage Clinton's candidacy. They succeeded.
Doug Henwood trying to beat the Bernie Sanders drum. What I heard from Bernie Sanders Townhall
in Wisconsin is that people blamed illegal immigrants for their situation. Deep down inside they
have been Trump supporters for a while. That is why Trump won Wisconsin.
A Labour MP is claiming that Putin also fixed the Brexit vote - which also shows how people will
blame anyone but themselves for losing a vote. There is not one Clinton supporter who would have
complained about the result had she won the Electoral College and lost the popular vote.
That is not to say that the system should not be changed but Democrats and/or Clintonites should
not try to change it retrospectively. That would mean chaos.
Totally agree with this article by Mr. Henwood. If Democrats, and Republicans for that matter,
want to go on a wild goose chase to blame Russians for the election outcome, with basically no
hard evidence to back their claim, rather than look at the real reasons why they lost (disaffected
angry citizens and not being able to compete with Trump because they chose lousy candidates) then
they deserve to continue losing their future elections. So be it.
If she had not spent so much time calling Trump a Misogynist while taking money from Saudi Arabia
then maybe , just maybe she would have not come across as the most deceitful and toxic candidate
the US has ever seen.
Hillary Clinton lost Pennsylvania, Michigan & Wisconsin solely because of NAFTA & TPP. Bill &
Hillary Clinton supported NAFTA. Hillary Clinton had a history of supporting TPP & Obama was actively
pushing it. When Hillary Clinton changed her position on TPP people in the old industrial heartland
were not convinced that was sincere. The Russians were not responsible for Hillary, Bill & Obama's
history of support for trade deals that facilitate moving jobs to low wage countries that suppress
unions, allow unsafe working conditions & don't have meaningful environmental regulations.
Julian Assange denies that the Russian government was the source of the hacked emails
to and from Clinton campaign chair John Podesta that WikiLeaks published. Of course, there's
no way of knowing if he's telling the truth but regardless of their source, how much influence
did they have on the election outcome?
oh, right
so when the Wikileaks reveals evilness of the conservatives, it's good, but when the liberals
get revealed, he's not telling the truth?
give me a break.
Wikileaks is a neutral source, not a conservative or a liberal one.
I agree with you. However may I add that the point is not whether Assange is of good character
or whether Wikileaks is left or right. The point is has any Wikileaks releases been proven false
in the last 10 years or so?
Wikileaks is a neutral source, not a conservative or a liberal one.
Bull. Assange dripped, dripped, dripped the leaks so that it would do maximum damage to Clinton.
Whether he has conservative or liberal leanings is irrelevant. What in incontrovertible, however,
is that he has an anti-Clinton bias.
What the leaks revealed is exactly the kind of internal policy debates, calibration of message,
and gossipy venting that occurs in any political campaign. Only out of context did they appear
damaging.
The other big elephant in the room is that nearly half of those eligible to vote did not. Instead,
the hysterical US media engage the gullible populace in yet another game of mass distraction,
and soon Putin will be forgotten and all will salivate over the Oscar nominations. Thus the United
States of Amnesia will settle into its usual addictive habit of running after any "news" that
holds the promise of distractive entertainment. Never mind the nation's democracy... "We amuse
ourselves to death" (Neil Postman).
Otto Bismarck once said: "laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made"
To paraphrase, I guess you could also say the same about elections. Leaks revealing behind
the curtains shenanigans of any election would turn most stomachs. After seeing this election
I may become a vegetarian.
Too right. It was always Hillary's election to lose and she lost it simply because she was
not to be trusted. Her very public endorsement by gangster capitalist Jay-Z told you all you needed
to know about who she represented.
I used to work for an American oil company. Clinton was the one thing that united Democrats and
Republicans over lunch time chats. She was unsuitable, and unfit for office. People voted not
necessarily for Trump, but against Clinton. Don't blame Trump for this result. Blame the democrats
and their poor candidates. So far I like his choice of cabinet members. Except for the banker
they are men that create wealth by providing work for talented people. Not something the Guardian
understands.
So your prime character witness for Hillary Clinton is.....Bill Clinton.
Good luck with that.
FYI mishandling protectively marked documents is wrongdoing, which James Comey testified that
she had. Had it been ANYBODY other than a presidential candidate their feet wouldn't have touched
the floor.
What the author fails to emphasize is the degree to which Dem. party 'insiders' like DWSchulz
and DBrazile and so on sabotaged their own nomination process by biasing the pre-primary and primary
contests in favor of Clinton in subtle and stupidly obvious ways.
Had this been a contest between Trump and B. Sanders, M. O'Malley, J. Biden, E. Warren, etc.
there would have been no Podesta emails to care hack, no home server to investigate, etc. By tipping
the scales in favor of Clinton early, parts of the Dem. party caused the current outcome.
I was dubious before, but I'm now actively concerned. This crop of Democrats and their deep
state cohorts are unhinged and dangerous. They see me and my families' lives as an externality
in their eventual war with Russia. As Phyrric a victory as there could possibly be. They are psychotic;
not only waging countless coups and intelligence operations abroad, but now in plain sight on
American soil. The mainstream media seems to invoke the spirit of Goebbels more vividly with each
passing day. Their disdain and manipulation of the general populace is chilling. They see us not
as people to be won-over, but as things to be manipulated, tricked and coerced. Nothing new for
politicians (particularity the opposition) - but the levels here are staggering.
January couldn't come soon enough - and I say that as strong critic of Trump.
There is an update to yesterday's Guardian article. Update: David Swanson interviewed Murray today,
and obtained additional information. Specifically, Murray told Swanson that: (1) there were two
American leakers ... one for the emails of the Democratic National Committee and one for the emails
of top Clinton aide John Podesta; (2) Murray met one of those leakers; and (3) both leakers are
American insiders with the NSA and/or the DNC, with no known connections to Russia.
"Putin didn't win this election for Trump. Hillary Clinton did"
Nailed it. If the Democrats had fielded someone who actually represented the people (and who
spoke the truth) instead of a corporate shill, the outcome would have been very different.
They had the ideal candidate in Sanders and they fucked him out of it. But have they learned
anything? I seriously doubt it.
Mrs Clinton is not blaming others. She never did. It's the CIA - backed by the 17 US intelligence
agencies - that's saying Russia interfered with the election process in the USA.
In UK as well, the MI6 said something similar a few weeks ago. Germany is also concerned about
the next elections in France and Germany. If any of this was true then it would be a serious threat
against democracy in Western countries.
So who's blaming who? Deep cheaters or bad loosers? The CIA could be wrong but is probably
correct this time. Trying to bury this unanimous call from western secret services under contempt
is significant by itself.
" It's the CIA - backed by the 17 US intelligence agencies - that's saying Russia interfered with
the election process in the USA. "
Way to parrot FAKE NEWS.
That is a COMPLETE LIE. Unless you honestly believe that agencies like the DEA and NASA's "intelligence"
conclusively found "proof" that does not exist. That TALKING POINT was a lie when CLINTON'S CAMPAIGN
originated it, and it is STILL a lie.
But hey, it's only wrong when the "bad guys" on the "other team" spread fake news and engage
in intellectual dishonesty, right? When it's the "good guys" it's just a case of the "ends justify
the means" and perfectly acceptable, right?
"Mrs Clinton is not blaming others. She never did."
Bullshit. Just last week she resurfaced (can't she grasp the idea of the graceful exit?) to
yammer on about the menace of "fake news". Because of course we all know that before 2016, all
American elections have been exercises in fair-mindedness and scrupulous devotion to truth.
It's funny how media simply refuses to admit that Trump did it.
Russians, Hilary, polar bears - none of them had anything to do with it - HE WON.
Live with it.
The clickbait headline is frustrating. No serious person is accusing Russia of having caused Clinton's
loss. Instead, serious people (including, thankfully, leading Republicans) are demanding that
we take a thoughtful and comprehensive look at the evidence that Russia intended to influence
the election. That's a necessary step for protecting our democracy and it's irresponsible to ascribe
political motives to that task.
There was a good article in The Intercept the other regarding the CIA's unsubstantiated (and subserviently
published by the media) claims of Russian interference - how it has essentially become a willy-waving
contest between the CIA and the FBI in the wake of the elections; how the CIA is an inherently
untrustworthy organisation and the media allowing "senior officials" to dictate the news with
empty leaks and no evidence (while shouting the loudest about fake news) is folly.
Very true. It takes an abysmal candidate to lose against (quoting Jimmy Dore here:) Donny Tinyhands.
It takes a special brand of dense to run
- for Wall Street (against reinstatement of Glass Steagall)
- for a direct military confrontation with nuclear power Russia (wich Clinton's pet-project of
no-fly zones in Syria would have signified)
- for trade deals (nobody bought Clinton was suddenly against that)
and expect the DEMOCRATIC base to turn out.
Jesus Christ, Donny ran to the left of Hillary on all three issues. Not that anyone trusts him
to keep any promise, but at least he didn't outright spit in the face of the people who want less
war, less neoliberalism and less Wall Street cronyism while running for election.
No Democratic candidate worth his/her name would have lost against Trump, not even if the Axis
of Evil (whoever that currently is) had hacked all their emails, photobooks and private porn-flicks,
in which they starred, and had them all run nonstop 24/7 on every screen on Earth.
I'm shocked!!! Aren't the Russians to blame for everything???
My t.v breaking, the rain outside, brexit, Donald trump, the Iraq war, the death of Jesus, those
damn Russians, nothing is safe around those monsters.
Hilarious
I am so sick and tired of hearing those whining elite democrats gone incessantly about white
males , the FBI , Putin , Russia , stupid red state citizens , etc., etc ..
I want say ' Shut the fuck up -- ..... and look in the bloody mirror ' .
I am a classic liberal .... always have been ..... always will be ...... and I don't know what
you would like to call these corrupt , elitist , contemporary democrats but you certainly can
not call them real liberals .
I call them designer democrats . They care only for their particular pet issues and they ongoing
pursuit of notions of their own superiority . They routinely generalize in highly sexist and racist
fashions and through the use of political correctness seek to silence all of their critics .
I , simply , loath them .
They sabotaged Bernie Sanders campaign . Bernie Sanders ..... the nicest , most caring man
to come along in American politics in the past 50 years . Not since , FDR , John and Robert Kennedy
have we seen such hope for average people .
But oh , no ..... Bernie was an outsider ..... not part of their corrupt , elite club . He
was a threat to their ongoing party . He had to go .
They didn't give a shit about what was good for the people . They only cared about themselves
and their exploitation of the Democratic Party and it's traditional status ..... and their vulgar
corruption of genuine liberalism for their own purposes .
The Democratic Party establishment will now undergo a long , long overdue cleansing . The Clintons
are the first to go as they should be . Two total career political scoundrels , if ever there
were any . Lies and secrecy were all that you ever got from them aside form the horrific repeal
of the 'Glass-Steggall Act ' and the Stock Trade Modernization Bill which lead to the licensing
of the financial elite to plunder the economy , ruin the lives of countless average Americans
and turn the economy into a complete casino .
Elitist to the core , they were .
Imagine an elite , spoon fed , self-interested urbanite like Hillary Clinton telling some poor
white male schmuck living in some small town , who for economic reasons has never had a good full
time time and works 3 temporary part-time jobs to pay the bills that he is privileged .
Bloody ridiculous --
Talk about overt sexism . Talk about overt racism .
It's these kinds of behaviours that doomed Hillary Clinton .
She only has herself to blame .
If she really had cared about average people she would have not sabotaged Bernie Sanders and
she would have stepped aside back in June when every poll indicated the she could not beat Trump
and that Bernie could beat him by 10 to 15 points .
Now , we the people are stuck with a Trump presidency ..... something which you can pretty
much be assured is going to be un mitigated disaster in ways that we can't even begin to imagine
yet .
Lord help us .
Good-bye Democratic Party elites ..... don't let the fucking door hit on the way out .
I wish I could say that it was nice knowing you but it wasn't .
Go off to your designer lives and pontificate about what is good for people ..... a subject
that you know little about and really don't give a damn .
Go back to Davos and party with the financial global elite for they are really your people
.... your kind . Certainly , average hardworking , genuinely liberal people are not .
Liberalism exists for all people not just the self-anointed few .
Have you noticed how recently the 'we are not racist and you are' left have started to use the
Chinese and Russians as convenient foreign bogeymen to scare the people with?
Awkward economic figures, blame the Chinese.
Awkward diplomatic issues or you lost a vote, blame the Russians.
The problem with this is that our media then amplifies these attacks on China and Russia, they
hear them, and they start to resent it and respond. And our future relations with two major world
powers are made worse than they needed to be.
A good article to counterbalance the reams of rubbish we are hearing in the US election post-mortem.
Anyone who had neural activity should have known that when you steal the candidacy, you certainly
won't get the votes. Clinton effectively handed the election to Trump by not having the humility,
humanity and honesty to admit defeat by Benie Sanders.
He was not a perfect choice, but he could have been a candidate who was everything that Trump
wasn't - uncorrupted, honest, and with a clearly thought out and principled agenda.
All Trump was facing was someone as entitled and establishment as he was,. but with less of
what passes for 'the human touch' across the pond.
There's always the possibility of course, that the US establishment realised Clinton's
blatant warmongering wasn't 'good for business'.
The Russians are no doubt aware that the US has to try and cut the Gordian knot - Washington
cannot face down China and Russia at the same time; and the two countries are mutually supportive
in the UN and are developing many economic projects together.
So maybe, they thought, we can get the Russkies 'on side', deal with China (ie. reduce
it to a 'client state'/ turn it into an ashtray) - and then move on Russia and grab all those
lovely resources freed up by global warming....
Seems to me like the Clinton agenda of big oil, big banks and alot of lies won the WH. Hillary's
big corporate donors are on Trumps transition team. Surely they didnt want her to win, since she
adopted Sanders regulatory, tax the wealthy platform, hence Clinton was duped with marketing strategy
which turned voters off, she was reduced to name calling over promotong policy...what did she
represent? Only her campaign volunteers knew, her message to the public was "dont vote for
Trump" which translates to, I could lose to him, vote for me!
The Podesta emails confirmed what many people already suspected and knew of Hillary and her
campaign. Those who were interested in reading them had to actually look for them, since MSM was
not reporting on them. It's not as if an avid MSNBC or CNN watcher was going to be exposed.
So, if you were seeking them out, A: you probably already suspected those things and B: you
weren't going to vote for Hillary to begin with.
It's hilarious how the major Left outlets (Washington Post) are now telling it's readers
how Russia is to blame for people voting against Hillary due to the Podesta emails, when they
didn't even report on the emails in the first place.
FINALLY sanity intrudes. For one article and one day. But hey , progress is progress. Trump will
NOT be what you think him to be. He will be far better. He will still do things you don't like,
but not REALLY bad things. :-)
There was no reason to vote for Clinton as the article says. She offered nothing except the
entitlement of HER. It wasn't enough. Thank The Gods. EVERYTHING about the system all
halfway decent people detest, is summed up in the figure of Hillary Clinton. And evidently
(and I stand to be corrected) she didn't even have the stones not to melt down on election night
and Podesta had to go out there and be a complete buffoon.
Trump might be an unknown but Clinton and her used up party were a complete known. Like
Donald said, she had 'experience', but it was all BAD 'experience'. Trump might not fix the
problems but at least he's going to try. Clinton didn't even see the problems.
she is a frail, withered old woman who needs to retire - def the wrong democrat choice, crazy -- Berni.S would have won if for them - he is far more sincere
Here is the key paragraph: "The displaced machinists... believe that free trade deals are
responsible for their economic woes and they never trusted Clinton's turn against the TPP. But
that was Clinton's campaign for you, bereft of principle and pathologically concerned with "optics"
at the expense of substance." Funny the author fails to notice that that describes to a T
Trump's campaign, and actually his whole life. That description applies to Trump several orders
of magnitude moreso than it applies to Hillary Clinton's life. If you think Trump is really interested
in bringing jobs, especially good paying jobs back, you are willfully blind.
"Putin didn't win this election for Trump. Hillary Clinton did"
Trump won, he played the game brilliantly to the rules (including the electoral college system),
Clinton lost (you can't win it for the opposition, you can just lose, and the Democrats didn't
put out their best hope) and Putin was irrelevant in terms of any interference (although maybe
Trump voters would rather the US develop a better relationship with Russia, but that's down to
Trump in playing that card).
This argument is as asinine as the one the author opposes. It was a collusion of events that
led to this result, including the failure of both parties to adapt to an evolving economic
and social climate over decades. The right wing hailing the collapse of liberalism as a result
of decades of liberal mismanagement conveniently forget their own parties have held the reins
for half that time, and failed just as miserably as the left....
It's quite bizarre to see "progressives" openly side with the military industrial complex,
which is threatened by a president elect weary of more warfare.
It's to be expected from career politicians like McCain who is kicking and screaming, but
it's shameful to see supposed liberally-minded people help spread the Red Scare storyline.
The Democrats are in full blown tantrum mode, throwing teddies out of their pram and spitting
dummies across the room, because their warmonger and deceitful candidate HRC, didn't win, that's
why there has been all this bad news nonsense about Putin and/or Russia since last week.
Obama has behaved dreadfully, first he or his office gets one of its poodles namely MI6 to
point the finger at Putin re cyberwar, which was swiftly followed by the International Olympic
Committee looking at Russia for 2012 Olympic games, the elections in the US and the Democrats
CIA coming out with unsubstantiated nonsense (funny how they never like, providing collaborative
evidence - on this or anything that supposedly Russia has done) then there is Syria, and Obama
and the Democrats were the cheerleader for regime change, because they have been out manoeuvred
in that sphere. All of it in less than a week.
If Obama, the administration, and the CIA were smart they would have realised that a concerted
effort to blame Putin / Russia would be seen for what it is - a liar and one of trying to discredit
both the outcome of the US elections, the dislike of HRC, and her association with Wall St. -
she raised more money for her campaign than Trump and Sanders put together (if the Democrats had
chosen Sanders, then they would have stood a chance) and that their hawk would not be in a position
to create WW111 - thank goodness. The Democrats deserved what they got.
This organ of the liberal media (no scare quotes required - it is socially liberal and economically
neoliberal), along with many others, dogmatically supported Clinton against Sanders to the point
of printing daily and ridiculous dishonesty, even going so far as to make out as if anyone who
supports any form of wealth redistribution is a racist, sexist, whitesplaining dude-bro.
Or more precisely the Superdelegates and the Democratic National Committee did. Her Goldman/Morgan
Stanley speechs were in 2013 ffs, they all knew she had form and was 'viewed as an insider' as
Obama put it in The New Yorker interview.
The election was close, and if one less thing had gone wrong for Hillary she would have won.
However I think an important thing that lost her the election was identity politics. She patronized
Afro-Americans and Hispanics, by tell them that because they are Trump-threatened minorities,
they should vote for her. In the same vein, gays and women were supposed to vote for her. But
what she was really telling these groups was that they should revel in their supposed victimhood,
which was not a great message.
Completely agreed! The onus for defeat belongs to the Democrat party leadership as well. Donald
Trump and Bernie Sanders both understood where the momentum of the election was headed before
anyone else did. The election was won and lost in the white blue collar Midwest. A place that
decided that diet corporatism is decidedly worse than a populist right wing extremist.
No one here believed the ridiculous about-face Hillary pulled on the question of the TPP.
I guarantee you Bernie would have cleaned Trump's clock in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan,
and perhaps Ohio and Iowa.
"Our self-image as the world's greatest democracy...." Well, speaking for myself and plenty
of other Americans, I never said anything like that about us. In fact, like a lot of people I
wish we would stick to our own business, quit trying to be the world's cop, and cease meddling
in other countries' affairs.
If we do that, then I could care less about our image or what the rest of the world thinks.
Let some other country be the "leader of the Free World." Who died and left the US in charge,
anyway? Not one war we have fought since WWII has been worth the price of one drop of American
blood.
Assuming that it really was the Russians who done it, I guess they had a better game plan
than the Saudis. I consider the Russians to have done us a favor of sorts by exposing Hillary's
secret Wall Street speeches and the machinations of the DNC. Her 'deplorables' comment was
every bit as telling as Mitt Romney's '47%'. We really needed to know about her 'public versus
private positions', even if it only confirmed what everybody already knew. I am not 100% sure
the system made the worst choice in raising up Donald Trump.
And even so, if it takes four years of Trump to remove the people who thought Hillary was a
good candidate from power in the Democratic Party, it may work out for the best in the long run.
And if it takes four years of Trump to show the people who voted for Trump that Republican ideologues
can only make their problems worse, so be it. It's mostly the hubris that amuses me at this point.
They thought they were the pros. They had the money. They had the ground game. All they did wrong
was to preselect and preordain a candidate nobody wanted.
abuses women, advances the cause of racism, attacks women's rights, is xenophobic
The American voters heard a steady stream of these arguments. Some may have simply ignored
them. Others took them into consideration, but concluded that they wanted drastic change enough
to put them aside. White women decided that Trump's comments, while distasteful, were things they'd
heard before.
Reliance on the sanctity of racial and gender pieties was a mistake. Not everyone treats
these subjects as the holiest of holies. The people who would be most swayed by those arguments
never would have voted for Trump anyways.
Colin Powell did not advise Clinton to do that, and even if he did she was a fool to take his
advice when her boss Obama explicitly told her not to keep a private server. Colin Powell
said Clinton destroys everything she touches with hubris. Seeing as how she destroyed the democrat
"blue wall" and also had low turnout which hurt democrats down the ticket I agree.
Zero evidence other than "he said, she said" regarding any involvement of Russian espionage agencies
in the U.S. elections but the left, incredulous once the result didn't go their way, are now clinging
to anything to divert attention from the issues that HRC ignored and Trump embraced.
All this hysteria about the USA and Russia finally working together than apart doesn't
help either for it appears that the [neoliberal] lefties want a perpetual war rather than peace.
The CIA being outraged about a foreign state intervening in an election is quite funny. They
have intervened so many times, especially in Latin America, to install puppet regimes.
As for hacking... does anybody believe the CIA has never hacked anybody?
Anyway, had the emails not existed, there would have been nothing with which to help Trump.
The Democrats have only themselves to blame. Bernie Sanders or ANY other candidate without the
Clintons baggage could have done a better job f beating Trump. They wanted Hillary at all cost;
they lost!
A major threat to liberty is the assault on the right to discuss political issues, seek out alternative
information sources, and promote dissenting ideas and causes such as non-interventionism in foreign
and domestic affairs. If this ongoing assault on free speech succeeds, then all of our liberties
are endangered.
One of the most common assaults on the First Amendment is the attempt to force public policy organizations
to disclose their donors. Regardless of the intent of these laws, the effect is to subject supporters
of controversial causes to harassment, or worse. This harassment makes other potential donors afraid
to support organizations opposing a popular war or defending the rights of an unpopular group.
Many free speech opponents support laws and regulations forbidding activist or educational organizations
from distributing factual information regarding a candidate's positions for several months before
an election. The ban would apply to communications that do not endorse or oppose any candidate. These
laws would result in the only sources of information on the candidate's views being the campaigns
and the media.
Recently the Federal Election Commission (FEC) rejected a proposal to add language exempting books,
movies, and streaming videos from its regulations. The majority of FEC commissioners apparently believe
they should have the power, for example, to ban Oliver Stone's biography of Edward Snowden, since
it was released two months before the election and features clips of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump
discussing Snowden.
The latest, and potentially most dangerous, threat to the First Amendment is the war on "fake
news." Those leading the war are using a few "viral" Internet hoaxes to justify increased government
regulation - and even outright censorship - of Internet news sites. Some popular websites, such as
Facebook, are not waiting for the government to force them to crack down on fake news.
Those calling for bans on "fake news" are not just trying to censor easily-disproved Internet
hoaxes. They are working to create a government-sanctioned "gatekeeper" (to use Hillary Clinton's
infamous phrase) with the power to censor any news or opinion displeasing to the political establishment.
None of those wringing their hands over fake news have expressed any concern over the fake news stories
that helped lead to the Iraq War. Those fake news stories led to the destabilizing of the Middle
East, the rise of ISIS, and the deaths of millions.
The war on "fake news" has taken a chilling turn with efforts to label news and opinion sites
of alternative news sources as peddlers of Russian propaganda. The main targets are critics of US
interventionist foreign policy, proponents of a gold standard, critics of the US government's skyrocketing
debt, and even those working to end police militarization. All have been smeared as anti-American
agents of Russia.
Just last week, Congress passed legislation creating a special committee, composed of key federal
agencies, to counter foreign interference in US elections. There have also been calls for congressional
investigations into Russian influence on the elections. Can anyone doubt that the goal of this is
to discredit and silence those who question the mainstream media's pro-welfare/warfare state propaganda?
The attempts to ban "fake news;" smear antiwar, anti-Federal Reserve, and other pro-liberty movements
as Russian agents; and stop independent organizations from discussing a politician's record before
an election are all parts of an ongoing war on the First Amendment. All Americans, no matter their
political persuasion, have a stake in defeating these efforts to limit free speech.
dirtscratcher
Snνpιir_Ag_Obair ,
Dec 13, 2016 11:45 AM
For the MSM to declare war on 'fake news' they would have to shoot themselves in the head (instead
of the foot). A delightful idea, now that I think about it.
Traditional left is equal protection under the law, against imperial war and, most importantly,
pro-justice for the working and middle classes (i.e., against off-shoring mfg, etc.).
All this nonsense PC and identity politics is designed to divide the left (the working class)
on the core issues.
from my Easter European point of view (after a decade spent in the USSA) - Democrats seem much
more Stalininst and totalitarian than Republicans. $hitlery really reminds me of former prez Milosevic's
ugly wife (she was also politically involved and as totalitarian as $hitlery)
They are not "pro-immigration", they are against an intrusive police state that use illegal immigration
as an excuse to adopt artificial measures. Do you find logic that in many states you have in parallel
1) Welfare for refugees & illegal immigrants
2) Other government services as well
3) Money use to crack down on business with spot checks to see if they hire illegal immigrants
4) Money use to increase the patrols along the border or even build a wall
5) Naturalization of illegal immigrants after a few years of residence
Usually when the media organize a debate it's always rigged
On one side you will have the guy/woman who say that Westerners are selfish because they need
to offer more to those who arrive and adapt themselves to the new migrants
On the other side the guy/woman who will say that we are at war with Islam, that they have
wage a war on us with this invasion and that some asses need to be kick out overthere, Assad,
Ghadafi, Iran, you can name them, martial law is necessary to defend ourself by bombing them.
The fake news accusation is possible to counter. ... Let them call you a 'Fake News' website all
they want. ..
Post and publish well researched and truthful news and then let MSM do your advertising for
you. ... Call yourself "Fake News - 'Something'" and let the MSM lying fuckers send you traffic.
When they say fake news said this, that or something else and people search you out to hear all
your 'fake news' and discover your reports are more on the mark than all the fictional gibberish
MSM is trying to feed them, MSM loses it's audience even more.
Truth has a way of bubbling to the top. ..... Just look at the story of ZeroHedge.
Send in the lawyers if you have to.
Live Hard, Sue The Deep Pockets Of MSM When They Lie, Die Free
Enough with "the Russians" already. This "Russian Disinformation" and "Russian Hacking" stuff
is getting more ridiculous by the day.
First, don't let the irony escape you that most, if not all, of the pundits breathlessly blaming
the Russians for "fake news" and "election interference" are the very ones who were saying that Hillary
Clinton was a shoe-in for president. They're the ones who were providing her campaign with questions
in advance, and allowing her people to approve/disapprove of articles.
Secondly, many of the entities blamed for spreading "Russian propaganda" were the ones with the
audacity to tell the truth about the Clinton crime family and spread knowledge of the information
released by Wikileaks. Obviously, I'm not including
those Macedonian college kids in this, but keep in mind that they weren't doing it for the Russians
they were doing it to make money.
This isn't about the Russians at all, which anyone with half a brain realizes is absolutely ridiculous.
Here's what this really is.
This is a war on the Trump presidency. It's an attempted coup.
Maybe it's even another effort to outright steal the presidency from Trump. Maybe there's someone
with a lot of money to throw into this "OMG THE RUSSIANS" rhetoric who really hates Russia and who
really wanted Hillary Clinton to be the President. Maybe his name rhymes with "Doros." I don't know
this for sure, but it's at least a more likely story than "The Russians" hacking our election and
deliberately spreading propaganda.
It's important to note that the MSM lost every single bit of their remaining credibility during
the last election and they're desperate to get it back. It reminds me of a high school kid who gets
caught doing something she shouldn't, who then makes up stories about another group of kids to get
people talking about them instead of her. The MSM can't accept the fact that Hillary Clinton lost,
despite their dishonest but enthusiastic efforts to steal the election for her. They'll
collude with whoever they have to in order to become relevant again.
Do you really have any doubt that they'll collude with whoever they have to in order to become
relevant again?
About "The Russians"
The whole plotline about "the Russians" really took off when the
Washington Post published an article listing a couple hundred websites as Russian "fake news"
sites. (I know the owners of quite a few of these sites personally -as in, we've shared meals and
wine together and I can tell you, they're as American as apple pie." The Washington Post later
backtracked on the accusations but did not retract the article.
Except that when you consider that evidence by definition is definitive and the NYT admits everything
they have is circumstantial, then, doesn't that completely negates the headline? The article is sheer
speculation, just like the WaPo article that named the "fake news" sites.
What's more, the FBI completely disagrees with the CIA, and they've been very public about it.
They don't believe that there is well, evidence . I'll quote
from WaPo here .
The competing messages, according to officials in attendance, also reflect cultural differences
between the FBI and the CIA The bureau, true to its law enforcement roots, wants facts and tangible
evidence to prove something beyond all reasonable doubt. The CIA is more comfortable drawing inferences
from behavior.
"The FBI briefers think in terms of criminal standards - can we prove this in court," one of
the officials said. "The CIA briefers weigh the preponderance of intelligence and then make judgment
calls to help policymakers make informed decisions. High confidence for them means 'we're pretty
damn sure.' It doesn't mean they can prove it in court."
Give me a break. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why you should never, ever believe anything the
Washington Post refers to as investigative journalism. They have no idea what proof or evidence even
means.
There's a psy-op, all right, but it isn't "the Russians" perpetrating it.
It's the CIA (keep in mind that psyops is part of their job) working hand in hand with the MSM.
You just have to laugh at some of these headlines and quotes.
For your entertainment, enjoy the following round-up of headlines promoting the "Blame Russia"
sentiment.
Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House (
source )
House passes intelligence bill enhancing efforts against Russia (
source )
Where's the outrage over Russia's hack of the US election?" (
CNN )
Fake News, Russians, and Election Reversal (
Town Hall )
A Powerful Russian Weapon: The Spread of False Stories (
NY Times )
DID RUSSIAN AGENTS INFLUENCE THE U.S. ELECTION WITH FAKE NEWS? (
Vanity
Fair)
Experts Say Russian Propaganda Helped Spread Fake News During Election (
NPR )
Media Wakes Up To Russia's 'Fake News' Only After It Is Applied Against Hillary (
Forbes )
And then, have an eyeroll at some very silly quotes
From an interview on NPR:
"But let's remember, this was a very close vote where just, you know, a few tens of thousands
of votes in a few states ended up making the difference. So I don't know, if you believe that
the kind of information that crashes through all of our social media accounts affects how we think
and potentially how we vote, I think you would conclude that this kind of stuff does matter."
(
source )
From the NY Times:
"RT [Russia Today] often seems obsessed with the United States, portraying life there as hellish.
On the day President Obama spoke at the
Democratic National Convention , for example, it emphasized scattered demonstrations rather
than the speeches. It defends the Republican presidential nominee, Donald J. Trump, as an underdog
maligned by the established news media." (
source )
From a secret mystery source on CNN:
"There was no way that any one could have walked out of there with that the evidence and conclude
that the Russian government was not behind this." (
source )
From CBS:
Responding to intelligence officials' report that Russia
tried to influence the U.S. presidential election in favor of President-elect Donald Trump,
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Arizona) on Sunday said he doesn't know
what to make of Mr. Trump's dismissal of the issue.
"I don't know what to make of it because it's clear the Russians interfered," he told CBS'
"Face the Nation." "Whether they intended to interfere to the degree that they were trying to
elect a certain candidate, I think that's a subject of investigation. But facts are stubborn things.
They did hack into this campaign." (
source )
Politico reported:
"Donald Trump's insult-laced dismissal of reports that the CIA believes Russia hacked the 2016
election to help him is rattling a spy community already puzzled over how to gain the ear and
trust of the incoming president." (
source )
While some of the efforts are laughable, the end result could be incredibly serious.
And by serious, I mean devastating. It could result in civil war. It could result in World War
III.
Despite the inadvertent hilarity, this is a blatant effort to keep President-Elect Trump out of
the White House and to silence the opposition.
We learned that some people will do anything to remain in power.
We're watching them do anything right now.
Never has an election been so vehemently contested. Never has our country been so divided. If
the election results are cast aside, what do you really think will happen? Do you think Trump supporters
will just sigh and accept it?
And what about Russia?
Just a few months ago, we were
on the verge of war with them . By scapegoating "The Russians," if this psy-op is successful,
and Trump is kept out of office, what do you think is going to happen with tensions between the two
countries?
Enough with "the Russians" already. The real conspiracy is happening right here in America.
Glenn Greenwald
notes that in the face of Trump and Brexit (which were
primarily caused by
economic
policies which have created
massive inequality ) the Democratic National committee is trying to blame everybody and everything
but their own status quo policies and candidates which rig the system for the fatcats and hurt the
little guy:
The indisputable fact is that prevailing institutions of authority in the West, for decades,
have relentlessly and with complete indifference stomped on the economic welfare and social security
of hundreds of millions of people. While elite circles gorged themselves on globalism, free trade,
Wall Street casino gambling, and endless wars (wars that enriched the perpetrators and sent the
poorest and most marginalized to bear all their burdens), they completely ignored the victims
of their gluttony, except when those victims piped up a bit too much - when they caused a ruckus
- and were then scornfully condemned as troglodytes who were the deserved losers in the glorious,
global game of meritocracy.
***
A
short, incredibly insightful, and now more relevant than ever post-Brexit Facebook note by
the Los Angeles Times's Vincent Bevins wrote that "both Brexit and Trump_vs_deep_state are the very, very
wrong answers to legitimate questions that urban elites have refused to ask for 30 years." Bevins
went on: "Since the 1980s the elites in rich countries have overplayed their hand, taking all
the gains for themselves and just covering their ears when anyone else talks, and now they are
watching in horror as voters revolt."
For those who tried to remove themselves from the self-affirming, vehemently pro-Clinton elite
echo chamber of 2016, the warning signs that Brexit screechingly announced were not hard to see.
Two short
passages
from
a Slate interview I gave in July summarized those grave dangers: that opinion-making elites
were so clustered, so incestuous, so far removed from the people who would decide this election
- so contemptuous of them - that they were not only incapable of seeing the trends toward Trump
but were unwittingly accelerating those trends with their own condescending, self-glorifying behavior.
***
The warning lights were flashing in neon for a long time, but they were in seedy places that
elites studiously avoid. The few people who purposely went to those places and listened,
such as Chris Arnade , saw and heard them loud and clear. The ongoing failure to take heed
of this intense but invisible resentment and suffering guarantees that it will fester and strengthen.
This was the last paragraph of my July article on the Brexit fallout:
Instead of acknowledging and addressing the fundamental flaws within themselves, [elites]
are devoting their energies to demonizing the victims of their corruption, all in order to
delegitimize those grievances and thus relieve themselves of responsibility to meaningfully
address them. That reaction only serves to bolster, if not vindicate, the animating perceptions
that these elite institutions are hopelessly self-interested, toxic, and destructive and thus
cannot be reformed but rather must be destroyed. That, in turn, only ensures there will be
many more Brexits, and Trumps, in our collective future.
***
Democrats have already begun flailing around trying to blame anyone and everyone they can
find - everyone except themselves - for last night's crushing defeat of their party.
You know the drearily predictable list of their scapegoats: Russia, WikiLeaks, James Comey,
Jill Stein, Bernie Bros, The Media, news outlets (including, perhaps especially, The Intercept)
that sinned by reporting negatively on Hillary Clinton. Anyone who thinks that what happened
last night in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Michigan can be blamed on any of that
is drowning in self-protective ignorance so deep that it's impossible to express in words.
***
Put simply, Democrats knowingly chose to nominate a deeply unpopular, extremely vulnerable,
scandal-plagued candidate, who - for very good reason - was widely perceived to be a protector
and beneficiary of all the worst components of status quo elite corruption. It's astonishing
that
those of us who tried frantically to warn Democrats that nominating Hillary Clinton was a huge
and scary gamble - that all empirical evidence showed that she could lose to anyone
and Bernie Sanders would be a much stronger candidate, especially in this climate - are now
the ones being blamed: by the very same people who insisted on ignoring all that data and nominating
her anyway.
But that's just basic blame shifting and self-preservation. Far more significant is what
this shows about the mentality of the Democratic Party. Just think about who they nominated:
someone who - when she wasn't dining with Saudi monarchs and being feted in Davos by tyrants
who gave million-dollar checks - spent the last several years piggishly running around to Wall
Street banks and major corporations cashing in with $250,000 fees for 45-minute secret speeches
even though she had already become unimaginably rich with book advances while her husband already
made tens of millions playing these same games. She did all that without the slightest apparent
concern for how that would feed into all the perceptions and resentments of her and the Democratic
Party as corrupt, status quo-protecting, aristocratic tools of the rich and powerful: exactly
the worst possible behavior for this post-2008-economic-crisis era of globalism and destroyed
industries.
***
Trump vowed to destroy the system that elites love (for good reason) and the masses hate
(for equally good reason), while Clinton vowed to manage it more efficiently. That, as Matt
Stoller's
indispensable article in The Atlantic three weeks ago documented, is the conniving choice
the Democratic Party made decades ago: to abandon populism and become the party of technocratically
proficient, mildly benevolent managers of elite power. Those are the cynical, self-interested
seeds they planted, and now the crop has sprouted.
Indeed, the Dems re-elected Mrs. Status Quo Nancy Pelosi as minority leader. And Pelosi
claims :
I don't think people want a new direction.
Similarly, outgoing Senate minority leader Harry Reid
says
:
I don't think the Democratic Party is in that big of trouble.
I mean, if Comey kept his mouth shut, we would have picked up a couple more Senate seats and
we probably would have elected Hillary.
Of course, the whole claim that Russia hacked the U.S. election
is baseless as
is the whole
hysterical
claim that Russian propaganda swung the election.
But it's not just America
After Brexit and Italexit with a potential
Frexit looming on the horizon the status quo in Europe is also trying to shift attention (look,
squirrel!) from their failed policies to boogeymen.
For example, European leaders
are
also
claiming that Russian propaganda is interfering with European values.
And Germany's incredibly unpopular Social Democratic party is
claiming
that Russia might hack its election.
A former British cabinet member
alleges that Russian hackers "probably" swayed the Brexit vote.
And Washington Post national security reporter at Adam Entous told BBC this week that a CIA official
claims that Russia hacked
the Brexit vote, and the vote in Ukraine (starting around 1:09:58).
What's next the status quo starts blaming their electoral losses on little green men?
"... What is ALREADY going on with Trump, Dems, Russia is fascinating and he is NOT EVEN SWORN in yet!!! WOW! The war mongers are REALLY panicking . Anti commie its the new politically correct viewpoint . ..."
"... adding: "a party of buck-passing juveniles that have no vision for the future " ..."
"... Republicans have an agenda. It's terrible but they have one. Democrats represent rule by the professional class, including bankers. That's it. Publicly, they're for rainbows, good things and bringing people together. ..."
"... Several of my Democratic friends are simultaneously convinced that Trump is a Russian stooge and outraged that he won't listen to his daily national security briefings. ..."
"... No. First, access was granted by .. Hillary and Podesta and their own idiocy ( her with the server, him with the pas*word) . IMO we are entitled to know what was in the emails. It certainly did not change my vote nor did it change the vote of anyone I know. ..."
"... I think both Clinton and Trump would be terrible presidents but it has been obvious since she lost that Hillary is unable to accept this to the point of mental illness. First she tried to have her proxies do some damage and when that did not work, she counters with this. ..."
"... The anti-Trump tapes . And the one with former Miss Universe is she an American now? Do you call that 'foreign' intervention? "Former Miss Universe tries to steal election for HIllary!!!" ..."
Hillary: " Where is Steiner?!?!?!? " I don't envy whoever's gonna have to take her aside
and tell her it's really over. Poor Bill
If you boil down what Clinton and the Clintonites are saying, Putin stole the election from her,
and Trump is a Russian agent of influence. The first is a casus belli , and the second is
treason. The first demands a response at the very least of recalling our Ambassador from Moscow.
That hasn't happened, which tells you that the people responsible for such things (Obama) don't take
Clinton's casus belli seriously. The second calls for a solution "by any means necessary"
(exactly as Clinton's previous claim, that Trump is a fascist, does).
"By any means necessary" would include anything from a
von Stauffenberg solution
(no doubt the CIA has a wet team) all the way up to a coup. (This last is hard to imagine, since
a coup demands occupying physical space with armed force. Who could Clinton call on?)
So what the Clintonites have settled on is trying get the Electoral College to reverse the election.
I can't imagine this coming to anything, since the majority of the electors - since Trump won the
election - are Republicans
If I were a Trump voter, and a bunch of electors, on data that is this uncertain, and which
even if it is true amounts to "telling the truth about Hillary and Democrats" were to give the
election to Clinton I would be furious.
I would consider it a violation of democratic norms: an overturning of a valid election result
because elites didn't like the result.
And while I'm not saying they should, or I would (nor that I wouldn't), many will feel that
if the ballot box is not respected, then violence is the only solution.
If faithless electors give the election to Clinton, there will be a LOT of violence as a result,
and there might even be a civil war.
Ian is Canadian; then again, installing Clinton in office by retroactively changing the
election rules is a "cross the Rubicon" moment. At least in Maine, I wouldn't picture a Civil War,
but I would picture shattered windows in every Democrat headquarters in the state, and then we'd
go on from there. Welsh concludes:
This is where Nazi/Fascist/Hitler/Camps rhetoric leaves you. Nothing is off the table.
Either decide you mean it, or calm down and take shit off the table that is going to get a
lot of people dead if you pull it off.
Exactly.
"CIA admits it broke into Senate computers; senators call for spy chief's ouster" [
McClatchy (Re Silc)]. Fooled ya! From 2013. I'm so old I remember when anonymous CIA soruces
weren't always revered as truth-tellers.
What is ALREADY going on with Trump, Dems, Russia is fascinating and he is NOT EVEN SWORN
in yet!!! WOW! The war mongers are REALLY panicking . Anti commie its the new politically correct
viewpoint .
Yes, there is something weird going on with these stories that the CIA appears to be spreading.
MOA is saying the MSN is falsely reporting China is flying nukes it doesn't have in planes all
over the place. Just a guess but bet this too comes from CIA
China threatening us with nukes and Russia stealing our elections. The fake news B.S. quotient
is off the richter scale. Makes you yearn for the good old days when all we had to worry about
was WMD in Iraq.
except Putin & his dominant party in the Russian gov are not Commie, Putin is a right-wing
authoritarian. I suppose Putin, Trump, & HClinton could each be labeled within the right-wing
authoritarian category.
politicalcompass certaintly categorized HClinton & Trump as right-wing authoritarian, & HClinton
was closer to Trump on the graph, than she was to Sanders (left-wing libertarian)
I'd expect this 'reds under the bed' fear mongering from Fox News, not from WaPo. Guess the
Wapo is to the Dems what Fox News is to the GOP. Clarifying election, indeed.
Really? Check out where Saints Jack and Bobby were during the red scare craze of the 50's.
Freedom of speech wasn't their pet project. I know but "Dallas 1963", but there whereabouts in
the 1950's aren't the product of conspiracy theory. For the fetishists, their red hunter status
has to be ignored. Bobby was a full fledged inquisitor for McCarthy.
The Dems are throwing on the golden oldies in an attempt to relive the glory of the past.
what drives me crazy about the Russian hacking conspiracy theory is that there actually WAS
a conspiracy to steal the 2016 election, as carefully documented by Greg Palast and Brad Friedman.
It consisted of the crosscheck purge of the voting rolls, voter suppression and vapour voting
machines. That no Democrat is talking about this tells me that the party is done for.
Good points, and yes, that ticks me off as well. The D Party continues to sit on their thumbs
and do bupkiss about real voting issues while issuing Red Scare Menace 3.0.
Why bother voting Democratic? They're not going to do one blasted thing for the proles. They
haven't for years and years.
Republicans have an agenda. It's terrible but they have one. Democrats represent rule by
the professional class, including bankers. That's it. Publicly, they're for rainbows, good things
and bringing people together.
Yes, the tin foil hat theory is that this all stems from the situation in Syria The CIA's aka
HRC"s Syria regime change is a failure. The CIA had high hopes, now dashed. The only chance for
war with Russia is to get HRC installed. The recount failed. So, Plan B.
There is a politico article from the wake of the 2014 disaster where elite Dems promised Hillary
would save them. An incredible amount of money, time, and reputations was put behind a loser,
not just a loser but a person who lost to Donald Trump. Anyone who donated any thing to the Clinton
effort should be crazy about Clinton Inc's conduct, so Clinton Inc needs to blame everyone but
themselves.
Let's just say for the sake of argument that the CIA and the Democrats have massively overplayed
their hand in these accusations against Russia. I suspect it wouldn't take all that much to bring
it all down like a house of cards, with a major scandal ensuing in its wake. Let's say that the
anonymous CIA source, assuming it was legit, has badly misrepresented what evidence, circumstantial
or otherwise, is there. They're "all-in" on this now. People will have to resign or get fired
within these organizations after Trump takes over because of this, wouldn't they? If their careers
are on the line, who knows what they'll resort to in order to save their own skins? Maybe this
play at flipping the Electoral College was the game all along.
The Clintons were abysmal candidates before emails were uttered. Hillary significantly under
performed Gore in 2000 in New York by a significant margin despite a candidate too extreme for
Peter King.
Every doubt about Hillary's electability was based in fact and OBVIOUS to anyone who spent
more than half a second taking the election seriously. Every Hillary primary voter who isn't a
already spectacular crook failed as citizens by putting forth a clown such a Hillary. There are
no ways around this.
Hillary just lost to Donald Trump because "liberals" are too childish to take politics seriously,
even her centrist supporters should have seen she is a clod. Of course, most centrists would stop
being centrists if they possessed critical thinking skills.
This is no less than trying to latch onto something that excuses their failures as citizens
and human beings.
Several of my Democratic friends are simultaneously convinced that Trump is a Russian stooge
and outraged that he won't listen to his daily national security briefings.
In light of the risible 'fake news' meme and NC's invocation of media related laws, here's
a reminder of another law you may find useful
Sturgeon's Law .
Sci fi writer Theodore Sturgeon was told by a critic that 90% of scifi was crap and he retorted
that 90% of everything was crap. You just need to know how to find the good stuff.
Seems like this fake 'fake news' news (c) 2016 is primed to blow up right in the face
of entities like The Times, as more and more people see that half of what they purvey
as news is as likely to be B.S. as anything coming from an alternative, or even fringe website.
What's more is that they are driving the point home that their news stories can't
be trusted, with the very same 'fake news' story they are trying to use to emphasize how comparatively
real their news is. The irony levels are off the scale. It's uncharted territory.
In order to accept this is any kind of deal ( I do not support Trump nor did I vote for him)
there are so many hidden premises you have to accept it is laughable
First let's assume that Putin himself donned a Mr Robot Hoodie and hacked the server and printed
the emails and gave them to Assange who was sitting next to him.
SO WHAT?
Is the American public so gullible? Was that somehow unfair?
No. First, access was granted by .. Hillary and Podesta and their own idiocy ( her with the
server, him with the pas*word) . IMO we are entitled to know what was in the emails. It certainly
did not change my vote nor did it change the vote of anyone I know.
It's not like all the anti-Trump tapes etc were not strategically timed to influence the election.
IS it OK if Americans do it?
Second, all they could do with Trump was run past business stuff. He did not have a public
policy record to reveal the man was not in government service.. she was. My view is that if the
public was so influenced by the emails, which had some absolutely appalling details, none of which
were forged, then they were entitled to be ,even if Hitler himself had done the hacking.
It is disheartening that , less than a month after the NYT said maybe we were biased and we
promise to be more careful they are again acting as propagandists and not pointing out all the
absurd hidden premises that must be accepted to manufacture an issue. I am still waiting for the
Times report on her "fake news" that she was under fire- obviously a story designed to influence
primary voters.
I think both Clinton and Trump would be terrible presidents but it has been obvious since she
lost that Hillary is unable to accept this to the point of mental illness. First she tried to
have her proxies do some damage and when that did not work, she counters with this.
I never recall anyone saying that the Democratic party has an absolute right to control the
flow of information in the world. AS much as i despise Trump and his stone age cabinet, I am starting
to think he is less pathological about this than her. Perhaps if this latest gambit fails she
will go the way of Lady Macbeth,
The anti-Trump tapes . And the one with former Miss Universe is she an American now? Do you call that 'foreign'
intervention? "Former Miss Universe tries to steal election for HIllary!!!"
Beverly,
=== quote ===
Just the fact that Trump has now said he thinks the CIA's cyber forensics team is the same group that tries to determine the
nuclear capacity of other countries is itself scaryand revealing. He doesn't recognize and obvious distinctions even about
incredibly important things, doesn't understand the concept of expertise, and can't distinguish between important and unimportant
things.
=== end of quote ===
Two points:
1. After Iraq WMD false claim CIA as agency had lost a large part of its credibility, because it is clear that it had succumbed
to political pressure and became just a pocket tool in the dirty neocon political games. At this time the pressure was from
neocons in Bush administration. Don't you think that it is possible that this is the case now too ?
2. It's not the job of CIA to determine who and how hacked DNC computers or any other computers in the USA. CIA mandate
is limited to foreign intelligence and intelligence aggregation and analysis. It is job of FBI and NSA, especially the latter,
as only NSA has technical means to trace from where really the attack had come, if it was an attack.
So any CIA involvement here is slightly suspect and might point to some internal conflicts within Obama administration.
It is unclear why Obama had chosen CIA Also as CIA and State Department are closely linked as CIA operatives usually use diplomatic
cover that request looks a little bit disingenuous as Hillary used to work for State Department. In this case one of the explanation
might be that it can be attributed to the desire to create a smoke screen and shield Clintons from pressure by rank-and-file
Hillary supporter (and donors) to explain the devastating defeat in electoral college votes against rather weak, really amateur
opponent.
"... Multiple CIA sources are now denouncing the Washington Post for knowingly reporting misleading national security intelligence. Intelligence insiders said no one in the Agency or in the FBI, who is running at least one parallel inquiry, has ruled out a possible internal leak within the Democratic National Committee from actor(s) inside the United States who funneled private DNC emails to WikiLeaks. ..."
Apparently CIA has finally figured out that their asses are toast. CIA has fed a constant stream
of half truths and outright rabrications to US MSM and are now turning on WaPo. CIA also has killer
drones and military powers they have no right to exercise. Apparently the rats are turning on each
other. Let the trials and subsequent executions begin.
LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC
However, the FBI reported they did not find evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the Russian
Government did such a thing. The POST reported that a secret CIA report had been presented to lawmakers
on Capitol Hill allegedly saying there was information linking Russia to the election hackings in
favor of President-elect Trump.
Now, the CIA is saying the POST got it wrong in fact, they allegedly lied. At this point I think
the whole thing is a mess, and I don't see how the American people can decipher the "real" news from
the "fake" news.
Multiple CIA sources are now denouncing the Washington Post for knowingly reporting misleading
national security intelligence. Intelligence insiders said no one in the Agency or in the FBI, who
is running at least one parallel inquiry, has ruled out a possible internal leak within the Democratic
National Committee from actor(s) inside the United States who funneled private DNC emails to WikiLeaks.
Worth noting that Ukrainian associations have been deeply embedded in most large US cities
since the early 1950s. Not unlike the AIPAC propaganda wing that pulls the strings in the
US government.
And having a KNOWN perjurer (James Clapper) presiding over this farce
of an "investigation" is just the icing on the cake.
"Senator Wyden
then asked Clapper, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on
millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" He responded "No,
sir." Wyden asked "It does not?" and Clapper said "Not wittingly.
There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect, but
not wittingly."
Then it was revealed by Edward Snowden that, why yes, in fact the
NSA does collect data on HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE HERE IN
AMERICA (probably all) and not "unwittlingly"...on fucking
purpose...snaring both Obama and Clapper in their fabricated stories
otherwise known as lies.
Clapper perjured himself before Congress,
a felony.
The next month, a Senate subcommittee launched an investigation
and found no proof of any subversive activity. Moreover, many of
McCarthy's Democratic and Republican colleagues, including
President Dwight Eisenhower, disapproved of his tactics ("I will
not get into the gutter with this guy," the president told his
aides). Still, the senator continued his so-called Red-baiting
campaign. In 1953, at the beginning of his second term as
senator, McCarthy was put in charge of the Committee on
Government Operations, which allowed him to launch even more
expansive investigations of the alleged communist infiltration
of the federal government. In hearing after hearing, he
aggressively interrogated witnesses in what many came to
perceive as a blatant violation of their civil rights. Despite a
lack of any proof of subversion, more than 2,000 government
employees lost their jobs as a result of McCarthy's
investigations.
"Have you no sense of decency, sir?"
In April 1954, Senator McCarthy turned his attention to
"exposing" the supposed communist infiltration of the armed
services. Many people had been willing to overlook their
discomfort with McCarthyism during the senator's campaign
against government employees and others they saw as "elites";
now, however, their support began to wane. Almost at once, the
aura of invulnerability that had surrounded McCarthy for nearly
five years began to disappear. First, the Army undermined the
senator's credibility by showing evidence that he had tried to
win preferential treatment for his aides when they were drafted.
Then came the fatal blow: the decision to broadcast the
"Army-McCarthy" hearings on national television. The American
people watched as McCarthy intimidated witnesses and offered
evasive responses when questioned. When he attacked a young Army
lawyer, the Army's chief counsel thundered, "Have you no sense
of decency, sir?" The Army-McCarthy hearings struck many
observers as a shameful moment in American politics.
The Fall of Joseph McCarthy
By the time the hearings were over, McCarthy had lost most of
his allies. The Senate voted to condemn him for his
"inexcusable," "reprehensible," "vulgar and insulting" conduct
"unbecoming a senator." He kept his job but lost his power, and
died in 1957 at the age of 48.
"... The authenticity of the content of the hacked/leaked emails were never in doubt. Several DNC lackeys, including the chair of the democratic national committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, were fired on the grounds of bias, fraud and even conspiracy to commit criminal acts. ..."
"... Their desperation makes them very dangerous, especially while still ostensibly in charge of many elements of gov't and, of course, the entrenched MSM. ..."
"... So can we now accept that the Russians hacked Hillarys server? Seems before the election, the Demorats kept trying to deny it happened. ..."
"... What about the DHS trying to Hack the Georgia Election Computer System? ..."
"... Not just gossip, an un-named official (not an official statement by the department head) stating with "confidence" (not evidence), off the record but reported in every major fish-wrap, that Russian hackers were interfered in our elections, AND inferring that they knew the motives/intentions behind this conjured crime. ..."
"... If there were ANY evidence, the Dems would have paraded it out in front of us loudly and proudly the second they found it. Instead, they prefer making jacka$$es out of themselves (and our country) with innuendo-based trial balloons, as everyone in the world capable of critical thinking laughs at them (us). ..."
"... So we are still "shooting the messenger"? Nobody wants to discuss the content of the Podesta emails, even though they have not been discredited in any way. ..."
Russians did not affect my votes against HRC. HRC did: Whitewater. Mena. Foster. Waco. OKC.
Ruby Ridge. Her continuing career and liberty is proof of a Conspiracy.
Gucifer said, that it was open. The sysadmin said, that it was unmodified Windows business
suite server.
Who needs more to get in, as a standard MS product? I am convinced every intelligence
agency on this earth (yes, Zimbabwian agency as well), has a copy of all emails there.
The authenticity of the content of the hacked/leaked emails were never in doubt. Several
DNC lackeys, including the chair of the democratic national committee, Debbie Wasserman Schultz,
were fired on the grounds of bias, fraud and even conspiracy to commit criminal acts.
Hillary Clinton herself can be indicted on lying under oath to Congress, conspiracy to commit
criminal acts (Paying agitators to assault the supporters of her opponents), election fraud (See
Veritas), contravening the Federal Records Act, Improper handling of classified documents, and
I won't even go into Pizzagate, Saudi funding and the Clinton Foundation, or I'll be here typing
all night.
Where it gets interesting (actually vomit-inducing disgusting), just as Julian Assange alluded,
is inside the Podesta emails that colludes with Huma Abedin's dirty laundry on her/Weiner's laptop.
The missing (deleted) emails, the references to paedophile activities and snippets of pay-for-play
inside the Clinton Foundation. These are not just embarrassing or technicalities that can be woven
into excuses, but information that could bring hanging back as the ultimate form of justice for
the perpetrators.
So, these cretins are doing what they glanced at in The Art of War: That the best defense is
offence. They are going all out full retard to save their lives using every asset they have in
the msm, intelligence, politics and oligarchy.
Look how fast they moved with H.R.6393 to criminalize alternative news. To discredit the leaked
information, to discredit the source, to attack anyone who publishes or mentions them. They will
not stop because they cannot stop. This isn't a subsidy for the failing msm, that's a bonus, this
is a fight for their existence because they have committed crimes that not a single decent person
in the world can abide. It is so horrific, I still have trouble with believing it, but the circumstantial
evidence is overwhelming.
Where this will lead is obvious -- a distraction first from the content of the leaks, false
accusations and attacks on Russia and anyone who talks about it, leading to the biggest false
accusation of all: Trump as a (willing or unwilling) foreign agent which amounts to treason and
therefore unfit to be president. Bring the hammer down on the stock market at the same time and
we have a conflagration erupting from the already boiling cauldron of American society. Too much
conjecture? Maybe.
No, you articulated what I was alluding to a few posts above (I posted before reading yours).
Their desperation makes them very dangerous, especially while still ostensibly in charge of
many elements of gov't and, of course, the entrenched MSM.
They'll create the crisis they vow to not let go to waste. Any excuse to seize ultimate
power.
No, I can't accept that the Russian's hacked Hillary's server. Not until I see some evidence.
Just repeating the same gossip a million times is not providing evidence.
Not just gossip, an un-named official (not an official statement by the department head) stating
with "confidence" (not evidence), off the record but reported in every major fish-wrap, that Russian
hackers were interfered in our elections, AND inferring that they knew the motives/intentions
behind this conjured crime.
If there were ANY evidence, the Dems would have paraded it out in front of us loudly and
proudly the second they found it. Instead, they prefer making jacka$$es out of themselves
(and our country) with innuendo-based trial balloons, as everyone in the world capable of critical
thinking laughs at them (us).
This tactic is so brutally transparent that I really fear what they are really up to......or
maybe they are this stupid?
So we are still "shooting the messenger"? Nobody wants to discuss the content of the Podesta
emails, even though they have not been discredited in any way. Classic divert and deflect
tactics which a Libtard MSM enjoys being a part of.
They probably forgot about Snowden revelation way too soon...
Either Russian intelligence officials have suddenly become extremely efficient at disrupting national
elections in the world's largest democracies or the establishment leaders of those democracies have
intentionally launched a coordinated, baseless witch hunt as a way to distract voters from their
failed policies. We have our suspicions on which is more likely closer to the truth...
Either way, per Reuters
, Germany's domestic intelligence agency is reporting a "striking increase" in Russian propaganda
and disinformation campaigns aimed at destabilizing German society, and targeted cyber attacks against
political parties.
"We see aggressive and increased cyber spying and cyber operations that could potentially endanger
German government officials, members of parliament and employees of democratic parties," Hans-Georg
Maassen, head of the BfV spy agency, said in statement.
Maassen, who raised similar concerns about Russian efforts to interfere in German elections
last month, cited what he called increasing evidence about such efforts and said further cyber
attacks were expected.
The agency said it had seen a wide variety of Russian propaganda tools and "enormous use of
financial resources" to carry out "disinformation" campaigns aimed at the Russian-speaking community
in Germany, political movements, parties and other decision makers.
The goal was to spread uncertainty, strengthen extremist groups and parties, complicate the
work of the federal government and "weaken or destabilise the Federal Republic of Germany".
Like accusations made by Hillary and Obama in the U.S., German politicians, including Chancellor
Angela Merkel, have asserted that Russian intelligence agents and media outlets have attempted to
spread "fake news" in an effort to "fan popular angst over issues like the migrant crisis." Of course,
it can't simply be that voters disagree with Merkel's "open border" policies which have resulted
in a massive influx of migrants that have been linked to increasing crime, terrorist attacks and
sexual assaults on German citizens...that would just be silly and racist and xenophobic.
German officials have accused Moscow of trying to manipulate German media to fan popular angst
over issues like the migrant crisis , weaken voter trust and breed dissent within the European
Union so that it drops sanctions against Moscow.
But intelligence officials have stepped up their warnings in recent weeks, alarmed about the
number of attacks.
Last month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she could not rule out Russia interfering
in Germany's 2017 election through Internet attacks and misinformation campaigns.
Estonian Foreign Minister Sven Mikser on Thursday said he expected Russia to continue a campaign
of "psychological warfare" and spreading false information after the cyber attacks launched during
the U.S. election.
"It's a pretty safe bet that they will try to do it again," he told Reuters in Hamburg at a
meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. "They will try to surprise
us. That's something that we should be very careful to look at and try to protect ourselves from."
While we have absolutely no doubt in Merkel and Obama's assertions that Russia has been able to
successfully sabotage national elections, it is curious that, in the U.S., Russian efforts were only
successful in certain states where voters had been disproportionately hurt by past Clinton policies
(e.g. WI, MI, PA, OH) but not in other swing states like Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado.
Exactly. The whole Putin did it narrative in the MSM is government propaganda. Nato bullshit Deep
State military industrial complex trying very hard to get the Sheeple to believe in their leaders.....
The biggest defeat for globalists would be that Europe will start looking east, towards Russia,
instead of West. Follow the money for these German politicians: bet the "Open Society Foundation"
from George Soros will be mentioned regularly.
The world would be a better place if Russia actualy did all the things they have been accused
of instead of the CIA and Germany making all this shit up.
One thing is for certain the NWO was working on Russia at the time of the election, which Clinton
was meant to be a guaranteed winner - expcept the Soros-Neocon-Clinton-DNC cabal totally fucked
up their rigging, not realising how popular Trump actually was.
NOW they are in total fucking panic trying to think of ways to get Trump out.
These neocon fucktard New World Order proponents were trying to corner Russia, remove Putin
and make Russia kow tow to the NWO and accept their new overlords. EXCEPT it was and is a total
fucking stupid idea because the result would have been nuclear war - Russia would never ever bend
to the USA and the NWO - they were totally dreaming if they believed that. And the result would
have been a military alliance between China and Russia - with Europe and the USA and Russia in
ashes.
The world dodge a nuclear bullet when Trump won. So now, having failed to overturn the
election through Stein recounts and rigging (the judges wouldn't play along) they have to go the
whole demonise Russia thing, as was their original plan. And they want to push it fast before
the EU breaks up, as the sheeple wake the fuck up to these neocon Oligarch overlords.
My bet is a major False Flag attack somewhere outrageous blamed on Russia.
These fucking neocons like Soros, Israel, Germany, Clintons and all their backers and cabal
either are totally stupid or just don't give a fuck, knowing that nuclear war is a real possibility
- AND that the USA CANNOT defend itself against nuclear attack , despite all the wankery about
their defense systems.
So these people know there is a chance of laying waste to the USA - and they don't care, it
is worth it for their NWO.
Considering that the Russians are Hollywood's favorite general purpose villains (as opposed to
the practitioners of the religion of peace, or Mexican criminals), this is hardly unexpected,
dontcha think?
last week I read that the german government was aware of the NSA spying at least since 2001. No
outrage here. Outrage only occurs if you don't have any evidence, and it's the russians. Do you
know how most of german elections are held? Paper ballots, ID-cards and lists of citizens who
are elligible to vote. There's definitely some hacking possible... Hate your politicians,
often!
Not only did they know that the NSA spied on the German government -including Merkel's mobile-
the German BND along with the NSA spied on the rest of Europe: policitians, EU officials and European
businesses.
While I will agree that if you knew where to look, in a basic fashion, everything he brought
to light was already known or knowable, at least.
The thing Snowden did was brought all the pieces together, stole the graphics (great visualizing
tools), program names and working details and evidence that these things are all possible and
on-line. ..... He brought the story together and made it very public. .........
Not something that Boos Hamilton, the CIA or the NSA would have wanted. ..
well, whatever you might think about Russian influence in the US...
... Russian influence on and in Germany (and all other european countries) is a quite different
affair. one little factoid: the so called "Russlands-Deutsche"( * ), i.e. "Russian-Germans" number
somewhere between two and three million , in Germany. we are talking here about at least one million
that speaks Russian better then German, and reads/watches Russian News
here, on this continent, we are btw somewhat used to external influences, be them Russian or
US ones
I forecasted to "Haus" some years ago that eventually the German political "status-quo" would
start to point out the Russian influence on "Alternative fόr Deutschland". That moment is nearly
there
again: US Americans might be somewhat confused about foreign influences on their political
matters
here , it has been a reality during the whole of the Cold War and after, from both the US and
Russia
just some examples:
the reports over the last years about the German parliament being spied upon and hacked by
both the CIA and the Russian intelligence services are completely plausible. Merkel was holding
up her phone... and alleged that the CIA was spying on her. again, very plausible
the EU org in Brussels was hacked/spied upon by the British intelligence services, too. again,
very plausible. indeed, now that the Brexit talks begin in a confrontational manner... there are
even more reasons for the British GCHQ to spy on Brussels
They are caled "Spaetaussiedler" Ghordius. There are about the same number of Turks in Germany.
It is true the prison population of Germany is largely Serbs, Turks, Spaetaussiedler and New Arrivals.
I hear Russian but after having millions of Russian soldiers in Germany since 1945 and huge
Russian influence back into the 18th Century that is not unusual. You can get Tax Forms in Russian
but not English.
Berlin always was the capital of the East never of the West which Adenauer cleverly placed
on the Rhine rather than the Spree. Berlin has always had to consider Russia because ONLY in the
years 1919-1939 and 1990-2016 has Germany NOT shared a border with Russia in the past 250 years.
It is German Aggression that twice brought Russian troops to Berlin
Sandmann, as often, you try to "soften the blow" of my message with some tidbits that are often
completely irrelevant
they don't call themselves "Spδtaussiedler". They call themselves Russlands-Deutsche, i.e.
Russian-Germans
their prison population is irrelevant, here. their right to vote in the German election is
they read Russian News, they watch RT in Russian, they hold up signs like "Putin save us",
and they are quite confused, to boot, and pawns in this "game"
some Germans, when they arrived, made jokes that some of those Russian-Germans hardly qualified
to "Germanness", up to saying things like "all families that in the 19th Century had once a German
Shephard as pet". but this is too, irrelevant
fact is that their numbers are substantial. fact is that they are influenced by their media
consumption from Russia. fact is that they were used to see Putin and Merkel as good friends...
until they weren't anymore, and since then they are bombarded with news how Merkel is the source
of all evils, in Europe
fact is also that the political establishments in Germany were, up to now, not that fond to
tell them anything that would make them too confused because... they are voters, too. and in a
political setup like Germany's, you don't tell hard truths to voters, and you don't insult them
as dupes
nevertheless, fact is that Russian (and US, note) influence on Germany's politics is substantial,
including that on the Russlands-Deutsche in Germany
I don't think anyone is denying the fact that Germany has become a playball of foreign powers
ever since it lost WW1, yes the first, not the second one was already desicive in that.
Now, no matter how many German-Russians there are in Germany they are still citizens of your
country, else they would not have been allowed to come back. The question for Germany needs to
be looking ahead into the future, become aware that it is dependent or even controlled by other
greater powers, a status it lost, one century ago. Its citizens should start to raise the question
which side is better for us, should we work more closely with continental Russia, with all its
ressources and land? Or should we work closer with martim ZATO? What has that relationship really
done for us, what have we truly benefitted from it?
Once there is a serious discussion going on about it, Germans will surely never support an
atlantcist such as Merkel. For the time being, I'm glad there are German-Russians at least one
branch of German society that is keenly aware of the dire situation your country is in.
" no matter how many German-Russians there are in Germany they are still citizens of your country,
else they would not have been allowed to come back "
do you live in some alternate reality planet? check yourself on this your assumption
we are talking about Russian citizens that were granted German citizenship when arriving in
Germany because of their German ancestry
the "Return of the Russian-Germans" to Germany has gone on since before and after WWI, and
the only thing that stopped it for a while was the Iron Curtain
nevertheless, it was a German policy to grant them citizenship on arrival
and no, your "Merkel the Atlanticist" is a tad... extreme. it's not about Russia or "ZATO",
here
Right, else they would not have been granted citizenship, I don't see why we should disagree on
that subject.
Regarding Merkel is not an Atlanticist, I would like a bit more of an argument just calling
it extreme but not providing information as to why is not making your argument very strong. I
have plenty of reasons to believe she is: "Allowing nuclear weaopns to be stationed in Germany
against the will of the Bundestag, not being the slightest bit affected by the NSA spying scandal,
supporting sanctions to Russia that hurt German business much more than British or American...the
list goes on and on."
samjam7, do you ever check on what you believe ? let's take only this: " (Merkel) allowing nuclear
weapons to be stationed in Germany against the will of the Bundestag "
just googled it. already in the second hit I get this:
" The Bundestag decided in March 2010 by a large majority, that the federal government should
'press for the withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from Germany.' Even the coalition agreement between
the CDU and FDP, the German government in 2009 had promised the withdrawal of nuclear weapons
from Bόchel. "
that's the German Bundestag pressing/instructing the German executive to "do something" in
that direction, yes
that's not the German Bundestag doing a law , which is the very thing it could do, being a
lawgiver
saying "the will of the Bundestag" in this is just that: propaganda. and you fell for it
the true will of the Bundestag is expressed in law. the rest is "please, try to...", so that
your "Merkel is going against the will of..." is just... stretching the truth
in the same way, there is a substantial difference between welcoming citizens of other countries
because of their ancestry and granting them citizenship versus: "they already had that German
citizenship"
Where in the above statement did I talk of law? You Germans always need everything 'schwarz auf
weiss' or its wrong....
I spoke of will and to be honest even your quote that you thankfully looked up, proofs without
any doubt that the parliament had a will, namely not to station more nuclear weapons in Bόchel.
Now that the Bundestag doesn't fight with Merkel over it 'i.e. pass a law' is related to the political
system of Germany and that its major parties are co-opted and prefer to nod off Merkel's politics
than resist it. Also it is highly questionable whether the German Parliament has the authority
to decide on these matters, as it delves into the grey area of who actually decides what kind
of troops are stationed in Germany, Merkel or the US/UK?
To call that Propaganda though is unwarranted and rather weak, or how more clearly can a Parliament
demonstrate its will?
"... William Casey (CIA Director), "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."? ..."
"... if an organization has lost trust of national security affairs it should be DISBANDED ..."
"... ...so why did Debbie Wassername-Schultz resign if the hacks were untrue about her non-neutrality toward Bernie Marx in favor of Hillary Crony? Is this not a usurpation of the peoples will and an affront to "democracy" everywhere? ..."
"... How is it that a "charity" is only a "charity" as long as the people running this "charity" remain in power? Everyone suddenly becomes "less charitable" because she lost? Why is that? Can't they say cronyism and be done with it? ..."
"... The entire story is based on a leak from Senate Staff on SSCI alleging what they were told in a briefing by CIMC. What SSCI was told is that there is no evidence of who was the hacker. Because Russia is one of many possibilities, somebody on SSCI who leaked to WaPo concluded for himself that the hacker was Russia. That is not what they were told. The vitriol should be directed toward WaPo and their Senate SSCI source. ..."
"... As the Obama Administration falls apart, expect the various players to begin to look out for themselves. ..."
"... Obama is hanging everyone out to dry in the futile attempt to save his own 'legacy'. ..."
"... Truman signed its charter. The original intent was to assemble and study Information, period. Truman later remarked he would never have done so had he known it would go amok. Instead, it became a weapon of the Deep State. It is now a direct threat to the American Republic. ..."
"... Ah, yes. The CIA The folks who claimed that Sony was hacked by North Korea, when a private security firm was able to directly finger the disgruntled ex-employees responsible. ..."
"... The CIA is run by neocons, who are upset that their stooge Hillary lost the election and Trump, the elected President-to-be, is making a direct pivot towards accomodation with their arch-enemy Vladimir Putin. ..."
"... Meanwhile, the receivers of the DNC leaks know who they got the information from, and swear publicly that that also was an inside leak. But if it were an inside leak, then it couldn't call the results of the election into question. Only interference by a Foreign Power can do that. ..."
"... Same for the Nameless One. Does she want to admit that her own bureaucracy prefers that she not sit on the throne, or does she like the idea of blaming a sinister foreign entity for her loss? ..."
"... If the Russians did it, is Obama twisting the knife in the Clinton's back? The email leaks were a false flag attack against the Clintons perpetrated by Obama to remove them from the power matrix, and install himself as head of the Democrat party, free from their influence, and free to move that party in the direction he wants as it's defacto leader. ..."
"... John Swinton, Chief editorial writer of the New York Times from 1860 to 1870: "There is no such thing as a free press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who would dare to write his honest opinions. The business of the journalist is to destroy truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell himself, his country, and his race, for his daily bread. We are tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping jacks; they pull the strings, we dance; our talents, our possibilities, and our lives are the property of these men. We are intellectual prostitutes." ..."
"... Clinton's is a common defense of the CIA: namely, the American people should stop criticizing the CIA because they don't know what it really does. This, of course, is the heart of the problem in the first place. An agency that is above criticism is also above moral behavior and reform. Its secrecy and lack of accountability allows its corruption to grow unchecked. ..."
"... The CIA's response to this growing knowledge and criticism follows a typical historical pattern.(Indeed, there are remarkable parallels to the Medieval Church's fight against the Scientific Revolution.) The first journalists and writers to reveal the CIA's criminal behavior were harassed and censored if they were American writers, and tortured and murdered if they were foreigners. ..."
"... Another common apologetic is that "the world is filled with unsavory characters, and we must deal with them if we are to protect American interests at all." There are two things wrong with this. First, it ignores the fact that the CIA has regularly spurned alliances with defenders of democracy, free speech and human rights, preferring the company of military dictators and tyrants. ..."
"... Second, this argument begs several questions. The first is: " Which American interests?" The CIA has courted right-wing dictators because they allow wealthy Americans to exploit the country's cheap labor and resources. But poor and middle-class Americans pay the price whenever they fight the wars that stem from CIA actions, from Vietnam to the Gulf War to Panama. ..."
"... The other begged question is: "Why should American interests come at the expense of other peoples' human rights?" The CIA should be abolished, its leadership dismissed and its relevant members tried for crimes against humanity. ..."
"... Craig Murray: "[...] the mad CIA allegations against Russia and now claiming incredibly that the CIA believe the FBI is deliberately blocking the information on Russian collusion. " I wasn't aware of this CIA allegation against the FBI, it's quite astonishing. ..."
"... Craig Murray: "[...] this rubbish has been the lead today in the Washington Post in the US and the Guardian here, and was the lead item on the BBC main news. " No one should be surprised that The Guardian is up to its neck in publishing ... garbage ..."
A little simple logic demolishes the CIA's claims. The CIA claim they "know the individuals"
involved. Yet under Obama the USA has been absolutely ruthless in its persecution of whistleblowers,
and its pursuit of foreign hackers through extradition. We are supposed to believe that in the
most vital instance imaginable, an attempt by a foreign power to destabilise a US election, even
though the CIA knows who the individuals are, nobody is going to be arrested or extradited, or
(if in Russia) made subject to yet more banking and other restrictions against Russian individuals?
Plainly it stinks.
The anonymous source claims of "We know who it was, it was the Russians" are beneath contempt.
The CIA has lots of evidence (both collected and manufactured) which is then misconstrued through
politiczed analysis and dissemination to serve their own and their primary customer's personal
interests.
Back during the Reagan administration, someone casually told me "We spend more on disinformaion
than we do on information" - I doubt things have changed that much since then.
Correct me if Im wrong; but i thought the law prohibits the CIA from operations and investigations
on home soil. That is the job for the FBI. Why is the CIA commenting on computer systems that
were hacked in the US of A? There are at least a dozen other agencies (just as worthless) that
this would fall under their jurisdiction.
If the Russians had anything to do with the hacked emails, which are only accusations, they
did the American people a great service by exposing the evil of the DNC, HRottenC and their
MSM minions, none of whom could care less about their ethics violations. They are only upset
because they were caught. Their supporters have been had by their own kind and their leaders
are now redirecting their exposure onto the Russians and Trump to keep their sheep misdirected
from the real problems, HRC and Obama.
we all know what happened to the boy who cried "wolf" when none were there... by the time there
actually _were_ wolves, no one believed him...
the CIA has lost the plot and cried "wolf" too many times for anyone to believe them anymore...
if an organization has lost trust of national security affairs it should be DISBANDED
Well it is a wide open "bear trap"...lol...(to use a metaphor) sitting there out in the open
un-camouflaged for everyone with two brain cells left in their heads to see...and at some point
someone is going to ask...
...so why did Debbie Wassername-Schultz resign if the hacks were untrue about her non-neutrality
toward Bernie Marx in favor of Hillary Crony? Is this not a usurpation of the peoples will
and an affront to "democracy" everywhere?
How is it that a "charity" is only a "charity" as long as the people running this "charity"
remain in power? Everyone suddenly becomes "less charitable" because she lost? Why is that?
Can't they say cronyism and be done with it?
Yezzz, let the progressive tears flow, they taste wonderful ;-)
The Brit Ambassador has the wrong target, because he was caught by Fake News.
The entire story is based on a leak from Senate Staff on SSCI alleging what they were
told in a briefing by CIMC. What SSCI was told is that there is no evidence of who was the
hacker. Because Russia is one of many possibilities, somebody on SSCI who leaked to WaPo concluded
for himself that the hacker was Russia. That is not what they were told. The vitriol should
be directed toward WaPo and their Senate SSCI source.
As the Obama Administration falls apart, expect the various players to begin to look
out for themselves. Do not be surprised if in the next few days, Brennan or someone else
at the agency sets the record straight and throws some 'shade' on WaPo and Obama.
Obama is hanging everyone out to dry in the futile attempt to save his own 'legacy'.
Whoever might have been a loyal soldier and who fell on his sword if requested to do so
is not going to do it anymore. Obama is a child who cannot accept that he has been an abject
failure, so he is getting desperate to create some false historical record.
I remember Zerohedge reporting on a meeting last year with US Senator McCain and Arab terrorists
that included photos . These terrorists were on the US most wanted list. Too bad
that Canadian reporter did not mention that.
I'd say this entire campaign is far too clunky and clumsy to be executed by the CIA
The CIA has done some incredibly evil shit in the past so I wouldn't put something like this
past them, however they are far more professional generally than this from my limited exposure
and what I've researched about activities of the agency.
The "CIA" has outlived its usefulness. It needs to be broken up and disbanded.
Truman signed its charter. The original intent was to assemble and study Information,
period. Truman later remarked he would never have done so had he known it would go amok. Instead,
it became a weapon of the Deep State. It is now a direct threat to the American Republic.
Our spy and security apparatus didn't defeat the Soviet Union's "evil empire" so much as it
emulated it, using Orwell and Huxley as roadmaps, rather than warnings.
Maybe it wasn't the Russians. Who else could it possibly be? Not the CIA! Not in good ol USA.
Maybe it was Aliens! After all the UK Mail thought as much with Kennedy. Or maybe Bush and
his clan are the Aliens. All I can say is Trump better never let the CIA instead of Secret
Service guard him and his motorcade!
The CIA Kennedy assassination theory is a prominent John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy
theory. The CIA's potential involvement was frequently mentioned during the 1960s and 1970s
when the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was involved in plots to assassinate foreign
leaders, particularly Fidel Castro.[1][2] According to author James Douglass, Kennedy was
assassinated because he was turning away from the Cold War and seeking a negotiated peace
with the Soviet Union.[3][4] Accusations and confessions of and by alleged conspirators,
as well as official government reports citing the CIA as uncooperative in investigations,
have at times renewed interest in these conspiracy theories.
Ah, yes. The CIA The folks who claimed that Sony was hacked by North Korea,
when a private security firm was able to directly finger the disgruntled ex-employees responsible.
Let's break this down some more. The CIA is run by neocons, who are upset that
their stooge Hillary lost the election and Trump, the elected President-to-be, is making a
direct pivot towards accomodation with their arch-enemy Vladimir Putin.
Meanwhile, the FBI is stacked with political employees and their career hirees installed
under GW Bush, and leans strongly against the Democrats, to the point of deliberately leaking
damaging evidence against the Democratic candidate the week before the election . . . granted
that there wouldn't have been any information to leak, if Hillary had followed the laws and
policies of her federal position.
Meanwhile, the receivers of the DNC leaks know who they got the information from, and
swear publicly that that also was an inside leak. But if it were an inside leak, then
it couldn't call the results of the election into question. Only interference by a Foreign
Power can do that.
But to the extent that the Russians DID lobby against Hillary, they did so completely openly.
If you read an article in Russia Today in favor of Trump or against Hillary, you can hardly
claim to be deceived.
The Russians are allowed to have an opinion; we can't stop that. What they aren't
allowed to do is to vote, or to contribute money to the candidates' campaigns (here we will
lightly skip over the millions donated to Hillary's campaign by Israeli dual citizens, the
Saudis, the Australians, Nigeria, VietNam, India, Haiti . . .).
What did you expect them to say? "Uh, yes, Mr. President, it was us, actually." Of course
they are going to point the finger elsewhere. Especially to someplace that cannot be pressured.
You would too, if placed in the same position. Same for the Nameless One. Does she
want to admit that her own bureaucracy prefers that she not sit on the throne, or does she
like the idea of blaming a sinister foreign entity for her loss?
And even if Russia did it, it's not like they made anything up. Come on, people. Realpolitik.
The CIA (Central Insanity Agency) IS the United States government. It controls all of the other
so-called independent intelligence agencies. Would the CIA lie to overturn the 2016 Presidential
elections? Well, the CIA are the very same people who: <
for decades have had hundreds of nationally and internationally prominent so-called
journalists on the CIA payroll and controlled the stories reported by Western Mainstream
Conporate News Media;
assassinated President John F. Kennedy because they were furious about the failure of
their insane Bay of Pigs fiasco, the peaceful resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis, etc.,
etc., etc.;
faked the Gulf of Tonkin intelligence to get the United States Congress to pass the
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution giving the bloodthirsty Generals and Admirals and President Lyndon
B. Johnson the false flag incident to drastically escalate the Vietnam Warclosely located
to the Golden Triangle's highly coveted rich heroin suppliesand all of the attendant decades
of lying about that war;
destabilized Afghanistan to encourage invasion by the Soviet Union;
created, supported and armed the Sunni Mujahideen, which morphed into Al Qaeda following
the Gulf War, to fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan;
encouraged President Jimmy Carter to admit the Shah of Iran to create the pretext for
decades of enmity between Iran and the United States and destroy Jimmy Carter's Presidency;
encouraged Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait to give President George H. W. Bush the pretext
to declare war on Iraq;
were behind the 9/11/2001 false flag attacks on the World Trade Center towers, and their
destruction with controlled explosives demolitions charges, and the Pentagon and then lied
that it was all an Al Qaeda plot;
lied about Al Qaeda's role in 9/11/2001 to justify the invasion of Afghanistan with
its highly coveted, rich poppy fields for heroin production;
lied about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to justify President George W. Bush's war
of aggression against Iraq;
created, finances, arms and supports ISIS;
plans and carries out false flag operations to influence public opinion;
lie about whatever whenever it suits their agenda;
controls the 'narratives' in the Feral gangster government's organs of state propaganda
(mainstream & social media and entertainment oligopoly);
And far, far more. But, I got tired of typing and I don't want to bore the readers. The
point being that they are ALL professional liars and the love of truth and the American Republic
is not in them.
Yes, of course the CIA would lie to overturn the 2016 Presidential elections.
If the Russians did it, is Obama twisting the knife in the Clinton's back?
The email leaks were a false flag attack against the Clintons perpetrated by Obama to remove
them from the power matrix, and install himself as head of the Democrat party, free from their
influence, and free to move that party in the direction he wants as it's defacto leader.
Blaming the leaks on the Russians gains obfuscation of Obama's chief foreign policy failure
as President.... drawing a red line, then failing to act when it was crossed, which signaled
to the world that he was an impudent little bitch that could be ignored in a world that understands
only one thiing..... strength.
John Swinton, Chief editorial writer of the New York Times from 1860 to 1870: "There
is no such thing as a free press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who would
dare to write his honest opinions. The business of the journalist is to destroy truth, to lie
outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell himself, his country,
and his race, for his daily bread. We are tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes.
We are jumping jacks; they pull the strings, we dance; our talents, our possibilities, and
our lives are the property of these men. We are intellectual prostitutes."
Clinton's is a common defense of the CIA: namely, the American people should stop criticizing
the CIA because they don't know what it really does. This, of course, is the heart of the problem
in the first place. An agency that is above criticism is also above moral behavior and reform.
Its secrecy and lack of accountability allows its corruption to grow unchecked.
Furthermore, Clinton's statement is simply untrue. The history of the agency is growing
painfully clear, especially with the declassification of historical CIA documents. We may not
know the details of specific operations, but we do know, quite well, the general behavior of
the CIA These facts began emerging nearly two decades ago at an ever-quickening pace. Today
we have a remarkably accurate and consistent picture, repeated in country after country, and
verified from countless different directions.
The CIA's response to this growing knowledge and criticism follows a typical historical
pattern.(Indeed, there are remarkable parallels to the Medieval Church's fight against the
Scientific Revolution.) The first journalists and writers to reveal the CIA's criminal behavior
were harassed and censored if they were American writers, and tortured and murdered if they
were foreigners.
However, over the last two decades the tide of evidence has become overwhelming, and the
CIA has found that it does not have enough fingers to plug every hole in the dike. This is
especially true in the age of the Internet, where information flows freely among millions of
people. Since censorship is impossible, the Agency must now defend itself with apologetics.
Clinton's "Americans will never know" defense is a prime example.
Another common apologetic is that "the world is filled with unsavory characters, and we must
deal with them if we are to protect American interests at all."
There are two things wrong with this. First, it ignores the fact that the CIA has regularly
spurned alliances with defenders of democracy, free speech and human rights, preferring the
company of military dictators and tyrants.
The CIA had moral options available to them, but did not take them.
Second, this argument begs several questions. The first is: " Which American interests?" The CIA has courted right-wing dictators because they allow wealthy Americans to exploit
the country's cheap labor and resources. But poor and middle-class Americans pay the price whenever they fight the wars that stem
from CIA actions, from Vietnam to the Gulf War to Panama.
The other begged question is: "Why should American interests come at the expense of other
peoples' human rights?" The CIA should be abolished, its leadership dismissed and its relevant members tried for
crimes against humanity.
Our intelligence community should be rebuilt from the ground up, with the goal of collecting
and analyzing information. As for covert action, there are two moral options.
The first one is to eliminate covert action completely. But this gives jitters to people worried about the Adolf Hitlers of the world. So a second
option is that we can place covert action under extensive and true democratic oversight. For example, a bipartisan Congressional Committee of 40 members could review and veto all
aspects of CIA operations upon a majority or super-majority vote.
Which of these two options is best may be the subject of debate, but one thing is clear:
like dictatorship, like monarchy, unaccountable covert operations should die like the dinosaurs
they are.
Craig Murray: "[...] the mad CIA allegations against Russia and now claiming incredibly
that the CIA believe the FBI is deliberately blocking the information on Russian collusion.
"
I wasn't aware of this CIA allegation against the FBI, it's quite astonishing.
The FBI and CIA are both utterly corrupt, as is every other faction of the Obola Administration
including the Marxist slimeball himself at the very top, but what we see here are factions
throwing allegations against each other.
Craig Murray: "[...] this rubbish has been the lead today in the Washington Post in the US
and the Guardian here, and was the lead item on the BBC main news. "
No one should be surprised that The Guardian is up to its neck in publishing ... garbage
written by Jonathen Freedland. After all it's been "the progressive Left's" house newspaper
for years and is known as " The Grauniad " by dissenters.
What is truly bad is that the BBC are coming out of the closet and once again revealing
their own Left-wing Establishment bias by running fake news stories on its TV news channel.
"... President-elect Donald Trump, in an exclusive interview with " Fox News Sunday ," decried as "ridiculous" the CIA's reported assessment that Russia intervened in the election to boost his candidacy describing the claim as another "excuse" pushed by Democrats to explain his upset victory. ..."
President-elect Donald Trump, in an exclusive interview with "
Fox News
Sunday ," decried as "ridiculous" the CIA's reported assessment that Russia intervened in
the election to boost his candidacy describing the claim as another "excuse" pushed by Democrats
to explain his upset victory.
"It's just another excuse. I don't believe it," Trump said. " Every week it's another excuse.
We had a massive landslide victory, as you know, in the Electoral College."
Trump spoke with Fox News' Chris Wallace in the president-elect's first Sunday show interview
since winning the election.
Beverly,
=== quote ===
Just the fact that Trump has now said he thinks the CIA's cyber forensics team is the same group that tries to determine the
nuclear capacity of other countries is itself scaryand revealing. He doesn't recognize and obvious distinctions even about
incredibly important things, doesn't understand the concept of expertise, and can't distinguish between important and unimportant
things.
=== end of quote ===
Two points:
1. After Iraq WMD false claim CIA as agency had lost a large part of its credibility, because it is clear that it had succumbed
to political pressure and became just a pocket tool in the dirty neocon political games. At this time the pressure was from
neocons in Bush administration. Don't you think that it is possible that this is the case now too ?
2. It's not the job of CIA to determine who and how hacked DNC computers or any other computers in the USA. CIA mandate
is limited to foreign intelligence and intelligence aggregation and analysis. It is job of FBI and NSA, especially the latter,
as only NSA has technical means to trace from where really the attack had come, if it was an attack.
So any CIA involvement here is slightly suspect and might point to some internal conflicts within Obama administration.
It is unclear why Obama had chosen CIA Also as CIA and State Department are closely linked as CIA operatives usually use diplomatic
cover that request looks a little bit disingenuous as Hillary used to work for State Department. In this case one of the explanation
might be that it can be attributed to the desire to create a smoke screen and shield Clintons from pressure by rank-and-file
Hillary supporter (and donors) to explain the devastating defeat in electoral college votes against rather weak, really amateur
opponent.
"... If the CIA is actually stupid enough to believe this, the US is without a competent intelligence agency. Of course, the CIA didn't say and doesn't believe any such thing. The fake news stories in the presstitute media are all sourced to unnamed officials. Former British ambassador Craig Murray described the reports accurately: "bullshit." ..."
"... Fake news is the presstitute's product. Throughout the presidential primaries and presidential campaign it was completely clear that the mainstream print and TV media were producing endless fake news designed to damage Trump and to boost Hillary. We all saw it. We all lived through it. What is this pretense that Russia is the source of fake news? ..."
"... We have had nothing but fake news from the presstitutes since the Klingon regime. Fake news was used against Yugoslavia and Serbia in order to cloak the Clinton's war crimes. ..."
"... Ironic, isn't it, that it is those who purport to be liberal and progressive who are responsible for the revival of McCarthyism in America. Moreover, the liberal progressives are institutionalizing McCarthyism in the US government. There is clearly a concerted effort being made to define truth as fake news and to define lies as truth. ..."
Speaking of fake news, the latest issue of the National Enquirer at the supermarket checkout is
giving the mainstream presstitute media a run for the money: "Castro's Deathbed Confession: I Killed
JFK. How I framed Oswald."
That's almost as good as the fake news going around the presstitute media, such as the TV stations,
the Washington Post, New York Times, and Guardian-yes, even the former leftwing British newspaper
has joined the ranks of the press prostitutes-that the CIA has concluded that "Russian operatives
covertly interfered in the election campaign in an attempt to ensure the Republican candidate's victory."
If the CIA is actually stupid enough to believe this, the US is without a competent intelligence
agency. Of course, the CIA didn't say and doesn't believe any such thing. The fake news stories in
the presstitute media are all sourced to unnamed officials. Former British ambassador Craig Murray
described the reports accurately: "bullshit."
So who is making the stories up, another anonymous group tied to Hillary such as PropOrNot, the
secret, hidden organization that released a list of 200 websites that are Russian agents?
Fake news is the presstitute's product. Throughout the presidential primaries and presidential
campaign it was completely clear that the mainstream print and TV media were producing endless fake
news designed to damage Trump and to boost Hillary. We all saw it. We all lived through it. What
is this pretense that Russia is the source of fake news?
We have had nothing but fake news from the presstitutes since the Klingon regime. Fake news was
used against Yugoslavia and Serbia in order to cloak the Clinton's war crimes.
Fake news was used against Osama bin Laden, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia in
order to cloak the Bush regime's war crimes.
Fake news was used against Libya and Syria in order to cloak the Obama regime's war crimes.
Without fake news these three blood-drenched presidencies would have been hauled before the War
Crimes Commission, tried, and convicted.
Can anyone produce any truthful statement from the presstitute media about anything of importance?
MH-17? Crimea? Ukraine?
Ironic, isn't it, that it is those who purport to be liberal and progressive who are responsible
for the revival of McCarthyism in America. Moreover, the liberal progressives are institutionalizing
McCarthyism in the US government. There is clearly a concerted effort being made to define truth
as fake news and to define lies as truth.
"... As Pam Martens reports, another imbecile has now composed a list of 200 suspect professors who also dissent from the official bullshit fed to the American people. ..."
"... In an effort to regain control over Americans' minds, they are attempting to define dissenters and truth-tellers as "Russian agents." Why "Russian agents"? Because they hope that their fake news portrait of Russia as America's deadly enemy has taken hold and will result in the public turning away from those of us labeled "Russian agents." ..."
As Pam Martens reports, another imbecile has now composed a list of 200 suspect professors who also
dissent from the official bullshit fed to the American people.
The official government purveyors of fake news in the US and their presstitute agents are concerned
that they are losing control over the explanations given to the American people.
In an effort to regain control over Americans' minds, they are attempting to define dissenters and
truth-tellers as "Russian agents." Why "Russian agents"? Because they hope that their
fake news portrait of Russia as America's deadly enemy has taken hold and will result in the public
turning away from those of us labeled "Russian agents."
"... At the present moment, it is practically obligatory to slam Russia and Putin at every opportunity even though Moscow is too militarily weak and poor to fancy itself a global adversary of the U.S. ..."
"... Candidate Donald Trump appeared to recognize that fact before he began listening to Michael Flynn, who has a rather different view. Hopefully the old Trump will prevail. ..."
"... Blaming Russia, which has good reasons to be suspicious of Washington's intentions, is particularly convenient for those many diverse inside the Beltway interests that require a significant enemy to keep the cash flowing out of the pockets of taxpayers and into the bank accounts of the useless grifters who inhabit K-Street and Capitol Hill. ..."
...Does the name Judith Miller ring any bells? And the squeaks of rage coming from
the U.S. Congress over being lied to is also something to behold as the federal
government has been acting in collusion with the media to dish up falsehoods
designed to start wars since the time of the Spanish-American conflict in 1898,
if not before.
The fake news saga is intended to discredit Donald Trump, whom
the media hates mostly because they failed to understand either him or the
Americans who voted for him in the recent election. You have to blame somebody
when you are wrong so you invent "fake news" as the game changer that explains
your failure to comprehend simple truths. To accomplish that, the clearly
observable evidence that the media was piling on Donald Trump at every
opportunity has somehow been deliberately morphed into a narrative that it is
Trump who was
attacking the media, suggesting that it was all self-defense on the part of
the Rachel Maddows of this world, but anyone who viewed even a small portion of
the farrago surely will have noted that it was the Republican candidate who was
continuously coming under attack from both the right and left of the
political-media spectrum.
There are also some secondary narratives being promoted, including a
pervasive argument that Hillary Clinton was somehow the victim of the news
reporting due specifically to fake stories emanating largely from Moscow in an
attempt to not only influence the election but also to subvert
America's democratic institutions. I
have observed that if such a truly ridiculous objective were President
Vladimir Putin's desired goal he might as well relax. Our own Democratic and
Republican duopoly has already been doing a fine job at subverting democracy by
assiduously separating the American people from the elite Establishment that
theoretically represents and serves them.
Another side of the mainstream media lament that has been relatively
unexplored is what the media chooses not to report. At the present moment, it
is practically obligatory to slam Russia and Putin at every opportunity even
though Moscow is too militarily weak and poor to fancy itself a global
adversary of the U.S.
Instead of seeking a new Cold War, Washington should
instead focus on working with Russia to make sure that disagreements over
policies in relatively unimportant parts of the world do not escalate into
nuclear exchanges. Russian actions on its own doorstep in Eastern Europe do not
in fact threaten the United States or any actual vital interest. Nor does
Moscow threaten the U.S. through its intervention on behalf of the Syrian
government in the Middle East. That Russia is described incessantly as a threat
in those areas is largely a contrivance arranged by the media, the Democratic
and Republican National Committees and by the White House.
Candidate Donald
Trump appeared to recognize that fact before he began listening to Michael
Flynn, who has a rather different view. Hopefully the old Trump will prevail.
Blaming Russia, which has good reasons to be suspicious of Washington's
intentions, is particularly convenient for those many diverse inside the
Beltway interests that require a significant enemy to keep the cash flowing out
of the pockets of taxpayers and into the bank accounts of the useless grifters
who inhabit K-Street and Capitol Hill.
Neoconservatives are frequently
described as ideologues, but the truth is that they are more interested in
gaining increased access to money and power than they are in promulgating their
own brand of global regime change.
Russophobia/Putinophobia is as big as it is because it is a rare issue where the
mainstream right, the left and the political class all agree, albeit for different reasons. The
mainstream right is anti Russia because of the Cold War and Russia's support for Iran, Venezuela
and Cuba. The left hates Russia because of Pussy Riot, humiliating Obama and Merkel in the
Ukraine, Snowden, supporting anti immigrant politicians like Le Pen and Wilders, jailing/killing
pro Western Russian politicians, the gay stuff and especially for Trump. The political class
hates Russia simply because it is a rival to US power in Europe and the Middle East. Put all
three together, and you get a political consensus for Russophobia.
At the end of the day, however, Russophobia or even Putinophobia is a minority position in the
US; or else Trump wouldn't have been elected. And a huge chunk of the people who voted for
Hillary are blacks and hispanics, who don't give a rat's ass about Russia and probably couldn't
even find it on a map.
Before Pussy Riot/Ukraine/Snowden/Gays/Trump there was even a lot of sympathy in the US media for
victims of Chechen terrorism, especially after the Beslan school thing. As late as the 2012
election, Obama was mocking Mitt Romney's Russophobia.
The views expressed are the author's own and do not reflect the official policy or position
of the U.S. Army War College, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
Over the past several months, much has been made of President-elect Donald Trump's attitude toward
and connections with Russia and its leader Vladimir Putin. Some observers have charged that Trump
is naοve about Putin's real objectives and have implied that a Trump administration is likely to
subvert core U.S. security interests in a misguided attempt to repair the U.S.-Russia relationship.
Others claim to have detected a genuine affinity between Trump and Putin and have wondered whether
the two leaders both known as pragmatic dealmakers might be able to set the bilateral relationship
on a more sustainable footing by ending the hostility and mistrust that have characterized it over
the last several years. Neither is likely to happen: a President Trump will not abandon core U.S.
security interests on the altar of cooperation with Russia, nor will he be able to cut a series of
deals with Putin that repair the bilateral relationship.
The influence of the U.S. and Russian presidents on the bilateral relationship is significantly
more limited than is commonly assumed. Despite our penchant for personalizing the actions of the
Russian government for example, by charging that "Putin is in Ukraine" or wondering whether "Putin
is likely to attack the Baltics" Putin is neither in Ukraine nor likely to attack the Baltics.
Elements of his government are certainly in Ukraine, but the process that got them there is far more
complex than many Western observers assume. He is not the only figure that matters in that process
although he does wield outsized power in comparison to the U.S. president.
[1] Governmental decision-making, even in autocracies, is rarely a simple or straightforward
process. Rather than reflecting a sober analysis of costs and benefits or the preferences of the
top political leadership of a state, national security decision-making processes often produce policy
choices that reflect the idiosyncrasies of a decision-making group or the "pulling and hauling" among
government bureaucracies.
[2] Additionally, foreign policy decision-makers, regardless of regime-type, must remain sensitive
to public opinion in making their decisions.
Thus, even if Trump and Putin decide to cooperate on the basis of what they both agree are interests
shared between the U.S. and Russia, each will have to convince the rest of his government to go along,
and each will have to push policies based upon this new vision of cooperation through his government's
bureaucracy. This task will be far from simple since there are powerful elements within both governments
that believe a rapprochement is not in the national interest. This is not to say a period of pragmatic
cooperation is impossible. The Obama administration's 2009 "reset" with Russia is an example. Pursuant
to the reset, the U.S. and Russia were able to agree on a new strategic nuclear arms treaty, on enhanced
sanctions against Iran, and on the use of Russian territory as a resupply route for U.S. forces in
Afghanistan, among other things. But within three years, the reset had largely run its course, and
U.S.-Russian relations began to deteriorate. This deterioration began with the 2011-2012 anti-government
protests in Russia (which the Kremlin suspected were supported by the U.S.), accelerated in the aftermath
of the fall of the Gadhafi regime in Libya (which Russia saw as another instance of U.S.-sponsored
regime change), and culminated in the fall of the Yanukovych regime (which Russia also blamed in
the U.S.) and the Russian intervention in Ukraine. The failure of the Obama reset to put the bilateral
relationship on a sustainable footing illustrates the reason a Trump reset will also fail in the
long run. Namely, the issues in the U.S.-Russia relationship are largely structural, which gives
the relationship a cyclical nature that defies control by leaders in either capital.
As Kier Giles of the UK's Conflict Studies Research Centre has noted, there are predictable stages
to Russia's relations with the West: euphoria, realism, disillusionment, crisis, and reset. A review
of U.S.-Russian relations since the end of the Cold War bears this out and reveals three cycles of
these stages. The first stage began in the early 1990s with the West proclaiming the courage and
asserting the democratic credentials of Russian President Boris Yeltsin and with Russia proclaiming
its desire to fully integrate into the Western political and economic system. Yeltsin's violent 1993
showdown with the Russian parliament and the 1994 Russian military intervention in Chechnya tempered
the early euphoria in the West; the difficult economic conditions along with the perceived lack of
economic support for Russia from the West tempered the early euphoria in Russia. Realism had descended
into disillusionment on both sides by the late 1990s, spurred by the impacts of the Asian financial
crisis, which spread to Russia in 1998, forcing the government to devalue the ruble and default on
both domestic and foreign debt. A crisis in relations erupted over NATO's 1999 war in Kosovo and
the resumption of Russia's war in Chechnya that same year.
The first reset came in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. when Russia offered cooperation
with the U.S. against terrorism and agreed to U.S. use of bases in the Central Asian States to support
its campaign in Afghanistan. This reset was typified by the comment of then-President George W. Bush,
who after meeting Putin, claimed to have looked him in the eye and gotten "a sense of his soul."
Realism set in within a few years when the U.S. and Russia realized they defined the threat from
terrorism and the legitimacy of measures to combat it very differently. This realism gave way to
disillusionment over NATO's 2004 enlargement, which included the post-Soviet Baltic states and the
"Color Revolutions" in Georgia in 2004 and Ukraine in 2004, which Moscow suspected were carried out
with the assistance of the U.S. intelligence agencies. Russia's disillusionment was expressed publicly
and bluntly in Putin's now notorious 2007 speech at the annual international security conference
in Munich, Germany, where he accused the U.S. of threatening international security by developing
ballistic missile defenses, undermining international institutions, destabilizing the Middle East,
expanding NATO, and attempting to overthrow governments in the former Soviet bloc, among other things.
The crisis in relations that ended this phase of the U.S.-Russia relationship was Russia's August
2008 invasion of Georgia. The third phase in bilateral relations began with the 2009 Obama administration's
reset and ended, as noted previously, with the crisis in relations over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The reason relations between the U.S. and Russia tend to be cyclical is that many of the factors
that influence them are structural, or "built-in" to the patterns of interaction between the two
countries. Like any two countries, Russia and the U.S. have some interests in common and some interests
that clash. What makes the U.S.-Russia relationship unstable and prone to crisis is not the periodic
clash of interests, but a lack of other factors that can act as "shock absorbers" when interests
do clash. In some bilateral relationships the U.S.-China relationship is a prime example here
a robust economic relationship can provide that shock absorber. Despite periodic complaints from
both sides about elements of the relationship that displease them, the fact is that a major disruption
in the U.S.-China economic relationship would be potentially catastrophic for both sides. China's
export-dependent economy would lose access to its largest and most lucrative market, and the U.S.
would lose a major foreign purchaser of its sovereign debt. Thus, when the U.S. and China find themselves
in a situation where their interests clash, there are powerful incentives for both sides to contain
the disagreement, lest it impact the bilateral economic relationship.
No such economic shock absorber exists in the U.S.-Russia relationship : U.S. exports to Russia
in 2013 totaled just $11 billion, or less than 0.1% of U.S. GDP, and U.S. imports from Russia totaled
just $27 billion, under 0.2% of U.S. GDP. Compare these numbers with China, which, despite consistent
U.S. complaints about the bilateral trade imbalance, constitutes a $300 billion market for U.S. exports.
[3]
Even where there are no economic interests to act as a shock absorber in a bilateral relationship,
a shared ideology, worldview, or value set can play that role, but this is also lacking between the
U.S. and Russia. In fact, the two countries have largely incompatible worldviews, and this fact tends
to magnify the impact of any clash in interests rather than minimize it. Glenn P. Hastedt argues
that American foreign policy is guided by, among other factors, moral pragmatism and legalism. Moral
pragmatism holds that "state behavior can be judged by moral standards" and that "American morality
provides the universal standard for making those judgments."
[4] Legalism rejects power politics as a means of settling disputes and assumes that people are
rational beings who abhor war. Therefore, the legalist tradition inclines American policy-makers
to believe that a central task of U.S. foreign policy should be to "create a global system of institutions
and rules that will allow states to settle their disputes without recourse to war."
[5]
A review of the four enduring U.S. national interests articulated in the 2015 U.S. National Security
Strategy bears out Hastedt's claim. The first two of these interests are fairly standard, revolving
around "the security of the U.S., its citizens, and U.S. allies and partners," and "A strong, innovative,
and growing U.S. economy in an open international economic system that promotes opportunity and prosperity."
[6] These interests, focusing on the physical security and economic prosperity of the state,
are widely shared, including by Russia. But the other two of the four enduring U.S. interests bring
the clash in worldview between the U.S. and Russia into sharp focus. These are "respect for universal
values at home and around the world," and "an international order advanced by U.S. leadership that
promotes peace, security, and opportunity through stronger cooperation to meet global challenges."
[7] This focus on promotion of values and a (U.S.-led) rules-based international order is so
strong in the U.S. foreign policy tradition that even presidents largely seen as realists and pragmatists,
such as Nixon and Obama, have been unable to set these factors aside and focus exclusively on core
U.S. security and economic interests.
Russia's view of the world, unsurprisingly, is different. Conditioned by its history to view the
world as a threatening place and to believe that a country as vast and diverse as Russia can only
be ruled by a strong center, Russian political thought places little value on post-modern ideas about
individual rights and is supremely skeptical of the idea that a global set of institutions and rules
can prevent war. Instead, it holds a strong state to be the supreme guarantor of domestic tranquility
and a stable military balance among Great Powers to be the best guarantor of international security.
Furthermore, many Russians believe the U.S. is not truly committed to the promotion of what it deems
universal values or the preservation of a set of global institutions as a means of enabling international
cooperation. Instead, they tend to believe that the U.S. cynically uses concepts such as values and
institutions to advance its own security interests and damage those of Russia. This incompatibility
in worldviews often leads to misperception and miscommunication in Russian-American relations.
A review of some of the main issues in the bilateral relationship since the end of the Cold War
bears this assertion out. In Kosovo, for example, where the U.S. saw ongoing ethnic cleansing as
justification for military intervention under the emerging doctrine of "responsibility to protect,"
Russia saw a military operation designed to destabilize and dismember Serbia, Russia's main ally
in the Balkans. However implausible it may seem to those in the West, some Russians also saw the
Kosovo operation as a dress rehearsal for a NATO-led intervention in Chechnya. NATO's enlargement
also presents a case of fundamentally different interpretations of the same issue. Where the U.S.
and the West see the enlargement of NATO as a way to ensure security, stability, and prosperity in
as much of the Euro-Atlantic zone as possible, Russia sees encroachment on its borders by a potentially
hostile military alliance. Enlargement of the European Union, while not seen as a military threat
by Moscow, is however seen as an attempt to isolate and weaken Russia.
A final example of how Russia and the West can observe the same phenomenon and come to fundamentally
different conclusions concerns the so-called "color revolutions" in the former Soviet Union. Many
in the West saw these popular uprisings, which peacefully ousted authoritarian governments in Georgia
in 2003 (the "Rose Revolution"), in Ukraine in 2004 (the "Orange Revolution"), in Kyrgyzstan in 2005
(the "Tulip Revolution"), and again in Ukraine in 2014 (the "Maidan Revolution") as evidence that
the peoples of the former Soviet Union wanted no more than peoples everywhere: to be governed justly
and democratically. The Kremlin, however, claimed to see the hand of Western intelligence services
in these political transformations and suspected the West was intentionally destabilizing pro-Russian
governments in Russia's neighbors with the ultimate goal of bringing down the Russian government
itself.
Disagreement over the last two of these issues the enlargement of Western institutions and popular
revolution in Russia's neighbors came together to cause war in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014.
In Georgia, the war started in August 2008, four months after NATO stated that Georgia and Ukraine
would become members of the Alliance and after a long period of hostility between Georgia's pro-Western
government headed by Mikhail Saakashvili and the Putin regime. In Ukraine, the catalyst for war was
the overthrow of the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych, which had used violence against
protesters angered by Yanukovych's rejection of an association agreement with the European Union.
In both cases, fundamentally incompatible worldviews were the underlying cause of the conflict. The
U.S. and the West espouse a liberal internationalist worldview that sees international institutions
as focal points for cooperation, individual rights as sacrosanct, and democratic governments as inherently
more legitimate and predictable and therefore less threatening than autocratic ones. Russia adheres
to a more realist worldview, where military power is the currency that buys security, where stability
is only maintained by a military balance among great powers, and where human rights and international
law are seen as either irrelevant or as tools to be used often cynically and instrumentally by
great powers to advance their security interests.
A President Trump will be unable to change the fundamental characteristics of this relationship
because the powers of the American president are much more constrained than those of most corporate
CEOs. Presidential historian Richard Neustadt has observed that U.S. presidential powers really amount
to the "power to persuade." Neustadt quotes Truman, who when contemplating an Eisenhower presidency
in 1952, remarked, "He'll sit here and he'll say 'Do this! Do That!' And nothing will happen. Poor
Ike it won't be a bit like the Army. He'll find it very frustrating."
[8] The reason for this is that even inside his own administration, the president has to persuade
a large and sometimes recalcitrant community of national security and foreign policy professionals
to implement his vision.
And even if a president is able to get the executive branch moving in one direction with dispatch
and purpose, he still has to deal with the Congress, which has more powers in foreign policy-making
than is often assumed. As Edward Corwin has correctly observed, the U.S. Constitution is "an invitation
to struggle for the privilege of directing American foreign policy."
[9] The Congress a Trump administration will have to deal with despite the Republican majorities
in both houses will be far from compliant on national security issues, especially where Russia
is concerned. First, the Democratic minorities in the Senate and the House, already skeptical of
Russia due to its autocratic form of government and documented human rights abuses, will be even
more unwilling to acquiesce to major deals with Russia due to its interference in the U.S. presidential
election, which some Democrats believe was intended to prevent the election of Hillary Clinton. On
the Republican side, there is a group of national security hawks, led by John McCain in the Senate,
who are strongly opposed to any cooperation with Russia, seeing it as the biggest single threat to
America's interests. And although the president is less constrained in foreign policy than he is
in domestic policy, Congress still has the power to deny him the achievement of his objectives in
many areas. For example, Congress sets the levels of military aid for foreign partners, so even if
a Trump administration were to request no aid for Ukraine and Georgia in an attempt to signal to
Russia that the U.S. was not willing to contest their geopolitical affiliation, Congress could
and very likely would reinstate robust military aid packages for both.
In short, a President Trump will neither be duped into subverting core American security interests
on the altar of cooperation with Russia, nor will he be able to build a sustainable partnership with
Russia on the basis of deal-making with Putin. Despite his inexperience in foreign policy, the natural
aversion of the executive branch national security and foreign policy community to radically change,
along with a skeptical Congress, will prevent the former; the fundamentally incompatible worldviews
of the U.S. and Russia will prevent the latter. Sustainable partnership between the U.S. and Russia
would require a fundamental change in the worldviews of one or both. Either the U.S. would need to
begin seeing the world in realist, power politics terms, something anathema to most Americans, or
Russia would need to abandon its great power politics view of the world and become a post-modern
state. No matter how much Putin and Trump may want to make cooperation work, neither of these is
likely to happen over the short term. There may indeed be a Trump reset in the same way there was
an Obama reset and a Bush reset that results in deals over issues not involving critical U.S. or
Russian national security interests. But over time, the structural factors impeding long-term cooperation
will reassert themselves, and the relationship will proceed through its familiar stages of realism,
disillusionment, and crisis. Trump's main task like those of Clinton, Bush, and Obama before him
will be to ensure that the as the relationship erodes, miscalculation and misperception do not
allow it to escalate to open war. His predecessors managed to succeed in this; we should all wish
President Trump similar success.
[1] Although Putin's influence on Russian foreign policy is more pronounced than is that of the
American president, the point here is that he is not unconstrained. Putin and any Russian president
has to consider both the preferences of the Russian people and those of the Russian elite when
making foreign policy decisions. In his 2016 book Russia's Foreign Policy: Change and Continuity
in National Identity , Andrei Tsygankov locates Putin's foreign policy in Russia's Statist tradition,
arguing that it has deep historical roots that Putin appeals to but did not create. Similarly, in
their 2015 paper "Russian Foreign Policy in Historical and Current Context: A Reassessment," Olga
Oliker and her co-authors note that while Putin's leadership style and viewpoints are important factors
in Russian foreign policy decision-making, the process also reflects deeply-held, underlying Russian
attitudes about Russia's place in the world and that these attitudes will drive Russian foreign policy
decision-making after Putin is gone. Oliker and her co-authors also note that the Russian government
is "deeply fearful of elite and public opposition to its actions," which also influences its foreign
policy decisions.
[2] David Patrick Houghton, The Decision Point: Six Cases in U.S. Foreign Policy Decision-Making
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 10.
@35 Trump is a big unknown. I think Paul Craig Roberts said it best - give Trump 6 months
and then form an opinion. I'm not too optimistic however; Trump's policies could flop and
the hawks could weasel their warmongering in (IRAN + CHINA + ????)
For the moment, I think Tillerson is a far far better pick than Guilliani, Romney or Bolton.
I hope that he will acquire the position. He seems to be smart, but also seems to have good
character (considering.)
Of course, the inauguration is a few weeks off, so the concern about a soft coup are real ones,
especially when the CIA is throwing out the Russia claims.
OT (sorry, but I really don't care about so-called 'leaks' and 'hacks'):
Trump chooses Exxon CEO Tillerson as Secretary of State.
Kind of makes me wonder...what if we see the emergence of a new confrontation, between a 'fossil
fuel' block comprising the US, Russia and OPEC, and a 'renewables' block of China, the EU and
pretty much everyone else? Yep, I admit that's a very long shot.
John Bolton, dutifully reading from the CIA's Yellow Cake playbook
"I'm obviously aware that people are quite focused on the economy rather than foreign
policy issues, but that is something that should and can be altered as people see the
nature of the grave threats around the world that we face. We estimate that once Iraq acquires
fissile material -- it could fabricate a nuclear weapon within one year."
MIC IS NOW IN CONTROL OF DEFENSE, NSA, CIA AND STATE, AND GOLDMAN IS IN CONTROL OF TREASURY,
COMMERCE, OMB, NEC AND FED. THIS IS THE NEO-CON END-GAME: THE 1998-2001 SOFT COUP-HARD COUP, THAT
TOOK AMERICA DOWN.
All we need is Ari Fleischer in the role of Bolton's spox to the media, lol. "Mr. Fleischer,
please come to the red phone service desk, you have a call waiting."
It's all monkey-brain now!
There's something very fishy about the choices of Rex Tillerson and John Bolton for SoS and Deputy
SoS respectively.
Tillerson has major potential conflicts of interest that the Senate will scrutinize including
the award he received from Putin. I'm seriously questioning how Tillerson will get Senate approval.
On the other hand, John Bolton, is very popular with most Republicans and hawkish Democrats and
will have no problem whatsoever.
I believe this strange combination is a red flag that perfectly illustrates Trump's strategy,
which is one of the following:
1. Either Trump deliberately chose someone with close ties to Russia and Putin because he knows
he won't be approved by the Senate, and his first choice from the start, John Bolton, will pass
with flying colors;
2. Or William Engdahl is right that the Neocon strategy is pivoting and adapting to present
circumstances:
His job will be to reposition the United States for them to reverse the trend to disintegration
of American global hegemony, to, as the Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz Project for the New American
Century put it in their September, 2000 report, "rebuild America's defenses."
To do that preparation, a deception strategy that will fatally weaken the developing deep
bonds between Russia and China will be priority. It's already begun. We have a friendly phone
call from The Donald to Vladimir the Fearsome in Moscow. Russian media is euphoric about a
new era in US-Russia relations after Obama. Then suddenly we hear the war-mongering NATO head,
Stoltenberg, suddenly purr soothing words to Russia. Float the idea that California Congressman
and Putin acquaintance, Dana Rohrabacher, is leaked as a possible Secretary of State. It's
classic Kissinger Balance of Power geopoliticsseem to ally with the weaker of two mortal enemies,
Russia, to isolate the stronger, China. Presumably Vladimir Putin is not so naοve or stupid
as to fall for it, but that is the plot of Trump's handlers. Such a strategy of preventing
the growing Russia-China cooperation was urged by Zbigniew Brzezinski in a statement this past
summer.
Let's not forget that the first time Trump was asked during the campaign who he gets foreign
policy advice from; the first name that popped up was JOHN BOLTON, and he praised him as being
tough. John Bolton was strongly allied with Dick Cheney. Steve Yates, another Neocon, was Cheney's
China advisor and is Trump's as well. After reading Engdahl's article, I wrote my own opinion
of the Neocon strategy based on Engdahl's and you can read it on the Saker's site here:
http://thesaker.is/his-own-man-or-someones-puppet/
But if you find it difficult to read without paragraphs: scroll down through the comments on
the Saker's own opinion of Engdahl's piece as that's where my original comment appeared with paragraphs.
Something stinks about this Tillerson/Bolton combination. You can read my theory on why Neocons
are pivoting to a new strategy of divide and conquer as Engdahl believes, and it has to do with
the growing economic bond between China and Iran as well and killing two birds with one stone;
invading Iran to contain China and sabotage OBOR.
Note as well, that in courting Russia to isolate China and weaken the growing cooperation between
China and Russia, as Engdahl puts it, Russia will ultimately lose its own influence, unless of
course Netanyahu has made Putin an offer he can't refuse, since Netanyahu has been courting Putin
for quite some time already; and this is very bizarre, since Putin frustrated Netanyahu's plan
for Syria.
So Bolton will be Tillerson's vice-SoS. How much more Neocon can you get? And you seriously believe
Trump will 'clean the Augean Stables', 'drain the swamp' and 'open a new book' in foreign policy,
esp. relations with Russia? Dream on.
" BARACK OBAMA, WITH THE COOPERATION OF SOME IN THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY, ARE TRYING TO DISCREDIT TRUMP BEFORE THE ELECTION"
Notable quotes:
"... The whole "blame Russia" movement to account for Hillary's unexpected failure to win the Presidency got a new shot in the arm with today's announcement that Obama ordered: ..."
"... The stupidity of this is profound. If this review leads to the "discovery" that Russia is carrying out espionage activities in the United States then we have passed the threshold of learning that there is gambling in a casino. ..."
"... The real irony in all of this is that Wikileaks, thanks to the hack of the DNC and John Podesta emails, exposed the reality of Democrats working surreptitiously to tamper with and manipulate the election. Here are the highlights from that leak: ..."
"... Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin, but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria. ..."
"... Blaming Russia for Hillary's flame out is absurd. The Russians did not create and lie about Hillary's server. They did not force her to back the multilateral trade agreements, such as NAFTA and TPP. They didn't set up the Clinton Foundation as a cash cow for the Clinton family. They did not force her to advocate imposing a No Fly Zone in Syria and having been a cheerleader for past wars, including Iraq and Libya. Vladimir Putin did not slip her a mickey and cause her to pass out at the 9-11 memorial, which fueled concerns about her health. And they did not infect her lungs and cause her to have extended coughing jags. They did not cause her to call Americans deplorables. They did not make her say that the coal industry should be shutdown. With that kind of record, coupled with her shrieking, screechy voice, why are folks surprised that she did not win? ..."
"... So now Democrats and several Republicans are in a lather over the Russians stealing the election for Trump. The list of conspiracy theorists pushing this nonsense include John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Angus King of Maine, Brent Budowsky and Adam Schiff. I defy anyone, to explain to me how Russian meddling gave Trump the win. ..."
"... The realities are this. First, as noted in the Budowsky email, the Clinton campaign came up with the idea of accusing Trump of being a stooge of Russia. They thought they'd get political bang out of that. They didn't. ..."
"... Second, the hack of the DNC emails confirmed that the suspicions of many that the DNC and Hillary were collaborating to screw over Bernie and rig the election. That was not fake news. Cold, unwelcomed truth. That's when this drum beat about the big, bad Russians started meddling in our election started. Why? To distract attention away from the ugly reality that the DNC and Hillary were cheating. ..."
"... The subsequent Wikileaks avalanche of Podesta emails reinforced as fact the existing suspicion that the media was in the bag for Hillary. ..."
"... I would recommend you assemble a short reading list of everything surrounding President Kennedy's full acceptance of responsibility after the Bay of Pigs, beginning with the substance and tone of his unequivocal taking of responsibility and ending with his huge rise in the polls, to nearly 90% favorable ratings, after he did this. ..."
"... And then I would suggest she plan the equivalent and take full, absolute and unequivocal responsibility for making a mistake with the private emails and give an honest, direct, explanation of the reasons I believe she used those private emails. . . . ..."
"... Give Budowsky credit for one thing, if Hillary had followed his advice she might have won the election. But she was too busy exploiting the rules of a rigged game and trying to smear Trump as a Russian agent while failing to exercise genuine, sincere personal responsibility. ..."
"... Barack Obama appears to be actively working to discredit the Trump election and has enlisted the intelligence community in the effort. How else to explain this disconnect? Yesterday, as noted above, Obama directed the intelligence community to: ..."
"... I heard from a knowledgeable friend in September that Hillary's campaign was pressing the Obama White House to lean on the intel community and put something out blaming her woes on the Russians. That led to the October statement. And now we have the CIA via a SECRET report (that is leaked to the public) insisting that Trump's victory came because of the Russians. ..."
"... This is a damn lie. The CIA is now allowing itself to be used once again for blatant political purposes. The politicization became a real problem under Bush. Let's not forget that these are the same cats who insisted it was a slam dunk that were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The same group who missed the rise of ISIS. ..."
"... Also worth reminding ourselves that the head of the ironically titled "Intelligence Community" is a proven liar. Jim Clapper lied to the Senate about the NSA spying on Americans three years ago (December 2013) : ..."
"... "Congressional oversight depends on truthful testimony witnesses cannot be allowed to lie to Congress," wrote representatives James Sensenbrenner, Darrell Issa, Trent Franks, Raul Labrador, Ted Poe, Trey Gowdy and Blake Farenthold, citing "Director Clapper's willful lie under oath." ..."
"... There is a consistent pattern in the Obama Administration of lying to the American people, especially when it comes to National Security matters. The NSA is not an isolated case. We also have Benghazi, Syria and Libya as other examples of not telling the truth and misrepresenting facts. ..."
"... In my lifetime, going on 60 years, I have never seen such a display of incompetence as is being manifested by Barack Obama and mental midgets that surround him. ..."
"... What they can say for sure is that the DNC and Podesta emails were hacked. Those hacked emails were passed to WIKILEAKS. Those emails were then released to the public. What the intel community will be hard pressed to prove is that the Russian Government conceived of and directed such a campaign. This is the true information operation to meddle in the U.S. election, but that isn't Russia. That's Obama. ..."
UPDATEPLEASE SEE BELOW. BOTTOMLINE, BARACK OBAMA, WITH THE COOPERATION OF SOME IN THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY, ARE TRYING
TO DISCREDIT TRUMP BEFORE THE ELECTION.
Let me stipulate up front that both the United States and Russia engage in
covert and clandestine information
operations. It is called espionage. It is but one aspect of the broader intelligence activity also known as spying. Time for all
you snowflakes in America to grow up and get a grip and deal with with reality. If the respective intelligence organizations in either
country are not doing this they are guilty of malpractice and should be dismantled.
There are two basic types of espionage activityCovert refers to an operation that is undetected while in progress, but the outcome
may be easily observed. Killing Bin Laden is a prime example of a "covert" operation. A Clandestine Operation is something that is
supposed to be undetected while in progress and after completion. For example, if the U.S. or Russia had a mole at the top of the
National Security bureaucracy of their respective adversary, communicating with that mole and the mole's very existence would be
clandestine.
So, the alleged Russian meddling in our electionwas it covert or clandestine?
The whole "blame Russia" movement to account for Hillary's unexpected failure to win the Presidency got a new shot in the
arm with today's announcement that
Obama ordered:
a full review into hacking by the Russians designed to influence the 2016 election, White House Homeland Security and Counterterrorism
Adviser Lisa Monaco said Friday.
The stupidity of this is profound. If this review leads to the "discovery" that Russia is carrying out espionage activities
in the United States then we have passed the threshold of learning that there is gambling in a casino.
The real irony in all of this is that Wikileaks, thanks to the hack of the DNC and John Podesta emails, exposed the reality
of Democrats working surreptitiously to tamper with and manipulate the election. Here are the highlights from that leak:
DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz Calls Sanders Campaign Manager Jeff Weaver an "A" and a "Liar"
In May the Nevada Democratic State Convention became rowdy and got out of hand in a fight over delegate allocation. When Weaver
went on CNN and denied any claims violence had happened, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, once she was notified of the exchange, wrote
"Damn liar. Particularly scummy that he never acknowledges the violent and threatening behavior that occurred."
Highlighting Sanders' Faith
One email shows that a DNC official contemplated highlighting Sanders' alleged atheism - even though he has said he is not an
atheist - during the primaries as a possibility to undermine support among voters.
"It may make no difference but for KY and WA can we get someone to ask his belief," Brad Marshall, CFO of the DNC, wrote
in an email on May 5, 2016. "He had skated on having a Jewish heritage. I read he is an atheist. This could make several points
difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist."
Building a Narrative Against Sanders
"Wondering if there's a good Bernie narrative for a story which is that Bernie never ever had his act together, that his campaign
was a mess," DNC National Secretary Mark Paustenbach wrote in an email to National Communications Director Luis Miranda on May 21.
After detailing ways in which the Sanders camp was disorganized, Paustenbach concludes, "It's not a DNC conspiracy it's because they
never had their act together."
The release provides further evidence the DNC broke its own charter violations by favoring Clinton as the Democratic presidential
nominee, long before any votes were cast.
It was the Clinton spokesman, Robbie Mook, who launched the claim on July 24, 2016 that these leaks were done by the Russians
in order to help Trump:
The source of the leak has not been revealed, though Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, Robby Mook, said on ABC News' "This Week
With George Stephanopoulos" on Sunday that he believes the Russians were instrumental in it.
"Experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke into the DNC, took all these emails and now are leaking them out through
these websites," Mook said Sunday. "It's troubling that some experts are now telling us that this was done by the Russians for the
purpose of helping Donald Trump."
The Clinton campaign started planning to smear Trump as a Putin stooge as early as December 2015. The Podesta emails showed clearly
that the Clinton campaign decided early on to clobber Trump for his "bromance" with Putin. It was Brent Buwdosky almost one year
ago (December 21, 2015) who proposed going after
Trump with the Russian card in an email to Podesta:
Putin did not agree to anything about removing Assad and continues to bomb the people we support. We pushed the same position
in 2012 (Geneva 1, which HRC knows all about) and Geneva 2 in 2014. Odds that Putin agrees to remove Assad are only slightly better
than the odds the College of Cardinals chooses me to someday succeed Pope Francis. Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his
bromance with Putin, but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria.
Going after Trump as a Russian stooge was in the Clinton playbook long before Trump won a primary. One the wedge issues for Clinton
with respect to Trump was Syria. Trump took a strong stand (which many thought would hurt him with Republicans) in declaring we should
not be trying to get rid of Assad and that America should cooperate with the Russians in fighting the Islamists. Clinton, by contrast,
called for imposing a No Fly Zone that would have risked a direct confrontation with Russia.
Blaming Russia for Hillary's flame out is absurd. The Russians did not create and lie about Hillary's server. They did not
force her to back the multilateral trade agreements, such as NAFTA and TPP. They didn't set up the Clinton Foundation as a cash cow
for the Clinton family. They did not force her to advocate imposing a No Fly Zone in Syria and having been a cheerleader for past
wars, including Iraq and Libya. Vladimir Putin did not slip her a mickey and cause her to pass out at the 9-11 memorial, which fueled
concerns about her health. And they did not infect her lungs and cause her to have extended coughing jags. They did not cause her
to call Americans deplorables. They did not make her say that the coal industry should be shutdown. With that kind of record, coupled
with her shrieking, screechy voice, why are folks surprised that she did not win?
So now Democrats and several Republicans are in a lather over the Russians stealing the election for Trump. The list of conspiracy
theorists pushing this nonsense include John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Angus King of Maine, Brent Budowsky and Adam Schiff. I defy
anyone, to explain to me how Russian meddling gave Trump the win.
The realities are this. First, as noted in the Budowsky email, the Clinton campaign came up with the idea of accusing Trump
of being a stooge of Russia. They thought they'd get political bang out of that. They didn't.
Second, the hack of the DNC emails confirmed that the suspicions of many that the DNC and Hillary were collaborating to screw
over Bernie and rig the election. That was not fake news. Cold, unwelcomed truth. That's when this drum beat about the big, bad Russians
started meddling in our election started. Why? To distract attention away from the ugly reality that the DNC and Hillary were cheating.
The subsequent Wikileaks avalanche of Podesta emails reinforced as fact the existing suspicion that the media was in the bag
for Hillary. But no amount of media help and foreign money could transform Hillary into a likeable candidate. She was dreadful
on the campaign trail and terrible at talking to the average American. Even her boy, Brent Budowsky, reluctantly acknowledged this
in an email to John Podesta on Wednesday, August 26,
2015 :
While I have been warning for some time about the dangers facing the Clinton campaign, aggressively in privately, tactfully in
columns, during this latest stage I have been publicly defending her with no-holds barred, and here is my advice based on the reaction
I have been receiving and the dangers I see coming to fruition.
I would recommend you assemble a short reading list of everything surrounding President Kennedy's full acceptance of responsibility
after the Bay of Pigs, beginning with the substance and tone of his unequivocal taking of responsibility and ending with his huge
rise in the polls, to nearly 90% favorable ratings, after he did this.
And then I would suggest she plan the equivalent and take full, absolute and unequivocal responsibility for making a mistake
with the private emails and give an honest, direct, explanation of the reasons I believe she used those private emails. . . .
She could say she was right anticipating this, but wrong in overreacting by trying to shield her private emails, and she takes
full responsibility for this, and apologizes to her supporters and everyone else, and now she has turned over all information, it
will ultimately be seen that there no egregious wrongs committed.
She needs to stop talking like a lawyer parsing legalistic words and a potential defendant expecting a future indictment, which
is how she often looks and sounds to many voters today. Instead, she should take full responsibility for a mistake with no equivocation,
and segue into the role of a populist prosecutor against a corrupted politics that Americans already detest ..and make a direct attack
against the Donald Trump politics of daily insults and defamations and intolerance against whichever individuals and groups he tries
to bully on a given day, and while defending some Republican candidates against his attacks, she should deplore their being intimidated
by his insults and offering pastel versions of the intolerance he peddles.
In other words, she should stop acting like a front-runner who cautiously tries to exploit the rules of a rigged game to her advantage,
and start acting like a fighting underdog who will fight on behalf of Americans who want a higher standard of living for themselves,
a higher standard of politics for the nation, and a higher level of economic opportunity and social justice for everyone.
Like JFK after the Bay of Pigs, the more responsibility she takes now the more she will succeed going forward.
Give Budowsky credit for one thing, if Hillary had followed his advice she might have won the election. But she was too busy
exploiting the rules of a rigged game and trying to smear Trump as a Russian agent while failing to exercise genuine, sincere personal
responsibility.
UPDATE This is an extremely dangerous time now. Barack Obama appears to be actively working to discredit the Trump
election and has enlisted the intelligence community in the effort. How else to explain this disconnect? Yesterday, as noted above,
Obama directed the intelligence community to:
"conduct a full review of what happened during the 2016 election process. It is to capture lessons learned from that and
to report to a range of stakeholders," she said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters. "This is consistent with
the work that we did over the summer to engage Congress on the threats that we were seeing."
The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency,
rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.
Why do you order a review if the CIA has already made a factual determination? In fact, we were told in October that the whole
damn intelligence community determined the Russians did it.
USA Today reported this in October :
The
fact-checking website Politifact says Hillary Clinton is correct when she says 17 federal intelligence agencies have concluded
that Russia is behind the hacking.
"We have 17, 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyber
attacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin. And they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply disturbing,"
Clinton said during
Wednesday's presidential debate in Las Vegas .
Trump pushed back, saying that Clinton and the United States had "no idea whether it is Russia, China or anybody else."
But Clinton is correct. On Oct. 7, the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence
issued
a joint statement on behalf of the U.S. Intelligence Community. The USIC is
made up of 16 agencies , in
addition to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
I heard from a knowledgeable friend in September that Hillary's campaign was pressing the Obama White House to lean on the
intel community and put something out blaming her woes on the Russians. That led to the October statement. And now we have the CIA
via a SECRET report (that is leaked to the public) insisting that Trump's victory came because of the Russians.
This is a damn lie. The CIA is now allowing itself to be used once again for blatant political purposes. The politicization
became a real problem under Bush. Let's not forget that these are the same cats who insisted it was a slam dunk that were weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq. The same group who missed the rise of ISIS.
"The ability of ISIL to not just mass inside of Syria, but then to initiate major land offensives that took Mosul, for example,
that was not on my intelligence radar screen," Obama told Zakaria, using the administration's term for the Islamic State terror group.
In a letter issued the day after a White House surveillance review placed new political pressure on the National Security Agency,
the seven members of the House judiciary committee said that James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, ought to face
consequences for untruthfully telling the Senate that the NSA was "not wittingly" collecting data on Americans.
"Congressional oversight depends on truthful testimony witnesses cannot be allowed to lie to Congress," wrote representatives
James Sensenbrenner, Darrell Issa, Trent Franks, Raul Labrador, Ted Poe, Trey Gowdy and Blake Farenthold, citing "Director Clapper's
willful lie under oath."
There is a consistent pattern in the Obama Administration of lying to the American people, especially when it comes to National
Security matters. The NSA is not an isolated case. We also have Benghazi, Syria and Libya as other examples of not telling the truth
and misrepresenting facts.
In my lifetime, going on 60 years, I have never seen such a display of incompetence as is being manifested by Barack Obama
and mental midgets that surround him.
What they can say for sure is that the DNC and Podesta emails were hacked. Those hacked emails were passed to WIKILEAKS. Those
emails were then released to the public. What the intel community will be hard pressed to prove is that the Russian Government conceived
of and directed such a campaign. This is the true information operation to meddle in the U.S. election, but that isn't Russia. That's
Obama.
Larry C. Johnson is a former analyst at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, who moved subsequently in 1989 to the U.S.
Department of State, where he served four years as the deputy director for transportation security, antiterrorism assistance training,
and special operations in the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism. He left government service in October 1993 and set up
a consulting business. He currently is the co-owner and CEO of BERG Associates, LLC (Business Exposure Reduction Group) and is an
expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security, and crisis and risk management, and money laundering investigations. Johnson
is the founder and main author of No Quarter, a weblog that addresses issues of terrorism and intelligence and politics. NoQuarterUSA
was nominated as Best Political Blog of 2008.
"... There is no Russian involvement in the leaks of emails showing Clinton's corruption. Yet this rubbish has been the lead today in the Washington Post in the US and the Guardian here, and was the lead item on the BBC main news. I suspect it is leading the American broadcasts also. ..."
I have watched incredulous as the CIA's blatant lie has grown and grown as a media story blatant
because the CIA has made no attempt whatsoever to substantiate it.
There is no Russian involvement
in the leaks of emails showing Clinton's corruption. Yet this rubbish has been the lead today in
the Washington Post in the US and the Guardian here, and was the lead item on the BBC main news.
I suspect it is leading the American broadcasts also.
"... "We propose the creation of a harmonious economic community stretching from Lisbon to Vladivostok," Putin writes. "In the future, we could even consider a free trade zone or even more advanced forms of economic integration. The result would be a unified continental market with a capacity worth trillions of euros." ..."
"... "The proposal comes as Putin travels to Germany on Thursday for a two-day visit, including a Friday meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. On Wednesday, Russia and the EU reached an important agreement on the elimination of tariffs on raw materials such as wood. The deal was an important prerequisite for the EU dropping its opposition to Russian membership in the World Trade Organization. Moscow is hoping to become a member in 2011." http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/from-lisbon-to-vladivostok-putin-envisions-a-russia-eu-free-trade-zone-a-731109.html ..."
Causes more polarization, between those who believe it & those who don't.
More importantly, it's in support of "fake news" (censorship) which is a serious move.
Also, the reason for such an unconvincing accusation is in Russia & Putin:
November of 2010, Putin wrote an editorial for Suddeutsche Zeitung. He urged No more tariffs.
No more visas. Vastly more economic cooperation between Russia and the European Union.
"We propose the creation of a harmonious economic community stretching from Lisbon to
Vladivostok," Putin writes. "In the future, we could even consider a free trade zone or even
more advanced forms of economic integration. The result would be a unified continental market
with a capacity worth trillions of euros."
"The proposal comes as Putin travels to Germany on Thursday for a two-day visit, including
a Friday meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. On Wednesday, Russia and the EU reached
an important agreement on the elimination of tariffs on raw materials such as wood. The deal
was an important prerequisite for the EU dropping its opposition to Russian membership in the
World Trade Organization. Moscow is hoping to become a member in 2011."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/from-lisbon-to-vladivostok-putin-envisions-a-russia-eu-free-trade-zone-a-731109.html
While we applaud the breakup of the EU, recognizing it as a force which eats the liberty and
economic prosperity of Europeans, Putin wants Russia to join it., and NATO as well.
Putin at Valdai in 2015
"I am certain that if there is a will, we can restore the effectiveness of the international
and regional institutions system. We do not even need to build anything anew, from the scratch;
this is not a "greenfield," especially since the institutions created after World War II are
quite universal and can be given modern substance, adequate to manage the current situation.
"We need a new global consensus of responsible forces. It's not about some local deals or
a division of spheres of influence in the spirit of classic diplomacy, or somebody's complete
global domination. I think that we need a new version of interdependence. We should not be
afraid of it. On the contrary, this is a good instrument for harmonising positions"
Putin supports the Rule of Law-- thru the Rockefeller-controlled UN. He's for national sovereignty
but never speaks of the desirability for nations to regain trade sovereignty, let alone economic,
immigration or currency sovereignty.
An opposition must have an opposing vision. Otherwise, what is it opposing? Is it enough that
it opposes US aggression as a means to bring about the shared vision of a regionally-administered
global oligarchy? Is it enough that Russia's 1% have to fight the West's 1% to keep 74% of the
wealth of Russia?
The hacking accusation is not meant to persuade us that it's true-- but only to reinforce our
feeling that there is opposition between Russia and the West: That Russia opposes the global tyranny
which is progressing to completion. That we need do nothing but have faith in our minds in Putin
and Russia.
I hope I'm wrong guys. Can anybody find any words of Putin's which speak of the desirability
of reversing any part of global governance?
"... ALBerto I agree. It is also clear the cease fire agreements between the army and the Russians in Syria were deliberately sabotaged on at least two occasions. This supports the view that there is a split between the CIA and the army. ..."
From The Syrian Arab Army's "more official than any
other"
Facebook
page:
"...the city of Palmyra after the Syrian Arab Army units managed to regroup
and counterattack; the counter attack was aimed to prevent ISIS from entering the city
before the majority if not all civilians, what needs to be evacuated is evacuated.
In the morning, an organized withdrawal order was given to the troops, even after
the bulk of ISIS attack was repelled.
As we mentioned the night ended with ISIS pushed over 7km form the city itself;
and as we mentioned yesterday don't take any news as definitive.
Yesterday, reinforcement from the Syrian Arab Army were sent led by one of the
greatest SAA Generals, and everything changed afterwards.
As for now, the Syrian Arab Army pulled out of Palmyra; we don't know the second
step yet and we will update the page when we have information that we can share.
In its latest post some 45 minutes ago, the page author explains: "...the Syrian
command have to make hard choices to minimize SAA loses over any area on the map;
because the control map can be changed either with huge casualties or with minimal
casualties, but those who are lost cannot be revived."
It's a familiar story. We see armies advance and withdraw, advance and withdraw. What
matters is how many civilians die or can be protected and how many soldiers are left,
and to which side, which then rules the ground. Russian and Syrian gunships are
inflicting massive damage on these terrorists. Civilians are being evacuated from the
battle zones. At this moment SAA either controls the city or will control the city. But
SAA controls the battle.
ALBerto I agree. It is also clear the cease fire agreements between the army and the Russians
in Syria were deliberately sabotaged on at least two occasions. This supports the view that there
is a split between the CIA and the army. Good luck to trump and his friends. He is not someone
I would normally support but it does appear that he is an outsider to both the Republicans and
Democrats and may indeed be intent on draining the swamp. A very difficult road ahead as the corruption
amongst the powerful in the USA is widespread. Karma is the word that comes to mind if one looks
at what the USA has done to other countries around the world.
Robert McMaster@66 Tillerson's nomination could face intense scrutiny in the Senate, considering
his years of work in Russia and the Middle East on behalf of the multinational petroleum company.
Already, two leading Republican hawks, Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.),
have voiced concerns about Tillerson's serving as the nation's top diplomat because of his ties
to Putin.
I can hear McCains first question "Have you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist
Party.
"... There is no Russian involvement in the leaks of emails showing Clinton's corruption. Yet this rubbish has been the lead today in the Washington Post in the US and the Guardian here, and was the lead item on the BBC main news. I suspect it is leading the American broadcasts also. ..."
I have watched incredulous as the CIA's blatant lie has grown and grown as a media story blatant
because the CIA has made no attempt whatsoever to substantiate it.
There is no Russian involvement
in the leaks of emails showing Clinton's corruption. Yet this rubbish has been the lead today in
the Washington Post in the US and the Guardian here, and was the lead item on the BBC main news.
I suspect it is leading the American broadcasts also.
Thanks for this a much-needed Onion-esque satirical dig at the Globe/Post/NYT trifecta of
garbage. To base a headline on information gleaned from anonymous sources and unnamed officials
in secret meetings with unpublished agendas seems the most dangerous type of fake news there is.
The death of irony was greatly exaggerated, if you ask me.
Are we seeing a pattern here? Tillerson - a Putin counterpart and
recipient of Russia's Order of Friendship - to Moscow; Gov Branstad - farmin'
buddy of Premier Xi since the 1980s - to Beijing. And so forth.
Inside-the-Beltway folk are upset at the overturning of the established
order, in which diplomatic posts go to the biggest bundlers, regardless of
country knowledge. Lacking titles of nobility here in the Homeland, we need
an outlet for the well-connected to purchase a prestigious sinecure and a
black diplomatic passport. Otherwise a frightening Revolt of the Affluent
could roil our streets.
Still angling for the Court of St James myself - got any witticisms I
could share with the Queen?
Like it or not, Tillerson as secretary of "state" makes a fair amount of
sense.
His appointment would acknowledge, pretty overtly, that american foreign
"policy" is, always and everywhere, about energy.
We ignore human rights abuses in saudi arabia and overthrow Gadhafi when
he proposes demanding payment for oil in a gold-backed currency. Iraq. Assad
must "go" because of a pipeline. A biden boy gets a seat on the board of a
Ukranian energy company after a u. s. backed coup. The clinton foundation in
Nigeria.
And that's just the last decade or so of wars and "threats to american
interests." Maybe it's time we just got honest about it.
" BARACK OBAMA, WITH THE COOPERATION OF SOME IN THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY, ARE TRYING TO DISCREDIT TRUMP BEFORE THE ELECTION"
Notable quotes:
"... The whole "blame Russia" movement to account for Hillary's unexpected failure to win the Presidency got a new shot in the arm with today's announcement that Obama ordered: ..."
"... The stupidity of this is profound. If this review leads to the "discovery" that Russia is carrying out espionage activities in the United States then we have passed the threshold of learning that there is gambling in a casino. ..."
"... The real irony in all of this is that Wikileaks, thanks to the hack of the DNC and John Podesta emails, exposed the reality of Democrats working surreptitiously to tamper with and manipulate the election. Here are the highlights from that leak: ..."
"... Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his bromance with Putin, but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria. ..."
"... Blaming Russia for Hillary's flame out is absurd. The Russians did not create and lie about Hillary's server. They did not force her to back the multilateral trade agreements, such as NAFTA and TPP. They didn't set up the Clinton Foundation as a cash cow for the Clinton family. They did not force her to advocate imposing a No Fly Zone in Syria and having been a cheerleader for past wars, including Iraq and Libya. Vladimir Putin did not slip her a mickey and cause her to pass out at the 9-11 memorial, which fueled concerns about her health. And they did not infect her lungs and cause her to have extended coughing jags. They did not cause her to call Americans deplorables. They did not make her say that the coal industry should be shutdown. With that kind of record, coupled with her shrieking, screechy voice, why are folks surprised that she did not win? ..."
"... So now Democrats and several Republicans are in a lather over the Russians stealing the election for Trump. The list of conspiracy theorists pushing this nonsense include John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Angus King of Maine, Brent Budowsky and Adam Schiff. I defy anyone, to explain to me how Russian meddling gave Trump the win. ..."
"... The realities are this. First, as noted in the Budowsky email, the Clinton campaign came up with the idea of accusing Trump of being a stooge of Russia. They thought they'd get political bang out of that. They didn't. ..."
"... Second, the hack of the DNC emails confirmed that the suspicions of many that the DNC and Hillary were collaborating to screw over Bernie and rig the election. That was not fake news. Cold, unwelcomed truth. That's when this drum beat about the big, bad Russians started meddling in our election started. Why? To distract attention away from the ugly reality that the DNC and Hillary were cheating. ..."
"... The subsequent Wikileaks avalanche of Podesta emails reinforced as fact the existing suspicion that the media was in the bag for Hillary. ..."
"... I would recommend you assemble a short reading list of everything surrounding President Kennedy's full acceptance of responsibility after the Bay of Pigs, beginning with the substance and tone of his unequivocal taking of responsibility and ending with his huge rise in the polls, to nearly 90% favorable ratings, after he did this. ..."
"... And then I would suggest she plan the equivalent and take full, absolute and unequivocal responsibility for making a mistake with the private emails and give an honest, direct, explanation of the reasons I believe she used those private emails. . . . ..."
"... Give Budowsky credit for one thing, if Hillary had followed his advice she might have won the election. But she was too busy exploiting the rules of a rigged game and trying to smear Trump as a Russian agent while failing to exercise genuine, sincere personal responsibility. ..."
"... Barack Obama appears to be actively working to discredit the Trump election and has enlisted the intelligence community in the effort. How else to explain this disconnect? Yesterday, as noted above, Obama directed the intelligence community to: ..."
"... I heard from a knowledgeable friend in September that Hillary's campaign was pressing the Obama White House to lean on the intel community and put something out blaming her woes on the Russians. That led to the October statement. And now we have the CIA via a SECRET report (that is leaked to the public) insisting that Trump's victory came because of the Russians. ..."
"... This is a damn lie. The CIA is now allowing itself to be used once again for blatant political purposes. The politicization became a real problem under Bush. Let's not forget that these are the same cats who insisted it was a slam dunk that were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The same group who missed the rise of ISIS. ..."
"... Also worth reminding ourselves that the head of the ironically titled "Intelligence Community" is a proven liar. Jim Clapper lied to the Senate about the NSA spying on Americans three years ago (December 2013) : ..."
"... "Congressional oversight depends on truthful testimony witnesses cannot be allowed to lie to Congress," wrote representatives James Sensenbrenner, Darrell Issa, Trent Franks, Raul Labrador, Ted Poe, Trey Gowdy and Blake Farenthold, citing "Director Clapper's willful lie under oath." ..."
"... There is a consistent pattern in the Obama Administration of lying to the American people, especially when it comes to National Security matters. The NSA is not an isolated case. We also have Benghazi, Syria and Libya as other examples of not telling the truth and misrepresenting facts. ..."
"... In my lifetime, going on 60 years, I have never seen such a display of incompetence as is being manifested by Barack Obama and mental midgets that surround him. ..."
"... What they can say for sure is that the DNC and Podesta emails were hacked. Those hacked emails were passed to WIKILEAKS. Those emails were then released to the public. What the intel community will be hard pressed to prove is that the Russian Government conceived of and directed such a campaign. This is the true information operation to meddle in the U.S. election, but that isn't Russia. That's Obama. ..."
UPDATEPLEASE SEE BELOW. BOTTOMLINE, BARACK OBAMA, WITH THE COOPERATION OF SOME IN THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY, ARE TRYING
TO DISCREDIT TRUMP BEFORE THE ELECTION.
Let me stipulate up front that both the United States and Russia engage in
covert and clandestine information
operations. It is called espionage. It is but one aspect of the broader intelligence activity also known as spying. Time for all
you snowflakes in America to grow up and get a grip and deal with with reality. If the respective intelligence organizations in either
country are not doing this they are guilty of malpractice and should be dismantled.
There are two basic types of espionage activityCovert refers to an operation that is undetected while in progress, but the outcome
may be easily observed. Killing Bin Laden is a prime example of a "covert" operation. A Clandestine Operation is something that is
supposed to be undetected while in progress and after completion. For example, if the U.S. or Russia had a mole at the top of the
National Security bureaucracy of their respective adversary, communicating with that mole and the mole's very existence would be
clandestine.
So, the alleged Russian meddling in our electionwas it covert or clandestine?
The whole "blame Russia" movement to account for Hillary's unexpected failure to win the Presidency got a new shot in the
arm with today's announcement that
Obama ordered:
a full review into hacking by the Russians designed to influence the 2016 election, White House Homeland Security and Counterterrorism
Adviser Lisa Monaco said Friday.
The stupidity of this is profound. If this review leads to the "discovery" that Russia is carrying out espionage activities
in the United States then we have passed the threshold of learning that there is gambling in a casino.
The real irony in all of this is that Wikileaks, thanks to the hack of the DNC and John Podesta emails, exposed the reality
of Democrats working surreptitiously to tamper with and manipulate the election. Here are the highlights from that leak:
DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz Calls Sanders Campaign Manager Jeff Weaver an "A" and a "Liar"
In May the Nevada Democratic State Convention became rowdy and got out of hand in a fight over delegate allocation. When Weaver
went on CNN and denied any claims violence had happened, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, once she was notified of the exchange, wrote
"Damn liar. Particularly scummy that he never acknowledges the violent and threatening behavior that occurred."
Highlighting Sanders' Faith
One email shows that a DNC official contemplated highlighting Sanders' alleged atheism - even though he has said he is not an
atheist - during the primaries as a possibility to undermine support among voters.
"It may make no difference but for KY and WA can we get someone to ask his belief," Brad Marshall, CFO of the DNC, wrote
in an email on May 5, 2016. "He had skated on having a Jewish heritage. I read he is an atheist. This could make several points
difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist."
Building a Narrative Against Sanders
"Wondering if there's a good Bernie narrative for a story which is that Bernie never ever had his act together, that his campaign
was a mess," DNC National Secretary Mark Paustenbach wrote in an email to National Communications Director Luis Miranda on May 21.
After detailing ways in which the Sanders camp was disorganized, Paustenbach concludes, "It's not a DNC conspiracy it's because they
never had their act together."
The release provides further evidence the DNC broke its own charter violations by favoring Clinton as the Democratic presidential
nominee, long before any votes were cast.
It was the Clinton spokesman, Robbie Mook, who launched the claim on July 24, 2016 that these leaks were done by the Russians
in order to help Trump:
The source of the leak has not been revealed, though Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, Robby Mook, said on ABC News' "This Week
With George Stephanopoulos" on Sunday that he believes the Russians were instrumental in it.
"Experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke into the DNC, took all these emails and now are leaking them out through
these websites," Mook said Sunday. "It's troubling that some experts are now telling us that this was done by the Russians for the
purpose of helping Donald Trump."
The Clinton campaign started planning to smear Trump as a Putin stooge as early as December 2015. The Podesta emails showed clearly
that the Clinton campaign decided early on to clobber Trump for his "bromance" with Putin. It was Brent Buwdosky almost one year
ago (December 21, 2015) who proposed going after
Trump with the Russian card in an email to Podesta:
Putin did not agree to anything about removing Assad and continues to bomb the people we support. We pushed the same position
in 2012 (Geneva 1, which HRC knows all about) and Geneva 2 in 2014. Odds that Putin agrees to remove Assad are only slightly better
than the odds the College of Cardinals chooses me to someday succeed Pope Francis. Best approach is to slaughter Donald for his
bromance with Putin, but not go too far betting on Putin re Syria.
Going after Trump as a Russian stooge was in the Clinton playbook long before Trump won a primary. One the wedge issues for Clinton
with respect to Trump was Syria. Trump took a strong stand (which many thought would hurt him with Republicans) in declaring we should
not be trying to get rid of Assad and that America should cooperate with the Russians in fighting the Islamists. Clinton, by contrast,
called for imposing a No Fly Zone that would have risked a direct confrontation with Russia.
Blaming Russia for Hillary's flame out is absurd. The Russians did not create and lie about Hillary's server. They did not
force her to back the multilateral trade agreements, such as NAFTA and TPP. They didn't set up the Clinton Foundation as a cash cow
for the Clinton family. They did not force her to advocate imposing a No Fly Zone in Syria and having been a cheerleader for past
wars, including Iraq and Libya. Vladimir Putin did not slip her a mickey and cause her to pass out at the 9-11 memorial, which fueled
concerns about her health. And they did not infect her lungs and cause her to have extended coughing jags. They did not cause her
to call Americans deplorables. They did not make her say that the coal industry should be shutdown. With that kind of record, coupled
with her shrieking, screechy voice, why are folks surprised that she did not win?
So now Democrats and several Republicans are in a lather over the Russians stealing the election for Trump. The list of conspiracy
theorists pushing this nonsense include John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Angus King of Maine, Brent Budowsky and Adam Schiff. I defy
anyone, to explain to me how Russian meddling gave Trump the win.
The realities are this. First, as noted in the Budowsky email, the Clinton campaign came up with the idea of accusing Trump
of being a stooge of Russia. They thought they'd get political bang out of that. They didn't.
Second, the hack of the DNC emails confirmed that the suspicions of many that the DNC and Hillary were collaborating to screw
over Bernie and rig the election. That was not fake news. Cold, unwelcomed truth. That's when this drum beat about the big, bad Russians
started meddling in our election started. Why? To distract attention away from the ugly reality that the DNC and Hillary were cheating.
The subsequent Wikileaks avalanche of Podesta emails reinforced as fact the existing suspicion that the media was in the bag
for Hillary. But no amount of media help and foreign money could transform Hillary into a likeable candidate. She was dreadful
on the campaign trail and terrible at talking to the average American. Even her boy, Brent Budowsky, reluctantly acknowledged this
in an email to John Podesta on Wednesday, August 26,
2015 :
While I have been warning for some time about the dangers facing the Clinton campaign, aggressively in privately, tactfully in
columns, during this latest stage I have been publicly defending her with no-holds barred, and here is my advice based on the reaction
I have been receiving and the dangers I see coming to fruition.
I would recommend you assemble a short reading list of everything surrounding President Kennedy's full acceptance of responsibility
after the Bay of Pigs, beginning with the substance and tone of his unequivocal taking of responsibility and ending with his huge
rise in the polls, to nearly 90% favorable ratings, after he did this.
And then I would suggest she plan the equivalent and take full, absolute and unequivocal responsibility for making a mistake
with the private emails and give an honest, direct, explanation of the reasons I believe she used those private emails. . . .
She could say she was right anticipating this, but wrong in overreacting by trying to shield her private emails, and she takes
full responsibility for this, and apologizes to her supporters and everyone else, and now she has turned over all information, it
will ultimately be seen that there no egregious wrongs committed.
She needs to stop talking like a lawyer parsing legalistic words and a potential defendant expecting a future indictment, which
is how she often looks and sounds to many voters today. Instead, she should take full responsibility for a mistake with no equivocation,
and segue into the role of a populist prosecutor against a corrupted politics that Americans already detest ..and make a direct attack
against the Donald Trump politics of daily insults and defamations and intolerance against whichever individuals and groups he tries
to bully on a given day, and while defending some Republican candidates against his attacks, she should deplore their being intimidated
by his insults and offering pastel versions of the intolerance he peddles.
In other words, she should stop acting like a front-runner who cautiously tries to exploit the rules of a rigged game to her advantage,
and start acting like a fighting underdog who will fight on behalf of Americans who want a higher standard of living for themselves,
a higher standard of politics for the nation, and a higher level of economic opportunity and social justice for everyone.
Like JFK after the Bay of Pigs, the more responsibility she takes now the more she will succeed going forward.
Give Budowsky credit for one thing, if Hillary had followed his advice she might have won the election. But she was too busy
exploiting the rules of a rigged game and trying to smear Trump as a Russian agent while failing to exercise genuine, sincere personal
responsibility.
UPDATE This is an extremely dangerous time now. Barack Obama appears to be actively working to discredit the Trump
election and has enlisted the intelligence community in the effort. How else to explain this disconnect? Yesterday, as noted above,
Obama directed the intelligence community to:
"conduct a full review of what happened during the 2016 election process. It is to capture lessons learned from that and
to report to a range of stakeholders," she said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast with reporters. "This is consistent with
the work that we did over the summer to engage Congress on the threats that we were seeing."
The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency,
rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.
Why do you order a review if the CIA has already made a factual determination? In fact, we were told in October that the whole
damn intelligence community determined the Russians did it.
USA Today reported this in October :
The
fact-checking website Politifact says Hillary Clinton is correct when she says 17 federal intelligence agencies have concluded
that Russia is behind the hacking.
"We have 17, 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyber
attacks, come from the highest levels of the Kremlin. And they are designed to influence our election. I find that deeply disturbing,"
Clinton said during
Wednesday's presidential debate in Las Vegas .
Trump pushed back, saying that Clinton and the United States had "no idea whether it is Russia, China or anybody else."
But Clinton is correct. On Oct. 7, the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence
issued
a joint statement on behalf of the U.S. Intelligence Community. The USIC is
made up of 16 agencies , in
addition to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
I heard from a knowledgeable friend in September that Hillary's campaign was pressing the Obama White House to lean on the
intel community and put something out blaming her woes on the Russians. That led to the October statement. And now we have the CIA
via a SECRET report (that is leaked to the public) insisting that Trump's victory came because of the Russians.
This is a damn lie. The CIA is now allowing itself to be used once again for blatant political purposes. The politicization
became a real problem under Bush. Let's not forget that these are the same cats who insisted it was a slam dunk that were weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq. The same group who missed the rise of ISIS.
"The ability of ISIL to not just mass inside of Syria, but then to initiate major land offensives that took Mosul, for example,
that was not on my intelligence radar screen," Obama told Zakaria, using the administration's term for the Islamic State terror group.
In a letter issued the day after a White House surveillance review placed new political pressure on the National Security Agency,
the seven members of the House judiciary committee said that James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, ought to face
consequences for untruthfully telling the Senate that the NSA was "not wittingly" collecting data on Americans.
"Congressional oversight depends on truthful testimony witnesses cannot be allowed to lie to Congress," wrote representatives
James Sensenbrenner, Darrell Issa, Trent Franks, Raul Labrador, Ted Poe, Trey Gowdy and Blake Farenthold, citing "Director Clapper's
willful lie under oath."
There is a consistent pattern in the Obama Administration of lying to the American people, especially when it comes to National
Security matters. The NSA is not an isolated case. We also have Benghazi, Syria and Libya as other examples of not telling the truth
and misrepresenting facts.
In my lifetime, going on 60 years, I have never seen such a display of incompetence as is being manifested by Barack Obama
and mental midgets that surround him.
What they can say for sure is that the DNC and Podesta emails were hacked. Those hacked emails were passed to WIKILEAKS. Those
emails were then released to the public. What the intel community will be hard pressed to prove is that the Russian Government conceived
of and directed such a campaign. This is the true information operation to meddle in the U.S. election, but that isn't Russia. That's
Obama.
Larry C. Johnson is a former analyst at the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, who moved subsequently in 1989 to the U.S.
Department of State, where he served four years as the deputy director for transportation security, antiterrorism assistance training,
and special operations in the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism. He left government service in October 1993 and set up
a consulting business. He currently is the co-owner and CEO of BERG Associates, LLC (Business Exposure Reduction Group) and is an
expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security, and crisis and risk management, and money laundering investigations. Johnson
is the founder and main author of No Quarter, a weblog that addresses issues of terrorism and intelligence and politics. NoQuarterUSA
was nominated as Best Political Blog of 2008.
"... My perspective from across the ocean has always been that the McCarthy philosophy was the least admirable episode in recent US history. ..."
"... It's almost as if the West, or at least Western Elite circles who have strived to saturate the airways with Russia-the-bogey-man material since the year dot, can they, on the back of this one-sided propaganda machine, wheel-out blame directed towards Russia for .... well almost anything they desire. ..."
"... If only Barack Hussain Obama had not taken it upon his self to interfere in our referendum with his clear 'Back of the queue' threat, it may have been possible to not think he is a hypocrite. ..."
"... I suspect this is one last roll of the dice by the 'democrats' to keep Trump out of office. ..."
"... Obama is foolishly upping the ante, not on Putin, but on Trump. Trump's instinct will be to put a 10x hurt on Obama for this. Don't punk Trump. ..."
"... They are desperate to discredit the winner. It is as ineffective as any of his failed policies ..."
"... In other words, Obama admits he hasn't kept America secure versus 21st-century threats. ..."
"... Obama has said the intelligence agencies had the proof that Russia interfered with the election. With all their proof why order a review? Can't wait until Obama leaves office. ..."
"... what, is the USA the new Latin America, and Russia the new CIA ? forever meddling surreptitiously to undermine and overthrow other sovereign nation states democratic processes ? that's just so unfair ..."
"... It is a funny joke, but on the essence I would advise to read investigative report "The New Red Scare" in Harpers. The evidence of Russian government having anything to do with any hacks is literally non-existing. ..."
"... The US, heckler of the world for decades, stirring trouble wherever the dart falls, and yet Russian hackers and North Korean hookers are to blame for 99.9% of the worlds problems. Reality is, if the US didn't move past its own borders for 10 years the world would be already a much, much better place. ..."
"... The Guardian probably shouldn't go along in helping build the new McCarthyist, Cold War narrative, especially when it's just a bunch of US politicians and media figures repeating politically expedient, but factually unsupported claims. The Western media is trying to be Hearst Newspapers in the Spanish-American war. ..."
"... This is explicitly bad because it allows the suppression of dissent, of creating blacklists, the military industrial complex to further consolidate power, and to blame all sorts of domestic failures on shadowing foreign influence. ..."
"... But when Judith Miller, the NYT, George Bush and Hillary Clinton used fake news to kill hundreds of thousands, Obama told us to get over it, to "look forward and not backward." ..."
"... The United States has attempted to push its democratic ideologies on countries all over the world, using means much more direct than hacking. Yet they cannot take a fraction of what they dish out. If Russia is indeed intervening to aid nationalists around the world, then Russia is a friend and should be welcomed with open arms. Trump should do the same, and used the powers of the United States to undermine [neoliberal] leftists around the globe. ..."
Interesting - Obama never ordered an independent probe into 9/11 or invasion of Iraq or on the
Wall Street Collapse. Somehow Russian hacking seems to be more draconian than all the above.
And Russians somehow got into the brains of the disgruntled white population, and controlled
Trump's brain so that he would be voted to power. Then they still control Trump's brain so much
that he is wanting to let NATO countries pay for their security, make Japan, South Korea and everyone
else where US maintains its bases to pay for themselves.
And then suddenly there is a news of a thousand Russian athletes doing well in 2012 London
Olympics due to enhanced drugs. Until now, no one knew about this or heard about it.
It is not that I am supporting Russia all of a sudden. It is just that I am not supporting
the attempt to create enemies out of thin air and make them monstrous as needed, while covering
even more sinister schemes that need public attention.
Obama is part of the same system too that runs everything from behind the curtains. He still
is a good man. But he has only some much room to function within and survive.
A good man is not capable of bombing 7 countries in 8 years' time. People are too naive to believe
that someone could look as nice and sound as nice as Obama and push to advance the agenda of some
of the most evil and power-hungry megalomaniacs on the planet.
I don't know if the Russians provided Wikileaks with the actual emails or not but Wikileaks
like so many news organisations before them released info obtained illegally that they thought
the public had a right to know.
Now Assange has effectively been imprisoned in an Embassy in London for around 5 years on bogus
charges and his reputation was damaged by the same charges - Obviously Obama does not want to
give any credit to Assange and he knows he has played a part in this outrageous persecution.
This would also a could time to remind fellow commentators here about the Nuland - Pyatt conversation
that was recorded by Russia and released. This conversation showed the the involvement of two
high ranking US Politicians in the armed coup in Ukraine where an elected albeit corrupt leader
was forced to flee the country.
The period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from
1950 to 1956 and characterized by heightened political repression against supposed communists,
as well as a campaign spreading fear of their influence on American institutions and of espionage
by Soviet agents.
The third Red Scare? *clutches teddy bear*
Only one slight problem ...there aren't any reds in charge in Russia anymore.
My point being, there is no great ideological clash anymore. Assange volunteered the fact the
email data didn't come from the Russians. And whether Trump is better than Hillary is open to
debate.
My perspective from across the ocean has always been that the McCarthy philosophy was the
least admirable episode in recent US history. I doubt many people want to return to that
but surely, demonstrable evidence in either direction is the only antidote to accusations and
conspiracy theories, and is needed now more than ever in this supposed 'post truth' era.
Reply Share
I assume that Obama is being told to do this, and probably by the same people who backed the Clinton
individual for POTUS. The American people must be exceedingly dumb if they fall for this rubbish.
It's almost as if the West, or at least Western Elite circles who have strived to saturate
the airways with Russia-the-bogey-man material since the year dot, can they, on the back of this
one-sided propaganda machine, wheel-out blame directed towards Russia for .... well almost anything
they desire.
Problem is, are the public still eating out of their hands!?
Brext and the Trump victory is suggesting - not all of us by a long way.
If only Barack Hussain Obama had not taken it upon his self to interfere in our referendum
with his clear 'Back of the queue' threat, it may have been possible to not think he is a hypocrite.
what a joke, america has been 'interfering' (i.e. bombing and destroying) how many countries since
1945?? incredible hypocrisy and sickening double-standards.
War propoganda. Will the White Helmets be saving Russian civilians too? I suspect this is
one last roll of the dice by the 'democrats' to keep Trump out of office.
Obama has said the intelligence agencies had the proof that Russia interfered with the election.
With all their proof why order a review? Can't wait until Obama leaves office.
what, is the USA the new Latin America, and Russia the new CIA ? forever meddling surreptitiously
to undermine and overthrow other sovereign nation states democratic processes ? that's just so
unfair
It is a funny joke, but on the essence I would advise to read investigative report "The New
Red Scare" in Harpers. The evidence of Russian government having anything to do with any
hacks is literally non-existing.
The US, heckler of the world for decades, stirring trouble wherever the dart falls, and yet
Russian hackers and North Korean hookers are to blame for 99.9% of the worlds problems. Reality
is, if the US didn't move past its own borders for 10 years the world would be already a much,
much better place.
The Guardian probably shouldn't go along in helping build the new McCarthyist, Cold War narrative,
especially when it's just a bunch of US politicians and media figures repeating politically expedient,
but factually unsupported claims. The Western media is trying to be Hearst Newspapers in the Spanish-American
war.
This is explicitly bad because it allows the suppression of dissent, of creating blacklists,
the military industrial complex to further consolidate power, and to blame all sorts of domestic
failures on shadowing foreign influence. This is exactly what countries like Iran and North
Korea do. Bravo guys, for keep this story going for almost half a year with no substantial proof
whatsoever.
But when Judith Miller, the NYT, George Bush and Hillary Clinton used fake news to kill hundreds
of thousands, Obama told us to get over it, to "look forward and not backward." What a waste
of 8 years.
he suddenly discovered, 2-3 wks ago, that he was enthusiastic about space technology and exploration.
He (that is his ghost writers) published a 1 p. article about his love of space. Fact is, first
thing great-mind Obama did 8yrs ago is gut NASA's budget. He never mentioned space once in 8 yrs.
Suddenly, he is a fan. Creepy ... how does he deal with his hypocritical self every morning?
Political theatre. He will be out of office before anyone will even be asked to take office.
Its hilarious that The Guardian tries to frame US Intelligence as a single cohesive unit. Its
a splintered multi-headed hydra that will never act on this. Once again Obama brings righteous
powerful leadership to the act of being ineffective.
Starring:
Shirtless Putin
Legacy Obama
Hillary "I'm Not Trump" Clinton
Donald "OG Troll" Trump
Super Elite Genius Ninja Russian Hackers
The Poor Defenseless Victim DNC
John "Let's All Just Laugh at The Risotto Recipe and Not Pay Attention to any of my Other Emails"
Podesta
80's synth "rock" and really bright neon clothing
And featuring: Lou Diamond Phillips as.....Guccifer 2.0
The United States has attempted to push its democratic ideologies on countries all over the
world, using means much more direct than hacking. Yet they cannot take a fraction of what they
dish out. If Russia is indeed intervening to aid nationalists around the world, then Russia is
a friend and should be welcomed with open arms. Trump should do the same, and used the powers
of the United States to undermine [neoliberal] leftists around the globe.
No its by the letter actually. Libya, Yemen backed by US, Pakistan, Tunisia had some financial
and military backing. Obama is the drone king. And Ukraine well have you heard of Victoria nuland
before? Regime change in Ukraine cost the taxpayer 5 billion dollars
"... Outrageous how the Russians interfered with the Koch brothers and Soros's electoral process... ..."
"... No one, not the government agencies, not those ominous private security firms, no one presented even a shred of evidence for any involvement of the Russian government. Not even some lackluster ambiguous data, it was all anecdotal stuff, 'confidence' and fluffy rhetoric. ..."
"... The McCarthy-esque paranoia spread by the Clinton campaign to deflect from the content of those emails took foothold it seems. ..."
"... If the evidence were to hand, actually existed, it would have been all over the front pages of the WaPo, NYT and other major news outlets, not just in the US but everywhere else too. Investigating this 'evidence' is, to borrow William Gibson's simile, "Like planning to assassinate a figure out of myth and legend". The usual 'national security considerations' which have been and will continue to be adduced, as reasons for not publishing the evidence is pure triple-distilled BS and pretty much everyone knows that it's BS. ..."
Russia has always been the convenient whipping boy for the United States. We manufactured the
cold war because we needed an enemy to prop up our war economy. We built the Soviet Union into
this monolithic bogey man, spoiling to crush the west, enemies of "freedom," in order to keep
the west scared and pliant and in our pocket. After so-called communism collapsed, we found new
enemies in the middle east but they lacked the staying power. So now it's back to Russia. Maybe
the Russians did hack into the DNC. If so, they merely exposed the damning material. They didn't
write it.
Oh boy the knives are out against Russia, first I read about the 2012 Olympics which even if it
is true I would hold the British Olympic Committee responsible for the failure to find out about
the doping at the time of the Games and not 4 years later. I have just read US, Obama is now pointing
the finger at Russia for the outcome of the US Elections oh dear they are really scraping the
barrell to look for someone to blame instead of finding out why their own people decided to vote
for Trump. This is all typical American hyperbole and nonsense and a concerted effort on America's
efforts to orchestrate the next War.
America is so way behind with any modern services, they apparently do not have their bank cards
with pin or contactless as yet.
Unlucky failed mainstream media lost all confidence of its readership and are now broke. What
will they do next? ask for money saying that they're helping others whilst keeping most of it?
No one, not the government agencies, not those ominous private security firms, no one presented
even a shred of evidence for any involvement of the Russian government. Not even some lackluster
ambiguous data, it was all anecdotal stuff, 'confidence' and fluffy rhetoric.
But if it makes them happy....
The McCarthy-esque paranoia spread by the Clinton campaign to deflect from the content
of those emails took foothold it seems.
If the evidence were to hand, actually existed, it would have been all over the front pages
of the WaPo, NYT and other major news outlets, not just in the US but everywhere else too. Investigating
this 'evidence' is, to borrow William Gibson's simile, "Like planning to assassinate a figure
out of myth and legend". The usual 'national security considerations' which have been and will
continue to be adduced, as reasons for not publishing the evidence is pure triple-distilled BS
and pretty much everyone knows that it's BS.
Yeah sure, just like how it was 'all over the front pages' about what really happened on 9/11,
who was really involved etc.
And don't give me any of that conspiracy theory, tin-foil hat bs either...unless you are able
to be honest about this conspiracy: 19 or 20 strip-club lovin, don't-need-no-takeoff/landing-lessons
jihadists used box-cutters to overpower jet air planes and with the-luck-of-the-century HIT NOT
ONE....BUT TWO skyscrapers at the EXACT SPOT where the 47 concrete -steel inner columns were weak
enough to cause 'pancaking' of the undamaged 60-90 UNDAMAGED FLOORS. Collapsing (and pulverizing
concrete into dust) the building into itself.
And then weirdly enough a small cabal of PNAC signees who in writing had expressed that pax-americana
was going to be 'difficult unless a pearl harbor like event happens' had almost as much Luck-of-the-century
as the jihadists when......WA LA....into their lap.....a new pearl harbor.
Trying to blame one of the most flawed and undemocratic election process's in the Western hemisphere
on the Russians is laughable to the point of hysteria.
The dumb-ed down bigoted electorate is a direct result of decades of a two party political
system, backed up by a compliant media, that fosters mindless patriotism and ignorance rather
than enlightenment and intelligent discussion on the problems facing the country.
Never have I seen a better example of your own dog biting you on the arse!
But Clinton lost the election because the Republicans realised she was certain to be the Democratic
Presidential candidate fifteen years ago and they began their smear campaign against her right
there and then, and a lot of it stuck.
When you add to that tens of thousands on the left like me who voted for her...but would not
campaign for her because we didn't agree with her disastrous blunder in helping to overthrow Qaddafi
in Libya ( a country that is now a feudal backwater) and her stated goals of regime change in
Syria and all the while she had a domestic policy was cosying up to the bankers and Wall Street
elites, whilst ignoring blue collar Americans without jobs and prospects for their future...the
almost inevitable result is Trump as President of the United States.
'Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud, hatch out!'
The US will get what it deserves...and it deserves Trump I'm afraid.
"... Greenwald's take down is another hammer meets nail piece. The CIA are systemic liars. In fact, that's their job to move around in the shadows and deceive. They literally lie about everything. They lied about Iran/Contra, torture programs, their propensity for drug smuggling and dealing, infesting the media with agents, imaginary WMDs that launch war and massacre, mass surveillance of citizens, just to name a few. ..."
"... This is the agency who are in secret and anonymity, with no verifiable evidence, whispering rumors in the WaPoo and NYTimes' ears that the Russians made Hillary lose. What moron would take the CIA at its word anymore? Much less a major newspaper? Did I miss something, is it 1950 again? Methinks I've picked up the scent of fake news ..."
"... Apparently, all the morons who are still screaming about Trump, as if he alone will be in charge of the government and not his GOP handlers. Please keep in mind that the ardent Clinton supporters quite clearly reveal cult behavior, and anything that allows them to continue embracing their belief in their righteousness will be embraced without question or qualm. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... The upside of these overtly political battles among intelligence agencies is that we are eroding away the idea that these are non-partisan institutions without overt political agendas. ..."
"... What Stengel and various mainstream media outlets appear to be arguing for is the creation of a "Ministry of Truth" managed by mainstream U.S. media outlets and enforced by Google, Facebook and other technology platforms. ..."
"... In other words, once these supposedly responsible outlets decide what the "truth" is, then questioning that narrative will earn you "virtual" expulsion from the marketplace of ideas, possibly eliminated via algorithms of major search engines or marked with a special app to warn readers not to believe what you say, a sort of yellow Star of David for the Internet age. ..."
"... The NC lawsuit against WaPo, like the lawsuit of Hedges et al. against provisions of the NDAA, marks a watershed moment for defending free speech in our country! I hope that my oft-expressed belief -- that we will soon need to revive samizdat ..."
"... According to a recent posting on Wolf Street, according to records, the Treasury has borrowed 4 trillion more between 2004-15, than can actually be accounted for in spending. This is because it is the borrowing and thus public obligations, which really matter to the powers that be. The generals just get their toys and wars as icing on the cake. It doesn't matter if they win, because there would be less war to spend it on. Eventually they will use "public/private partnerships" to take their piles of public obligations and trade for the rest of the Commons. ..."
"... Money needs to be understand as a public utility, like roads. We no more own it than we own the section of road we are using. It is like blood, not fat. ..."
"... The CIA whinging about a right wing president being installed by a foreign power might just be the greatest self-awareness fail ever! ..."
"... LOL at that! You'd think they were afraid trump might turn out to be the next Hugo Chavez! They must really, really love their program to help al Qaeda in Syria. ..."
"... The CIA lies as a matter of course, and now they're being propped up as the paragons of honesty, simply out of political expediency. Crazy days. ..."
"... Modern Democrats simply aren't a political party but fanatics of a professional sports club. If it wasn't the Russians, it would be referees or Bill Belichick at fault. I'm surprised they aren't mentioning "Comrade Nader" at all times. ..."
"... In fact, Trump's coalition looks remarkably similar to the one that Scott Walker put together in 2014. ..."
"... Obama in Spartanburg, SC in 2007: And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I'm in the White House, I'll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America. Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner. ..."
"... And the Dems wonder why the working class feel betrayed. ..."
Meet the Democrats' proto-Trumps Politico. "In three major states with a governor's
mansion up for grabs in 2018, a big-name, politically active billionaire or multimillionaire
is taking steps toward a run - [Democrat] donors looking to take matters into their own
hands after 2016's gutting losses."
The Evidence to Prove the Russian Hack emptywheel. The headline is a bit off, since the
post's subject is really the evidence required to prove the Russian hack. Some of
which does exist. That said, this is an excellent summary of the state of play. I take issue
with one point:
Crowdstrike reported that GRU also hacked the DNC. As it explains, GRU does this by sending
someone something that looks like an email password update, but which instead is a fake
site designed to get someone to hand over their password. The reason this claim is strong
is because people at the DNC say this happened to them.
First, CrowdStrike is a private security firm, so there's a high likelihood they're talking
their book, Beltway IT being what it is. Second, a result (DNC got phished) isn't "strong"
proof of a claim (GRU did the phishing). We live in a world where 12-year-olds know how to
do email phishing, and a world where professional phishing operations can camouflage themselves
as whoever they like. So color me skeptical absent some unpacking on this point. A second post
from emptywheel,
Unpacking the New CIA Leak: Don't Ignore the Aluminum Tube Footnote , is also well worth
a read.
Greenwald's take down is another hammer meets nail piece. The CIA are systemic liars.
In fact, that's their job to move around in the shadows and deceive. They literally lie about
everything. They lied about Iran/Contra, torture programs, their propensity for drug smuggling
and dealing, infesting the media with agents, imaginary WMDs that launch war and massacre,
mass surveillance of citizens, just to name a few.
They murder, torture, train hired mercenary proxies (who they are often pretending to oppose),
stage coups of democratically elected govt.'s, interfere with elections, topple regimes, install
ruthless puppet dictators, and generally enslave other nations to western corporate pirates.
They are a rogue band of pirates themselves.
This is the agency who are in secret and anonymity, with no verifiable evidence, whispering
rumors in the WaPoo and NYTimes' ears that the Russians made Hillary lose. What moron would
take the CIA at its word anymore? Much less a major newspaper? Did I miss something, is it
1950 again? Methinks I've picked up the scent of fake news
Conclusion: It isn't the Russians that are interfering with U.S. kangaroo elections, it's
the professionals over at the CIA
Apparently, all the morons who are still screaming about Trump, as if he alone will
be in charge of the government and not his GOP handlers. Please keep in mind that the ardent
Clinton supporters quite clearly reveal cult behavior, and anything that allows them to continue
embracing their belief in their righteousness will be embraced without question or qualm.
I've tried to point out on other blogs just how shaky that story in the Washington Post
is, and the response I get is something along the lines of, well, other outlets are also
reporting it, so it must be true. It does me no good to point out that this is the same tactic
used by the Bush administration in the run-up to the Iraq war. People will believe what they
want to believe.
It may help to point to the history of CIA influence at WaPoo. Counterpunch had a short
piece reminding everyone of Operation Mockingbird (going from memory on that name) where CIA
had reporters on staff at the paper directly taking orders and simultaneously on CIA payroll.
If questioned about CIA's motivation for hating trump, my best guess is that it is because
trump is undermining their project to overthrow assad in syria using nusra rebels. And also
because trump wants to be nice to russia.
I think there's some people in the cia that think they played a major role in winning the
cold war through their support for mujahadeen rebels in afghanistan. I suspect they think they
can beat putin in syria the same way. This is absolutely nutty.
The upside of these overtly political battles among intelligence agencies is that we
are eroding away the idea that these are non-partisan institutions without overt political
agendas.
There's a large number of people that will see through the facade. Right now, Trump supporters
are getting a lesson in how much resistance there can be within the establishment. I'm no Trump
supporter, but I think seeing what these institutions are capable of is a useful exercise for
all involved.
Apologies if this analysis by Robert Parry has already been shared here:
"What Stengel and various mainstream media outlets appear to be arguing for is the
creation of a "Ministry of Truth" managed by mainstream U.S. media outlets and enforced
by Google, Facebook and other technology platforms.
In other words, once these supposedly responsible outlets decide what the "truth"
is, then questioning that narrative will earn you "virtual" expulsion from the marketplace
of ideas, possibly eliminated via algorithms of major search engines or marked with a special
app to warn readers not to believe what you say, a sort of yellow Star of David for the
Internet age.
And then there's the possibility of more direct (and old-fashioned) government enforcement
by launching FBI investigations into media outlets that won't toe the official line. (All
of these "solutions" have been advocated in recent weeks.)
On the other hand, if you do toe the official line that comes from Stengel's public diplomacy
shop, you stand to get rewarded with government financial support. Stengel disclosed in
his interview with Ignatius that his office funds "investigative" journalism projects.
"How should citizens who want a fact-based world combat this assault on truth?" Ignatius
asks, adding: "Stengel has approved State Department programs that teach investigative reporting
and empower truth-tellers."
The NC lawsuit against WaPo, like the lawsuit of Hedges et al. against provisions of
the NDAA, marks a watershed moment for defending free speech in our country! I hope that my
oft-expressed belief -- that we will soon need to revive samizdat techniques to preserve
truth may turn ou to be overly pessimistic.
Keep in mind the basis of this capitalist economy is Federal debt. They have to spend it
on something. The government doesn't even budget, which is to list priorities and spend according
to need/ability. They put together these enormous bills, add enough to get the votes, which
don't come cheap and then the prez can only pass or veto.
If they wanted to actually budget, taking the old line item veto as a template, they could
break these bills into all their various items, have each legislator assign a percentage value
to each one, put them back together in order of preference and the prez would draw the line.
"The buck stops here."
That would keep powers separate, with congress prioritizing and the prez individually responsible
for deficit spending. It would also totally crash our current "Capitalist" system.
According to a recent posting on Wolf Street, according to records, the Treasury has
borrowed 4 trillion more between 2004-15, than can actually be accounted for in spending. This
is because it is the borrowing and thus public obligations, which really matter to the powers
that be. The generals just get their toys and wars as icing on the cake. It doesn't matter
if they win, because there would be less war to spend it on. Eventually they will use "public/private
partnerships" to take their piles of public obligations and trade for the rest of the Commons.
Money needs to be understand as a public utility, like roads. We no more own it than
we own the section of road we are using. It is like blood, not fat.
LOL at that! You'd think they were afraid trump might turn out to be the next Hugo Chavez!
They must really, really love their program to help al Qaeda in Syria.
There are so many eye-rolling ironies in all this I think my eyeballs might just pop out
of their sockets. And the liberals going out of their way to tout the virtues of the CIA the
very same organization that never shied from assassinating or overthrowing a leftwing president/prime
minister it galls. The CIA lies as a matter of course, and now they're being propped up
as the paragons of honesty, simply out of political expediency. Crazy days.
Modern Democrats simply aren't a political party but fanatics of a professional sports
club. If it wasn't the Russians, it would be referees or Bill Belichick at fault. I'm surprised
they aren't mentioning "Comrade Nader" at all times.
My guess is donors are annoyed after the 2014 debacle and are having a hard time rationalizing
a loss to a reality TV show host with a cameo in Home Alone 2.
And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and
collectively bargain when I'm in the White House, I'll put on a comfortable pair of shoes
myself, I will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America.
Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.
And the Dems wonder why the working class feel betrayed.
That ProPublica piece (
Suspected of Corruption at Home, Powerful Foreigners Find Refuge in the U.S. Pro Publica)
is brutal. Not only do we have to be the shittest corrupt country in the world but we have
to be a safe haven for ever other corrupt politician in the world as long as they have $$.
Can someone just make it all end? Please. There needs to be a maximum wealth where anything
you earn past it just gets automatically redistributed to the poor.
Thanks for the link really important and scary things are going in congress concerning
'fake news' and Russian propaganda and HR 6393 is particularly bad. The EU is also taking steps
to counter 'fake news' as well. Obama claimed that some form of curation is required and
it is happening quickly. People are suggesting that propornot has been debunked. That does
not matter anymore. The Obama regime and the MSM don't care that have gotten the message
out.
And the people behind this are really deranged check out Adam Schiff calling Tucker Carlson
a Kremlin stooge for even suggesting that there is no certainty that Russia leaked the emails
to Wikileaks.
After all, the media went all in for Hillary and spent huge amounts of time explaining why
Trump is unfit. But they lost.
And now our efforts on behalf of al Queada are failing in Syria and more hysteria ensues.
See for example:
The email saga lost a provable set of sources a long time ago. Before the files were given
to Wikileaks it was already too late to determine which people did it. So-called forensic evidence
of these computers only tell us that investigators either found evidence of a past compromise
or that people want us to believe they did. Since the compromise was determined after the fact,
the people with access could have done anything to the computers, including leave a false trail.
The core problem is that since security for all of these machines, including the DNC's email
server and most likely many of those from Team R, was nearly non-existent nearly nothing useful
can be determined. The time to learn something about a remote attacker, when it's possible
at all, is while the machine is being attacked assuming it has never been compromised before.
If the attacker's machine has also been compromised then you know pretty much nothing unless
you can get access to it.
As far as physical access protection goes. If the machine has been left on and unattended
or is not completely encrypted then the only thing that might help is a 24 hour surveillance
camera pointed at the machine.
Forensic evidence in compromised computers is significantly less reliable than DNA and hair
samples. It's much too easy for investigators to frame another party by twiddling some bits.
Anyone that thinks that even well intentioned physical crime investigators have never gotten
convictions with bad or manipulated evidence has been watching and believing way too many crime
oriented mysteries. "Blindspot" is not a documentary.
As for projecting behaviors on a country by calling it a "state action", Russia or otherwise,
implying that there is no difference between independent and government sponsored actions,
that is just silly.
Apt observation from Gareth: "I believe the CIA is attempting to delegitimize Trump's election
so as to force him into a defensive position in which he will temper his dual goals of normalizing
relations with Russia and destroying the CIA's proxy armies of jihadists. We will see if Trump has
the guts to make some heads roll in the CIA He will remember that the last President who even
threatened to take on the CIA received a massive dose of flying lead poisoning. "
Essentially after WaPo scandal it is prudent to view all US MSM as yellow press.
Notable quotes:
"... The Post and the like are terrified over their loss of credibility just as the internet has destroyed their advertising. Interesting that their response to competition isn't to outdo the competition but to smother the competition with a lie. Their own fake news. ..."
"... As a moral American and supporter of free speech, I am going to make a list of online or print WaPo advertisers. Then I will communicate to them that I will never buy another thing from them as long as they advertise in the Washington Post. ..."
"... Open their ads in Firefox ad blocker. Then add them to the script and spam blacklist. ..."
"... The story serves many purposes. One is firing a shot across TrumpCo's bow: 'Submit to us or we'll delegitimate your election.' ..."
"... Another is excusing the Democratic Party establishment for losing the election, and thus diverting the wrath of the rank and file. ..."
"... About all we can do at the moment is remember to remember the names of the people who purveyed and supported the story, just as we should remember to remember the names of those who purveyed WMD stories. ..."
"... Job #1 always is suppressing the Sanders faction. Not beating Trump or the Republicans. They want control of their little pond. ..."
"... Personally, after what we did in Ukraine (essentially funding a revolution) I refuse to get the vapors because Russia apparently "helped" elect Trump by exposing (not forcing her to be a liar or cheat) Hillary. ..."
"... All of this crap about Russia, or the electoral college system is a distraction from the real issues at hand about our political system, which is a two party one oligarchy (ALEC) anti-democratic system. The rot runs from national presidential elections to the comptroller of the smaller city governments. ..."
"... If any candidate was capable of speaking to the working and middle class, then either Russia nor the the 0.01% who compose the oligarchy could control who wins in popular elections. What is really needed is to eliminate either the two party system, or democratize their methods of selecting candidates. ..."
"... Think Hillary played an unfair hand to Sanders? That was nothing compared to the shenanigans that get played at local level, state level, and Congress level to filter out populist candidates and replace them with machine / oligarchy pets. ..."
"... the idea that Saudi (or other Middle Eastern states) also intervened (with money), is not more credible? ..."
"... Yes, the NYT piece on Russian hacking is complete evidence free tripe. Not once do they say what evidence they base these accusations on, beyond the Cyrillic keyboard. The code for Cyrillic keyboard is, "fuzzy bear" et al. as the original reporting on the DNC hack and the company that ran security made clear that this was the one and only piece of concrete evidence the attacks by "fuzzy bear" et al. were perpetrated by the Russians. ..."
"... So based on a Cyrillic keyboard and the below quote, unnamed "American intelligence agencies know it was the Russians, really? ..."
"... Based on this it appears the NYTs definition of fake reporting is anything that isn't fed directly to it by unnamed experts or the USG and uncritically reported. ..."
"... I think these unnamed agencies are not going to have a very good working relationship with the orange overlord if they keep this up. They might not even be getting that new war they wanted for Christmas. ..."
"... It's as though the NYT and WaPo had these vast pools of accumulated credibility and they could go out on a limb here Oh wait - their credibility has been destroyed countless times over the past decade or so. One would think they'd realise: If you're in a ditch, the first thing to do is stop digging. ..."
"... The world is flat . Note: This is not me awarding a Thomas L. Friedman prize. In this case, I am simply sharing the article because I think it is hilarious. ..."
"... Nowhere, in any of this, is it mentioned that Clinton's illegal private email server (that got hacked) played any factor whatsoever. It just stinks so bad, I wonder how they can not smell what they are sitting in.. ..."
"... Summarizing a very plausible theory, NeoCon Coup Attempt: As Syria's Assad (with Russian help) is close to crushing HRC's jihadi Queda & Nusra rebels in Aleppo, the NeoCons are freaking out on both sides of the Atlantic. ..."
"... What to do? Jill's recount is floundering. So, last resort: Concoct Russia hacking myth to either delay Dec 19 EC vote or create more faithless electors. Result: A NeoCon like HRC or a NeoCon sympathizer is installed. ..."
"... Two biggest war hawks, McCain and Graham, are leading the Senate charges against Russia. All of this within days of Obama sending 200 MORE US troops to Syria and lifting the ban on more arms to the Syrian rebels, including anti-aircraft MANPADS. ..."
"... The recount farce makes me angry, and has made me resolve to never give Stein my vote again. ..."
"... That implies the NeoCon establishment views DJT and cabinet as a threat in any way, which is an extremely dubious premise. Occam's razor: Clinton and the media establishment that gifted the country DJT will do anything they can to cast the blame elsewhere. ..."
"... I'm not sure if that is a simpler explanation. I offer this: It's simpler to see that they are engaging in a struggle for now and the future that means the neocons vs Trump. ..."
"... "The story reveals that a CIA assessment detailing this conclusion had been presented to President Obama and top congressional leaders last week." You read that? It's "detailed". None of us peasants will ever know what those "details" are, but its the f#ckin CIA, dude. ..."
"... The problem is we are expected to just trust the NYT and CIA without evidence??? Anybody remember WMD in Iraq?? The complete loss of credibility by the NYT and CIA over the last decade means I have to see credible evidence before I believe anything they say. ..."
"... Seems coordinated to me -- Globe/Times/WaPo. Double down for WaPoo who are now reporting from area 51 where they found Bigfoot sitting on a stockpile of Sadam's WMDs. Reading this article is surreal. The CIA, a terrorist outfit which our own former reporter (Bernstein) showed to be infesting our own newsroom, whispered in our ear that the Cold War 2.0 is going to escalate with or without the establishment coronation queen. ..."
"... "Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House" The link on WaPoo's site actually says a different headline so I am just sharing the headline itself. Not another secret assessment . no more passing notes in class, students. ..."
"... Robert Reich has posted the news that the Russians helped to secure the election for Trump on his FB page, to it seems much acclaim perhaps I was foolish for having expected better from him. ..."
"... WaPo seems allied with the CIA-FIRE sector Clintonian group, while T may be more inclusive of the classic MICC-Pentagon sector which was asserting itself in Syria. ..."
"... Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, who is a close associate of Assange, called the CIA claims "bullshit", adding: "They are absolutely making it up." "I know who leaked them," Murray said. "I've met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it's an insider. It's a leak, not a hack; the two are different things. ..."
"... Although I'm convinced that the Republicans are, on average, noticeably worse than the Democrats, I agree with you. It is useful that there is no doubt about where Trump and the Congressional Republicans stand, which is on the side of the billionaires and the giant corporations. We've had 8 years of Obama's obeisance to the oligarchs, and millions of Americans still don't understand that this was happening. ..."
"... rhetoric that is beginning conspicuously to resemble the celebration by capitalist elites during the interwar years of German and Italian fascism (and even Stalinist communism) for their apparently superior economic governance. [12] ..."
"... I always knew Trump would be a disaster. However, Trump is a survivable disasterwith Hillary that would have been the end. ..."
"... If Trump has many Goldman guys, is it a case of 'keeping your enemies close?' ..."
"... First of all, the Democrats would use Clinton to suppress the left and to insist that Clinton was more electable. That would lead to a validation of the idea that the left has nowhere to go and set a precedent for decades with a 3 point formula: ..."
"... Suppress the left ..."
"... Accept money from Wall Street and move to the right with each election ..."
"... Use identity politics as a distraction. ..."
"... There were other dangers. Clinton wanted war with Russia. That could easily escalate into a nuclear conflict. With Trump, the risk is reduced, although given his ego, I will concede that anything is possible. We would also be seeing some very damaging neoliberal policies. ..."
"... The reality is that the US was screwed the moment Sanders was out of the picture. With Trump, at least it is more naked and more obvious. The real challenge is that the left has a 2 front war, first with the corporate Democrats, then the GOP. On the GOP side, Trump's supporters are going to wake up at some point to an Obama like betrayal, which is exactly what I expect will happen. ..."
"... There are elements of the Trump fan base already calling him out for the people he has appointed, which is a very encouraging sign. Trump's economic performance is what will make or break him. He has sold himself on his business acumen. Needless to say, I expect it will break him because he won't even try to do anything for his base. ..."
"... I like a lot of your analysis. "We would also be seeing some very damaging neoliberal policies." We could still yet under Trump, given the cabinet nominees. ..."
"... By dangerous and delegitimizing I assume you mean the results of the election will be reversed sometime in the next six weeks while the current establishment still has martial authority. ..."
"... Both sides now fear the other side will lock them up or, at the very least, remove them from power permanently. Why do I think this is not over? ..."
"... I am certainly not ready to rule out Moore's gut feeling. Capitalist Party + MSM + Clinton + Nuland + CIA has shown to be an equation that ends in color revolution ..or at least an attempted color revolution ..."
"... At the same time that the media hysteria over "fake news" has reached a fever pitch, yesterday the Senate passed the "Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" , colloquially known as the Portman-Murphy Counter-Propaganda Bill, as part of the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Conference Report. ..."
"... " establishing an interagency center housed at the State Department to coordinate and synchronize counter-propaganda efforts throughout the U.S. government." Our very own Ministry of Truth! ..."
"... Under Ukrainian law journalists that disagree with Kiev's policies are collaborators. They are subject to any mechanism Kiev can devise to stop them. In the case of RT Ruptly or the Guardian this means developing a strategy to ruin their reputations. The Interpreter was developed to that end. Kiev has gone so far as to petition the UK government to censure the Guardian for its coverage of events in Ukraine hoping to bully the publication into line. US broadcasters (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) have put RT on the same list as ISIS. ..."
"... This plan to censor opposing viewpoints in the US was intended to be executed during a Clinton presidency, and would've been almost impossible to stop under those circumstances. There is now a window of opportunity to fight back and ruin these clowns once and for all. ..."
"... These rallies are Trump's means of maintaining contact with his base, and making sure that he knows what they want. And a means of showing that he is trying to get it for them. If Hillary had bothered to do anything of the sort she would have been elected. Sanders did it and it was much appreciated. Trump's ego is huge but the rallies are much more than an ego-trip. ..."
"... Re: WP's response to Truthdig's retraction request. It seems as if they are doubling down on the "not our responsibility to verify the validity theme". My first reaction is that the WP is now the equivalent of the National Enquirer. What's next, a headline " I gave birth to Trump's Love Child". ..."
I believe the CIA is attempting to delegitimize Trump's election so as to force him into a
defensive position in which he will temper his dual goals of normalizing relations with Russia
and destroying the CIA's proxy armies of jihadists. We will see if Trump has the guts to make
some heads roll in the CIA He will remember that the last President who even threatened to
take on the CIA received a massive dose of flying lead poisoning.
This hysteria over Russia is getting downright dangerous. The people pushing that story will
seemingly stop at nothing to delegitimize the election results.
The Post's Marc Fisher was on the PBS Newshour last night. He talked about Alex Jones. They
probably didn't expect the pushback from Yves, Truthdig, etc. The Establishment often underestimates
dissenters.
Real fake news, like Jones, benefits from the fake news charge. Their readers hate the MSM.
I wonder if the same ethic can develop on the left.
The Post and the like are terrified over their loss of credibility just as the internet
has destroyed their advertising. Interesting that their response to competition isn't to outdo
the competition but to smother the competition with a lie. Their own fake news.
I heard Stephen Colbert lump Alex Jones together w/Wikileaks as if they were the same "fake
news". I have also repeatedly heard Samantha Bee refer to Julian Assange as a rapist. Sigh. Both
of those comments are "fake news". The allegations against JA are tissue thin and Wikileaks has
NEVER been challenged about the truth of their releases. Please correct me if I am wrong.
"just as the internet has destroyed their advertising." Shouldn't that be "destroyed their ability to sell advertising?"
As a moral American and supporter of free speech, I am going to make a list of online or print
WaPo advertisers.
Then I will communicate to them that I will never buy another thing from them as long as they
advertise in the Washington Post.
Open their ads in Firefox ad blocker. Then add them to the script and spam blacklist.
The Wapo's trying to steal Craigslist business with online job listings. Looks like an opportunity
to have some fun for creatives.
Boss WaPo OwnerMan Bezos is very rich. He bought WaPo as a propaganda outlet. He is prepared
to lose a lot of money keeping it "open for propaganda." Naming and shaming and boycotting every advertiser WaPo has could certainly embarass WaPo and
perhaps diminish its credibility-patina for Bezoganda purposes. It is certainly worth trying.
The WaPo brand also owns a lot of other moneymaking entities like Kaplan testing and test-prepping
I believe. It would be a lot harder to boycott those because millions of people find them to be
important. But perhaps a boycott against them until WaPo sells them off to non Bezos ownership
would be worth trying.
Perhaps a savage boycott against Amazon until Bezos fires everyone at WaPo involved in this
McCarthy-list and related articles . . . and humiliates them into unhireability anywhere else
ever again?
The Dem Liberals (Joan Walsh etc). on the twitter are going full throttle with this, it's a
twofer as Joan is using this to attack Sanders supporters for not being on the front lines of
Russia Fear.
The story serves many purposes. One is firing a shot across TrumpCo's bow: 'Submit to us or
we'll delegitimate your election.' (Apparently TrumpCo has not delivered a convincing submission
yet.)
Another is excusing the Democratic Party establishment for losing the election, and thus
diverting the wrath of the rank and file. Evidently it's also going to be used against the Sanders
faction of the Democrats. About all we can do at the moment is remember to remember the names
of the people who purveyed and supported the story, just as we should remember to remember the
names of those who purveyed WMD stories.
Personally, after what we did in Ukraine (essentially funding a revolution) I refuse to get
the vapors because Russia apparently "helped" elect Trump by exposing (not forcing her to be a
liar or cheat) Hillary.
Perhaps they should consider that it could be worse, a foreign nation could be arming people
and encouraging them to topple the government we have like what we're doing in Syria. It isn't
like the very sharp divisions elsewhere haven't resulted in civil war.
All of this crap about Russia, or the electoral college system is a distraction from the real
issues at hand about our political system, which is a
two party one oligarchy (ALEC) anti-democratic system. The rot runs from national presidential
elections to the comptroller of the smaller city governments.
If any candidate was capable of speaking to the working and middle class, then either Russia
nor the the 0.01% who compose the oligarchy could control who wins in popular elections. What
is really needed is to eliminate either the two party system, or democratize their methods
of selecting candidates.
Think Hillary played an unfair hand to Sanders? That was nothing
compared to the shenanigans that get played at local level, state level, and Congress level to
filter out populist candidates and replace them with machine / oligarchy pets.
The popular vs. electoral vote look up the rules next time you play.
Recount to investigate without much evidence is something senator McCarthy would do.
Russia and the idea that Saudi (or other Middle Eastern states) also intervened (with money),
is not more credible?
Coincidentally, all these urgent initiatives will lead to replacing Trump with Hillary as president.
"I will tear down the very building just to achieve my Pyrrhic victory."
Thank you, sorry Dems, Boris Badunov did not swing the election. If you want *hard* evidence
(not fake news) of a foreign government influencing the election you might have a look at the
beheading, gay-killing, women-supressing tyrannical monarchy known as The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
and ask whether it made sense for them to be the *#1* contributor to your candidate.
Yes, the NYT piece on Russian hacking is complete evidence free tripe. Not once do they say
what evidence they base these accusations on, beyond the Cyrillic keyboard. The code for Cyrillic
keyboard is, "fuzzy bear" et al. as the original reporting on the DNC hack and the company that
ran security made clear that this was the one and only piece of concrete evidence the attacks
by "fuzzy bear" et al. were perpetrated by the Russians.
So based on a Cyrillic keyboard and the below quote, unnamed "American intelligence agencies
know it was the Russians, really?
"They based that conclusion, in part, on another finding - which they say was also reached
with high confidence - that the Russians hacked the Republican National Committee's computer systems
in addition to their attacks on Democratic organizations, but did not release whatever information
they gleaned from the Republican networks."
Based on this it appears the NYTs definition of fake reporting is anything that isn't fed directly
to it by unnamed experts or the USG and uncritically reported.
I think these unnamed agencies are not going to have a very good working relationship with
the orange overlord if they keep this up. They might not even be getting that new war they wanted
for Christmas.
It's as though the NYT and WaPo had these vast pools of accumulated credibility and they could
go out on a limb here Oh wait - their credibility has been destroyed countless times over the
past decade or so. One would think they'd realise: If you're in a ditch, the first thing to do is stop digging.
Especially when dealing with a President Trump. He's already made his distaste for the WaPo
clear. We are entering a new, crazy, dangerous era of press-presidential relations. All the more
reason for the newspapers to behave responsibly - is that too much to ask?
The world is flat .
Note: This is not me awarding a Thomas L. Friedman prize. In this case, I am simply sharing
the article because I think it is hilarious.
Also, Bradford deLong should be included with Krugman and Friedman, though the length and width
of deLong's connections don't seem to have the same acceleration, energy, or viscosity, as the
other two. There are also olfactory and temporal differences.
Come to think of it, I also don't think Krugman Turdman or Friedman
Flathead would have to grovel to Neera "I'm a loyal soldier" Tanden and John "Done, so
think about something else" Podesta to get a family member a "meritocratic" job.
If Russia is so dangerous, then anyone who mishandles classified information (say, by storing
it on a personal server) should be prosecuted, shouldn't they?
Nowhere, in any of this, is it mentioned that Clinton's illegal private email server (that
got hacked) played any factor whatsoever. It just stinks so bad, I wonder how they can not smell
what they are sitting in.. I also wonder just where the line is between those who actually buy
into this hysteria, and those who simply feel justified in using whatever means they can to discredit
Trump and overturn the election. I think there's a lot of overlap and grey area there in many
people's minds.
Summarizing a very plausible theory, NeoCon Coup Attempt: As Syria's Assad (with Russian help) is close to crushing HRC's jihadi Queda & Nusra rebels
in Aleppo, the NeoCons are freaking out on both sides of the Atlantic.
What to do? Jill's recount is floundering. So, last resort: Concoct Russia hacking myth to
either delay Dec 19 EC vote or create more faithless electors. Result: A NeoCon like HRC or a
NeoCon sympathizer is installed.
Two biggest war hawks, McCain and Graham, are leading the Senate charges against Russia.
All of this within days of Obama sending 200 MORE US troops to Syria and lifting the ban on
more arms to the Syrian rebels, including anti-aircraft MANPADS.
The recount farce makes me angry, and has made me resolve to never give Stein my vote again.
Apparently she's in opposition to much of her party leadership on this, so if they ditch her in
the future and get someone better I may consider voting for them again. The reality of Trump as
president is going to be bad enough, attempting to sabotage the transition isn't doing anyone
any favors. I don't like Obama at all, but he wants a clean, peaceful transfer of power, and on
that issue at least he's correct.
That implies the NeoCon establishment views DJT and cabinet as a threat in any way, which is
an extremely dubious premise. Occam's razor: Clinton and the media establishment that gifted the country DJT will do anything
they can to cast the blame elsewhere.
I'm not sure if that is a simpler explanation. I offer this: It's simpler to see that they are engaging in a struggle for now and the future that means
the neocons vs Trump.
Hillary vs Trump, invoking Russia now, is about fighting the last war. That one was over more
than a month ago. It's more convoluted to say one team still desires to continue the fight.
"The story reveals that a CIA assessment detailing this conclusion had been presented to President
Obama and top congressional leaders last week." You read that? It's "detailed". None of us peasants will ever know what those "details" are,
but its the f#ckin CIA, dude.
The problem is we are expected to just trust the NYT and CIA without evidence??? Anybody remember
WMD in Iraq?? The complete loss of credibility by the NYT and CIA over the last decade means I
have to see credible evidence before I believe anything they say. But that is just me. From reading
the NYT comments on the OBama Russia election hack article, the NYT commenters have en mass swallowed
the story hook, line and sinker. They apparently don't need evidence and have completely loss
any sort of functioning long term memory.
Based on the fact that she was hidden more than actually performing on the campaign trail,
that is a possibility. She may have very well been our own puppet government member that some were ready to install
here just like we tend to do over in other nations. No real marbles needed since she wouldn't
actually be running things. It's come to my attention that we seem to be inching closer and closer
to third world here and those places rarely have vibrant democracies.
Seems coordinated to me -- Globe/Times/WaPo. Double down for WaPoo who are now reporting from
area 51 where they found Bigfoot sitting on a stockpile of Sadam's WMDs. Reading this article
is surreal. The CIA, a terrorist outfit which our own former reporter (Bernstein) showed to be
infesting our own newsroom, whispered in our ear that the Cold War 2.0 is going to escalate with
or without the establishment coronation queen.
"Secret CIA assessment says Russia was trying to help Trump win White House" The link on WaPoo's site actually says a different headline so I am just sharing the headline
itself. Not another secret assessment . no more passing notes in class, students.
Robert Reich has posted the news that the Russians helped to secure the election for Trump
on his FB page, to it seems much acclaim perhaps I was foolish for having expected better from
him.
Sifting the election through a Peter Turchin filter, Sanders' run was a response to 'popular
immiseration' while the choice-of-billionaires was 'intra-elite competition'. WaPo seems allied
with the CIA-FIRE sector Clintonian group, while T may be more inclusive of the classic MICC-Pentagon
sector which was asserting itself in Syria.
I needed
Jalen & Jacoby to sooth me to sleep last night, after seeing the last chart (Fig. 14.4) from
Turchin's latest book. You can see it by hitting Ctrl-End from this
pdf . If he's correct,
this election was just the warm-up for 2020. Crikey.
Craig Murray, the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, who is a close associate of Assange,
called the CIA claims "bullshit", adding: "They are absolutely making it up." "I know who leaked them," Murray said. "I've met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly
not Russian and it's an insider. It's a leak, not a hack; the two are different things.
Although I'm convinced that the Republicans are, on average, noticeably worse than the Democrats,
I agree with you. It is useful that there is no doubt about where Trump and the Congressional
Republicans stand, which is on the side of the billionaires and the giant corporations. We've
had 8 years of Obama's obeisance to the oligarchs, and millions of Americans still don't understand
that this was happening.
I hope people will vigorously lobby their Representatives and Senators, and pay attention to
who the genuine progressives are in the 2018 primaries.
Like ordinary citizens, although for the opposite reasons, elites are losing faith in democratic
government and its suitability for reshaping societies in line with market imperatives. Public
Choice's disparaging view of democratic politics as a corruption of market justice, in the
service of opportunistic politicians and their clientele, has become common sense among elite
publics-as has the belief that market capitalism cleansed of democratic politics will not only
be more efficient but also virtuous and responsible. [11]
Countries like China are complimented
for their authoritarian political systems being so much better equipped than majoritarian democracy,
with its egalitarian bent, to deal with what are claimed to be the challenges of 'globalization'
-- a
rhetoric that is beginning conspicuously to resemble the celebration by capitalist elites during
the interwar years of German and Italian fascism (and even Stalinist communism) for their apparently
superior economic governance. [12]
Right, the euphemisms have been done away with. I always knew Trump would be a disaster. However,
Trump is a survivable disasterwith Hillary that would have been the end.
In the long run, a Clinton presidency would be far more damaging.
First of all, the Democrats would use Clinton to suppress the left and to insist that Clinton
was more electable. That would lead to a validation of the idea that the left has nowhere to go
and set a precedent for decades with a 3 point formula:
Suppress the left
Accept money from Wall Street and move to the right with each election
Use identity politics as a distraction.
A Trump victory forces questions on the conventional wisdom (not really wisdom), and forces
changes. At best, they can hope to shove another Obama that is attractive on the outside, but
will betray people, but even that will be harder because people now are more watchful. Not to
mention, the mainstream media has lost its power.
There were other dangers. Clinton wanted war with Russia. That could easily escalate into a
nuclear conflict. With Trump, the risk is reduced, although given his ego, I will concede that
anything is possible. We would also be seeing some very damaging neoliberal policies.
The reality is that the US was screwed the moment Sanders was out of the picture. With Trump,
at least it is more naked and more obvious. The real challenge is that the left has a 2 front
war, first with the corporate Democrats, then the GOP. On the GOP side, Trump's supporters are
going to wake up at some point to an Obama like betrayal, which is exactly what I expect will
happen.
There are elements of the Trump fan base already calling him out for the people he has appointed,
which is a very encouraging sign. Trump's economic performance is what will make or break him.
He has sold himself on his business acumen. Needless to say, I expect it will break him because
he won't even try to do anything for his base.
I like a lot of your analysis. "We would also be seeing some very damaging neoliberal policies."
We could still yet under Trump, given the cabinet nominees.
The left must be vigilant and smart. There is opportunity here, but sidetracking on fake news,
pop vote, etc. doesn't gain much in terms of opposition.
I think you're possibly right, and I just couldn't pull the lever to vote for Trump. Sometimes
we just have to be true to ourselves and hope it works out.
By dangerous and delegitimizing I assume you mean the results of the election will be reversed
sometime in the next six weeks while the current establishment still has martial authority.
All
the intelligent agencies are now in lock step over Russian intervention. How do they let this
result stand? Trump obviously realizes his win is now in play and has gone after those same agencies
pointing out their gross incompetence.
Both sides now fear the other side will lock them up or, at the very least, remove them from power
permanently. Why do I think this is not over?
Michael Moore agrees with you something is, or might be (more accurate description of what
he is said to have said, I think), brewing, according to him, or rather, his intuition .
I am certainly not ready to rule out Moore's gut feeling.
Capitalist Party + MSM + Clinton + Nuland + CIA has shown to be an equation that ends in color
revolution ..or at least an attempted color revolution
What the State Department and MSM have pleasantly referred to in the past as a bloodless coup.
See Ukraine, Brazil, Argentina et al
At the same time that the media hysteria over "fake news" has reached a fever pitch, yesterday
the Senate passed the
"Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act" , colloquially known as the Portman-Murphy
Counter-Propaganda Bill, as part of the FY 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Conference
Report.
According to Senator Portman's press release, the Bill "will improve the ability of the United
States to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation by establishing an interagency center
housed at the State Department to coordinate and synchronize counter-propaganda efforts throughout
the U.S. government." The bill also creates a "grant program for NGOs, think tanks, civil society
and other experts outside government who are engaged in counter-propaganda related work."
While the passage of this bill seems very coincidentally timed given recent events, it was
actually introduced in March. Not sure whether it simply followed a normal legislative track,
or was brought back from the dead recently, etc.
" establishing an interagency center housed at the State Department to coordinate and synchronize
counter-propaganda efforts throughout the U.S. government." Our very own Ministry of Truth!
It is important to find work for our newly minted graduates of marketing, psychology and sociology
as well as those graduates of the communication school and the arts. The need of our post-industrial
information age is to make things up as opposed to just making things.
Our liberal nation has promised our children that after they have enslaved themselves through
student debt they will find work. The work they find is likely to be meaningful only to the creditors
who wish to be repaid.
The graduates will find idealistic rationales like patriotism or making
"'Merica Grate Again" to soothe their corrupted souls while keeping the fake news as fresh as
a steamy load.
Under Ukrainian law journalists that disagree with Kiev's policies are collaborators. They
are subject to any mechanism Kiev can devise to stop them. In the case of RT Ruptly or the
Guardian this means developing a strategy to ruin their reputations. The Interpreter was developed
to that end. Kiev has gone so far as to petition the UK government to censure the Guardian
for its coverage of events in Ukraine hoping to bully the publication into line. US broadcasters
(Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) have put RT on the same list as ISIS.
From yesterday's links but seems appropriate. This plan to censor opposing viewpoints in the
US was intended to be executed during a Clinton presidency, and would've been almost impossible
to stop under those circumstances. There is now a window of opportunity to fight back and ruin
these clowns once and for all.
That may be but what we are seeing now is just an echo of the Clinton/Soros plan, and not even
close to the disaster that would result from having Soros et al at the helm. My guess is that
the CIA are now simply using gullible Republicans (yes, there is certainly some redundancy there)
as useful idiots, but this dynamic significantly weakens the original plan.
Amy Davidson ends her article with this paragraph.
And that is why the rallies are likely to endure: to serve as calibrators of or infomercials
for what Trump believes that "the public" wants. One can waste a lot of time delving into the
question of Trump's psychological need for affirmation . What is politically more important is
how he might use the set piece of a cheering crowd to brush aside other considerations, particularly
those involving the checks on the Presidency, and the willingness of those in other areas of the
government, or in the White House itself, to exercise them. Should courts worry about "a lot of
angry people"? One important point not to let go of is that a crowd that the President assembles
and the broader public are two very different things, no matter how big the arena, or how filled
it is with love . A better opportunity to hear that public voice will come in two years, at the
midterm elections. Maybe those will surprise Trump.
News flash for Amy. When a narcissist uses the word "love" it doesn't mean what you think it
does. Those rallies are about training people to react emotionally in a way that is fulfilling
to Donald. Nothing more, nothing less.
A better opportunity to hear that public voice will come in two years, at the midterm elections.
Maybe those will surprise Trump.
We remind ourselves that no one can help us but us. We empower ourselves.
So, it goes for today, as it did in 2008. Such moderation!!! A better opportunity will come
in two years!!!! I said that to myself 8 years ago, but I didn't hear much of it from the media
then. And we (not just I) say that now.
As for crowds reacting and it being fulfilling for the one being looked up on again, it's
the same human psychology, whether the guy on stage is a rock star, Lenin, Roosevelt, Pol Pot,
the next savior or Idi Amin. How much love is there for anyone in any long term relationship,
except to affirm and be affirmed by 'love' everyday, in small acts or otherwise, much less some
politicians you interact through abstractions, like, through the media or stories told to us.
"Those rallies are about training people to react emotionally in a way that is fulfilling to
Donald. Nothing more, nothing less."
These rallies are Trump's means of maintaining contact with his base, and making sure that
he knows what they want. And a means of showing that he is trying to get it for them. If Hillary
had bothered to do anything of the sort she would have been elected. Sanders did it and it was
much appreciated. Trump's ego is huge but the rallies are much more than an ego-trip.
Re: WP's response to Truthdig's retraction request. It seems as if they are doubling down on
the "not our responsibility to verify the validity theme". My first reaction is that the WP is
now the equivalent of the National Enquirer. What's next, a headline " I gave birth to Trump's
Love Child".
Patriotic Correctness is a useful term and concept. Otherwise, the article was extremely long-winded
and boring. Editor to writer: "I need you to fill 3,000 words worth of space with this 50-word
idea "
I don't consider Trump a compromise candidate and that's largely because I don't see him actually
moving the country forward in the right direction. Sanders, for me, would have been a compromise
from the point of view of he probably wouldn't have moved us far enough fast enough for me but
he would have set us leftward instead of ever rightward and that IS an improvement.
The mainstream media is doubling down on imagined pro-Russian heresies in a fashion not seen
since the Reformation. Back then the Catholic Church held a monopoly on ideology. They lost it
to an unruly bunch of rebellious Protestants who were assisted by the new technology of the printing
press.
Nowadays various non-conformist internet sites, with the help of the new technology of the
internet, are challenging the MSM's monopoly on the means of persuasion. To show how much things
have changed, back in the 60's, dissidents such as the John Birch Society were limited to issuing
pamphlets to expound on their theories of Russians taking over America. In a very ironic role-reversal,
today it is the increasingly desperate Washington Post that more closely matches the paranoia
of the John Birch Society as it accuses non-conformist media heretics who are threatening the
MSM's monopoly on the means of persuasion - of allowing Russians to take over America.
But let's spare a thought for poor Jeff Bezos. He basically thought he was purchasing the medieval
equivalent of a Bishopry when he bought the WaPo. But now after running six anti-Trump editorials
each and every day for the past 18 months, in which his establishment clergy engaged in an ever
increasing hysteria-spiral trying to outdo each other in turning Trump into Hitler, it ends up
Bezos' side lost the election anyway. It's like he bought a Blockbuster store in 2008 and never
even thought about Netflix!
And so now the MSM is literally launching an Establishment Inquisition by issuing "indexes"
of prohibited heretical websites.
Where will this lead? The grossly paranoiac reading is the Establishment's Counter Reformation
is laying the ideological groundwork for a sort of coup d'etat to be followed by the rule of a
goodthink junta. In this case we have to start calculating how many divisions are loyal to Trump's
gang of generals versus how many are loyal to Obama's generals. A more moderate reading is that
with these anti-Russian headlines, the Establishment is attempting to pressure Trump to stay the
Establishment course on foreign policy and to appoint a SecState who is hostile to Russia. And
in the best case these crazy MSM ramblings are just the last gasps of soon to be extinct media
mammoths.
One thing you can say about Trump is that he is most certainly not a wuss. In the face of this
firestorm about Russian influence sources say Trump is going to nominate Rex Tillerson, who is
very pro-Putin, as Secretary of State!
I wonder what happens when they don't confirm any of his nominees? Is this a case of 'I will nominee so many you don't like, you will be forced to confirm at
least a few?'
Yes I do because Trump is reportedly naming NeoCon John Bolton as undersecretary. That's going
to be a package deal; if they reject Tillerson then Bolton is gone as well. The NeoCons are desperate
to get Bolton into the Administration.
Bolton's job will be to go on talk shows and defend Trump's policies. If he doesn't do it then
he gets fired.
And so from the rest of the world's point of view, Tillerson is the carrot but Bolton remains
in the background as the stick in case anyone starts thinking Trump is too soft and decides to
test him.
Praetorian Guard Redux. Any nation that embraces secret police will find itself ruled by them in short order.
Notable quotes:
"... Yes, the CIA's sterling reputation around the world for truth-telling and integrity might be sullied if someone doubts their claims... https://t.co/2uyQXvFdOK - Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 10, 2016 ..."
"... When is it hardest to get people not to blindly accept anonymous, evidence-free CIA claims? When it's very pleasing to believe them. - Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 10, 2016 ..."
"... "...there is no clear evidence - even now," said Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a member of the Trump transition team. "There's a lot of innuendo, lots of circumstantial evidence, that's it." ..."
"... "...Obama wants the report before he leaves office Jan. 20, Monaco said. The review will be led by [PROVEN LIAR] James Clapper, the outgoing director of national intelligence, officials said." ..."
"... Aside from its instigation of coups and alliances with right-wing juntas, Washington sought to more subtly influence elections in all corners of the world. And so did Moscow. Political scientist Dov Levin calculates that the "two powers intervened in 117 elections around the world from 1946 to 2000 - an average of once in every nine competitive elections. ..."
"... In the late 1940s, the newly established CIA cut its teeth in Western Europe, pushing back against some of the continent's most influential leftist parties and labor unions. In 1948, the United States propped up Italy's centrist Christian Democrats and helped ensure their electoral victory against a leftist coalition, anchored by one of the most powerful communist parties in Europe. CIA operatives gave millions of dollars to their Italian allies and helped orchestrate what was then an unprecedented, clandestine propaganda campaign : This included forging documents to besmirch communist leaders via fabricated sex scandals, starting a mass letter-writing campaign from Italian Americans to their compatriots, and spreading hysteria about a Russian takeover and the undermining of the Catholic Church. ..."
"... "We had bags of money that we delivered to selected politicians, to defray their political expenses, their campaign expenses, for posters, for pamphlets," recounted F. Mark Wyatt , the CIA officer who handled the mission and later participated in more than 2½ decades of direct support to the Christian Democrats. ..."
"... This template spread everywhere : CIA operative Edward G. Lansdale, notorious for his efforts to bring down the North Vietnamese government, is said to have run the successful 1953 campaign of Philippines President Ramon Magsaysay. Japan's center-right Liberal Democratic Party was backed with secret American funds through the 1950s and the 1960s. The U.S. government and American oil corporations helped Christian parties in Lebanon win crucial elections in 1957 with briefcases full of cash. ..."
"... In Chile, the United States prevented Allende from winning an election in 1964. "A total of nearly four million dollars was spent on some fifteen covert action projects, ranging from organizing slum dwellers to passing funds to political parties," detailed a Senate inquiry in the mid-1970s that started to expose the role of the CIA in overseas elections. When it couldn't defeat Allende at the ballot box in 1970, Washington decided to remove him anyway. ..."
"... Obama & The Presstitutes: Legalized DOMESTIC Propaganda to American Citizens The National Defense Authorization Act of July 2013 (NDAA) included an amendment that legalized the use of propaganda on the American public. The amendment - originally proposed by Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and passed nullified the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which explicitly forbids information and psychological operations aimed at influencing U.S. public opinion. The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 allowed U.S. propaganda intended to influence foreign audiences to be used on the domestic population. ..."
"... This Russia CIA Program aimed at US Citizens is part of the OBAMA FRAUD to cover the crimes of Clinton et al. The MSM and especially the NYT is the epi-center of "Fake News" ..."
"... Hillary was a big threat to Russia security. Trump was willing to work with Russia. Does anyone really believe Russia has absolutely no part to play in Trump's win? Think again. ..."
"... Thinking is one thing. Proving it is another. And what do you "think" about the CIA and Victoria Nuland's role in toppling the elected government in the Ukraine? ..."
"... After a year of MSM propaganda and lies, you are now obsessed with "fake news" ironically the kind that totally obliterated your propaganda for the lies that they were. ..."
"... Go back to the 1960s. Phillp Graham and his wife rans Wa Post. Phillip got a young girl friend and started going off the reservation saying WaPo was becoming a mouthpiece for the See Eye Ah. He was going to divorce his wife. He then was commited to an insane asylum, released and then killed himself with a shotgun. ..."
"... There have to be good, patriotic Americans within CIA These intelligence reports are obvious fictions: The agitprop of a neocon/zionist Deep State that fully intends to expand the wars, target Iran and Russia, while sending American blood and treasure to pay their bill. ..."
"... Kennedy knew that the CIA was nothing but a group of Useless, Meddling, Lying Assholes, and made it known Publicly. Unfortunately for him, things didn't turn out all that well. "Wetwork" is never in shortage with that crew. ..."
"... Praetorian Guard Redux. Any nation that embraces secret police will find itself ruled by them in short order. ..."
"... Most CIA directors are/were members of the Rockefeller/CFR including: Morell, Petraeus, Hayden, Tenet, Deutch, Woolsey, Gates, Webster, Casey, Turner, Bush, Colby, Schlesinger, Helms, McCone and Allen Dulles. Also every Fed chairman since WW2. See member lists at cfr dot org. ..."
"... The domestic policies of both CFR wings are the same: the maintenance of the American Empire... There is no possibility of [outsiders] capturing power at the top of either party... ..."
Overnight the media propaganda wars escalated after the late Friday release
of an article by the Washington Post (which last week
admitted to using unverified, or fake, news in an attempt to smear other so-called "fake news" sites) according to which a secret
CIA assessment found that Russia sought to tip last month's U.S. presidential election in Donald Trump's favor, a conclusion presented
without any actual evidence, and which drew an extraordinary, and angry rebuke from the president-elect's camp.
"These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction," Trump's transition team said, launching
a broadside against the spy agency. "The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history.
It's now time to move on and 'Make America Great Again.' "
The Washington Post report comes after outgoing President Barack Obama
ordered a review of all cyberattacks that took place during the 2016 election cycle , amid growing calls from Congress for more
information on the extent of Russian interference in the campaign. The newspaper cited officials briefed on the matter as saying
that individuals with connections to Moscow provided WikiLeaks with email hacked from the Democratic National Committee, Democratic
nominee Hillary Clinton's campaign chief and others.
Without a shred of evidence provided, and despite Wikileaks' own on the record denial that the source of the emails was Russian,
the WaPo attack piece claims the email messages were steadily leaked out via WikiLeaks in the months before the election, damaging
Clinton's White House run. Essentially, according to the WaPo, the Russians' aim was to help Donald Trump win and not just undermine
the U.S. electoral process, hinting at a counter-Hillary intent on the side of Putin.
"It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia's goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to
help Trump get elected," the newspaper quoted a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation last week to key
senators as saying. " That's the consensus view."
CIA agents told the lawmakers it was "quite clear" - although it was not reported exactly what made it "clear" - that electing
Trump was Russia's goal, according to officials who spoke to the Post, citing growing evidence from multiple sources.
And yet, key questions remain unanswered, and the CIA's report fell short of being a formal U.S. assessment produced by all 17
intelligence agencies the newspaper said, for two reasons. As we reported in November "
The "Fact" That 17 Intelligence Agencies Confirmed Russia is Behind the Email Hacks Isn't Actually A "Fact ", and then also because
aside from so-called "consensus", there is - once again - no evidence, otherwise the appropriate agencies would have long since released
it, and this is nothing more than another propaganda attempt to build tension with Russia. In fact, the WaPo admits as much in the
following text, which effectively destroys the article's entire argument :
The CIA presentation to senators about Russia's intentions fell short of a formal U.S. assessment produced by all 17 intelligence
agencies. A senior U.S. official said there were minor disagreements among intelligence officials about the agency's assessment,
in part because some questions remain unanswered.
For example, intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin "directing" the identified
individuals to pass the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks, a second senior U.S. official said. Those actors, according to the official,
were "one step" removed from the Russian government, rather than government employees. Moscow has in the past used middlemen to
participate in sensitive intelligence operations so it has plausible deniability.
* * *
"I'll be the first one to come out and point at Russia if there's clear evidence, but there is no clear evidence - even now,"
said Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a member of the Trump transition team.
"There's a lot of innuendo, lots of circumstantial evidence, that's it."
And since even the WaPo is forced to admit that intelligence agents don't have the proof that Russian officials directed the identified
individuals to supply WikiLeaks with the hacked Democratic emails, the best it can do is speculate based on circumstantial inferences,
especially since, as noted above, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has
denied links with Russia's government
, putting the burden of proof on the side of those who challenge the Wikileaks narrative. So far that proof has not been provided.
Nonetheless, at the White House, Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz said Obama called for the cyberattacks review earlier this
week to ensure "the integrity of our elections."
"This report will dig into this pattern of malicious cyberactivity timed to our elections, take stock of our defensive capabilities
and capture lessons learned to make sure that we brief members of Congress and stakeholders as appropriate," Schultz said.
Taking the absurdity to a whole new level, Obama wants the report completed before his term ends on January 20, by none other
than a proven and confirmed liar : " The review will be led by James Clapper, the outgoing director of national intelligence, officials
said. " In other words, the report that the Kremlin stole the election should be prepared by the time Trump is expected to be sworn
in.
"We are going to make public as much as we can," the spokesman added. "This is a major priority for the president."
The move comes after Democrats in Congress pressed the White House to reveal details, to Congress or to the public, of Russian
hacking and disinformation in the election.
On Oct. 7, one month before the election, the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence announced
that "the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of emails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political
organizations." "These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process," they said.
Trump dismissed those findings in an interview published Wednesday by Time magazine for its "Person of the Year" award. Asked
if the intelligence was politicized, Trump answered: "I think so."
"I don't believe they interfered," he said. "It could be Russia. And it could be China. And it could be some guy in his home in
New Jersey."
Worried that Trump will sweep the issue under the rug after his inauguration, seven Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee
called on Nov. 29 for the White House to declassify what it knows about Russian interference. The seven have already been briefed
on the classified details, suggesting they believe there is more information the public should know. On Tuesday this week, leading
House Democrats called on Obama to give members of the entire Congress a classified briefing on Russian interference, from hacking
to the spreading of fake news stories to mislead U.S. voters.
Republicans in Congress have also promised hearings into Russian activities once the new administration comes in.
Obama's homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco said the cyberinterference goes back to the 2008 presidential race, when both the
Obama and John McCain campaigns were hit by malicious computer intrusions.
* * *
An interesting aside to emerge from last night's hit piece and the Trump team response is that there is now a full blown turf
war between Trump and the CIA, as NBC's Chuck Todd observed in a series of late Friday tweets:
The implication in the Trump transition statement is that he doesn't believe a single thing from the CIA
To which Glenn Greenwald provided the best counterargument:
Yes, the CIA's sterling reputation around the world for truth-telling and integrity might be sullied if someone doubts
their claims...https://t.co/2uyQXvFdOK - Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald)
December 10, 2016
When is it hardest to get people not to blindly accept anonymous, evidence-free CIA claims? When it's very pleasing to
believe them. - Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald)
December 10, 2016
However, of the mini Tweetstorm, this was the most important aspect: the veiled suggestion that in addition to Russia, both the
FBI and the Obama presidency prevented Hillary from becoming the next US president...
While Obama's FBI director smeared Hillary, Obama sat on evidence of Russian efforts to elect Trump that had basis in evidence.
... which in light of these stunning new unproven and baseless allegations, she may very well have renewed aspirations toward.
* * *
So while there is no "there" there following the WaPo's latest attempt to fan the rarging fires of evidence-free propaganda, or
as the WaPo itself would say "fake news", here is why the story has dramatic implications. First, the only two quotes which matter:
"...there is no clear evidence - even now," said Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee
and a member of the Trump transition team. "There's a lot of innuendo, lots of circumstantial evidence, that's it."
* * *
"...Obama wants the report before he leaves office Jan. 20, Monaco said. The review will be led by [PROVEN LIAR] James
Clapper, the outgoing director of national intelligence, officials said."
And then the summary:
Announce "consensus" (not unanimous) "conclusion" based in circumstantial evidence now, before the Electoral College vote,
then write a report with actual details due by Jan 20.
Put a proven liar in charge of writing the report on Russian hacking.
Fail to mention that not one of the leaked DNC or Podesta emails has been shown to be inauthentic. So the supposed Russian
hacking simply revealed truth about Hillary, DNC, and MSM collusion and corruption.
Fail to mention that if hacking was done by or for US government to stop Hillary, blaming the Russians would be the most likely
disinformation used by US agencies.
Expect every pro-Hillary lapdog journalist - which is virtually all of them - in America will hyperventilate (Twitter is currently
on fire) about this latest fact-free, anti-Trump political stunt for the next nine days.
Or, as a reader put it, this is a soft coup attempt by leaders of Intel community and Obama Admin to influence the Electoral College
vote, similar to the 1960s novel " Seven Days in May
."
Once again it's a case of "watch the shiny object"... The "secret CIA report" seems to focus on who leaked the documents to Wikileaks
and not the content of those documents... The left have not refuted that the emails are real, just who leaked them to Assange...
Fuck 'em, if they keep Trump from the white house there will be revolution...
"Aside from its instigation of coups and alliances with right-wing juntas, Washington sought to more subtly influence elections
in all corners of the world. And so did Moscow. Political scientist
Dov Levin calculates that the "two powers intervened in 117 elections around the world from 1946 to 2000 - an average of once
in every nine competitive elections."
In the late 1940s, the newly established CIA cut its teeth in Western Europe, pushing back against some of the continent's
most influential leftist parties and labor unions. In 1948, the United States propped up Italy's centrist Christian Democrats
and helped ensure their electoral victory against a leftist coalition, anchored by one of the most powerful communist parties
in Europe. CIA operatives gave millions of dollars
to their Italian allies and helped orchestrate what was then
an unprecedented, clandestine propaganda campaign
: This included forging documents to besmirch communist leaders via fabricated sex scandals, starting a mass letter-writing
campaign from Italian Americans to their compatriots, and spreading hysteria about a Russian takeover and the undermining of the
Catholic Church.
"We had bags of money that we delivered to selected politicians, to defray their political expenses, their campaign expenses,
for posters, for pamphlets," recounted F. Mark Wyatt
, the CIA officer who handled the mission and later participated in more than 2½ decades of direct support to the Christian
Democrats.
This
template spread everywhere : CIA operative Edward G. Lansdale, notorious for his efforts to bring down the North Vietnamese
government, is said to have run the successful 1953 campaign of Philippines President Ramon Magsaysay. Japan's center-right Liberal
Democratic Party was backed with secret American funds through the 1950s and the 1960s. The U.S. government and American oil corporations
helped Christian parties in Lebanon win crucial elections in 1957 with briefcases full of cash.
In Chile, the United States prevented Allende from winning an election in 1964. "A total of nearly four million dollars
was spent on some fifteen covert action projects, ranging from organizing slum dwellers to passing funds to political parties,"
detailed a Senate
inquiry in the mid-1970s that started to expose the role of the CIA in overseas elections. When it couldn't defeat Allende at
the ballot box in 1970, Washington decided to remove him anyway."
A US Official has claimed the Russians are out to get Merkel in a cyber campaign.
A CIA probe confirms Moscow helped Trump win the election.
"In both cases, said the official, Mr. Putin's campaigns in both Europe and the US are intended to disrupt and discredit the
Western concept of democracy by promoting extremist candidates, parties, and political figures."
Both WAPO , & C.TODD would NOT be missed. Per Todd: "How helpful is it for the CIA's reputation around the world if the next US
questions their findings so publicly?"
Todd is concerned about The CIA's "Reputation" ?????? AS IF its current rep is wonderful??? - TODD: There is no "reputation"
to damage!!! Lame brain !!
17 intelligence agencies? Is this some dystopian record?
"There's a lot of innuendo, lots of circumstantial evidence, that's it."
So these 'intelligence' agencies are in the same boat as the pizzgate crowd. The main difference is after failing to produce
any actionable evidence the pizzagate crowd will loose interest and move on. We still have to give the bureaucrats at these intelligence
agencies a paycheck next month.
Russians are training the illegals in secret camps in the Sierra Madre mountains before they are released into the US. I was there
and saw it. Bigfoot was guarding the entrance.
Obama & The Presstitutes: Legalized DOMESTIC Propaganda to American Citizens The National Defense Authorization Act of July
2013 (NDAA) included an amendment that legalized the use of propaganda on the American public. The amendment - originally proposed
by Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) and Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and passed nullified the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which explicitly forbids
information and psychological operations aimed at influencing U.S. public opinion. The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 allowed
U.S. propaganda intended to influence foreign audiences to be used on the domestic population.
Signed by .. Obama. This Act formalized systems in place covertly or ad hoc for some time.
Hillary was a big threat to Russia security. Trump was willing to work with Russia. Does anyone really believe Russia has
absolutely no part to play in Trump's win? Think again. They should and I think they did! Whether it was an illegal intervention
would be another question.
Thinking is one thing. Proving it is another. And what do you "think" about the CIA and Victoria Nuland's role in toppling
the elected government in the Ukraine? How about NATO expansion for decades under Clinton, Bush and Obama? Aren't these DIRECT
THREATS against Putin and Russia? Yes, they most certainly are. Fuck the CIA They do far more harm than good for the people in
the USA.
Hillary was a threat to life on Earth. She made it clear her intent was to wage war against Russia (and probably China). Obviously
the US has been conducting cyberwarfare, psyops and propaganda against Russia, as this has been documented in the past. Russia's
response may merely have been presenting authentic information via RT/Sputnik/etc. and putting clips of Putin online where he
sounds like a rational human being. In other words, they may be guilty of nothing more than providing Americans with the truth,
much as America did with the Soviets.
That was exactly what this brought to mind for me - a John F Kennedy moment, but not his assassination. I was thinking of an earlier
time well before this., ie, Nikita Krushev banging the table at the UN with his shoe. The state of the nation - people were in
a panic because Russia let it be known it was about to bring nuclear missiles into Cuba. It was a ploy by the Russians and Krushev
to de-escalate the tensions between the two countries over our attempt to take out Castro and the Bay of Pigs Invasion.
Fade to today. Why would the Russians care who won the presidency? Hillary the war monger or the Donald, the negotiator? Ahh,
maybe because we just brought into Turkey then consequently moved fifty nuclear missiles into position along Russia's border?
Who authorized and ordered that? Would that be any cause for worry by Russia or its citizenry? Is that or is it not total insanity?
Total fuckery? Obama and Hillary have put us four minutes away from a worldwide nuclear holocaust and now they are trying to make
Trump look like he was in bed with Putin. I don't know what Trump is but I do know he and Putin are the only two people on the
same wavelength right now, thank the electoral college.
You are delusional, dishonest, ignrorant, and proud of it. Fortunately, YOU LOST.
After a year of MSM propaganda and lies, you are now obsessed with "fake news" ironically the kind that totally obliterated
your propaganda for the lies that they were.
After a year of cackling laughter when every two bit dictator and NWO globalist bad mouthed Trump, like a child, you are OUTRAGED
that Russia might have not wanted Hillary to take power and make war against it. At least Russia didn't PUBLICALLY attempt to
influence an American election LIKE HILLARY'S NWO GOONS DID FROM THEIR EXECUTIVE OFFICES.
The popular vote: Ignoring fraud, which was proven in the Michigan recount, Hillary supporters are trying to make hay out of
her garnering 2.6 million more votes than Trump. Besides the fact that this is irrelevant in a campaign for the electoral college,
2.6 million votes is only somewhere @0.7% of the US population. That's hardly a mandate, especially when we consider she only
had that dubious edge over Trump, not the entire playing field. There were other candidate you know.
I'm sorry, I forgot, YOU LOST, and you think you can spoil our good time with the assertion that the better candidate was Hillary.
LOL, losers.
Trump is a wildcard, we all knew that when we voted for him.
Hillary is a witchcard and we all knew what she would do.
Bernie wasn't even a choice, Hillary had him as a straw man opponent.
Rand Paul to me was the best choice but establishment didn't want him, Gay media wanted Trump because they thought Hillary
could beat him and many of the Ron Paulers still butthurt over him endorsing Romney. Never mind Ron Paul didn't even put up a
fight when they robbed him of the nomination he won.
Go back to the 1960s. Phillp Graham and his wife rans Wa Post. Phillip got a young girl friend and started going off the reservation
saying WaPo was becoming a mouthpiece for the See Eye Ah. He was going to divorce his wife. He then was commited to an insane
asylum, released and then killed himself with a shotgun.
Phil's wife was the daughter of Eugene Meyer who ran The Fed.
Watergate was not what you were told. Nixon wanted tariffs and the Rockefellers (who myguess started the CIA - David was an
OSS officer in WW2) got mad at their boy Nixon. Nixon hated George Bush and did not trust him. All the info the Wa Post got on
Nixon was C**IIA info to Ben Bradley, editor of Wa Post, probably from George Bush. All of Nixons,relatively minor, dirt was passed
from See EYE Ah to Wa Post. Woodward and Bernstein just typed it up.
Bradley was brther in law to Cord Meyer (operation mockingbird). Cord's wife (Mary Pinchot-Meyer) had an ongoing affair with
JFK. After he was killed, she was gonna spill the beans like Marilyn Monroe. She was killed taking a walk. Ben BRadley and the
See EYE Ah rush to her apartment to get her diary.
the CIA has been arming Al Qaeda and (likely) 'ISIS'.
It is very probable US forces will be killed by these weapons.
Add to that the small issue of the hundreds of thousands of people, Christian and non-Salafist/non-Wahhabi Muslims murdered
by the Islamopsycho and Acadami etc. private western mercs.
There have to be good, patriotic Americans within CIA These intelligence reports are obvious fictions: The agitprop of
a neocon/zionist Deep State that fully intends to expand the wars, target Iran and Russia, while sending American blood and treasure
to pay their bill.
And now they are going to try to overturn an election in which Clinton not only lost by the rules of our system, but in which
Clinton's 'popular vote' win was the product of illegal immigrant and other fraudulent voting.
all of which means they are also willing to risk civil war.
Kennedy knew that the CIA was nothing but a group of Useless, Meddling, Lying Assholes, and made it known Publicly. Unfortunately
for him, things didn't turn out all that well. "Wetwork" is never in shortage with that crew.
Most CIA directors are/were members of the Rockefeller/CFR including: Morell, Petraeus, Hayden, Tenet, Deutch, Woolsey, Gates,
Webster, Casey, Turner, Bush, Colby, Schlesinger, Helms, McCone and Allen Dulles. Also every Fed chairman since WW2. See member
lists at cfr dot org.
"I have discussed Council on Foreign Relations Team A vs. Team B for 35 years. I have seen two anti-CFR people get through
the [presidential] screening... The domestic policies of both CFR wings are the same: the maintenance of the American Empire...
There is no possibility of [outsiders] capturing power at the top of either party..."
"... In principle, every router between the DNC server and Russia has the potential to be hacked, with a tunnel added to send the traffic somewhere else in the world with new source and destination addresses. This is known as router table poisoning. It is preventable but the mechanisms are rarely ever used because the security services want to be able to do this themselves. There are some nice logs of the NSA using this. ..."
"... In principle, someone at an ISP or backbone service could have had a laptop plugged into a switch or router to do the same thing, or lit up a strand of dark fibre to let some uber-wealthy business do this. And there's no shortage of uber-wealthy businesses who aren't keen on Democrats. This technique is used for local and remote network diagnostics, no reason it can't be used nefarious, it's not like the hardware cares why a wire is plugged in. ..."
"... Russia has an independent foreign policy and acts in what it perceives as it's own best interests. It has refused to become a vassal state of the West and is a threat to the Empire's full-spectrum dominance. Worst of all it has begun trading outside the $US in energy and other resources with China and Iran. ..."
"... Mainstream media are now busy repressing any news and any questioning about facts ..."
"... Western media are in full panic as Aleppo falls with all sorts of gruesome tales about the mistreatment of their favorite terrorists in Aleppo and a strange silence on the whereabouts of their '250K civilians' under siege ..."
"... I cant believe the Fake News outlets are still making a big deal about this issue. Obomber is leaving in a cloud of failure as he deserves ..."
"... "Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state." ― Noam Chomsky, Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda. ..."
"... New Canadian documentary - All Governments Lie. "It lucidly argues that powerful interests have been creating supercharged fake stories for decades to advance their own nefarious interests. And the institutional media have too often blithely played along." The Globe and Mail. ..."
"... No comments about Seth Rich the DNC staffer Assange hinted had leaked the Podesta emails to Wikileaks and was subsequently shot multiple times and died at 04:20 on a Washington DC street in a 'motiveless' crime in which none of his possessions were taken. ..."
"... The rise of the right wing in Europe is due to the fact that Social Democratic parties have completely sold out to neo-liberal agenda. ..."
"... So Putin's plan to undermine U.S. voter confidence was to simply show what actually happens behind the scenes at the DNC, how diabolical! ..."
"... Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash, has published a report that claims that that Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta was on the executive board of a foreign company that received $35 million from the Kremlin. "The company was a transparent Russian front, and how much Podesta was compensated - and for what - is unclear. In addition, Podesta failed to disclose his position on that board to the Federal government, as required by law," John Schindler of the Observer wrote. ..."
"... So it's true because the CIA said so. That's the gold standard for me. ..."
"... "Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies" - Ron Paul ..."
"... At least Tucker Carlson is able to see through the BS and asks searching question. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRkeGkCjdHg ..."
"... President-elect Donald Trump's transition team said in a statement Friday afternoon that the same people who claim Russia interfered in the presidential election had previously claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. ..."
"... The neoliberal corporate machine is wounded but not dead. They will use every trick, ploy and opportunity to try to regain power. The fight goes on. ..."
"... Good occasion to substantiate the accusation which ,substantiated or not,will remind the "useful idiots" of the "change of regime " US policy and who started the Ukrainian crisis. ..."
"... Just another chapter in the sad saga of the Democrats unwillingness to admit they ran the worst candidate & the worst campaign in recent memory. It's not our fault! Them dirty Russkies did it! ..."
Well, if Rupert Mudroach, an American citizen, can influence the Australian elections, who gives a stuff about anyone else's
involvement in US politics?
The US loves demonising Russia, even supporting ISIS to fight against them.
The United States of Amnesia just can't understand that they are run by the military machine.
As Frank Zappa once correctly stated: The US government is just the entertainment unit of the Military.
Altogether the only thing people are accusing the Russians of is the WikiLeaks scandal. And in hindsight of the enormous media
bias toward Trump it really comes of as little more than leveling the playing field. Hardly the sort of democratic subversion
that is being suggested.
And of course there is another problem and that is in principle, the DNC server could have had malware in an e-mail that set
up a NAT entry that made the connecting computer appear somewhere else, with the entry deleted afterwards. Typically, IP table
modifications aren't logged, so this would not be detectable.
In principle, the DNC server could have had malware in an e-mail that ran a SED script at a specific time that changed any
occurrence of one IP address with another. Not sure anyone would bother with this, but it's why good system admins place so much
emphasis on securing logs. However, it's obvious we're not talking about good admins.
In principle, every router between the DNC server and Russia has the potential to be hacked, with a tunnel added to send the
traffic somewhere else in the world with new source and destination addresses. This is known as router table poisoning. It is
preventable but the mechanisms are rarely ever used because the security services want to be able to do this themselves. There
are some nice logs of the NSA using this.
In principle, someone along the way could tap into the fibre, spoofing IP addresses and injecting/sniffing packets. The US
even has a submarine designed for this, but optics aren't complex and any number of neo-phone phreaks could have the hardware.
In principle, someone at an ISP or backbone service could have had a laptop plugged into a switch or router to do the same
thing, or lit up a strand of dark fibre to let some uber-wealthy business do this. And there's no shortage of uber-wealthy businesses
who aren't keen on Democrats. This technique is used for local and remote network diagnostics, no reason it can't be used nefarious,
it's not like the hardware cares why a wire is plugged in.
In principle, the supposed destination machine could have been hacked to relay the packets in encrypted form to the South Pole
or a college campus in Texas. There are many examples of client machines being hacked to do this. It's basically what zombie machines
are in botnets.
In practice, it is flat-out guaranteed that none of the security agencies could distinguish this from a Russian attack. Nothing
in the area monitored could tell the difference. We know, for a fact, that college kids spoofing a scan from China have fooled
the DoD and NSA on previous occasions, it has caused international incidents.
So we have known forms of attack that are known to exist, aren't complex and in some cases are already used for attacks. They
are 100% untraceable.
Don't know about Russians, but in the early 2000's the Ukrainian hackers had some nasty viruses embedded in email attachments
that could fuckup ARM based computers.
Russia has an independent foreign policy and acts in what it perceives as it's own best interests. It has refused to become
a vassal state of the West and is a threat to the Empire's full-spectrum dominance. Worst of all it has begun trading outside
the $US in energy and other resources with China and Iran.
Mainstream media are now busy repressing any news and any questioning about facts, as the last battle in their support to jidaists
fighting the Syrian Army. This is the dark pit where our so called free press has fallen into.
Yep had a chat with an army mate yesterday asked him what the fcuk the supposed head of MI6 was on about regarding Russian support
for Syrian govt suggesting Russian actions made terrorism more likely here in UK. He shrugged his shoulders and said he hoped
Putin wiped the terrorists out...
Western media are in full panic as Aleppo falls with all sorts of gruesome tales about the mistreatment of their favorite terrorists
in Aleppo and a strange silence on the whereabouts of their '250K civilians' under siege
Of course no news on the danger to the civilians of W,Aleppo, who have been bombarded indiscriminately for months by the 'moderates'
in the east of the city or the danger to the civilians of Palmyra, Mosul or al Bab.
I cant believe the Fake News outlets are still making a big deal about this issue. Obomber is leaving in a cloud of failure as
he deserves.
I΄ll still look for the Guardian articles on football which are excellent.
Cheers!
The Sanders movement inside the Democratic party did offer some hope but this was snuffed out by the DNC and the Clinton campaign
in collusion with the media. This is what likely caused her defeat in November and not some Kremlin intrigue.
"Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state."
― Noam Chomsky, Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda.
New Canadian documentary - All Governments Lie. "It lucidly argues that powerful interests have been creating supercharged fake
stories for decades to advance their own nefarious interests. And the institutional media have too often blithely played along."
The Globe and Mail.
No comments about Seth Rich the DNC staffer Assange hinted had leaked the Podesta emails to Wikileaks and was subsequently shot
multiple times and died at 04:20 on a Washington DC street in a 'motiveless' crime in which none of his possessions were taken.
Distract the masses with bullsh*t , nothing new...
Trump needs to double up on his personal security, he has doubled down on the CIA tonight bringing upmtheir bullsh*t on WMD. Thing
are getting interesting...
"If we can revert to the truth, then a great deal of one's suffering can be erased, because a great deal of one's suffering is
based on sheer lies. "
R. D. Laing
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
US politicians and the MSM depend on sheer lies.....
They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they
will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.
R. D. Laing
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
I'm sick of jumping through their hoops - how about you?
"Tin Foil Hat" Hillary--
"This is not about politics or partisanship," she went on. "Lives are at risk, lives of ordinary people just trying to go about
their days to do their jobs, contribute to their communities. It is a danger that must be addressed and addressed quickly."
We fail to see how Russian propaganda has put people's lives directly at risk. Unless, of course, Hillary is suggesting that
the increasingly-bizarre #Pizzagate swarm journalism campaign (which apparently caused a man to shoot up a floor tile in a D.C.
pizza shop) was conjured up by a bunch of Russian trolls.
And this is about as absurd as saying Russian trolls were why Trump got elected.
"It needs to be said," former counterintelligence agent John R. Schindler (who, by the way, believes Assange and Snowden are
both Russian plants), writes in the Observer, "that nearly all of the liberals eagerly pontificating about how Putin put Trump
in office know nothing about 21st century espionage, much less Russia's unique spy model and how it works. Indeed, some of the
most ardent advocates of this Kremlin-did-it conspiracy theory were big fans of Snowden and Wikileaks -- right until clandestine
Russian shenanigans started to hurt Democrats. Now, they're panicking."
(Nonetheless, #Pizzagate and Trump, IMHO, are manifestations of a population which deeply deeply distrusts the handlers and
gatekeepers of the status quo. Justified or not. And with or without Putin's shadowy fingers strumming its magic hypno-harp across
the Land of the Free. This runs deeper than just Putin.)
Fake news has always been around, from the fake news which led Americans to believe the Pearl Harbor attack was a surprise
and completely unprovoked .
To the fake news campaigns put out by Edward Bernays tricking women into believing cigarettes were empowering little phallics
of feminism. (AKA "Torches of Freedom.")
This War on Fake News has more to do with the elites finally realizing how little control they have over the minds of the unwashed
masses. Rather, this is a war on the freaks, geeks and weirdos who've formed a decentralized and massively-influential media right
under their noses.
and there may be some truth to that. An article says has delved into financial matters in Russia.
Kremlin Connection? The TRUTH About Hillary's Shady Ties To Russia REVEALED
Find out why insiders say Clinton has some explaining to do.
Americans have no idea just how closely Hillary Clinton is tied to the Kremlin! That's the shocking claim of a new report that
alleges the Democratic nominee is secretly pals with Vladimir Putin and his countrymen.
Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash, has published a report that claims that that Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta
was on the executive board of a foreign company that received $35 million from the Kremlin. "The company was a transparent Russian
front, and how much Podesta was compensated - and for what - is unclear. In addition, Podesta failed to disclose his position
on that board to the Federal government, as required by law," John Schindler of the Observer wrote.
As Radar previously reported, when Clinton was secretary of state, she profited from the "Russian Reset," a failed attempt
to improve relations between the U.S. and Russia.
chweizer wrote, "Many of the key figures in the Skolkovo process - on both the Russian and U.S. sides - had major financial ties
to the Clintons. During the Russian reset, these figures and entities provided the Clintons with tens of millions of dollars,
including contributions to the Clinton Foundation, paid for speeches by Bill Clinton, or investments in small start-up companies
with deep Clinton ties." Schweizer also details "Skolkovo," a Silicon Valley-like campus that both the U.S. and Russia worked
on for developing biomed, space, nuclear and IT technologies. He told the New York Post that there was a "pattern that shows a
high percentage of participants in Skolkovo who happen to be Clinton Foundation donors."
So it's true because the CIA said so.
That's the gold standard for me.
So let me be the first to thank Russia for providing us with their research.
Instead of assassination, coup or invasion, they simply showed us our leaders' own words when written behind the public's backs.
I'm no fan of Putin, but this was a useful bit of intelligence you've shared with us.
Happy Christmas, Vlad.
Next time why not provide us with the email of all our banks and fossil fuel companies; you can help us clean up both political
parties with one fell swoop that way.
The U.S. is getting what it deserves, IF Russia was even dumb enough to meddle. The government in this country has been meddling
in other countries' affairs sixty years, in the Middle East, in South America and other places we don't even know about. The result
is mayhem, all in the 'interests' of the U.S., as it is described.
Where's the gap in this logic:
A) The American public has been offered ZERO proof of hacking by the Russian government to alter our election.
B) Even if true, no one has disputed the authenticity of the emails hacked.
C) Therefore, the WORST Russia could have done is show us who are own leader are when they don't think we're listening.
D) Taken together, this article is pretty close to fake news, and gives us nothing that should outrage us much at this time --
unless we are trying to foment war with Russia or call for a military coup against the baboon about to take the oath of office.
Hacking by unnamed individuals. No direct involvement of the Russian government, only implied, alleged, etc. Seems to me that
if Hillary had obeyed the law and not schemed behind the scenes to sabotage Bernie S. there would have been nothing to leak! Really
this is all about being caught with fer fingers in the cookie jar. Does it matter who leaked it? Did the US public not have a
right to know what the people they were voting for had been up to? It's a bit like the governor of a province being filmed burgling
someone's house and then complaining that someone had leaked the film to the media, just when he was trying to get re-elected!
It is called passing the buck, and because of the underhanded undermining of Bernie Sanders, who was winning, we have Trump. Thank
you Democratic party.
I am disappointed that the Guardian gives so much prominence to such speculation which is almost totally irrelevant. Why would
we necessarily (a) believe what the superspies tell us and (b) even if it is true why should we care?
I am also very disappointed at the Guardians attitude to Putin, the elected leader of Russia, who was so badly treated by the
US from the moment he took over from Yeltsin. I was in Russia as a visitor around that time and it was obvious that Putin restored
some dignity to the Russian people after the disastrous Yeltsin term of office. If the US had been willing to deal with him with
respect the world could be a much better place today. Instead the US insisted in trying to subvert his rule with the support of
its supine NATO allies in order to satisfy its corporate rulers.
If this is true, the US can hardly complain. After all, the US has a long record of interfering in other countries' elections--including
CIA overthrow of elected governments and their replacement with murderous, oppressive, right-wing dictatorships.
If the worst that Russia did was reveal the truth about what Democratic Party figures were saying behind closed doors, I'd
say it helped correct the unbalanced media focus on preventing Trump from becoming President. Call it the globalization of elections.
First, the government has yet to present any persuasive evidence that Russia hacked the DNC or anyone else. All we have is that
there is Russian code (meaningless according to cyber-security experts) and seemingly baseless "conclusions" by "intelligence"
officials. In other words, fake news at this point.
Second, even if true, the allegation amounts to an argument that Russia presented us with facts that we shouldn't have seen.
Think about that for a while. We are seeing demands that we self-censor ourselves from facts that seem unfair. What utter idiocy.
This is particularly outrageous given that the U.S. directly intervenes in the governance of any number of nations all the
time. We can support coups, arm insurgencies, or directly invade, but god forbid that someone present us with unsettling facts
about our ruling class.
This nation has jumped the shark. The fact that Trump is our president is merely confirmation of this long evident fact. That
fighting REAL NEWS of emails whose content has not been disputed is part of our war on "fake news," and the top priority for some
so-called liberals, promises only worse to come.
>> Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said Russia had "succeeded" in "sow[ing] discord" in the
election, and urged as much public disclosure as is possible.
What utter bullshit. The DNC's own dirty tricks did that. Donna Brasille stealing debate questions and handing them to Hillary
so that she could cheat did that. The FBIs investigation into Hillary did that. Podesta's emails did that. The totally one-sided
press coverage (apart from Fox) of the election did that. But it seems the american people were smart enough to see through the
BS and voted for trump. Good for them.
And we're gonna need a lot more than the word of a few politicised so-called intelligence agencies to believe this russo-hacking
story. These are the same people who lied about Iraqi WMDs so they are proven fakers/liars. These are also the same people who
hack EVERYONE else so I, quite frankly, have no sympathy even of the story turns out to be true.
Announce "consensus" (not unanimous) "conclusion" based in circumstantial evidence now, before the Electoral College vote,
then write a report with actual details due by Jan 20.
Put a proven liar in charge of writing the report on Russian hacking.
Fail to mention that not one of the leaked DNC or Podesta emails has been shown to be inauthentic. So the supposed Russian hacking
simply revealed truth about Hillary, DNC, and MSM collusion and corruption.
Fail to mention that if hacking was done by or for US government to stop Hillary, blaming the Russians would be the most likely
disinformation used by US agencies.
Expect every pro-Hillary lapdog journalist - which is virtually all of them - in America will hyperventilate (Twitter is currently
on fire) about this latest fact-free, anti-Trump political stunt for the next nine days.
Or, as a reader put it, this is a soft coup attempt by leaders of Intel community and Obama Admin to influence the Electoral College
vote, similar to the 1960s novel "Seven Days in May."
When the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security release a joint
statement it is not without very careful consideration to the wording.
Therefore, to understand what is known by the US intelligence services one must analyse the language used.
This is very telling:
"The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona
are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts."
Alleged:
adjective [attributive]
said, without proof, to have taken place or to have a specified illegal or undesirable quality
Consistent:
adjective
acting or done in the same way over time
Method:
noun
a particular procedure for accomplishing or approaching something
Motivation:
noun
a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way
So, what exactly is known by the US intelligence services?
Well what we can tell is:
the alleged (without proof) hacks were consistent (done in the same way) with the methods (using a particular procedure) and motivations
(and having reason for doing so) with Russian State actions.
There is absolutely no certainty about this whatsoever.
Thank God Obama will be out of office soon. He is the biggest disappointment ever. He has ordered the death of THOUSANDS via drone
strikes in other people's countries and most of the deaths were innocent bystanders. If President Xi of China or Putin were to
do that we would all be calling them tyrannical dictators and accusing them of a back door invasions. But somehow people are brainwashed
into thinking its ok of the US president to do such things. Truly sickening.
Says the CIA the organisation set up to destabilise governments all over the world. Lol.....
Congratulations for keeping a straight face I hope Trump makes urgently needed personnel changes in the alphabet soup agencies
working against humanity for very many years.
This is an extremely dangerous game that Obama and the political elites are playing.
The American political elites - including senetors, bankers, investors, multinationals et al, can feel power and control slipping
away from them.
This makes them very dangerous people indeed - as self-preservation and holding onto power is their number one priority.
What they're aiming to do ( a child can see what's coming ), is to call into question the validity of Trump's victory and blame
the Russians for it.
The elites are looking to create chaos and insurrection, to have the result nullified and to vilify Putin and Russia.
American and Russian troops are already lined up and facing each other along the Eastern European borders and all it takes
is one small incident from either side.
And all because those that have ruled the roost for so many decades ( in the White house, the 2 houses of Congress and Wall
St ), simply cannot face losing their positions of power, wealth and political influence.
They're out to get Trump, the populists and President Putin.
This is starting to feel like an attempt to make the Trump presidency appear illegitimate. The problem is that it could actually
make the democrats look like sore losers instead. We've had the recount, now it's foreign interference. This might harm them in
2020.
I don't like that Trump won, but he did. The electoral college system is clearly in the constitution and all sides understood
and agreed to it at the campaign commencement. Also some, by no means all, of commenters saying that the popular vote should win
have also been on referendum BTL saying the result isn't a legitimate leave vote, make your minds up!
I don't want Trump and I wanted to remain but, by the rules, my sides lost.
Yet in August, Snowden warned that the recent hack of NSA tied cyber spies was not designed to expose Hillary Clinton, but rather
a display of strength by the hackers, showing they could eventually unmask the NSA's own international cyber espionage and prove
the U.S. meddles in elections around the world.
Will the CIA be providing evidence to support these allegations or is it a case of "just trust us guys"? In any event, hypocrisy
is a national sport for the Yanks. According to a Reuters article 9 August 2016 "NSA operations have, for example, recently delved
into elections in Mexico, targeting its last presidential campaign. According to a top-secret PowerPoint presentation leaked by
former NSA contract employee Edward Snowden, the operation involved a "surge effort against one of Mexico's leading presidential
candidates, Enrique Peρa Nieto, and nine of his close associates." Peρa won that election and is now Mexico's president.
The NSA identified Peρa's cellphone and those of his associates using advanced software that can filter out specific phones
from the swarm around the candidate. These lines were then targeted. The technology, one NSA analyst noted, "might find a needle
in a haystack." The analyst described it as "a repeatable and efficient" process.
The eavesdroppers also succeeded in intercepting 85,489 text messages, a Der Spiegel article noted.
Another NSA operation, begun in May 2010 and codenamed FLATLIQUID, targeted Pena's predecessor, President Felipe Calderon.
The NSA, the documents revealed, was able "to gain first-ever access to President Felipe Calderon's public email account."
At the same time, members of a highly secret joint NSA/CIA organization, called the Special Collection Service, are based in
the U.S. embassy in Mexico City and other U.S. embassies around the world. It targets local government communications, as well
as foreign embassies nearby. For Mexico, additional eavesdropping, and much of the analysis, is conducted by NSA Texas, a large
listening post in San Antonio that focuses on the Caribbean, Central America and South America."
Breaking news! CIA admits people in USA aren't smart enough to vote for the person right person. Why blame Russians now?
Come on. Let's move on and enjoy the mess Trump will start. This is going to be worse than GWB.
We should all just enjoy the political comedy programs.
The CIA accusing a foreign power of interfering in the election of a showman for president - it would take me all day top cite
the times that this evil criminal organisation has interfered in the affairs of other countries, ordered assassinations, coups
etc. etc. etc
Yes like the "help" the CIA gave to the Taliban, Bin Laden and Co. when the Russians were in Afghanistan.
Then these dimwits from the CIA who taught Bin Laden and Co guerrilla warfare totally "missed" 9/11 and Twin Towers with all their
billions of funding.
So basically this is a total load of crap and if you think we are going to believe any reports vs. Russia these fools at the CIA
are going to publish then think again.
During the election our media was exposed as in essence a propaganda tool for the Democrat campaign and they continue the unholy
alliance after the election
Pathetic move from an organisation that created ISIS and is single handling every single conflict in the world. Here we have a
muppet president that for once wants to look after USA affairs internally and here we have a so alleged independent organisation
that wants to keep bombing and destabilising the world. Didn't Trump said he wanted to shake the FBI and CIA ? Who is going to
stop this machine of treachery ? : south America, middle east ...Asia ... they put their fingers on to create a problem- solution
caveat wereas is to create weapons contracts /farma or construction and sovereign debt . But it never tricles down to the layperson
..
"We are Not calling into question the election results"
next White House sentence - "Just the integrity.. " WTF
What more do you need to know - Bullshit Fake News.. propaganda, spoken by the youngest possible puppet boy White House Rep.
who almost managed to have his tie done up..
I am bookmarking this guy, for a laugh! White House Fake Newscaster ..:)
Worth watching the sides of his mouth onto his attempt to engage you with the eyes, but blinking way too much before, during
and after the word "Integrity".. FAKE!
His hand signals.. lmfao, so measured, how sweet.. now sack the sycophants --
People should know that these Breaking News stories we see in Western media on BBC, Guardian etc, about Russian interference are
in fact from Wash Post and NY Times quoting mysterious sources within the CIA
Of course we know that Wash Post and NY Times were completely objective during the election and didn't favor any party
Russia made Hillary run the most expensive campaign ever, spending 1.2 billion dollars.
Russia stole Hillary's message to the working people and gave her lousy slogans
My real comment is below, but work with me, for a moment.
So, since 2008, eh? Barack has thought carefully, with a legal mind.
Can't we somehow blame the Russians for the whole Economic collapse.. coming soon, Wall Street Cyber Crash, screwed up sKewed
up systems of Ponzi virus spiraling out of control..
blame the Russians , logic, the KGB held the FED at gunpoint and said "create $16.2 Trillion in 5 working days"
jeez, blame anything and anybody except peace prize guy Obama, the Pope, Bankers & Israel..
Now can we discuss the Security of the Pound against Cyber Attack.. what was it 6% in 2 minutes, early on Sunday morning, just
over month ago.. whoosh!
It seems more important than discussing an election where the result was always OBVIOUS!
And we called it, just like Kellyanne Conway..
Who is Huma Abedin? I wish to know and hear her talking to Kellyanne Conway, graciously in defeat.. is that so unreasonable?
********
Obama wishes to distract from exceedingly poor judgement, at the very minimum....
after his Greek Affair with Goldman Sachs.. surely.
As for his other Foreign Policy: Eternal Shame, founded on Fake News!
Obama the Fake News Founder to flounder over the Russians, who can prove that he, Obama supports & supported Terrorism!
Thus this article exists, to create doubt over the veracity of evidence to be presented over NATO's involvement in SYRIA! Obama
continues to resist, or loose face completely..
Just ask Can Dundar.... what he knows now and ask Obama to secure the release of Can Dundar's wife's passport, held for no
legitimate reason in Turkey! This outrageous stand off, from Erdogan & Obama to address their failures and arrogant disrespect
of Woman and her Legal Human Rights is Criminal.. & a Sickness of Mind that promotes Dictatorship!
Mainstream Media - Fake News.. for quite some time!
& Obama is guilty!
The one certainty of the US/EU led drive to remove an elected leader just in their 2nd year after an election that saw them
gain 47% of the popular vote was the Russki response, its borders were immediately at open 'threat' from any alliance. NATO or
otherwise, the deep sea ports of eastern Ukraine which had always been accessed by the Russki fleets would lose guaranteed access
etc....to believe the West was surprised by this action, would be to assume the US Generals were as stupid as the US administration,
they knew exactly the response of the Russkis & would have made no difference if their leader had been named Putin or Uncle Tom
Cobbly.
In some ways the Russkis partitioning of the East of Ukraine could well minimise the possibility of a world conflict as the
perceived threat is neutralised by the buffer.
The Russkis cyber doodah is no different to our own the US etc, they're all 'at it' & all attempt to inveigle the others in
terms of making life difficult.....not too sure Putin will be quite as comfortable with the Pres Elects 3 Trumpeteers though as
the new Pressie looks likely to open channels of communications but those negotiations might well see a far tougher stance......still,
in truth, all is never fair in love or war
.....that the CIA is not only suddenly involved, but suddenly at the forefront, may well reflect President-elect Trump's stated
policy intentions being far removed from those that the CIA has endorsed, and might be done with an eye toward undermining Trump's
position in those upcoming policy battles.
At the center of those Trump vs. CIA battles is Syria, as the CIA has for years pushed to move away from the ISIS war and toward
imposing regime change in Syria. Trump, by contrast, has said he intends to end the CIA-Saudi program arming the Syrian rebels,
and focus on fighting ISIS. Trump was even said to be seeking to coordinate anti-ISIS operations with Russia.
The CIA allegations could easily imperil that plan, as so long as the allegations remain part of the public discourse, evidence
or not, anything Trump does with respect to Russia is going to have a black cloud hanging over it. http://news.antiwar.com/2016/12/09/cia-claims-russia-intervened-to-get-trump-elected
/
Oh dear Obama trolls? Food for your starved thoughts:
Your degree of understanding IT is disturbing, especially given how dependent we are on it.
This is all very simple. The process by which you find out if and how a machine was hacked was clearly documented in the Russian
"Internet Audit", run by a group of Grey Hats.
Grey Hats: People concerned about security who perform unauthorized hacks for relatively benign purposes, often just notifying
people of how their system is flawed. IT staff have mixed reactions(!), the illegality is not disputed but the benefit of not
being hit by a Black Hat first can be considerable at times. Differentiation is rare, especially as some hacktivist groups belong
here, causing no damage beyond reputational by flagging activity that is not acceptable to the hacktivists.
Black Hats: These are the guys to worry about. These include actually destructive hacktivists. These are the ones who steal
data for malicious purposes, disrupt for malicious purposes and just generally act maliciously.
Nothing in reports indicates if the DNC hack was Grey Hat or Black Hat, but it should be obvious that there is a difference.
IP addresses and hangouts - worthless as evidence. Anyone can spoof the former, happens all the time (NMap used to provide
the option, probably still does), Grey Hats and Black Hats alike have the latter and may break into other people's. It's all about
knowing vulnerabilities.
That voting machines were even on the Internet is disturbing. That they and the DNC server were improperly configured for such
an environment is frightening - and possibly illegal.
The standard sequence of events is thus:
Network intrusion detector system identifies crafted packet attacking known vulnerability.
In a good system, the firewall is set to block the attack at that instant.
If the attacker scans the network, the only machine responding to such knocks should be a virtual machine running a honeypot
on attractive-looking port numbers. The other machines in the zone should technically violate the RFCs by not responding to ICMP
or generating recognized error codes on unused/blocked ports.
The system logger picks up an event that creates a process that shouldn't be happening.
In a good system, this either can't happen because the combination of permissions needed doesn't exist, or it doesn't matter because
the process is root jailed and hasn't the privileges to actually do any harm.
The file alteration logger (possibly Tripwire, though the Linux kernel can do this itself) detects that a process with escalated
privileges is trying to create, delete or alter a file that it isn't supposed to be able to change.
In a good system with mandatory access controls, this really is impossible. In a good system with logging file systems, it doesn't
matter as you can instruct the filesystem to revert those specific alterations. Even in adequate but feeble systems, checkpoints
will exist. No use in a voting system, but perfectly adequate for a campaign server. In all cases, the system logs will document
what got damaged.
The correct IT manager response is thus:
Find out why the firewall wasn't defaulting to deny for all unknown sources and for unnecessary ports.
Find out why the public-facing system wasn't isolated in the firewall's DMZ.
Find out why NIDS didn't stop the attack.
Non-public user mobility should be via IPSec using certificates. That deals with connecting from unknown IP addresses without
exposing the innards of the system.
Lock down misconfigured network systems.
Backup files identified by file alteration detection as corrupt for forensic purposes.
Revert files identified by file alteration detection as corrupt to last good version.
Close permission loopholes. Everything should run with the fewest privileges necessary, OS included. On Linux, kernel permissions
are controlled via capabilities.
Establish from the logs if the intruder came through a public-facing application, an essential LAN service or a non-essential
service.
If it's a LAN service, block access to that service outside the LAN on the host firewall.
Run network and host vulnerability scanners to detect potential attack vectors.
Update any essential software that is detected as flawed, then rerun the scanners. Repeat until fixed.
Now the system is locked down against general attacks, you examine the logs to find out exactly what failed and how. If that line
of attack got fixed, good. If it didn't, then fix it.
Password policy should prevent rainbow attacks, not users. Edit as necessary, lock accounts that aren't secure and set the password
control system to ban bad passwords.
It is impossible from system logs to track where an intruder came from, unsecured routers are common and that means a skilled
attacker can divert packets to anywhere. You can't trust brags, in security nobody is honest. The sensible thing is to not allow
such events in the first place, but when (not if) they happen, learn from them.
If the USA is to investigate the effect of foreign governments 'corrupting' the free decisions of the American people in elections,
perhaps they could look into the fact that for the past three decades every Republican candidate for president, after they have
won the nomination of their party, has gone to just one foreign country to pledge their firm commitment/allegiance to that foreign
power, for the purpose of shoring up large blocks of donors prior to the actual presidential election. The effect is probably
more 'corrupting' than any leak of emails!
Obama should confess to creating ISIS, sustaining ISIS & utilising ISIS as a proxy army to have them do things that he knew US
soldiers could never be caught doing!!!
They then spoon fed you bullshit propaganda about who the bad guys were, without ever being to properly explain why the US
armed forces were prevented from taking any hostile action against ISIS, until they were FORCED TO, that is, when Putin let the
the cat out of the bag!!!
Hilarious. One would've thought Obama of all presidents would be reluctant to delve too deeply into this particular midden. As
the author of the weakest and most incompetent American foreign policy agenda since Carter's, it's much the likeliest that if
China or Russia have been hacking US elections, then by far the biggest beneficiary will have been himself.
cdm Begin forwarded message: > From: Lynn Forester de Rothschild <[email protected]> > Date: May 28, 2015 at 9:44:12 AM
EDT > To: Nick Merrill <[email protected]>, "Cheryl Mills ([email protected])" <[email protected]> > Subject: FW:
POLITICO Playbook > > Morning, > I am sure you are working on this, but clearly, the opposition is trying to undercut Hillary's
reputation for honesty (the number one characteristic people look for in a President according to most polls) ..and also to benefit
from an attack on wealth that Dems did the most to start I am sure we need to fight back against both of these attacks. > Xoxo
> Lynn > > By Mike Allen (@mikeallen; [email protected]), and Daniel Lippman (@dlippman; [email protected]) > > > > QUINNIPIAC
POLL, out at 6 a.m., "Rubio, Paul are only Republicans even close to Clinton": "In a general election, ... Clinton gets 46 percent
of American voters to 42 percent for Paul and 45 percent of voters to 41 percent for Rubio." Clinton leads Christie 46-37 ...
Huckabee 47-40 ... Jeb 47-37 ... Walker 46-38 ... Cruz 48-37 ... Trump 50-32. > > --"[V]oters say 53-39 percent that Clinton is
NOT honest and trustworthy, but say 60-37 ... that she has strong leadership qualities. Voters are divided 48-47 ... over whether
Clinton cares about their needs and problems." > > --RNC's new chart - "'Dead Broke' Clintons vs. Everyday Americans": "Check
out the chart below to see how many households in each state it would take to equal the 'Dead Broke' Clintons."
http://bit.ly/1Avg8iE
Blind leading the Blind.. & Obama knows that very well after it was clear that Clinton was NEVER trusted by the Voters, which
makes Debbie and the DNC look like a complete bunch of..
Idiots?!?! STILL BLAMING The RUSSIANS.... instead of themselves!
She was and always will be unelectable due to exceedingly poor judgement, across the board.
Who is in charge of Internet security in the US government? Because it seems full of holes. Last time it was the Chinese and this
time it's the Russians, yet not one piece of evidence to say where hacks have come from. How much are these world class Internet
security people paid? And why do they still have a job? People sitting in their bedrooms on a pc from stores like staples have
hacked their security regularly.
In 2016, he said, the government did not detect any increased cyber activity on election day itself but the FBI made public
specific acts in the summer and fall, tied to the highest levels of the Russian government. "This is going to put that activity
in a greater context ... dating all the way back to 2008."
Extremely vague. Seems like there is no evidence at all to suggest any Russian involvement, but they need to pretend otherwise.
Blah, blah, blah, Weapons of mass destruction... Apollo mission, etc
Ole, Russians exposed the DNC emails, we knew about that. I though this should investigate Russians vote rigging, but I guess
not. I for once welcome anyone who hacks my government and exposes their skeletons, so I can see what kind of dirty garbage I
had leading or potentially leading my country.
Maybe the DNC should play fair and not dirty next time and put a candidate forward without skeletons that still reek of rotting
flesh.
Don't believe any of this at all.
American has been thee most corrupt and disgusting western nation for decades, run by people who are now being shown for who they
really are and they're shitting themselves big time. The stakes don't get higher than this.
What a total load of double talk. There is zero integrity in anything CIA says or does since the weapons of mass destruction deal
or before that it was the Iran Contra deal and before that it was the Bay of Pigs. Now we have this rigging os the election results
based on zero evidence. The whole thing is just idiocy. What is Obama trying to achieve?The end game will be for Obama to go down
in history as ... let's just say he is not the smartest tool in the shed when it comes to being a so called world leader. Well
done Obama you have now completely trashed what is left of your legacy.
"CIA concludes Russia interfered to help Trump win election report "
You might as well ask accountants to do a study on wether it's worthwhile to use an accountant. Part of the CIAs job is to
influence elections around the world to get US-Corporation friendly gov'ts in to power. So yes of course they are going to say
that a gov't can influence elections, if they said otherwise then they'd be admitting they're wasting money.
So, it was the Russians! I knew it must've been them, they're so sneaky. All HFC had was the total backing of the entire establishment,
including prominent Republican figures, the total fawning support of the entire main-stream media machine which carefully controlled
the "she's got a comfortable 3 point lead maybe even double-digit lead" narrative and the "boo and hiss" pantomime slagging of
her opponent. Plus the endless funds from the crooked foundation and murderous fanatics from the compliant Gulf states, and lost.
But hey, do keep this going please, it'll help the Trumpster get a second term! Trump/Nugent 2020.
Good point. Add that the whole election was dogged is the most glaring media bias and suddenly Russia comes off as simply leveling
the playing field a bit
The 'secret' enquiry reported to Congress that the CIA concludes etc, etc, etc. Then yet more revelations from 'anonymous sources'
are quoted in the Washington Post and The New York Times reaching the same conclusions.....talk about paranoia, or are the Democrats
guilty of news fakery of the highest order to deny the US voters....
Ooh Obama...there's a little snag about this investigation.
In principle, the DNC server could have had malware in an e-mail that set up a NAT entry that made the connecting computer
appear somewhere else, with the entry deleted afterwards. Typically, IP table modifications aren't logged, so this would not be
detectable.
In principle, the DNC server could have had malware in an e-mail that ran a SED script at a specific time that changed any
occurrence of one IP address with another. Not sure anyone would bother with this, but it's why good system admins place so much
emphasis on securing logs. However, it's obvious we're not talking about good admins.
In principle, every router between the DNC server and Russia has the potential to be hacked, with a tunnel added to send the
traffic somewhere else in the world with new source and destination addresses. This is known as router table poisoning. It is
preventable but the mechanisms are rarely ever used because the security services want to be able to do this themselves. There
are some nice logs of the NSA using this.
In principle, someone along the way could tap into the fibre, spoofing IP addresses and injecting/sniffing packets. The U.S.
even has a submarine designed for this, but optics aren't complex and any number of neo-phone phreaks could have the hardware.
In principle, someone at an ISP or backbone service could have had a laptop plugged into a switch or router to do the same
thing, or lit up a strand of dark fibre to let some uber-wealthy business do this. And there's no shortage of uber-wealthy businesses
who aren't keen on Democrats. This technique is used for local and remote network diagnostics, no reason it can't be used nefarious,
it's not like the hardware cares why a wire is plugged in.
In principle, the supposed destination machine could have been hacked to relay the packets in encrypted form to the South Pole
or a college campus in Texas. There are many examples of client machines being hacked to do this. It's basically what zombie machines
are in botnets.
In practice, it is flat-out guaranteed that none of the security agencies could distinguish this from a Russian attack. Nothing
in the area monitored could tell the difference. We know, for a fact, that college kids spoofing a scan from China have fooled
the DoD and NSA on previous occasions, it has caused international incidents.
So we have known forms of attack that are known to exist, aren't complex and in some cases are already used for attacks. They
are 100% untraceable.
Of course the Americans would never interfere in other people's elections would they?...........I imagine the Russians wanted
to avoid a nuclear war with war monger Hilary & who can blame them?
Y'know really all they seem to be looking possibly guilty of is the wikileaks scandal. Compare that to the enormous media bias
regarding Trump and suddenly the Russians at worst come off as evening the playing field so as to help an election be less biased...
Paranoia about Russia has arrived at the laughable, almost like the fable of the boy who cried wolf! Even the way the CIA statement
is worded makes you smile. "silk purse sows ear"? Everyone is clutching at straws rather than looking down the barrel at the truth......that
folks is what is missing from Western Politics......"The Truth" --
Obama expected the review to be completed before he leaves office...
Really?? Obama wants a "deep review" of internet activities surrounding the elections of 2008, 2012, and 2016; and he wants
this done in less than 40 days? And it encompasses voting stations throughout the 50 states? That's the definition of political
shenanigans.
Seeing as how the CIA interfered with Ukraine before and during the overthrow of Yanukovich, and with Moscow protests a few years
ago...... seems like everyone is always trying to interfere with each-other. Hypocrisy abounds
This is not really a fight against Trump. That is lost. This is an intramural fight among Democrats.
This is desperate efforts by the corporate Democrats to hang on to power after Hillary (again) lost.
Excuses. Allegations without sources given, anonymous.
Remember that the same people used the same media contacts to spread fake news that the Podesta leaks were faked, and tried
to shift attention from what was revealed to who revealed it.
if the Ruskies did it, there's something funny: they did it on Obama's watch and her protege, Hillary, lost it. The system is
a real mess in this case.
Interesting link. It raises a particularly salient question: assuming the Russians did indeed do it - and after the whole CIA
yellow cake thing in Iraq, no one could possibly doubt national intelligence agencies any more - does it particularly matter?
Did the Russians write the emails? The betrayal of Sanders, the poor protection on classified materials, the cynical,
vicious nonsense spewed out by the HRC campaign, the media collusion with the DNC and HRC: did the Russians do these things too?
Or was that Clinton and the DNC? Silly question, I'm sure.
Well, chief, the Wisconsin recount is in and the results are staggering: after the recount, Clinton has gained on Trump by 3 votes...
and Trump gained on Clinton by a heady six votes. One begins to wonder at the 'Manchurian candidate' claim.
It is precisely charades like this that millions in the US and around the world have given up on the establishment. Business as
usual or rather lying as usual will only alienate more not-so-stupid citizens. It speaks volumes about their desperation that
they're are actually employing such obviously infantile tactics on the Russia even as they continue to paper over Hillary's tattered
past. The result of the investigation is totally predictable..................Yes, the Russians were involved in hacking the elections,
but..........for reasons of national security, details of the investigative process and evidence cannot be revealed.
If the Russians really wanted Trump to win that means they helped Hillary win the Democratic primaries because Bernie would have
beat Trump.. There was a mess of hanky-panky going on to defeat Bernie, and deflecting the blame to a foreign actor should keep
the demonstrators off the streets.
If someone is gullible enough to believe the Russians did it they'd also believe that Elvis made Bigfoot hack the DNC. That's
even more plausible since bigfoot is just a guy who spends so much time sitting at his computer he lost all interest in personal
hygiene.
The Democrats are really desperate to find anything they can use to challenge the results of the election.
Either way they look foolish - openly investigating the possibility of Russian hacking which acknowledges that their electoral
systems aren't well secured, OR look really foolish if they find anything (whether real or faked).
The big question now is if, and how much, they will fake the findings of the investigation so that they can declare the
election results wrong, and put Clinton into the White House.
Clearly, it is a case of desperate times calling for desperate measures. It is incredible that one man can make the largest Western
nation look so ridiculous in the eyes of the world.
Pot calling the kettle black. Reveal fully what the CIA get up to all over the planet. The phoney intel America has used to go
to war causing countries to implode. The selective way they release information to project the picture they want. I am not convinced
that Russia is any better or any worse than the USA.
I can understand the Russians wanting Obama in 2008 and 2012 because he is a weak leader and totally incompetent.
I can also understand Putin preferring DJT to HRC.
It's about time the planet settled down a little bit, Trump and Putin will do more for world peace in the next year than Obama
achieved in his 8 wasted years in charge.
The Democrats have yet to realise the reason for their demise was not the racists, the homophobes, the KKK, the Deplorables,
the misogynists, the xenophobes etc etc etc.
It was Hillary Clinton.
Get over it, move on, stop whining, get out of your safe room, put the puppy down, throw the play dough away, stop protesting,
behave like an adult.
As much as I am enjoying the monumental meltdown of the left, it is getting sad now and I am starting to feel very sorry for
you.
What a sad bunch of clowns. But the time is ripe. You and your sort are done Obama, Hillary Clinton, Juncker, Merkel, Hollande,
Mogherini, Kerry, Tusk, Nuland, Albright, Breedlove, SaManThe Power and the rest of the reptiles. With all respect - mwuahahaha!
- you will soon sink into the darkness of the darkest places of history, but you won't be forgotten, no you won't!
As for the Podesta email. John Podesta was so stupid that he gave out his password in a simple email scam that any 8 year old
kid could have conducted. I wouldn't be surprised if Assange did it himself. Assange will be celebrating at the demise of Hillary.
Guys! Your side lost the election. Get over it & stop looking for excuses.
I don't think it was the Russians, it was just a lot of people got sick of being told what to think & how to behave by your
side of politics.
It is because people who disagree with you are either ignored, shut-down or called names with weaponised words such as "racist,
bigot, xenophobe, homophobe, islamophobe, you name it. You go out onto the streets chanting mindless slogans aimed at shutting
down debate. You have infiltrated academia and no journalism graduate comes out of a western univerity without a 60 degree lean
to the left. People of alternative views to what is now the dominant social paradigm are not permitted to speak at universities.
Once they were the vanguard of dangerous ideas. Now they are just sheep pens.
You have infiltrated the mainstream media so of course people need to go to Info Wars, Breitbart & Project Veritas to get the
other side to your one-sided argument.
Your side of politics has regulated the very words we speak so that we can't even express a thought anymore without being chanted
down, or shut down, prosecuted or sued.
There was once a time when it was the left who spoke up for freedom of speech. It was the left who demanded that a man be judged
by the content of his character & not the color of his skin & it was once the right who used to be worried about the Russians
taking over our institutions.
Have a look at yourselves. Look at what you've become. You've stopped being the guardians of freedom & now you have become
the very anti-freedom totalitarians you thought you were campaigning against.
Bleating about the "popular vote" doesn't cut it either. That's like saying, the other side scored more goals than us but we
had possession of the ball more times. It is sad for you but it is irrelevant.
Trump won the election! Get over it!
Let's see what sort of job he does before deciding what to do next.
In principle, the DNC server could have had malware in an e-mail that set up a NAT entry that made the connecting computer
appear somewhere else, with the entry deleted afterwards. Typically, IP table modifications aren't logged, so this would not be
detectable.
In principle, the DNC server could have had malware in an e-mail that ran a SED script at a specific time that changed any
occurrence of one IP address with another. Not sure anyone would bother with this, but it's why good system admins place so much
emphasis on securing logs. However, it's obvious we're not talking about good admins.
In principle, every router between the DNC server and Russia has the potential to be hacked, with a tunnel added to send the
traffic somewhere else in the world with new source and destination addresses. This is known as router table poisoning. It is
preventable but the mechanisms are rarely ever used because the security services want to be able to do this themselves. There
are some nice logs of the NSA using this.
In principle, someone along the way could tap into the fibre, spoofing IP addresses and injecting/sniffing packets. The U.S.
even has a submarine designed for this, but optics aren't complex and any number of neo-phone phreaks could have the hardware.
In principle, someone at an ISP or backbone service could have had a laptop plugged into a switch or router to do the same
thing, or lit up a strand of dark fibre to let some uber-wealthy business do this. And there's no shortage of uber-wealthy businesses
who aren't keen on Democrats. This technique is used for local and remote network diagnostics, no reason it can't be used nefarious,
it's not like the hardware cares why a wire is plugged in.
In principle, the supposed destination machine could have been hacked to relay the packets in encrypted form to the South Pole
or a college campus in Texas. There are many examples of client machines being hacked to do this. It's basically what zombie machines
are in botnets.
In practice, it is flat-out guaranteed that none of the security agencies could distinguish this from a Russian attack. Nothing
in the area monitored could tell the difference. We know, for a fact, that college kids spoofing a scan from China have fooled
the DoD and NSA on previous occasions, it has caused international incidents.
So we have known forms of attack that are known to exist, aren't complex and in some cases are already used for attacks. They
are 100% untraceable.
Joe Biden unwittingly gave the game up when he spoke to the press with indignation of the Russian hacks. The US would respond
in kind with a covert cyber operation run by the CIA First of all it would be the NSA, not the CIA Secondly, it's not covert when
you tell the press! Oh Joe, you really let the Obama administration down with that gaffe! Who would believe them now? A lot of
people it would seem. Mainly those still reeling from an election they were so vested in
Unfortunately our media has lost all credibility.
For years we were told it was necessary to remove the dictator Assad in Syria. The result, a country destroyed, migrant crisis
that fuelled Brexit and brought EU to its knees.
Now they are going to sell the 'foreign entities decided the US election'.
It's just a sad situation
Syria has been destroyed because Western client states in the Middle East wanted this to happen. Assad had a reasonably successful
secular government and our medieval gulf state allies felt. threatened by his regime. there was the little business of a pipeline,
but of course that would be called a "conspiracy theory".
If Obama has resources to spend on investigations, he should be investigating why the US is providing guided missiles to the terrorist
in Syria. We had such great hopes for him, and he has proved to be totally useless as a president. Rather than giving us leadership
and guidance he is looking under his bed for spooks. Just another example of his incompetence at a time when we needed leadership.
Looking for proof of espionage will be like trying to prove a negative and only result in a possible or at best a likely type
of result for no purpose. It would just be another case of an unsupported accusation being thrown about.
Facing up to the question of who is supplying weapons to terrorist would require the courage to take on the Military Industrial
Complex and he hasn't got it. Trump will be different.
If the russians did interfere in the USA elections perhaps is a bit of poetic justice.
The USA has interfere in Latin America for over hundred years and they have given us Batista, Somoza, Trujillo, Noriega, Pinochet,
Duvaliers , military juntas in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Streener in Paraguay to name a few. They all were narcissists, racists
and insecure. The american people love this type of leader now they got him in the white house may be from Russia with love. Empires
get destroyed from within, look at Little Britain now, maybe the same will happen soon in the USA.
Viva China , is far from Latin America
So if the US managed to somehow get rid of Russia and China, what would they do then? How would it justify hundreds of billions
in defense spending? Just remember, the US military industry desperately needs an external enemy to exist. Without it, there is
no industry.
No I disagree. I don't think it was a conpriscy. It was just decades of misinformation, lies, usually perpertrated by our esteemed
foreign minister. The man is a buffoon , liar and incompetent. It is quite amusing to see how inept, Incompotent and totally unsuited
this man child is to public office.
Another red herring that smacks of desperation. The final death throes of a failed administration. These carefully chosen words
reveal a lot. The email leaks were "consistent with the methods and motivations" of Russian hackers. In layman's terms its the
equivalent of saying "we haven't got a clue who it was but it's the kind of thing they would probably do". Don't expect a smoking
gun because it doesn't exist, otherwise we would have known about it by now.
It's not just the US who has accused Putin of meddling in their domestic affairs. Germany and the UK have made the same allegations.
Are they wrong too?
I think anyone with reasonable intelligence would take each accusation on a case by case basis. There is no doubt that Russia
conducts cyber operations, as the US and UK and Germany does. There is also little doubt that significant Russophobia exists,
particularly since the failed foreign attempt of regime change in Syria that was thwarted by Russia. On that last point many citizens
of the West are coming to the realisation that a secular government in Syria is preferable to one run by jihadists installing
crude sharia law (Libya was certainly a lesson). Furthermore, if Hillary Clinton had succeeded one dreads to think of the consequences
of her no-fly-zone plans. Thankfully she didn't succeed, no doubt in part to wikileaks revelations, who for the record stated
that did not result from Russian hacks
Hows the election recount going? You know the one this paper kept going on about a few weeks ago in Wisconsin that was supposed
to be motivated by "Russian Hacking" in the election? Not very well but you have gone quiet. Also I see the Washington Post has
been forced to backtrack for implying news outlets like Breitbart are Russian controlled on the advice of their own lawyers....after
all calling someone a Russian agent without a shred of evidence is seriously libellous and they know it. Russian agents to blame
yeah ok Obama no doubt the Easter Bunny will be next in your sights you fraud.
Look no further than Hillarys private server. Classified information sent and received and Obam was part of it. Obama is a liar
and a fraud who is now blaming the Russians for crooked Hillarys loss.
Feed the flames of the war mongers that want Russia and Putin to be our bogeyman.Feed the military industrial complex more billions.The
U.S. Defense budget is already 10 times that of Russia ,feed NATO already on Russia's boarder with tanks ,troops and heavy weapons.i
did expect more from this pres,... The lies ,mis information and propaganda has worked so well since the end of WW2,upon a public
who has been fed those lies {and is to busy with sports ,gadgets,games, alcohol and other drugs }for 70 yrs by a compliant,for
profit lap dog media more interested in producing infotainment and profits than supplying information..If you don't think the
"public" isn't very poorly informed and will believe anything ,..just look at who the next prez will be..
I don't think it's true that Trump voters were less informed than Clinton voters. The public knows that they all lie, they simply
choose the one who's lies most appeal to them.
Unfortunately Obama is not leaving office with dignity.
This action is another attempt to delegitimize the election of Trump. We already have the recount farce going on.
If Republicans had tried to delegitimize the election of Obama we know what the reaction from media would have been. An outcry
against antidemocratic and racist behaviour
The corporate media is so predictable at this point. The news cranks up the anti-Russia hysteria while the guys over in entertainment
roll out a slick fantasy about anti-Nazi resistance. It all adds up to a big steaming pile of crap but you hope it will push enough
buttons to keep the citizens chained to their their desks for another quarter. Don't bet on it. As a great American said at another
time of upheaval, you can't fool everyone forever...
Kremlin Connection? The TRUTH About Hillary's Shady Ties To Russia REVEALED
Find out why insiders say Clinton has some explaining to do.
Americans have no idea just how closely Hillary Clinton is tied to the Kremlin! That's the shocking claim of a new report that
alleges the Democratic nominee is secretly pals with Vladimir Putin and his countrymen.
Peter Schweizer, the author of Clinton Cash, has published a report that claims that that Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta
was on the executive board of a foreign company that received $35 million from the Kremlin. "The company was a transparent Russian
front, and how much Podesta was compensated - and for what - is unclear. In addition, Podesta failed to disclose his position
on that board to the Federal government, as required by law," John Schindler of the Observer wrote.
As Radar previously reported, when Clinton was secretary of state, she profited from the "Russian Reset," a failed attempt
to improve relations between the U.S. and Russia.
chweizer wrote, "Many of the key figures in the Skolkovo process - on both the Russian and U.S. sides - had major financial ties
to the Clintons. During the Russian reset, these figures and entities provided the Clintons with tens of millions of dollars,
including contributions to the Clinton Foundation, paid for speeches by Bill Clinton, or investments in small start-up companies
with deep Clinton ties." Schweizer also details "Skolkovo," a Silicon Valley-like campus that both the U.S. and Russia worked
on for developing biomed, space, nuclear and IT technologies. He told the New York Post that there was a "pattern that shows a
high percentage of participants in Skolkovo who happen to be Clinton Foundation donors."
Sour grapes at the liberation of Aleppo and their loss of face.
I'm surprised they haven't started asking about the missing 250K civilians,who must even now be languishing in Assad's dungeons.
Keeping that one for tomorrow probably.
When Cheney used the terror alert levels to keep the US population in the constant state of fear, the Democrats denounced it as
fear mongering. Now they're embracing the same tactics in the constant demonization of Russia. Look, it's raining today! Russia
must be trying to control the weather in the US! Get them! Utterly ridiculous.
The US has been the most bloodthirsty, aggressive nation in my lifetime. Where the US goes we obediently follow. Yet as Obama
(7 countries he's bombed in his presidency, not bad for a Nobel Prize Winner) continues to circle Russia with NATO on their borders.
We're continually spun headline news that Russia is the aggressor and is continually meddling in foreign affairs. We are the aggressors,
we are the danger to ourselves and it's we who are run by megalomaniac elites who pump us full of fear and propaganda.
Malicious cyberactivity... has no place in international community... No? When West does it, then it's for democratic purposes?
But invading countries on a humanitarian pretense does? So Democrats are still looking to blame Russia for everything not going
their way I see. This rhetoric didn't work for Clinton in the election and it won't now. Stop with this nonsense
The Egyptian Empire lasted millenum,
The Greek and Roman Empires a thousand years, give or take.
The Holy Roman Empire centuries.
The British and French circa 200 years.
The USSR about 70, the USA 70 and counting
This is just the cyclical death throes of empires played out at ever increasing speed before our very eyes.
This is exactly why we should never move to electronic voting. Can you imagine the lengths the IPA would go to ensure their men
security the power they need to roll out their neoliberal agenda? As a tax-free right wing think tank composed of rich like Rinehart,
Murdoch, Forrest, et al. the sky's the limit.
The five stages of dealing with psychological trauma: Anger, Denial, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. Hillary and the Democrats
are still at stage one and two. Obama is only beginning stage one as events dawn on him.
I really do feel the established media and its elite hierarchy are vexed by both the Trump victory and Brexit here in the UK.
Now the media attention turns to a report on another of its perpetual campaigns, namely Russia, and corruption in sport.
I'm not going to doubt the 'findings', but I know humans are corrupt ALL over the world, but it does strike me that no Western
outlet, ever prints anything positive about Russia. I mean - nothing, zero!
If, indeed, the Russian government gathered the DNC and Podesta info released by Wikileaks, the Russians did the American people
a favor by pulling back the curtain on behind the scenes scheming by Clinton campaign potentates.
Of course, I don't believe the Democratic claim that Clinton lost the election because of the Russians and the FBI.
US backed a coup, or set up a coup, to overthrow the democratically elected government in Ukraine which led to war. Putin's payback
seems fully justified.
Oh my, a foreign country may have had a tiny influence on a US Election.
How about investigating the overthrow of the Democratically elected Govt in Ukraine, or the influence the US has had on the
Syrian Govt, or even in Australia, where the Chinese Govt donates massive amounts of money to Political Parties (note, there's
no link of course between Chinese Govt donations and Chinese Companies being able to buy most of Australia and employ Chinese
Nationals in Australia on Chinese conditions and 500,000 Chinese Nationals being able to buy Real Estate in Sydney alone... none
whatsoever).
I'm not a policy or think tank wonk, but isn't Russia just a euphemism for China. Aren't their geopolitical interests linked.
You just say Russia because China has us by the financial balls (I'm sure the Guardian would prefer to NOT be censored on the
mainland) right? Package it that way and I'm on board. My love of Dostoevsky goes out the window. Albeit I still think Demons
one of the best novels ever written. Woke me up.
I'm all in favor of delegitimizing the incoming semi-fascist Trump/Pence regime, and find Obama's talk of a smooth transition
disgusting. However, I reject the appeal to Russophobia or other Xenophobia.
BTW, Obama and his collaborators like Diane Feinstein have done a lot to prepare the legal basis for fascistic repression under
the new POtuS.
I already know what the comission will find. They will find evidences that Iraq holds vast ammonϊnt of weapons of mass destruction!
Oh wait, that was already used.
Obama has been as useless as his predecessor young Bush. His policies generally are in tatters and the US neo cons evil fantasy
of full spectrum dominance has met its death in Syria. Bravo.
After an election cycle with proven collusion between the DNC/Hillary Clinton campaign and our media, our media has the nerve
to come up with the term 'fake news'.
Hypocrisy at its finest
Nobody does paranoia like the yanks. To the rest of the world, the unedifying spectacle of the world's biggest bullies, snoops,
warmongers, liars and hypocrites complaining about how unfair life is, is pretty nauseating. Most of America's problems are home-grown.
And the final report will conclude with something along the lines of:
'After a thorough, exhaustive investigation of all relevant evidence concerning the potential of foreign interference in the United
States electoral process, the results of the investigation have shown that, although there remain troubling questions about the
integrity of U.S. cyber-security which should prompt immediate Congressional review, there has been uncovered no conclusive evidence
to support the conjecture that cyber attacks originating with any foreign actor, state or individual had any significant effect
on the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election, and that there is no cause or justification for the American People to question
the fairness of or lose faith in the electoral process and laid out by and carried out according to the Constitution.'
I do Holiday cards too.
Georgia's Secretary of State is accusing someone at the Department of Homeland Security of illegally trying to hack its computer
network, including the voter registration database.
In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, copied to the full Georgia congressional delegation, Georgia Secretary
of State Brian Kemp alleges that a computer with a DHS internet address attempted to breach its systems.
http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/309530-state-of-georgia-allegedly-accusing-homeland-security-of-attempted-hack
Wake up and smell the BS, the hacking is being done by people a lot nearer home.....
Oh dear, the GOP seem to have forgotten what they were saying about Putin and the Kremlin a short while back:
The continuing erosion of personal liberty and fundamental rights under the current officials in the Kremlin. Repressive
at home and reckless abroad, their policies imperil the nations which regained their self-determination upon the collapse of
the Soviet Union. We will meet the return of Russian belligerence with the same resolve that led to the collapse of the Soviet
Union. We will not accept any territorial change in Eastern Europe imposed by force, in Ukraine, Georgia, or elsewhere, and
will use all appropriate constitutional measures to bring to justice the practitioners of aggression and assassination.
..... prohibiting "fake" or "false" news would be a cure worse than the disease, i.e., censorship by other means. The government
cannot be trusted with distinguishing fake from genuine news because it has ulterior motives. News the government dislikes would
be conflated with fakery, and news the government approved would be conflated with truthfulness. Private businesses like Facebook
cannot be trusted with distinguishing fake from genuine news because its overriding mission is to make money and to win popularity,
not to spread truth. It would suppress news that risked injury to its reputation or profits but leave news that did the opposite
undisturbed. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/dec/5/reflections-fake-news
/
Uh excuse me but that sort of introspection doesn't fly. She was flawless and the blame rests solely on Russia/alt-right/Sanders/Third
Parties/Racism/Misogyny/Alignment of the stars/etc/etc
I thnk the idea that russia has world domination is quite laughable, what else they gonna be blamed for next, reduction of giraffe
population!Lol
I think a teeny wee paranoia is setting in, or outright deliberate propaganda, too obvious
Is this worse than when the two CIA operatives were caught searching through files in the Offices of the British Labour Party
about thirty years ago. What goes around comes around.
The CIA hacks have been destabalisuping Government for a at least seventy years.
One thing is pretty obvious paper ballots and a different ballot for each is much harder to rig.
It is ironic it takes a despot life key Trump to bring the issue to a head AFTER unexpectedly won.
"Is this worse than when the two CIA operatives were caught searching through files in the Offices of the British Labour Party
about thirty years ago. What goes around comes around."
The CIA were caught hacking into the US Congressional computers just 6 or so months ago. Nothing came out of it.
Based on the fact that the US 2000 (and possibly 2004) election was outright stolen by George Bush Jr., perhaps the propagandists
in the White House and media ought to be looking for a "Russian connection" in regards to our illustrious former president.
I'm shocked--shocked--to hear that our close Russian allies have done anything to influence and undermine the stability of other
countries. Preposterous accusation! And to try to become huge winners in the Western Hemisphere, by cheating? Vitriolic nonsense!
Many posters here actually believe that Good Old Russia should just stick with what they do best. That's poison!
Rather like the Litvenenko inquiry...full of maybe's and possibilities, with not a shred of hard, factual proof shown - demonstrating
that the order came from the Kremlin.
It's just a total accident that Putin's most vocal opponents keep getting shot in the head, gunned down on bridges, suffering
'accidents' or strange miscarriages of (sometimes post-mortem) 'justice' and fall victim to radiological state-enacted terrorism
in foreign countries. No pattern there, whatsoever.
I am at a loss. On the one hand, I hear about Russian economy in tatters, gas station posing as a country, deep crisis, economy
the size of Italy, rusty old military toys, aircraft carrier smoking out the whole Northern hemisphere, etc. On the other hand,
I hear about Russian threat all the time, which must be countered by massive build up of the US and EU military, Russia successfully
interfering in the elections in the beacon of democracy, the US, with 20 times greater economy, with powerful allies, the best
armed forces in the world, etc. Are we talking about two different Russias, or is this schizophrenia, pure and simple?
It's always easy to find reasons to fear something, added to that the psychology of the unknown, and we have the makings of very
powerful propaganda. Whatever Russia's level of corruption, and general society, I feel I cannot trust the Western media anymore
100%. There seems to be a equally sinister hidden agenda deep within Western Elites - accessing Russia's land, political and potential
wealthly resources must surely be one of them!? The longterm Western agenda/mission?
The Democratic Party's problem is Russia, which the President is rightly putting front and center. All Russians are the summit
of eviality, and must be endlessly scapegoated in order for Democrats to regain power for the nation's greater good.
Democrats' problems have nothing to do with corruption, glaring conflicts of interest, favoritism, ass-licking editors, crappy
data, lacking enthusiasm, and horribly poor judgement.
None of these issues need to be publicly addressed, being of no consequence to independent voters, and the President, Guardian,
et al. must continue their silent -- and "independent" -- vigil on such silly topics, if Democrats are to have any hope of cultivating
enough mindless, enraged, and abandoned sheep to bring them future victories.
I admire Trump, Putin & Farage. Don't agree with them but I have admiration for them. They show all the cunning, calculating,
resourcefulness that put the European race on top. Liberals don't like that and want to see the own people fall to the bottom.
Thankfuly the neoliberal elite are finishedm
Absurd nonsense - the third anti-Russian story of the day. Very little of this has much traction because of the sheer volume of
misinformation coming out about Russia. there are very good cogent reasons why the Democrats lost the US election - none of them
have anything to do with Russia.
I can't see a thing wrong with reviewing the last three election cycles, if there is any doubt at all and to put speculation to
bed, it should be done.
So the US intelligence servies aren't doing similar operations?
If they werent, heads would roll as they have a considerable budget. Did we learn nothing from Edward Snowden? Are Russia just
better at this? I doubt it.
I think both sides conduct themselves in a despicable manner so please dont call me a Putin apologist. Well, feel free actually,
I could'nt care less.
Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election
US interference:
COUNTRY OR STATE Dates of intervention Comments
VIETNAM l960-75 Fought South Vietnam revolt & North Vietnam; one million killed in longest U.S. war; atomic bomb threats in
l968 and l969.
CUBA l961 CIA-directed exile invasion fails.
GERMANY l961 Alert during Berlin Wall crisis.
LAOS 1962 Military buildup during guerrilla war.
142 more rows
the vietnam fiasco alone is enough to disqualify america from any criticism about interference in internal affairs
they practically destroyed the country
The pathetic way the media are pushing this big-bad-Russians meme is a little depressing.
This "hack" is totally fictional, the wikileaks e-mails were almost certainly that...leaks. As most o their output has been
over the years. For 95% of the Wikileaks existence there have been absolutely zero connections with "the Kremlin", in fact they
have leaked stuff damaging to Russia before now.
The Russian's did not hack the DNC, or rig the election, this is yet another example of the political establishment hysterically
pointing fingers and making up lies when their chosen side loses an election.
I remember how North Korea was blamed for Sony hack. I think they were even cut from the internet for a day and there was all
this talk of punishing them. And then later it came out that very likely wasn't North Korea. Only the news cycle already moved
on and nobody cared.
Traditionally, the best Cold Warriors have been right-wing liberals. In the absence of policies that concretely benefit the people
they engage in threat inflation and demagoguery.
In 90s US set all figures in Russia - from president to news program anchor. Elections of 96 were ripped by American "advisors"
so that Eltsyn with 3% rating "won" them. It's payback time.
And yet the so-called "Russian trolls" (which is apparently anyone who exercise a modicum of skepticism) seem to be winning here
at CiF based on the number of likes per comment, which is likely why the NSA sponsored propagandists and clueless dopes are getting
so increasingly shrill.
If you take a wider view, this is all really about keeping the Dems in the game, trying to undo the Trump validity and give them
another go in 4 or so years. Really, seems quite desperate that a man that allowed 270000 wild horses to be sold for horsemeat
this year across the border to Mexico, brought HC in to his own cabinet having said 'she will say anything and do nothing', knowing
what a nightmare that would make, and is going to watch his healthcare get ripped to shreds, needs more accomplishments in his
last year, aka Obama, ergo, let's investigate the evil russians and their female athletes with male DNA ( you would think I am
making this stuff up, but I am not ) ... Come on Grandma, where are you when we need you most
we must somehow, subvert the despicable populace that elected trump. we must erase from history the conceding of president elect
clinton - newpeak from the ministry of truth. we'll get her into the white house if it takes more cash, lies, and corruption.
after all, who needs democracy in the democratic party when we have big brother. democracy just confuses the members. we'll send
the despicables through the ministry of love to re-educate them, of course, this IS 1984 after all....we will vote for you, the
intelligentsia of the left knows what is best for you.
"Malicious cyber activity, specifically malicious cyber activity tied to our elections , has no place in the international
community. Unfortunately this activity is not new to Moscow. We've seen them do this for years ... The president has made it clear
to President Putin that this is unacceptable."
Note how carefully it specifies that it is cyber activity tied to the american elections that is inappropriate. I presume that
is simply to avoid openly saying that mass-surveillance by the US government of everyone's private email, and social network accounts
doesn't come under that "no place in the international community" phrase. You know, one does wonder how these people's faces don't
come off in shame when whinning about potential interference by foreign governemnts after a full 8 years or so of constant revelations
of permanent spying and mass-surveillance by the US government of international leaders and ordinary citizens worldwide.
So the DNC was hacked - so what. Hacking is so common these days as to be expected. A quick perusal of the internet provides some
SIGNIFICANT hacks that deserved some consternation:
9/4/07 The Chinese government hacked a noncritical Defense Department computer system in June, a Pentagon source told FOX News
on Tuesday.
Spring 2011 Foreign hackers broke into the Pentagon computer system this spring and stole 24,000 files - one of the biggest
cyber-attacks ever on the U.S. military,
On the 12th of July 2011, Booz Allen Hamilton the largest U.S. military defence contractor admitted that they had just suffered
a very serious security breach, at the hands of hacktivist group AntiSec.
5/28/13 The confidential version of a Defense Science Board report compiled earlier this year reportedly says Chinese hackers
accessed designs for more than two dozen of the U.S. military's most important and expensive weapon systems.
June 2014 The UK's National Crime Agency has arrested an unnamed young man over allegations that he breached the Department
of Defense's network last June.
1/12/15 The Twitter account for U.S. Central Command was suspended Monday after it was hacked by ISIS sympathizers (OK twitter
accounts shouldn't be a big deal. Why does US CentCom even HAVE a twitter account???)
5/6/15 OPM hack: China blamed for massive breach of US government data
And so the neocon propaganda machine trundles on, churning out this interesting material day after day. The elephant in the room
is that if you get hacked you have no knowledge of this until your private stuff is all over the internet, and the chances of
finding out who did it are zilch. Everyone in IT security knows this.
Another "fake news" story. Does anybody with a pulse really believe that Russia hacked the DNC? The US Security Services admitted
that it was NOT Russia; the likelihood is that the leaks were provided to Wikileaks by insiders within the US Administration -
they wanted to ensure that Hillary did not win. None of the actual revelations were covered by the MSM, and "the Russians did
it" was a convenient distraction.
All people that on earth do dwell have no clue who hacked the DNC to the amusing end that Podesta's e-mails ended up on the internet,
but it suits a dangerous political narrative to demonise Russia until it becomes plain logical to attack them.
YES YES let attack Russia, YES YES YES, Russia Russia we should carry on attacking Russia. We the journalists are well paid by
the man from Australia. YES YES we must to carry on attacking Russia and forget the shit happening in other countries. YES YES
it is our duty.
Election hacking: Obama orders 'full review' of Russia interference
And I guess Obama has also ordered the Guardian to do a full court press of anti-Russian propaganda, just judging by the articles
pumped out on today's rag alone.
The US government is seemingly attempting the "Big Lie" tactic of Joseph Goebbels and instigating support in the public for
war against Russia. By repeating the completely unsubstantiated allegations that Russia has somehow "interfered with the election"
they hope, without any genuine basis, to strong arm the public into accepting a further ramping of tensions and starting yet another
illegal war for profit.
There's nothing wrong with conducting the investigation, but shouldn't it have been done before accusing Russia?
And aren't all the people cited in the article political appointees, Democrats or avowed Trump enemies, and then there's closing,
" A spokesman for the director of national intelligence declined to comment."
Surely of all the Orders Obama might issue during his last weeks in office, why does he choose to give a stupid Order that effectively
makes US some sort of Banana Republic? This man was/is more hype than real! At a stroke of a pen he seriously undermines the integrity
of the US Electoral System. Whatever credibility was left has now been eroded by these constant and silly claims that somehow
Russians installed Trump as President. Doesn't that make Trump some sort of Russian Agent?
Meanwhile MSM keeps on streaming some fake news and theories and then Obama Orders US intelligence to dig deeper. This is lunacy!
Obama certainly understands that Russia is not the reason why Trump was elected. However, he wants to create new obstacles on
the way of normalization of relations between the US and Russia and make it more difficult for Trump.
However, Trump is not a weak man, not a skinny worm; and he can hit these opponents back so hard that international court for
them (for invasions into sovereign countries) will lead to their life sentences.
Only two weeks ago the Obama Administration publicly stated there was no evidence of cybersecurity breaches affecting the electoral
process,
as reported in the NYT :
The administration, in its statement, confirmed reports from the Department of Homeland Security and intelligence officials
that they did not see "any increased level of malicious cyberactivity aimed at disrupting our electoral process on Election
Day."
The administration said it remained "confident in the overall integrity of electoral infrastructure, a confidence that was
borne out." It added: "As a result, we believe our elections were free and fair from a cybersecurity perspective."
Is there any limit to the ridicolous, Mr. Obama? what is this? a tragicomic play of the inept?
Here we are with the most childish fabrication that it must be the Russians' fault if Trump won the election. I'll be laughing
for an entire cosmic era! And all this after US publically announced that they were going to launch a devastating acher attack
against the badies: the Russians, which of course didn't work out. Come on, this is more comedy that a serious play.
What probably is going on, the readers can gather by having a look at the numberless articles that are being published by maistream
media against the Russians.
Why this histeric insurgence of Russofobia? Couldn't it be that it is intolerable for the US and their allies to see the Russians
winning in Aleppo, and most of all restoring peace and tollerance among the population returning to their abbandoned homes.
I think Hillary, in part, lost the election due to all the fake news being pumped out by the mainstream corporate media, doing
her bidding. People are tired of it, along with all the corruption and lies that came to the surface through the likes of Wikileaks.
Trump is a terrible alternative, but the only alternative people were given, so many went with it.
Now we see fake news making out the Russians to be the bad guys again, pumping out story after story, trying to propagandize the
population into sucking up these new memes. Russia has its problems, and will always act in its own self-interest, but it's nothing
compared to the tactics the US uses, bullying countries around the world to pander to its own will, desperately trying to maintain
its Empire.
The scripture tells us those who live by the sword will perish by it.
America was in the interference of other countries' elections before its ugly 2016 presidential election. Remember Ukraine
and Secretary Hillary Clinton's employee Victoria F****the EU Nuland in Ukraine. Now we have the makings of some kind of conflict
with Russia over its alleged meddling in America's elections. More global tension= More cash flowing into the US equity market,
money printing by another means.
I'd be surprised if the Russians weren't trying to affect the outcome of the election. The Brits had a debate in Parliament on
Trump, Obama made threats to the UK on the Brexit vote, so who knows what we're all doing in each others elections behind closed
doors while we are clear to do so publically.
The MSM's absolute refusal to address the leaks in a meaningful way (other than the stuff about recipes) suggests to be no
one felt it a big deal at the time.
Obama could realise that Hillary's viewes on Putin and Russia did not help her at all. People are not that stupid, they see well,
use own brains and not so easily impressed by whatever CNN says to them.
John McAfee said that any organization sophisticated enough to do these hacks is also sophisticated enough to make it look as
though any country they want did it. So it could have been anyone.
It's reported today on Ars Technica : ThyssenKrupp suffered a "professional attack"
The steelmaker, which makes military subs, says it was targeted from south-east Asia.
..the design of its plants were penetrated by a "massive," coordinated attack which made off with an unknown amount of "technological
know-how and research."
Neoliberals are just desperately losing ideological competition at home and abroad. They cannot convince people that they are
right because it's not what's going on.
It does not matter what some others say, it's what really goes on matters.
But there is innate, basic self-interest in all people (that does not depend on education, ethnicity, race) and people know it
instinctively well. They will not go against it even if all around will tell otherwise.
I love how this has now become solid fact. No confirmation, nothing official but it is no common fact that the Russians interfered.
How many reports do we hear about US interference with foreign countries infastructure through covert means.
Meh. Seems like tampering happens all the time. How many elections in South America did the USA fix? How many in the middle
east and Africa? I think this "russian's did it" rhetoric is counterproductive as it is stopping Democrats from doing the introspective
needed to really understand why HRC lost the election.
Imagine if the shoe were on the other foot and there was credible evidence that the Russians had rigged the election in favor
of the Democrat. The right-wing echo chamber would be having seizures! These people are UTTER HYPOCRITES. And they would obviously
rather win with the help of a hostile foreign power than try to preserve the integrity of our elections.
Russia may or may not have hacked the DNC. I'd like to find out. I hope the DNC aren't enough of doofusses to assume this wouldn't
be in the realm of possibility.
I presume that the U.S. has its own group of hackers doing the same Worldwide. This is not a criticism; I would expect the U.S.
intelligence community to learn what our rivals, and even some of our friends, are up to.
This is getting to be pretty lame. I have doubts that "Russia" could interfere to any great extent with our elections any more
than we could with theirs. Sure, individuals or organizations, and more than likely in THIS country, could do so. And they have,
as we saw with the DNC and Sanders campaign (and vice versa). Let's not go into an almost inevitable nuclear war over what is
quite possibly "fake news".
Russia did this, Russia did that
its getting very boring now, you have lost all credibility
you have cried wolf to many times
stop trying to manipulate us
When will the Democrats get it? It wasn't the Russians, who are blamed for everything, including the weather, by desperate Western
failed leaders, but an unsuitable candidate in Clinton, which lost them the Election. Bernie Sanders would have walked it.
Regarding the notorious "fuck the EU " on the part of the US "diplomat" Victoria Nuland "the State Department and the White House
suggested that an assistant to the deputy prime minister of Russia Dmitry Rogozin was the source of the leak, which he denied
" Wiki
Good occasion to substantiate the accusation which ,substantiated or not,will remind the "useful idiots" of the "change of regime
" US policy and who started the Ukrainian crisis.
Boy, oh boy, fake news is everywhere just read this headline!
Election hacking: Obama orders 'full review' of Russia interference
Which states as fact there was interference by Russia and that the investigation is to determine how bad it was. NO EVIDENCE WHAT SO EVER has been offered by anyone that Russia interfered in any way. FAKE NEWS!!
Voting machine hacking is a very serious problem but you generally need physical access to a voting machine to hack it.
Anyone notice thousands of Russians hanging around in Detriot, Los Angeles, etc election HQs? How about Clinton drones?
If the DNC hadn't rigged the primary we'd be celebrating president-elect Bernie. If they hadn't rigged the general Hillary
would have lost by a landslide.
1000 Russian athletes were doping in the 2012 Olympics - but it's taken until now to realise it?!
Russia influenced the 2016 US election?!
Russia is presently "influencing" the German elections?!
Russia is killing civilians and destroying hospitals with impunity in Syria?!
etc
Wow! Russia is taking over the world, it must be stopped, can anyone save us? Obama? Trump? NATO?
Look out! Russian armies are massing on the border ready to sweep into Europe.......arrhhh!
"..ex-prime minister Anthony Charles Lynton Blair of the United Kingdom, and Hillary Rodham Clinton of the United States
of America, have formally announced a new transatlantic political party to be named: The Neoliberal Elite Party for bitter
anti-Brexiters and sore anti-Trumpettes.
Rather rich coming from my country which has interfered in elections around the world for decades. I suppose it's only cheating
if the other team does it.
Not that they'll find any evidence. Just another chapter in the sad saga of the Democrats unwillingness to admit they ran the
worst candidate & the worst campaign in recent memory. It's not our fault! Them dirty Russkies did it!
"... Joe McCarthy rose to corrosive prominence at the midpoint of the 20th century by riding hysteria and spurring it on. The demagoguery was fueled not only by opportunistic politicians but also by media outlets all too eager to damage the First Amendment and other civil liberties in the name of Americanism and anti-communism. ..."
"... Most Democratic leaders, for their part, seem determined to implicitly - or even explicitly - scapegoat the Russian government for the presidential election results. Rather than clearly assess the impacts of Hillary Clinton 's coziness with Wall Street, or even the role of the FBI director just before the election, the Democratic line seems bent on playing an anti-Russia card. ..."
This country went through protracted witch hunts during the McCarthy era. A lot of citizens -
including many government workers - had their lives damaged or even destroyed. The chill on the First
Amendment became frosty, then icy. Democracy was on the ropes.
Joe McCarthy rose to corrosive prominence at the midpoint of the 20th century by riding hysteria
and spurring it on. The demagoguery was fueled not only by opportunistic politicians but also by
media outlets all too eager to damage the First Amendment and other civil liberties in the name of
Americanism and anti-communism.
Today, congressional leaders of both parties seem glad to pretend that Section 501 of the Intelligence
Authorization Act is just fine, rather than an odious and dangerous threat to precious constitutional
freedoms. On automatic pilot, many senators will vote aye without a second thought.
Yet by rights, with growing grassroots
opposition , this terrible provision should be blocked by legislators in both parties, whether
calling themselves progressives, liberals, libertarians, Tea Partyers or whatever, who don't want
to chip away at cornerstones of the Bill of Rights.
Most Democratic leaders, for their part, seem determined to implicitly - or even explicitly
- scapegoat the Russian government for the presidential election results. Rather than clearly assess
the impacts of Hillary Clinton
's coziness with Wall Street, or even the role of the FBI director just before the election,
the Democratic line seems bent on playing an anti-Russia card.
Perhaps in the mistaken belief that they can gain some kind of competitive advantage over the
GOP by charging Russian intervention for
Donald Trump 's victory, the
Democrats are playing with fire. The likely burn victims are the First Amendment and other precious
freedoms.
From Wikipedia article
Communist propaganda.
"....the term "propaganda" broadly refers to any publication or campaign aimed at promoting a cause
and is/was used for official purposes by most communist-oriented governments. Rooted in Marxist thought,
the propaganda of communism is viewed by its proponents as the vehicle for spreading the enlightenment
of working class people and pulling them away from the propaganda of their oppressors that reinforces
their exploitation, such as religion or consumerism. A Bolshevik theoretician, Nikolai Bukharin, in
his The ABC of Communism wrote:[1] The State propaganda of communism becomes in the long run a means
for the eradication of the last traces of bourgeois propaganda dating from the old rιgime; and it is
a powerful instrument for the creation of a new ideology, of new modes of thought, of a new outlook
on the world.
Similarly neoliberal propaganda is the vehicle of spreading neoliberal ideas and "neoliberal rationality"
inside the country and all over the world the reinforces key postulated of neoliberalism -- unlimited
"free market" for transnational corporations, deregulation, suppression of wages via "free movement
of labor" and outsourcing and offshoring, decimation of labor unions and organized labor in general
(atomization of working force"), "greed is good" memo, etc.
Like Communist propaganda during Brezhnev rule, neoliberal propaganda after 2008 is in crisis, and
it is natural to expect that neoliberal propagandists will resort to heavy handed tactic of McCarthyism
in a vain attempt to restore its influence.
Wall Street On Parade closely examined the report issued by PropOrNot, its related Twitter page,
and its registration as a business in New Mexico, looking for "tells" as to the individual(s) behind
it. We learned quite a number of interesting facts.
As part of its McCarthyite tactics, PropOrNot
has developed a plugin to help readers censor material from the websites it has blacklisted. It calls
that its YYYCampaignYYY. In that effort,
it lists an official address of 530-B Harkle Road, Suite 100, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505. That's
one of those agent addresses that serve as a virtual address for the creation of limited liability
corporations that want to keep their actual principals secret. The address has dozens of businesses
associated with it. There should also be a corresponding business listed in the online archives of
the business registry at the Secretary of State of New Mexico. However, no business with the words
Propaganda or PropOrNot or YYY exist in
the
New Mexico business registry, suggesting PropOrNot is using a double cloaking device to shield
its identity by registering under a completely different name.
PropOrNot's Twitter page provides a "tell" that its report may simply be a hodgepodge compilation
of other people's research that was used to arrive at its dangerous assertion that critical thinkers
across America are a clandestine network of Russian propaganda experts. Its
Tweet on
November 7 indicates that the research of Peter Pomerantsev, a Senior Fellow at the Legatum Institute
in London, who has also been cooperating
on research with the Information Warfare Project of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA)
in Washington, D.C, inspired its efforts.
According to SourceWatch, the Legatum Institute "is a right-wing think tank promoting 'free markets,
free minds, and free peoples.' " SourceWatch adds that the Legatum Institute "is a project founded
and funded by the Legatum Group, a private investment group based in Dubai." According to the Internet
Archive known as the Wayback Machine, the Center for European Policy Analysis
previously
indicated it was an affiliate of the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). We can see why
they might want to remove that affiliation now that the Koch brothers have been exposed as funders
of a very real network of interrelated websites and nonprofits.
According to
Desmog, NCPA has received millions of dollars in funding from right wing billionaires like the
Koch brothers and their related trusts along with the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the
Sarah Scaife Foundation
(heir to the Mellon fortune) along with corporations like ExxonMobil.
CEPA's InfoWar Project is currently listed as a "Related Project" at PropOrNot's website. Indeed,
there are numerous references within the report issued by PropOrNot that sound a familiar refrain
to Pomerantsev and/or CEPA. Both think the U.S. Congress is in denial on the rising dangers of Russian
propaganda and want it to take more direct counter measures. Pages 31 and 32 of the PropOrNot report
urge the American people to demand answers from the U.S. government about how much it knows about
Russian propaganda. The report provides a detailed list of specific questions that should be asked.
In the August 2016 report
released by CEPA (the same month the PropOrNot Twitter account was established) Pomerantsev and his
co-author, Edward Lucas, recommend the establishment of "An international commission under the auspices
of the Council of Europe on the lines of the Venice Commission" to "act as a broadcasting badge of
quality. If an official body cannot be created, then an NGO could play a similar advisory role."
On its website, PropOrNot recommends
a much stronger censorship of independent media websites, writing:
"We call on the American public to Obtain news from actual reporters,
who report to an editor and are professionally accountable for mistakes. We suggest NPR, the BBC,
the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Buzzfeed News, VICE, etc, and especially
your local papers and local TV news channels. Support them by subscribing, if you can!"
CounterPunch
was quick to point out that the Washington Post's former publisher, Philip Graham, supervised
a disinformation network for the CIA during the Cold War, known as Mockingbird. Graham was reported
to have died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his farm in 1963.
CEPA's website
indicates that on May 10 it hosted Senators Chris Murphy and Rob Portman to discuss "Russia's
sophisticated disinformation campaign." CEPA's President, A. Wess Mitchell is quoted as saying: "What's
missing is a significant effort on the part of the U.S. government. Not nearly enough has been done."
Six days after Washington Post reporter Craig Timberg ran his first PropOrNot story, he
published another article indicating that "Congressional negotiators on Wednesday approved an
initiative to track and combat foreign propaganda amid growing concerns that Russian efforts to spread
'fake news' and disinformation threaten U.S. national security." Quoted in the story was none other
than the very Senator who had met with CEPA in May on that very topic, Senator Rob Portman.
Portman is quoted as follows: "This propaganda and disinformation threat is real, it's growing,
and right now the U.S. government is asleep at the wheel." Among Portman's
top three donors to his 2016 Senate race were Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, two Wall Street behemoths
that would very much like to pivot the national debate to anything other than Wall Street power and
corruption.
"... Sorry, Brian, but you and your ilk sold your credibility for a full investment position in Hillary and Globalism. Your only recourse now is to attack and try to delegitamize those who call you out. ..."
Now this is rich. Brian Williams, the disgraced ex-NBC journalist who was literally fired for
falsely reporting that he was in a helicopter during the Iraq war that took on combatant fire, is
now going on a crusade against "fake news." On his MSNBC show last night, Williams decided to attack
retired General Flynn and Donald Trump for spreading "fake news" via their twitter accounts.
... ... ...
nuubee Dec 9, 2016 11:42 AM
I'm going to start reading The Onion and taking it seriously now.
nope-1004 -> Pladizow Dec 9, 2016 11:48 AM
At least he wasn't in real harms way, like Hillary, when she landed under sniper fire.
It's like [neo]Liberals are genetically compelled or something to accuse others of what they
themselves are actually doing. I've never seen anything this universally true for an entire group
of people suffering the same mental illness ([neo]liberalism).
- "A terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq when the helicopter
we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG." - NBC Nightly News, January
30, 2015
- "It was no more than 120 seconds later that the helicopter in front of us was hit." -
Brian Williams to Tim Russert on CNBC,
March 2005
- "I was instead following the aircraft" [that was struck by the RPG]. - NBC Nightly News,
Wednesday February 5, 2015
- Williams' original [March 26, 2003, NBC News] report indicated that a helicopter in front
of his was hit. -
PolitiFact
- NBC publishes a book [in 2003], "Operation Iraqi Freedom," in which they describe Williams'
experience, implying that his helicopter sustained fire. -
PolitiFact
- May 2008: Williams writes another [NBC News] blog, responding to a note from a soldier
who he met in Iraq. In this post, Williams indicates that he was in a helicopter that took
fire. -
PolitiFact
- "I've done some ridiculously stupid things under that banner, like being in a helicopter
I had no business being in Iraq with rounds coming into the airframe," he said [to Alec Baldwin
in March 2014] -
PolitiFact
- "We were in some helicopters. What we didn't know was, we were north of the invasion.
We were the northernmost Americans in Iraq. We were going to drop some bridge portions across
the Euphrates so the Third Infantry could cross on them. Two of the four helicopters were hit,
by ground fire, including the one I was in, RPG and AK-47. - Williams to Letterman on March
26, 2013 -
PolitiFact.
- In the initial NBC broadcast where he described his 2003 Iraq reporting mission, embattled
NBC anchor Brian Williams falsely claimed that "we saw the guy . . . [who] put a round through
the back of a chopper," which he further and incorrectly claimed was "the Chinook [helicopter]
in front of us." -
Breitbart
- "We flew over a bridge. He waved to the lead pilot very kindly. With that someone else
removed the tarp, stood up, and put a round through the back of a chopper missing the rear
rotor by four or five feet." - To Tom Brokaw on March 26, 2003 -
Breitbart
- "[Y]ou go back to Iraq, and I looked down the tube of an RPG that had been fired at us
and it hit the chopper in front of ours." - Williams to Fairfield University in 2007 -
Ace of Spades
SEAL Team 6 Tale
- "We have some idea which of our special operations teams carried this out," Williams said
on "The Late Show With David Letterman" the day after the raid [May 2, 2011]. "It happens to
be a team I flew into Baghdad with, on the condition that I would never speak of what I saw
on the aircraft, what aircraft we were on, what we were carrying, or who we were after." -
Huffington Post
- "Now, people might be hearing about SEAL Team 6," Williams said the next night, May 3,
2011, on "Nightly News." "I happen to have the great honor of flying into Baghdad with them
at the start of the war." -
Huffington Post
- "I flew into Baghdad, invasion plus three days, on a blackout mission at night with elements
of SEAL Team 6, and I was told not to make any eye contact with them or initiate any conversation,"
Williams said. (Three days after the U.S. invasion would have been March 22, 2003, not April
9, 2003, which was the day Williams broadcasted from the Baghdad airport.) - To David Letterman
in May of 2012 -
Huffinton Post
- In the 2012 "Late Show" appearance, Williams also recalled carrying a box of Wheat Thins,
which he said a hungry special operator dug into with a "hand the size of a canned ham." They
got to talking, and Williams told the commando how much he admired his knife. "Darned if that
knife didn't show up at my office a couple weeks later," Williams told Letterman. -
Huffington Post
- "About six weeks after the Bin Laden raid, I got a white envelope and in it was a thank-you
note, unsigned," Williams said on "Letterman" in January 2013. "And in it was a piece of the
fuselage of the blown-up Black Hawk in that courtyard. Sent to me by one of my friends." -
Huffington Post
- In February 2014, Williams elaborated on the helicopter gift in another media appearance,
this time on the sports talk show hosted by Dan Patrick. "It's one of the toughest things to
get," he said, "and the president has a piece of it as well It's made of a material most people
haven't seen or held in their hands." -
Huffington Post
Fall of the Berlin Wall
- "I've been so fortunate," he said during a 2008 forum at the Ronald Reagan Presidential
Library. "I was at the Brandenburg Gate the night the wall came down." -
CNN
- "Here's a fact: 25 years ago tonight, Tom Brokaw and I were at the Berlin Wall," Williams
said at a gala held on November 8, 2014. -
CNN
The Pope
- "I was there during the visit of the pope," Williams said [in 2002]. -
CNN
- While delivering the commencement address at Catholic University that year [2004], Williams
said the "highlight" of his time at the school "was in this very doorway, shaking hands with
the Holy Father during his visit to this campus." -
CNN
Katyusha Rocket Fire
- "There were Katyusha rockets passing just beneath the helicopter I was riding in," he
told a student interviewer from Fairfield (Conn.) University that year [2007]. -
Washington Post
- "When you look out of your hotel window in the French Quarter and watch a man float by
face down, when you see bodies that you last saw in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, and swore to yourself
that you would never see in your country," Williams told Eisner [in 2006], who suggested in
the interview that Williams emerged from former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw's shadow with his
Katrina coverage. -
USA Today
- In Williams's telling, the pathos of the scene extended to his crew's access to food.
"We were desperate for food and drink. But not like the people we were seeing in the streets,"
he said in the documentary "In His Own Words: Brian Williams on Hurricane Katrina." -
Washington Post
Puppy Rescue
- "I remember one such house fire - the structure was fully involved with flames and smoke.
I was wearing a breathing apparatus, conducting a search on my hands and knees, when I felt
something warm, squishy and furry on the floor of a closet. I instinctively tucked it in my
coat." -
October 2011, USA Today
- "All I ever did as a volunteer fireman was once save two puppies." -
January 2007, Esquire
Christmas Tree Robbery
In a 2005 interview with Esquire magazine, Williams said a thief drew on him in the 1970s
- leaving him "looking up at a thug's snub-nosed .38 while selling Christmas trees out of the
back of a truck."
NY Post
Quitting College
- "One day, I'm at the copy machine in the White House and Walter Mondale comes up behind
me and clears his throat. A classic throat-clearing. I thought people only did that in movies,
but it turns out vice-presidents do it, too. Anyway, it makes for an exceptionally good morning,
and I run from the White House to the GW campus for class. I'm still wearing my West Wing hard
pass on a chain, and when my professor sees it, he admits that he's only been to the White
House on the public tour. And I thought to myself, This is costing me money that I don't have,
and I'm a young man in too much of a hurry. So I left school." - Brian Williams to
Esquire , 2005
- But then a friend invited him to drive to Washington, D.C., for a weekend, and everything
changed. Smitten with the city and its youthful energy, Williams decided to move there. He
transferred what credits he could from Brookdale to Catholic University and took a job in the
public relations department to help pay his expenses. He landed an internship at the White
House, and when that ended, he answered an ad for a clerking job at a broadcasting association.
- 2009,
New Jersey-Star Ledger
It's just amazing what a shameless loser this guy has always been. I was surprised that they even
fired him for contriving this story, that is after all, what they do. The whole idea behind embedding
journalists was to make them part of the team, which prevents subjective journalism (not that
there was a risk of that happening with him) and turning the war into a fictionalized patriotic
orgy of bullshit reality TV. This was a huge shame to the profession of journalism before you
factor in the lies and perpetual fabrication.
The only reason he was fired was due to the fact that we were in the throws of a giant national
masturbation frenzy over military aggression and the military and it's endeavors became untouchable
overnight. When they got pissed off during that time frame it definitely mattered, not so much
now. Now they are just screwing them and everybody else. These news anchors are absolutely disgusting,
just about every one of them. They all look like pumpkins and hookers. They need to lay off the
hairspray and man-makeup before throwing themselves into 170 degree acidic geyser (you don't want
it too hot).
These ratfuck pressitutes haven't noticed Clinton lost the election because we stopped buying
the MSM lies nothing there that's worthwhile to read based on his stupidity here.
Brian Willians has been discredited and should either retire or find another job. But also, and
I'm serious about this, Pizzagate is a ridiculous made-up bullshit story that is distracting everyone
from the real issues and the way that the Dems have fucked our whole civilization for real, not
just a few kids that likely never even happened.
Even if pizzagate is real it is far less important than the many real ways in which the elites
have fucked us all.
Brian Williams is a member of the Rockefeller/CFR along with Mika Brzezinski and Charles "Joe"
Scarborough. See member lists at cfr dot org.
"The fact that we will not reestablish [another] Walter Cronkite, because of technology...
does not mean we can't have people who are trusted. Brian Williams is sitting here , Charlie Gibson
and Katie Couric..."
With over a century of government schooling to dumb down the population, I'd say their lack of
tact is fairly well warranted, given the average length of attention span can likely be measured
in hours.
All we can do is tell the unawake to turn off the idiot box, stop ingesting Kellogg's etc etc.
Every day we win a few more battles, and one day come to realize the enemy are all lying on the
ground, motionless.
Obama orders review of cyber attacks on 2016 election adviser
President Barack Obama directed US intelligence agencies to conduct a full review of cyber
attacks and foreign intervention into the 2016 election and deliver a report before he leaves
office, homeland security adviser Lisa Monaco said on Friday. Monaco told reporters the results
of the report would be shared with lawmakers and others. Obama leaves office on January 20. (Reuters)
remember, this has nothing to do with fake news. This has everything to do with competition. THe
MSM is getting too much competition from independent bloggers and opinions that don't follow their
narrative. Their goal now......figure out some way to shut them down.
And that's the entirety of the issue: if McCain had won in 2008, we'd have been hearing about
fake news then. It really is just that we had the audacity to disagree with the legacy media--who
for the first time in my memory broke every rule they had for themselves in appearing to cover
all sides--to try to corral the US public into voting for their candidate of choice. Even Fox
News was anti-Trump, for fuck's sake: did they not realize that gave away the game?!
Ironically, I feel if the media hadn't been so in-the-bag for Clinton from the start, I wouldn't
be surprised if she had won. The media lost her A LOT of votes by making it look like, whether
true or not, they had been bought off. (Yeah, I know they were. But they aren't supposed to APPEAR
it; Clinton should ask for a refund, in my opinion.)
So yeah; look forward to media licensing being floated, and somehow requiring credentials for
journalists (which will end with needing to be 'certified,' which will inevitably require an expensive
several year trip to your university daycare of choice.)
Will it work? Actually, for once, I have hope: I don't think it will. In fact, I suspect fairly
soon, someone is going to notice that Thomas Payne was probably the first purveyor of "fake news"
in this country, and that's a fucked up thing to be against as an American.
BS. If McCain won in 2008 we'd already be in an actual fucking hot war with Russia. 2008 was a
wet-dream for Soros and his boys. They got to win big or win FUCKING BIG.
The FBI found State Dept emails showing that Hillary Clinton went to "Orgy Island" at least
6 times - and at least once in the company of convicted pedo Jeffrey Epstein. (Bill Clinton went
there "at least 20 times" - those pesky progressives!)
You are the epitome of and exactly exactly the type of vile, disgusting, reprehensible Scum
at the bottom of the Swap. A bottom feeder at best.
The Presstitute Centrailized Media has been exposed for the farce that it is. The obvious denial
of it simply exposes the Sociopathic / Psychopathic Nature of you vile Scum Fucks.
Accept it. The Public has lost all respect for the Centrailzed Industrial Complex Presstitiute
Media.
The Libtards are desperate to attack Russia and start WW III, bailout Wall Street again and keep
the Swamp parasites in power in DC to keep the gravy train flowing.
MSM and Dem lies get Yuuuger every day...it's almost laughable but they are actually very dangerous
people and thus, we need to protect the 2nd to protect us from them if they get to desperate.
There has never been an actual media in America to begin with --- just go back and check out
the trash that the Pulitzer fellow wrote, and then realize why that prize is awarded to the riff-raff
who usually receive it.
Sorry, Brian, but you and your ilk sold your credibility for a full investment position
in Hillary and Globalism. Your only recourse now is to attack and try to delegitamize those who
call you out.
The gig is up for these MSM pantywaists and they know it. The only way they maintain viewership
is if the gov't shuts down the internet, which it may. These little fucktards like williams are
some of the biggest purveyors of bullshit in the history of mankind and they know we are on to
their game. No one is going back to believing anything these assholes say except for the most
partisan, retarded, misinformed of the US population.
the news organizations are all propped up to keep the global culture industry operational. If
they were to be displaced by conscious consumers of worth while real news, like the kind that's
now starting to make it's way through the alternative media, they would only exist for viewers
who were being groomed for social unrest. Oh wait, that's what their doing now isn't it?
This is the opportunity to wake people up that you care about. If nothing else you can show that
the news is all coordinated. There is no possibility that in a free competitive market every org
would repeat the same message from the same perspective.
I have taken advantage of the oligarchs sloppiness. People who thought I was crazy two years
ago are now acknowledging I was right. I have delivered news to people and two weeks later it
was a breaking story. Take the opportunity and bring a few more people over.
The only truly fake news is the US MSM. This bullshit that is called "news" is filled with omissions,
distortions, half truths, bald faced lies and fabrications. This is the "official narrative" the
Kool Aid that we are all supposed to drink. Remember how the MSM colluded with the Bush Administration's
neocons to sell the bullshit Iraq WMD story that was presented to the UN by Colin Powell? Total
bullshit. How can anyone believe anything that is fed to us from the MSM.
Ironic but the guy I'm going to tell you about was featured on 60 minutes. You know what I
love is when the US State Department or the MSM quotes the UK Britain-based Syrian Observatory
for Human Rights. This is a little old man in a dingy apartment in a slum Arab neighborhood in
London. This old fucking guy claims to know whats going on in Syria. Actually this is a neocon
propaganda mill for the CIA It's comments, suggestions and conclusions are solely based upon
an official narrative created by the CIA and sold to us through the MSM.
Look at the pre-election coverage and non-stop polling data talked about by all the MSM boneheads
including this Brian Williams jack off. Donald Trump was continously slammed, over and over again
by *all of them.*The exception was Sean Hannity. Now look at the partial list of donors to crooked
Hillary's campaign.
The list of donors to the Clinton campaign included many of the most powerful media institutions
in the country - among the donors: Comcast (which owns NBC, and its cable sister channels, such
as MSNBC); James Murdoch of News Corporation (owner of Fox News and its sister stations, among
many other media holdings); Time Warner (CNN, HBO, scores of other channels); Bloomberg; Reuters;
Viacom; Howard Stringer (of CBS News); AOL (owner of Huffington Post); Google; Twitter; The Washington
Post Company; George Stephanopoulos (host of ABC News' flagship Sunday show); PBS; PRI; the Hearst
Corporation and others (
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/37451-the-clinton-foundation-and-the-... ).
Trump is correct when he says the US media is crooked. It's all fucking fake news!!
Post election- I now watch local news for traffic and weather in the morning. But fuck them
I will not listen to the MSM talking heads or anything else on the crooked MSM. To know whats
going on in the world I now watch RT which presents an objective and honest perspective of what's
really going on in the world. Of course they call RT fake news, or Russian propaganda. All I can
say is they can go fuck themselves! I am sick and tired of the lies and bullshit which is the
official US narrative as presented by our 100% crooked MSM!
The real fake news is presented by the liars in our MSM!
Lol makes no difference now ... I left the MSM, never read it anymore.
I am no longer misinformed by them - that's a bonus.
I now prefer news from other nations because domestically it is all the fucking same from the
libtards and progressives of more people murdered because of some shit they created. Still get
drug addicts committing crime just like all them illegal immigrants because with no money you
have to commit a crime to exist. We all know that domestically your bankers are robbing you and
that the politicians are lying pieces of shit.
So why would I want to read what I already know? Nope don't need it.
Bye, bye NBC and the rest of you I can predict what the stories you will run with tomorrow
because they are the same fucking lies like the past 30 years.
Attack the MSM by attacking their ability to sell advertising.
"That newspaper you are advertising in has been wrong on everything, from going into Iraq to
recommending that loser Hillary Clinton to the final election results. If you are advertising
in that dishonest discredited rag, your product or service is being tarnished by association.
"
"Just watch President Elect Trump's Thank You Tour speech. Tens of thousands of people loudly
booed the press and the media that were there. You really want to spend your money buying ads
from those discredited losers?"
The neocons and fascist Democrat factions are joining forces looks like and as desperate as can
be. They've lied since day one, bombed RNC offices, beat innocent people up at Trump rallys, published
non-stop fake news, and now pull the "Russian agent" theory out of their closet.
Most Americans laugh at these nuts but I think they are very scary and serious since they have
alot of money invested in Queeb Hillary and war with Russia.
The Washington Post ( fake news organization) is reporting that the CIA secretly informed the
senate last week that there was Russian interference in our election and that it was Russia's
goal to ensure the election of Donald Trump. Apparently the house was informed in September and
was questioned if this should be made public and the Republicams said no, according to the Washington
Post - the source identified himself as " DNC in deep shit" . /Sarc.
Rachel Maddow was gleefully reporting on this tonight, as if it somehow vindicated her and
her morally bankrupt colleagues from the fact that they should have been reporting on this rather
than the Russians, since it is an American election and it is their job to investigate and report
the news.
Of course Obama has decided to keep this information secret, although, 7 "Democratic " senators
were requesting that the Obama administration released PARTS of the findings of the investigation
which can only lead one to question which PARTS they would prefer to keep from the American public
and why. It also is a concern of national security that national secrets are ending up on the
Washington Post- maybe they received this information from Russia.
Mitch McConell was reported to have been dismissive of the allegations as a result of the lack
of agreement over the evidence among the 17 security agencies involved, the lack of any source
directly linking the Russian government to releasing DNC hacked emails to the Wikileaks
This also begs to question Rachel Maddow on her lack of outrage of the behavior of the DNC in
colluding with the press and rigging the primary. As if to say, since Russia revealed the information
and the wrong doing of the DNC, it is not a question of if the behavior of the DNC was just or
unjust.
Nor does it vindicate any Hillary supporter, it does not legitimize what the DNC, the press,
or Hillary Clinton did.
Leave it to the incompetent Washington Post and MSNBC and Rachel Maddow to completely miss
the ball again.
Is it surprising to anyone that Russia did not wish for world war 3?
We don't have to be too concerned about fake news pumped out by Russia and other evil doers. That
job is being well handled already by NBC, CNN, the New York Times, and others.
In this post-truth world, these openly left-biased media organizations can rival Pravada of
the old Soviet Union in their laughable news reports, lack of integrity, and willingness to suppress
news they don't want known while publishing outright propaganda.
In a democracy where citizens must make informed decisions about governments, politicians and
issues, it seems to me that the people behind these corrupt media outlets are just debasing their
country; I imagine they at least get well paid for their treachery.
Curious how, having destroyed their own credibility and lost so many viewers and readers, these
organizations are now attacking their new, smaller divergent rivals on the internet.
The Liberal Leftist and the MSM created the terms Alt-Right and Fake News to distort real news
and make them fit into their political agenda! They use this to discredit Conservatives in an
effort to shut down Alternative and Conservatist News Media, especially on the Internet and Talk
Radio to end competition! They want Free Speech for the Left and Censorship for the Right! The
truth is that people discovered their plot and it backfired!!!
Mainstream media lost all credibility with We the People!!!
"... All of the "The Russians are Coming" nonsense is coming from Democrat party organs and mouthpieces. Not Trump and his media allies. ..."
"... An excellent article from Mark. This Alexandra Chalupa sounds like a real piece of work. These Cold Warriors seem to have red-colored glasses and see commies everywhere they look. ..."
"... Of course, there was that old experiment ( Kohler et al ) where they had people wearing different colored goggles for some time, then asked participants to take them off. And what happened? The participants continued to see in those hues. ..."
"... Wait a second, so there was ..."
"... CIA has been whipping ethnic Ukies into a patriotic frenzy for decades with social clubs that seep revanchist propaganda. ..."
"... HR 6393: "(Sec. 501) This title establishes an executive branch interagency committee to counter active measures by the Russian Federation to exert covert influence over peoples and governments (with the role of the Russian Federation hidden or not acknowledged publicly) through front groups, covert broadcasting, media manipulation, disinformation or forgeries, funding agents of influence, incitement, offensive counterintelligence, assassinations, or terrorist acts. The committee shall expose falsehoods, agents of influence, corruption, human rights abuses, terrorism, and assassinations carried out by the security services or political elites of the Russian Federation or their proxies." ..."
"... Plus, that will add $160 million, IIRC, to The Deficit. ..."
"... Two things this article curiously doesn't seem to mention. The first is Victoria Nuland, who must be a close Hillary confidante, and architect of the coup in Ukraine ..."
"... So your food for thought is that the Russian state behaves rationally in the face of an aggressive military power? Of course, they are hacking everything. If they weren't before the NSA revelations (where the U.S. vacuums up everything and then has no safeguards on what they grab; Congress has had testimony about NSA employees using their power to stalk people), they were afterwards. ..."
"... Here's some food for thought. John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Hillary Clinton all tried to make a country of 145 million or so people with numerous internal problems a major campaign platform. Not one of them is President. Could there be a connection? ..."
"... As one of the people who consistently calls bull hockey about the claims that the wikileaks releases of the DNC and Podesta emails are the results of Russian government hackers, I will hereby agree with the idea that Russia is hacking everything they can get their hands on. Mind you I believe that every major government from the US to China to Germany to India are hacking everything they can get their hands on. And that every government knows that about all the rest. As far as I am concerned anyone who doesn't believe that is beyond naive. ..."
"... But thinking that every major government had access to Clinton's emails, Boeing's files, and knows what internet videos Obama/May/Merkel/Putin/Castro have accessed more than once is not the same thing as thinking they are stupid enough or have decent strategic reasons to make that public knowledge by releasing damaging but not destroying emails concerning the massive stupidity and arrogance of one candidate for President and her core people. ..."
"... There is only one reason that the meme about Fake News is being pushed now the people who have been pushing fake news for awhile to promote their agendas have lost the control they thought they had over the public and now worry about them rebelling. If fake news were important Judith Miller wouldn't have a job or a book deal and the opportunity to promote that book. Hell Murdoch wouldn't have a media empire. ..."
"... I don't know why so many so-called movers and shakers want war with Russia, but it is clear that anyone getting in the way of that goal is now in the cross hairs. ProporNOT may be more about Ukrainian support, but the people who promoted them are about the reasons it was being used in the first place. ..."
"... Eastern European fascists running propaganda web sites for the Whappo, indeed. ..."
"... If you read Matt Stoller's excellent piece from The Atlantic ..."
"... I don't see "Banana Republican" Trump as a fascist - he is in many ways an exemplar of Caudillismo , a charismatic, populist, but authoritarian oligarch. ..."
"... Nance used fake news about Clinton speeches to propagate the fake news that the Podesta emails were fake. ..."
"... Was amused to see that naturalnews (one of the sites listed in propornot it looks like I guess a right wing alternative medicine type site) is offering a $10k reward for unmasking propornot but I don't think anyone's ever going to be able to collect. ..."
"... Why? Because they take the site seriously on its claim of being composed of 30 members and will only pay out for the identities of at least ten. I think it's just one, maybe two guys. ..."
"... There are dots to connect the WP article, Congressional Section 501 activity, Senators McCain/Graham "leadership"; and most recently, Hillary's comments. Suspect coordination. Connect the dots. And then search for a motive. ..."
"... The national security state is concerned that Trump will seek mutually beneficial agreements with Russia. For evidence of the power of the national "security" state a tour of the Pentagon is not necessary. Tour Tyson Corner, Virginia, instead, for starters. ..."
"... And once Trump has established these agreements there will then be no stopping several Eastern European countries + Germany (of course) realizing where their economic interests really lie. Does anyone really believe that Germany is going to let itself be turned into an irradiated wasteland just to please a bunch of neocon paranoids ? ..."
"... That's what the neocons, the MIC, and all their shills, and enablers truly fear. Paradoxically this ludicrous attempt to revive McCarthyism may well end up actually ending the Cold War for good & all 25 years after it should have ended. ..."
"... From the article: "It's now been a few days, and the shock and disgust is turning to questions about how to fight back-and who we should be fighting against." ..."
"... How many people, world-wide, are involved and invested in the whole "taking over everything" machinery of "state security" and espionage and corporate hegemony? And who is this "we" who should be fighting? ..."
"... This book provides a detailed account of the ways in which the CIA penetrated and influenced a vast array of cultural organizations, through its front groups and via friendly philanthropic organizations like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. The author, Frances Stonor Saunders, details how and why the CIA ran cultural congresses, mounted exhibits, and organized concerts. The CIA also published and translated well-known authors who toed the Washington line, sponsored abstract art to counteract art with any social content and, throughout the world, subsidized journals that criticized Marxism, communism, and revolutionary politics and apologized for, or ignored, violent and destructive imperialist U.S. policies. ..."
"... The CIA was able to harness some of the most vocal exponents of intellectual freedom in the West in service of these policies, to the extent that some intellectuals were directly on the CIA payroll. Many were knowingly involved with CIA "projects," and others drifted in and out of its orbit, claiming ignorance of the CIA connection after their CIA sponsors were publicly exposed during the late 1960s and the Vietnam war, after the turn of the political tide to the left. ..."
"... U.S. and European anticommunist publications receiving direct or indirect funding included Partisan Review, Kenyon Review, New Leader, Encounter and many others. Among the intellectuals who were funded and promoted by the CIA were Irving Kristol, Melvin Lasky, Isaiah Berlin, Stephen Spender, Sidney Hook, Daniel Bell, Dwight MacDonald, Robert Lowell, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy, and numerous others in the United States and Europe. In Europe, the CIA was particularly interested in and promoted the "Democratic Left" and ex-leftists, including Ignacio Silone, Stephen Spender, Arthur Koestler, Raymond Aron, Anthony Crosland, Michael Josselson, and George Orwell. The CIA, under the prodding of Sidney Hook and Melvin Lasky, was instrumental in funding the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a kind of cultural NATO that grouped together all sorts of "anti-Stalinist" leftists and rightists. They were completely free to defend Western cultural and political values, attack "Stalinist totalitarianism" and to tiptoe gently around U.S. racism and imperialism. Occasionally, a piece marginally critical of U.S. mass society was printed in the CIA-subsidized journals. What was particularly bizarre about this collection of CIA-funded intellectuals was not only their political partisanship, but their pretense that they were disinterested seekers of truth, iconoclastic humanists, freespirited intellectuals, or artists for art's sake, who counterposed themselves to the corrupted "committed" house "hacks" of the Stalinist apparatus. ..."
"... It is impossible to believe their claims of ignorance of CIA ties. How could they ignore the absence in the journals of any basic criticism of the numerous lynchings throughout the southern United States during the whole period? How could they ignore the absence, during their cultural congresses, of criticism of U.S. imperialist intervention in Guatemala, Iran, Greece, and Korea that led to millions of deaths? How could they ignore the gross apologies of every imperialist crime of their day in the journals in which they wrote? They were all soldiers: some glib, vitriolic, crude, and polemical, like Hook and Lasky; others elegant essayists like Stephen Spender or self-righteous informers like George Orwell. Saunders portrays the WASP Ivy League elite at the CIA holding the strings, and the vitriolic Jewish ex-leftists snarling at leftist dissidents. When the truth came out in the late 1960s and New York, Paris, and London "intellectuals" feigned indignation at having been used, the CIA retaliated. Tom Braden, who directed the International Organizations Branch of the CIA, blew their cover by detailing how they all had to have known who paid their salaries and stipends (397-404). ..."
"... I have no answers for "what is to be done." ..."
"... It seems inevitable that perversion and corruption and greed will always eventually "trump" decency and comity, once a certain size and composition of a human population has been reached. ..."
"... One may hope that the general principle of eventual incompetence that seems to apply to even the Deep State activities might become more immanent. ..."
"... Dems didn't lose this elections because of "fake news". Dems lost because they did not prosecute the bankers who caused the 2008 financial crash, who fraudulently foreclosed on homes and are still engaged in fraud (see: Wells Fargo). imo. ..."
Great article but I'm unsure about the conclusion. ""This is the world the Washington Post
is bringing back to its front pages. And the timing is incredible-as if Bezos' rag has taken upon
itself to soften up the American media before Trump moves in for the kill. And it's all being
done in the name of fighting "fake news" and fascism.""
I was much more worried about this happening with Hillary at the helm. She seems more in line
with Soros and the Ukrainian extremists. Trump still seems to be interested in working with Putin
on things of mutual interest although he will probably find resistance in both US parties.
Yup. I'm still thinking "Make Ukraine Great Again" is not on Trump's agenda. But I'm just taking
things day by day. Still digesting Soros found some Nazis he likes. [Facebook "Like" gots it covered.
No new tweaking of social media required.]
However, I think it would be interesting if Trump investigated whether treason against Ukraine
is punishable by firing squad under US Treason Law. Since they've made it kinda personal.
Yeah, the piece is a bit uneven and the last bit a bit revealing of the author's own biases.
All of the "The Russians are Coming" nonsense is coming from Democrat party organs and mouthpieces.
Not Trump and his media allies.
The most effective neo-fascism that we see emerging everywhere is pretty consistently on the
erstwhile voices of the "left" affiliated with the Democrat Party which is double speak for the
New American Right. Indeed, by going back to the height of the cold war to make connections to
these shady organizations rather than modern day plutocrats (Amazonia and Googlie are low hanging
fruit), the author is employing misdirection. So, I will take this with a few grains of salt.
An excellent article from Mark. This Alexandra Chalupa sounds like a real piece of work.
These Cold Warriors seem to have red-colored glasses and see commies everywhere they look.
Of course, there was that old experiment (
Kohler et al ) where they had people wearing different colored goggles for some time, then
asked participants to take them off. And what happened? The participants continued to see in those
hues.
Wait a second, so there was foreign intervention in this election and there
were nefarious racists and eugenicists involved, but they weren't behind Trump,
but Clinton!?
/heavy sarcasm
Thank you very much for sharing this JLS! What a fasc inating read! The historical
context Ames provides is very intriguing and convincing.
"Convincing" is too strong. I would say rather suggestive, possibly persuasive. There is not
enough evidence to convince. More investigation is needed, and this might be a productive line
of inquiry, but it is too soon to talk about conclusions.
I am a huge fan of your website and donate as regularly as i can. I am appalled at what the
Washington Post did and its implications for free speech in the US going forward.
That said, I find this article defamatory in purpose, rather than informative. I do not believe
it meets the usual standards of Naked Capitalism: it is not fairly reasoned, nor based only on
relevant fact to the issue at hand. In my opinion, it is designed to smear and thus undermines
the considerable, unusual credibility of your website. I find it disturbing that it has been amplified
by its inclusion as a link. It does damage to the cause, rather than further it.
How so? First off, we know very little and Ames acknowledges that, but he uses historical context
to expand on that and build a case behind the PropOrNot / FPRI claims and their potential motives.
He fully admits he is working with that we've got. Maybe all these illustrations do just happen
to line up well and new information will change perception, but Ames discussion hits a lot of
typical looking benchmarks.
How is Mr Ames experience and the very place in which Chalupa works, what she says, as well
as the history of our countries actions upon others around the world and within not reasonable
to consider?
I'm sorry if incorrect but you seem like a troll without explaining yourself in specificity
further.
Disturbed voter, batshit Springtime-for-Hitler Ukies long predate Biden's involvement.
CIA has been whipping ethnic Ukies into a patriotic frenzy for decades with social clubs that
seep revanchist propaganda. The hapless Ukies were meant to be cannon fodder for hot war
on the USSR. When Russia molted and shed the USSR, Ukraine continued its Soviet degeneration but
the associations had a life of their own. That's how CIA clowns wound up proud owners of the Exclusion
Zone.
HR 6393: "(Sec. 501) This title establishes an executive branch interagency committee to
counter active measures by the Russian Federation to exert covert influence over peoples and governments
(with the role of the Russian Federation hidden or not acknowledged publicly) through front groups,
covert broadcasting, media manipulation, disinformation or forgeries, funding agents of influence,
incitement, offensive counterintelligence, assassinations, or terrorist acts. The committee shall
expose falsehoods, agents of influence, corruption, human rights abuses, terrorism, and assassinations
carried out by the security services or political elites of the Russian Federation or their proxies."
Two things this article curiously doesn't seem to mention. The first is Victoria Nuland,
who must be a close Hillary confidante, and architect of the coup in Ukraine .
The second thing is not so curious per se, but a common feature of articles about Russian hacking
accusationsthey gloss over the fact that there is good evidence that the Russians are hacking
everything they can get their hands on. To assume otherwise is naive. Much of this evidence is
available in a recently-published book, The Plot to Hack America by Malcolm Nance.
He doesn't identify American news sources of being Russian stooges, but does describe how the
hacks on the DNC have FSB (the new KGB) fingerprints all over them. He also describes Trump's
ties to the Kremlin, as well as his advisors' business interests there. Food for thought.
So your food for thought is that the Russian state behaves rationally in the face of an
aggressive military power? Of course, they are hacking everything. If they weren't before the
NSA revelations (where the U.S. vacuums up everything and then has no safeguards on what they
grab; Congress has had testimony about NSA employees using their power to stalk people), they
were afterwards.
Here's some food for thought. John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Hillary Clinton all tried to
make a country of 145 million or so people with numerous internal problems a major campaign platform.
Not one of them is President. Could there be a connection?
As one of the people who consistently calls bull hockey about the claims that the wikileaks
releases of the DNC and Podesta emails are the results of Russian government hackers, I will hereby
agree with the idea that Russia is hacking everything they can get their hands on. Mind you I
believe that every major government from the US to China to Germany to India are hacking everything
they can get their hands on. And that every government knows that about all the rest. As far as
I am concerned anyone who doesn't believe that is beyond naive.
But thinking that every major government had access to Clinton's emails, Boeing's files,
and knows what internet videos Obama/May/Merkel/Putin/Castro have accessed more than once is not
the same thing as thinking they are stupid enough or have decent strategic reasons to make that
public knowledge by releasing damaging but not destroying emails concerning the massive stupidity
and arrogance of one candidate for President and her core people.
There is only one reason that the meme about Fake News is being pushed now the people
who have been pushing fake news for awhile to promote their agendas have lost the control they
thought they had over the public and now worry about them rebelling. If fake news were important
Judith Miller wouldn't have a job or a book deal and the opportunity to promote that book. Hell
Murdoch wouldn't have a media empire.
I don't know why so many so-called movers and shakers want war with Russia, but it is clear
that anyone getting in the way of that goal is now in the cross hairs. ProporNOT may be more about
Ukrainian support, but the people who promoted them are about the reasons it was being used in
the first place.
Because big picture. Eurasia is inevitably coming together and it is the end of an era. Why
we thought we could prevent this from happening must be based on pure hubris. Everything has changed
so much in one century that even language makes no sense. Eastern European fascists running
propaganda web sites for the Whappo, indeed.
Hillary Clinton taking up the cause against fake news. Jesus. As Liz Warren said, personnel
is policy. You hire fascist nut cases, you create fascism. Hillary, you're so very patriotic.
If you read Matt Stoller's excellent piece from The Atlantic , "How the Democrats
Killed their Populist Soul" you'll see that Clintonism matches the corporatist model of fascism
as derided by Franklin Roosevelt in the late '30's, before mass-murder became associated with
the brand and when people like Charles Lindbergh were touting it as the "modern" way forward.
If you understand Clintonism as corporatist fascism, the DNC's affinity for Ukraine becomes more
and more logical.
I don't see "Banana Republican" Trump as a fascist - he is in many ways an exemplar of
Caudillismo , a charismatic, populist, but authoritarian oligarch.
I read that. I don't believe Nance said the Podesta emails were fake, just that there was a
possibility that those supplying the documents to Wikileaks could adulterate the documents or
introduce fabricated documents into the pipeline. Quite easy to do when leaking, what was it,
fifty thousand emails? And I still haven't heard a single persuasive argument to disprove that
the Russians hacked the DNC. Quite the contrary. The hacks originated from IP addresses known
to originate in the FSA (Fancy Bear) who have led a prodigious list of pro-Russian exploits against
targets throughout eastern Europe, including the Baltic states, Ukraine, and the German Bundestag.
Real-time adjustments from those IPs also occurred from the Moscow time zone, and some used cyrillic
keyboards.
Don't get me wrong: I disagree with the WaPo piece, and have read, commented, and financially
supported Naked Capitalism for quite a while now. And there's no faker news than that Iraq had
WMDs, a fact that the press has never quite overcome in the eyes of the public. But just because
spooky Intelligence Community people say that Russia hacked the DNC, doesn't make it not so. There
are way too many people on the left going off half-cocked. Have you noticed how since the "fake
news" imbroglio flamed up, MSM criticism of Trump's swampland cabinet picks have been quite muted?
The Intercept post has a
link
to the Nance tweet, which is still out there, saying
Malcolm Nance Retweeted KA Semenova
Official Warning: #PodestaEmails are already proving to be riddled with obvious forgeries
& #blackpropaganda not even professionally done.
He, Podesta, and the correspondents in the leaked emails never provided a single example and/or
proof that any email was forged. Also, I don't understand the technicality, but there is some
type of hash value associated with an email such that WL was able provide confirmation of those
emails where the hash value was intact. Instructions on how to replicate that confirmation process
were published at the time.
Was amused to see that naturalnews (one of the sites listed in propornot it looks like
I guess a right wing alternative medicine type site) is offering a $10k reward for unmasking propornot
but I don't think anyone's ever going to be able to collect.
Why? Because they take the site seriously on its claim of being composed of 30 members
and will only pay out for the identities of at least ten. I think it's just one, maybe two guys.
There are dots to connect the WP article, Congressional Section 501 activity, Senators
McCain/Graham "leadership"; and most recently, Hillary's comments. Suspect coordination. Connect
the dots. And then search for a motive.
The national security state is concerned that Trump will seek mutually beneficial agreements
with Russia. For evidence of the power of the national "security" state a tour of the Pentagon
is not necessary. Tour Tyson Corner, Virginia, instead, for starters.
And once Trump has established these agreements there will then be no stopping several
Eastern European countries + Germany (of course) realizing where their economic interests really
lie. Does anyone really believe that Germany is going to let itself be turned into an irradiated
wasteland just to please a bunch of neocon paranoids ?
Goodbye sanctions and then, shortly after, its bye, bye NATO bye bye.
That's what the neocons, the MIC, and all their shills, and enablers truly fear. Paradoxically
this ludicrous attempt to revive McCarthyism may well end up actually ending the Cold War for
good & all 25 years after it should have ended.
From the article: "It's now been a few days, and the shock and disgust is turning to questions
about how to fight back-and who we should be fighting against."
How many people, world-wide, are involved and invested in the whole "taking over everything"
machinery of "state security" and espionage and corporate hegemony? And who is this "we" who should
be fighting?
Fundamentals: The human siege of the planet is (it seems sort of clear) driving the biosphere
toward collapse as a sustainer of most human life. Ever more of the extractable entities of the
planet (mineral and living resources, "money" whatever that is, the day labor of most of us, on
and on) are being used, and used up, in service to what? a relatively few masters of manipulation
who are playing a game that most of the rest of us, were we able to focus and figure it out, would
recognize as murder and attempted murder as part of a war "we" did not enlist (most of us) to
participate in. The manipulators, both the ones sitting on extreme piles of wealth and the power
it provides, and the senior effectives in the various "agencies" that play out the game, what
the heck do they "want?" Other than "MORE"?
What motivates a Coors or Koch or Bezos or Brock or the various political figures and their
handlers and minions and "advisors?" This one little episode shows how completely it appears that
the whole species is screwed: "Who do we fight, and how?" Are "we" is the readers of NC? Some
few of whom are stooges and operatives for the Ministries of Truth who are tracking and recording
what transpires here and no doubt subtly injecting "influencers" into the discourse. Some are
just ordinary people, of varying degrees of insight and ability to influence the collective net
vector of human activity (for good or ill). Some are hoping to just find some awareness of and
comprehension of what-all is shaking on the Big Game Board of Life. In this moment, "we" depend,
in this one tiny instance among the great flood of chaos-induction and interest-seeking, on the
responses and pressures "our" hosts can bring to bear - threatening letters to the propagators
like WaPo and Craig Timberg, just one tumor in the vast cancer that afflicts the species, attempts
to link up with other parts of the too-small "good will, comity and deceny" population that is
fractioned and atomized and constantly seduced or frightened into going along with the larger
trend line, grabbing URLs and stuff I'm not smart enough to understand, all that. But the Big
People, the Deep State that "we" are subtly taught NOT to believe exists by various bits of sophistry,
is a lot better armed and equipped and always active - its operatives are paid, usually pretty
well, to be on the job all the time, operating their various and manifold, multifarious, often
ingenious, always disingenous operations, and always thinking up new ways to screw over and loot
and debase and oppress and enserf the rest of us.
Here's just one explication of how the Deep State operates:
This book provides a detailed account of the ways in which the CIA penetrated and influenced
a vast array of cultural organizations, through its front groups and via friendly philanthropic
organizations like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. The author, Frances Stonor Saunders,
details how and why the CIA ran cultural congresses, mounted exhibits, and organized concerts.
The CIA also published and translated well-known authors who toed the Washington line, sponsored
abstract art to counteract art with any social content and, throughout the world, subsidized
journals that criticized Marxism, communism, and revolutionary politics and apologized for,
or ignored, violent and destructive imperialist U.S. policies.
The CIA was able to harness some of the most vocal exponents of intellectual freedom
in the West in service of these policies, to the extent that some intellectuals were directly
on the CIA payroll. Many were knowingly involved with CIA "projects," and others drifted in
and out of its orbit, claiming ignorance of the CIA connection after their CIA sponsors were
publicly exposed during the late 1960s and the Vietnam war, after the turn of the political
tide to the left.
U.S. and European anticommunist publications receiving direct or indirect funding included
Partisan Review, Kenyon Review, New Leader, Encounter and many others. Among the intellectuals
who were funded and promoted by the CIA were Irving Kristol, Melvin Lasky, Isaiah Berlin, Stephen
Spender, Sidney Hook, Daniel Bell, Dwight MacDonald, Robert Lowell, Hannah Arendt, Mary McCarthy,
and numerous others in the United States and Europe. In Europe, the CIA was particularly interested
in and promoted the "Democratic Left" and ex-leftists, including Ignacio Silone, Stephen Spender,
Arthur Koestler, Raymond Aron, Anthony Crosland, Michael Josselson, and George Orwell.
The CIA, under the prodding of Sidney Hook and Melvin Lasky, was instrumental in funding
the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a kind of cultural NATO that grouped together all sorts
of "anti-Stalinist" leftists and rightists. They were completely free to defend Western cultural
and political values, attack "Stalinist totalitarianism" and to tiptoe gently around U.S. racism
and imperialism. Occasionally, a piece marginally critical of U.S. mass society was printed
in the CIA-subsidized journals.
What was particularly bizarre about this collection of CIA-funded intellectuals was not
only their political partisanship, but their pretense that they were disinterested seekers
of truth, iconoclastic humanists, freespirited intellectuals, or artists for art's sake, who
counterposed themselves to the corrupted "committed" house "hacks" of the Stalinist apparatus.
It is impossible to believe their claims of ignorance of CIA ties. How could they ignore
the absence in the journals of any basic criticism of the numerous lynchings throughout the
southern United States during the whole period? How could they ignore the absence, during their
cultural congresses, of criticism of U.S. imperialist intervention in Guatemala, Iran, Greece,
and Korea that led to millions of deaths? How could they ignore the gross apologies of every
imperialist crime of their day in the journals in which they wrote? They were all soldiers:
some glib, vitriolic, crude, and polemical, like Hook and Lasky; others elegant essayists like
Stephen Spender or self-righteous informers like George Orwell. Saunders portrays the WASP
Ivy League elite at the CIA holding the strings, and the vitriolic Jewish ex-leftists snarling
at leftist dissidents. When the truth came out in the late 1960s and New York, Paris, and London
"intellectuals" feigned indignation at having been used, the CIA retaliated. Tom Braden, who
directed the International Organizations Branch of the CIA, blew their cover by detailing how
they all had to have known who paid their salaries and stipends (397-404).
http://monthlyreview.org/1999/11/01/the-cia-and-the-cultural-cold-war-revisited/
And that is just one part of the "operations" put in motion by just "our" national rulers by
ONE of the "seventeen national security agencies" that apparently appear in the organization chart
of the US empire.
These mostly faceless people, from "wet workers" to "economic hit men" to analysts and office
workers and Station Chiefs and functionaries at DIA and NIA and NSA and the rest of the acronymists
of "state security," are "just doing their jobs," with more or less personal malevolence (William
Casey, Dick Cheney, the Dulleses, Kermit Roosevelt, on and on), seem to be working from a central
organizing principle: Control of minds and resources, in service to imperial and corporate and
personal dominion. What tools and actions and thought processes do ordinary people have, to fight
back or even resist against this kind of onslaught? "We" are told we are becoming responsible
to do our daily best, in among fulfilling our and our families' basic needs, and to minimize our
environmental impacts to at least slow the destruction, and also somehow to become aware, in a
world of dis- and dysinformation, of what is being done to us and our children and communities,
and "resist." And "fight back." Against who, and against what, and by what means, when you have
the "Googolverment," and all those millions of employees and managers and executives thereof,
on call and on task 24/7 looking for ever more subtle ways to data mine and monetize and manipulate
"us"? And in a feedback loop that has been ongoing since no doubt the earliest of "civilization"
cities and tribes and nations, the "arms race" both in straight military terms and in the sneaky-pete
realm of espionage and state security and "statecraft," "the Russians" and the Pakistanis and
Chinese and Israelites, and probably Brazilians and Zoroastrians, are all growing their own machinery
of consumption and dominance and destruction.
What's the model "we" are supposed to be working from? Some people here are looking for "investment
opportunities" to take advantage of the chaos and destruction, and there are many for those who
can see the patterns and buy in. But what would a "just and decent world" (at least the human
population) even look like, and is there anything in our DNA that moves enough of us toward that
inchoate model to even have a prayer of suppressing those darker and deadlier impulses and motivations
and goals?
I have no answers for "what is to be done." It seems inevitable that perversion and corruption
and greed will always eventually "trump" decency and comity, once a certain size and composition
of a human population has been reached. One may hope that the general principle of eventual incompetence
that seems to apply to even the Deep State activities might become more immanent. And try to build
little communities that don't depend on killable cyber connections for their interconnectedness.
And work on an "organizing principle" of their/our own, that has a chance of surviving the crushing
mass of energetic but negative energy that infects the species.
And thanks to our hosts, for doing their bit to face down the fokkers that would take us all
down if they could. It's a constant struggle, and no doubt they are more aware than even a Futilitarian
like myself of all the parasites and malignancies that are so increasingly active and invested
in looting what's left of "antidotes."
Yes you do, the part about little communities and ad-hoc organizing principles is spot-on;
that stuff works, it just grows slowly at first. It is also self-limiting, a valuable feature,
given the manifest evidence of how badly things can go wrong when communities are pushed to grow
beyond their capacities.
It seems inevitable that perversion and corruption and greed will always eventually "trump"
decency and comity, once a certain size and composition of a human population has been reached.
Decency and comity have their little flaws, too; both can obscure incidents of gross folly.
But yeah, population factors are just ferocious.
One may hope that the general principle of eventual incompetence that seems to apply to
even the Deep State activities might become more immanent.
Not to worry. Incompetence is on it! Any second now wait for it wait for it excuse me, my timepiece
seems to have frozen hmm. Well, it appears that "peak incompetence" has already arrived and done
the bulk of its work, we just haven't noticed all of the results yet. We are now in that phase
between the giant's stumble and their final impact on the ground.
All this is normal, predictable, and as it should be (even the unfortunate parts); it's entropy.
It would be wiser to abandon bivalent moralities and just evaluate each circumstance on its merits,
and do our best.
That Ukrainian nationalists are behind propornot seems clear; that they're from the Nazified
wing seems implausible. Would the Bandera crowd be likely to think of putting a USS Liberty veterans'
website on a list of Russian propaganda outlets?
Ukrainian nationalists = Nazified Ukrainians. Israel is also involved so yes it makes a lot
of sense that the USS Liberty veterans' website on "the list". Might be time for Israel (and Genie
energy) to kiss the Golan Heights goodbye.
Yats and Porky are Jewish, so are some oligarchs who sponsor various neo-Nazi military formations.
Ihor Kolomoyskyi, for example, sponsors the Aidar Battalion. The bottom line is, the neo-Nazis
need to please their US government and Ukie oligarch sponsors in order to keep the dough flowing,
so Russians are the new Jews in Ukraine. Geopolitics makes for strange bedfellows.
Wikipedia has Yats being a member of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic and Porky belonging to the
Ukrainian Orthodox church. Not vouching for Wikipedia and knowing that history can produce some
interesting heritage, I thought I would point that out. Kolomoyskyi has dual citizenship with
Israel and of course infamous Clinton Foundation donor and Maidan supporter Victor Pinchuk was
raised by Jewish parents before sacking his own country.
The Forward certainly counts Porky as a Jew, and many Jewish organizations have attacked Yats
for concealing his Jewish roots. Given the rampant anti-antisemitism in Ukraine, can't really
blame them for concealing their identity. It was shortly before the Maidan that Mila Kunis went
back to her native Ukraine to promote her flick, and got called very unsavory names by some rabid
anti-Semites in Kiev.
" Dimitri - who asked NBC News not to use his real name - is one of dozens of teenagers in
the Macedonian town of Veles who got rich during the U.S. presidential election producing fake
news for millions on social media. "
heh. Dems didn't lose this elections because of "fake news". Dems lost because they did
not prosecute the bankers who caused the 2008 financial crash, who fraudulently foreclosed on
homes and are still engaged in fraud (see: Wells Fargo). imo.
Well that and passed a regressive health insurance bailout that required people to purchase
expensive and largely useless insurance; and showed their complete and utter contempt for working
Americans by ignoring the real state of the under and unemployment, and continued that contempt
by passing several job killing trade bills and attempting three other mega steroid versions of
same.
There are many reasons why the Democrats lost, but mostly it is because they stopped doing
little more than barely pretending to represent the interests of anyone outside of the wealthy
and corporate 'persons' who fund their campaigns and retirements. Protecting the banks and bankers
being only the clearest example.
I still don't see any of my favorite bloggers going after Bezos. I didn't even see him mentioned
until today. We are looking pretty timid so far in the face of Trump and Bezos (Trump from another
direction). No possibility of winning without fighting the war where it's taking place.
For Hire: Established corporation seeking experienced individuals in need of a challenge. Applicants
should have
*at least 3 Yrs. experience of having their head head firmly up their backsides.
* a certificate from a licensed physician confirming applicants
mental impairment
* an ability to to obfuscate combined with no understanding of the terms 'cognitive dissonance'
'false moral equivalence' and 'logical fallacy'
Applicant must be at least 13 years old and show the capacity to convince 45% of America that
he or she is 30.
Earlier in this thread there was a comment from Claudia Riche claiming the Ames article is,
essentially, a smear job. I feel compelled to respond as I have direct personal knowledge of one
of his two main points, specifically re: the extreme right-wing tenor of the Foreign Policy Research
Institute, or FPRI in Philadelphia.
I worked at FPRI (yes, me the Marxist) in the mid-to-late 1970's, and was in contact with people
there through the early 1980's. I can testify that Ames's description of Strausz-Hupe and his
ideas are entirely accurate. I didn't know much about S-H when I first started working there,
but I figured out his age and original location probably made him a 3-way spook, at the least.
I could cite chapter and verse of the various associates and leading personalities that went through
there (including Alexander Haig) but I don't have the energy today.
Ames mentions that FPRI was driven off the Penn campus well, only in the technical sense.
If you spit out the window you'd hit a university building, and many principals there were professors
at Penn, including Strausz-Hupe. Also, many Penn grad students passed through there, and undergrads
(like me).
For laughs, here is an interesting, if airbrushed, synopsis of the influence of FPRI by my
old friend Alan Luxenberg:
Here it is sorry it didn't post immediately. BTW stuff not posting immediately doesn't necessarily
mean either (1) there is anything wrong with your comment, or (2) it got permanently eaten by
Skynet. Sometimes the algorithm for finding spam gets false positives for reasons that are not
entirely clear.
that was alot of investigative digging jerri-lynn -- so nice To see u surprise me twice in a
week. tremendous effort -thank you a post worth cross posting if it hasn't been already
This is indeed a great post, but I'm not the author. Mark Ames is the author. I just cross-posted
his fine work, which was originally published by AlterNet.
The CIA's apparent involvement reveals the immense danger and probable failure of expecting
a few managers to keep the sty clean.
Its not just in spookery that standards have collapsed. The world of professionals doctors,
lawyers, accountants has followed the same downward trajectory and it started in 1970 with demonetization
and the subsequent expansion of honorable greed.
It was in early 1970s that creative accounting and its penchant for creating wealth out of
nothing appeared.Then we saw these dodgy scorers appearing in court and swearing to the truth
of their new view. That infected the legal profession. The prosecutors were still willing to present
all their evidence for and against conviction to the Judge but the defense increasingly cheated,
led by the lawyer who tells his customers 'we never plead guilty,' and starts the creation of
a case beyond a reasonable doubt in place of the defendant's actual evidence.
It may be that doctors have so far escaped the moral collapse although on a recent visit to
hospital I saw the elevator lobbies infested with the army of capitalism in the shape of suited
drug salesmen trying to create obligations on the part of doctors.
We seem to have lost our way and for the time being its the man who cares only for the bottom
line who is winning the war of the world. He's the man who owns the newspaper that tells you every
bad thing is because of foreigners.
Typically Diaspora is more nationalistic the "mainland" population. This is very true about
Ukrainian Diaspora, which partially is represented by those who fought on the side of Germany in the WWII.
They are adamantly anti-Russian.
Notable quotes:
"... Here it also bears mentioning that it has been established that Yanukovych's Party of Regions transferred $200,000 to the far right Svoboda party and about $30,000 to the nationalist UNA-UNSO. This is serious money in Ukraine. ..."
"... Firstly, most Ukrainians don't give a shit about Bandera and the OUN. So if they're not speaking out against people using those symbols or slogans it's not because they support them, but because they're more concerned with issues of pure survival. ..."
"... And then these same fascists were whitewashed as noble freedom fighters by Western MSM simply because their interests happen to allign with the interests of the US, for the moment. ..."
"... Uh, no. I haven't noticed anyone here thinking that Russia is some sort of fighter for social and economic justice. Rather, we as a group are sick of noxious propaganda driven by American Exceptionalism. ..."
"... And speaking for myself, I find the rise of Russia to be potentially a very good thing for the US itself, if it manages to curtail the MIC-driven hegemonic drive, weakens its relative power, and forces it to focus its money and energies on pressing domestic issues. ..."
"... The idea of considering Putin to be anticapitalist is risible. Putin represents a limit on a US hegemonized economic order and the greater likelihood that some portion ..."
"... This is some insidious strawman and dishonest argumentation, speaking of "BS." Nowhere does this article state that the entire Maidan revolution was a "fascist coup"-that's you putting words in the author's mouth to make his article appear to be Russian propaganda. The author specifies names of top figures in power today with seriously disturbing neo-Nazi backgrounds-the speaker of Ukraine's parliament, its Interior Minister, and head of National Police. He never once calls it a "fascist coup". Using strawman to avoid having to answer these specific allegations is bad faith commenting. ..."
"... The false analogy to Occupy shows how dishonest your comment is. No one disputes that neo-Nazi leader Parubiy was in charge of Maidan's "self-defense"; and that neo-Nazi Right Sektor played a lead role in the confrontations with the Yanukovych authorities. ..."
"... I suspect that Mr. Kovpak is a member of the Ukrainian diaspora that first infested this country starting around 1945, and has since been trying to justify the belief that the wrong side won WWII. ..."
"... "The appalling corruption of Yanukovich was replaced by the appalling corruption of Yats and Poroschenko " ..."
"... Paruiby (Neo Fascist) was in charge before and after the Maidan for security the trajectory of the bullets came from his peoples positions that shot the cops analyzed over and over ..."
"... The Nazi Asov Battalion among other organizations supporting the Regime in Kiev has Nazi symbols, objectives and is one of the main forces armed and trained by American Military. ..."
"... The entire corrupt Kiev administration is Nazi and now it appears the Clinton Campaign has direct ties well beyond the $13 million she received in her Slush Fund from the Oligarchs in 2013. The driving force behind this entire Fake News Initiative and support for Hillary is becoming more visible each day. ..."
"... Not to mention the Ukrainian Nazis penchant for shelling civilians. Or will Kovpak (Ukrainian school perhaps? Did his grandfather emigrate with the other Ukrainian SS?) will repeat the canard that unbeknownst to the locals, the rebels are shelling themselves, using artillery shells that can 180 mid-flight? ..."
"... What is the liberals' talking point these days? "Not all Trump supporters are racist, but all of them decided that racism isn't a deal-breaker. End of story." Hillary's SoS-designate Nuland and Barry 0 decided that Ukie nazism wasn't a deal breaker. End of story. ..."
"... Ukrainian neo-fascists were an integral part of the Maidan (trained in Poland, US, and Canada). ..."
"... Yes, ordinary Ukrainians protested against corruption but every U. government since 1991 has been corrupt. Yanukovich was no exception but he was also not the worst one (do some research on J. Timoshenko). ..."
"... There is enough actual footage from Maidan that shows the presence of neo-nazi members on the square from the beginning. They were also the one who completed the violent overthrow of the government that happened on 2/21-22/14 after a deal had been signed calling for early elections. The burning of 48 people in Odessa was probably done by angels, according to your likely analysis. ..."
"... So perhaps in the future instead of repeating a bunch of Russian talking points ..."
"... I was going to say something about how the CIA made Ukraine's Social Nationalist party change its name to Svoboda (freedom), to obscure the obvious Nazi connection, but instead I will just laugh at you. ..."
"... What a shocker that Jim Kovpak, the commenter who tries smearing this article as "repeating a bunch of Russian talking points" -- works for CIA-founded Voice of America and is a regular with Ukraine's "StopFake.org" which is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy , the CIA's color revolution "soft" arm - in other words, PropOrNot's folks. Can't make this stuff up. ..."
"... Wait, so in Kovpak's case our tax dollars are used to fund and disseminate propaganda to America's public, too? I am not shocked or anything, but rather amused that the vaunted American democracy and famously free media is beginning to resemble communist Bulgaria. ..."
"... Okay, but isn't it the case that many far-right leaders have migrated to parties closer to the center, such as People's Front? Svoboda's leaders have done this. Andriy Parubiy, Tetiana Chornovol, and Oleksandr Turchynov, for example, hold high positions in People's Front, but started out as members or Svoboda. If I'm not mistaken, People's Front also has strong connections to the far-right Volunteer Battalions. I believe People's Front has its own paramilitary branch too. ..."
"... What this tells me is that much of Ukraine's far-right may be masquerading as right-center. That's kind of like a political Trojan Horse operation. This way the fascists avoid standing out as far-right, but at the same time, move closer to the mechanisms of power within Ukraine's government. ..."
"... Here's an article by Lev Golinkin commenting on the far-right's strong and dangerous influence on Ukraine today. A fascist presence like this could easily be a powerful element in Ukrainian elections, very suddenly and unpredictably too. https://www.thenation.com/article/the-ukrainian-far-right-and-the-danger-it-poses/ ..."
"... This is getting darker and darker. As much as I dislike Trump I feel happier that Clinton didn't make it. The TINA party is the most reactionary thing by far! ..."
"... Sanders might have had a hard time driving as far left on FP as he did on domestic issues. I'm his constituent, and I have a letter from him from mid-'15 reiterating all the mainstream lies about Russia and Ukraine. ..."
Hello, I'm the blogger of Russia Without BS, a site you cited once in the stories about PropOrNot.
As I have recently written
on my blog
, I believe PropOrNot is most likely one person who is not linked to any real organization
group or intelligence agency. The individual is most likely what I call a cheerleader, which is
basically a person with no reasonable connection to some conflict, yet who takes a side and sort
of lives vicariously through their imagined "struggle."
That being said, you're probably not going to do yourself any favors claiming that Maidan was
a fascist coup and that fascists are in charge in Ukraine. Euromaidan was not started by right-wingers
(quite the opposite, actually), and they were not the majority of people there. Basically you
condemning Maidan is like someone condemning Occupy just because of the presence of neo-Nazis
and racists who were sometimes involved in certain Occupy chapters (this is well documented).
Without actually bothering to look at the issues involved, you are basically telling millions
of Ukrainians that they should have tolerated a corrupt, increasingly authoritarian government
that was literally stealing their future all because some right-wingers happened to latch on to
that cause too. Here it also bears mentioning that it has been established that Yanukovych's
Party of Regions transferred $200,000 to the far right Svoboda party and about $30,000 to the
nationalist UNA-UNSO. This is serious money in Ukraine.
As for the slogan, yes, Slava Ukraini, Heroiam Slava! has its origins in the OUN, but there
are some important things to consider when discussing Ukrainian history.
Firstly, most Ukrainians don't give a shit about Bandera and the OUN. So if they're not
speaking out against people using those symbols or slogans it's not because they support them,
but because they're more concerned with issues of pure survival. Look at the average salary
in Ukraine and look into some of the instances of corruption (some of which continue to this day),
and you'll understand why a lot of people aren't going to get up in arms about someone waving
the red and black flag. Most people have become very cynical and see the nationalists as provocateurs
or clowns, and thus they don't take them seriously enough.
Before you call this good points, please familiarize yourself with the (accurate) history of
the Maidan, Ukraine, neo-nazi presence in that country, and Russian history. Please Kovpak seems
to be an embodiment of what Ames tries to convey.
The more experienced observer listens to all sides; and all sides lie at least a little, if
only for their own comfort. Beyond that, subjectivity is inescapable, and any pair of subjectives
will inevitably diverge. This is not a malign intent, it's existential circumstance, the burden
of identity, of individual life.
My own (admittedly cursory) analysis happens to coincide with Jim Kovpak's first para (PropOrNot
being primarily a lone "cheerleader"). And I can see merit, and the call for dispassionate assessment,
in some of his other points. This does not mean I endorse Kovpak over Ames, or Ames over Kovpak;
both contribute to the searching discussion with cogent observation (and the inevitable measure
of subjective evaluation).
I thank both for their remarks, and also thank our gracious hosts ;).
No, but it was hijacked by fascists. It is sad that more democratic/progressive forces lost
out, but that's what happened. You seem to be trying to avoid recognizing this fact by affirming
the rightfulness of those who began the revolt. Their agency was removed not by Naked Capitalism
or Mark Ames, but by fascists who out maneuvered, spent, and gunned them. It's time to mourn,
not to defend a parasitic Frankenstein that is trying to develop a European fascist movement.
Goons from that movement assaulted and injured May Day demonstrators in Sweden this year and then
fled back to the Ukraine. They are dangerous and should not be protected with illusions.
Their agency was removed not by Naked Capitalism or Mark Ames, but by fascists who out maneuvered,
spent, and gunned them
And then these same fascists were whitewashed as noble freedom fighters by Western MSM
simply because their interests happen to allign with the interests of the US, for the moment.
Thus we have the ridiculous situation where supposedly reputable media like NYT and WaPoo
cheer on the Azov battalion and its brethren, and deny the very symbolism of the various Nazi
insignia and regalia featured on their uniforms. Jim makes some very good points, but he fell
way short in ignoring the role of the US MSM in this travesty.
And just in case someone tries to claim that we all make mistakes at times and that the MSM
made an honest mistake in regards to these neo-Nazi formations, the same thing has been happening
in Syria, where the US and its Gulf allies have armed extremists and have whitewashed their extremism
by claiming even Al Qaeda and its offshoots are noble freedom fighters.
Good on the parallel with Syria. The evolution, or distortion, of revolutionary movements as
they struggle to gain support and offensive power and then either are modified or jacked by "supporting"
external powers is not a cheering subject. The tendency to ignore that this has happened takes
two forms. One is what we are here discussing. The other is its opposite, as seen in, for example,
the way some writers try to maintain that there never was a significant democratic/progressive/humane
etc. element to the Syrian opposition.
Ukraine, as I understand it, is not monolith but has roughly 2 interest areas western and
eastern divided by the River Dnieper. The Western half is more pro-European and EU, the Eastern
half is more pro-Russia. The word "fascist" in Ukraine means something slightly different than
in means in the US and the EU. So I take your comment with a grain of salt, even though it is
interesting.
Ukraine's geographical location as the land "highway" between Europe and Asia has created a
long and embattled history there.
So perhaps in the future instead of repeating a bunch of Russian talking points because
you mistakenly think Russia is somehow opposed to US capitalism,
Uh, no. I haven't noticed anyone here thinking that Russia is some sort of fighter for
social and economic justice. Rather, we as a group are sick of noxious propaganda driven by American
Exceptionalism.
And speaking for myself, I find the rise of Russia to be potentially a very good thing
for the US itself, if it manages to curtail the MIC-driven hegemonic drive, weakens its relative
power, and forces it to focus its money and energies on pressing domestic issues.
Thirded. The idea of considering Putin to be anticapitalist is risible. Putin represents
a limit on a US hegemonized economic order and the greater likelihood that some portion
of the fruits of the Russian oligarchic capitalist effort will benefit Russians, not elites
tied to the US, because of his self-interested nationalism. Not much to cheer about but better
than where things were headed when Yeltsin was in power.
This is some insidious strawman and dishonest argumentation, speaking of "BS." Nowhere
does this article state that the entire Maidan revolution was a "fascist coup"-that's you putting
words in the author's mouth to make his article appear to be Russian propaganda. The author specifies
names of top figures in power today with seriously disturbing neo-Nazi backgrounds-the speaker
of Ukraine's parliament, its Interior Minister, and head of National Police. He never once calls
it a "fascist coup". Using strawman to avoid having to answer these specific allegations is bad
faith commenting.
The false analogy to Occupy shows how dishonest your comment is. No one disputes that neo-Nazi
leader Parubiy was in charge of Maidan's "self-defense"; and that neo-Nazi Right Sektor played
a lead role in the confrontations with the Yanukovych authorities. There is absolutely no
equivalent to this with Occupy at all. Where does this false analogy even come from? No where
does the author state that Maidan was ONLY fascists, that is again your strawman response. Maidan
had a lot of support from pro-western, pro-european, pro-liberal forces. But to deny the key and
often lead roles played by neo-fascists in the actual organization, "self defense" and violent
confrontations with the Yanukovych goons is gross whitewashing.
Much worse is the way you rationalize the fascist OUN salute by arguing that it means something
else now, or it's become normalized, etc. These are all the same bullshit arguments made by defenders
of the Confederate flag. "It means something different now." "it's about heritage/being a rebel!/individualism!"
There is no "but" to this, and anyone who claims so is an asshole of the first order. The salute
descends directly from collaborators in the Holocaust and mass-murder of Jews and Poles and collaboration
with Nazis. If people claim they don't understand its origins, then educate them on why it's so
fucked up, don't make excuses for them. Really disgusting that you'd try to rationalize this away.
There is no "but" and no excuse, period.
"Russia Without BS" is one hell of an ironic name for someone bs-ing like this. Your failure
to actually engage the article, setting up and knocking down strawmen instead, and evading, using
false analogies-reveal your own intellectual pathologies. Try responding to the actual text here,
and maybe you'll be taken seriously.
My thought was that this post was an example of the strawman fallacy. Yet certainly Mr. Kovpak
wasn't just shooting from the hip. That is, he thought about this thing, wrote it, looked it over,
and said "well enough" and posted it. Poor logic, or bad faith?
I think the tell was his characterization of the article as "repeating a bunch of Russian talking
points." What the hell is a "Russian talking point"? How do Ames' contentions follow said talking
points? Are he saying, perhaps, that Ames is another one of those Kremlin agents we've been hearing
about, or perhaps another "useful idiot"? Perhaps Ames of all people is a dupe for Putin,
right?
Hasbara, Ukrainian style. Bringing this junk onto NS, either this guy is alot of dumber than
he gives himself credit for, or he actually has no familiarity with NS, outside of the now- and
rightly-notorious WP/ProporNot blacklist. Probably the latter, since it looks like his comment
was a pre-masticated one-and-done.
I suspect that Mr. Kovpak is a member of the Ukrainian diaspora that first infested this
country starting around 1945, and has since been trying to justify the belief that the wrong side
won WWII.
I'm glad Jim Kovpak provided this background. I was very troubled to see Ames breezily smear
the Ukrainian uprising as "fascist," essentially writing off the protesters as U.S. proxies and
dismissing their grievances as either non-existent or irrelevant. Something similar has happened
in Syria, of course. Yes, the U.S. ruling blocs try to advance their interests in such places,
but if you ignore the people on the ground or dismiss them as irrelevant, you're just playing
into the hands of other tyrannical interests (in Syria: Assad, Putin, Hezbollah, etc.).
$5 billion spent over the past 25 years by the US in Ukraine (per Nuland). Yeah, they ain't
US proxies. Gla that you straightened that out for us.
The grievances in Ukraine are many and are legitimate. But that the people's anger was hijacked
by US-financed proxies is a fact. Nuland was caught dictating that Yats would be the new PM, and
darned if he didn't become just that. The appalling corruption of Yanukovich was replaced by the
appalling corruption of Yats and Poroschenko, and the country was plunged into a civil war. But
Yats and Porky are freedom-loving democrats! The old saying remains true: "They may be corrupt
SOBs, but they are our corrupt SOBs!"
Heck, for all the crocodile tears shed by the West about corruption and democracy, it has nurtured
corruption in Eastern Europe and looked the other way as democracy has been trampled. Including
in my native Bulgaria, where millions of dollars spent by the US and allied NGOs on promoting
and financing "free press" have seen Bulgaria's freedom of media ranking slip to third world levels.
But Bulgaria is a "democracy" because it is a member of the EU and NATO, and as such its elites
have done the bidding of its Western masters at the expense of Bulgaria's national interests and
the interests of its people. Ukraine is headed down that road, and all I can say to regular Ukrainians
is that they are in for an even bigger screwing down the road, cheer-led by the Western "democracies"
and "free" media.
Meddling by US hyperpower in the internal affairs and the replacement of one set of bastahds
with another set of bastahds that is beholden to the US is not progress, which is why we call
it out. After all the spilled blood and destruction sponsored by the US, can you honestly say
that Ukraine and Syria and Libya and Iraq are now better off, and that their futures are bright?
I can't, and I can't say that for my native country either. That's because this new version of
neocolonialism is the most destructive and virulent yet. And it is particularly insidious because
it fools well-meaning people, like yourself, into believing that it actually helps improve the
lives of the natives. It does not.
"The appalling corruption of Yanukovich was replaced by the appalling corruption of
Yats and Poroschenko "
That pretty much sums it up. Jim Kovpak does make some excellent points which help to understand
what the Ukranians are thinking. The discussion regarding the poor education system and potential
lack of knowledge of what certain symbolism refers to was really good. Sort of reminds me of the
Southerners in the US who still claim that the Stars and Bars is just about Southern heritage
and pride without bothering to consider the other ramifications and what the symbol means for
those who were persecuted at one time (and continuing to today). But yeah, I'm sure there are
those who think that that flag was just something the Duke boys used on the General Lee when trying
to outrun Roscoe.
All that being said, I don't believe anybody here thinks that Yanukovich was some paragon of
virtue ruling a modern utopia. The problem is that the new boss looks surprisingly familiar to
the old boss with the main difference being that the fruits of corruption are being funneled to
different parties with the people likely still getting the shaft.
If your a(just as many in the US are), it's quite possible they are also unaware of the current
US influence in their country, just as most US citizens are unaware of what the US has done in
other countries.
I'd be very interested in Jim Kovpak's thoughts on this.
$5 billion spent over the past 25 years by the US in Ukraine (per Nuland). Yeah, they
ain't US proxies. Gla[d] that you straightened that out for us.
Yes, it doesn't get any more blatant than that, and if anyone believes otherwise they are obviously
hooked on the officially sanctioned fake news, aka the MSM.
"Euromaidan was not started by right-wingers / Ukraine certainly does not have more right-wingers
than other Eastern European nations" silly at best!
Paruiby (Neo Fascist) was in charge before and after the Maidan for security the trajectory
of the bullets came from his peoples positions that shot the cops analyzed over and over
The Nazi Asov Battalion among other organizations supporting the Regime in Kiev has Nazi
symbols, objectives and is one of the main forces armed and trained by American Military.
The entire corrupt Kiev administration is Nazi and now it appears the Clinton Campaign
has direct ties well beyond the $13 million she received in her Slush Fund from the Oligarchs
in 2013. The driving force behind this entire Fake News Initiative and support for Hillary is
becoming more visible each day.
Your statements are pure propaganda and I would assume you work indirectly for Alexandra Chalupa!
Not to mention the Ukrainian Nazis penchant for shelling civilians. Or will Kovpak (Ukrainian
school perhaps? Did his grandfather emigrate with the other Ukrainian SS?) will repeat the canard
that unbeknownst to the locals, the rebels are shelling themselves, using artillery shells that
can 180 mid-flight?
"Basically you condemning Maidan is like someone condemning Occupy just because of the presence
of neo-Nazis and racists who were sometimes involved in certain Occupy chapters (this is well
documented)."
You must be kidding. Where to begin? Can we start with the simple fact that the Russian Foreign
Ministry wasn't handing out baked goods to Occupy protesters in NYC, egging them on as they tossed
molotov cocktails at police, who, strangely enough, refrained from shooting protesters until right
after a peaceful political settlement was reached? Coincidence or fate? Or maybe there is strong
evidence that right wing fanatics were the ones who started the shooting on that fateful day?
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31359021
And sorry, no matter how much Kovpak denies it, the muscle behind the "glorious revolution"
was a bunch of far-right thugs that make our American alt-right look like girl scouts. Andrei
Biletsky, leader of Azov Battalion and head of Ukraine's creatively named Social-National Assembly,
says he's committed to "punishing severely sexual perversions and any interracial contacts that
lead to the extinction of the white man."
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28329329
- Just like those hippies at Zuccotti Park, right?! Oh,and this guy received a medal from
Poroshenko.
I can keep going, but your "Maidan was just like Occupy!" argument pretty much speaks for itself.
Glory to the heroes indeed.
As someone who lived many years in Ukraine, speaks Ukrainian and Russian and knows personally
many of the people involved, yes, Ukrainians know full well the origin of the Nazi slogans that
the local Nazis spout.
That doesn't mean that the average frustrated euromaidan supporter is a Nazi, but Nazis bussed
in from Galicia did eventually provide the muscle, as it were, and the rest of the country were
willing to get in bed with them, appoint them to run ministries, and let them have independent
military units.
Those Nazis are perfectly happy to call themselves Nazis.
What is the liberals' talking point these days? "Not all Trump supporters are racist, but
all of them decided that racism isn't a deal-breaker. End of story." Hillary's SoS-designate Nuland
and Barry 0 decided that Ukie nazism wasn't a deal breaker. End of story.
To be fair, there is a fairly wide gap between 'racist' and 'violent racist of the KKK/Nazi
variety'.
Also (yes, partly preaching to the choir, but with a purpose), liberals are perfectly happy
to stay quiet about enormous income/prosecution/incarceration/kill rate differences, so long as
those targeted/affected can (bureau-/meritocratically) be described as 'druggies/criminals/"extremists"/uneducated-thus-
undeserving '. And to ignore drone bombing of brown people. Etc. So all the pearl-clutching/virtue-signaling
concerning racism is pretty easy to shrug off as concerning little more than a plea to express
one's support for racist policy in a PC fashion.
(Highly recommend The New Jim Crow , which I've only recently started reading, for no
good reason. Bizarre to realize that all of the stuff that's being reported on a little bit now
has been going on for 30 years now (30y of silence / wir-haben-es-nicht-gewusst wrt the structural
nature; note that any/all reporting that im/explicitly describes these issues as "scandals"/"excesses"
is part of the problem.)
WOW I guess we have democracy, so your comment got through. In a way, your post confirms the
existence of rabidly anti-Russian entities the very point that Mark Ames makes. But you know,
there are people who know a thing or two about Russia and Ukraine, and can easily refute much
of your diatribe. (1) Ukrainian neo-fascists were an integral part of the Maidan (trained
in Poland, US, and Canada).
Yes, ordinary Ukrainians protested against corruption but every U. government since 1991
has been corrupt. Yanukovich was no exception but he was also not the worst one (do some research
on J. Timoshenko).
Corruption persists in U. today and based on the now-required property disclosures by U.
politicians may be even worse. It is likely correct that most U. don't give a damn about Bandera
but most U. also do not have any power to do anything about the neo-nazis, as they are (at least
in the western part of the country) numerous, vocal, and prone to violence.
There is enough actual footage from Maidan that shows the presence of neo-nazi members
on the square from the beginning. They were also the one who completed the violent overthrow of
the government that happened on 2/21-22/14 after a deal had been signed calling for early elections.
The burning of 48 people in Odessa was probably done by angels, according to your likely analysis.
(2) But it is your comments about the U. neo-nazi participation in the war that seem to clarify
who you really represent. This participation was not much discussed during the soviet times
I only found out that they continued to fight against the soviet state long after the war ended
recently from family members who witnessed it (in Belorussia, west. Ukr., and eastern Czechoslovakia).
Some of them witnessed the unspeakable cruelty of these Ukr. "troops" against villagers and any
partisans they could find. White-washing this period (or smearing soviet educational system) will
not help there is plenty of historical evidence for those who are interested in the subject.
(3) What you say about the Russian state promoting this or that is just a scurrilous attack,
with no proof. Not even worth exploring. On the other hand, there are plenty of documented murders
of Ukr. journalists (google Buzina a highly intelligent and eloquent Ukr. journalist, who was
gunned down in front of his home; there are quite a few others).
Ukr. in 2014 may have been protesting inept government, but what they ended up with is far
worse by any measure, Ukr. standard of living has gone way down. But now, the industrial base
of the country has been destroyed, and the neo-nazi genie will not go back into the bottle any
time soon. Ukr. as a unified place did not exist until after WWI, and the great divisions brought
starkly into contrast by the 2014 destruction of the state cannot be papered over anytime soon.
Appreciate the points you bring up but if the Ukranians truly want an end to an exploitative
system, they probably are not going to get it by allying themselves with Uncle Sugar. The US provided
billions of dollars to foment the coup and our oligarchs expect a return on that investment
they aren't going to suddenly start trust funds for all Ukranians out of the goodness of their
hearts. You are aware of that aren't you?
So perhaps in the future instead of repeating a bunch of Russian talking points
I was going to say something about how the CIA made Ukraine's Social Nationalist party
change its name to Svoboda (freedom), to obscure the obvious Nazi connection, but instead I will
just laugh at you.
Hahahahahaha!
What a shocker that Jim Kovpak, the commenter who tries smearing this article as "repeating
a bunch of Russian talking points" -- works for CIA-founded
Voice of America and is
a regular with Ukraine's
"StopFake.org"
which is
funded
by the National Endowment for Democracy , the CIA's color revolution "soft" arm - in other
words, PropOrNot's folks. Can't make this stuff up.
Wait, so in Kovpak's case our tax dollars are used to fund and disseminate propaganda to
America's public, too? I am not shocked or anything, but rather amused that the vaunted American
democracy and famously free media is beginning to resemble communist Bulgaria. The good news
is that by the 80's nobody believed the state and its propagandists, even on the rare occasion
they were telling the truth, and America's people seem to be a bit ahead of the curve already,
which may explain the "fake news" hysteria from the creators and disseminators of fake news.
Ukraine certainly does not have more right-wingers than other Eastern European nations,
but if you look at their polls and elections you see that the far-right in Ukraine does far
worse than it does in other Eastern and even Western European countries
Okay, but isn't it the case that many far-right leaders have migrated to parties closer
to the center, such as People's Front? Svoboda's leaders have done this. Andriy Parubiy, Tetiana
Chornovol, and Oleksandr Turchynov, for example, hold high positions in People's Front, but started
out as members or Svoboda. If I'm not mistaken, People's Front also has strong connections to
the far-right Volunteer Battalions. I believe People's Front has its own paramilitary branch too.
What this tells me is that much of Ukraine's far-right may be masquerading as right-center.
That's kind of like a political Trojan Horse operation. This way the fascists avoid standing out
as far-right, but at the same time, move closer to the mechanisms of power within Ukraine's government.
Here in America we saw something like that in the early 1990s, when KKK leader David Duke migrated
to the political mainstream by running for office as a Republican in Louisiana. Of course Duke
never changed his views, he just learned to dissemble himself in the way he sold his politics
to the public.
This is getting darker and darker. As much as I dislike Trump I feel happier that Clinton
didn't make it. The TINA party is the most reactionary thing by far!
Yes, these are dangerous people, as are most "true believers". I'm also becoming even more
disappointed at Ms, Clinton. For a while, she seemed to be keeping a little distance from her
dead-enders, but now that her and Bill are out back on the money trail (How much is enough?),
it doesn't look good.
Selling fear? Really? Isn't there a shelf life on that?
I'm not certain about the contents of that crock, good sir. We now live in a "culture" where
st IS gold. Otherwise, why are we now enduring a "popular press" full of "wardrobe malfunctions,"
new amazing bikini bodies, salacious gossip, and equally salacious "news?" (The Page Three was
shut down really because there was too much competition.)
Oh tempura, oh s'mores! (Latinate for "We're crisped!")
Indeed. The above article is great, great stuff and shows why some of us found Hillary more
disturbing than Trump. Therefore Ames' final assumption
And the timing is incredible-as if Bezos' rag has taken upon itself to soften up the
American media before Trump moves in for the kill.
seems a bit off. It's certainly true that Trump said news organizations should face greater
exposure to libel laws but one suspects this has more to do with his personal peevishness and
inability to take criticism than the Deep State-y motives described above. Clearly the "public
versus private" HillaryNixon in a pant suitwould have been just the person to embrace this sort
of censorship by smear and her connection with various shadowy exiles and in her own campaign
no less shows why Sanders' failure to make FP the center of his opposition was, if not a political
mistake, at least evidence of his limited point of view.
It's unlikely that anyone running this time would be able to change our domestic trajectory
but this fascism from abroad is a real danger IMO. In Reagan times some of us thought that Reagan
supported reactionary governments abroad because that's what he and his rogue's gallery including
Casey and North wished they could do here. The people getting hysterical over Trump while pining
for Hillary don't seem to know fascism when it's right in front of them. Or perhaps it's just
a matter of whose ox is going to be gored.
Sanders might have had a hard time driving as far left on FP as he did on domestic issues.
I'm his constituent, and I have a letter from him from mid-'15 reiterating all the mainstream
lies about Russia and Ukraine.
No surprise, ever since the US, and Biden, got involved in Ukraine. And it is even probable,
that people like that were behind the Kennedy assassination, that the US has admitted was a conspiracy,
that is still protected from "journalistic sunshine" under lock and key by the US government.
Thanks for giving this article its own post, and thanks to dcblogger for providing the
link in yesterday's Water Cooler.
Seems to me that this little bout of D-party/CIA incompetence, and/or incontinence, will finally
sound the death knell for the Operation Paperclip gang's plan. Good riddance.
"... The MSM has lost control of the narrative. The big dailies continue to hemorrhage ad revenue, month in and month out, year in and year out. Their existence going forward will be even more dependent on government assistance. Fake News is the pathetic death rattle of the neoliberal order. ..."
More importantly, the editor's note vaults into verbal gymnastics in an attempt to simultaneously
rationalize and distance itself from an obviously flawed primary source. Any data analysis is
only as good as the sum of its parts, and it's clear that PropOrNot's methodology was lacking.
The Post, of course, was merely reporting what PropOrNot said . Yet it used declarative
language throughout, sans caveat, lending credence to a largely unknown organization that lumps
together independent left-wing publications and legitimately Russian-backed news services. The
Post diminished its credibility at a time when media credibility is in short supply, and the non-apologetic
editor's note doesn't help.
Almost two weeks after its article ran, the Post ran a
sort of correction in the form of an editorial comment in italics pasted on top of the online
edition of Timberg's November 24 piece (where only those looking for the by then old original
story would find it). In that note, the editors say that the paper
did not name any of the sites [on PropOrNot's blacklist], does not itself vouch for the
validity of PropOrNot's findings regarding any individual media outlet, nor did the article
purport to do so. Since publication of the Post 's story, PropOrNot has removed some
of those sites from its list.
Of course, the damage was already done, as the original article achieved widespread circulation
via the Post 's wire service; it would be up to all those news organizations that bought
and ran the story, or reported their own versions of it, to make any correction.
Meanwhile, the facile dodge of "we didn't name the sites" ignores the reality that the Post
had prominently showcased PropOrNot and let its name vouch for the heretofore unknown group's
credibility. The paper didn't have to run the list; anyone with a smartphone could do a Google
search, find PropOrNot's website as the first listing, go to the homepage and find a link
button headed "The List."
And apparently plenty of readers did that. While thanks to the Post 's grant of anonymity,
PropOrNot's hidden principals remained safe from inquiring reporters and Russian hackers alike,
editors of sites named on its McCarthyite hit list quickly found themselves deluged with venomous
calls and emails. As Jeffrey St. Clair, a co-founder and editor of CounterPunch.org , another
site listed prominently as a propaganda tool, recalls, "The morning after the Post published
its article, I found 1,000 emails in my inbox, mostly hate mail and death threats."
Expert media commentators criticized the Post's handwave in the form of an editor's note
that it placed at the top of a story that is now history, as opposed to news. The mild concession
is likely to be read only by fans of the 199 sites that were defamed by the Post, and journalists
who've taken interest in the row and not the vast public that read the story through the post
and other major outlets, like USA Today, that re-reported or syndicated Timberg's piece.
It all depends upon who you follow on Twitter, but from my check-in's today, the WaPo is not
coming off well.
This whole 'fake news' mess is downright weird.
I have trouble understanding how anyone can govern, given the growing legitimacy problems.
It seems as if there are (very well greased) wheels within (extravagantly funded) wheels moving
behind the scenes.
Meanwhile, apparently Obama has formally requested that the Intel Community develop a 'consensus
report' about the role of the Russians in this most recent election (per Emptywheel). "Senior
officials' in Congress have already been briefed, and some are apparently leaking: this much smoke
signals a battle royale behind the scenes.
The worst possible outcome, IMVHO, is failing to investigate and come clean.
Every time our government is too gutless to deal with reality - whether WMD, or the Financial
Crisis - the legitimacy of government is further eroded. It would be helpful if Hillary renounced
the Presidency, and agreed that even if the election should be overturned, that she would defer
to some other person. The investigation should not be used as a recount, nor as a re-do. It should
function only to restore credibility to the US federal government, and for no other reason.
Unfortunately for Trump, if he blocks this kind of investigation, it will only diminish his
credibility, and weaken the very power he seeks to hold.
Life is full of paradoxes and mysteries; this one takes the cake.
I agree with your comment re Twitter, but Twitter is heavy with journalists who love the story
of a media fight. This is catnip to them.
The Washington Post story was tweeted far more heavily when it first ran than the follow-on
criticism was. The story proper got 14,800 comments. It was picked up by USA Today, CNN, and I
haven't even begun to track how many different other publishers. The original reach was at least
an order of magnitude, and probably two orders of magnitude, bigger than the discussion of the
itty bitty walkback.
Please see our Tip Jar in the right column. It tells you how to donate using a debit or credit
card, or send a check.
We had a recent emergency fundraiser, and some of that has already been allocated to extra
site coverage (to have others do more site-minding and content generation so as to free me up
to spend time on this stuff) and the other part (a bit more than half the total) is to fund expenses
for litigation.
Is this episode really Bezos carrying water for a faction of the deep state? They had to have
known that if you malign the entirety of the alt media-left and right that they'd show their teeny
little teeth.
I bet they feed this chump Timberg to the crocodiles ultimately. Meanwhile Mark Ames will ferret
out the weird nexus of Ukrainian Nazi types. But since the WaPo will take the heat and the public
will lose interest, nobody will care. But in the end the 4 or 5 folks who came up with this scheme
will have achieved their goals:
*Throw mud on non corporate news reportage.
*Fire a warning shot over Trumps bow
*Plant seeds with the population for the future when some ginned up provocation will again put
Russia in the crosshairs of a black propaganda campaign.
These archonic m_fers are relentless. Russia represents an independent power which absolutely
cannot be permitted by Empire. This is part of a long term strategy to box Russia in. They are
seen as the weaker of the Sino Russian partnership and are being targeted first.
Not having witnessed anything like this before I'm having trouble understanding the strategy
here. What potential end game is there in dealing directly with PropOrNot? Jim Moody's time is
valuable, Yves' time is valuable, but they seem likely to be a few nobodies who no one would have
paid any attention to if the Washington Post hadn't amplified the reach of their amateurish operation
by factor of a million.
I think you said it all there without maybe realizing it - PropOrNot may seem like
harmless nobodies and, left to their own devices and not given the oxygen of publicity that is
what they'd have remained.
But there are no accidents in life. The Washington Post (and do keep in mind its owner)
picked up on their output and played their tune on the Mighty Media Wurlitzer thereby amplifying
it. That alone is suggestive that PropOrNot may not be the two guys working out of their Mom's
basement which it is easy to think they might be.
Add in the fact that - worldwide now, I can tell you that even outside the U.S. this whole
"fake news" meme is still getting lots of airtime, the BBC in England is running 'Russia Hacked
the U.S. Election' stories right now as I watch and the Japanese language media has similar too
- what the Washington Post is seeking to do looks very well orchestrated and coordinated it means
that you must not take anything at face value here.
The MSM is all in. Last night the PBS Newshour ran the first in a series of stories
on FakeNews, with favorably framed clips of Clinton and Sheryl Sandberg, and an extended
interview with Marc Fisher of the WaPo. Oddly, no mention of the PropOrNot fiasco.
It doesn't take a tin foil hat to believe the globalist-neocon-neolib-blob_thing feels it necessary
to delegitimize Trump and Trump's election in order to reassure its merry band of practitioners
that it's still biz as usual in the One World.
And tho it may seem a challenge to re-paint "Lying Hillary" as the beacon of truth, challenges
are what keep one motivated and ever stronger. No pain no gain.
P.S. Irony Of The Year Award goes to Russia for hacking and releasing real news. If we are
giving them the credit for DNC hacks and Hillary's secret private server discovery.
I went to a fundraiser last night where the very politically involved crowd was largely liberal
and one of the award presenters brought up 'fake news' during her speech. If I'm not mistaken
a member of this woman's family was one of Clinton's superdelegates. This 'fake news' meme is
definitely being spread far and wide.
We need to pursue the source of the defamation. See the BuzzFeed story yesterday, which is
generally very sympathetic to our position. Yet even that reporter says, Why have you gone after
the Post and not ProOrNot too?
I think this is at the very most six guys and probably more like two or three, for reasons
not worth taking the time to explain. And do not forget that the New Yorker said not only they
but other major pubs were shown the story and passed on it.
So the question is more: why did the Post pick up on obvious rubbish and treat it as newsworthy?
This may have less to do with grand conspiracy as much as a bad intersection of events, such as:
the Post under Bezos explicitly placing much more pressure on reporters to churn out stories quickly,
which means less fact checking; hysteria over Russia and fake news; and individual reporters and
editors seeing it as to their advantage to be in front of a hot area, no matter at what risk.
Recall the Post has run such nutty stories as one saying that Hillary's 9/11 collapse was due
to Putin poisoning her.
I think WAPO picked it up because they were obviously all in for Clinton during the election.
Whether Bezos was the hand behind this or not, WAPO has certainly focused on Trump. They even
admitted they were doing it as Bob Woodward disclosed in a Zero Hedge article. And of course,
WAPO assisted Clinton against Sanders with their coverage which has been documented many times.
Now Clinton is on the bandwagon of the fake news fiasco. She just gave a speech about it Thursday.
Thanks Yves (and Clive) for the responses. My concern is that if a shoddy three-man operation,
paired with a useful idiot MSM amplifier, can provoke a response that puts sites like NC on the
defensive and takes time from original reporting, it could be a template for quick-and-dirty future
attacks against independent media outlets. It seems like the amplifier is the only part of the
chain that can't just change domain names and set up shop somewhere else.
But I can see how ignoring them entirely isn't an optimal solution either. I'll keep throwing
my change in the tip jar and seeing how it all unfolds.
The PorN site is a dark site. We don't know who the principals are or where its funding comes
from. YYYYvesYYY also said NC needs to know what jurisdiction to file in in order to pursue PorN,
but that is not even known at this point. But in the Wapo response to TruthDig, Wapo stated they
did have "numerous" discussions with some persons at PorN before running the story.
So you got to shake the tree by the branches you can grab. The ball is now in Wapo's court
to state, "Journalistic integrity demands we do not reveal our sources in order to protect their
safety."
Meanwhile PorN is calling upon the entire USG security apparatus to investigate 200 websites
for Treason, but we are unsure about which country[government] Treason is being committed against
in One World. This doesn't sound like a very safe situation for simple minded provincial US citizen
homebodies.
I have been browsing your links for many years now I find them well balanced, genuine, thought
provoking, and usually quite deep. And it is not just me your quality is well recognized among
financial online community and punditry.
It is important you treat this thing with the right kind of attention. This is not mccarthian.
If it would be, you would be locked down in some hole in a secret location. This is somebody claiming
you have silicone tits and an extramarital affair with Michael Moore. Nobody gives a shit about
this, or their software, or WaPo and thir article even if it gets 10 million retweets. Twitter
attention span is 1 minute.
Sure, sue everybody. But never give them an aureola of some dark sinister power. Ridicule them
every way of the step. Ridicule "newspapers of record". Ridicule retweets. Have fun with it. Find
new cases of such crap, where you personally are not affected. Help Melania Trump in her great
fight against online violence :-)
Just never concede to this as a "media fight" or "two versions of reality". This has nothing
to do with news or reality. Do not give them that ground. This is some insignificant ass claiming
you have fake tits, and it was picked up by an obsolete marketing tool called WaPo. A claim of
an extramarital affair with Michael Moore would probably get even more coverage and more retweets
and I bet some cable news discussions about public health consequences of missionary position
with such a voluptuous man.
We are fighting a legal battle and a political battle. The need to do both somewhat restricts
our degrees of freedom. The political battle is ultimately the far more important one, since the
"fake news" scare is part of a major push to restrict content on the web, by de facto rather than
de jure means.
you're kidding yourself, every time lately that I look at mainstream headlines the fake news
story is there near the top, can no longer stomach the news hour but another commenter says they're
doing a series think about all those proper folks demanding their kids not read alternative views?
The only consolation I can think of is that hillary lost because clearly this story was put out
in advance of her losing and would still be amplified had she won, .the outcome looks bleak either
way from here might as well fight it
I can tell you these fake news websites articles were heavily promoted here in Europe, so the
consequences are wide spread world wide.
I tried to explain the reasons and people behind ProporNot, but my comments were censored on
3 of the biggest digital newspapers in The Netherlands, some of them are in close contact with
Soros.
We have national elections in March 2017 and I can tell you the majority of the people are
mad as hell and they know the news presented to them in the MSM are/were heavily biased
towards Clinton. The MSM are sh*t scared what will happen in March 2017, an earthquake in the
political landscape. All the liberal political leaders are now suddenly promoting political stuff
that was unimaginable 2 years ago.
I have followed your website on and off the last 5 years and the idea that you are guided by
the Ruskies is absolutely preposterous even insane.
I just wonder, was Wapo so blinded by the total unexpected loss of Clinton that they keep on
publicing this nonsense or is it the trench war by Trump through his tweets. Wapo must have been
aware of the amateurish drivel from Propornot and took a big risk of being exposed as havily biased
and unprofessional with a heavy backlash.
Anyways, I would like to donate to you in this battle, do you accept Paypal as well.
I wish you and your team lots of success, Yves in this battle for truth.
However, if PropOrNot doesn't respond you might be able to get their Whois privacy provider
to get you the real owner's details click on "File a Claim" at
https://www.domainsbyproxy.com/default.aspx
to see their process.
I realize that there were a number of right wing news outlets included in this de facto
censorship effort. But, they seem to be in a much stronger position than the left wing ones.
Wider distribution, less choosy about what they'll run, favored by the incoming power elite, etc.
Except, perhaps for a few paleocons-turned-libertarian-contrarians like Paul Craig Roberts. The
Drudge Report types seem less vulnerable.
I haven't been paying as much attention as I should to post a comment. But, first order, it
looks like this imbalance may pertain to targeting. No one could expect to dull the impact of
the Drudge Report by including it in an app of this kind. It is simply too prominent. Therefore,
dampening the influence of the Drudge Report (and similar sites) was not the point of this little
exercise.
Slurring the actual targets by including Drudge & company in the app seems . more the point.
Last night the PBS Newshour did a segment on "fake news." They are also participating in the
current PBS pledge drive. Perhaps they are hoping that George Soros will send them a big check.
One had hoped that the show would improve now that the election is over. One was wrong.
The MSM has lost control of the narrative. The big dailies continue to hemorrhage ad revenue,
month in and month out, year in and year out. Their existence going forward will be even more
dependent on government assistance. Fake News is the pathetic death rattle of the neoliberal order.
Short-termism is a real problem for the US politicians. It is only now the "teeth of dragon"
sowed during domination of neoliberalism since 80th start to show up in unexpected places. And reaction
is pretty predictable. As one commenter said: "Looks like the CIA's latest candidate for regime change
is the USA."
Notable quotes:
"... Divide and Control is being brilliantly employed once again against 'us'. The same tactics used against foreign countries are being used here at home on 'us'. ..."
"... Divide and Conquer, yes indeed, watch McCain and Graham push this Russian hacking angle hard. ..."
"... i regard this 'secret' CIA report, following on from the 'fake news' meme, to be another of what will become a never-ending series of attempts to deligitemize Trump, so that later on this year the coming economic collapse (and shootings, street violence, markets etc) can be more successfully blamed not only on Trump and his policies, but by extension, on the Russians. (a two-fer for the globalist statists) ..."
"... Nevermind that many states voting machines are on private networks and are not even connected to the internet. ..."
"... The Russians 'might' have influenced the election..... The American Government DID subvert and remove a democratically elected leader (Ukraine).Anyone see the difference there? ..."
"... Voted for Trump, but the Oligarcy picked him too. Check the connection between Ross and Trump and Wilburs former employer. TPTB laughs at all of us ..."
"... The sad facts are the CIA itself and it's massive propaganda arm has its gummy fingers all over this election and elections all over the planet. ..."
"... The Russians, my ass. ................. The CIA are famous for doing nefarious crap and blaming their handy work on someone else. Crap that usually causes thousands of deaths. ... Even in the KGB days the CIA was the king of causing chaos. ..... the KGB would kill a dissident or spy or two and the CIA in the same time frame would start a couple of wars killing thousands or millions. ..."
"... What makes people think the Post is believable? The truth has been hijacked by their self annihilating ideology. Honestly one would have to be dumb as a fence 'Post' (pun intended) to believe ANYTHING coming from this rag and the rest of these 'Fake News' MSM propaganda machines, good lord! ..."
"... As for the CIA, it was reported at the time to be largely purged under the Dubya administration, of consitutionalists and other dissidents to the 9-11 -->> total-war program. Stacked to the brim with with neocon cadres. ..."
"... Out of the 3,153 counties in this country, Hillary Clinton won only 480. A dismal and pathetic 15% of this country. The worst showing EVER for a presidential candidate. ..."
"... The much vaunted 2 million vote lead in the popular vote can be attributed to exactly 4 boroughs in NYC; Bronx, Queens, Manhattan, & Brooklyn ..."
"... 96 MILLION Americans were either too disgusted, too lazy, or too apathetic to even bother to go out and cast a vote for ANYONE in this election. ..."
"... Looks like the CIA's latest candidate for regime change is the USA. ..."
"... Clapper sat in front of congress and perjured himself. When confronted with his perjury he defended himself saying he told them the "least untruthful thing" he could - admitting he had not problem whatsoever about lying to Congress. ..."
"... There certainly is foreign meddling in US government policy but it is not coming from Russia. The countries that have much greater influence than Russia on 'our' government are the Sunni-dominated Persian Gulf oil states including the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and, of course, that bastion of human rights, Saudi Arabia. ..."
"... Oil money from these states has found its way into influentual think tanks including the Brookings Institution, the Atlantic Council, the Middle East Institute and the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies and others. ..."
"... And also, there are arms sales. Arm sales to Saudi/Gulf States come with training. With training comes military ties, foreign policy ties and even intelligence ties. Saudi Arabia, with other Gulf oil states as partners, practically owns the CIA now. ..."
"... Reverse Blockade: emphatically insisting upon something which is the opposite of the truth blocks the average person's mind from perceiving the truth. In accordance with the dictates of healthy common sense, he starts searching for meaning in the "golden mean" between truth and its opposite, winding up with some satisfactory counterfeit. People who think like this do not realize that this effect is precisely the intent of the person who subjects them to this method. ..."
"... I recall lots of "consensus views" that were outright lies, bullshit and/or stupidity: "The Sun circles the Earth. The Earth is flat. Global cooling / next ice age (1970s). Global warming (no polar ice) 1990s-00's. Weapons of mass destruction." You can keep your doctor. ..."
"... The CIA, Pentagon and "intelligence" agencies need both a cleaning and culling ..."
"... Blacklist Promoted by the Washington Post Has Apparent Ties to Ukrainian Fascism and CIA Spying. ..."
"... This whopper of a story from the CIA makes the one fabricated about WMD's in Iraq that fooled Bush Jr. and convinced him to almost take this country down by violating the sage advice on war strategy from Sun-Tzu and Clausewitz and opening up a second front in Iraq almost child's play. ..."
"... At least with the WMD story they had false witnesses and some made up evidence! With this story, there is no "HUMINT (human intelligence) sources" and no physical evidence, just some alleged traces that could have been actually produced from the ether or if they knew ahead of time of Trump's possible win sent someone to Russia and had them actually run the IP routes for show. ..."
"... Bush was misled because the CIA management was scared of some of his budgetary saber rattles and his chasing after some CIA management. In this case, someone is really scared of what the people will find when the swam gets drained, if ever it gets done. This includes so-called "false flag conservatives" like Lindsey Graham and top Democrats "Cambridge 5 Admirers" salted in over the years into the CIA ..."
"... Trump has already signaled he is going hand them nearly unlimited power by appointing Pompeo in the first place. I would think they would be very happy to welcome the incoming administration with open arms. ..."
"... I could see it if they were really that pissed about Trumps proposed Russian re-set and maybe they are but even that has to be in doubt because of the rate at which Trump is militarizing his cabinet. ..."
"... In all reality Trump is a MIC, intelligence cabal dream come true, so why would they even consider biting the hand that feeds so well? Perhaps their is more going on here under the surface, maybe all the various agencies and bureaucracies are not playing nice, or together for that matter. ..."
"... after all the CIA and the Pentagon's proxy armies are already killing each other in Syria so one has to wonder in what other arenas are they clashing? ..."
"... The neocons are desperate. Their war monger Hitlery lost by a landslide now they fabricate all sorts of irrational BS. ..."
"... 'CIA Team B' ..."
"... 'Committee on the Present Danger' ..."
"... 'Office of Special Plans' ..."
"... Trump is a curious fellow. I've thought about this quite a bit and tried to put myself in his shoes. He has no friends in .gov, no real close "mates" he can depend on, especially in his own party, so he had to start from scratch to put his cabinet together. ..."
"... It could very well be that this was Trump & the establishment plan to con the American public from the start of course. I kind of doubt it, since the efforts of the establishment to destroy Trump was genuinely full retard from the outset and still continues. ..."
"... He would have done better to ignore the political divide to choose those who have spent their lives challenging the Deep State. My ignorance of US politics does not supply me with a complete picture, but Ron Paul, David Kucinich, Trey Gowdy, Tulsi Gabard and even turncoat Bernie Sanders would have been better to drain the swamp than the neocon zionists he has installed in power. ..."
It is worse than "shiny object." Human brains have a latency issue - the first time they hear
something, it sticks. To unstick something, takes a lot of counter evidence.
So, a Goebbels-like big lie, or shiny object can be told, and then it can take on a life of
its own. False flags operate under this premise. There is an action (false flag), and then false
narrative is issued into press mouthpieces immediately. This then plants a shiny object in sheeple
brains. It then takes too much mental effort for average sheeple to undo this narrative, so "crowds"
can be herded.
Six million dead is a good example of this technique.
Fortunately, with the internet, "supposed fake news sites like ZH" are spreading truth so fast
- that shiny stories issued by our Oligarch overlords are being shot down quickly.
Bezo's, who owns Washington Post, is taking rents by avoiding sales taxes; not that I'm a fan
of sales taxes. But, ultimately, Bezos is taking rental thefts, and he is afraid of Trump - who
may change the law, hence collapse the profit scheme of Amazon.
Cognitive Dissonance -> Oldwood Dec 10, 2016 10:49 AM
Oldwood. I have a great deal of respect for you and your intelligent opinions.
My only concern is our constant and directed attention towards the 'liberals' and 'progressives'.
When we do so we are thinking it is 'them' that are the problem.
In fact it is the force behind 'them' that is the problem. If we oppose 'them', we are wasting
our energy upon ghosts and boogeymen.
Divide and Control is being brilliantly employed once again against 'us'. The same tactics
used against foreign countries are being used here at home on 'us'.
chunga -> Cognitive Dissonance Dec 10, 2016 11:33 AM
I've been reading what the blue-teamers are saying over on the "Democratic Underground" site
and for a while they've been expressing it's their "duty" to disrupt this thing. They are now
calling Trump a "Puppet Regime".
Divide and Conquer, yes indeed, watch McCain and Graham push this Russian hacking angle
hard. Also watch for moar of the Suprun elector frauds pop out of the woodwork. The Russian
people must be absolutely galvanized by what's happening, USSA...torn into many opposing directions.
dark pools of soros -> chunga Dec 10, 2016 1:38 PM
First tell them to change their name to the Progressive Party of Globalists. Then remind them
that many democrats left them and voted for Trump.. Remind them again and again that if they really
want to see blue states again, they have to actually act like democrats again
I assure you that you'll be banned within an hour from any of their sites
American Gorbachev -> Oldwood Dec 10, 2016 10:12 AM
not an argument to the contrary, but one of elongating the timing
i regard this 'secret' CIA report, following on from the 'fake news' meme, to be another
of what will become a never-ending series of attempts to deligitemize Trump, so that later on
this year the coming economic collapse (and shootings, street violence, markets etc) can be more
successfully blamed not only on Trump and his policies, but by extension, on the Russians. (a
two-fer for the globalist statists)
with a political timetable operative as well, whereby some (pardon the pun :) trumped up excuse
for impeachment investigations/proceedings can consume the daily news during the run-up to the
mid-term elections (with the intent of flipping the Senate and possibly House)
these are very powerful, patient, and deliberate bastards (globalist statists) who may very
well have engineered Trump's election for the very purpose of marginalizing, near the point of
eliminating, the rural, christian, middle-class, nationalist voices from subsequent public debate
Oldwood -> American Gorbachev Dec 10, 2016 10:21 AM
The problem is that once Trump becomes president, he will have much more power to direct the
message as well as the many factions of government agencies that would otherwise be used to substantiate
so called Trump failures. This is a calculated risk scenario for them, but to deny Trump the presidency
by far produces more positives for them than any other.
They will have control of the message and will likely shut down much of alternate media news.
It is imperative that Trump be stopped BEFORE taking the presidency.
sleigher -> overbet Dec 10, 2016 10:00 AM
"I read one morons comment that the IP address was traced back to a Russian IP. Are people
really that dumb? I can post this comment from dozens of country IPs right now."
Nevermind that many states voting machines are on private networks and are not even connected
to the internet. IP addresses from Russia mean nothing.
kellys_eye -> Nemontel Dec 10, 2016 9:40 AM
The Russians 'might' have influenced the election..... The American Government DID subvert
and remove a democratically elected leader (Ukraine).Anyone see the difference there?
Paul Kersey -> Nemontel Dec 10, 2016 9:40 AM
"Most of our politicians are chosen by the Oligarchy."
And most of our politicians choose the Oligarchy. Trump's choices:
Anthony Scaramucci, Goldman Sachs
Gary Cohn, Goldman Sachs
Steven Mnuchin. Goldman Sachs
Steve Bannon, Goldman Sachs
Jared Kushner, Goldman Sachs
Wilbur Ross, Rothschild, Inc
The working man's choices.....very limited.
Paul Kersey -> Paul Kersey Dec 10, 2016 10:27 AM
"Barack Obama received more money from Goldman Sachs employees than any other corporation.
Tim Geithner, Obama's first treasury secretary, was the protege of one-time Goldman CEO Robert
Rubin. "
"The more things change, the more they stay the same."
Nameshavebeench... -> Nemontel Dec 10, 2016 11:53 AM
If Trump gets hit, the 'official story' of who did it will be a lie.
There needs to be a lot of online discussion about this ahead of time in preparation. If/when
the incident happens, there needs to be a successful counter-offensive that puts an end to the
Deep State. (take from that what you will)
We've seen the MO many times now;
Pearl Harbor
Iran in the 50's
Congo
Vietnam
Most of Latin America many times over
JFK
911
Sandy Hook
Boston Marathon 'Bombings'
Numerous 'mass shootings'
The patterns are well established & if Trump gets hit it should be no surprise, now the 'jackals'
need to be exterminated.
Also, keep in mind that everything we're hearing in all media just might be psyops/counter-intel/planted
'news' etc.
sgt_doom -> Nemontel Dec 10, 2016 1:25 PM
Although I have little hope for this happening, ideally Trump should initiate full forensic
audits of the CIA, NSA, DIA and FBI. The last time a sitting president undertook an actual audit
of the CIA, he had his brains blown out (President John F. Kennedy) and the Fake News (CBS, NBC,
ABC, etc.) reported that a fellow who couldn't even qualify as marksman, the lowest category (he
was pencilled in) was the sniper.
Then, on the 50th anniversary of that horrible coup d'etat, another Fake News show (NPR) claimed
that a woman in the military who worked at the rifle range at Atsuga saw Oswald practicing weekly
- - absurd on the fact of it, since women weren't allowed at military rifle ranges until the late
1970s or 1980s (and I doublechecked and there was never a woman assigned there in the late 1950s).
Just be sure he has trustworthy bodyguards, unlike the last batch of phony Secret Service agents
(and never employ anyone named Elmer Moore).
2rigged2fail -> Nemontel Dec 10, 2016 4:04 PM
Voted for Trump, but the Oligarcy picked him too. Check the connection between Ross and
Trump and Wilburs former employer. TPTB laughs at all of us
All these Russian interference claims require one to believe that the MSM and democrat machine
got out played and out cheated by a bunch of ruskies. This is the level of desperation the democrats
have fallen too. To pretend to be so incompetent that the Russians outplayed and overpowered their
machine. But I guess they have to fall on that narrative vs the fact that a "crazy" real estate
billionaire with a twitter account whipped their asses.
Democrats, you are morally and credulously bankrupt. all your schemes, agenda's and machinations
cannot put humpty dumpty back together again. So now it is another period of scorched earth. The
Federal Bureaucracy will fight Trump tooth and nail, joined by the democrats in the judiciary,
and probably not a few rino's too.
It is going to get ugly, like a machete fight. W. got a taste of it with his Plame affair,
the brouhaha over the AGA firings, the regime of Porter Goss as DCI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter_Goss
DuneCreature -> cherry picker Dec 10, 2016 10:30 AM
The sad facts are the CIA itself and it's massive propaganda arm has its gummy fingers
all over this election and elections all over the planet.
The Russians, my ass. ................. The CIA are famous for doing nefarious crap and
blaming their handy work on someone else. Crap that usually causes thousands of deaths. ... Even
in the KGB days the CIA was the king of causing chaos. ..... the KGB would kill a dissident or
spy or two and the CIA in the same time frame would start a couple of wars killing thousands or
millions.
You said a mouth full, cherry picker. ..... Until the US Intel community goes 'bye bye' the
world will HATE the US. ... People aren't stupid. They know who is behind the evil shit.
... ... ..
G-R-U-N-T Dec 10, 2016 9:39 AM
What makes people think the Post is believable? The truth has been hijacked by their self
annihilating ideology. Honestly one would have to be dumb as a fence 'Post' (pun intended) to
believe ANYTHING coming from this rag and the rest of these 'Fake News' MSM propaganda machines,
good lord!
Colborne Dec 10, 2016 9:37 AM
As for the CIA, it was reported at the time to be largely purged under the Dubya administration,
of consitutionalists and other dissidents to the 9-11 -->> total-war program. Stacked to the brim
with with neocon cadres. So, that's the lay of the terrain there now, that's who's running
the place. And they aren't going without a fight apparently.
Interesting times , more and more so.
66Mustanggirl Dec 10, 2016 9:40 AM
For those of us who still have a grip on reality, here are the facts of this election:
Out of the 3,153 counties in this country, Hillary Clinton won only 480. A dismal and
pathetic 15% of this country. The worst showing EVER for a presidential candidate. Are
they really trying to blame the Russians and "fake" news for THAT?? Really??
The much vaunted 2 million vote lead in the popular vote can be attributed to exactly
4 boroughs in NYC; Bronx, Queens, Manhattan, & Brooklyn, where Hillary racked up 2 million
more votes than Trump. Should we give credit to the Russians and "fake" news for that, too?
96 MILLION Americans were either too disgusted, too lazy, or too apathetic to even
bother to go out and cast a vote for ANYONE in this election. On average 100 Million Americans
don't bother to vote.The Russians and "fake" news surely aren't responsible for THAT!
But given this is a story from WaPo, I think will just give a few days until it is thoroughly
discredited.
max2205 -> 66Mustanggirl Dec 10, 2016 11:04 AM
And she won CA by 4 million. She hates she only gets a limited amount of electoral votes..
tough shit rules are rules bitch. Suck it
HalEPeno Dec 10, 2016 9:43 AM
Looks like the CIA's latest candidate for regime change is the USA.
Clara Tardis Dec 10, 2016 9:45 AM
This is a vid from the 1950's, "How to spot a Communist" all you have to do is swap out commie
for: liberal, neocon, SJW and democrat and figure out they've about won....
This is the same CIA that let Pakistan build up the Taliban in Afganistan during the 1990s
and gave Pakistan ISI (Pakistan spy agency) hundreds of millions of USD which the ISI channeled
to the Taliban and Arab freedom fighters including a very charming chap named Usama Bin Laden.
The CIA is as worthless as HRC.
Fuck them and their failed intelligence. I hope Trump guts the CIA like a fish. They need a
reboot.
Yes We Can. But... -> venturen Dec 10, 2016 10:08 AM
Why might the Russians want Trump? If there is anything to the stuff I've been reading about
the Clintons, they are like cornered animals. Putin just may think the world is a safer, more
stable place w/o the Clintons in power.
TRM -> atthelake Dec 10, 2016 10:44 AM
If it is "on" then those doing the "collections" should be aware that a lot of people they
will be "collecting" have read Solzhenitsyn.
"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every
Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he
would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family?"
Those doing the "collections" will have to choose and choose wisely the side they are on. How
much easier would it be for them to report back "Sorry, couldn't find them" than to face the wrath
of a well armed population?
Abaco Dec 10, 2016 9:53 AM
The clowns running the intelligence agencies for the US have ZERO credibility. Clapper
sat in front of congress and perjured himself. When confronted with his perjury he defended himself
saying he told them the "least untruthful thing" he could - admitting he had not problem whatsoever
about lying to Congress. He was not fired or reprimanded in any way. He retired with a generous
pension. He is a treasonous basrtard who should be swinging from a lamppost. These people serve
their political masters - not the people - and deserve nothing but mockery and and a noose.
mendigo Dec 10, 2016 9:56 AM
As reported on infowars:
On Dec 9 0bomber issued executive order providing exemption to Arms Export Control Act to permit
supplying weapons (ie sams etc) to rebel groups in Syria as a matter "essential to national security
"interests"".
Be careful in viewing this report as is posted from RT - perhaps best to wait for corraboaration
on front page of rededicated nyt to be sure and avoid fratrenizing with Vlad.
Separately Gabard has introduced bill : Stop Arming Terrorists Act.
David Wooten Dec 10, 2016 9:56 AM
There certainly is foreign meddling in US government policy but it is not coming from Russia.
The countries that have much greater influence than Russia on 'our' government are the Sunni-dominated
Persian Gulf oil states including the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and, of course, that bastion
of human rights, Saudi Arabia.
Oil money from these states has found its way into influentual think tanks including the
Brookings Institution, the Atlantic Council, the Middle East Institute and the Georgetown Center
for Strategic and International Studies and others. All of these institutions should be registered
as foriegn agents and any cleared US citizen should have his or her clearance revoked if they
do any work for these organizations, either as a contractor or employee. And these Gulf states
have all been donating oil money to UK and US universities so lets include the foreign studies
branches of universities in the registry of foreign agents, too.
And also, there are arms sales. Arm sales to Saudi/Gulf States come with training. With
training comes military ties, foreign policy ties and even intelligence ties. Saudi Arabia, with
other Gulf oil states as partners, practically owns the CIA now. Arms companies who sell
deadly weapons to the Gulf States, in turn, donate money to Congressmen and now own politicians
such as Senators Graham and McCain. It's no wonder Graham wants to help his pals - er owners.
So what we have here ('our' government) is institutionalized influence, if not outright control,
of US foreign policy by some of the most vicious states on the planet,
especially Saudi Arabia - whose religious police have been known to beat school girls fleeing
from burning buildings because they didn't have their headscarves on.
As Hillary's 2014 emails have revealed, Qatar and Saudi Arabia support ISIS and were doing
so about the same time as ISIS was sweeping through Syria and Iraq, cutting off the heads of Christians,
non-Sunnis and just about anyone else they thought was in the way. The Saudi/Gulf States are the
driving force to get rid of Assad and that is dangerous as nuclear-armed Russia protects him.
If something isn't done about this, the Gulf oil states may get US into a nuclear war with Russia
- and won't care in the least.
Richard Whitney Dec 10, 2016 10:10 AM
So...somehow, Putin was able to affect the election one way, and the endorsements for HRC and
the slander of Trump by and from Washington Post, New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, practically
every big-city newspaper, practically every newspaper in Europe, every EU mandarin, B Streisand,
Keith Olberman, Comedy Central, MSNBC, CNN, Lady Gaga, Lena Dunham and a wad of other media outlets
and PR-driven-celebs couldn't affect that election the other way.
Sounds unlikely on the face of it, but hats off to Vlad. U.S. print and broadcast media, Hollywood,
Europe...you lost.
seataka Dec 10, 2016 10:11 AM
The Reverse Blockade
"Reverse Blockade: emphatically insisting upon something which is the opposite of the truth
blocks the average person's mind from perceiving the truth. In accordance with the dictates of
healthy common sense, he starts searching for meaning in the "golden mean" between truth and its
opposite, winding up with some satisfactory counterfeit. People who think like this do not realize
that this effect is precisely the intent of the person who subjects them to this method.
" page 104, Political Ponerology by Andrew M. Lobaczewski
more
just the tip -> northern vigor Dec 10, 2016 11:51 AM
that car ride for the WH to the capital is going to be fun.
Arnold -> just the tip Dec 10, 2016 12:12 PM
Your comment ticked one of my remaining Brain Cells.
I recall lots of "consensus views" that were outright lies, bullshit and/or stupidity:
"The Sun circles the Earth. The Earth is flat. Global cooling / next ice age (1970s). Global warming
(no polar ice) 1990s-00's. Weapons of mass destruction." You can keep your doctor.
The CIA, Pentagon and "intelligence" agencies need both a cleaning and culling. 50%
of the Federal govt needs to go.....now.
What is BEYOND my comprehension is how anyone would think that in Putin's mind, Trump would
be preferable to Hillary. She and her cronies are so corrupt, he would either be able to blackmail
or destroy her (through espionage and REAL leaks) any time he wanted to during her presidency.
Do TPTB think we are this fucking stupid?
madashellron Dec 10, 2016 10:31 AM
Blacklist Promoted by the Washington Post Has Apparent Ties to Ukrainian Fascism and CIA
Spying.
I love this. Trump is not eager to "drain the swamp" and to collide with the establishment,
anyway he has no viable economic plan and promised way too much. However if they want to lead
a coup for Hilary with the full backing of most republican and democrat politicians just to get
their war against Russia, something tells me that the swamp will be drained for real when the
country falls apart in chaos.
northern vigor Dec 10, 2016 10:36 AM
Fuckin' Obama interfered in the Canadian election last year by sending advisers up north to
corrupt our laws. He has a lot of nerve pointing fingers at the Russians.
I notice liberals love to point fingers at others, when they are the guilty ones. It must be
in the Alinsky handbook.
Pigeon -> northern vigor Dec 10, 2016 10:38 AM
Called "projection". Everything they accuse others of doing badly, illegally, immorally, etc.
- means that is EXACTLY what they are up to.
just the tip -> northern vigor Dec 10, 2016 11:35 AM
Trump should not only 'defund' them but should end all other 'programs' that are providing
funds to them. Drug trade, bribery, embezzelment, etc. End the CIA terror organization.
Skiprrrdog Dec 10, 2016 10:49 AM
Putin for Secretary of State... :-)
brianshell Dec 10, 2016 10:50 AM
Section 8, The congress shall have the power to...declare war...raise armies...navies...militia.
The National Security Act charged the CIA with coordinating the nation's intelligence activities
and correlating, evaluating and disseminating intelligence affecting national security.
Rogue members of the executive branch have overstepped their authority by ordering the CIA
to make war without congressional approval or oversight.
A good deal of the problems created by the United States, including repercussions such as terrorism
have been initiated by the CIA
Under "make America great", include demanding congress assume their responsibility regarding
war.
Rein in the executive and the CIA
DarthVaderMentor Dec 10, 2016 10:59 AM
This whopper of a story from the CIA makes the one fabricated about WMD's in Iraq that
fooled Bush Jr. and convinced him to almost take this country down by violating the sage advice
on war strategy from Sun-Tzu and Clausewitz and opening up a second front in Iraq almost child's
play.
At least with the WMD story they had false witnesses and some made up evidence! With this
story, there is no "HUMINT (human intelligence) sources" and no physical evidence, just some alleged
traces that could have been actually produced from the ether or if they knew ahead of time of
Trump's possible win sent someone to Russia and had them actually run the IP routes for show.
Bush was misled because the CIA management was scared of some of his budgetary saber rattles
and his chasing after some CIA management. In this case, someone is really scared of what the
people will find when the swam gets drained, if ever it gets done. This includes so-called "false
flag conservatives" like Lindsey Graham and top Democrats "Cambridge 5 Admirers" salted in over
the years into the CIA
The fact that's forgotten about this is that if the story was even slightly true, it shows
how incompetent the Democrats are in running a country, how Barak Obama was an intentional incompetent
trying to drive the country into the ground and hurting its people, how even with top technologies,
coerced corrupted vendors and trillions in funding the NSA, CIA and FBI they were outflanked by
the FSB and others and why Hillary's server was more incompetent and dangerous a decision than
we think.
Maybe Hillary and Bill had their server not to hide information from the people, but maybe
to actually promote the Russian hacking?
Why should Trump believe the CIA? What kind of record and leadership do they have that anyone
other than a fool should listen to them?
small axe Dec 10, 2016 10:55 AM
At some point Americans will need to wake up to the fact that the CIA has and does interfere
in domestic affairs, just as it has long sought to counter "subversion" overseas. The agency is
very likely completely outside the control of any administration at this point and is probably
best seen as the enforcement arm of the Deep State.
As the US loses its empire and gains Third World status, it is (sadly) fitting that the CIA
war to maintain docile populations becomes more apparent domestically.
Welcome to Zimbabwe USA.
marcusfenix Dec 10, 2016 11:10 AM
what I don't understand is why the CIA is even getting tangled up in this three ring circus
freak show.
Trump has already signaled he is going hand them nearly unlimited power by appointing Pompeo
in the first place. I would think they would be very happy to welcome the incoming administration
with open arms.
I could see it if they were really that pissed about Trumps proposed Russian re-set and
maybe they are but even that has to be in doubt because of the rate at which Trump is militarizing
his cabinet. All these stars are not exactly going to support their president going belly
up to the bar with Putin. and since Trump has no military or civilian leadership experience (which
is why I believe he has loaded up on so much brass in the first place, to compensate) I have no
doubt they will have tremendous influence on policy.
In all reality Trump is a MIC, intelligence cabal dream come true, so why would they even
consider biting the hand that feeds so well? Perhaps their is more going on here under the surface,
maybe all the various agencies and bureaucracies are not playing nice, or together for that matter.
perhaps some have grown so large and so powerful that they have their own agendas? it's not as
if our federal government has ever really been one big happy family there have been many times
when the right hand did not know what the left hand was doing. and congress is week so oversight
of this monolithic military and intelligence entities may not be as extensive as we would like
to think.
after all the CIA and the Pentagon's proxy armies are already killing each other in Syria
so one has to wonder in what other arenas are they clashing?
and is this really all just a small glimpse of some secret war within, which every once in
a while bubbles up to the surface?
CheapBastard Dec 10, 2016 11:34 AM
The neocons are desperate. Their war monger Hitlery lost by a landslide now they fabricate
all sorts of irrational BS.
However, there is no doubt the Russians stole my TV remote last week.
The Intel agencies have been politicized since the late 1970's; look up 'CIA Team B'
and the 'Committee on the Present Danger' and their BS 'minority report' used by the
original NeoCons to sway public opinion in favor of Ronald Reagan and the arms buildup of the
1980's, which led to the first sky-high deficits. It also led to a confrontational stance against
the Soviet Union which almost led to nuclear war in 1983: The 1983 War Scare Declassified
and For Real
http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb533-The-Able-Archer-War-Scare-Decl...
The honest spook analysts were forced out, then as now, in favor of NeoCons with political
agendas that were dangerously myopic to say the least. The 'Office of Special Plans'
in the Pentagon cherry-picked or outright fabricated intel in order to justify the NeoCon/Israeli
wet-dream of total control of oil and the 'Securing the (Israeli) Realm' courtesy of invading
parts of the Middle East and destabilizing the rest, with the present mess as the wholly predictable
outcome. The honest analysts told them it would happen, and now they're gone.
This kind of organizational warping caused by agency politicization is producing the piss-poor
intel leading to asinine decisions creating untold tragedy; that the WaPo is depending upon this
intel from historically-proven tainted sources is just one more example of the incestuous nature
of the relations between Traditional Media and its handlers in the intel community.
YHC-FTSE Dec 10, 2016 11:54 AM
This isn't a "Soft Coup". It's the groundwork necessary for a rock hard, go-for-broke, above
the barricade, tanks in the street coup d'etat. You do not get such a blatant accusation from
the CIA and establishment echo vendor, unless they are ready to back it up to the hilt with action.
The accusations are serious - treason and election fraud.
Trump is a curious fellow. I've thought about this quite a bit and tried to put myself
in his shoes. He has no friends in .gov, no real close "mates" he can depend on, especially in
his own party, so he had to start from scratch to put his cabinet together. His natural "Mistake"
is seeking people at his level of business acumen - his version of real, ordinary people - when
billionaires/multimillionaires are actually Type A personalities, usually predatory and addicted
to money. In his world, and in America in general, money equates to good social standing more
than any other facet of personal achievements. It is natural for an American to equate "Good"
with money. I'm a Brit and foreigners like me (I have American cousins I've visited since I was
a kid) who visit the States are often surprised by the shallow materialism that equates to culture.
So we have a bunch of dubious Alpha types addicted to money in transition to take charge of
government who know little or nothing about the principle of public service. Put them in a room
together and without projects they can focus on, they are going to turn on each other for supremacy.
I would not be surprised if Trump's own cabinet destroys him or uses leverage from their own power
bases to manipulate him.
Mike Pompeo, for example, is the most fucked up pick as CIA director I could have envisaged.
He is establishment to his core, a neocon torture advocate who will defend the worst excesses
of the intelligence arm of the MIC no matter what. One word from his mouth could have stopped
this bullshit about Russia helping Trump win the election. Nobody in the CIA was going to argue
with the new boss. Yet here we are, on the cusp of another attack on mulitple fronts. This is
how you manipulate an incumbent president to dial up his paranoia to the max and failing that,
launch a coup d'etat.
It could very well be that this was Trump & the establishment plan to con the American
public from the start of course. I kind of doubt it, since the efforts of the establishment to
destroy Trump was genuinely full retard from the outset and still continues. I think he was
his own man until paranoia and the enormity of his position got the better of him and he chose
his cabinet from the establishment swamp dwellers to best protect him from his enemies. Wrong
choices, granted, but understandable.
He would have done better to ignore the political divide to choose those who have spent
their lives challenging the Deep State. My ignorance of US politics does not supply me with a
complete picture, but Ron Paul, David Kucinich, Trey Gowdy, Tulsi Gabard and even turncoat Bernie
Sanders would have been better to drain the swamp than the neocon zionists he has installed in
power.
flaminratzazz ->YHC-FTSE Dec 10, 2016 12:03 PM
I think he was his own man until paranoia and the enormity of his position got the better of
him,,
+1 I think he was just dickin around with throwin his hat in the ring, was going to go have fun
calling everyone names with outlandish attacks and lo and behold he won.. NOW he is shitting himself
on the enormity of his GREATEST fvkup in his life.
jomama ->YHC-FTSE Dec 10, 2016 12:16 PM
Unless you can show how Trump's close ties to Wall St. (owes banks there around 350M currently
YHC-FTSE ->jomama Dec 10, 2016 12:59 PM
My post is conjecture, obviously. The basis of my musings, as stated above, is the fact that the
establishment has tried to destroy Trump from the outset using all of their assets in his own
party, the msm, Hollyweird, intelligence and politics. A full retard attack is being perpetrated
against him as I type.
There is some merit to dividing the establishment, the Deep State, into two opposing sides.
One that lost power, priestige and funds backing Hillary and one that did not, which would make
Trump an alternative establishment candidate. But there is no proof that any establishment (MIC+Banking)
entity even likes Trump, let alone supports him. As for Israel, Hillary was their candidate of
choice, but their MO is they will always infiltrate and back both sides to ensure compliance.
blindfaith ->YHC-FTSE Dec 10, 2016 12:36 PM
Do not underestimate Trump. I will grant that some of these picks are concerning. However, think
in terms of business, AND government is a business from top to bottom. It has been run as a dog
and pony show for years and look where we are. To me, I think his picks are strating to look like
a very efficient team to get the government efficient again. That alone must make D.C. shake in
thier boots.
YHC-FTSE ->blindfaith Dec 10, 2016 1:08 PM
Underestimating Trump is the last thing I would do. I'm just trying to understand his motives
in my own clumsy way. Besides, he promised to "Drain the swamp", not run the swamp more efficiently.
ducksinarow Dec 10, 2016 12:04 PM
From a non political angle, this is a divorce in the making. Then democrats have been rejected
in totallity but instead of blaming themselves for not being good enough, they are blaming a third
party which is the Russians. They are now engaging the Republican Party in a custody battle for
the "children". There are lies flying around and the older children know exactly what is going
on and sadly the younger children are confused, bewildered, angry and getting angrier by the minute.
Soon Papa(Obama) will be leaving which is symbolic of the male father figure in the African American
community. The new Papa is a white guy who is going to change the narrative, the rules of engagement
and the financial picture. The ones who were the heroes in the Obama narrative are not going to
be heroes anymore. New heroes will be formed and revered and during this process some will die
for their beliefs.
Back to reality, Trump needs to cleanse the CIA of the ones who would sell our nation to the
highest bidder. If the CIA is not on the side of America the CIA should be abolished. In a world
where mercenaries are employed all over the world, bringing together a culturally mixed agency
does not make for a very honest agency. It makes for a bunch of self involved countries trying
to influence the power of individuals. The reason Castro was never taken down is because it was
not in the interest of the CIA to do so. That is why there were some pretty hilarious non-attempts
on Castro's life over the years. It is not in the best interest of the CIA that Trump be president.
It is in the best interest of America that Trump is our President.
brane pilot Dec 10, 2016 12:22 PM
Even the idea that people would rely on foreign governments for critical information during
an election indicates the bankruptcy of the corrupt US media establishment. So now they resort
to open sedition and defamation in the absence of factual information. The mainstream media in
the USA has become a Fifth Column against America, no different than the so-called 'social science'
departments on college campuses. Trump was America's last chance and we took it and no one is
going to take it away.
"... Alawites in Syria: French Mandate and Sectarian Tensions ..."
"... "Baath nationalism was different from Sunni Arab nationalism in that [Baathists] wanted a united secular Arab society." ..."
"... Founded in Syria in 1940 by Orthodox Christian Michel Aflaq and Sunni Salah al-Din Bitar, the Baathist movement was influenced by secular and pan-Arab ideas, championing freedom from foreign powers, Arab unity, and socialism. ..."
"... Alawites in Syria: Assad Regime and Sectarian Tensions ..."
Alawites in Syria: French Mandate and Sectarian Tensions
The role of the Alawites in Syria first became apparent after World War I with the division of the
Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire by Britain and France. The division resulted in the assignment
of Palestine to Britain and Syria and Lebanon to France. France, fearing potential independence movements
and Arab nationalism which threatened its control over the region, intentionally inflamed sectarian
separations
during its mandate from 1920-1946 . Minorities, such as the Druze and Alawites, also
feared the nationalist movements that were mostly dominated by Sunnis. With France fearing movements
threatening its power and minorities fearing similar movements for more religious reasons, France
pragmatically granted autonomy to areas where these minorities were heavily populated. On July 1,
1922, "the state of Latakia" was established for the Alawites, and by September 15, 1922, a court
decision granted the Alawites legal autonomy. Not only did such autonomy strengthen the weaker minorities,
but it also allowed for distinctions between religions and sects to be created thus preventing a
unification of all Arabs and
ensuring the preservation of France's power . Until 1942, and except for a three-year period
from 1936 to 1939, the Alawites and Druze remained separate from the rest of unified Syria. To ensure
sectarian divisions and to prevent any takeover by Arab nationalists, France deliberately ignored
developing a ruling elite, coupling such a decision by having each institution represented by a different
religious or ethnic group. Any former amicable relationship between the minority and Sunni majority
and any possibility of growth in the nationalist movement in Syria deteriorated significantly because
of
France's "divide and rule" policy .
This new relationship between groups in Syria
continued after Syria's independence in April 1946 , stymieing any attempts for Arab unification
and fostering greater attention towards local ambitions. Before independence from France, Syrians
were united under one party and the common goal of achieving independence. After independence, a
Sunni elite became in charge of the government, and integration of the minorities into Syrian society
was necessary for a more nationalist approach. To eliminate regionalism and the domination of the
minorities in parliament (due to their close relationship with France under its mandate), the Sunnis
attempted
to limit the representation of the concentrated minority groups in parliament. The Sunni elite
eradicated the Alawite state, parliamentary seats, and certain minority jurisdictional rights.
The abolition of jurisdictional rights in order to establish a centralized rule in Damascus
ignited confrontation among the minorities . . . The Alawites became reconciled to common Syrian
citizenship and gave up the dream of a separate Alawite state. This change of outlook, which seemed
to be of minor importance at the time, actually led to a new era in Syrian politics: the political
rise of the Alawites.
The basis for sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Alawites is evident when one considers the
change from Alawite autonomy to subordination under the Sunnis.
Formed in 1921, the
Troupes Spιciales du Levant was a local military used by the French that eventually evolved into
the Lebanese and Syrian military. Similar to France's "divide and rule" approach, the integration
of the Troupes Spιciales du Levant was done in a way so that it was difficult for any group to attain
enough power to threaten French rule. Given the threatening nature of the Sunnis at the time, many
of whom supported Arab nationalist movements, the military gained
a large minority presence , and "military recruitment involved weakening the forces of nationalism
that Arab Sunnis used to challenge the French over the future of Syria." Sectarian tensions were
further developed with the creation of the Troupes Spιciales du Levant, given that the minority-dominated
military
frequently suppressed Sunni movements .
Minorities frequently found themselves joining the military because it provided a source of income
and potential for social mobility. Unlike the Sunni elites-who refused to send their children into
the military under the pretense that it was furthering France's imperial desires and used their money
to become exempt from military service-the Alawites and other minorities
took advantage of the potential opportunity the military provided. By 1949 (the year of the first
military coup in Syria), the Alawites had gained a political presence. By 1955, about 65% of the
non-commissioned officers were Alawites. Before 1963, the Alawites did not outnumber the Sunnis in
the officer corps, but they did dominate the lower positions of the military. Nevertheless
, the trend towards higher ranking positions began after Syrian independence from France. After
Syria's independence, the number of schools in Syria expanded greatly.
[1]
This expansion gave lower class citizens more educational opportunities, and they became more
qualified for military academies, such as the Military Academy at Homs.
[2]
Sunni leaders believed that dominating the higher positions in the military was enough to ensure
Sunni command of the military. This notion
proved to be a key factor in the Sunni elite's demise.
As the Alawites continued to dominate the lower ranks and ascend towards higher positions, the
higher-ranking Sunnis failed to remain unified. The Sunnis led
three military coups from 1949 to 1954. With the formation and establishment of the Syrian-Egyptian
Union from 1954 to 1958, the officer corps failed to remain unified and split into factions. Even
after the Sunni officer-led "union pledge" in January 1958, a coup led by Sunni officers in September
1961 resulted in Syria's
separation from the union . The lack of unity between Sunni officers, specifically after Syria's
break from the union,
[3]
"greatly weakened Sunni representation in the officer corps and strengthened the minorities,
mainly the Alawite officer corps. 'As
Sunni officers eliminated each other , Alawites inherited their positions and became increasingly
senior; as one [Alawite] rose through the ranks, he brought his kinsmen along.'"
Along with the military, the Baathist movement in Syria fostered greater Alawite power and furthered
sectarian tensions. Unlike pan-Arabism, which, "aimed at the political resurrection of the Arabs
as one nation" and had a
strong association with Sunni Islam , "Baath nationalism was different from Sunni Arab nationalism
in that [Baathists] wanted a united secular Arab society."
Pan-Arab nationalists attempted to incorporate Islam into the pan-Arab movement for they believed
that the religion played an integral role in both Arab history and culture. Even though the pan-Arab
movement was considered to be spearheaded by Sunnis from the perspective of the minorities, many
Sunnis disapproved of pan-Arabism because Islam
did not play a sufficient role in its doctrine. While many Sunnis believed in a
doctrine more heavily influenced by Islam , "the religious minorities supported the Baath's nationalistic
ideology, in which all Arabs were equal, whether Sunni Muslims, Alawites or members of other heterodox
Muslim communities or Christians."
Founded in Syria in 1940 by Orthodox Christian Michel Aflaq and Sunni Salah al-Din Bitar,
the Baathist movement was influenced by secular and pan-Arab ideas, championing freedom from
foreign powers, Arab unity, and socialism. By April 1947, the Baath Congress gathered in Damascus,
and another party, comprised mainly of Alawites, emerged with similar ideas. While the group supported
Baathist ideas such as Arab independence and unity, the members followed Alawite scholar Zaki Arsuzi
(follower of Alawite socialist, Dr. Wahib al-Ghanim), who placed priority on social justice. Ghanim
insisted that particular socialist ideas be adopted
into the Baathist constitution . While Aflaq rejected such adamancy, Bitar consented to uniting
the Baath and Arab Socialist Party, which advocated for the same issues as Ghanim. Akram al-Hawrani,
the leader of the Arab Socialist Party, received the support of many rural Alawites and young Alawite
officers. With the merger of the two parties into the Arab Baath Socialist Party in September 1953,
the Baathist movement gained strong support from officers (presumably minority officers) and the
Alawite community, given the fact that the party's advocacy for social justice would inherently
bolster the Alawites against the repressive Sunni s.
While the Syrian-Egyptian Union resulted in the disbandment of all political parties, the Baathist
ideology remained with organized Alawite groups that had a sizeable amount of control over the Latakian
region. Thus,
after Syria seceded from the union in 1961 , the Alawites "were the strongest and most organized
force in the much-weakened national organization." During the Syrian-Egyptian Union, a military faction
within the Baath Party developed, and
a secret organization among Baathist-supporting officers in Egypt was created in 1959.
Dr. Ayse Tekdal Fildis writes :
The goal of the organization was to restore the Syrian army to Syrian control. The members
of this secret military organization, eventually known as the military committee, were not involved
in the Baath's traditional leadership or party structure. They operated as one of several politically
active groups of officers involved in the dissolution of the union in 1961 and in the fight for
political control of Syria during the subsequent year and a half.
Following Syria's separation from the union, the Baath Party gained political potency swiftly.
The Baath Party itself became a national ruling party only after the Baathist military faction's
coup on March 8, 1963, which overthrew the "
separatist regime " (responsible for Syria's secession from the Syrian-Egyptian Union and was
undergoing infighting among Sunni leaders).
With the rise of the Baath Party came the rise of and partiality towards the Alawites given the
group's dominance in the Baath Party and its representation in the Baathist military faction (specifically
the Military Committee). After this coup, the minority representation in the officer corps, especially
that of the Alawites, increased greatly as Baathist military leaders (
five out of the fourteen members of the Military Committee were Alawites ) attempted to consolidate
their power.
[4]
"The climax of the [Baathists'] power [monopolization] came on [
July 18, 1963 ], when a group of predominantly Sunni Nasserist officers, led by Colonel Jasim
'Alwan, staged an abortive coup. Most of the officers who suppressed this coup, not without bloodshed,
were of minoritarian backgrounds, and among them [Alawites] played a prominent role."
[5]
Discrimination between Sunnis and the minorities became prevalent and more apparent in the years
following 1963. In order to strategically preserve Baathist and minority power, army units were filled
with "trusted" officers and stationed in tactical areas such as Damascus.
[6]
Units filled with non-minority members were more likely to be stationed in areas farther from
the Baathist stronghold. These
moves allowed for the military coup on February 23, 1966, which resulted in
Alawite
control of Damascus , to take place.
Even as the Military Committee came into power following 1963, the leaders began to split and
gain the support of those regionally and ideologically tied with them to bolster their individual
powers. While leaders frequently strengthened themselves with people of the same sectarian background,
alliances amongst the Military Committee leaders were not always along sectarian lines, and many
times were merely for practical reasons to pursue their interests.
[7]
In 1970,
both
Alawite rivalries and Syria's series of coups "were put to rest with a bloodless military coup
led by then-air force commander and Defense Minister Gen. Hafiz [al-Assad] (now deceased) against
his Alawite rival, Salah Jadid. [Al-Assad] was the first Alawite leader capable of dominating the
fractious Alawite sect."
Alawites in Syria: Assad Regime and Sectarian Tensions
Following the coup in 1970, which effectively marked the beginning of the Assad regime that exists
today, Hafez al-Assad consolidated his power among trusted Alawites and prominent Sunnis in order
to strategically thwart potential revolts by the Sunni majority. Specifically, he "
stacked
the security apparatus with loyal clansmen while taking care to build patronage networks with
Druze and Christian minorities that facilitated the [al-Assad] rise." Additionally
, to
mollify Sunni dissatisfaction , the Assad "leadership co-opted key Sunni military and business
elites, relying on notables like former Syrian Defense Minister Mustafa Tlass to contain dissent
within the military and Alawite big-business families like the Makhloufs to buy loyalty, or at least
tolerance, among a Sunni merchant class that had seen most of its assets seized and redistributed
by the state." Such actions facilitated resentment from Sunnis, especially Sunnis extremists. Hafez
al-Assad further engendered tensions between the Alawites and outspoken Sunni Islamists by constraining
their abilities to spread the Sunni religious doctrine. The
regime
took over religious funding and discharged leaders of Friday prayers. Along with consolidating
power through sectarian means, Hafez al-Assad politically established himself. In the
period from 1971-1973 , Assad bolstered himself through a nominated Baath legislature, confirmed
himself as President for a seven-year term through a national referendum, and established a new constitution
that declared Syria a secular socialist state with Islam being the majority religion.
With the Assad regime stabilized and consolidated through the support of Alawites, minority groups,
and key Sunnis, any attempts to overthrow the regime were suppressed and only added to the sectarian
tensions that already existed at the beginning of Hafez al-Assad's leadership. Such suppression peaked
in the regime's crackdown on Sunni insurgents led by the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, who were protesting
Assad's new constitution. The
constitution had established a secular state and allowed a non-Muslim to be president (
this was
later amended ). The uprising, intended to overthrow the heretical Assad regime, began in 1976
and became the most violent in 1982, in Hama. In this Sunni-populated town, Assad and his Alawite
constituency
killed up to 20,000 residents . Since the incident at Hama, the Alawites continued to consolidate
power and
control over Syria . The Assad regime also preserved its power by overcoming various potential
destabilizers: events that if handled improperly could have undermined the whole Assad regime. An
attempted coup by Hafez al-Assad's brother, the death of Hafez al-Assad's apparent heir, Syria's
frequent feuds with Israel, and Syria's involvement in Lebanon,
all
had the potential to destabilize the Assad regime . Rather, Assad dealt with these events in
ways that either preserved Assad's rule or further strengthened the regime's power.
Following the death of Hafez al-Assad on June 10, 2000, the Syrian parliament reduced the minimum
age for
presidential eligibility from 40 to 34 allowing Hafez al-Assad's son, Bashar al-Assad, to run
for president and maintain the regime. Bashar al-Assad's regime preserved its ruling authority by
imprisoning activists who
advocated for democratic elections in August 2001 .
It is important to note that while an apparent bias towards Alawites existed under the Assad regime,
both Assads claimed that Syria was a non-sectarian state. For this reason, many Alawites still remain
poor, and the Syrian education system promotes
the majority
orthodox faith in Syria, Sunni Islam . Moreover, dissent amongst Alawites exists in Syria, and
Alawite dissenters have sometimes experienced
harsher punishments than non-Alawites . Additionally, the Alawite regime did not completely repress
the Sunni majority and promote Alawi Islam. Rather, the Alawite regime under Hafez al-Assad attempted
to gain approval from the Sunni population as well as create a new relationship and distinction between
government and Islam. According to
Joshua Landis , director of the Center for Middle East Studies,
When [Hafez al-Assad] came to power in 1970, one of his primary goals was to establish a new
balance between the government and Islam. One of the central planks of his "Corrective Movement"
was to abandon the radical secularism and socialism of the Jadid regime that preceded him. Although
he reached out to Sunni clerics, giving them greater leeway in society, he strictly limited their
influence in politics. At the same time, he encouraged Alawites to embrace mainstream Islam. He
declared the Alawites to be nothing but Twelver [Shias], forbade Alawite Shaykhs to venerate Ali
excessively, and set the example for his people by adhering to Sunni practice. He built mosques
in Alawite towns, prayed publicly and fasted and encouraged his people to do the same. In short
he tried to turn Alawites into "good" (read Sunnified) Muslims in exchange for preserving a modicum
of secularism and tolerance in society To police this understanding, he squashed any semblance
of democracy in Syrian political life, forbidding elections even within professional organizations
and trade unions. As a result, civil society was crushed, ministries became havens for mafia groups,
and any political life outside the secretive factions in the regime came to a standstill.
Besides obtaining support from outside nations and groups such as Iran, Russia, and Hezbollah,
Assad's regime initially received support from the Alawite community. The Alawites supported Assad
for various reasons. While some backed the regime out of pure loyalty, other Alawites understood
their
fate if Assad's Alawite regime were to fall .
For the latter group, the downfall of Assad would inevitably result in another Sunni rule, allowing
the Sunni elite to once again
oppress the Alawites . More importantly, given the acts of the Assad regime (including the killing
in Hama), many Alawites understood
their grim fate if Sunnis regained power and exacted their revenge for the loss of thousands
of innocent Sunnis. For the most part, "the Assad regime has played on Alawite
fears to help it stay in power ." Nevertheless, "the wholehearted loyalty that Hafez enjoyed
in his early stage of rule has switched to another type of connection for Bashar
based on sectarian insecurity ."
"... It appears that the globalists are scared of anything that resembles the truth that counters their incessant propaganda If there was ever a discovery process in a lawsuit against WAPO, I would imagine that all roads would lead to a Contelpro section of the CIA It's interesting that Wall Street on Parade has noted that Propornot has a double blind registration in New Mexico. ..."
"... Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts. ..."
"... More and more it seems like USA, like the roman empire, needs barbarians at the gates to distract the plebs from internal structural problems. ..."
"... As long as Yeltsin allowed Wall Street to loot Russia of former soviet holdings, Russia was not "barbaric". Now that Putin has put a solid halt on said looting, Russia is again "barbarians" ..."
"... And by refusing to address the emails, other than to scream "Russian hackers," the corporate media were able to convince the Clinton cultists and other Third-Way believers that the information they contained was just another right-wing attack on The Anointed because (other than leftist, Russian-loving "fake news" sites), the right-wing media were the only ones paying it any attention. ..."
"... I am old enough to remember seeing in the news reel at my local theater in 1950 Joseph McCarthy holding up a piece of paper to the cameras and intoning in his inimitable droning voice, "I have here in my hand a list of 205 known members of the Communist Party who are working and shaping policy in the State Department." ..."
"... People's livelihoods and reputations were thereby smeared for life. Never did McCarthy back his claims with evidence, nor did he retract his scurrilous accusation. Now, tell me how what Jeff Bezos and co. are doing in this instance is in any significant way different from what McCarthy did to these people back in 1956. What finally put it squarely before the American public and finally earned McCarthy Congressional censure was when Boston attorney Joseph Welch asked McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, sir?" ..."
"... Here's the thing. Yes, RT is funded by the Russian government, and thus anything posted thereon needs to be considered with that in mind. Nevertheless, it is also where stories the corporates prefer to ignore are given attention. In other words, there is an irony that the Russians may, indeed, be trying to influence us, but if so, they appear to be doing it by subtly undermining the reliability of the corporate media. ..."
"... To put it another way, dismissing RT solely because of its funding source is no better than dismissing NC et al. as propaganda sites, and doing so is actually feeding the propaganda machine. After all, we don't know what percentage of the US media currently receives "grants" from US intelligence agencies, now, do we. ..."
"... In studying communications, there's a distinction between 'white' and 'black' propaganda. White propaganda is publishing truth that supports your cause. Black propaganda is, of course, slanderous lies. RT is white propaganda, so use it for the value it brings. ..."
"... Exactly. I'm a grown-up. I have a lot of practice reading critically and I'm quite capable of questioning sources and filtering bias. I don't need Jeff Bezos to protect me from Russkie BadThink. ..."
"... "does not itself vouch " You have to bear in mind this is not the Post talking, this is CIA CIA has blatantly used the Post as a their sockpuppet since they put Woodward in there to oust Nixon, and now they've got Bezos by the contractual balls. CIA has impunity in municipal statute and secret red tape so any answer you get from them means No fuck You. ..."
"... The NDAA legalized domestic propaganda in 2013 so when the public repudiated their chosen president Hillary Clinton, CIA immediately got to work work attacking Article 19. ..."
"... [M]aybe we should just lump them [WaPo] in with Breitbart and company. ..."
This is tantamount to an admission that not only did the Washington Post do no fact-checking,
but also that it does not consider fact-checking to be part of its job.
Another way to put it is to say that WaPoo is not in the business of investigation but instead
is in the business of regurgitation . WaPoo seems to think that reporting equals repeating.
We don't need people who repeat other people's words. We need reporters who are digging.
"This minimalist walk-back does not remedy the considerable damage [already] done to NC and
other sites." No, it certainly does not. Once the "defamatory cat" is out of the bag, you can't
exactly stuff the cat back in.
Proceed, young lady with your case. But as you move forward, do take measures to keep these
vampires from stealing your adaptive energies and health.
p.s. You know, this diminiishes WaPo to a mere "blog aggregator" when allows its "reporters"
such as Craig Timberg to merely "scrape and publish" posts from anonymous blogsites (not even
scraping from the laughable "gold standard" of truth on the internet: Wiki). These reporters aren't
writing, they are scraping. What a bunch of lazy fucks at WaPo!
And you know what I'd really like to do: kick this Craig Timberg character a new ass in a dark
alley. Yves, when you are done shredding WaPo and Timberg, I sincerely hope they won't be able
to sit down for a whole year.
p.s.s. that post (yd) about Wiki becoming the "gold standard" of 'fact-finding" and "truth"
on the internet was particularly disturbing. Even citations from academic journals (such as JAMA)
posted in Wiki are laden with flawed research suffering from poor design and methodology, draw
the wrong conclusions, reveal biases and conflicts of interest, show a lack of references etc.
Decades ago, there was a shift in much of the medical literature a shift from "evidence-based"
to "consensus-based." The internet appears to be moving in the same direction, using various tools
and methodologies that allow "consensus-based" opinions (valued by the certain parties that be)
to be shaped as "facts" and "truth." When in fact, those opinions are anything but a truth.
. a shift from "evidence-based" to "consensus-based."
Yes. That's what I see as behind the browser flagging extensions, as if facts are subject to
majority vote, which would make them opinions, not facts. If wapoo prints an editorial opinion
on the editorial page, that's one thing. If wapoo prints editorial opinion masquerading as fact
on the front page, that is a different matter.
Wapoo's arrogant reply, in the form of an editor's note, to NC's letter isn't a surprising
first move for them. I trust NC's atty has already thought many, many steps ahead.
"The Post, which did not name any of the sites, does not itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot's
findings regarding any individual media outlet, nor did the article purport to do so."
You couldn't get a more weassely response. They admit they didn't fact check their sources,
they cowadly now hide behind the defence of not actully naming any of the sites, and then finally
try to play the "nothing to see here" defence of pretending the article didn't mean what it quite
clearly did mean when it was published.
Increasingly, challenging western govt output is seen as a form of rebellion. As Orwell said
. telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
One day I was listening to Bloomberg News on the car radio, when they aired a critical story
on a company where I had worked. The criticism was from a third party group. And then the next
news story began.
Stunned, I phoned the reporter and asked, "Where was the company's rebuttal, or refusal to
comment?"
He replied, "It was there, you just didn't hear it."
But I had listened with full attention, and it wasn't there. Maybe an editor had removed it
to shorten the clip.
This has been my experience with the MSM. They are always right. They make no mistakes. You
should believe them, not your lying eyes and ears.
"This has been my experience with the MSM. They are always right. They make no mistakes.
You should believe them, not your lying eyes and ears."
We have always been at war with Eurasia.
The Ministry of Truth hasn't, yet, been given the power to completely silence those of us who
don't stay within the confines of The Narrative. So their tactic is to portray us all as dangerous
disinformators like Emmanuel Goldstein.
In 1975, I went to the Soviet Union with a group of American tourists. At the time, I was working
as a volunteer for Ralph Nader. A few times, some of the people in our group had a chance to talk
to Soviet people in our hotels. The other Americans would give civics book explanations about
how the US government worked. Some of the Soviet people would question these explanations, saying
that they had heard from their government that the American government worked in a way that sounded
to me much more accurate and in line with the way Nader portrayed the US. Undemocratic regimes
are often fairly accurate in describing the faults of other governments, especially those of their
perceived enemies, while ignoring their own failings. I do not know exactly what Russian propaganda
the Washington Post is referring to, but I would not be surprised if various Russian sources simply
repeat the common criticisms of the toxic activities of the neoliberal establishment an establishment
of which the Washington Post has been a long-time supporter. Why go through all of the trouble
of fabricating stories when the reality is as damning as anything you could make up? So rather
than the US sources in question spouting Russian propaganda, the Russians might simply be repeating
the criticisms they are hearing from the US.
This is tantamount to an admission that not only did the Washington Post do no fact-checking,
but that it does not consider fact-checking to be part of its job.
Ah, the Ratings Agencies "opinions" defense. Blithely ignorant of their own legally and historically
protected positions. I suspect this is exactly the defense the WP will run with. Effectively they
will assert their constitutional right as propagandists, to broadcast whatever they please in
the national interest.
is a new, private sector-led initiative
I would say not entirely. True, large private corporations are behind a lot of this, but what
is at stake is their authority to speak for, and their connections to, the state and Deep State.
On a more emotional level, what is at stake is status. Because really that is all the big newspapers
have anymore. Social status. Do not underestimate this currency. It is probably the most precious
form of capital there is and the Post, et al, will fight with their fingernails to avoid losing
it. Things could get pretty nasty. Good luck and give the bastards hell.
Long, long time, b/c of their policies. I figure my opinion doesn't count, my vote doesn't
count, but by golly, I will make every dollar I spend count. I buy locally when possible (ideally
both locally made/grown and locally-owned retail, although there is at least one local company
I will not patronize, for policy reasons) and have found alternate sources for things I can't
get around here, eg. Powell's for books and
Lehman's for tools and kitchen stuff. As a last resort I will comparison shop on Amazon and
then ask my local supplier to order the thing in for me (as I did with my water heater). Not one
nickel of mine will go to WaPo or Amazon. And I have told rellies, pls no Amazon gifts for our
household.
Long before the current series of events happened, there were excellent reasons to avoid buying
from Amazon.com. The horrific working conditions in Amazon.com warehouses should be enough to
prevent any person from buying from the company. I suppose many people still aren't aware of how
bad it is, so here's an example article:
As much as I would love to "boycott Amazon," it's not possible for several reasons. First,
being old and crippled, I can't run out to the nearest Target to buy stuff, and I definitely don't
have time or physical capacity to hop all over town trying to find some specialty item that doesn't
sell enough for most bricks-and-mortar retailers to carry. I do buy direct when it's possible,
but the fact of life is there's stuff you can only find on Amazon.
Second, I own and operate a small digitally-based book publishing company, and Amazon is our
major source of revenue. For me, boycotting Amazon would mean pulling my authors' work from distribution
there, which isn't an option. Likewise, consider Kindle owners with extensive libraries.
Frankly, I consider these calls to boycott some huge corporation the kind of symbolic action
that allows people to feel good about themselves while avoiding doing anything actually effective.
Like writing/emailing/phoning the editorial board of the local news media should they be broadcasting/publishing
this rubbish-preferably all three and multiple times. Given that many are connected to the same
major corporations as the Big Media, that strikes me as what really needs to be done.
After all, WaPo isn't doing this in an echo chamber. Their fiction was picked up by all the
major players and more than a few of the minor. The only way to counter public discourse is publicly.
On another subject-Yves and Lambert, if you'd like someone to run over your articles pre-publication
for a quick copyedit, you know where to find me. It's one of the non-monetary things I can donate.
Agree on symbolic action. I do buy from Amazon and either go to antiwar.com first (a mixed
site, but one I want to see endure) and click so they get a commission or go to smile.amazon.com
so my favorite small charity gets it.
Buying is NOT voting. I'm a citizen and not mainly just a consumer. Not buying from amazon
would hurt me more than them (especially as I like buying obscure second-hand books). There are
much better things I can do to be politically effective, including letters to the editor and contributions.
I do buy by preference from a third-party that doesn't distribute from Amazon warehouses if
the price is close. And there are many things I do choose to get locally or from others. But I
buy a heck of a lot from them especially books.
There should be a union of sorts, among those defamed. Join forces with some other reputable
smallish websites and create a consortium that pools resources to fight this sort of thing going
forward.
I think you should take the strongest, most aggressive stance possible given the huge number
of very important issues at stake. I will continue to support naked capitalism any way that I
can.
Yves, have you contacted Bill Moyers? He initially referred to the Post article without adequate
critical comment. He could and should remedy this. His voice would carry weight with the book
bag-toting NPR folks, who will be among the last to "doubt" the Post.
Excellent suggestion. I found NC when Bill Moyers recommended it on his old tv show when he
interviewed Yves and it has continued to open my eyes big time and I haven't been the same since.
Whenever I encounter a NYTimesbot or a BostonGlobebot or a Wapoobot or NPRbot (Blindly quoting
believers) I tell them I don't have time for MSM anymore after Bill Moyers recommended this incredibly
informative site and I tell them all about NC. I am so grateful for NC and Yves and Lambert and
all the other contributors for what you all do. I would be devastated if this horror damages you
(us) all. And Net Neutrality in general Trump will go after it. WaPoo (love that) should be
taken way out to the woodshed, shamed, and publicized for how awful they (and so many others in
the MSM) have become. I will help in any way I can. And please stay well Yves and Lambert.
I found NC through Bill Moyers as well. Since he retired, i rarely look at the website and
never the FC page anymore since the content significantly decreased in quality and originality
imo after he retired. i know his name is still attached to the website and he still occasionally
submits articles, but i wonder how much oversight and content involvement he has with the operation
these days.
That should read, "since he retired from the tv show Moyers & Co and it went off the air".
The website still lists Bill Moyers as the managing editor. But the quality of the website noticeably
changed after the show left PBS in i think 2015.
It appears that the globalists are scared of anything that resembles the truth that counters
their incessant propaganda If there was ever a discovery process in a lawsuit against WAPO, I
would imagine that all roads would lead to a Contelpro section of the CIA It's interesting that
Wall Street on Parade has noted that Propornot has a double blind registration in New Mexico.
A propaganda holding company! This is allowed by the Whappo? It's a felony masquerading as
a farce and they can't get out of this like little Judy Miller pretending to be dumb. Judy Miller
is very sophisticated and so is the Whappo. Journalism isn't journalism if it does this sleazy
stuff. Since when does a newspaper "disclaim" its own news? It's totally outrageous. And the nerve
to say that PropOrNot insists on being anonymous. PropOrNot might as well be the Whappo itself.
Only sleazy purveyors of crap disclaim it. This is just asking for satire. Whappo deserves to
be ridiculed into oblivion.
just a quick check on the net produced a a site: dab-oracl.com and an atty named Donald Burleson
stating that New Mexico is one of 17 states that enforce criminal libel and that you can file
to lift the veil on anonymity for defamation and have the perp arrested cool
It's in Santa Fe and the U of Magonia has a channeling portal there. The channeling portal
connects to alternate universes and higher order dimensions and all sorts of weird and unusual
stuff passes thru the portal. It's where craazyman finds out about lots of stuff and he may have
bumped(if that's right word) into these other channelers?
I'm 56, I was a 9 buck an hour cook in Boston in 1988 when Dukakis came out of Labor Day with
a 17 point lead.
The campaign wizards of Bush Senior came up some kind of 'Dukakis hates America ' baloney,
because of some other baloney about The Flag!! or The Pledge!!! For days, GWB Sr. came out in
front of a bunch of flags & said the Pledge, and the craven, sycophantic, grovelling media of
the day dutifully reported
"In order to show '__Dukakis hates America___' Vice President Bush said the pledge of allegiance."
Anyone from that era remember all the liberal cloak rending and finger waving and furrowed
brows? Anyone remember that Fairness Doctrine thing??? Seriously having some contract mouth
piece of the WAPO question NC is a badge of honor.
rmm.
But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villany
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
Dukakis' loss was due to his weak response to a racist smear campaign that assigned him personal
responsibility for every poor decision made by the Massachusetts penal system.
His sin was failing to fight back with sufficient vigor. It's a good choice of anecdote for
this comments thread however. An object lesson if you will.
The Washington Post has responded, from the perspective of their own interests, in literally
the worst way possible.
They have essentially gone on record as admitting that publish articles that are defamatory
per se in a reckless manner, using a reckless (or non-existent) fact-checking and vetting process.
It's really unbelievable, and many of us in the legal community are scratching our heads, now,
wondering from whom The Washington Post is soliciting legal advice.
They wouldn't have deigned to respond at all if they weren't nervous about our attorney. But
I agree, this response is incredibly lame and not helpful to them from a legal or reputational
standpoint. They seem to think if they make a minimal gesture, NC and the other wronged sites
won't proceed. Bad assumption.
My grandfather was a political refugee. He escaped Bulgaria after being jailed one too many
times for having the audacity to disagree with the communist elites and its media organs, and
to do so in public. What I see happening here in the US, with dissent on the verge of being suppressed
or even criminalized, deeply concerns me because it reminds me of those bad old times. I respect
you guys and your willingness to stand up to power, in ways I can not adequately express. Thank
you.
Craig Timberg may be another example of the "son of more successful father" phenomenon who
in attempting to exceed their fathers, do great damage to others (other examples: G.W. Bush, Bill
Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, John McCain ).
" He was nearly 30 years old, borderline ancient for a beginning daily newspaper reporter.
Unlike other Capital staffers, he was a Naval Academy graduate with a master's degree in journalism,
and he was a Vietnam war combat veteran. And he could not type."
"I first noticed Bob's reporting talents from his incisive articles on a legal challenge to
compulsory chapel attendance at the U.S. service academies, filed by six Annapolis midshipmen
and a West Point cadet."
"The highlight of Bob's reporting was an interview with celebrated evangelist Billy Graham,
who shockingly characterized the students' lawsuit as a being "part of a planned attack against
all chaplains, to force them completely out of all services," and further suggested that the young
men were Communist dupes. Though Bob knew now that he had a good story, he still pressed on, asking
Graham if an atheist can become a good naval officer. "I can't comment on that," the preacher
answered."
So Timberg's father questioned a prominent person who was alleging "Communist dupes" against
military chaplains.
But his son does little vetting of the shadowy group PropOrNot as he goes for HIS story alleging
"Russian propagandists".
It may be too late for the son to learn from the father's example.
Good story. The son as a pale shadow of the father is, as you say, not an uncommon thing. Craig,
in this current example, doesn't seem to understand even the most basic, fundamental principles
of journalistic ethics or professional conduct. It's strange someone in the profession that long
could survive lacking that. Or maybe once you get on with a big name paper with a billionaire
owner, sucking up to the establishment is a get out of jail free card when it comes to ethics
and professional accountability.
I stopped ordering from Amazon two years ago after reading the stories about labor conditions
for warehouse employees. It is nothing more than brutal slave labor.
I used to at least read the headlines in the NYT and WaPo. Now I can not even stomach them.
So, the WaPo now admits that "journalism" is dead and stenography is the only purpose
their "platform" exists for.
The quaint institution of "journalism" existed to sort "fact" from "opinion" and made the important
distinction between the two. Opinions are like belly-buttons and assholes, everybody has one.
Facts are more difficult to discern, but are immutable and objective. As attributed to the late
Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, " Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
"
This is the death of the First Amendment - The ScAmazon model of purporting to be a "marketplace"
but refusing to vouch for the quality, safety, or authenticity of anything that they loudly and
slickly shill to profit from the work of others. It is disgusting, hollow, and amoral. It must
be brought to heel.
I suspect the MSM have always seen their ability to shape elections as their true "ring of
power." As you say this has been going on for a long timecertainly pre-internet. The fact that
Trump won despite their best efforts has likely shaken big media to the core. Which doesn't mean
Trump's election was a good thing or a bad thing but simply that they didn't get to pick.
Television will always be the most important medium when it comes to politics but the print
media now see their role as "influencers" under threat from the web. And given their financial
problems this may be the final existential threat. It's likely the Post editors knew perfectly
well what they were doing and how shoddy that story was. It was a shot across the bow.
Yves: What is going on here is deeply ingrained. We live in a country in which everyone's opinions
are now canonical, as we see with wonder about the candidate for the head of the EPA. Pruitt's
opinion counteracts years of research, because lawyers know all about science.
I was reminded of how ingrained these "narratives" are when I read the lead in the Talk of
the Town in the most recent New Yorker: Jeffrey Toobin on voting. He did a drive-by diagnosis
of Jill Stein as a narcissist. (But, but, but the New Yorker already declared Trump a narcissist.)
Then, in a couple of very curious sentences, he tries to accuse the Russians of tampering with
the U.S. election campaign while admitting it unlikely that foreigners hacked the vote count.
So you have two or three or four fake-news pieces strung together so as to assert power. That's
the long and the short of it. Just as Pruitt is an ignoramus about science, so Toobin as an ignoramus
about psychology. As Lambert often writes: Agnotology. I'd add: Agnotology to maintain the structures
of power.
We have been in this intellectual winter for a while: Liberals in denial, peddling psychobabble.
Rightwingers in denial, peddling resentment.
At the end of the 70s, we came to the US, believing western media to be the epitome of honesty
and truth (the belief itself based on plentiful pro-western propaganda, which we consumed unquestioningly).
The highly misleading anti-Soviet propaganda in the US at that time was a bit of a shock. Not
so much its existence, but its vicious nature. And the lies about "Russians are coming." Nothing
much has changed the west still dislikes Russia, and will do all it can to discredit the country
(just watch out for the starting effort to ruin the 2018 futbal (soccer) games in Russia anti-Sochi
hysteria was just a preview). The wapoo stunt may be crude, but it is not a demonstration of incompetence.
It does seem to be a part of concerted efforts to limit the free flow of information on the Internet.
As the "narrative" has gotten away from powers that be, a new way to censor information is needed.
Even Merkel said she'd want to address "fake news." Has everybodu forgotten operation Mockingbird
( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
)? Nothing new under the sun but the stakes are much higher now, as the west runs out of
options to maintain supremacy.
More and more it seems like USA, like the roman empire, needs barbarians at the gates to
distract the plebs from internal structural problems.
As long as Yeltsin allowed Wall Street to loot Russia of former soviet holdings, Russia
was not "barbaric". Now that Putin has put a solid halt on said looting, Russia is again "barbarians"
Want to have some fun? Next time someone starts ranting about "the Russians hacked our election,"
try tossing out "Well, we messed with theirs, so it seems only fair."
Post editorial/management probably doesn't have strong opinions - or any opinions - of the
sites impugned by PropOrNot, including Naked Capitalism, since it's unlikely these corporate drones
possess enough intellectual curiosity to actually look at them.
The problem is confirmation bias (in this case, offering an acceptable explanation for why
WaPo's Chosen Liberal lost the election, without having to look in the mirror) and shoddy careerist
journalism generally, which works so well for so many, and which can't be litigated away.
Banish Timberg, and you might as well put WaPO out of business.
I recall seeing somewhere in the initial flurry of tweets and comments on the subject that
someone had contacted Wapo and received a response from the editor or some such stating that "multiple
contacts" were made to PorNot for some sort of purpose, perhaps verification, fact checking, or
what ever it is newspapers do before breathlessly getting out the bold typeface and running a
"story". Wish I could find it again. But now it seems that was fake news.
The timing and placement of the "clarification" is rich. 14 days later slip in an "editor's
comment" buried in the old news pile. Your pet parrot wouldn't even notice.
Timburg is obviously another tool like Judith Miller. His "editors" knew full well the story
was bullshit "can't vouch for the validity" (because we can't be bothered to check our sources)
and ran it anyway. So there was/is an agenda. And the media wonder why they are in such low
regard.
Yves, in your apology post with your attorney's letter, you stated this
I also hope, particularly for those of you who don't regularly visit Naked Capitalism,
that you'll check out our related pieces that give more color to how the fact the Washington
Post was taken for a ride by inept propagandists
My first reaction to this was "presumes facts not in evidence"
I don't believe the Post was taken in by anyone. They wanted to have a particular piece written
and they did. Why in the world would they back down now?
You're going to need more fundraisers because I'm guessing they'll be dragging this out. If
they can't beat you with fake news then they will drain your resources with a long-drawn out legal
process. Yes, I'm very cynical. Watched one of the bloggers I follow spend around $150,000 defending
themselves from a defamation case that never went to trail. The blogger was also a lawyer so could
help with her defense, had discounted legal assistance from an first amendment expert and an additional
attorney. They had a year of depositions with constant delays. $150,000 is not petty cash.
I know the circumstances are not the same but the Post has deep pockets. If they want to drain
NC and other independent news sources, they have the resources to go the distance.
Also please stop giving the newspapers excuses. The entire industry is pretty much consolidated.
I don't think they very much care about whether or not a newspaper makes money after they've leveraged
it with so much debt in order to purchase it in the first place. Or used their billions to simply
buy it. Either way that would seem to indicate that's about the write-off and controlling the
"narrative."
As an added bonus get rid of your workers due to "costs." Further narrowing the acceptable
narrative within the newsroom. Pretty soon, the entire industry is gutted just like other industries
in this country. (I'd argue that's most of the way done except for independent media.) That's
quite purposeful and just like other industries, it never had to be that way, even with the rise
of the Internet and "things" like Google ads and Facebook.
Stop giving them so much of the benefit of the doubt. They are engaged in a class war.
Even if somewhere down the line they were to apologize and give you a prominent byline, the
damage is already done with a good portion of their readership. Which was entirely the point.
" I don't believe the Post was taken in by anyone. "
I may wholeheartedly agree with you but there are good reasons for NC to be circumspect and
initially offer Wapoo the option of backing away and retracting gracefully; or as gracefully as
possible in this situation.
Yes, I'm in for the long haul wrt donations. Bernie's campaign showed the power of small donations.
You've put your finger on the "stupid, crazy, or evil" question.
Our esteemed hostess has chosen stupid, for reasons that seem good and sufficient. Crazy would
be apparent from past behavior, and we of the tinfoil hat legions can make a good case for evil
from the interests of the actors. But if nothing else, stupid is easily proved.
I think the main reason many here are giving the benefit of the doubt to WaPo is that it was
done so ineptly. The article reeks of carelessness and non-existent fact-checking and poor (or
non-existent) editorial overview. If it was part of a deliberate plot to smear it should have
been better written and they would have done a better job in covering themselves legally. Most
recent high profile libel claims such as the Rolling Stones college rape hoax story originated
from a mix of confirmation bias and incompetence, not (so far as we know) from a deliberate malign
plot.
Having said that, their refusal to come straight out and apologise when presented with the
facts is just digging themselves a deeper hole. I've no doubt the NC crew will go all the way
with this, I hope it proves deeply embarrassing for the WaPo, they are destroying their own reputation
and its entirely their fault.
I guess, on one level, it's intersting that the PTB saw the websites on the list as having
that much power and influence to sway the election to Trump due to telling the truth, frankly.
The truth clearly has no place in the US conversation anymore.
At any rate, most of here saw our main, favored websites on that McCarthyite witch hunt list
and thought: WOW. So we told the truth about Clinton and various other issues with this election,
and now we must be silenced.
Of course, it's pretty odd given the DNC hacked emails were really very revealing of many shady
(to say the least) things, and I've seen those emails quoted quite a bit by many rightwing sources.
And that info was, in fact, disseminated broadly to conservative voters. And I feel that those
emails, possibly along with Comey's last minute "reveal," probably swayed some still-on-the-fence
voters to either not vote for POTUS at all or to vote for Trump.
Frankly, it's risable in the extreme that this country has been drowning in rightwingnut propaganda
for the past 40+ years (or longer), and that's really what the rise of Trump is all about. As
opposed to others here, I frankly despise Trump and all he stands for, but I give him props where
due. He's kind of stupid but has this certain rat cunning about reading the moment and grabbing
it for his purposes. He saw that those who had lost the most in this country were ripe for the
plucking, and he went about using them for his own greedy means accordingly.
Railing against a handful of truth-telling lefty-ish blogs is amazing on one level. I doubt
that, even in the aggragate, many voters were swayed by the information provided. I think most
who read these blogs are already determined what we'll do, but we come to these sites for a breath
of fresh air, as it were.
That, for me, is what makes this attack so chilling. The last few small voices of reason and
sanity? And they have to be silenced? Brrrrrr . that's bitterly cold.
Keep up the good fight, Yves and friends. This is gonna be tough row to hoe, but I'm in it
to win it.
And by refusing to address the emails, other than to scream "Russian hackers," the corporate
media were able to convince the Clinton cultists and other Third-Way believers that the information
they contained was just another right-wing attack on The Anointed because (other than leftist,
Russian-loving "fake news" sites), the right-wing media were the only ones paying it any attention.
You have to give credit where it's due-they have had decades to perfect their method, and it
is very hard to counter it.
silicon valley does not know the meaning of trust. they have extracted it from every situation
they can, destroying everything they touch, without realizing what they have unleashed. this will
eventually be learned by all, the hard way.
I am old enough to remember seeing in the news reel at my local theater in 1950 Joseph
McCarthy holding up a piece of paper to the cameras and intoning in his inimitable droning voice,
"I have here in my hand a list of 205 known members of the Communist Party who are working and
shaping policy in the State Department."
People's livelihoods and reputations were thereby smeared for life. Never did McCarthy
back his claims with evidence, nor did he retract his scurrilous accusation. Now, tell me how
what Jeff Bezos and co. are doing in this instance is in any significant way different from what
McCarthy did to these people back in 1956. What finally put it squarely before the American public
and finally earned McCarthy Congressional censure was when Boston attorney Joseph Welch asked
McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency, sir?"
Yikes,Yves! What a lame response from them. We all need to keep up the pressure, by any means.
This is one of those MSM errors that they hope will just go away, as evidenced by their hand waving
dismissal. We can't let it! I think letters to the editor-an avalanche- might do a world of good.
Murtaza HussainVerified account Dec 5
@MazMHussain
2003: Rifle-toting Americans barge into Iraq after reading viral Fake News story about weapons
of mass destruction.
------------------------------
This fake news story ranks up there with the rifle toting Americans that barge into Viet Nam after
the Fake News story about a US Navy warship that was attacked by the North Viet Namese Naval forces
in the Gulf of Tonkin.
PolitiFact is running a poll for "Lie of the Year"
here . There's a line for write in votes. I wrote in the Post's "Russian Propaganda " story.
I suggest you can do the same.
A true fake news refusal to retract. Extraordinary that WaPo's editors also claim "not to vouch"
for the veracity of whether or not RT.com is a "conduit for Russian propaganda". Really? RT is
sponsored by the Russian state, how could it not be such a "conduit"? WaPo has all but admitted
that it will print all the fake news it chooses to print. This reply is actually worse than the
original offense. Pure confection of arrogance and cowardice as only libertarians can produce.
But of course it doesn't matter if every last one of the news sources mentioned in the WaPo
article were in fact such conduits. The issue is the neo-Cold war, neo-McCarthyite campaign launched
over the last 2 years whose center of gravity lies clearly in the Clinton liberal Democrat camp.
We can only imagine how the campaign would conduct itself if Clinton had won the Presidency.
It was predictable they would come after the Left, only now they come on with less swag, but with
a pathetic sore loser grudge. A perusal of the Liberal sphere on HuffnPuff, Alternet, Salon and
such shows these still lost in a self-induced hysterical psychosis.
Right NOW is the time to for leftists and progressives to draw a clear line, and distance,
from American Liberalism and its blame the victim rhetoric.
Here's the thing. Yes, RT is funded by the Russian government, and thus anything posted
thereon needs to be considered with that in mind. Nevertheless, it is also where stories the corporates
prefer to ignore are given attention. In other words, there is an irony that the Russians may,
indeed, be trying to influence us, but if so, they appear to be doing it by subtly undermining
the reliability of the corporate media.
To put it another way, dismissing RT solely because of its funding source is no better
than dismissing NC et al. as propaganda sites, and doing so is actually feeding the propaganda
machine. After all, we don't know what percentage of the US media currently receives "grants"
from US intelligence agencies, now, do we.
In studying communications, there's a distinction between 'white' and 'black' propaganda.
White propaganda is publishing truth that supports your cause. Black propaganda is, of course,
slanderous lies. RT is white propaganda, so use it for the value it brings.
Exactly. I'm a grown-up. I have a lot of practice reading critically and I'm quite capable
of questioning sources and filtering bias. I don't need Jeff Bezos to protect me from Russkie
BadThink.
There's a sense in which that's true, of course. But it is a useful characterization? Is there
even any point to such a broad statement about a media outlet, other than to discredit work that
can't be discredited on more direct grounds?
State sponsorship of media organizations is not all that unusual. The BBC is primarily funded
by a tax levied on any British household that uses a television to receive a broadcast signal,
for example. Is the WaPo in the habit of describing the BBC as a "conduit for British propaganda"?
Am I acting as a useful idiot for the UK government every time I rehash an old Monty Python joke?
"does not itself vouch " You have to bear in mind this is not the Post talking, this is
CIA CIA has blatantly used the Post as a
their sockpuppet
since they put Woodward in there to oust Nixon, and now they've got Bezos by the contractual
balls. CIA has impunity in municipal statute and secret red tape so any answer you get from them
means No fuck You.
The NDAA legalized domestic propaganda in 2013 so when the public repudiated their chosen
president Hillary Clinton, CIA immediately got to work work attacking Article 19. CIA is
panicking because Hillary was going to get them the war they need to preserve CIA impunity for
the crime against humanity of systematic and widespread torture and murder in their global gulag
of secret death camps.
The ICC's investigation of US crimes against humanity has reached the critical point of referral
to the pre-trial chamber . The
ICC is under intense pressure from Russia and the global south to prove it's not afraid of US
criminals. Italian courts have got torturer Sabrina de Souza, and they're going to use her to
roll up the command chain. One way or another it's going to be open season on CIA torture cowards,
in universal jurisdiction with no statute of limitations. This is a far graver threat to CIA than
the family jewels. The international community is investigating CIA crimes, not avuncular Jim
Schlesinger or some gelded congressional committee. Like Francis Boyle says, the US government
is a criminal enterprise. And since COG was imposed it's got one branch, CIA
That's the background here. You're the Op in Red Harvest. Poisonville's the USA.
May I suggest that this site no longer link to The Wapoo for stories that are available elsewhere.
I personally would prefer to not go to their site at all, but they seem to make up a lot of the
links here.
I understand that sometimes this will be unavoidable, as the Wapoo is the only one doing a particular
story, but in cases where the story is carried at other sites, can you please link to those other
sites instead?
I live in New Zealand and start every day with NC because WaPo and it's like runs an agenda.
We all know that. I feel for you Yves but the site's strength is bringing together all those speaking
truth to power. The courts won't care about that and that route can drain you personally and financially.
Stay strong and play to your strengths. You have lots of support perhaps more than you know.
The Second Phase of the Propaganda Fake News War: Economic Strangulation. What Comes Next?
by BAR editor and columnist Dr. Marsha Adebayo
"The public has determined that the corporate media is actually the purveyor of "fake news"
and turned to media organizations, such as BAR, Truthout and other outlets for information."
So, since the W.P. won't bear responsibility for what they publish, maybe we should just lump
them in with Breitbart and company. Just out of curiosity, did W.P. contact N.C. for comment before
they tried to smear your (and, by extension, our) reputation?
It's libel per se and an avalanche of lawsuits directed at PropOrNot and WaPo should be pretty
effective. Because WaPo did not retract there is no defense.
From a legal point of view, I wonder how the Executive Editor's (Marty Baron) tweeting of the
article plays against the assertion that "The Post does not itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot's
findings". Is that a case where he was speaking (tweeting) his own opinion, and not necessarily
that of his employer?
So if the WaPo doesn't consider validity checking of sources to be part of its job, then that
raises the obvious question in this case: WHY the (insert expletive of your choice) did they take
this site with anonymous authors, sweeping allegations and no evidence of any kind, and choose
to make a featured story out of it? There are hundreds or thousands of other sites just like it
out there. Why PropOrNot, and not any of the others?
In other words, if (as they claim) the story boils down to "some anonymous people on the Internet
made some unsubstantiated claims which may or may not be accurate", why did they decide it was
newsworthy at all, let alone worthy of the kind of prominence they gave it?
They might actually get off the hook for libel on the grounds that the lack of fairness and
impartiality wasn't malicious intent but part of their core values.
Am I the only one who remembered an "Andrew Watts" commenting on NC? And wasn't Aug 21 the
date ProporCrap started? And isn't the exchange between 'Andrew Watts' and 'timbers' of interest
given the WaPo reporter's name is Timberg?
How hard would it be, really, for two or three people with some know-how to engage in discussion,
get replies from comments, trace/track those people. Even one person hacked (and I'm virtually
certain I was this summer) could provide a large number of sites visited or 'linked'.
And it seems to me as well I sent a story to Lambert (and I wrote to Lambert something like
"You mean this isn't real?") that I took to be a real WaPo story re a major wrinkle in the Clinton
scandals that was part of a story link I got from Global Research, a story which also had a paragraph
referenced from Breibart which I didn't notice until my comment wasn't posted, so I went back
and looked. I assumed the comment was rejected due to the Breibart (sp?) reference. But what if
WaPo/Watts were fishing at NC and saw my follow-up comment to Lambert with only the WaPo link
and my question (assuming it was posted, which I do not remember)?
I wonder if Snopes has asked to be removed from PropOrNot's list of "related projects."
I contacted them to find out if they were going to ask themselves to be removed from that list,
but I have not heard back from them. I guess we'll find out something about their reputability.
"... One of the sites PropOrNot cited as Russian-influenced was the Drudge Report. ..."
"... The piece's description of some sharers of bogus news as "useful idiots" could " theoretically include anyone on any social-media platform who shares news based on a click-bait headline ," Mathew Ingram wrote for Fortune. ..."
"... But the biggest issue was PropOrNot itself. As Adrian Chen wrote for the New Yorker , its methods were themselves suspect, hinting at counter-Russian propaganda - ostensibly with Ukrainian origins - and verification of its work was nearly impossible. Chen wrote "the prospect of legitimate dissenting voices being labeled fake news or Russian propaganda by mysterious groups of ex-government employees, with the help of a national newspaper, is even scarier." ..."
"... Now, at least, the "national newspaper" has taken some responsibility, however the key question remains: by admitting it never vetted its primary source, whose biased and conflicted "work" smeared hundreds of websites, this one included, just how is the Washington Post any different from the "fake news" it has been deriding on a daily basis ever since its endorsed presidential candidate lost the elections? ..."
In the latest example why the "mainstream media" is facing a historic crisis of confidence among
its readership, facing unprecedented blowback following Craig Timberg November 24 Washington Post
story "
Russian propaganda effort helped spread 'fake news' during election, experts say ", on Wednesday
a lengthy editor's note appeared on top of the original article in which the editor not only distances
the WaPo from the "experts" quoted in the original article whose "work" served as the basis for the
entire article (and which became the most read WaPo story the day it was published) but also admits
the Post could not " vouch for the validity of PropOrNot's finding regarding any individual media
outlet", in effect admitting the entire story may have been, drumroll "fake news" and conceding the
Bezos-owned publication may have engaged in defamation by smearing numerous websites - Zero Hedge
included - with patently false and unsubstantiated allegations.
It was the closest the Washington Post would come to formally retracting the story, which has
now been thoroughly discredited not only by outside commentators, but by its own editor.
Editor's Note: The Washington Post on Nov. 24 published a story on the work of four
sets of researchers who have examined what they say are Russian propaganda efforts to undermine
American democracy and interests. One of them was PropOrNot, a group that insists on public anonymity,
which issued a report identifying more than 200 websites that, in its view, wittingly or unwittingly
published or echoed Russian propaganda. A number of those sites have objected to being included
on PropOrNot's list, and some of the sites, as well as others not on the list, have publicly challenged
the group's methodology and conclusions. The Post, which did not name any of the sites, does not
itself vouch for the validity of PropOrNot's findings regarding any individual media outlet, nor
did the article purport to do so. Since publication of The Post's story, PropOrNot has removed
some sites from its list.
As The
Washingtonian notes , the implicit concession follows intense and rising criticism of the article
over the past two weeks. It was "
rife with obviously reckless and unproven allegations, " Intercept reporters Glenn Greenwald
and Ben Norton wrote, noting that PropOrNot, one of the groups whose research was cited in Timberg's
piece, "anonymous cowards." One of the sites PropOrNot cited as Russian-influenced was the Drudge
Report.
But the biggest issue was PropOrNot itself. As Adrian Chen
wrote for the New Yorker , its methods were themselves suspect, hinting at counter-Russian propaganda
- ostensibly with Ukrainian origins - and verification of its work was nearly impossible. Chen wrote
"the prospect of legitimate dissenting voices being labeled fake news or Russian propaganda by mysterious
groups of ex-government employees, with the help of a national newspaper, is even scarier."
Now, at least, the "national newspaper" has taken some responsibility, however the key question
remains: by admitting it never vetted its primary source, whose biased and conflicted "work" smeared
hundreds of websites, this one included, just how is the Washington Post any different from the "fake
news" it has been deriding on a daily basis ever since its endorsed presidential candidate lost the
elections?
"... These criteria, of course, could include not only Russian state-controlled media organizations, such as Russia Today, but nearly every news outlet in the world, including the Post ..."
"... To PropOrNot, simply exhibiting a pattern of beliefs outside the political mainstream is enough to risk being labelled a Russian propagandist. ..."
"... In a scathing takedown on The Intercept , Glenn Greenwald and Ben Norton wrote that PropOrNot "embodies the toxic essence of Joseph McCarthy, but without the courage to attach individual names to the blacklist." ..."
"... Yet, when pressed on the technical patterns that led PropOrNot to label the Drudge Report a Russian propaganda outlet, he could point only to a general perception of bias in its content. "They act as a repeater to a significant extent, in that they refer audiences to sort of Russian stuff," he said. "There's no a-priori reason, stepping back, that a conservative news site would rely on so many Russian news sources. What is up with that?" ..."
"... I asked to see the raw data PropOrNot used to determine that the Drudge Report was a Russian-propaganda outlet. The spokesman said that the group would release it to the public eventually, but could not share it at the moment ..."
"... The Russian journalist Alexey Kovalev, who debunks Kremlin propaganda on his site, Noodleremover, floated the possibility that PropOrNot was Ukrainians waging a disinformation campaign against Russia. ..."
"... The PropOrNot spokesman would speak to me only on the condition of anonymity and revealed only bare biographical details on background. "Are you familiar with the assassination of Jo Cox?" he asked, when I asked why his group remained in the shadows, referring to the British M.P. murdered by a right-wing extremist. "Well, that is a big thing for us. Basically, Russia uses crazy people to kill its enemies." ..."
"... "One thing we're all in agreement about is that Russia should not be able to fuck with the American people. That is not cool." The spokesman said that the group began with fewer than a dozen members, who came together while following Russia's invasion of eastern Ukraine. The crisis was accompanied by a flood of disinformation designed to confuse Ukraine and its allies. "That was a big wake-up call to us. It's like, wait a minute, Russia is creating this very effective fake-news propaganda in conjunction with their military operation on the ground," the spokesman said. "My God, if they can do that there, why can't they do it here?" ..."
"... PropOrNot has said that the group includes Ukrainian-Americans, though the spokesman laughed at the suggestion that they were Ukrainian agents. ..."
"... This week, Wyden and six other senators sent a letter to the White House asking it to declassify information "concerning the Russian Government and the U.S. election." ..."
"... The story of PropOrNot should serve as a cautionary tale to those who fixate on malignant digital influences as a primary explanation for Trump's stunning election. ..."
...Last week, the
Post
published a story based in part on PropOrNot's research. Headlined "Russian Propaganda Effort
Helped Spread 'Fake News' During Election, Experts Say," the report claimed that a number of researchers
had uncovered a "sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign" that spread fake-news articles across
the Internet with the aim of hurting Hillary Clinton and helping Donald Trump. It prominently cited
the PropOrNot research. The story topped the Post's most-read list, and was shared widely
by prominent journalists and politicians on Twitter. The former White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer
tweeted ,
"Why isn't this the biggest story in the world right now?"
Vladimir Putin and the Russian state's affinity for Trump has been well-reported. During the campaign,
countless stories speculated on connections between Trump and Putin and alleged that Russia contributed
to Trump's election using propaganda and subterfuge. Clinton made it a major line of attack. But
the Post's story had the force of revelation, thanks in large part to the apparent scientific
authority of PropOrNot's work: the group released a thirty-two-page report detailing its methodology,
and named names with its list of two hundred suspect news outlets. The organization's anonymity,
which a spokesperson maintained was due to fear of Russian hackers, added a cybersexy mystique.
... ... ...
The most striking issue is the overly broad criteria used to identify which outlets spread propaganda.
According to PropOrNot's recounting of its methodology, the third step it uses is to check if a site
has a history of "generally echoing the Russian propaganda 'line'," which includes praise for Putin,
Trump, Bashar al-Assad, Syria, Iran, China, and "radical political parties in the US and Europe."
When not praising, Russian propaganda includes criticism of the United States, Barack Obama, Clinton,
the European Union, Angela Merkel, NATO , Ukraine, "Jewish people," U.S. allies, the
mainstream media, Democrats, and "the center-right or center-left, and moderates of all stripes."
These criteria, of course, could include not only Russian state-controlled media organizations,
such as Russia Today, but nearly every news outlet in the world, including the Post itself.
Yet PropOrNot claims to be uninterested in differentiating between organizations that are explicit
tools of the Russian state and so-called "useful idiots," which echo Russian propaganda out of sincerely
held beliefs. "We focus on behavior, not motivation," they write.
To PropOrNot, simply exhibiting a pattern of beliefs outside the political mainstream is enough
to risk being labelled a Russian propagandist. Indeed, the list of "propaganda outlets" has
included respected left-leaning publications like CounterPunch and Truthdig, as well as the right-wing
behemoth Drudge Report. The list is so broad that it can reveal absolutely nothing about the structure
or pervasiveness of Russian propaganda. "It's so incredibly scattershot," Higgins told me. "If you've
ever posted a pro-Russian post on your site, ever, you're Russian propaganda." In a
scathing takedown on The Intercept , Glenn Greenwald and Ben Norton wrote that PropOrNot "embodies
the toxic essence of Joseph McCarthy, but without the courage to attach individual names to the blacklist."
... ... ...
In a phone interview, a spokesman for PropOrNot brushed off the criticism. "If there's a pattern
of activity over time, especially combined with underlying technical tells, then, yeah, we're going
to highlight it," he said. He argued that Russian disinformation is an enormous problem that requires
direct confrontation. "It's been clear for a while that Russia is a little braver, more aggressive,
more willing to push the boundaries of what was previously acceptable." He said that, to avoid painting
outlets with too broad a brush, the group employs a sophisticated analysis that relies on no single
criterion in isolation.
Yet, when pressed on the technical patterns that led PropOrNot to label the Drudge Report a Russian
propaganda outlet, he could point only to a general perception of bias in its content. "They act
as a repeater to a significant extent, in that they refer audiences to sort of Russian stuff," he
said. "There's no a-priori reason, stepping back, that a conservative news site would rely on so
many Russian news sources. What is up with that?"
I asked to see the raw data PropOrNot used to determine
that the Drudge Report was a Russian-propaganda outlet. The spokesman said that the group would release
it to the public eventually, but could not share it at the moment: "That takes a lot of work, and
we're an all-volunteer crew." Instead, he urged me to read the Drudge Report myself, suggesting that
its nature would be apparent.
... ... ...
Another major issue with PropOrNot is that its members insist on anonymity. If one aims to cut
through a disinformation campaign, transparency is paramount. Otherwise you just stoke further paranoia.
The
Russian journalist Alexey Kovalev, who debunks Kremlin propaganda on his site, Noodleremover, floated
the possibility that PropOrNot was Ukrainians waging a disinformation campaign against Russia.
The PropOrNot spokesman would speak to me only on the condition of anonymity and revealed only bare biographical
details on background. "Are you familiar with the assassination of Jo Cox?" he asked, when I asked
why his group remained in the shadows, referring to the British M.P. murdered by a right-wing extremist.
"Well, that is a big thing for us. Basically, Russia uses crazy people to kill its enemies."
I can report that the spokesman was an American man, probably in his thirties or forties, who
was well versed in Internet culture and swore enthusiastically. He said that the group numbered about
forty people. "I can say we have people who work for major tech companies and people who have worked
for the government in different regards, but we're all acting in a private capacity," he said. "One
thing we're all in agreement about is that Russia should not be able to fuck with the American people.
That is not cool." The spokesman said that the group began with fewer than a dozen members, who came
together while following Russia's invasion of eastern Ukraine. The crisis was accompanied by a flood
of disinformation designed to confuse Ukraine and its allies. "That was a big wake-up call to us.
It's like, wait a minute, Russia is creating this very effective fake-news propaganda in conjunction
with their military operation on the ground," the spokesman said. "My God, if they can do that there,
why can't they do it here?"
PropOrNot has said that the group includes Ukrainian-Americans, though
the spokesman laughed at the suggestion that they were Ukrainian agents. PropOrNot has claimed total
financial and editorial independence.
Given PropOrNot's shadowy nature and the shoddiness of its work, I was puzzled by the group's
claim to have worked with Senator Ron Wyden's office. In an e-mail, Keith Chu, a spokesman for Wyden,
told me that the PropOrNot team reached out to the office in late October. Two of the group's members,
an ex-State Department employee and an I.T. researcher, described their research. "It sounded interesting,
and tracked with reporting on Russian propaganda efforts," Chu wrote. After a few phone calls with
the members, it became clear that Wyden's office could not validate the group's findings. Chu advised
the group on press strategy and suggested some reporters that it might reach out to. "I told them
that if they had findings, some kind of document that they could share with reporters, that would
be helpful," he told me. Chu said that Wyden's office played no role in creating the report and didn't
endorse the findings. Nonetheless, he added, "There has been bipartisan interest in these kind of
Russian efforts, including interference in elections, for some time now, including from Senator Wyden."
This week, Wyden and six other senators sent a
letter to the White House asking it to declassify information "concerning the Russian Government
and the U.S. election."
The story of PropOrNot should serve as a cautionary tale to those who fixate on malignant digital
influences as a primary explanation for Trump's stunning election.
The authors seems to miss the key observation: this is a sign of the crisis of neoliberal propaganda
model, which gave rise to Internet rumor mill. Rumor s (aka improvised news) became a prominent news
source if and only if official channels of information are not viewed as trustworthy. And blacklisting
alternative news sites does not help to return the trust. When it is gone it is gone. The same situation
in the past happened in Brezhnev's USSR. People just stopped to trust official newspapers and turned
to propaganda sites of Western =government such as BBC and voice of America for news. Soviet authorities
tried to jam them, but this did not stop Soviet people from trying to listen to then at nights, trying
to find frequencies that were not jammed.
Notable quotes:
"... Basically, everyone who isn't comfortably within the centrist Hillary Clinton/Jeb Bush spectrum is guilty. On its Twitter account, the group announced a new "plugin" that automatically alerts the user that a visited website has been designated by the group to be a Russian propaganda outlet. ..."
"... The group commits outright defamation by slandering obviously legitimate news sites as propaganda tools of the Kremlin. ..."
"... a big part of the group's definition for "Russian propaganda outlet" is criticizing U.S. foreign policy ..."
"... In sum: They're not McCarthyite; perish the thought. They just want multiple U.S. media outlets investigated by the FBI for espionage on behalf of Russia. ..."
"... PropOrNot is by no means a neutral observer. It actively calls on Congress and the White House to work "with our European allies to disconnect Russia from the SWIFT financial transaction system, effective immediately and lasting for at least one year, as an appropriate response to Russian manipulation of the election." ..."
"... In other words, this blacklisting group of anonymous cowards - putative experts in the pages of the Washington Post - is actively pushing for Western governments to take punitive measures against the Russian government and is speaking and smearing from an extreme ideological framework that the Post concealed from its readers. ..."
"... The Post itself - now posing as a warrior against "fake news" - published an article in September that treated with great seriousness the claim that Hillary Clinton collapsed on 9/11 Day because she was poisoned by Putin. ..."
"... Indeed, what happened here is the essence of fake news. The Post story served the agendas of many factions: those who want to believe Putin stole the election from Hillary Clinton; those who want to believe that the internet and social media are a grave menace that needs to be controlled, in contrast to the objective truth that reliable old media outlets once issued; those who want a resurrection of the Cold War. ..."
"... So those who saw tweets and Facebook posts promoting this Post story instantly clicked and shared and promoted the story without an iota of critical thought or examination of whether the claims were true, because they wanted the claims to be true. That behavior included countless journalists. ..."
One of the core functions of PropOrNot appears to be its compilation of a lengthy blacklist of
news and political websites that it smears as peddlers of "Russian propaganda." Included on this
blacklist of supposed propaganda outlets are prominent independent left-wing news sites such as Truthout,
Naked Capitalism, Black Agenda Report, Consortium News, and Truthdig.
Also included are popular libertarian hubs such as Zero Hedge, Antiwar.com, and the Ron Paul Institute,
along with the hugely influential right-wing website the Drudge Report and the publishing site WikiLeaks.
Far-right, virulently anti-Muslim blogs such as Bare Naked Islam are likewise dubbed Kremlin mouthpieces.
Basically, everyone who isn't comfortably within the centrist Hillary Clinton/Jeb Bush spectrum
is guilty. On its Twitter account, the group announced a new "plugin" that automatically alerts the
user that a visited website has been designated by the group to be a Russian propaganda outlet.
... ... ...
The group commits outright defamation by slandering obviously legitimate news sites as propaganda
tools of the Kremlin.
The group eschews alternative media outlets like these and instead recommends that readers rely
solely on establishment-friendly publications like NPR, the BBC, the New York Times, the Wall Street
Journal, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed, and VICE. That is becausea big part of
the group's definition for "Russian propaganda outlet" is criticizing U.S. foreign policy.
... ... ...
While blacklisting left-wing and libertarian journalists, PropOrNot also denies being McCarthyite.
Yet it simultaneously calls for the U.S. government to use the FBI and DOJ to carry out "formal investigations"
of these accused websites, "because the kind of folks who make propaganda for brutal authoritarian
oligarchies are often involved in a wide range of bad business." The shadowy group even goes so far
as to claim that people involved in the blacklisted websites may "have violated the Espionage Act,
the Foreign Agent Registration Act, and other related laws."
In sum: They're not McCarthyite; perish the thought. They just want multiple U.S. media outlets
investigated by the FBI for espionage on behalf of Russia.
... ... ...
PropOrNot is by no means a neutral observer. It actively calls on Congress and the White House
to work "with our European allies to disconnect Russia from the SWIFT financial transaction system,
effective immediately and lasting for at least one year, as an appropriate response to Russian manipulation
of the election."
In other words, this blacklisting group of anonymous cowards - putative experts in the pages
of the Washington Post - is actively pushing for Western governments to take punitive measures against
the Russian government and is speaking and smearing from an extreme ideological framework that the
Post concealed from its readers.
... ... ...
The Post itself - now posing as a warrior against "fake news" - published an article in September
that treated with great seriousness the claim that Hillary Clinton collapsed on 9/11 Day because
she was poisoned by Putin. And that's to say nothing of the paper's disgraceful history of convincing
Americans that Saddam was building non-existent nuclear weapons and had cultivated a vibrant alliance
with al Qaeda. As is so often the case, those who mostly loudly warn of "fake news" from others are
themselves the most aggressive disseminators of it.
Indeed, what happened here is the essence of fake news. The Post story served the agendas
of many factions: those who want to believe Putin stole the election from Hillary Clinton; those
who want to believe that the internet and social media are a grave menace that needs to be controlled,
in contrast to the objective truth that reliable old media outlets once issued; those who want a
resurrection of the Cold War.
So those who saw tweets and Facebook posts promoting this Post story instantly clicked and
shared and promoted the story without an iota of critical thought or examination of whether the claims
were true, because they wanted the claims to be true. That behavior included countless journalists.
"... When the narratives will become completely obsolete and incapable to persuade, except only a slightest minority, the fake democracy will become an open, brutal dictatorship. ..."
"... Many still wonder if the planet indeed slips towards a new Cold War. Despite that there is plenty of evidence that this is, unfortunately, already a fact, another incident came to verify this situation. ..."
"... The Western neoliberal establishment is exposed, revealing its real agenda: to challenge the alternative bloc driven by the Sino-Russian alliance. The 'democratic' Europe proceeded in a similar, unprecedented move recently. As reported by RT: "In a completely bonkers move this week, the EU Parliament approved a resolution to counter "Russian propaganda" and the "intrusion of Russian media" into the EU. The resolution was adopted with 304 MEPs voting in favor, 179 MEPs voting against it and 208 abstaining. The most bizarre part, however, is that the resolution lumped Russian media in with Islamist propaganda of the kind spread by terror groups like the so-called Islamic State. Thus Russian media is put on the same level with videos of ISIS beheadings and incitements to mass murder." ..."
"... In Cold War 2.0, the Western neoliberal establishment is forced to create the respective McCarthyism. Therefore, the new dogma has changed accordingly. It doesn't matter if an alternative medium provides a different view, away from the mainstream media propaganda. It doesn't matter if the Whistleblowers are telling the truth about the US dirty wars and mass surveillance of ordinary citizens. As long as the US empire and its allies are exposed by all these elements outside their Matrix control, these elements help Russia, therefore, they are doing 'Russian propaganda'. It's as simple as that. ..."
"... When the narratives will become completely obsolete and incapable to persuade, except only a slightest minority, the fake democracy will become an open, brutal dictatorship. ..."
Key insight:
When the narratives will become
completely obsolete and incapable to persuade, except only a slightest minority, the fake democracy
will become an open, brutal dictatorship.
When the narratives will become completely obsolete and incapable to persuade, except only a slightest
minority, the fake democracy will become an open, brutal dictatorship.
Many still wonder if the planet indeed slips towards a new Cold War. Despite that there is plenty
of evidence that this is, unfortunately, already a fact, another incident came to verify this situation.
The blacklist created by PropOrNot and provided to Washington Post, containing more than 200 websites
that are supposedly doing 'Russian propaganda', marks the start of a new McCarthyism era and verifies
beyond doubt the fact that we have indeed entered the Cold War 2.0.
Seeing that it's losing the battle of information, the establishment simply proceeded in one more
clumsy move that will only accelerate developments against it.
It really sounds like a joke to accuse anyone who opposes the US dirty wars and interventions
that brought so much chaos and distraction, for doing 'Russian propaganda', when you are the one
who supported and justified these wars through the most offensive propaganda, for decades.
Someone has to tell the mainstream media parrots that their dirty tricks don't work anymore. According
to a Gallup latest report, "Americans' trust and confidence in the mass media "to report the news
fully, accurately and fairly" has dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history, with 32%
saying they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media. This is down eight percentage
points from last year."
The mainstream mouthpieces are extremely predictable. They will rush to blame internet and alternative
media that flourished over the last fifteen years, for this unprecedented situation. Of course they
will. They don't want any alternative to their propaganda monopoly which was extremely effective
in guiding the sheeple during the past decades.
The Western neoliberal establishment is exposed, revealing its real agenda: to challenge the alternative
bloc driven by the Sino-Russian alliance. The 'democratic' Europe proceeded in a similar, unprecedented
move recently. As reported by RT: "In a completely bonkers move this week, the EU Parliament approved
a resolution to counter "Russian propaganda" and the "intrusion of Russian media" into the EU. The
resolution was adopted with 304 MEPs voting in favor, 179 MEPs voting against it and 208 abstaining.
The most bizarre part, however, is that the resolution lumped Russian media in with Islamist propaganda
of the kind spread by terror groups like the so-called Islamic State. Thus Russian media is put on
the same level with videos of ISIS beheadings and incitements to mass murder."
It has been mentioned in previous article that "While the EU and US were occupied with the war
against terrorism as well as with the dead-end wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas of the planet,
Putin had all the time to build his own mechanism against Western propaganda. Being himself a man
who had come to power with the help of media, he built his own media network which includes, for
example, the TV network Russia Today, according to the Western standards, and "invaded" in millions
of homes in the Western countries using the English language, promoting however the Russian positions
as counterweight to the Western propaganda monopoly."
In Cold War 2.0, the Western neoliberal establishment is forced to create the respective McCarthyism.
Therefore, the new dogma has changed accordingly. It doesn't matter if an alternative medium provides
a different view, away from the mainstream media propaganda. It doesn't matter if the Whistleblowers
are telling the truth about the US dirty wars and mass surveillance of ordinary citizens. As long
as the US empire and its allies are exposed by all these elements outside their Matrix control, these
elements help Russia, therefore, they are doing 'Russian propaganda'. It's as simple as that.
This latest desperate move of the establishment should alarm us all. Because it shows that the
establishment is in panic and therefore, more dangerous than ever.
When the narratives will become
completely obsolete and incapable to persuade, except only a slightest minority, the fake democracy
will become an open, brutal dictatorship.
"... it's truly amazing. many of these people have denounced joe mccarthy all their lives. ..."
"... I was thinking Katyusha. Besides being a very pretty diminutive name for Katherine, the sound of the Katyusha rockets made the forces of evil's collective sphincter tighten up. ..."
"... Just like the sound of the truth spoken to power here at NC is apparently tightening up some establishment sphincters :) ..."
"... Oh OIFVet, do you know where this line of snark is leading? Next, the NC will be "mischaracterized" as Stalin's News Organ! ..."
... Anyway, concerned by number of supposedly educated friends(Clinton supporters) being
taken in by this fake news/Russian ties thing. They've lost their heads and there's no discussing
it with them, they are convinced. Where does it end? Na zdorovie!
it's truly amazing. many of these people have denounced joe mccarthy all their lives. somebody
referred to invasion of the body snatchers on nc the other day, that's the only logical explanation.
I was thinking Katyusha. Besides being a very pretty diminutive name for Katherine, the
sound of the Katyusha rockets made the forces of evil's collective sphincter tighten up.
Just like the sound of the truth spoken to power here at NC is apparently tightening up
some establishment sphincters :)
"... Walter [Issacson] is working hard with his Board to try to transform the broadcasting efforts. Because most people still get their news from TV and radio. So even though we're pushing online, we can't forget TV and radio. And so I look - I would look very much towards your cooperation, to try to figure out how we get back in the game on this. Because I hate ceding what we are most expert in to anybody else . ..."
"... The BBG was formed in 1999 and runs on a $721 million annual budget. It reports directly to Secretary of State John Kerry and operates like a holding company for a host of Cold War-era CIA spinoffs and old school "psychological warfare" projects: Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Radio Martν, Voice of America, Radio Liberation from Bolshevism (since renamed "Radio Liberty") and a dozen other government-funded radio stations and media outlets pumping out pro-American propaganda across the globe. ..."
CLINTON: Well, [Senator Lugar], I want to thank you for the report that you did on the [B]roadcasting
[B]oard of [G]overnors and all of the problems that it has experienced. I agree with you. Walter
Isaacson is an excellent choice. The board is a very invigorated group of Republicans and Democrats.
They understand. We are engaged in an information war . During the Cold War, we did a great job
in getting America's message out. After the Berlin Wall fell we said, okay, fine, enough of that.
We've done it. We're done. And unfortunately, we are paying a big price for it.
And our private media cannot fill that gap. In fact, our private media, particularly cultural
programming, often works at counterpurposes to what we truly are as Americans and what our values
are. [Cue "Collateral Murder"?]
I remember having an Afghan general tell me that the only thing he thought about Americans
is that all the men wrestled and the women walked around in bikinis. Because the only TV he ever
saw was Baywatch and World Wide Wrestling. So we are in an information war. And we are losing
that war. I'll be very blunt in my assessment. Al-Jazeera is winning.
The Chinese have opened up a global English-language and multi-language television network.
The Russians have opened up an English-language network. I've seen it in a few countries, and
it's quite instructive. We are cutting back. The BBC is cutting back.
So here's what we are trying to do. In the State Department, we have pushed very hard on new
media. So we have an Arabic Twitter feed. We have a Farsi Twitter feed. I have this group of young
techno-experts who are out there engaging on websites and we're putting all of our young Arabic-speaking
diplomats out, so that they are talking about our values.
Walter [Issacson] is working hard with his Board to try to transform the broadcasting efforts.
Because most people still get their news from TV and radio. So even though we're pushing online,
we can't forget TV and radio. And so I look - I would look very much towards your cooperation,
to try to figure out how we get back in the game on this. Because I hate ceding what we are most
expert in to anybody else .http://freemediaonline.org/freemediaonlineblog/2011/05/04/secretary-clinton-u-s-is-losing-the-information-war/
In case some aren't familiar with the BBG:
The BBG was formed in 1999 and runs on a $721 million annual budget. It reports directly
to Secretary of State John Kerry and operates like a holding company for a host of Cold War-era
CIA spinoffs and old school "psychological warfare" projects: Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia,
Radio Martν, Voice of America, Radio Liberation from Bolshevism (since renamed "Radio Liberty")
and a dozen other government-funded radio stations and media outlets pumping out pro-American
propaganda across the globe.https://pando.com/2015/03/01/internet-privacy-funded-by-spooks-a-brief-history-of-the-bbg/
"... "Smearing is not reporting," the RootsAction petition says. "The Washington Post 's recent descent into McCarthyism - promoting anonymous and shoddy claims that a vast range of some 200 websites are all accomplices or tools of the Russian government - violates basic journalistic standards and does real harm to democratic discourse in our country. We urge the Washington Post to prominently retract the article and apologize for publishing it." ..."
"... For one thing, PropOrNot wasn't just another source for the Post 's story. As The New Yorker noted in a devastating article on Dec. 1, the story "prominently cited the PropOrNot research." The Post 's account "had the force of revelation, thanks in large part to the apparent scientific authority of PropOrNot's work: the group released a 32-page report detailing its methodology, and named names with its list of 200 suspect news outlets . But a close look at the report showed that it was a mess." ..."
"... As The New Yorker pointed out, PropOrNot's criteria for incriminating content were broad enough to include "nearly every news outlet in the world, including the Post itself." Yet "The List" is not a random list by any means - it's a targeted mish-mash, naming websites that are not within shouting distance of the U.S. corporate and foreign policy establishment. ..."
"... As The New Yorker 's writer Adrian Chen put it: "To PropOrNot, simply exhibiting a pattern of beliefs outside the political mainstream is enough to risk being labeled a Russian propagandist." And he concluded: "Despite the impressive-looking diagrams and figures in its report, PropOrNot's findings rest largely on innuendo and conspiracy thinking." ..."
"... As much as the Post news management might want to weasel out of the comparison, the parallels to the advent of the McCarthy Era are chilling. For instance, the Red Channels list, with 151 names on it, was successful as a weapon against dissent and free speech in large part because, early on, so many media outlets of the day actively aided and abetted blacklisting, as the Post has done for "The List." ..."
"... Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wisconsin, who led the "Red Scare" hearings of the 1950s. ..."
"... So far The New Yorker has been the largest media outlet to directly confront the Post 's egregious story. Cogent assessments can also be found at The Intercept , Consortium News , Common Dreams , AlterNet , Rolling Stone , Fortune , CounterPunch , The Nation and numerous other sites. ..."
"... But many mainline journalists and outlets jumped at the chance to amplify the Post 's piece of work. A sampling of the cheers from prominent journalists and liberal partisans was published by FAIR.org under the apt headline " Why Are Media Outlets Still Citing Discredited 'Fake News' Blacklist? " ..."
"... When liberals have green-lighted a witch-hunt, right wingers have been pleased to run with it. President Harry Truman issued an executive order in March 1947 to establish "loyalty" investigations in every agency of the federal government. Joe McCarthy and the era named after him were soon to follow. ..."
After publishing a McCarthyistic "black list" that smears some 200 Web sites as "Russian propagandists,"
The Washington Post refuses to apologize - and other mainstream media outlets pile on, writes
Norman Solomon.
We still don't have any sort of apology or retraction from the Washington Post for
promoting "The List" - the highly dangerous blacklist that got a huge boost from the newspaper's
fawning coverage on Nov. 24. The project of smearing 200 websites with one broad brush wouldn't
have gotten far without the avid complicity of high-profile media outlets, starting with the
Post .
On Thursday - a week after the Post published its front-page news
article hyping the blacklist that was put out by a group of unidentified people called PropOrNot
- I sent a petition statement to the newspaper's executive editor Martin Baron.
The Washington Post building in downtown Washington, D.C. (Photo credit: Washington Post)
"Smearing is not reporting," the RootsAction
petition says. "The Washington Post 's recent descent into McCarthyism - promoting
anonymous and shoddy claims that a vast range of some 200 websites are all accomplices or tools
of the Russian government - violates basic journalistic standards and does real harm to democratic
discourse in our country. We urge the Washington Post to prominently retract the article
and apologize for publishing it."
After mentioning that 6,000 people had signed the petition (the number has doubled since then),
my email to Baron added: "If you skim through the comments that many of the signers added to the
petition online, I think you might find them to be of interest. I wonder if you see a basis for
dialogue on the issues raised by critics of the Post piece in question."
The reply came from the newspaper's vice president for public relations, Kristine Coratti Kelly,
who thanked me "for reaching out to us" before presenting the Post 's response, quoted
here in full:
"The Post reported on the work of four separate sets of researchers, as well as independent
experts, who have examined Russian attempts to influence American democracy. PropOrNot was one.
The Post did not name any of the sites on PropOrNot's list of organizations that it said
had - wittingly or unwittingly - published or echoed Russian propaganda. The Post reviewed
PropOrNot's findings and our questions about them were answered satisfactorily during the course
of multiple interviews."
Full of Holes
But that damage-control response was as full of holes as the news story it tried to defend.
For one thing, PropOrNot wasn't just another source for the Post 's story. As
The New Yorker noted in a
devastating article on Dec. 1, the story "prominently cited the PropOrNot research." The
Post 's account "had the force of revelation, thanks in large part to the apparent scientific
authority of PropOrNot's work: the group released a 32-page report detailing its methodology,
and named names with its list of 200 suspect news outlets . But a close look at the report showed
that it was a mess."
Contrary to the PR message from the Post vice president, PropOrNot did not merely
say that the sites on its list had "published or echoed Russian propaganda." Without a word of
the slightest doubt or skepticism in the entire story, the Post summarized PropOrNot's
characterization of all the websites on its list as falling into two categories: "Some players
in this online echo chamber were knowingly part of the propaganda campaign, the researchers concluded,
while others were 'useful idiots' - a term born of the Cold War to describe people or institutions
that unknowingly assisted Soviet Union propaganda efforts."
As The New Yorker pointed out, PropOrNot's criteria for incriminating content were
broad enough to include "nearly every news outlet in the world, including the Post
itself."
Yet "The List" is not a random list by any means - it's a targeted mish-mash, naming websites
that are not within shouting distance of the U.S. corporate and foreign policy establishment.
And so the list includes a few overtly Russian-funded outlets; some other sites generally aligned
with Kremlin outlooks; many pro-Trump sites, often unacquainted with what it means to be factual
and sometimes overtly racist; and other websites that are quite different - solid, factual, reasonable
- but too progressive or too anti-capitalist or too libertarian or too right-wing or just plain
too independent-minded for the evident tastes of whoever is behind PropOrNot.
As The New Yorker 's writer Adrian Chen put it: "To PropOrNot, simply exhibiting a
pattern of beliefs outside the political mainstream is enough to risk being labeled a Russian
propagandist." And he concluded: "Despite the impressive-looking diagrams and figures in its report,
PropOrNot's findings rest largely on innuendo and conspiracy thinking."
As for the Post vice president's defensive phrasing that "the Post did not
name any of the sites on PropOrNot's list," the fact is that the Post unequivocally promoted
PropOrNot, driving web traffic to its site and adding a hotlink to the anonymous group's 32-page
report soon after the newspaper's story first appeared. As I mentioned in my reply to her: "Unfortunately,
it's kind of like a newspaper saying that it didn't name any of the people on the Red Channels
blacklist in 1950 while promoting it in news coverage, so no problem."
Pushing McCarthyism
As much as the Post news management might want to weasel out of the comparison, the
parallels to the advent of the McCarthy Era are chilling. For instance, the Red Channels
list, with 151 names on it, was successful as a weapon against dissent and free speech in
large part because, early on, so many media outlets of the day actively aided and abetted blacklisting,
as the Post has done for "The List."
Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wisconsin, who led the "Red Scare" hearings of the 1950s.
Consider how the Post story described the personnel of PropOrNot in favorable terms
even while hiding all of their identities and thus shielding them from any scrutiny - calling
them "a nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds."
But many mainline journalists and outlets jumped at the chance to amplify the Post
's piece of work. A sampling of the cheers from prominent journalists and liberal partisans was
published by FAIR.org under the apt headline "
Why Are Media Outlets Still Citing Discredited 'Fake News' Blacklist? "
FAIR's media analyst Adam Johnson cited enthusiastic responses to the bogus story from journalists
like Bloomberg's
Sahil Kupar
and MSNBC's
Joy Reid
- and such outlets as
USA Today ,
Gizmodo , the
PBS NewsHour ,
The Daily Beast ,
Slate ,
AP ,
The Verge and
NPR , which "all uncritically wrote up the Post 's most incendiary claims with little
or minimal pushback." On the MSNBC site, the Rachel Maddow Show's
blog "added another breathless write-up hours later, repeating the catchy talking point that
'it was like Russia was running a super PAC for Trump's campaign.'"
With so many people understandably upset about Trump's victory, there's an evident attraction
to blaming the Kremlin, a convenient scapegoat for Hillary Clinton's loss. But the Post
's blacklisting story and the media's amplification of it - and the overall political environment
that it helps to create - are all building blocks for a reactionary order, threatening the First
Amendment and a range of civil liberties.
When liberals have green-lighted a witch-hunt, right wingers have been pleased to run with
it. President Harry Truman issued an executive order in March 1947 to establish "loyalty" investigations
in every agency of the federal government. Joe McCarthy and the era named after him were soon
to follow.
In media and government, the journalists and officials who enable blacklisting are cravenly
siding with conformity instead of democracy.
Norman Solomon is co-founder of the online activist group RootsAction.org. His books include War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death. He is the executive
director of the Institute for Public Accuracy.
This idea of casting dissidents as Russian Agent is directly from McCarthy play book.
And paradoxically resembles the practive of the USSR in which dissdents were demonized as "Agent
of the Western powers." The trick is a immanent part of any war propaganda efforts. So it is clear
the Cold War II had started...
Notable quotes:
"... As George Orwell predicted, telling the truth is now regarded by Western "democratic" governments as a hostile act. A brand new website, propornot.com, has just made its appearance condemning a list of 200 Internet websites that provide news and views at variance with the presstitute media that serves the governments' agendas . Does propornot.com's funding come from the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy, or George Soros? ..."
"... In the West those who disagree with the murderous and reckless policies of public officials are demonized as "Russian agents." ..."
"... The presstitute Washington Post played its assigned role in the claim promoted by Washington that the alternative media consists of Russian agents. Craig Timberg, who appears devoid of integrity or intelligence, and perhaps both, is the WaPo stooge who reported the fake news that "two teams of independent researchers" - none of whom are identified - found that the Russians exploited my gullibility, that of CounterPunch, Professor Michel Chossudosky of Global Researh, Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Justin Raimondo and that of 194 other websites to help "an insurgent candidate" (Trump) "claim the White House." ..."
"... Note the term applied to Trump - "insurgent candidate." That tells you all you need to know. ..."
"... Western governments are running out of excuses. Since the Clinton regime, the accumulation of war crimes committed by Western governments exceed those of Nazi Germany. Millions of Muslims have been slaughtered, dislocated, and dispossessed in seven countries. Not a single Western war criminal has been held accountable. ..."
"... The despicable Washington Post is a prime apologist for these war criminals. The entire Western print and TV media is so heavily implicated in the worst war crimes in human history that, if justice ever happens, the presstitutes will stand in the dock with the Clintons, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, Obama and their neocon operatives or handlers as the case may be. ..."
The "war on terror" has simultaneously been a war on truth. For fifteen years-from 9/11 to Saddam
Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction" and "al Qaeda connections," "Iranian nukes," "Assad's use
of chemical weapons," endless lies about Gadaffi, "Russian invasion of Ukraine"-the governments of
the so-called Western democracies have found it essential to align themselves firmly with lies in
order to pursue their agendas. Now these Western governments are attempting to discredit the truthtellers
who challenge their lies.
Russian news services are under attack from the EU and Western presstitutes as purveyors of
"fake news" . Abiding by its Washington master's orders, the EU actually passed a resolution
against Russian media for not following Washington's line. Russian President Putin said that the
resolution is a "visible sign of degradation of Western society's idea of democracy."
As George Orwell predicted, telling the truth is now regarded by Western "democratic" governments
as a hostile act. A brand new website, propornot.com, has just made its appearance condemning a list
of 200 Internet websites that provide news and views at variance with the presstitute media that
serves the governments' agendas
. Does propornot.com's funding come from the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy, or George
Soros?
I am proud to say that paulcraigroberts.org is on the list.
What we see here is the West adopting Zionist Israel's way of dealing with critics. Anyone who
objects to Israel's cruel and inhuman treatment of Palestinians is demonized as "anti-semitic."
In the West those who disagree with the murderous and reckless policies of public officials are demonized
as "Russian agents." The president-elect of the United States himself has been designated a
"Russian agent."
This scheme to redefine truthtellers as propagandists has backfired. The effort to discredit truthtellers
has instead produced a catalogue of websites where reliable information can be found, and readers
are flocking to the sites on the list. Moreover, the effort to discredit truthtellers shows that
Western governments and their presstitutes are intolerant of truth and diverse opinion and are committed
to forcing people to accept self-serving government lies as truth.
Clearly, Western governments and Western media have no respect for truth, so how can the West
possibly be democratic?
The presstitute Washington Post played its assigned role in the claim promoted by Washington
that the alternative media consists of Russian agents. Craig Timberg, who appears devoid of integrity
or intelligence, and perhaps both, is the WaPo stooge who reported the fake news that "two teams
of independent researchers" - none of whom are identified - found that the Russians exploited my
gullibility, that of CounterPunch, Professor Michel Chossudosky of Global Researh, Ron Paul, Lew
Rockwell, Justin Raimondo and that of 194 other websites to help "an insurgent candidate" (Trump)
"claim the White House."
Note the term applied to Trump - "insurgent candidate." That tells you all you need to know.
You can read here what passes as "reliable reporting" in the presstitute
Washington Post .
Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept, which somehow escaped inclusion in The 200, unloads on Timberg
and the Washington Post
here .
Western governments are running out of excuses. Since the Clinton regime, the accumulation
of war crimes committed by Western governments exceed those of Nazi Germany. Millions of Muslims
have been slaughtered, dislocated, and dispossessed in seven countries. Not a single Western war
criminal has been held accountable.
The despicable Washington Post is a prime apologist for these war criminals. The entire Western
print and TV media is so heavily implicated in the worst war crimes in human history that, if justice
ever happens, the presstitutes will stand in the dock with the Clintons, George W. Bush and Dick
Cheney, Obama and their neocon operatives or handlers as the case may be.
Which purveys more "fake news" - RT.com on the one hand, or Fox News, MSNBC and CNN on the other?
I asked that question on reddit and my post was deleted.
While Bashar al Assad has not created ISIS whose roots are in humiliated Saddam Hossein
Sunni generals and soldiers, it is obvious that he did not prevent them from
infiltrating the 'rebels'. He wanted a clash between the 'rebels' mostly inspired by the
Moslem Brotherhood (who has "succeeded" in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia) and with other
Sunni Islamists who had a more extreme ideology.
The 'rebels' ( later taken over by Al Nusra) were funded by Qatar and Turkey ( fans of
the MB) while the Salafists ( later ISIS) originated in Iraq, Pakistan and other
countries were funded by Saudi Arabia.
Bashar al Assad threw them face to face in order to weaken them. Its quite possible that
he managed to keep their dissension alive by sometime executing one side to get a
violent response of the other. That was a very smart strategy. He helped transforming
the 'moderate' rebels into violent fighters motivated by money and revenge that soon
were labelled terrorists by the Western world.
The war was had threefold: Salafists against Moslem Brotherhood, and both against the
Syrian army. As the funds and support the Islamist were getting from Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, Kuwait and Turkey were unlimited, the Syrian army found itself in a dire
situation, despite the help from Arab Shia militias. The intervention of Russia changed
the whole picture. Later the Kurdish factor has weakened Turkey further and the failed
Yemen war made Saudi Arabia less generous with the 'rebels'. Only Qatar has continued to
fund them.
Thus Bashar al Assad may have benefited from the emergence of ISIS in the
beginning but he was about to be overrun without Russia and Iran's support.
For Russia and Iran, the fall of Bashar al Assad meant the massacre of the Shia,
Alawites and Christians and violent struggle between the two extremist Islamist factions
( MB and Salafists) with incompatible ideology.
It was clear that Bashar al Assad should not be allowed to be toppled and they acted
accordingly independently of the civilian casualties.
The delirious state of the ruling European elites has been displayed on public when
the
Guardian
published their last demand:
'European leaders, notably the French, are privately warning Vladimir Putin that
if he permits Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, to turn an expected capture of
Aleppo into a military victory across most of the country, it will be up to Russia to
foot the bill for reconstruction.'
It looks that those in power in London, Paris, Berlin are completely brain dead,
since they seem to be unable to recall who destroyed Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan
and a number of other countries.
The United States, with the avid support provided by the EU, have killed hundreds
of thousands of civilians, while destroying the homes and the infrastructure that
supported those that they spared, which resulted in a veritable exodus of migrants
from the Middle East and Africa to Europe.
So, maybe they should be paying the bills instead of forcing smaller European
countries to provide shelter for the refugees they created in the first place.
And what about Washington's responsibility?
Let's see ...
- If the US hires the Israelis to build a wall on the Mexican border, and the
Mexicans should pay for it, and
- If the US uses NATO to surround Russia and to start a war with that country, and the
Europeans should pay for it - and fight it
- Then Europeans should welcome the refugees from the USraeli/USaudi wars in the Middle
East and USropean wars in NA as well, right?
Trumpian logic 101.
I don't think Trump's counterparts in Europe are going to see it that way, once
they're elected as he was, out the revulsion of the population with USropean policies
that have left them financially devastated, bankrupts themselves.
Maybe China should pay? Right.
Maybe the Saudis and the GCC should pay ... they paid to destroy the ME, might they
not be compelled to pay to put it back together again? Seems like a Trumpian solution to
me. I imagine he can get his up and coming counterparts in Europe to go along with that.
It has been our undertaking, since 2010, to chronicle our understanding of capitalism via our book
The Philosophy of Capitalism . We were curious
as to the underlying nature of the system which endows us, the owners of capital, with so many favours. The Saker has asked me
to explain our somewhat crude statement 'Capitalism Requires World War'.
The present showdown between West, Russia and China is the culmination of a long running saga that began with World War One. Prior
to which, Capitalism was governed by the gold standard system which was international, very solid, with clear rules and had brought
great prosperity: for banking Capital was scarce and so allocated carefully. World War One required debt-capitalism of the
FIAT kind, a bankrupt Britain began to pass the Imperial baton to the US, which had profited by financing the war and selling munitions.
The Weimar Republic, suffering a continuation of hostilities via economic means, tried to inflate away its debts in 1919-1923
with disastrous results-hyperinflation. Then, the reintroduction of the gold standard into a world poisoned by war, reparation and
debt was fated to fail and ended with a deflationary bust in the early 1930's and WW2.
The US government gained a lot of credibility after WW2 by outlawing offensive war and funding many construction projects
that helped transfer private debt to the public book. The US government's debt exploded during the war, but it also shifted
the power game away from creditors to a big debtor that had a lot of political capital. The US used her power to define the new rules
of the monetary system at Bretton Woods in 1944 and to keep physical hold of gold owned by other nations.
The US jacked up tax rates on the wealthy and had a period of elevated inflation in the late 40s and into the 1950s
all of which wiped out creditors, but also ushered in a unique middle class era in the West. The US also reformed extraction
centric institutions in Europe and Japan to make sure an extractive-creditor class did not hobble growth, which was easy to do because
the war had wiped them out (same as in Korea).
Capital destruction in WW2 reversed the Marxist rule that the rate of profit always falls. Take any given market
say jeans. At first, all the companies make these jeans using a great deal of human labour so all the jeans are priced around the
average of total social labour time required for production (some companies will charge more, some companies less).
One company then introduces a machine (costed at $n) that makes jeans using a lot less labour time. Each of these robot assisted
workers is paid the same hourly rate but the production process is now far more productive. This company, ignoring the capital outlay
in the machinery, will now have a much higher profit rate than the others. This will attract capital, as capital is always on the
lookout for higher rates of profit. The result will be a generalisation of this new mode of production. The robot or machine will
be adopted by all the other companies, as it is a more efficient way of producing jeans.
As a consequence the price of the jeans will fall, as there is an increased margin within which each market actor can undercut
his fellows. One company will lower prices so as to increase market share. This new price-point will become generalised as competing
companies cut their prices to defend their market share. A further n$ was invested but per unit profit margin is put under constant
downward pressure, so the rate of return in productive assets tends to fall over time in a competitive market place.
Interest rates have been falling for decades in the West because interest rates must always be below the rate of return
on productive investments. If interest rates are higher than the risk adjusted rate of return then the capitalist might
as well keep his money in a savings account. If there is real deflation his purchasing power increases for free and if there is inflation
he will park his money (plus debt) in an unproductive asset that's price inflating, E.G. Housing. Sound familiar? Sure, there has
been plenty of profit generated since 2008 but it has not been recovered from productive investments in a competitive free market
place. All that profit came from bubbles in asset classes and financial schemes abetted by money printing and zero interest
rates.
Thus, we know that the underlying rate of return is near zero in the West. The rate of return falls naturally,
due to capital accumulation and market competition. The system is called capitalism because capital accumulates: high income economies
are those with the greatest accumulation of capital per worker. The robot assisted worker enjoys a higher income as he is highly
productive, partly because the robotics made some of the workers redundant and there are fewer workers to share
the profit. All the high income economies have had near zero interest rates for seven years. Interest rates in Europe are even negative.
How has the system remained stable for so long?
All economic growth depends on energy gain. It takes energy (drilling the oil well) to gain energy. Unlike our
everyday experience whereby energy acquisition and energy expenditure can be balanced, capitalism requires an absolute net energy
gain. That gain, by way of energy exchange, takes the form of tools and machines that permit an increase in productivity per work
hour. Thus GDP increases, living standards improve and the debts can be repaid. Thus, oil is a strategic capitalistic resource.
US net energy gain production peaked in 1974, to be replaced by production from Saudi Arabia, which made the USA a net importer
of oil for the first time. US dependence on foreign oil rose from 26% to 47% between 1985 and 1989 to hit a peak of 60% in 2006.
And, tellingly, real wages peaked in 1974, levelled-off and then began to fall for most US workers. Wages have never recovered. (The
decline is more severe if you don't believe government reported inflation figures that don't count the costof housing.)
What was the economic and political result of this decline? During the 20 years 1965-85, there were 4 recessions, 2 energy
crises and wage and price controls. These were unprecedented in peacetime and The Gulf of Tonkin event led to the Vietnam
War which finally required Nixon to move away from the Gold-Exchange Standard in 1971, opening the next degenerate chapter of FIAT
finance up until 2008. Cutting this link to gold was cutting the external anchor impeding war and deficit spending. The promise of
gold for dollars was revoked.
GDP in the US increased after 1974 but a portion of end use buying power was transferred to Saudi Arabia. They
were supplying the net energy gain that was powering the US GDP increase. The working class in the US began to experience a slow
real decline in living standards, as 'their share' of the economic pie was squeezed by the ever increasing transfer of buying power
to Saudi Arabia.
The US banking and government elite responded by creating and cutting back legal and behavioral rules of a fiat based
monetary system. The Chinese appreciated the long term opportunity that this presented and agreed to play ball. The USA
over-produced credit money and China over-produced manufactured goods which cushioned the real decline in the buying power of America's
working class. Power relations between China and the US began to change: The Communist Party transferred value to the American consumer
whilst Wall Street transferred most of the US industrial base to China. They didn't ship the military industrial complex.
Large scale leverage meant that US consumers and businesses had the means to purchase increasingly with debt so the class
war was deferred. This is how over production occurs: more is produced that is paid for not with money that represents actual realized
labour time, but from future wealth, to be realised from future labour time. The Chinese labour force was producing more than it
consumed.
The system has never differed from the limits laid down by the Laws of Thermodynamics. The Real economy system can never over-produce
per se. The limit of production is absolute net energy gain. What is produced can be consumed. How did the Chinese produce such a
super massive excess and for so long? Economic slavery can achieve radical improvements in living standards for those that benefit
from ownership. Slaves don't depreciate as they are rented and are not repaired for they replicate for free. Hundreds of millions
of Chinese peasants limited their way of life and controlled their consumption in order to benefit their children. And their exploited
life raised the rate of profit!
They began their long march to modern prosperity making toys, shoes, and textiles cheaper than poor women could in South Carolina
or Honduras. Such factories are cheap to build and deferential, obedient and industrious peasant staff were a perfect match for work
that was not dissimilar to tossing fruit into a bucket. Their legacy is the initial capital formation of modern China and one of
the greatest accomplishments in human history. The Chinese didn't use net energy gain from oil to power their super massive and sustained
increase in production. They used economic slavery powered by caloric energy, exchanged from solar energy. The Chinese labour force
picked the World's low hanging fruit that didn't need many tools or machines. Slaves don't need tools for they are the tool.
Without a gold standard and capital ratios our form of over-production has grown enormously. The dotcom bubble
was reflated through a housing bubble, which has been pumped up again by sovereign debt, printing press (QE) and central bank insolvency.
The US working and middle classes have over-consumed relative to their share of the global economic pie for decades. The correction
to prices (the destruction of credit money & accumulated capital) is still yet to happen. This is what has been happening since 1971
because of the growth of financialisation or monetisation.
The application of all these economic methods was justified by the political ideology of neo-Liberalism. Neo-Liberalism
entails no or few capital controls, the destruction of trade unions, plundering state and public assets, importing peasants as domesticated
help, and entrusting society's value added production to The Communist Party of The People's Republic of China.
The Chinese have many motives but their first motivation is power. Power is more important than money. If you're rich
and weak you get robbed. Russia provides illustrating stories of such: Gorbachev had received a promise from George HW Bush
that the US would pay Russia approximately $400 billion over10 years as a "peace dividend" and as a tool to be utilized in the conversion
of their state run to a market based economic system. The Russians believe the head of the CIA at the time, George Tenet, essentially
killed the deal based on the idea that "letting the country fall apart will destroy Russia as a future military threat". The country
fell apart in 1992. Its natural assets were plundered which raised the rate of profit in the 90's until President Putin put a stop
to the robbery.
In the last analysis, the current framework of Capitalism results in labour redundancy, a falling rate of profit and ingrained
trading imbalances caused by excess capacity. Under our current monopoly state capitalism a number of temporary preventive measures
have evolved, including the expansion of university, military, and prison systems to warehouse new generations of labour.
Our problem is how to retain the "expected return rate" for us, the dominant class. Ultimately, there are only two large-scale
solutions, which are intertwined .
One is expansion of state debt to keep "the markets" moving and transfer wealth from future generations of
labour to the present dominant class.
The other is war, the consumer of last resort. Wars can burn up excess capacity, shift global markets, generate
monopoly rents, and return future labour to a state of helplessness and reduced expectations. The Spanish flu killed 50-100 million
people in 1918. As if this was not enough, it also took two World Wars across the 20th century and some 96 million dead to reduce
unemployment and stabilize the "labour problem."
Capitalism requires World War because Capitalism requires profit and cannot afford the unemployed . The point
is capitalism could afford social democracy after the rate of profit was restored thanks to the depression of the 1930's and the
physical destruction of capital during WW2. Capitalism only produces for profit and social democracy was funded by taxing profits
after WW2.
Post WW2 growth in labour productivity, due to automation, itself due to oil & gas replacing coal, meant workers could be better
off. As the economic pie was growing, workers could receive the same %, and still receive a bigger slice. Wages as a % of US GDP
actually increased in the period, 1945-1970. There was an increase in government spending which was being redirected in the form
of redistributed incomes. Inequality will only worsen, because to make profits now we have to continually cut the cost of inputs,
i.e. wages & benefits. Have we not already reached the point where large numbers of the working class can neither feed themselves
nor afford a roof over their heads?13% of the UK working age population is out of work and receiving out of work benefits. A huge
fraction is receiving in work benefits because low skill work now pays so little.
The underlying nature of Capitalism is cyclical. Here is how the political aspect of the cycle ends:
1920s/2000s High inequality, high banker pay, low regulation, low taxes for the wealthy, robber barons (CEOs), reckless
bankers, globalisation phase
1929/2008 Wall Street crash
1930s/2010s Global recession, currency wars, trade wars, rising unemployment, nationalism and extremism
What comes next? World War.
If Capitalism could speak, she would ask her older brother, Imperialism, this: "Can you solve the problem?" We
are not reliving the 1930's, the economy is now an integrated whole that encompasses the entire World. Capital has been accumulating
since 1945, so under- and unemployment is a plague everywhere. How big is the problem? Official data tells us nothing, but the 47
million Americans on food aid are suggestive. That's 1 in 7 Americans and total World population is 7 billion.
The scale of the solution is dangerous. Our probing for weakness in the South China Sea, Ukraine and Syria has
awakened them to their danger.The Chinese and Russian leadershave reacted by integrating their payment systems and real economies,
trading energy for manufactured goods for advanced weapon systems. As they are central players in the Shanghai Group we can assume
their aim is the monetary system which is the bedrock of our Imperial power. What's worse, they can avoid overt enemy action
and simply choose to undermine "confidence" in the FIAT.
Though given the calibre of their nuclear arsenal, how can they be fought let alone defeated? Appetite preceded
Reason, so Lust is hard to Reason with. But beware brother. Your Lust for Power began this saga, perhaps it's time to Reason.
That's because they don't understand the word "capitalism."
Capitalism simply means economic freedom. And economic freedom, just like freedom to breed, must be exposed to the pruning
action of cause and effect, otherwise it outgrows its container and becomes unstable and explodes. As long as it is continually
exposed to the grinding wheel of causality, it continues to hold a fine edge, as the dross is scraped away and the fine steel
stays. Reality is full of dualities, and those dualities cannot be separated without creating broken symmetry and therefore terminal
instability. Freedom and responsibility, for example. One without the other is unstable. Voting and taxation in direct proportion
to each other is another example.
Fiat currency is an attempt to create an artificial reality, one without the necessary symmetry and balance of a real system.
However, reality can not be gamed, because it will produce its own symmetry if you try to deny it. Thus the symmetry of fiat currency
is boom and bust, a sine wave that still manages to produce equilibrium, however at a huge bubbling splattering boil rather than
a fine simmer.
The folks that wrote this do not have a large enough world view. Capitalism does not require world wars because freedom does
not require world wars. Freedom tends to bleed imbalances out when they are small. On the other hand, empire does require world
war, which is why we are going to have one.
Capitalism becomes imperialism when financial sociopaths steal profits from both sides of the trade. What you're seeing is
an Imperialism of Capital, as explained very nicely in the 1889 book "The Great Red Dragon."
Wrong. Capitalism needs prolonged directionless wars without clear winners and contained destruction that utilize massive amounts
of raw materials and endless orders for weapons and logistical support. That's what makes some guys rich.
That's was a very long-winded and deliberately obtuse way of explaining how DEBT AS MONEY and The State's usurpation of sound
money destroyed efficient markets. The author then goes to call this system Capitalism.
So yeah, the deliberate destruction of capital, in all its forms, is somehow capitalism. Brilliant observation. Fuck you. There
are better terms for things like this. Perhaps....central banking? The State? Fiat debt creation? Evil? Naw, let's just contort
and abuse language instead. That's the ticket.
I've spent my adult life in 51 countries. This was financed by correctly anticipating the Great Financial Crisis in 2008. I
was studying Marx at that time. I'm presently an employee of the Chinese State. I educate the children of China's best families.
I am the author, alongside a large international team of capitalists, of Before The Collapse : The Philosophy of Capitalism.
I also have my own business; I live with my girlfriend and was born and grew up in Ireland.
===============
Why would anyone waste time to read this drivel, buttressed by the author's credentials.
The unstated thesis is that wars involve millions of actors, who produce an end-result of many hundreds of millions killed.
Absent coercion ("the Draft"), how is any government going to man hundreds of divisions of foot soldiers. That concept is passι.
Distribute some aerosol poisons via drones and kill as many people as deemed necessary. How in the hell will that action stimulate
the world economy.
Weapons of mass-destruction are smaller, cheaper and easier to deploy. War as a progenitor of growth - forget it.
The good news is that this guy is educating the children of elite in China. Possibly the Pentagon could clone him 10,000 times
and send those cyborgs to China - cripple China for another generation or two.
The term cyclical doesn't quite cover what we have being experiencing. It's more like a ragdoll being shaken by a white shark.
The euphoria of bubble is more like complete unhinged unicorn mania anymore and the lows are complete grapes of wrath. It's probably
always been that way to some extent because corruption has remained unchallenged for a great deal of time. The boom phases are
scarier than the downturns anymore, especially the last oil boom and housing boom. Complete Alfred Hitchcock stuff.
I don't think it's capitalism and that term comes across as an explanation that legitimizes this completely contrived pattern
that benefits a few and screws everybody else. Markets should not be behaving in such a violent fashion. Money should probably
be made steady and slow. And downturns shouldn't turn a country into Zimbabwe. I could be wrong but there is really no way to
know with the corruption we have.
And War requires that an enemy be created. According to American General Breedlove-head of NATO's European Command-speaking
to the US Armed Services Committee 2 days ago, "Russia and Assad are deliberately weaponizing migration to break European resolve".
"The only reason to use non-precision weapons like barrel bombs is to keep refugees on the move". "These refugees bring criminality,
foreign fighters and terrorism", and "are being used to overwhelm European structures". "Russia has chosen to be an adversary
and is a real threat." "Russia is irresponsible with nuclear weapons-always threatening to use them." And strangely, "In the past
week alone, Russia has made 450 attacks along the front lines in E. Ukraine".
Even with insanity overflowing the West, I found these comments to be the most bizarrely threatening propaganda yet. After
reading them for the first time, I had to prove to myself that I wasn't hallucinating it.
It has been our undertaking, since 2010, to chronicle our understanding of capitalism via our book
The Philosophy of Capitalism . We were curious
as to the underlying nature of the system which endows us, the owners of capital, with so many favours. The Saker has asked me
to explain our somewhat crude statement 'Capitalism Requires World War'.
The present showdown between West, Russia and China is the culmination of a long running saga that began with World War One. Prior
to which, Capitalism was governed by the gold standard system which was international, very solid, with clear rules and had brought
great prosperity: for banking Capital was scarce and so allocated carefully. World War One required debt-capitalism of the
FIAT kind, a bankrupt Britain began to pass the Imperial baton to the US, which had profited by financing the war and selling munitions.
The Weimar Republic, suffering a continuation of hostilities via economic means, tried to inflate away its debts in 1919-1923
with disastrous results-hyperinflation. Then, the reintroduction of the gold standard into a world poisoned by war, reparation and
debt was fated to fail and ended with a deflationary bust in the early 1930's and WW2.
The US government gained a lot of credibility after WW2 by outlawing offensive war and funding many construction projects
that helped transfer private debt to the public book. The US government's debt exploded during the war, but it also shifted
the power game away from creditors to a big debtor that had a lot of political capital. The US used her power to define the new rules
of the monetary system at Bretton Woods in 1944 and to keep physical hold of gold owned by other nations.
The US jacked up tax rates on the wealthy and had a period of elevated inflation in the late 40s and into the 1950s
all of which wiped out creditors, but also ushered in a unique middle class era in the West. The US also reformed extraction
centric institutions in Europe and Japan to make sure an extractive-creditor class did not hobble growth, which was easy to do because
the war had wiped them out (same as in Korea).
Capital destruction in WW2 reversed the Marxist rule that the rate of profit always falls. Take any given market
say jeans. At first, all the companies make these jeans using a great deal of human labour so all the jeans are priced around the
average of total social labour time required for production (some companies will charge more, some companies less).
One company then introduces a machine (costed at $n) that makes jeans using a lot less labour time. Each of these robot assisted
workers is paid the same hourly rate but the production process is now far more productive. This company, ignoring the capital outlay
in the machinery, will now have a much higher profit rate than the others. This will attract capital, as capital is always on the
lookout for higher rates of profit. The result will be a generalisation of this new mode of production. The robot or machine will
be adopted by all the other companies, as it is a more efficient way of producing jeans.
As a consequence the price of the jeans will fall, as there is an increased margin within which each market actor can undercut
his fellows. One company will lower prices so as to increase market share. This new price-point will become generalised as competing
companies cut their prices to defend their market share. A further n$ was invested but per unit profit margin is put under constant
downward pressure, so the rate of return in productive assets tends to fall over time in a competitive market place.
Interest rates have been falling for decades in the West because interest rates must always be below the rate of return
on productive investments. If interest rates are higher than the risk adjusted rate of return then the capitalist might
as well keep his money in a savings account. If there is real deflation his purchasing power increases for free and if there is inflation
he will park his money (plus debt) in an unproductive asset that's price inflating, E.G. Housing. Sound familiar? Sure, there has
been plenty of profit generated since 2008 but it has not been recovered from productive investments in a competitive free market
place. All that profit came from bubbles in asset classes and financial schemes abetted by money printing and zero interest
rates.
Thus, we know that the underlying rate of return is near zero in the West. The rate of return falls naturally,
due to capital accumulation and market competition. The system is called capitalism because capital accumulates: high income economies
are those with the greatest accumulation of capital per worker. The robot assisted worker enjoys a higher income as he is highly
productive, partly because the robotics made some of the workers redundant and there are fewer workers to share
the profit. All the high income economies have had near zero interest rates for seven years. Interest rates in Europe are even negative.
How has the system remained stable for so long?
All economic growth depends on energy gain. It takes energy (drilling the oil well) to gain energy. Unlike our
everyday experience whereby energy acquisition and energy expenditure can be balanced, capitalism requires an absolute net energy
gain. That gain, by way of energy exchange, takes the form of tools and machines that permit an increase in productivity per work
hour. Thus GDP increases, living standards improve and the debts can be repaid. Thus, oil is a strategic capitalistic resource.
US net energy gain production peaked in 1974, to be replaced by production from Saudi Arabia, which made the USA a net importer
of oil for the first time. US dependence on foreign oil rose from 26% to 47% between 1985 and 1989 to hit a peak of 60% in 2006.
And, tellingly, real wages peaked in 1974, levelled-off and then began to fall for most US workers. Wages have never recovered. (The
decline is more severe if you don't believe government reported inflation figures that don't count the costof housing.)
What was the economic and political result of this decline? During the 20 years 1965-85, there were 4 recessions, 2 energy
crises and wage and price controls. These were unprecedented in peacetime and The Gulf of Tonkin event led to the Vietnam
War which finally required Nixon to move away from the Gold-Exchange Standard in 1971, opening the next degenerate chapter of FIAT
finance up until 2008. Cutting this link to gold was cutting the external anchor impeding war and deficit spending. The promise of
gold for dollars was revoked.
GDP in the US increased after 1974 but a portion of end use buying power was transferred to Saudi Arabia. They
were supplying the net energy gain that was powering the US GDP increase. The working class in the US began to experience a slow
real decline in living standards, as 'their share' of the economic pie was squeezed by the ever increasing transfer of buying power
to Saudi Arabia.
The US banking and government elite responded by creating and cutting back legal and behavioral rules of a fiat based
monetary system. The Chinese appreciated the long term opportunity that this presented and agreed to play ball. The USA
over-produced credit money and China over-produced manufactured goods which cushioned the real decline in the buying power of America's
working class. Power relations between China and the US began to change: The Communist Party transferred value to the American consumer
whilst Wall Street transferred most of the US industrial base to China. They didn't ship the military industrial complex.
Large scale leverage meant that US consumers and businesses had the means to purchase increasingly with debt so the class
war was deferred. This is how over production occurs: more is produced that is paid for not with money that represents actual realized
labour time, but from future wealth, to be realised from future labour time. The Chinese labour force was producing more than it
consumed.
The system has never differed from the limits laid down by the Laws of Thermodynamics. The Real economy system can never over-produce
per se. The limit of production is absolute net energy gain. What is produced can be consumed. How did the Chinese produce such a
super massive excess and for so long? Economic slavery can achieve radical improvements in living standards for those that benefit
from ownership. Slaves don't depreciate as they are rented and are not repaired for they replicate for free. Hundreds of millions
of Chinese peasants limited their way of life and controlled their consumption in order to benefit their children. And their exploited
life raised the rate of profit!
They began their long march to modern prosperity making toys, shoes, and textiles cheaper than poor women could in South Carolina
or Honduras. Such factories are cheap to build and deferential, obedient and industrious peasant staff were a perfect match for work
that was not dissimilar to tossing fruit into a bucket. Their legacy is the initial capital formation of modern China and one of
the greatest accomplishments in human history. The Chinese didn't use net energy gain from oil to power their super massive and sustained
increase in production. They used economic slavery powered by caloric energy, exchanged from solar energy. The Chinese labour force
picked the World's low hanging fruit that didn't need many tools or machines. Slaves don't need tools for they are the tool.
Without a gold standard and capital ratios our form of over-production has grown enormously. The dotcom bubble
was reflated through a housing bubble, which has been pumped up again by sovereign debt, printing press (QE) and central bank insolvency.
The US working and middle classes have over-consumed relative to their share of the global economic pie for decades. The correction
to prices (the destruction of credit money & accumulated capital) is still yet to happen. This is what has been happening since 1971
because of the growth of financialisation or monetisation.
The application of all these economic methods was justified by the political ideology of neo-Liberalism. Neo-Liberalism
entails no or few capital controls, the destruction of trade unions, plundering state and public assets, importing peasants as domesticated
help, and entrusting society's value added production to The Communist Party of The People's Republic of China.
The Chinese have many motives but their first motivation is power. Power is more important than money. If you're rich
and weak you get robbed. Russia provides illustrating stories of such: Gorbachev had received a promise from George HW Bush
that the US would pay Russia approximately $400 billion over10 years as a "peace dividend" and as a tool to be utilized in the conversion
of their state run to a market based economic system. The Russians believe the head of the CIA at the time, George Tenet, essentially
killed the deal based on the idea that "letting the country fall apart will destroy Russia as a future military threat". The country
fell apart in 1992. Its natural assets were plundered which raised the rate of profit in the 90's until President Putin put a stop
to the robbery.
In the last analysis, the current framework of Capitalism results in labour redundancy, a falling rate of profit and ingrained
trading imbalances caused by excess capacity. Under our current monopoly state capitalism a number of temporary preventive measures
have evolved, including the expansion of university, military, and prison systems to warehouse new generations of labour.
Our problem is how to retain the "expected return rate" for us, the dominant class. Ultimately, there are only two large-scale
solutions, which are intertwined .
One is expansion of state debt to keep "the markets" moving and transfer wealth from future generations of
labour to the present dominant class.
The other is war, the consumer of last resort. Wars can burn up excess capacity, shift global markets, generate
monopoly rents, and return future labour to a state of helplessness and reduced expectations. The Spanish flu killed 50-100 million
people in 1918. As if this was not enough, it also took two World Wars across the 20th century and some 96 million dead to reduce
unemployment and stabilize the "labour problem."
Capitalism requires World War because Capitalism requires profit and cannot afford the unemployed . The point
is capitalism could afford social democracy after the rate of profit was restored thanks to the depression of the 1930's and the
physical destruction of capital during WW2. Capitalism only produces for profit and social democracy was funded by taxing profits
after WW2.
Post WW2 growth in labour productivity, due to automation, itself due to oil & gas replacing coal, meant workers could be better
off. As the economic pie was growing, workers could receive the same %, and still receive a bigger slice. Wages as a % of US GDP
actually increased in the period, 1945-1970. There was an increase in government spending which was being redirected in the form
of redistributed incomes. Inequality will only worsen, because to make profits now we have to continually cut the cost of inputs,
i.e. wages & benefits. Have we not already reached the point where large numbers of the working class can neither feed themselves
nor afford a roof over their heads?13% of the UK working age population is out of work and receiving out of work benefits. A huge
fraction is receiving in work benefits because low skill work now pays so little.
The underlying nature of Capitalism is cyclical. Here is how the political aspect of the cycle ends:
1920s/2000s High inequality, high banker pay, low regulation, low taxes for the wealthy, robber barons (CEOs), reckless
bankers, globalisation phase
1929/2008 Wall Street crash
1930s/2010s Global recession, currency wars, trade wars, rising unemployment, nationalism and extremism
What comes next? World War.
If Capitalism could speak, she would ask her older brother, Imperialism, this: "Can you solve the problem?" We
are not reliving the 1930's, the economy is now an integrated whole that encompasses the entire World. Capital has been accumulating
since 1945, so under- and unemployment is a plague everywhere. How big is the problem? Official data tells us nothing, but the 47
million Americans on food aid are suggestive. That's 1 in 7 Americans and total World population is 7 billion.
The scale of the solution is dangerous. Our probing for weakness in the South China Sea, Ukraine and Syria has
awakened them to their danger.The Chinese and Russian leadershave reacted by integrating their payment systems and real economies,
trading energy for manufactured goods for advanced weapon systems. As they are central players in the Shanghai Group we can assume
their aim is the monetary system which is the bedrock of our Imperial power. What's worse, they can avoid overt enemy action
and simply choose to undermine "confidence" in the FIAT.
Though given the calibre of their nuclear arsenal, how can they be fought let alone defeated? Appetite preceded
Reason, so Lust is hard to Reason with. But beware brother. Your Lust for Power began this saga, perhaps it's time to Reason.
That's because they don't understand the word "capitalism."
Capitalism simply means economic freedom. And economic freedom, just like freedom to breed, must be exposed to the pruning
action of cause and effect, otherwise it outgrows its container and becomes unstable and explodes. As long as it is continually
exposed to the grinding wheel of causality, it continues to hold a fine edge, as the dross is scraped away and the fine steel
stays. Reality is full of dualities, and those dualities cannot be separated without creating broken symmetry and therefore terminal
instability. Freedom and responsibility, for example. One without the other is unstable. Voting and taxation in direct proportion
to each other is another example.
Fiat currency is an attempt to create an artificial reality, one without the necessary symmetry and balance of a real system.
However, reality can not be gamed, because it will produce its own symmetry if you try to deny it. Thus the symmetry of fiat currency
is boom and bust, a sine wave that still manages to produce equilibrium, however at a huge bubbling splattering boil rather than
a fine simmer.
The folks that wrote this do not have a large enough world view. Capitalism does not require world wars because freedom does
not require world wars. Freedom tends to bleed imbalances out when they are small. On the other hand, empire does require world
war, which is why we are going to have one.
Capitalism becomes imperialism when financial sociopaths steal profits from both sides of the trade. What you're seeing is
an Imperialism of Capital, as explained very nicely in the 1889 book "The Great Red Dragon."
Wrong. Capitalism needs prolonged directionless wars without clear winners and contained destruction that utilize massive amounts
of raw materials and endless orders for weapons and logistical support. That's what makes some guys rich.
That's was a very long-winded and deliberately obtuse way of explaining how DEBT AS MONEY and The State's usurpation of sound
money destroyed efficient markets. The author then goes to call this system Capitalism.
So yeah, the deliberate destruction of capital, in all its forms, is somehow capitalism. Brilliant observation. Fuck you. There
are better terms for things like this. Perhaps....central banking? The State? Fiat debt creation? Evil? Naw, let's just contort
and abuse language instead. That's the ticket.
I've spent my adult life in 51 countries. This was financed by correctly anticipating the Great Financial Crisis in 2008. I
was studying Marx at that time. I'm presently an employee of the Chinese State. I educate the children of China's best families.
I am the author, alongside a large international team of capitalists, of Before The Collapse : The Philosophy of Capitalism.
I also have my own business; I live with my girlfriend and was born and grew up in Ireland.
===============
Why would anyone waste time to read this drivel, buttressed by the author's credentials.
The unstated thesis is that wars involve millions of actors, who produce an end-result of many hundreds of millions killed.
Absent coercion ("the Draft"), how is any government going to man hundreds of divisions of foot soldiers. That concept is passι.
Distribute some aerosol poisons via drones and kill as many people as deemed necessary. How in the hell will that action stimulate
the world economy.
Weapons of mass-destruction are smaller, cheaper and easier to deploy. War as a progenitor of growth - forget it.
The good news is that this guy is educating the children of elite in China. Possibly the Pentagon could clone him 10,000 times
and send those cyborgs to China - cripple China for another generation or two.
The term cyclical doesn't quite cover what we have being experiencing. It's more like a ragdoll being shaken by a white shark.
The euphoria of bubble is more like complete unhinged unicorn mania anymore and the lows are complete grapes of wrath. It's probably
always been that way to some extent because corruption has remained unchallenged for a great deal of time. The boom phases are
scarier than the downturns anymore, especially the last oil boom and housing boom. Complete Alfred Hitchcock stuff.
I don't think it's capitalism and that term comes across as an explanation that legitimizes this completely contrived pattern
that benefits a few and screws everybody else. Markets should not be behaving in such a violent fashion. Money should probably
be made steady and slow. And downturns shouldn't turn a country into Zimbabwe. I could be wrong but there is really no way to
know with the corruption we have.
And War requires that an enemy be created. According to American General Breedlove-head of NATO's European Command-speaking
to the US Armed Services Committee 2 days ago, "Russia and Assad are deliberately weaponizing migration to break European resolve".
"The only reason to use non-precision weapons like barrel bombs is to keep refugees on the move". "These refugees bring criminality,
foreign fighters and terrorism", and "are being used to overwhelm European structures". "Russia has chosen to be an adversary
and is a real threat." "Russia is irresponsible with nuclear weapons-always threatening to use them." And strangely, "In the past
week alone, Russia has made 450 attacks along the front lines in E. Ukraine".
Even with insanity overflowing the West, I found these comments to be the most bizarrely threatening propaganda yet. After
reading them for the first time, I had to prove to myself that I wasn't hallucinating it.
"... The motive is there (discredit competition), the evidence is there per the above, the legal standing is explicit, the only thing that is technically unquantifiable is the damage done. ..."
"... Both Firefox and Chrome have added the option to open in a "private" or "incognito" window or tab, which also gets you around the monthly limit. ..."
"... What NYT/WaPo lose in people not paying to read, they apparently can make up from people willing to pay to have things published. ..."
"... 'The man' who shot one round into the floor* at Comet Pizza may be an actor, Edgar Maddison Welch, who has done various jobs in media, including playing a "raver/victim". ..."
"... Yves, I would very much question your description of The Washington Post being " taken for a ride." over this story. ..."
"... It's worth pointing out that the newspapers owner Jeff Bezos was hired by the Secretary of Defense to a rather sinister sounding organisation called the " Defense Innovation Advisory Board " in July. The Boards mission statement is to .."focus on new technologies and organizational behavior and culture." Also, in addition "identify innovative private-sector practices, and technological solutions that the DoD could employ in the future." ..."
"... In short, Bezos, and his companies are now part of the MIC. I believe Googles CEO is also on the same board. ..."
"... Am I supposed to accept then that the Washington Post really thinks that the work of PropOrNot is honestly and objectively carried out? I can't. ..."
"... Dan Rather was put in an impossible position by supporters of GW Bush, despite the accuracy of the accusation. In this case, instead, the Post intentionally credits accusations for which it can offer no support (or at least declines to do so). I'll conclude that the Post acted maliciously and spitefully, as in slander, until it gives me reason to think otherwise. No person or media outlet can disseminate such shocking and potentially damaging accusations without our demanding accountability. ..."
"... If you read section 501 of this year's intelligence authorization bill, it directs the President to set up an interagency committee to 'counter active measures by Russia to exert covert influence over peoples and governments.' So that shows you that senators from both parties are clearly concerned about Russian covert influence efforts. ..."
"... "Never assume malice when incompetence will explain the behavior." unless a lengthy history of errors having the same bias suggests otherwise. ..."
"... I've been a lifelong journalist, 10 years on a daily newspaper, 20 years freelancing for magazines. The Wapo story so blatantly violated fundamental journalistic standards I cannot believe any experienced editor would not have realized that. My only possible conclusion is that irresistible pressure was placed on editors to publish the story. ..."
"... You fake a document that contains the truth. When you discredit the document, you discredit the truth. Maneuvers like that show why Karl Rove really was (in his own special way) a genius. ..."
"... I followed the Bush Texas Air National Guard story in detail at the time, and the Rather story in particular, and posted on it a good deal. So far as I know, nobody ever claimed the $10,000 reward that Gary Trudeau offered for anybody who would come forward as an eye witness to Bush performing his TANG duties. ..."
"... Your comment is heavy on speculation including the notion that Bezos is directly controlling what goes into the Post. I'd say the tight little club that is mainstream journalism doesn't require government subversion in order to represent a MIC point of view. As Gore Vidal said re the deep state: they don't need to conspire since they all think alike anyway. ..."
"... With all due respect it isn't speculation that Bezos has been hired by the secretary of defence to the Defence innovation advisory board. I think you have to be very naive if you think he has little input into the editorial running of the paper. Why else buy a newspaper these days? They hardly make much money. ..."
"... The British Guardian for example has been running articles and pushing a campaign of "The Internet we want." Which seems to consist of all critiscms of what it believes being censored. ..."
"... As to Yves point about the amateur nature of this list, and the attack on sites like NC in the article, Yves shouldn't assume that all these people are geniuses. It won't be the first or the last time that powerful people who run businesses make complete fools of themselves. ..."
"... And Bezos is too busy to have much/any input into editorial decisions. Newscycles are far too rapid. Bezos might make clear what the general priorities and tone are, but he's not going to be involved in individual stories save on a very exceptional basis, and news of that would get out to reporters and make the journalism rumor mill in a bad way. Marty Peretz, who unlike Bezos was the publisher and editor in chief of the magazine he bought (the vastly smaller The New Republic) had pet priorities (Israel) and preferences (falling in love with smart young male senior editors and then becoming disenchanted with them in a couple of years and driving them out) that were widely known. ..."
"... These guys are so ludicrous that folks like Bellingcat are denouncing them. ..."
"... Carl Bernstein has done some pretty deep reporting on decades of links bw CIA and media: http://www.carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php ..."
"... Even he says there are not really any links bw CIA and WaPo as propaganda channel. As much as it'd be fun to fantasize about Bezos being an evil operator for the MIC, I am inclined toward Yves' narrative of incompetence, and an (unhealthy) dose of confirmation bias-seeking. ..."
"... Much as I would believe anything about Bezos/WP, the article is so amateurish its very hard to believe it is part of an active top-down conspiracy. I'd be more inclined to think that it 'became known' among WP staff that certain Very Important People believe in the Russian propaganda conspiracy and that any articles highlighting this are more likely to be published than others. ..."
"... Off the top of my head, some of the worst examples of journalistic libel recently have primarily been driven not by malice or conspiracies, but because of active confirmation bias. The journalist and editor strongly believes X to be true, therefore when a source comes up to provide a potentially juicy story confirming the reality and evil of X, then they leap on the source without any professional scepticism. The Rolling Stone college rape hoax comes to mind, as does a notorious case in Ireland which nearly destroyed investigative journalism in the main TV company. ..."
"... In this exclusive report, distinguished research psychologist Robert Epstein explains the new study and reviews evidence that Google's search suggestions are biased in favor of Hillary Clinton. He estimates that biased search suggestions might be able to shift as many as 3 million votes in the upcoming presidential election in the US. ..."
"... Zerohedge was listed as a "fake news" site but, as I'm sure many here know, they do great, hard hitting economic analysis and have had their projections and theories confirmed many times with a far better track record than the mainstream sites covering the same subject. ..."
"... I'm not sure the guys behind all this mind losing the discussion in the end. As often, even if the smeared news sites, including NC, win the debate, they'll still lose the communication war. ..."
"... The background to all this, the attempt by the Clintonites to draw on Cold War stink reserves (a National Ideological Reserve, sorta like the National Petroleum Reserve) and, if not its complete failure, than its failure to be decisively effective, makes me think we are witnessing signs of a decisive weakening in elite communication control. PropOrNot advances the process. ..."
"... We fully endorse Yves Smith's efforts. ..."
"... Additionally, we note that the only reason we haven't followed up with a similar action is because i) the allegations were beyond laughable we have rejected all of them on the record, and ii) there are simply too much other events taking place in what should otherwise be a quiet end to the year taking place to focus on what may be a lenghty, if gratifying, legal process. ..."
The thing with raising money is you have to ask, ask, ask a lot, lot, lot.
So when you need more money to continue this fight, just publish an updated case-statement
with an ask, and the lot of us will turn over our digits to support the fight. Many hands make
light work, as my mother always says.
It's refreshing to have something to support that is worthwhile in both principle and actuality.
Plus, the Post is a nasty piece of work. Same for the Times . Disgraceful and
distasteful. They are only fun to peruse for the self-parody.
Class Action libel suit against WaPo and the propornot website seems reasonable. The motive
is there (discredit competition), the evidence is there per the above, the legal standing is explicit,
the only thing that is technically unquantifiable is the damage done.
If the damages can be determined by some reasonable methodology then perhaps there is enough
to make it worth bringing a suit.
Regarding paying for the news in general, I'm assuming there aren't too many readers who who
actually want to pay WaPo or the NYT for anything at this point.
Those sites and others in recent years have imposed a monthly free article limit and I find
that sometimes after clicking on stories linked to from here I run up against the limit.
I'm sure most people here are already aware of this, but just so you are never tempted to subscribe
to their crappy organizations, all you need to do to get around the limit is use a different browser
to open the link.
My name is Choung, I'm Korean(south Korea).
Korean have experienced this kind of things many many times under the military dictatorship,
and now we were suffering from new blacklist.
Our president is daughter of the past infamous dictator.
I have visited your site and linked many good pieces. Sometimes translated them.
Korean mainstream media don't handle this story,
So, l wrote some pieces about it in public site.
I strongly express solidarity with you on behalf of many progressive Koreans.
Of tangential interest is the "news" report, if Yahoo can be so described, of the man charged
with various and sundry for threatening the pizzaria "implicated" in the pedophilia allegations
swirling around in the overheated miasma that passes for "common wisdom" today.
Of importance is the framing of the "story." The man is alleged to have gone off on his "adventure"
as the result of "fake news site" reporting. The assault on journalism is now switching from a
pure smear to a flanking maneuver. Whether real or manufactured, this act will probably be spun
to support further crackdowns on dissenting points of view. Guilt by (manufactured) association
can hurt just as badly as real guilt. All this plays out in the court of public opinion, a notoriously
rickety edifice in the best of times. \
'The man' who shot one round into the floor* at Comet Pizza may be an actor, Edgar Maddison
Welch, who has done various jobs in media, including playing a "raver/victim". Look him up on IMDB. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2625901/bio
Yves, I would very much question your description of The Washington Post being " taken
for a ride." over this story.
It's worth pointing out that the newspapers owner Jeff Bezos was hired by the Secretary
of Defense to a rather sinister sounding organisation called the " Defense Innovation Advisory
Board " in July. The Boards mission statement is to .."focus on new technologies and organizational
behavior and culture." Also, in addition "identify innovative private-sector practices, and
technological solutions that the DoD could employ in the future."
In short, Bezos, and his companies are now part of the MIC. I believe Googles CEO is also
on the same board. These so called private corporations are now part of the US govt that
works in the field of black ops. Remember also that Amazon has major contracts with the govt to
provide cloud computing storage. This is fascism in all but name. It remains to be seen how long
the new President Mr Trump will want to trust these people as they did so much to try to defeat
him.
I beg to differ. No one would want to damage their credibility above all in undermining a narrative
(in Beltway-speak) that they are tying to promote.
Remember the Dan Rather scandal? Unlike this
case, the underlying fact set about George Bush was accurate, but Dan Rather falling for bogus
evidence not only forced Rather to resign, but
diverted attention from what should have been a scandal if properly reported and
confused any attempts to discuss it (as in the Rather evidence being bad made casual observers
think the dirt on Bush was untrue).
I was also struck by the statement that the Post was 'taken for a ride'. Am I supposed
to accept then that the Washington Post really thinks that the work of PropOrNot is honestly and
objectively carried out? I can't.
Dan Rather was put in an impossible position by supporters of GW Bush, despite the accuracy
of the accusation. In this case, instead, the Post intentionally credits accusations for which
it can offer no support (or at least declines to do so). I'll conclude that the Post acted maliciously
and spitefully, as in slander, until it gives me reason to think otherwise. No person or media
outlet can disseminate such shocking and potentially damaging accusations without our demanding
accountability.
And if you look at the what the Post
said to Consortium News (hat tip UserFriendly), it apparently considers just chatting with
a source for a bit an adequate basis for validating a smear against 200 publications. They effectively
admit they did no independent verification:
The reply came from the newspaper's vice president for public relations, Kristine Coratti
Kelly, who thanked me "for reaching out to us" before presenting the Post's response, quoted
here in full:
"The Post reported on the work of four separate sets of researchers, as well as independent
experts, who have examined Russian attempts to influence American democracy. PropOrNot was
one. The Post did not name any of the sites on PropOrNot's list of organizations that it said
had - wittingly or unwittingly - published or echoed Russian propaganda. The Post reviewed
PropOrNot's findings and our questions about them were answered satisfactorily during the course
of multiple interviews."
Speaking of, do you think your inclusion on the initial "PropOrNot" list is an example of malice
or incompetence? Could it be some half-assed algorithm scanned the web for sites linking to RT
(which I can remember at least one instance popping up in Water Cooler/Links), and called it a
day? That seems the most plausible to me, but it also seems plausible that there are many organizations
which would want to discredit NC.
I haven't seen "The List", but am confident that sites like Moon of Alabama and The Saker are
on it. Saker is explicitly pro-Russia (this is not a criticism per se; I found his pieces on the
Ukraine/Donbas crisis in 2014-15 to be more illuminating than most of the very little that one
could find in the US MSM, for example) and MoA is typically skeptical of US international military
adventures.
Pieces from both of these sites have been, from time to time, linked at the NC daily
news links page. Not sure, but there may be a few links over the past couple of years to items
at Russia Insider as well. It may be that 2nd order associations were enough to "merit" NC's inclusion
on "The List."
But last week Timberg was still touting his "independent experts" in an article on a proposed
new committee mandated in the 2017 intelligence authorization bill. He quoted Wyden:
If you read section 501 of this year's intelligence authorization bill, it directs the President
to set up an interagency committee to 'counter active measures by Russia to exert covert influence
over peoples and governments.' So that shows you that senators from both parties are clearly
concerned about Russian covert influence efforts.
Linking his earlier story with this information may be self-important stupidity on Timberg's
part, but stupidity does not actually preclude malice.
In any case, if senators are treating Russian influence as fact when we have yet to be shown
any proof of its existence that is a sign this article, be it folly or malice, needs further discrediting,
so thanks and more power to you!
That's an awful aphorism. Never discount one just because the other is a potential explanation,
especially if the pattern indicates they'll abdicate their core responsibilities for access and
relish going after those they resent for calling them out on it.
Having said that, one can see how you personally wouldn't want to risk libel, but I will make
no such assumptions about the likes of the beltway press.
I've been a lifelong journalist, 10 years on a daily newspaper, 20 years freelancing for magazines.
The Wapo story so blatantly violated fundamental journalistic standards I cannot believe any experienced
editor would not have realized that. My only possible conclusion is that irresistible pressure
was placed on editors to publish the story.
"Dan Rather was put in an impossible position by supporters of GW Bush, despite the accuracy
of the accusation."
Excuse me.
Rather (and CBS) had to admit that the documents used to make those accusations were fake.
How do you have "accurate accusations" when those accusations are based on faked documents?
Rather was not put in a bad positions by supporters of GW Bush.
He was put in a bad position by Dan Rather.
BTW, the Rather incident is a perfect illustration on how fake news gets reported. The underlying
accusation so matched Rather's world view that he decided to run with them without doing any sort
of fact checking. Or checking the reliability of the one source for the story.
Doing so would have prevented Rather from reporting that story and having to resign in disgrace.
This is why fact checking and verifying stories via multiple sources is so important when reporting
news.
It prevents reporting fake news.
The reason we have so much "fake news" is that too many reporters have abandoned basic journalistic
practices.
> How do you have "accurate accusations" when those accusations are based on faked documents?
You fake a document that contains the truth. When you discredit the document, you discredit
the truth. Maneuvers like that show why Karl Rove really was (in his own special way) a genius.
I followed the Bush Texas Air National Guard story in detail at the time, and the Rather story
in particular, and posted on it a good deal. So far as I know, nobody ever claimed the $10,000
reward that Gary Trudeau offered for anybody who would come forward as an eye witness to Bush
performing his TANG duties.
Your comment is heavy on speculation including the notion that Bezos is directly controlling
what goes into the Post. I'd say the tight little club that is mainstream journalism doesn't require
government subversion in order to represent a MIC point of view. As Gore Vidal said re the deep
state: they don't need to conspire since they all think alike anyway.
More likely the Post article is an example of journo dinosaurs striking out at websites they
now regard as their rivals. Print journalism has been brought low, financially, by the internet
and television.
The people who work at the Post don't dare attack television because they all
want to be on it. However the web is likely regarded as an easy target and I've long been under
the impression that mainstream journalists know practically nothing about the internet other than
Twitter and a few favored sites like Politico.
While it's potentially the greatest communication
medium ever devised, of course people visiting the internet have to bring their own truth filter.
Which is why some of us have landed here. NC seems serious about getting to the truth, and if
you don't like what's written you get to say so. What the MSM really resents is people thinking
for themselves.
With all due respect it isn't speculation that Bezos has been hired by the secretary of defence
to the Defence innovation advisory board. I think you have to be very naive if you think he has
little input into the editorial running of the paper. Why else buy a newspaper these days? They
hardly make much money.
I suspect that this outfit PropOrNot was set up before the election of Trump. They assumed
Clinton was going to win and this was the The begining of an onslaught against the so called alternative
media that was going to be waged once Hilary was safely inside the White House. Full regulation
of the Internet is their aim. This agenda has been pushed in other so called liberal newspapers.
The British Guardian for example has been running articles and pushing a campaign of "The Internet
we want." Which seems to consist of all critiscms of what it believes being censored.
As to Yves point about the amateur nature of this list, and the attack on sites like NC in
the article, Yves shouldn't assume that all these people are geniuses. It won't be the first or
the last time that powerful people who run businesses make complete fools of themselves.
I doubt
they thought they were going to be called out on it, and if Clinton won the election it didn't
really matter because they would have the power to come after the alternative media. Trumps election
has put a spanner in the works .for now. It remains to be seen if he will try to censor the Internet
under pressure from elites.
No it wasn't. They bought the URL only in late August. The first tweet was November 5. The
site appears to have been published at the earliest as of November 9, but from what I can tell,
it was November 18.
And Bezos is too busy to have much/any input into editorial decisions. Newscycles are far too
rapid. Bezos might make clear what the general priorities and tone are, but he's not going to
be involved in individual stories save on a very exceptional basis, and news of that would get
out to reporters and make the journalism rumor mill in a bad way. Marty Peretz, who unlike Bezos
was the publisher and editor in chief of the magazine he bought (the vastly smaller The New Republic)
had pet priorities (Israel) and preferences (falling in love with smart young male senior editors
and then becoming disenchanted with them in a couple of years and driving them out) that were
widely known.
Agree that Bezos is an unlikely instigator of this farce. More likely, from what we know about
the CIA/Mockingbird history, the person responsible is most likely a CIA plant at the senior editor
level.
I have to beg to differ re CIA plant. These guys are so ludicrous that folks like Bellingcat
are denouncing them. I won't link even here to the original site since that helps them in Google,
but just go look at the FAQ on the baddie's site or their Twitter feed. No one who was a pro in
any field would see them as serious. I have no idea what the reporter was smoking. But the article
reads as if they never did the most basic verification, like a web search. They didn't recognize
that the "report" which was The List, was already up and they either double down on or try to
cover for their mistake by "updating" the article saying the "report" went up Saturday November
26, when it had been up since at least November 18.
Even he says there are not really any links bw CIA and WaPo as propaganda channel. As much
as it'd be fun to fantasize about Bezos being an evil operator for the MIC, I am inclined toward
Yves' narrative of incompetence, and an (unhealthy) dose of confirmation bias-seeking.
Much as I would believe anything about Bezos/WP, the article is so amateurish its very hard
to believe it is part of an active top-down conspiracy. I'd be more inclined to think that it
'became known' among WP staff that certain Very Important People believe in the Russian propaganda
conspiracy and that any articles highlighting this are more likely to be published than others.
Off the top of my head, some of the worst examples of journalistic libel recently have primarily
been driven not by malice or conspiracies, but because of active confirmation bias. The journalist
and editor strongly believes X to be true, therefore when a source comes up to provide a potentially
juicy story confirming the reality and evil of X, then they leap on the source without any professional
scepticism. The Rolling
Stone college rape hoax comes to mind, as does a
notorious case in Ireland
which nearly destroyed investigative journalism in the main TV company.
Having said that, I think it is strongly likely that certain elements in the establishment
(probably the Clinton part of it) was actively pushing the Putin is Goebbels line for several
months but I doubt there is any structured conspiracy these things tend to just become part
of received wisdom, and there are plenty of bottom feeding journalists ready to join the parade.
Well, there's negligence, and then there's wanton, feckless, scurrilous, criminal negligence.
Recompense accordingly.
They certainly know or ought to know that, with the entire left field virtually empty, the
Bill of Rights in the round hole, and because they've foreclosed global working class solidarity
with walls, laws and red tape, (if that's too much of a stretch you don't belong), all they have
to do is squirm at us and we crash.
Well, there's negligence, and then there's wanton, feckless, scurrilous, criminal negligence.
Recompense accordingly.
They certainly know or ought to know that, with the entire left field virtually empty, the
Bill of Rights in the round hole, and because they've foreclosed global working class solidarity
with walls, laws and red tape, (if that's too much of a stretch you don't belong), all they have
to do is squirm at us and we crash.
"What the MSM really resents is people thinking for themselves."
Here are other examples of undoubtedly top-down suppression of anything other than the "kingmaker"
and corrupt status quo maintainer narratives owned by the six mega-corporations that control 90%
of what we see and hear.
The stealthy, Eric Schmidt-backed startup that's working to put Hillary Clinton in the White
House October 09, 2015
An under-the-radar startup funded by billionaire Eric Schmidt has become a major technology
vendor for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, underscoring the bonds between Silicon Valley
and Democratic politics.
The Groundwork, according to Democratic campaign operatives and technologists, is part of efforts
by Schmidt -- the executive chairman of Google parent-company Alphabet -- to ensure that Clinton has
the engineering talent needed to win the election. And it is one of a series of quiet investments
by Schmidt that recognize how modern political campaigns are run, with data analytics and digital
outreach as vital ingredients that allow candidates to find, court, and turn out critical voter
blocs.
Research Proves Google Manipulates Autocomplete Suggestions to Favor Clinton 12 Sep 2016
In this exclusive report, distinguished research psychologist Robert Epstein explains the new
study and reviews evidence that Google's search suggestions are biased in favor of Hillary Clinton.
He estimates that biased search suggestions might be able to shift as many as 3 million votes
in the upcoming presidential election in the US.
Ironically, Sputnick News IS, I believe, a Russian supported site, but just on a hunch and
noticing search autocompletion suggestion disparities myself, I had INDEPENDENTLY confirmed what
Epstein proved a month before the topic hit the on-line news.
I even emailed a few web sites about
it, but they didn't run with it AS THEY SHOULD HAVE as they would have scooped Sputnick News.
It was easy to prove, BTW. Google Trends data which is what is normally used to create autocomplete
suggestions on Google did not match the suggestions made, but the search autocomplete suggestions
on every other search engine DID.
YouTube and Facebook censorship against political conservative video bloggers (Google owns
YouTube)
Zerohedge was listed as a "fake news" site but, as I'm sure many here know, they do great,
hard hitting economic analysis and have had their projections and theories confirmed many times
with a far better track record than the mainstream sites covering the same subject.
My heartfelt support (and contribution) will be with you as you take on one of the most egregiously
insulting to its' readers and rot-riddled collection of hacks and mouthpieces. Now a propaganda
outlet but once at least a flaky effort at journalism, today,s Washington Post has earned an encounter
of the costly kind with a good lawyer or two, many times over.
.Illegitemi non carborundum! (Don't let the bastards wear you down!).
As I noted here this weekend, I have cancelled my subscription to the WaPo and will be sending
a check to NC in the amount of what I would have paid for it.
I am embarrassed that it took me so long to do so, but having been a subscriber since 1979
[except for when I lived elsewhere], the Post was rather a habit.
I specifically mentioned the Timberg story as the reason for my cancellation, and hope this
information will work its way up the Post food chain.
Also, Amazon is as dead to me as Walmart. I refuse to buy from either of them.
The "Fake News" story was vetted by editors at the WaPo before it was published. That they
published an article that no reputable High School paper would have touched with a 10 foot pole
speaks volumes. Hubris?.
Did they think that because it was published by the WaPo that no one would question it?
It was certainly a bold thing to do ( And stupid) unless the person or persons who decided to
publish this trash thought they had the kind of powerful backing that would protect them from
the consequences.
I expect the WaPo to try to weasel their way out of this embarassment and urge you not to back
down or compromise on your demands, if they don't get their noses rubbed in it they will crap
on you again.
When the National Enquirer has become more respectable than the WaPo ( And it is!) we are living
in strange times indeed.
If this effort begins to build a stronger alliance between truth telling internet sites -- thus
promoting change from the ground up -- perhaps it will lead to quicker consequences for Wapo and
others who pull this kind of stunt. If it becomes obvious that,
not only will your bogus story increase the traffic to these sites at the very time they are pointing
out what an idiot you are, but you also reliably get sued,
maybe it won't be as much fun anymore.
I'm not sure the guys behind all this mind losing the discussion in the end.
As often, even if the smeared news sites, including NC, win the debate, they'll still lose the
communication war.
The original revelation is buzzing around, and everybody loves it. If there is a rebuttal,
it will be a boring article nobody will comment. What people will remember is : "the russians
helped Trump win, and some fake news site like NC were their mouthpieces. I distinctly remember
the articles, even if the MSM now tries to hide the truth"
Not sure how to fight that, except with an even better message like : "There is a conspiracy
by the WP to smear independent reporting."
Sadly, I'm not sure it is possible to do that in all honestly. My opinion is that stupidity and
ignorance are at work here (and everywhere), not some well organised effort. And the thoughtful
voice is just boring.
I'm not so sure. This scandal might be something of a test of your argument, which predicts
that, similar to the horrible fate of Gary Webb, the named sites will forever have a residue of
doubt to deal with. Webb's story went the way it did because it was semiforgotten, drifting off
into the collective preconscious, vaguely malodorous. Surely that can be avoided here. Opportunities
for reminding readers of the farce and the revealed intentions of its promoters are abundant.
One thing to consider might be to put the WaPo under steady critical scrutiny. For example, as
above, the WaPo Whopper of the week.
The background to all this, the attempt by the Clintonites to draw on Cold War stink reserves
(a National Ideological Reserve, sorta like the National Petroleum Reserve) and, if not its complete
failure, than its failure to be decisively effective, makes me think we are witnessing signs of
a decisive weakening in elite communication control. PropOrNot advances the process.
Keep needling outlets that picked up the Post story and demanding a prominent apology for irresponsible
reporting. Send them the FAIR link, send them this one. Ask why they haven't reaffirmed their
commitment (sic) to basic journalistic principles . Be a damn nuisance. (I've often thought what
a pity it is that "public nuisance" has a prior signification.)
I'm relieved to know that James Moody will be representing Naked Capitalism in its authentic
quest to right an egregious (and either reckless or intentional, in my opinion) wrong committed
by a major newspaper of record that purports to represent the Fourth Estate.
Mr. Moody is technically competent, deeply experienced and highly ethical.
It's critical that the establishment-driven & coordinated assault on many credible alternative
media outlets be halted if free speech and free criticism (which mainstream media sources have
not only failed in protecting, but have willingly attempted to suppress views contrary to establishment-approved
concepts) is to survive in the United States and elsewhere.
There is a coordinated attempt by long-standing establishment media sources and government
to discredit and de-legitimize very authentic, well-intentioned and thought-provoking non-mainstream
media sources, which, if successful, would amount to nothing less than basic censorship and a
wholesale de-democratization of news reporting and editorializing.
That the Washington Post allowed for and even assisted a highly questionable and anonymous
source to cast a wide net of aspersions over so many clearly legitimate alternative media sources
(such as Naked Capitalism) is nothing short of shameful McCarthy-era attempts to stifle free political
expression of substance, and must be challengers if there's any hope in preserving the very system
of a free exchange of ideas and speech.
I can't believe the unfairness of this allegation made by this propaganda watchdog website.
I mean, if I were a Hillary supporter, I would be in tears over this. But as a Bernie supporter,
I have learned to get over my butthurt.
"You identified and thus denigrated Naked Capitalism, one of the sites targeted in the "study"
as one of the "right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding
potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal
of global financiers. The effort also sought to heighten the appearance of international tensions
and promote fear of looming hostilities with nuclear-armed Russia."
"shadowy cabal of global financiers" ???? We always use the stock symbols GS and JPM here.
WTF is shadowy about that?????????????? You can look the symbols up in Bloomberg!
Well, I guess maybe some fake news got posted here in the comments section, but I distinctly
recall discussing real news, like when Hillary compared Putin to Hitler, or the Cookie Monster
thing in Kiev. Or NATO scattering nukes around Eastern Europe. Or Soros and the CIA funding a
long term propaganda war in Eastern Europe. Even Fox News would call that fair and balanced fake
news. But at any rate, Russia shouldn't view any of this as hostile. That would just be childish.
Confirming the impression that the Z site monitors NC closely for useful content, Tyler Durden
now has a post up titled "Fake News" Site Threatens Washington Post With Defamation Suit, Demands
Retraction .
The post includes the Scribd document of Moody's letter.
Since the Z site reportedly generates a six-figure annual profit, you'd think this deep-pocketed
site would join the suit (should litigation regrettably become necessary). Whaddya say, Tyler(s)?
He's actually quite technically expert (as in he can take apart and analyze software) which
is why I don't get the aol.com either. Although he may have been an early aol.com user, and I
am told it is a nuisance to extract your contacts from aol.com, and he may have decided it was
not worth the fuss.
Now the post is "gray boxed" (pinned) on the Z site, making it one of two lead articles that
apparently are expected to generate a high level of interest and comments.
It's not monetary support, however, the story now ends thus,
We fully endorse Yves Smith's efforts.
Additionally, we note that the only reason we haven't followed up with a similar action
is because i) the allegations were beyond laughable we have rejected all of them on the record,
and ii) there are simply too much other events taking place in what should otherwise be a quiet
end to the year taking place to focus on what may be a lenghty, if gratifying, legal process.
Pass the popcorn! Mr. Moody is a terrific lawyer. I just hope that if Aurora Advisors winds
up owning ScAmazon, the workers and suppliers start getting treated decently!
You're too nice to WaPo Yves, maybe this was incompetence but Bezos and WaPo are terrible and
they did too many hit pieces on Trump which included false information, so this is not a coincidence.
They are the fake news, and that's terrifying. Good luck and may you destroy them.
Good luck. I agree with your demands and hope that they are satisfied.
I gave up a long time ago on either the tv or mainstream print media as a source of credible
or factual news. There are some print publications out there that do a rather decent job at reporting
the news more accurately, but the ones I know of are mostly smaller local newspapers with very
limited budgets.
All the Bigs are propaganda pure and simple. I gave up reading the NYT and the WaPoo a long
long time ago. It would embarress a parrot to have either on the bottom of their cage to catch
their sh*t.
Where's Bezos? I'm still speculating this is Bezos' answer to Trump's birthing. Annoy the press
like hell. Let them whine and sue. Then save the country.
Addressing the Whappo's "incompetence" is genius bec. it cannot shake the label. It will stick
with them now, whereas if you had gone for the throat with an accusation of malice the Whappo
could have escaped all that disgust and resentment because to prove malice you have to prove intent.
Like fraud. It's hard to do.
It has been a difficult to watch these past 8 years under the continued conversion of whatever
was left of MSM being turned to merely a propaganda arm for the Executive branch. It is absolutely
hilarious that they had the audacity to write the article in the first place since MSM is the
only "real" fake news outlet. I do believe it will be a difficult road to achieve a full retraction
or even an acknowledgement because they will hide behind the concepts of editorial content. Nothing
they write is vetted or researched because they merely conjure articles to fit their preconceptions.
If nothing else, pushing back is still the right thing to do . just remember to not let it consume
you to the detriment of your continued good work on this site.
Does the threat of civil litigation even matter to an organization with Bezos' endless resources
to draw on? They would probably love the idea of a war of monetary attritionthey can't lose that
game. It seems to me the weak link might be the creators of the website itself. Unlike a hardened
target like the WaPo, they are unlikely to have such bottomless resources. The first step may
be to use investigation or litigation to strip away the anonymity of the publishers of the site,
probably by going after the hosting company, then to attack them directly. And if it turns out
that filing website whois papers via a proxy privacy service is 100% surefire, ironclad protection
from any legal accountability, then there really is no longer anything like accountability for
web publishing. If that is the case then there is nothing stopping you from retaliating in kind,
creating an anonymous website accusing Bezos of being a child pornographer or whatever and imploring
that he and his lawyers negotiate with you to have the accusations retracted at your pleasure.
Either filing whois papers for a domain using a privacy proxy is an unbreakable defense against
litigation, or it isn't.
My experience with journalists (as an organiser of non-profit activities) has convinced me
that nowadays they do little to no fact-checking. In one particular case I know of, mainstream
UK media including the Independent and the BBC publicized a man that, if they had simply bothered
doing a Google search on his name, they'd immediately realize he had zero credibility on the field
he was claiming expertise on.
This should hardly be a surprise to anyone who has followed the story of climate change, with
dozens of so-called "climate change" experts being allowed to write opinion pieces on mainstream
media, in spite of having no credentials, and sometimes having long credentials of having lobbied
for every dubious cause known to mankind, from the health safety of tobacco to the lack of issues
with pesticides.
The real issue is that it's getting damned near impossible for anyone to find out the truth
about any controversial issue without spending a long time researching the subject. And most people
don't have the time for this, and don't even know that they should regard the news on any controversial
issue, from any source, with great suspicion.
If one is serious about pursuit of a retraction and apology from Wapo, support for NC's cautious
approach is in order. It will not help the case being advanced to overstate with inferences about
WaPo's motives. Sticking to the already known objective facts will be enough to produce the desired
result, public discredit of WaPo by its own hand.
That's said with full sympathy for the feelings on WaPo, a publication that now ranks with
W. R. Hearst's in sheer depths of vileness. And that in general is rightfully laid at the door
of its libertardian owner Jeff Bezos, a man whose enterprises mark all that is most evil about
US capitalism today. But none of this belongs in the retraction / apology effort. As I see it,
the effort is designed to produce a specific effect from specific cause. That effort is best supported
by not second-guessing it at this point and over-loading it with meanings that can't be demonstrated
within the context of the effort. Let's give it a chance to run and review / critique the result
afterward.
Finally and for the record, this is said as someone with no sympathy for the Putin regime,
one that no leftist should have any truck with, "conscious or unconscious", especially from an
"anti-imperialist" POV. The Putin regime is right wing, capitalist, neo-nationalist, revanchist,
and neo-imperialist (and not at all "wannabe"). It supports with armed force a regime in Damascus
that has destroyed "its own country" to save itself. It IS a regime ideologically congruent with
Donald Trump's tendencies. IOW Putin's Russia is a lot like the United States in political coloration
right now.
Nevertheless, residents of the USA must first and foremost act against repression conducted
by their own government and its political agents such as WaPo. We can agree to disagree on Putin
while showing solidarity against domestic repression, especially of this poisonous neo-McCarthyite
type. That is only common sense. Our main opponent is always at home.
After more than a few decades of educational decline and loss of expertise, we have arrived
at the Age of Incompetence. That the WaPo would hire such nitwits is all the proof one needs.
The most reasonable hypothesis I can see is that the PropOrNot effort is a response by the
MSM to reassert information control, having lost it so spectacularly during the election. The
alternative media's counterstory has proven to be more faithful to reality than the picture presented
by elite journalists. Elite journalists themselves have been compromised by the Wikileaks revelations.
The MSM's reputation is in tatters and SOMETHING MUST BE DONE, at least until enough time has
gone by for the public to forget how truly dismally deceptive was their coverage.
A consistently suspicious pattern of MSM behavior is their incuriousness, and in the present
situation, one of the many of the herd of interrogatory elephants in the room is, why isn't the
MSM investigating the people who make up PropOrNot? (Or asking any of the questions NS has posed).
Would that not be newsworthy?
I agree with this assessment wholeheartedly. I am afraid that the strategy of the dem establishment
and their elite media allies over the next 4 years will be to regain narrative control via censorship,
rather than make any attempts at governing like small-d democrats.
The red baiting is popping out from all sides. Last week Amy Goodman interviewed Bernie the
first (she basically ignored him through the primary). She started off with "you were considered
a fringe candidate " and he politely reminded her he has been in congress for 25 years. Then she
said that he had been red-baited during the primary by Clinton over Castro and the Sandinistas
and "could he speak some about Castro and Latin America?" And at every opportunity she reminded
the audience he was an independent, not a Democrat, "a socialist."
I have been told that Sarah Palin blew her chance to be Sec. of Interior, or VA, or whatever
it was because she criticized Trump for "crony capitalism" over the Carrier deal.
I'm totally confused about who our friends are these days.
How has "Beall's List" of so-called "predatory" open-access academic research publishers escaped
a similar lawsuit? Some of these publishers were shut down as a direct result of being named so
the list has undeniably done damage since being published in 2013. There seem to be strong parallels
between "Fake News" and "Fake Science" censorship efforts.
It's not unreasonable the Washington Post would confuse Naked Capitalism with a Porn site.
But not a Russian porn site, that's just not credible since Naked Capitalism is English.
They should just admit it they made up fake news. They probably never read anything on the
site - or even looked at the pictures of naked animals. Naked pussys. Lots of those. With garish
flash photography. It's enough to embarrass anybody with refined aesthetic sensibilities.
But it isn't Porn and it's not Russian. I've never seen a Russian pussy here. Usually they're
American or maybe from England. Sometimes they're even guys. That's kind of confusing, but a cat
is a cat to most people. I'm not a veterinarian anyway.
Fake news is the scourge of the internet. Fake news has been around a long time, as long as
there were newspapers in fact. It started in the 1700s and it kept going. Before that it was fake
but it was only passed by word of mouth.
Now there's fake pictures. Fake news with fake pictures can sometimes be art - but only if
you see it in the movies, where some drug addled lunatic pretends they're somebody else, then
they go into rehab after the movie is made and sometimes before. News should be real, in theory,
but in reality it isn't. Somebody makes it up but you don't always know who. That's why jourmalism
is so important, because you want the person making it up to be accurate! You don't want them
making up Porn and publishing that. Why pay for that? People make that up themselves evidently
and don't even need a newspaper.
So if they fell for the fake Porn angle here - thinking that Naked meant Porn, and from Russia
of all places! - that must mean they're either making it up or they don't know what real news
is from anywhere. Since it could be from other places besides Russia. If they went to a museum
they'd see naked things but not Porn. There's a museum of things but it's not news or porn, it's
just whatever. I'm just being honest. It doesn't have to be confusing, even for somebody who writes
and takes pictures.
The tendency towards consensus has been apparent in the mainstream media for forty plus years
, long before the internet came along and upset things. What has caused mass hysteria in those
circles is the sound of these other uncontrolled and uncontrollable voices . Years ago the only
comment section of a national newspaper was ' Letters to the Editor ' which the editor had the
veto over, never mind editorial responsibility for, and he / she took their job seriously ( in
my first hand experience ) . Those days are long gone . Imagine you are a young, or even a seasoned
journalist on one of these papers and you think you have the ear of the editor , the temptation
to bring forth a story ( ' scoop ' in old fashioned newspaper speak ) that gives umpteen internet
sites a good kicking must be hard to resist. Trouble is the story was trashed before it hit the
ground . And so another nail goes in the coffin of the mainstream press .
"... "confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington's control of the South China Sea, now defined as an area of American National Interests." ..."
"... "for the crisis that Washington has created in Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda." ..."
"... "How America Was Lost" ..."
"... "aggression and blatant propaganda have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war, and this realization has drawn the two countries into a strategic alliance." ..."
"... "vassalage status accepted by the UK, Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." ..."
"... "price of world peace is the world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony." ..."
"... "On the foreign policy front, the hubris and arrogance of America's self-image as the 'exceptional, indispensable' country with hegemonic rights over other countries means that the world is primed for war," ..."
"... "unless the dollar and with it US power collapses or Europe finds the courage to break with Washington and to pursue an independent foreign policy, saying good-bye to NATO, nuclear war is our likely future." ..."
"... "historical turning point," ..."
"... "the Chinese were there in their place," ..."
"... "Russian casualties compared to the combined casualties of the US, UK, and France make it completely clear that it was Russia that defeated Hitler," ..."
"... "in the Orwellian West, the latest rewriting of history leaves out of the story the Red Army's destruction of the Wehrmacht." ..."
"... "expressed gratitude to 'the peoples of Great Britain, France and the United States of America for their contribution to the victory.'" ..."
"... "do not hear when Russia says 'don't push us this hard, we are not your enemy. We want to be your partners.'" ..."
"... "finally realized that their choice is vassalage or war," ..."
"... "made the mistake that could be fateful for humanity," ..."
The White House is determined to block the rise of the key nuclear-armed nations, Russia and China, neither of whom will join the
"world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony," says head of the Institute for Political Economy, Paul Craig Roberts.
The former
US assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy, Dr Paul Craig Roberts, has written on his
blog
that Beijing is currently "confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington's
control of the South China Sea, now defined as an area of American National Interests."
Roberts writes that Washington's commitment to contain Russia is the reason "for the crisis that Washington has created in
Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda."
The author of several books, "How America Was Lost" among the latest titles, says that US "aggression and blatant
propaganda have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war, and this realization has drawn the two countries into a strategic
alliance."
Dr Roberts believes that neither Russia, nor China will meanwhile accept the so-called "vassalage status accepted by the UK,
Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." According to the political analyst, the "price of
world peace is the world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony."
"On the foreign policy front, the hubris and arrogance of America's self-image as the 'exceptional, indispensable' country
with hegemonic rights over other countries means that the world is primed for war," Roberts writes.
He gives a gloomy political forecast in his column saying that "unless the dollar and with it US power collapses or Europe
finds the courage to break with Washington and to pursue an independent foreign policy, saying good-bye to NATO, nuclear war is our
likely future."
Russia's far-reaching May 9 Victory Day celebration was meanwhile a "historical turning point," according to Roberts
who says that while Western politicians chose to boycott the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, "the Chinese were
there in their place," China's president sitting next to President Putin during the military parade on Red Square in Moscow.
A recent poll targeting over 3,000 people in France, Germany and the UK has recently revealed that as little as 13 percent of
Europeans think the Soviet Army played the leading role in liberating Europe from Nazism during WW2. The majority of respondents
43 percent said the US Army played the main role in liberating Europe.
"Russian casualties compared to the combined casualties of the US, UK, and France make it completely clear that it was Russia
that defeated Hitler," Roberts points out, adding that "in the Orwellian West, the latest rewriting of history leaves out
of the story the Red Army's destruction of the Wehrmacht."
The head of the presidential administration, Sergey Ivanov, told RT earlier this month that attempts to diminish the role played
by Russia in defeating Nazi Germany through rewriting history by some Western countries are part of the ongoing campaign to isolate
and alienate Russia.
Dr Roberts has also stated in his column that while the US president only mentioned US forces in his remarks on the 70th anniversary
of the victory, President Putin in contrast "expressed gratitude to 'the peoples of Great Britain, France and the United States
of America for their contribution to the victory.'"
The political analyst notes that America along with its allies "do not hear when Russia says 'don't push us this hard, we
are not your enemy. We want to be your partners.'"
While Moscow and Beijing have "finally realized that their choice is vassalage or war," Washington "made the mistake
that could be fateful for humanity," according to Dr Roberts.
"... "confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington's control of the South China Sea, now defined as an area of American National Interests." ..."
"... "for the crisis that Washington has created in Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda." ..."
"... "How America Was Lost" ..."
"... "aggression and blatant propaganda have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war, and this realization has drawn the two countries into a strategic alliance." ..."
"... "vassalage status accepted by the UK, Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." ..."
"... "price of world peace is the world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony." ..."
"... "On the foreign policy front, the hubris and arrogance of America's self-image as the 'exceptional, indispensable' country with hegemonic rights over other countries means that the world is primed for war," ..."
"... "unless the dollar and with it US power collapses or Europe finds the courage to break with Washington and to pursue an independent foreign policy, saying good-bye to NATO, nuclear war is our likely future." ..."
"... "historical turning point," ..."
"... "the Chinese were there in their place," ..."
"... "Russian casualties compared to the combined casualties of the US, UK, and France make it completely clear that it was Russia that defeated Hitler," ..."
"... "in the Orwellian West, the latest rewriting of history leaves out of the story the Red Army's destruction of the Wehrmacht." ..."
"... "expressed gratitude to 'the peoples of Great Britain, France and the United States of America for their contribution to the victory.'" ..."
"... "do not hear when Russia says 'don't push us this hard, we are not your enemy. We want to be your partners.'" ..."
"... "finally realized that their choice is vassalage or war," ..."
"... "made the mistake that could be fateful for humanity," ..."
The White House is determined to block the rise of the key nuclear-armed nations, Russia and China, neither of whom will join the
"world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony," says head of the Institute for Political Economy, Paul Craig Roberts.
The former
US assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy, Dr Paul Craig Roberts, has written on his
blog
that Beijing is currently "confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington's
control of the South China Sea, now defined as an area of American National Interests."
Roberts writes that Washington's commitment to contain Russia is the reason "for the crisis that Washington has created in
Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda."
The author of several books, "How America Was Lost" among the latest titles, says that US "aggression and blatant
propaganda have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war, and this realization has drawn the two countries into a strategic
alliance."
Dr Roberts believes that neither Russia, nor China will meanwhile accept the so-called "vassalage status accepted by the UK,
Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." According to the political analyst, the "price of
world peace is the world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony."
"On the foreign policy front, the hubris and arrogance of America's self-image as the 'exceptional, indispensable' country
with hegemonic rights over other countries means that the world is primed for war," Roberts writes.
He gives a gloomy political forecast in his column saying that "unless the dollar and with it US power collapses or Europe
finds the courage to break with Washington and to pursue an independent foreign policy, saying good-bye to NATO, nuclear war is our
likely future."
Russia's far-reaching May 9 Victory Day celebration was meanwhile a "historical turning point," according to Roberts
who says that while Western politicians chose to boycott the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, "the Chinese were
there in their place," China's president sitting next to President Putin during the military parade on Red Square in Moscow.
A recent poll targeting over 3,000 people in France, Germany and the UK has recently revealed that as little as 13 percent of
Europeans think the Soviet Army played the leading role in liberating Europe from Nazism during WW2. The majority of respondents
43 percent said the US Army played the main role in liberating Europe.
"Russian casualties compared to the combined casualties of the US, UK, and France make it completely clear that it was Russia
that defeated Hitler," Roberts points out, adding that "in the Orwellian West, the latest rewriting of history leaves out
of the story the Red Army's destruction of the Wehrmacht."
The head of the presidential administration, Sergey Ivanov, told RT earlier this month that attempts to diminish the role played
by Russia in defeating Nazi Germany through rewriting history by some Western countries are part of the ongoing campaign to isolate
and alienate Russia.
Dr Roberts has also stated in his column that while the US president only mentioned US forces in his remarks on the 70th anniversary
of the victory, President Putin in contrast "expressed gratitude to 'the peoples of Great Britain, France and the United States
of America for their contribution to the victory.'"
The political analyst notes that America along with its allies "do not hear when Russia says 'don't push us this hard, we
are not your enemy. We want to be your partners.'"
While Moscow and Beijing have "finally realized that their choice is vassalage or war," Washington "made the mistake
that could be fateful for humanity," according to Dr Roberts.
"... RBC Capital Markets' Global Head of Commodity Strategy Helima Croft outlined three potential scenarios for WTI crude on CNBC's "Fast Money" for the new year. The most bullish situation would be seeing more than a million barrels of oil pulled off the market and prices averaging in the $60 dollar range. ..."
"... "If you are thinking about sort of about a mid-$30s average for WTI, low-$40s, I think that's a bearish scenario," said Croft, who's also a CNBC contributor. ..."
"... "Our base case is this sort of middle range... $52 is our WTI call for next year," she said, implying that U.S. crude would be nearly one-third higher than its current trading levels. The fourth quarter "is really where you want to be looking for WTI to sort of take-off," she added. ..."
RBC Capital Markets' Global Head of Commodity Strategy Helima Croft outlined three potential
scenarios for WTI crude on CNBC's "Fast Money" for the new year. The most bullish situation would
be seeing more than a million barrels of oil pulled off the market and prices averaging in the
$60 dollar range.
The worst case scenario involves a tsunami of new production from OPEC, Saudi Arabia, Iran and
Libya hitting the market -- all but certain to drive prices even lower. On Thursday, the final day
of trading before the Christmas holiday, Brent and U.S. crude closed up by more than a percent,
but still well under $40 per barrel.
"If you are thinking about sort of about a mid-$30s average for WTI, low-$40s, I think that's
a bearish scenario," said Croft, who's also a CNBC contributor.
... ... ....
"Our base case is this sort of middle range... $52 is our WTI call for next year," she
said, implying that U.S. crude would be nearly one-third higher than its current trading levels.
The fourth quarter "is really where you want to be looking for WTI to sort of take-off," she
added.
"... The ceaseless expressions of disdain for Russia, because the easily elected and decidedly popular president of Russia is only a reflection of Russia, strike me as a dangerously prejudice fostering madness. ..."
"... Putin is a dilemma in that he is the enemy of conservative Republican enemies, Obama and Clinton, so he must be a friend. Except he is allied with Assad who was a good dictator until he had to ally with Iran thanks to the House of Saud holding onto power by exporting radical Whabbist terrorism. ..."
"... Speaking of invasions real and otherwise, Krugman's pursuing his omnidirectional self-embarrassment campaign with real gusto. ..."
"... The US has never funneled vast sums of money to the man at the top to buy loyalty? Krugman is disingenuous. It happens all the time...he only needs to read John Perkins 'Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.' ..."
"... I guess Krugman's not aware that the European states are rather well-armed themselves, and that the Poles in particular are pretty ferocious. Maybe possibly "security guarantees" for Vilnius aren't really a sane American concern? ..."
"... Speaking of invasions real and otherwise, Krugman's pursuing his omnidirectional self-embarrassment campaign with real gusto. ..."
"... US funneled 58000 kids' lives to keep the crooks at the top in Saigon. ..."
"... Independence of Baltics turned into a tragedy for Russians living in those countries who instantly became "green card holders" instead of citizens and were discriminated pretty openly. But a lot of those Russians who have marketable skills and, especially, higher education, already left for Germany and other Western countries (Baltic countries are really small: Estonia 1.3 million, Latvia 2.2 Lithuania 3.3 in total less then population of New York) ..."
On the other hand, someplace like Vladimir Putin's Russia can easily funnel vast sums to the man
at the top in return for, say, the withdrawal of security guarantees for the Baltic States....
-- Paul Krugman
[ The ceaseless expressions of disdain for Russia, because the easily elected and decidedly
popular president of Russia is only a reflection of Russia, strike me as a dangerously prejudice
fostering madness.
I do not even care a fig what Baltics may be, I am not interested in a cold or a hot war over
any Baltics. I am content not having Baltics for the holidays. ]
"I am content not having Baltics for the holidays."
That is because you are not Vladimir Putin, who very much does. The Baltics are Latvia, Lithuania,
and Estonia, which all became independent and increasingly tied to Western Europe with the collapse
of the Soviet Union and which the Russians have assiduously tried to bring back under their control
ever since.
The Baltic blitz is this year's fear-mongering idiocy. So yeah, sure, in a purely military sense
Russia could roll over the Baltics. And yeah, sure, in some sense Russia (AKA Putin) "wants" the
Baltics.
What the hysterics never bother to answer -- does it even occur to them to ask? -- is precisely
**why** Moscow should do so. Unless Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are sitting on top of slabs
of platinum, they're really not worth all that much. Against that "benefit", occupying them would
bring nothing but severe costs, not least a likely European war and a certain protracted partisan
war.
Yeah yeah yeah, I know: Crimea! Donbas! Sounds convincing. Too bad the analogies are so deeply
uninformed. (Not that that ever got in the way of so many self-proclaimed "authorities" on Russia.)
Unlike Crimea, Baltic residents don't broadly favor merging with Russia -- not even all the Russophones.
Moscow knows this.
The situation in Donbas contradicts the sloppy assumption that Russia is relentlessly expansionist.
Other than as an occasional thorn in Kiev's side, Moscow doesn't really seem to know what to do
with the "prize" of Donbas. Many of the residents, likely a solid majority, of the "People's Republics"
favor Russian annexation. Moscow's said and done nothing toward that end.
Unless you believe that the world is run by deeply stupid cartoon villains -- and that really
does seem to be the level of a lot of the "liberals" around here -- the scenario simply doesn't
add up.
Vladimir Putin's Russia can easily funnel vast sums to the man at the top in return for, say,
the withdrawal of security guarantees for the Baltic States....
-- Paul Krugman
[ So that I am clear, Russia can funnel vast sums to Francois Hollande for exclusive visiting
rights to the Eiffel Tower and I would be disappointed because I too like to visit now and then
but there are other places in France to visit and I am as little interested in talk about securing
visiting rights to the Eiffel Tower as I am about war crazed talk about securing Baltics when
I have no idea and do not care what a Baltic may be.
Life for me has been and is content being Baltic-less. ]
If you had been born in the Baltics, would you favor Russian invasion to restore the glory of
Russian Empire? What we have is conservative moral relativism at work.
Fidel is evil because he was a dictator who overthrew the dictator democratic US capitalists
imposed on Cubans who were not sufficiently white, and only US backed dictators get permission
to to kill people. The Shah. The House of Saud. Sadam when at war with Iran, not when he invaded
and deposed the US backed dictator of Kuwait.
Putin is a dilemma in that he is the enemy of conservative Republican enemies, Obama and
Clinton, so he must be a friend. Except he is allied with Assad who was a good dictator until
he had to ally with Iran thanks to the House of Saud holding onto power by exporting radical Whabbist
terrorism.
But it all comes back to whether you would be happy to be born in US backed Saudi Arabia instead
of its evil enemy Iran, in China instead of Japan, or even China instead of Putin's Russia?
If you won the born in USA lottery, was that proof that you are a harder worker and thus more
deserving than those born in the Baltics under threat from Putin's political needs.
Vladimir Putin's Russia can easily funnel vast sums to the man at the top in return for, say,
the withdrawal of security guarantees for the Baltic States....
-- Paul Krugman
[ So that I am clear, Russia can funnel vast sums to Francois Hollande for exclusive visiting
rights to the Eiffel Tower and I would be disappointed because I too like to visit now and then
but there are other places in France to visit and I am as little interested in talk about securing
visiting rights to the Eiffel Tower as I am about war crazed talk about securing Baltics when
I have no idea and do not care what a Baltic may be.
Life for me has been and is content being Baltic-less.
I guess Krugman's not aware that the European states are rather well-armed themselves, and that
the Poles in particular are pretty ferocious. Maybe possibly "security guarantees" for Vilnius
aren't really a sane American concern?
Speaking of invasions real and otherwise, Krugman's pursuing his omnidirectional self-embarrassment
campaign with real gusto.
The US has never funneled vast sums of money to the man at the top to buy loyalty? Krugman
is disingenuous. It happens all the time...he only needs to read John Perkins 'Confessions of
an Economic Hit Man.'
I guess Krugman's not aware that the European states are rather well-armed themselves, and
that the Poles in particular are pretty ferocious. Maybe possibly "security guarantees" for Vilnius
aren't really a sane American concern?
Speaking of invasions real and otherwise, Krugman's pursuing his omnidirectional self-embarrassment
campaign with real gusto.
He is far from being poor. He is remunerated very nicely for the McCarthyism nonsense he utter.
Independence of Baltics turned into a tragedy for Russians living in those countries who
instantly became "green card holders" instead of citizens and were discriminated pretty openly.
But a lot of those Russians who have marketable skills and, especially, higher education, already
left for Germany and other Western countries (Baltic countries are really small: Estonia 1.3 million,
Latvia 2.2 Lithuania 3.3 in total less then population of New York)
De-industrialization followed. Now two out those three countries in economic sense are basket
cases. And that will not change.
Who would want to put a lot of money to restore what is lost? For the sake of what?
If I were Putin, I would propose Duma to adopt some kind of anti-apartheid law that would make
Russian energy and Russian market inaccessible to them and see how they behave. It would be not
such a big hit for Russia, but pretty noticeable for those three tiny countries.
It is easy to organize marches of former Waffen SS (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcl0NN8DgxA
) and desecrate Russian army monuments erected after WWII understanding that that they have
full USA and EU government support, and that Russia will not break diplomatic and economic relations
with them.
Typhoid fever, measles and other diseases killed about 12,000 children at the camp.[4] In one
of the burial places by the camp, 632 corpses of children of ages 5 to 9 were revealed.[5]
"... Russia complies with the rule of law: they refrain from use or threat of force and rely on pacific dispute resolution, using proportional and necessary force in compliance with UN Charter Chapter VII. ..."
"... The US shits on rule of law, interpreting human rights instruments in bad faith and flouting jus cogens to maintain impunity for the gravest crimes. In the precise terms of Responsibility to Protect, the US government does not even meet the minimal test for state sovereignty: compliance with the International Bill of Human Rights, the Rome Statute, and the UN Charter. ..."
"... Naturally the US is bleeding legitimacy and international standing, and Russia is going from strength to strength. If Russia invaded, we would strew flowers and sweets. ..."
Lots of panic for the Washington regime. The clownish asshole loser that they carefully groomed
proved less repulsive than their chosen Fuehrer Clinton. Now they are distraught to see that their
enemy Russia sucks much less than the USA.
Russians get a much better deal than the US subject population. The Russian head of state has
approval ratings that US politicians scarcely dream of. Russia complies with the Paris Principles,
the gold standard for institutionalized human rights protection under international review. The USA
does not. Russia's incorruptible President keeps kleptocrats in check, while the US banana republic
installs them in high office.
Russia complies with the rule of law: they refrain from use or threat of force and rely on pacific
dispute resolution, using proportional and necessary force in compliance with UN Charter Chapter
VII.
The US shits on rule of law, interpreting human rights instruments in bad faith and flouting
jus cogens to maintain impunity for the gravest crimes. In the precise terms of Responsibility to
Protect, the US government does not even meet the minimal test for state sovereignty: compliance
with the International Bill of Human Rights, the Rome Statute, and the UN Charter.
Naturally the US is bleeding legitimacy and international standing, and Russia is going from strength
to strength. If Russia invaded, we would strew flowers and sweets.
The collapse of the USSR did Russia a world of good. Now it's time for the USA to collapse and
free America.
Here is a sixth post debunking two common talking
points by die-in-the-last-ditch Clinton loyalists and Democrat Establishment
operatives. For both talking points, I'll give a quotation that illlustrates
the myth, followed by rebuttals. (
Three
previous talking points are debunked here
,
two more here
,
two more here
, and
one more here
.) As usual, I hope you'll find the rebuttals useful if these
topics come up
I'll cover talking points related to - drumroll, please - Russia, and
therefore
a bad-faith effort
could be made to frame this post as - gasp - Russian
propaganda. Let me assure readers at once that even though I'm writing this
from my spandy new Russian
dacha
, that doesn't have the slightest
influence on my views! That said - [Yes, Dmitri? Was there more?
Ras
kol
nikov!]
- That said, Yves said to go ahead with this topic.
However, Yves doesn't review what I write before posting, so any errors or
omissions are solely my own.
The topic of Russian influence on the election, and Russian influence over
(or, in strong form, control of) President-Elect Trump has already generated a
vast literature, if I may so call it, in the echo chamber created by the
political class. Frankly, I don't have the days it would take to sort all the
talking points out. So I'm going to limit my scope to the talking points used
by candidate Clinton in the third Presidential debate; Clinton's performance
was, after all, Ground Zero for these talking points, and gave all her
supporters in the political class and the electorate license to expand on them.
[Karen] Dunn and her partner Ron Klain the two most experienced debate
prep specialists in Democratic politics are overseeing an orderly and
intensely secretive process.
Clinton's advisers, in conversations over the last month, have repeatedly
emphasized that the mock debate session, while important, is less vital than
the informal law school sessions where Clinton hashes out her reactions and
attacks. "It's a moot court set-up," said a Clinton insider. "She's doing
less of the usual mock debate sessions, with 100 people standing around,
this time."
[L]ongtime Clinton aide Phillippe Reines [and the] buttoned-down, courtly
Klain has also stood in parrying questions with Clinton, according to people
close to the situation but both men have been less concerned with
imitating Trump than preparing Clinton for the substance of the attacks, two
keen attorneys framing Clinton's reactions in the precise, disciplined
language their lawyerly candidate thrives on.
Clinton's experience and confidence can make her an intimidating person
to prep - when you count her own three dozen on-stage debates there is
arguably no one in American politics with more prime-time experience. Her
coaches, however, are also longtime debate aficionados - campaign
consultants Joel Benenson, Jim Margolis and Mandy Grunwald all sit in on
prep, as does Palmieri, longtime attorney Bob Barnett, senior policy adviser
Jake Sullivan, Podesta, occasionally Bill Clinton, younger policy aides who
have helped compile the thick green binders of prep materials, and others.
Klain and Dunn, who report directly to Sullivan, not only offer an
overarching strategy, but act as speechwriters - line-writers, really -
paring down language and crafting practiced lines.
In other words, Clinton's talking points are most likely to be "practiced
lines" "crafted" by very smart Democrats; each will be the best shot the
Clinton Team could take.
Talking Point: 17 Intelligence Agencies Confirmed that Russia Is
Trying to Influence the Election
[CLINTON:] And what's really important about WikiLeaks is that the
Russian government has engaged in espionage against Americans. They have
hacked American websites, American accounts of private people, of
institutions. Then they have given that information to WikiLeaks for the
purpose of putting it on the Internet.
This has come from the highest levels of the Russian government, clearly,
from Putin himself, in an effort, as 17 of our intelligence agencies have
confirmed, to influence our election.
And Clinton broadens the scope of her attack, merging Wikileaks with
espionage with cyberattacks (I assume "hacking") generally, and broadening
"influence" to "interference":
[CLINTON:] We've never had a foreign government trying to interfere in
our election. We have 17 - 17 intelligence agencies, civilian and military,
who have all concluded that these espionage attacks, these cyberattacks,
come from the highest levels of the Kremlin and they are designed to
influence our election. I find that deeply disturbing.
So, let's look at some problems with Clinton's talking point.
The U.S. Intelligence Community is made up of 17 agencies, forming the
basis of Clinton's claim.
The 17 agencies are: Air Force Intelligence, Army Intelligence, Central
Intelligence Agency, Coast Guard Intelligence, Defense Intelligence Agency,
Energy Department, Homeland Security Department, State Department, Treasury
Department, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Marine Corps Intelligence, National Geospatial Intelligence
Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, National Security Agency, Navy
Intelligence and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The 17 separate agencies did not independently declare Russia the
perpetrator behind the hacks . However, as the head of the 17-agency
intelligence community, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,
headed by James Clapper, speaks on behalf of the group.
We don't know how many separate investigations into the attacks they
were. But the Director of National Intelligence, which speaks for the
country's 17 federal intelligence agencies, released a joint statement
saying the intelligence community at large is confident that Russia is
behind recent hacks into political organizations' emails. The statement
sourced the attacks to the highest levels of the Russian government and said
they are designed to interfere with the current election.
We rate Clinton's statement True.
Carefully parsing Politfact's story against what Clinton actually said, I
rate Clinton's carefully engineered statement as not proven, and certainly not
true. "17 of our intelligence agencies have confirmed" is not the same as
"James Clapper says that 17 of our intelligence agencies have confirmed."
First, we simply don't know, as Politfact admits, that any of the individual
agencies confirmed anything. I mean, was Coast Guard Intelligence
really
a serious player? Second, we don't know the quality of the confirmations. What
was the interagency process? Were any of the confirmations tested or
cross-checked against each other? Or were the confirmations mere formalities?
Third, is there a reason other than authoritarian followership to trust James
Clapper? Bringing me to my next point
Second,
Clinton's claim rests on the word of a proven liar
. Here's
the blogosphere's doyenne of national security and civil liberties,
Marcy Wheeler on James Clapper
:
Obviously Bogus Clapper Exoneration Attempt 4.0
Wyden: Does the NSA collect any type of data, at all, on millions, or
hundreds of millions of Americans?
Clapper: No sir.
Wyden: It does not?
Clapper: There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, uh,
collect, but not wittingly. [After 6:38]
The first Edward Snowden leaks proved James Clapper lied.
Wheeler then goes through a hilarious exegesis of Clapper's various attempts
to wriggle out of the trap his own words placed him in. Remember, 17 agencies
did
not
confirm. James Clapper wrote a memo saying they did. That's
not the same!
Some states have also recently seen scanning and probing of their
election-related systems, which in most cases originated from servers
operated by a Russian company. However, we are not now in a position to
attribute this activity to the Russian Government. The USIC and the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assess that it would be extremely
difficult for someone, including a nation-state actor, to alter actual
ballot counts or election results by cyber attack or intrusion. This
assessment is based on the decentralized nature of our election system in
this country and the number of protections state and local election
officials have in place. States ensure that voting machines are not
connected to the Internet, and there are numerous checks and balances as
well as extensive oversight at multiple levels built into our election
process.
Fourth,
Clinton's claim that foreign "influence" (or "interference)" is
unprecedented is false
.
Politico
:
Foreign Governments Have Been Tampering With U.S. Elections for
Decades
Examples given: Nixon in 1968 created an October surprise telling South
Vietnam's President Thieu, through Anna Chan Chennault, that he'd get a better
deal from him than from Democrat candidate Humphrey. On November 4, Thieu said
he wouldn't participate in peace talks. Iran refused to release the hostages it
held to Carter until moments after Reagan was inaugurated. Of course, I'm not
saying any of these examples are
good
, but they do show Clinton's
claim is false.
Fifth,
the concept of "influence" (or "interference") is extremely hazy
.
By "influence" (or "interference"), do we mean overthrowing a democratically
elected government,
as in Honduras
? Or by "interference" do we mean funding political parties
and factions,
as in Ukraine
? Or do we mean
calling for a particular outcome in a foreign country's referendum
?
Clearly, there's a spectrum of possibilities, and it's not clear where Russia's
putative "influence" (or "interference") falls on that spectrum, or how
significant it really is.
Sixth,
nobody with actual responsibility for governing is acting like
Russian interference is significant
. Has the United States determined that
Russian "influence" (or "interference") is a
casus belli
? No. Has the
United States tightened sanctions against Russia? No. Has the United States
withdrawn its ambassador from Russia? No. Has Secretary of State Kerrey issued
a diplomatic protest?
Not that I can find
. How about a "dιmarche" to the United Nations Secretary
General? Ditto. So, even if the United States
"formally accused the Russian government,"
the accusation doesn't amount to
much, does it? Oh my goodness! "Formally"! In the lead, yet.
Seventh,
with respect to Wikipedia, telling the truth seems an odd form
of influence to have problems with
. Returning to Clinton's original point
of departure, not one of the Podesta emails has even been shown to be false.
See
Glenn Greenwald
(who disposes of Kurt Eichenwald, so please don't bring
that up):
Top Democrats have repeatedly waved off substantial questions arising
from their hacked emails by falsely implying that some of them are forgeries
created by Russian hackers.
The problem with that is that no one has found a single case of anything
forged among the information released from hacks of either Clinton campaign
or Democratic Party officials.
The strategy dates all the way back to a conference call with Democratic
lawmakers in August. Politico reported that a number of Democratic
strategists suggested that Russian hackers - who have been blamed by U.S.
intelligence agencies for supplying the emails to Wikileaks and other web
sites - could sprinkle false data among the real information.
Since then, despite the complete lack of evidence to support such a
claim, it's become a common dodge among leading Democrats and the Clinton
campaign when asked questions about the substance of the emails.
Frankly, I've been gobsmacked by the refusal of Democratic loyalists to
process or even accept the Podesta emails; the press, though adding caveats
that legal clearly insisted on, accepts them as true as shown by the stories
they write; but Democrats go into full "LA LA LA I can't hear you!!!" mode.
Since I came up as a Democrat, the idea that Democrats are as susceptible to
epistemic closure
as Republicans was alien to me. No more. If espionage and
the truth are one and the same, how do we function as a democracy? I could
understand the furor if the emails were about the Manhattan Project, but
they're only about a corrupt and vicious in-group of sycophants and grifters
buffing their candidate's talking points and pimping them to the press. So who
cares?
In conclusion, I want to remind you that this talking point was carefully
engineered; the Clinton team took its best shot. As we have seen, the "17
agencies" best shot claim is not proven as stated, is an argument from
authority where the authority is a proven liar, doesn't apply to voting
integrity (the other "Russkis" narrative currently in play), depends on a hazy
notion of "influence" (or "interference") and isn't taken seriously by the
United States government, as shown by its actions. Oh, and the Podesta emails
are legit. Doesn't that count? Once again the staggering incompetence of the
Clinton campaign team stands revealed.
CLINTON: Well, that's because he'd [Putin] rather have a puppet as
president of the United States.
First,
if business dealings with Russia make Trump a puppet, then there
are Democrat puppets, too
.
Politico
:
A prominent D.C. lobbying firm has hired outside counsel over revelations
that it may have been improperly involved in lobbying on behalf of
pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians who also employed former Donald Trump
campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Although the Podesta Group was founded by Hillary Clinton campaign
chairman John Podesta, he has not been involved with the lobbying firm that
bears his name for years. His brother, Tony Podesta, is currently chairman
of the firm.
According to an Associated Press report, the controversy centers around
Rick Gates, the Trump campaign's liaison to the Republican National
Committee and a Manafort ally who also did work for the pro-Russian
political party in Ukraine. As part of his work for the Ukrainian political
party, Gates connected the Podesta Group with the European Centre for a
Modern Ukraine, a non-profit whose board originally contained Ukrainian
members of parliament from the pro-Russian party./p>
Controversy surrounding Manafort's ties to the pro-Russian Ukrainian
politicians prompted his resignation on Friday, part of a larger campaign
shakeup that included the hiring of a new campaign manager and campaign CEO.
A New York Times story published last Sunday detailed how secret ledgers
discovered in Kiev earmarked a total of $12.7 million in cash payments to be
delivered to Manafort. The former Trump campaign chairman said he never
received any such money.
Working on behalf of the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, the
Podesta Group lobbied in Washington for positions favored by the pro-Russian
political party, of which deposed former President Viktor Yanukovych was a
member. The lobbying work ended in 2014 after Yanukovych fled Ukraine for
Russia, where he remains in exile.
Gee, it's like they all know each other, isn't it? Oh, and isn't "work" for
a "Ukrainian political party" influencing (or interfering with) elections?
Second,
if
realpolitik
makes Trump a puppet, then heaven help
us all
.
Here's how Trump responded
in the debate:
[TRUMP:] Now we can talk about Putin. I don't know Putin. He said nice
things about me. If we got along well, that would be good. If Russia and the
United States got along well and went after ISIS, that would be good.
Assuming the validity of America's imperial role for the sake of the
argument, imagine that the world is tri-polar, with Russia, China, and the
United States. Why then does it make sense to, as it were, fight a two-front
war? Why not de-escalate with one, and focus on the other, possibly together?
Of course, I'm not a foreign policy expert, unlike the national security class
that got us into two losing wars and set a few trillion dollars on fire, but
Trump's logic is, at least, not insane. And it certainly doesn't make him a
Russian "puppet."
Third,
nobody with actual responsibility for governing is acting like
Trump is a Russian puppet.
. See the sixth point above, and then ask
yourself how a "Russian puppet" was also receiving intelligence briefings as a
Presidential candidate if anybody with actual responsibility took this point
seriously.
Here's Obama on this point, post-election
:
[OBAMA:] I think it is important for us to let him make his decisions.
The American people will judge over the course of the next couple of years
whether they like what they see. This office has a way of waking you up.
Those aspects of his positions or his predispositions that don't match up
with reality, he will find shaken up pretty quick because reality has a way
of asserting itself."
One can hope.
So, if Trump's business dealings make him a Russian puppet, there are other
Russian puppets in the Beltway, including the brother of Clinton's campaign
manager. Further, Trump's policy toward Russia can't be shown to make him a
puppet; it's realpolitik. Finally, nobody who would have to take action, were
Trump a puppet, is taking Clinton's campaign seriously.
Conclusion
Clinton loyalists should step away from the blame cannons and look in the
mirror. Little chance of that happening soon!
NOTES
[1] I'm not going to concern myself with what private national security
consultants write; I assume they're talking their book.
Lambert Strether has been blogging, managing online communities, and
doing system administration 24/7 since 2003, in Drupal and WordPress.
Besides political economy and the political scene, he blogs about rhetoric,
software engineering, permaculture, history, literature, local politics,
international travel, food, and fixing stuff around the house. The nom de
plume "Lambert Strether" comes from Henry James's The Ambassadors: "Live all
you can. It's a mistake not to." You can follow him on Twitter at
@lambertstrether. http://www.correntewire.com
"Seventh, with respect to Wikipedia, telling the truth "
Wikileaks, not wikipedia, is meant here.
Different wikis are very different indeed. The wonderful open wiki nature
of wikipedia does offer many more chances for both the intentional and
accidental insertion of propaganda/removal of truth and other
unsubstantiated lies and hearsay. On the other hand, wikileaks has taken far
more care than other media to substantiate the accuracy of their obviously
opinionated and biased leaked documents while at the same time completely
protecting their leaker/whistleblowers from their own end. (Few will make
Chelsea's tragic mistake in the future!)
Our world needs them both, but we need completely different mindframes to
successfully parse the biases inherent in each. And also, we need that
constant reminder that all our media is created within our smoldering stew
of biases.
whose "reality", I wonder? TPTB's reality? Yeah, so you think you're POTUS,
do you? LOL
[Obama] This office has a way of waking you up. Those aspects of his
positions or his predispositions that don't match up with reality, he will
find shaken up pretty quick because reality has a way of asserting itself."
Would love to have been a
flyski
on the wall when Obama was
shaken up and confronted with reality, although what is the life span of
said
flyski
? Was he shown 8Χ10 glossies of some embarrassing event
during community organizing, perhaps off shore, and by whom? The mind reels
from the possibilities.
I read somewhere that Nixon, when he first got into the White
House, made a point of returning his written intelligence reports
unopened, and obviously unread. Smart guy.
Priess, author of "The President's Book of Secrets," said
Nixon refused to sit down with CIA briefers during the
transition. To try to get the document to Nixon, intelligence
officials resorted to dropping sealed copies of the PDB each
morning with Nixon's secretary.
After Nixon's inauguration, his aides returned the briefing
books still in their unopened envelopes, Priess said.
BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA! What a great true fact. Thank you!
Again, you're never going to put and end to the excuses from establishment
Democrats to rest until right-wing voter suppression is devalued as a reason
Clinton lost. It is one of the easy goto comebacks of establishment types on
the internet. I wish I had the time spend in attacking it, but I don't.
The excuse that Republican voter suppression as a rationale for Clinton's
loss would work better had the Obama Administration's Justice Department
spent any time, whatsoever, going after it the past eight years. That and
the fact that Clinton could so casually defund state Party election efforts
using the Hillary Victory Fund scam shows that the Democratic Party never
thought it much of a problem prior to the election.
Had it been a real problem for them, why didn't they do anything about it
when it would have made a difference?
She lost in the rust belt states because, in her private opinion,
their jobs were better offshored and anyone who doesn't like it can
drink Flint water. She was a simply appalling candidate, and if they
cannot get over that they need only look at all of the other
candidates like her who have lost their elections over the past eight
years. They got what they asked for.
I'm sure you realize that still doesn't rebut the voter
suppression excuse. They claim if it weren't for voter suppression,
they would have won in the rust belt states. There needs to be a
rebuttal.
It's actually easier to rebut than you are making out. Try
this:
"Although two federal district courts had ruled that the
photo ID law discriminated against African-Americans, who
disproportionately lack the approved IDs, the law was applied
on Election Day after an appeals court stayed one of the
decisions. Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican who backed the
laws, has said they have no impact on voter participation,
and Mr. Albrecht allowed that their effect on Milwaukee's
turnout would not have erased Mr. Trump's victory in the
state.
Perhaps the biggest drags on voter turnout in Milwaukee,
as in the rest of the country, were the candidates
themselves. To some, it was like having to choose between
broccoli and liver."
Few governors have done as much to suppress minority voting
as Scott Walker in Wisconsin. So far, the voters have managed to
get around the obstacles. Those who didn't vote
chose
not to vote. They weren't prevented from voting.
Of course, Walker is going to assert his voter suppression
has no impact on participation. So what? That's not something
to throw in the face of the establishment Democrats and have
any effect on their excuse.
You might get off your hobby horse long enough to read
the article. The citizens who were interviewed mostly
chose to stay home, or write in someone else, rather than
vote for Hillary. These were former Obama voters. Similar
activity occurred in Ohio and Pennsylvania, to name two
other states, although, unlike the voters in Milwaukee,
many chose to vote Trump, having been disappointed by
Obama's empty rhetoric. These stories have been all over
the internet. Search is your friend.
Maybe come up with a quality response to their
excuse that corners them logically would be a first
step. Then if I dismiss it, you might be justified in
your little diminutive characterization. But until you
do, maybe you should note I haven't disagreed with
anything here about what went on. It just hasn't met
their best excuse head on. That excuse needs to be
buried with a forceful argument, then jammed in the
establishment D's face.
I would hate to have to conclude that what goes on
even here is just another instance of what goes on when
I find myself confronted with either a right-winger of
any persuasion or an establishment D: the inevitable
retreat into the comfortable cocoon of one's safe place
worldview and subsequent accusation of anyone asking
hard questions of being on the attack instead of that
someone trying to deal with the inherent difficulties
of making solid cases. To not deal with this is to let
them slip away comfortably in their self-denial and
self-pity. I want them to be miserable in their
unmitigated failure and the understand just how massive
that failure is. I want them writing in agony at just
what a disaster they've drove the country and world
into.
Trying to reason logically with someone who is
arguing from an emotional standpoint (though they
will not admit this) is useless. A possible strategy
is to dampen the initial collision as best you can,
move the conversation perpendicularly by talking
about something else that is loosely related yet
emotionally comfortable for them, and then surprise
them with logic when their emotional guard is down.
Easier said than done but people rarely listen to,
let alone properly process, information from someone
who directly contradicts their views. Be kind and
good luck!
Btw Clinton would have been an environmental
nightmare also. At this stage the only real option
is a total change in paradigm (ie. the wellbeing of
the environment being considered as more important
than corporate profits, especially by those at the
highest levels of government), and the probability
Clinton would have ushered that in is 0.
Sarah your response should be in the header of
the comments section! As I read the exchanges I was
thinking the exact same thing (it is very rare for
me to find "like minds" on other blogs another
reason why I love NC!)
It's all circular, though If Democrats had not abandoned
the blue collar voters long ago (i.e., Bill C), they might
not have lost so many states' legislatures and there would be
fewer voter suppression efforts to begin with
If Hillary Clinton cannot defeat a clown like Trump in a
landslide what exactly CAN she do??
Even with Republican voter suppression a decent candidate running a
political campaign of "I am going to end neoliberalism and bring back
jobs to the Rust Belt states" could have prevailed over the orange
garbage can from New York.
Clinton could not run on that theme because she is neoliberalism
personified.
It is illusory to expect that the Democratic Party can be reformed
so that it can become the advocate of working people. Eight years of
Obama proved that.
I'd also say that a combination of Bush moles in the Justice
Department that Obama couldn't get rid of combined w/ the usual Obama's
reticence to not dirty his hands w/ tough controversial issues,
particularly ones that involve injustice to black folks which might cause
him to look like a "Black President" as opposed to a President of One
America if he took the black side, would account for non-action on the
voter suppression issue.
But I do recall an NYT op-ed from the President in support of the
voting rights act, so that's something ain't it?
If Bush had moles in the DOJ, they would have backed Clinton, a
fellow criminal and globalist. Those who still believe that we have a
2 party system should reflect upon the fact that there are no
significant policy changes going from Dem to Repub Admins or vice
versa. I'm sure you remember Poppy Bush and Bill C together pleading
for Haitian relief. Since Haitians received less than 10% of the
reported billions, I would imagine the missing money was split between
the families of the 2 ex presidents.
If the Democrat establishment viewed expanding the franchise and voter
registration as core party functions none of this would be happening. This
has been an obvious problem since the Florida felon's list in 2000. Sixteen
years, and they haven't done squat.
What did Clinton spend on TV? A billion? Some amazing number. They could
have just
bought people IDs and driven them to the polls
for that
kind of money.
I understand, but it still doesn't rebut their lazy and easy claim.
You're not going to shut them up anymore than you're going to shut up a
wingnut that knows his side is lying if you can't deliver more than
admonitions about what they should have been doing to prevent the
suppression efforts. As we're all well aware, the establishment D's are
still acting as if their economic policies were built upon the genius of
their unassailable recognition of the inevitability of the wisdom of
markets, globalization, and there was Nothing-That-Could-Be-Done but to
cow to the scientific inevitability of it all. They and their apologists
like to pretend the same sort of inevitability of political processes as
if we're all caught in some sort of vicious Hegelian dialectic; "There
was just nothing we could do!" they say. "The moron masses will vote
against their own economic interests no matter what we say." This is, of
course, an excuse to allow themselves to cater to the donor constituency
instead of doing what is necessary politically.
If the voter suppression excuse isn't met head on and exposed as just
another act of establishment D political cowardice, then debunking their
myths as to how and why they lost will fail, and they will keep right on
pretending there was nothing that could be done. (Sure, they're going to
do that anyway, but failing a rebuttal there will be nothing to expose
their determined sophistry.) Of course, implicit in these arguments is
that nobody in America could have beaten Donald Trump in the electoral
college and there aren't words to describe how idiotic that implicit
argument is.
YES Sarah, +100 maintain the rage. The Dems did FA for years to get
people to the polls. Once they smashed the Sanders assault, they
changed no policies that the Bernie believers were gasping for. From
that time on their fate was sealed. Had they been constantly
advocating voting reform and voter access and fairer economy they
would have neutralized the Trumpsters well ahead of time.
I have said this before on NC but the Dem misleadership can't even
count. Bernie Sanders potentially delivered millions of voters for the
Dems to harvest and that Podesta/Mook/Clinton trio spat on them and
chased off looking for a few thousand alienated rich Repugnants like
lemmings off a cliff.
Now their Democrat Chair apparent (supported by Sanders !!!) has
voted for a no fly zone in Syria. They are stupid, totally insincere
and there is no humanity in them! UK had the same ignorant mindset and
is desperately trying to destroy the alternative, Australia is bogged
down by the same neoliberal madness in its 'left' party, Germany is
about to hemorrhage due to its absurd neoliberal economics rigidity,
France has never found its way after the betrayal of Mitterand and his
champaign neoliberal 'left'. Greece lies in ruins AGAIN! These
neoliberal economic hucksters are voodoo economists.
I don't think there's a clear enough thesis to refute. Can you give a
link?
For example, both these things can be true:
1) The Republican CrossCheck operation operation suppressed a lot of
votes nationwide
2) Trump won because counties that voted for Obama in 2012 voted for
Trump in 2016.
It depends on what counties and precincts the votes were suppressed in,
and I don't think we know that.
I wouldn't bother too much with the excuses Democrats make about losing.
If they stop firing the Blame Cannons at voter suppression, they'll just
point them at another target, like Putin, or Comey, or whatever.
They had one job: Win. A competent campaign would have done that. The
Democrats had, what, $2 billion in TV money? (Can that possibly be true?)
They had plenty of press on their side. But as we know from the Ada debacle
- which appeared in the news flow for about two days, and then vanished -
they systematicallly misallocated their billions
throughout the campaign
.
That's why, for example, Clinton never visited Wisconsin, which she lost,
and never gave the mayor of Madison a call.
It may be that the Democrats simply believe themselves to be the natural
ruling party, and hence
any
obstacles in the way of their (royal)
"progress" are deemed to be illegitimate in some way. But a campaign isn't a
parade. It's a
campaign
, a war. And in war there are obstacles!
Well, it would have been nice to have had the Democrats run an
anti-neo-liberal instead of Clinton. But even with Clinton, the planet would
have still stood a chance to provide a home to future generations as even
establishment Democrats recognize AGW is real. As it stands now, America has
told the world it doesn't give a shhit whether or not the planet is made
inhospitable for future human civilization. With Clinton as president, we
would have bought time for both the planet and for the Democrats to get
fixed. Now, pretty much all is lost. I do hope you understand that.
I'm not convinced that is true. Oh sure, HRC states publicly that
global warming is real and is man made. But then defends and expands
fracking and ever met an oil pipeline she didn't love. Those wars
overseas are mosty about pipeline routs. NC calls it "soft deniyal", I
call it lieing through your teeth.
There is all that. But I don't call it "lying through your teeth."
I call it political cowardice in standing up to market and corporate
brow-beating and which is essentially the entirety of the Democratic
party's problem and what lead them to embrace neo-liberalism as a
response to Reagan and Powell (not to discount the
post-Vietnam/Watergate Democrat's denial of FDR/New Deal in favor of
fluffing Wall Street to their own enrichment). That being said, the
Democratic party is much more sensitive to being taken to task by
environmental groups. And given how late in the game we are on AGW and
that the public is amenable to the truth on AGW, a Clinton presidency
would have had been loath to continue business as usual even out of a
sense of corporate obeisance much less one of moral decency. I think
we can all agree there is not a scintilla of hope a Trump
administration will give one moment's thought to the consequences of
their actions with regard to even 10 years from now much less 100 or
200.
Well, if you think Democrats, even establishment D's, really
aren't bothered by AGW, then I have to admit I've run into
someone that is vastly more cynical than I am. It's like I said,
I think, in general, they're brow-beaten political cowards that,
at least congenitally, are concerned about facets of individual
and social life that rise above vulgar economic existential
factors, but, also congenitally psychologically, are spineless
in the face of aggression and alpha maleness.
And yes, I think they would be loath to continue business as
usual. I'm pretty sure we both know what's going to happen with
a libertarian climate denier as Trump's EPA chief, right? So
choose; who would you have rather had in regards to choosing for
that position? in dealing with legislation that's going to be
coming from the GOP House and GOP Senate?
The hurdle you seem to be unable to get over is that
hillary ran as a republican, courted republicans, espoused
republican philosophy, kicked the left, and most importantly
in your case, suppressed voters in the primaries thinking she
could win without them. She favored protectionist trade
deals, the murders of unionists in columbia were a result of
CAFTA, never met a fracker she didn't like and basically told
goldman sachs she was 100% behind them but couldn't say so
publicly. That is why she lost. Global warming will now,
ironically, get more of a voice as purple dems need to find a
purpose, and maybe dems won't engage in so much voter
suppression next time around. Read the emails of your brow
beaten cowards and you may find they were doing the brow
beating themselves, and fully expected to flummox all of us
morans .dint work thanks to a smattering of rust belt voters
combined with an underwhelming turnout of supporters who did
not vote because dems didn't want them to, and didn't think
they needed them, which is a form of suppression in itself.
They, and you, were wrong. AGW's been a thing for quite a
while and your precious defenseless alpha dems had their dog
food left in the bowl and now it's really gross and
mouldering.
"The hurdle you seem to be unable to get over is that
hillary ran as a republican, "
Good grief. No, she ran as a tempered neo-liberal New
Democrat (that are starting to understand the error of
their ways, but haven't gotten there.) Somebody's got a
hurdle to get over, but it isn't me.
"Global warming will now, ironically, get more of a
voice as purple dems need to find a purpose, ,,,"
And I thought wingnuts and establishment D's were
delusional. Republicans are going to unleash such an
withering shhitstorm of destruction just on short-term and
immediate issues, Democrats won't even get heard on those,
much less have the time, energy, or political courage to
take on issues of far-off voter concern that they haven't
worked up the moxie to take on to date.
"Read the emails of your brow beaten cowards and you
may find they were doing the brow beating themselves, and
fully expected to flummox all of us morans ."
Democrats are brow-beaten cowards of the right; they
are the American right's doormats. But that's what gives
them the false courage of neglecting and debasing anybody,
anything, or any organization to the left of the DNC.
They're actually sucking up to their mind masters on the
right and Conventional Wisdom Washington Consensus when
they piss on the out-of-favor wacko left like FDR New
Dealers. (I do really hope you get the sarcasm, but just
in case you don't, well, whatever.)
"dint work thanks to a smattering of rust belt voters
combined with an underwhelming turnout of supporters who
did not vote because dems didn't want them to, and didn't
think they needed them, which is a form of suppression in
itself."
Well, you really showed them Democrats you have their
number. It reads like you're happy Clinton lost to Trump.
If that is so, I have no idea what it is you hold dear but
if it was anything that Democrats from
Sanders/Warren/Brown/etc. to Joe Manchin even pretend to
hold important, you lost it. Congratulations on your
contemptuous victory in cutting off your nose to spite
your face.
"They, and you, were wrong."
What was I wrong about, pray tell?
"AGW's been a thing for quite a while and your precious
defenseless alpha dems had their dog food left in the bowl
and now it's really gross and mouldering."
Yet another of you with reading comprehension problems.
My "defenseless alpha dems?" When did I ever claim the
existence of "alpha dems?" When did I ever claim
establishment D's are defenseless? (I called them
political cowards. That means they *choose* weakness and
impotence.) When did I call establishment D's mine? Where
have I intimated support for establishment D's other than
to imply it would have been better for Clinton to be
president than Trump? I mean seriously, is it the
consensus here that Trump was preferable? Hoo, boy. Do you
realize a Trump presidency means, at least if you take
climate scientists seriously, the world just missed the
last off-ramp to avoid going over 2 degrees Celsius
warming? I trust you know the significance of that. Am I
right?
I think it's more important to seek advantage from
the current situation, whatever it may be, than worry
about alternate histories that never came to pass.
(Perhaps one day there will be Campaign 2016
Re-enactors). My preference was for a Democrat Senate
and a Republican House, as readers know, because I feel
that gridlock is my friend. The voters threw the bums
out everywhere, so we're not going to get gridlock
(modulo Senate filibusters). Instead, we're going to
get a fluid and dynamic situation (volatility).
Adding, the Democrat establishment had one job: Win
Clinton the Presidency. They blew it. They should all
be purged, those who have not already died of shame.
WRT to the Senate: running tools like Evan Bayh
and Patrick Murphy didn't help.
And yes, as I repeatedly point out to the wailing
Clintonistas in my circle: when you are running for
public office, be it for dog catcher or President it
is your
job
to get people to vote
for you. Do that, you win; don't, you lose. It's
that simple.
If Trump can cause a major trade war with China
leading to a deep depression in America and in China
both, carbon emissions in both countries will decline
far faster and deeper than they ever would have under a
petroleo-phillic Clinton Administration.
But what if Trump can't trigger a major trade war
between China and America leading to a carbon-curbing
great depression in both countries? He could still open
the door to a steady abolition of Free Trade and a
steady return to Protectionism. One Free Trade
Container Supership emits as much carbon as a hundred
million cars. Shrinking Free Trade enough to retire 20
Free Trade Container Superships from service has the
same carbon impact as taking Two! Billion! cars off the
road. That is some major carbon reduction impact.
So, no. All is not necessarily lost.
Free Trade is the New Slavery. Protectionism is the
New Abolition.
"If Trump can cause a major trade war with China
leading to a deep depression in America and in China
both, carbon emissions in both countries will
decline far faster and deeper than they ever would
have under a petroleo-phillic Clinton
Administration."
I do not believe what I'm reading. As satire, I
used to claim that if you were concerned about AGW,
you would vote Republican because Democrats will
make a mixed market economy grow faster and produce
more consumption through conventional counter-cyclic
demand-side policies thereby increasing emissions.
Of course, Democrats would also be pursuing green
energy alternatives, at the same time, but that
would have gotten in the way of the satire. Never
mind, here in the flesh is the Onion losing its war
on irony.
And anybody believing Trump is going to do
anything about the inequality-increasing aspects of
our intentionally rent-seeking, reverse Robin Hood
"free" trade deals are as big a suckers as the
people who think he's going to bring back all the
coal jobs back to Appalachia (which he would do if
he could, of course, because he doesn't give a whit
about the consequences of coal as an energy source
(and those jobs are just strip mine jobs in the
West).) To understand he's not going to do that,
just look at his proposals for infrastructure
"stimulus," which are nothing but a scheme to have
the public underwrite private investment in profit
making ideas and not to actually invest in needed
infrastructure that doesn't come with an immediate
return to private interests.
There is *no* positive side to Trump other than
he's better than an establishment Republican. With
Trump, there's the off-chance he might blunder into
some policy that isn't harmful. That is not a
possibility with an establishment Republican or
theocrat like Pence. And of course, both of them
will allow the rest of the world to become the
sources of green and renewable energy sources whilst
they turn America into a country that makes nothing
but financial instruments and continue the giveaways
to the extraction industries and sell-offs of public
lands and resources.
Besides, if Trump was to create a big ol'
depression, Democrats would probably be able to
muster up the energy to win in 2020 and you
certainly wouldn't want that, would you? All that
pent-up demand from the depression would
You have every right to be sceptical. It comes
from an article I saw posted once on the Reddit.
Reddit is such an unsearchable grab bag of trash and
treasure mixed that I was never able to re-find it.
Anyway, the article claimed that one Container
Supership releases as much carbon as Seven Hundred
Million cars. The article didn't say what KIND of
cars, or how much they were driven, or anything like
that. So I reduced it in my own mind from Seven down
to One hundred million cars.
If that still sounds too good to be true, I am
ready to be corrected by any good article on Super
Container Ship emmissions compared to car emmissions
that anyone can bring here.
There will be a major global f*kup soon enough to
quell carbon emissions. There are decades of
recovery ahead to compensate for the obscene
leverage in the global economic casino.
If we are extremely lucky, an economic crash will
'save' us. I don't ever count on luck that comes in
a package of that shape and weight.
Yeah, and you're so self-certain of that that it
was of no consequence to just go ahead and turn the
U.S. government over to the most frothing right-wing
asswholes we've ever run into. I mean, just because
the Democrats' racists/misogynist/xenophobic/
excuses are not the reason they lost, that doesn't
mean Trump hasn't unleashed the demons from
Pandora's box.
Even if AGW was of no concern, that doesn't
excuse handing the country over to increasingly
alarming elements of authoritarianism and fascism. I
think some of have lost a sense of what has
happened. Neo-liberalism is leading us into
authoritarianism and fascism. That doesn't mean we
should fear the fascism less than the
neo-liberalism. We should be working to get rid of
the neo-liberalism without allowing the
authoritarianism and fascism to appear.
The problem with your rationale is that there is no proof
of it existing in the real world. Obama sold the most coal
leases of any President in history even as the market for gas
rendered its' business model obsolete. The reason that gas is
so cheap is because of the fracking from sea to shining sea
that has now given the US the nickname of Saudi America. No
one had heard of tar sands before the proliferation of oil
pipelines Obama's interior department has pushed throughout
his Presidency. The Obama Administration has spent its' two
terms either scuttling or signing on to severely flawed
global warming treaties like the Paris Accords and his
foreign policy is rife with examples of war for oil related
interests. Nothing I have seen would indicate that Clinton
would have been any better, and there is a lot of evidence
that she would have been worse.
None of that is calculated to give the impression that
they give a damn about anything but near term bottom lines.
This is just a talking point for them to corral the lefties,
and it shows. Better to have an actual enemy that one can
organize against than someone who talks a good game and,
thereby, delays any effort at change.
One of the most disgusting things that I routinely hear is
that Trump is going to derail all of Obama's environmental
advances; what advances would those be? He has STILL not
taken responsibility for his debacle with the Macondo well in
the Gulf, and extended his bad record even unto the Chukchi
sea. I'm just not seeing it.
Better the evil you know than the one that sticks a knife
in your back with a smile on their face.
We know EXACTLY what Republicans are going to do.
Exactly.
Trust me, my friend you have nothing on me when it
comes to my disgust with and sense of betrayal from
establishment D's. But Clinton wouldn't have put a
libertarian climate denier with a puny degree in economics
as head of the EPA.
You, and I'm supposing many around here, have let their
sense of betrayal motivate them to argue and act in a way
that makes them more complicit, more culpable with the
hurricane of right-wing evil that is coming than the
cowardice and self-serving neo-liberal establishment
Democrats that you feel betrayed by.
"Better the evil you know than the one that sticks a
knife in your back with a smile on their face."
No. Not when 1) your estimation of the betrayal is too
strong and 2) not when the planet's suitability for future
human civilization's is at stake.
Selfish are we? You think the *possibility* of *you*
being betrayed yet again by pretenders to the things you
hold dear is justification to, instead of taking the risk
our priorities will be yet again abused by establishment
D's and our support taken for granted, go ahead and hand
power over to people you *know* will destroy what you hold
dear and what is necessary for future generations? Well,
aren't you precious and important. At least now, the
betrayers can't betray you this time. Never mind the
consequences; at least the establishment D's can't upset
you, sweetie.
> With Clinton as president, we would have bought time for both the
planet and for the Democrats to get fixed.
I don't agree. We don't know who Clinton sold herself to with the
influence peddling she did with the Clinton Foundation; for every policy
statement she mades, she has made commitments to silent partners we know
nothing about. I think this claim rests on the idea that Clinton
personally and the Democrats are operating in good faith, in general and
on climate. Assumes facts not in evidence.
I also think that the only way to fix the Democrats is to punish them
by removing them from power. The prospect of being hanged did not,
apparently, concentrate their minds, so perhaps actually having hung them
will do the trick.
Actually, it won't. The only thing that will do the trick is
treating the Democratic Party very aggressively with a multi-year
course of treatment with the most powerful political chemotherapy
possible to kill all the metastatic malignant clintonoma cells
scattered throughout the party . . . and at the same time with a
multi-year course of treatment with the most powerful political
antibiotics possible to kill every Yersiniobama pestis bacterium
within the party. If that doesn't work, the DemParty will have to be
put to death so that any non-compromised organs it may contain ( if
any) can be transplanted into other parties which still have a chance
of survival.
Hard to do, though Today's Dem party seems to be composed mainly
of a multitude of well-paid (as in fat and happy) consultants and a
similar sort of hangers-on. As long as there are donors willing to
cover their chunky salaries, they've no reason to change or depart.
Thanks for this series. It should serve many to quit the dems
for good. Now go and help the Greens. At least with the Greens have
a platform based on principles and values we need as a species to
survive. The dems platform got shredded even before the Democratic
National Convention got underway and went Republican lite.
The Greens just need organizational help, voters to reregister
as Greens, and candidates for the mission to challenge open
positions at higher levels of government. In New Mexico some 70% of
all elected positions were, at the general election, run unopposed.
Just to remind all too despite a media blackout the Greens still
doubled their votes nationally from the last cycle. Thats a true
progressive promise for the future.
Oh and watch out for the new SOS dem implants. The next act at
dem voter suppression is to bring back party straight ticket voting
so that hacks can still run unexamined.
@Lambert:
"We don't know who Clinton sold herself to with the influence peddling
she did with the Clinton Foundation "
That's right. We DON'T know and we DON'T know if any *possible*
influence peddling would have influenced a decision to deal with the
problem. So acting as if you might as well have assumed the results of
known influence peddling and bad faith acting was and is an act of
extreme self-important irresponsibility roughly equivalent to any
climate denier manufacturing false rationales to ignore the reality.
No. That is not a reason enough to guarantee missing the last
off-ramp to avoid 2 degrees Celsius warming.
Now, we've missed it. It's gone. It can't be fixed. And it will not
be fixed. If you or anyone around here were arguing Trump was a better
choice than Clinton, you now share in the shame that is America's, the
Koch's, Jim Inhofe's, Mitch McConnell's, for all time. I hope that
isn't the case, but if so, but if it is the case, it was a position of
sanctimonious irresponsibility that in and of itself was an act of bad
faith toward the well-being of future generations.
Punishing Democrats should have waited till Clinton did indeed
stiff the world in America's obligation to deal with the problem. We
would have known soon enough if that would have been the case and
would have had the chance to marshal a pushback against it. Now, we
don't. I sure hope your conscience is clear. I wouldn't be able to
live with myself.
Based on the past 8 years, it seems more likely that what's left
of Democratic partisans would be more likely to push back on Trump
policies than Clinton policies.
I don't think a significant portion of Trump voters were people
on the left voting for spite, but that's just an opinion.
Based on the last 30+ years, anybody paying attention
understands the right doesn't just ignore anybody pushing back
against their vileness, they run over them. And anybody equating
what Clinton would do to what Trump is going to do is engaging
in not only their own despicable MSM-like false equivalence, but
attempting to inoculate themselves from their own complicity and
culpability in the unfolding disaster.
It wasn't the few disgruntled lefties who may have voted
for Trump that cost Clinton the election, or so many other
national, state, and local elections. If the argument is now
"lesser of 2 complicities/culpabilities" in bad politics and
bad policies, that cause people not to trust or vote for
them, Team Blue doesn't have much to say for itself anymore.
We'll see if they support the next Occupy, BLM, NoDAPL,
Sanders, etc. movement or not.
"It wasn't the few disgruntled lefties who may have
voted for Trump that cost Clinton the election, or so many
other national, state, and local elections."
Nobody said it was. Clinton earned her electoral
college defeat and the excuses coming from establishment
D's are to be slammed hard. But the discussion here has
turned to people defending the idea that Trump was
preferable or equivalent to Clinton as president. And I'm
telling you that was damaging, self-defeating, selfish
petulance and willing delusion born of a sense of
betrayal.
And if you think Occupy or BLM or .. were models for
organizing the nonexistent "left" in taking on the right,
then , jeez, I'm speechless. Inchoate and easily
dissipated anger is worthless. The right will laugh and
fart in whatever direction they think that determined
impotence is coming from. Then issue another decree to
spray the unwashed masses from the streets. The
comfortable won't even hear about it.
It was Democratic mayors coordinating with a
Democratic administration that sprayed the Occupiers
off the streets, with silence from Democratic
loyalists. You don't see supporting such resistance
attempts in the streets as viable. Thus you probably
predict that Clinton supporters won't join any such
initiatives in the future. The only electoral approach
you see as viable is voting for Clinton. Yet you think
there would have been "pushback" to bad Clinton
policies?
marym: "The only electoral approach you see as
viable is voting for Clinton. Yet you think there
would have been "pushback" to bad Clinton policies?"
That's incorrect. Clinton was vastly preferable
to Trump. Period. Trump represents the end of the
country and world as we know it and as we wished it
could be. That's not hyperbole. That's the truth.
This can't be fixed, save Mitch McConnell not doing
away with the filibuster and Democrats mount total
defiance (and who believes that will happen).
A bunch of people parked in streets refusing to
make demands or prioritize political objectives can
not and will not offer any resistance to either the
rabid right or center-right neo-liberalism.
It's not that Clinton wasn't bad. It just that
she was the only thing that stood between the abyss
and reasonable hope to turn it all around without
permanent irreversible damage. We/you were trapped
and there was no escape and no other choice from the
Lesser Evilism the Democrats triangulated us/you
with. No amount of resentment about that could
change that very fact. So apparently plenty of folks
here preferred to act on prideful defiance and
bristle against those they felt most betrayed
against. Congratulations. Now you've got Greater
Evil and much less reason to hope it can be
reversed. And you've also built in permanent,
irreversible damage for you, yours, and all future
generations. You're going to love Trump's Supreme
Court picks.
Sarah, it's not the unfolding disaster that you
passionately predict that worries me, it is your lack of
understanding or your stubborn refusal to understand that
people who do not share your sentiments are not as " vile" as
you describe them to be.
I am now wondering how you have escaped being run over
these past 30 years.
Words like "despicable" are not helpful, they didn't work
the last time, and they won't work going forward. What they
will do though is alienate those you want to win over.
But I have to say, morbid as it may seem, I do enjoy
reading your rants.
Fco: "Sarah, it's not the unfolding disaster that you
passionately predict that worries me, it is your lack of
understanding or your stubborn refusal to understand that
people who do not share your sentiments are not as " vile"
as you describe them to be. "
Translation: You can't show where I'm wrong or
have any lack of understanding. So you hide behind
vague, amorphous insinuations without meaning. But I
knew that.
Sarah,
You are right, there is absolutely no way I can show
you that not all people who do not share your
sentiments are vile.
I do not mind being wrong at all. In fact, I have
been wrong numerous times in my life.
What's strange though is that you even bother to
respond to someone like me who hides behind vague
stuff. I know you must have better stuff to do with
your time. After all, the weight of the world sits on
your shoulders.
By the way, last time I read, Trump's still the
presumptive POTUS. (I thought maybe if you read that
name more often, you'ld get used to the pain. But
forgive me if it is actually doing the opposite.)
Naked Capitalism has educated me more than you'll
ever know. Even your rage and rants and minor
belittling ( borderline bullying) have enlightened me.
For some odd reason, I picture you with a cat. I
don't know why. Maybe because I'm allergic to them?
Last but not the least, I will always hide from you.
Seems to me your approch had already been tried with Obama. And
as you already noted, we went saling past the last exit ramp for
AGW, on Obama's Watch, no Trump required.
It's like spouce abuse. He keeps beating you over and over
again. But you always return because you know, deep down in his
heart, he really loves you and is trying to change. But he wont
because you never give him a reason to change.
As bad as you imagin Trump might be, the EVEDENCE shows that
Clintion would have been just as bad, or not worse. And your
argument that "Clition might change" is simply not compeling.
The reality was that AGW was alsways going to get worse, no
mater who one. Your faith dosn't really change that.
So when do Democrats get to reject "New Democrats" aka
Republicans marketing themselves as Democrats? Obama has already
stiffed the world. But hey give Clinton a chance despite her
lackluster record as Senator and her God awful record at State. And
then it will be her successor we must give a chance despite a
record that giving lip service to global warming is as deep as they
are willing to go.
The climate was a loser no matter who got elected. Could be that
having someone in office who isn't pretending to be concerned might
end up accomplishing more, just by providing a clear target.
Nobody was exposing Democrats until Sanders/Warren. (And no,
blabbering on internet, writing books, , doesn't expose them.
Only a political voice that is widely available ends up exposing
them.) And Democrats show signs of feeling the heat. Even Bill
Clinton acknowledges it. So sure, go ahead and build certain
destruction in with complete GOP control instead of allow the
dawning realization Democrats are going through a chance to
work. Brilliant. Make sure you write something on your
tombstones of your thinking on 11/8/16. Yours who come after you
will admire you for your petulant selfishness.
Code Name D: "As bad as you imagin Trump might be, the
EVEDENCE shows that Clintion would have been just as bad, or not
worse. And your argument that "Clition might change" is simply
not compeling. "
Stupid beyond belief. You are getting a libertarian climate
denier as head of the EPA. Do you *really* understand the
significance of that? Really?
Pat: "But hey give Clinton a chance despite her lackluster
record as Senator and her God awful record at State. And then it
will be her successor we must give a chance despite a record
that giving lip service to global warming is as deep as they are
willing to go."
How stupid it would have been, right? I mean, it's like Trump
asking black people to vote for him with the reasoning "What
have you got to lose?" Well, I think they're finding out and I
think people who care even a whit about the planet are finding
out the certainty of what we're going to lose.
It's clear a lot of you folks are in the process of
attempting to wipe your guilt away. You're going to fail. If
these are the arguments you were making before the election
you're just as guilty as any aging frothing wingnut denier, and
more guilty than the establishment D's you apparently hate more
than the nauseating right.
Enjoy your misery. Try not to let it weigh too much on your
consciences.
Why are you lashing out at everyone here? It's not going
to change anything. The election is over. Trump is going to
be president. He is going to appoint whoever he wants to and
congress will confirm them. It doesn't matter what Clinton
would or would not have done. She lost, end of story. If the
Dems don't come up with a better answer than the crap they've
been pushing they will continue to lose and it will be all
Republican policies all the time. We missed the deadline on
AGW and we will all suffer the consequences of that. That's a
fact. All that can be done is for each of us to try our best
to pick up the pieces and move forward into whatever the
future brings. I plan on resisting the coming administration
as best I can, but I don't imagine it will make all that much
difference. What are you going to do?
oh you mean like john edwards. he sure exposed them with
his "two nation's" rhetoric, right. after that, the democrats
reformed which is why we have president elect bernie sanders
today. oh wait, we aren't. instead, given the choice between
a proven warmonger and a potential warmonger, many democrats
either stayed home, voted 3d party, or voted for trump.
clinton was a truly awful candidate, focus on that and stop
making excuses about all the changes she was going to go
through, and pivot away from the truly awful neocons that
supported her.
What the hell are you talking about? I don't need to
understand why she lost the electoral college. I know why.
But if you made the estimation and argument that it
didn't matter whether Trump or Clinton became president,
and acted on it, then good luck with your conscience. If
you have one.
Look in the mirror when Trump makes his Supreme Court
picks.
Look in the mirror when Trump signs the ACA out of
existence and health care is taken away from 20,000,000+
people.
Look in the mirror when Medicare is privatized and
insufficient vouchers are given to people who can't afford
the extra premiums.
Look in the mirror when Social Security is privatized.
Look in the mirror when climate scientists tell you
what's in store now that America has
It'll all be worth it because, you know, you were edgy
and cool and on the cutting edge of social-economic
insight, understanding and hating the cancer of
neo-liberalism and all. I mean, you have the answer of
guaranteed jobs and Stacey Kelton and MMT and . all that,
so what about the misery created by what amounts to
insouciant political nihilism from some sort of fake, hip
conscienceless left. Never mind that the only political
thing lamer than establishment D's are pissant movements
like Occupy that never even get around to making and
organizing political objectives. Never mind that the GOP
will move with such speed to destroy existing structures
that provide even the slight mechanism to challenge their
complete grip on power. Never mind that the GOP is getting
ready to run what amounts to a Gish Gallop of destruction
on 20th century political progress that what's left of any
political opposition won't even be able to defend one item
before the next bulldozer on the 20th century is right
upon them. Never you mind all that. Because you're cool,
man, and that dislocated shoulder you got from patting
yourself on the back for noticing just how evil
establishment D's are is covered by health care that
others now can't afford.
Clinton got her comeuppance that her neo-liberal
economics, neo-conservative warmonging, frackin-lovin'
environment-destroying smug dismissal of class in favor of
identity earned her. That's all that matters. You won!
Your trenchant insight was vindicated! Celebrate!
Never mind the politically illegitimate garbage that
will now be making the rules.
Sarah, I'm going to hypothesize that you're commenting in
good faith, even though much of what you're saying is not
merely factually inaccurate and dishonest, but regurgitates
Clintonian establishment talking points. I realize that it's
difficult to resist swallowing said poisonous talking points,
because so much of public discourse is contaminated with
them, and people are seeking a way to perceive themselves and
the status quo that benefits them as morally good, and a
vehicle for positive progress, because to accept the contrary
position feels uncomfortable.
But if you really do care about the environment, the
climate crisis, the abuse of marginalized people, etc., you
need to read more and better information sources, rather than
hectoring people here. That is a necessary but not sufficient
condition if you really want to be an agent of positive
change. For example, you seem to be trying to claim that
enabling the installation of Hillary Clinton as President
would be better for dealing with the climate crisis than
Trump being elected, because Clinton says words indicating
that she recognizes the role of human activity in the crisis.
But when others point out that Clinton saying she
recognizes this factual reality is irrelevant, because she
has displayed NO willingness to take effective action to
alleviate the crisis, you wave your hands around and hurl
invective. This is a waste of your time. Nobody here will
fall for that, and you will change no minds elsewhere. To the
degree that false propaganda will be effective in public
discussion, it does not need you, here, regurgitating it. Do
something else. Almost anything else.
Right now, under President Obama, we are seeing fascism in
action, at Standing Rock. Mercenaries in the service of banks
and oil companies have launched extra-legal military assaults
on the soil of a treaty-allied sovereign nation against its
people and American citizen allies standing with them, to
facilitate the construction of an oil pipeline that has the
potential to poison that nation's water and our nation's
water, while primarily privately enriching global
corporations and banks. These violent corporate-backed
actions are illegal in numerous ways, yet the local, state
and federal government are either actively facilitating this
corporate thuggery, or passively allowing it to happen. Our
Democratic President is allowing it to happen. Hillary
Clinton has not lifted her pinkie finger to stop it, or even
speak words condemning it. They won't stop it, because they
are tools of these banks and corporations. Regardless of what
they may or may not actually believe, they are refusing to
limit their own enrichment one iota in the service of such
beliefs. So their beliefs are functionally irrelevant.
Their polite words mean nothing, if, while in power, they
will take no actions that give meaningful force to those
words. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are both,
demonstrably, evil people. Hillary Clinton deserved to lose
the election. She lost not because of people like me who read
and comment on Naked Capitalism, but because many of the New
Democrats' victims said, "We've seen enough, thanks," and
either voted elsewhere or just stayed home.
I know that is uncomfortable to face, but until you do
face these uncomfortable truths, you are an obstacle to
positive change, and therefore, a servant of evil. You are a
servant of evil, because you are acting as a servant of the
Democratic status quo, which is evil.
In addition to better educating yourself about Standing
Rock, and the complicity of Democratic Party leadership in
the atrocities happening there, please read the pieces that
the corporate media is reluctantly delivering about all the
suffering people - many of them black - who rightly condemn
Obama and the Clintons for their suffering, and refused to
vote for Hillary Clinton. They're not fools. They're not
expecting much from Trump. If you're going to come here and
excoriate me on their behalf, you should at least familiarize
yourself with their current conditions, life experience, and
perspective - that is, if you really do care about suffering
people and respect them as your equals.
Clinton violated serious laws against the state. She was
planning a hot war against Russia, the disembowelment of
Social Security, and the utter abrogation of our national
sovereignty under TPP/TISA, et al. She would have had a
completely clear path to do those things, and set a
horrifying precedent about what a person can do and still be
awarded the presidency. I am not at all sorry she has
(hopefully) been prevented from taking power. The voices of
those who have been destroyed by NAFTA and the other
corporate control treaties have ONLY been heard in the
corridors of power because she lost. That is the ONLY reason
the New York Times and New York Magazine deigned to send
reporters to talk to them. Before her loss, it was,
"Employment is down! The economy is great!"
The first step to achieving ANY forward progress was going
to have to be stopping Clinton. Clinton is the one who
elevated Trump, so his election is totally on her, not on me
or anyone at Naked Capitalism. And since he's the father of
her daughter's best friend, and he's the golfing buddy of her
husband, I'm just gonna guess that he's not all that much
different from the Clintons, and not actually a world-ending
Bond villain. If he is, well, again, his election is the
Clintons' fault. You can accept it or not, but these
shrieking rants are ineffective.
Trump is a devil, but he is not the devil the Hill bots have made him out to
be. He's a different sort of devil, that we don't fully understand yet.
The interesting thing about Trump is that he's his own man. He's the 1% of
the 1%. There are few in the world who can pull rank on him. He has no need to
climb, unlike Hillary who seems have devoted her life to it, and still had a
ways to go.
There are problems with Trump, starting with the crony Republican cabinet,
but there are also possibilities with him that are usually not open.
And not only that, he was never invited to any of the fancy schmansy
meetings of the INsider esTABlishment OPOOP ( One Per Cent Of One Per Cent)
like Davos, Bohemian Grove, Bilderberg, etc.
They regard him as a vulgar plumber . . . Not Their Kind, Dear. They feel
about him as if it were their septic tank pumping technician who made a few
billion dollars . . . somehow. Oh the Humanity!
And he knows what they think of him. Perhaps he will seek some wounded
pride vengeance against the Greatest and the Goodest.
This is the thing that drives me nuts. There's so damn much liberal
noise-making it's tough to figure out the real players and where the power
lies.
It's as if the Democrat establishment lost a big battle, and instead of
hunkering down and trying to fix the position of the enemy and work out
their next move, they're running around blowing trumpets and sending up
flares and firing their guns into the air and screaming and yammering. And
they're not firing the generals who lost the battle.
It's a volatile situation, a war of movement. Take advantage!
Yeah but as we now know because the Washington Post told us you
are in fact as well as mere conjecture an organ of Russian propaganda.
The euphemism
de nos jours
for any and all critics of Democratic
establishment wisdom, foresight and moral rectitude has finally reached
you and you should be very proud!
Along these lines, The Baffler has a nice piece making many similar points
to yours:
#RIPMyShillaries
An end to the era of professionally explained candidates"
. While I do not
share his optimism that the end is nigh for folks like Ezra Klein, when one
consideres his godawful profile piece in which he argued that the
meaning
of the Democratic primary is that Clinton was the better, more feminine,
listener. And that is what people want despite the fact that they showed up
en-masse to Sanders rallies you one can't help but enjoy passages like this:
Funny, somehow Sen. Elizabeth Warren doesn't have the same trouble
speaking as vociferously as Sanders on the issues that matter to them and to
a large swathe of Democratic voters.
Sadly I fear that connected folks like Klein, Dean, and Reid won't get the
message that the policies do matter. At present they are still sending me
requests for donations for the DCCC as if they hadn't already lost.
Apropos of your comment about the carefully-crafted talking points, it is
also worth noting that the Baffler piece notes that the phrase "Stronger
Together" was the best of 85 alternative slogans which they paid good money
to get. Slogans which included "Your future, your terms."
Given their ongoing obsession with the idea that "Russia Did It" you have
to wonder if they test marketed that along with a dozen other bad countries
as well. Perhaps "Canada Did it" just didn't have the same zest.
That no one caught on to the idea that the "stronger together" concept
derives from the Latin fasces (bundle of sticks), from which in turn the
word fascist comes from kind of surprised me. Seems like, were I in that
particular poll, that would have stuck out. But then being "with her" and
"
Homeland
Security" would have failed with me as well.
They must have some mighty interesting people in their poll groups.
The DLC/Third Way/New Dems have spent, literally, decades
slapping down every element of the former Democratic coalition save
for their funders. That they are now a regional Party should come
as no surprise to them after having run possibly the most
sociopathic example of their creed. And they still don't get it!
Pelosi and Schumer must think we are all fools.
One hates to say it, but it is beginning to look like Sanders
really was a sheepdog for the Democratic Party, if not HIllary
herself. At least he changed the conversation.
*BTW, Lambert, if you have not looked at BAR in the past week or
so, they have some really good stuff up.
Thanks for the reminder. The volume (both senses) is so great
it's hard to keep track and look at everything I should.
If you want to play the inside/outside game, then you need a
politician on the inside. Sanders is the best choice for that.
If that makes people stamp their feet and cry "sheepdog," I
don't really give two sh*ts at this point (as I would not,
having just been called a sheep. Eh?)
And they still face a daunting challenge crafting, let alone
communicating, an economic message. It's widely agreed that the party
was unable to find a vigorous, meaningful way of telling working class
voters it understood their concerns.
Pleasing to see a reporter use the phrase "working class" without
prefixing with "white."
Naked Capitalist Pigs Comrades: you are most fortunate to have actual Soviet
communist spy infiltrator, who has been inseminated into your society from
conception, to reveal himself to you and our nefarious plots to restore world
wide communism through our subversive and inconceivable plots. Here, in my
basement lair, in my pajamas and fuzzy red hammer and sickle bunny slippers, I
receive my orders from Putin himself, via walky talky while he rides his horse
bare chested .and so is Putin.
Now, with all the electronic monitoring of the communications, many dismiss
that the Soviets can communicate with all the infiltrators without detection.
After all, your own Secretary of State uh .stated:
[CLINTON:] And what's really important about WikiLeaks is that the Russian
government has engaged in espionage against Americans. They have hacked
American websites, American accounts of private people, of institutions {[AND
OF COURSE, THE SECRETARY OF STATE OF THE UNITED STATES]}. Then they have given
that information to WikiLeaks for the purpose of putting it on the Internet.
This has come from the highest levels of the Russian government, clearly,
from Putin himself, in an effort, as 17 of our intelligence agencies have
confirmed, to influence our election. {[DESPITE OUR BEST EFFORTS, WE FAILED TO
ELECT CLINTON AS WE BELIEVED SHE WOULD CAUSE THE INTERNAL COLLAPSE OF THIS
COUNTRY MUCH QUICKER THAN ANYONE ELSE .CURSES!!! FOILED AGAIN}]
============================================
That is why I always in my bunny slippers yes, we do not use internet because
is soooooo insecure real spies receive their instructions for world
domination by radio waves, which is why .I wear bunny slippers ..because I
need the rabbit ears as antenna
Yes, every person wearing bunny slippers is a Soviet mole.
Interesting. I used to get my Russian operational briefings from
Unfavorable Semicircle
on YouTube, but we have been forced to switch to
Twitter
since YouTube disabled our communications channel.
Is being most amazing thing! Is true you are being Putommunist Agent! How
can I telling this? You mispelling of "walky talky". Americans spelling are
"walkIE talkIE" . . . not "walky talky" as you have mispelling it here.
But Why Agent Fresno? WHY? Why have you revealing yourself at this most
sensitive juncture with most obviousful plain mis-spellingly "tell" as like
this?
There must be more of us. I had always been programmed to believe I was
the original russian mole and that we were nearly extinct. Good that we have
friends.
The Russian desman often lives in small (usually not related) groups of two
to five animals, and appears to have a complex (but largely unstudied)
communication and social systems and that is why it took so long for Clinton
to find us.
Thanks for this post. Interesting that Hillary ran as a sort of Eisenhower
Republican, since the GOP used to stand for Civil Rights for blacks, and equal
rights for women. They did not stand for the little guy or rising wages,
however. See Margaret Chase Smith, Nelson Rockefeller, Edward Brooke.
GOP Sen Joe McCarthy was a cold war demagogue during Eisenhower's admin. (Sen.
M.C. Smith stood to denounce McCarthy.)
Today's neolib Dems blend the best and the WORST of the Eisenhower Republicans.
3rd Way?
It is deeply ironic that the DNC neolib Hillary campaign absorbs the Eisenhower
GOP's stance on civil rights, ignores the traditional Dem stance on the
economic needs of the little guy, AND turns to McCarthyist smear tactics
against political and press opponents. She's not even as principled as Sen.
Margaret Chase Smith was. (Sen. from Maine!)
aside to Lambert, aka Raskolnikov! : one of the most insidious and
pernicious effects of McCarthyism was self-censorship, fear, distrust and
look-over-the-shoulder.
It seems to me that we're having a hard time getting our collective minds
wrapped around the fact that our '
leaders
' not only feel entitled to
lie to us, but that it is their duty to lie to us.
The Clinton 'folks' evidently think that we're so susceptible to repuglican
lies, that the only solution is a dose of democrapic lies.
They haven't for one minute considered the possibility that we're so tired
of being lied to, that we've decided to forego what has become utterly
unbearable, that is, being forced to listen to even one more lie from the mouth
of a 'third-way' democrat.
It would appear that the repuglicans are in no way more self-aware than the
democraps as far as that goes, so we're in for a deluge of dis-honesty
surrounding Trumps broken promises and empty campaign rhetoric.
As far as both sides of the faux-political-spectrum are concerned here's
only one game in town, and that's called Give the Rich What They Pay For.
Our political class, has explained to us in perfectly clear english, (Thanks
HRC) that their actions are governed by opinions they consider 'private', and
that these opinions are often the exact opposite of the opinions they offer in
public.
Some of us are enjoying the small comfort that comes from the realization
that at least the lies will come from someone not named Clinton or Bush.
Since it was our political class that taught us to settle for
incrementalism, they should understand why many of us consider this progress.
The Russians are "interfering" with US elections, by showing the American
people the truth, vs. the propaganda doled out by the Democratic Party.
To this I say: Thanks Russia. Keep it coming. Don't even bother attempting
to plant "false info" in any of this stuff, the truth is damaging enough. While
you are at it, lets see some stuff out of the Republican camp, and the Wall
Street banks.
This illustrates the US Governments dilemma. They have put out so much false
BS that the wretched refuse believes nothing they say anymore, even if it's the
truth. Integrity and credibility are tough to get back, once they have been
lost/tossed aside.
And the "interfering in US elections" is a real hoot to begin with. Like
Israel, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, etc (not to mention various
above-the-nation-state entities like MNCs and the Banksters) haven't been
interfering/influencing US elections for decades.
How has the Clinton Foundation been doing with "donations", now that they
have zero influence in US government policy?
"This illustrates the US Governments dilemma. They have put out so much
false BS that the wretched refuse believes nothing they say anymore, even if
it's the truth. Integrity and credibility are tough to get back, once they
have been lost/tossed aside."
The man whose falsehoods no longer deceive has forfeited the right to
tell the truth.
-Ambrose Bierce
The Clintonites are grooming Chelsea Clinton to run for Congress, so that
the Clinton Foundation will still have influence in the US government so as
to keep those donations coming.
That is why it is so very important that Chelsea not be allowed to get
into Congress.
I think one of the things that just frosts my cupcakes is this drummed-up
outrage over so-called Russian incursions into Americans' data, knowing that
our own government has been harvesting and mining and tiptoeing through our
information like a love-sick Ferdinand the Bull cavorting through the daisies,
because, you know, terrorism! We don't know what they're doing with it, whether
they are storing it, or building dossiers with it but it's landing some
people on watch lists, so it can't be as random as they want us to believe, can
it? They keep assuring us that it isn't like they're actually reading our
e-mails and taking snapshots of our web activity but we're supposed to be
suffused with indignation and huffing with outrage because Putin and Russia?
Really?
I'm with you Anne. How absurd is it to get one's knickers in a twist over
Russia when Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, the 17 US "intelligence"
agencies, etc., etc., etc., not to mention our bestest pals the Brits with
their shiny new spying laws, have been asserting their God-given right to
all of our digital information? Russia might just as well get in line.
Plus I meant to include: the Russian stuff is a red herring as some
people are desperate to avoid us looking at the DIA as the agent who leaked
it. There is sh!t going down big time over this leak and it does point to a
state actor but much closer to home. I read Trump is elevating the likely
lad to a senior role in his administration. Pure speculation yes, but much
more likely. Besides we have forgotten about Comey, phew! that was close.
Thank you for deconstructing the 17 intelligence agencies talking point. I
read it when it was linked and was struck by the same points.
In particular I think this part is suspect:
"We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only
Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized these activities."
Authorized these activities? What the heck does that mean? Are we supposed
to accept that the Russian hacking community is some kind of centrally
controlled organization that must seek government approval before they attempt
anything too drastic? If so it's like no hacking community that I've ever heard
of. What if there was a WikiLeaks-like attack on a Russian government server
that was traced to an American source, and the Russians tried to use the same
argument to pin it on the US government?
Also on the cyberwarfare front, does anybody really believe that this isn't
going on all the time? Or that at least some of the actors on each side are
state funded and/or have ties to intelligence agencies? We know from the
Snowden material that the US does it even to its allies (they were tapping
Merkel's phone, FFS!) So even if every word of it is true, there is an
additional burden of proof to demonstrate that the activity is somehow
exceptional and not just a continuation of the current security status quo. So
far I have seen no attempt to do this, or even acknowledge that it's necessary.
I do find it amusing that the Clinton camp was simultaneously maintaining
that (a) national security was under constant threat from the big bad Russians
and (b) Clinton systematically ignoring security regulations for electronic
communications wasn't a big deal at all.
But what we do know, thanks to digital forensics of the hacked
emails, is that Podesta clicked twice on a not-so-sophisticated
fishing email asking for his password. We also know from the same
emails that John Podesta lost his cellphone in a taxi on January 19,
2015; and that his password was "p@ssword."
With leadership like that, the rest makes sense.
A point for the Left in all this: the DNC's ideas are not only bad
because they don't advocate the social-democratic redistribution we
would like to see - they are also bad because they don't work at a
purely technical level.
Their arrogance and contempt for the working class produced a
flawed political theory, which in turn produced a bad strategy, which
in turn produced a tactically inept ground game.
Too busy congratulating themselves and concurring with each other,
the Clintonites couldn't even get the rudiments of the campaign
correct.
Not even a zero for the "o" in password? Remarkable
Was that the one time Clapper was telling the truth? Who knows?
Personally, I wouldn't use Clapper in any of my arguments. Trying to
determine whether or not Clapper is telling the truth is about as difficult
as trying to determine what Trump is going to say next.
Well, that's because I didn't do that. I see it was November 17; if a
meteor crashed into the earth the week after the election, I might have
missed that too.
However, I can't find a copy of the letter. Can you supply a link? (As
far as the admission, Clapper says nothing about it in
this (hagiographical) interview by Wired
.)
My apologies, upon further review, this isn't air-tight sourcing. It
seems like it came out of the last committee meeting where Clapper
submitted his resignation letter. So, there might be something.
Trust in any relationship is sacrosanct. Suspecting your husband or wife or
partner, of hidden infidelity is like having "a conspiracy theory". You have a
bad feeling, a sense of unease- but that is all. It can go on for years.
However, walking in, unexpectedly, on a (denied) liaison (romance) is all
together different. You have been lied to. You know it. You grok it. You absorb
the information into your very essence. The relationship (union) must and does
change.
I watched many Trump speeches in full on youtube, and then, afterwords, read
the reports in the MSM of what he had just said. They were lying to me! I could
see it, hear it. They lied to me.
They must have been lying to me for the last sixty years of my life! I feel
like such a sucker! I believed these lying bastards. I listened to them. I
modified my actions, my thoughts, my diet, my beliefs. I subscribed to their
"true information", their "helpful advice", their "concerned warnings".
I have been addicted to "the news" since my childhood. (I fondly remember
the Sunday NYT spread out in our living room floor in the late 50s, early 60s).
This has been a clarifying year for me. (tip of the hat to Boris Strether and
Natasha Smith)
I had the same experience you did. A couple months ago ran into a Trump
speech and listened to what he said and then the next day the MSM all said
he said something that was completely different than what he actually said.
I think it was something to do about Iraq Trump made a harmless comment
about it but the media said he said something else all together and they all
repeated the horrible thing they say he said. I was pretty shocked by this
I heard exactly what he said and he never said anything like that. That next
night he was aired on CNN again speaking to the crowds and saying that he
said xyz about Iraq and the MSM said he said something completely different
(which I heard them say) and he said see folks this is what I mean about
the media. And I realized he was right the media was lying and they were
all in on it. Another thing crossed my mind during that time why was he
attracting such large crowds maybe people wanted to hear what he was
actually saying for themselves and not filtered by the media.
. . . They
must
have been lying to me for the last
sixty years of my life!
Welcome to reality. Beware though that Trump doesn't suck you into his
lies. Although the people have been watching narcissistic politicians since
the dawn of time, you can take nothing they say at face value.
The main goal of a narcissist is to get an emotional response from the
people around him (or her although narcissism is less prevalent in women)
and it doesn't matter if the response is to be loved or hated, as long as
there is an emotional response to feed off. The people nearby are objects,
to be used as the narcissist sees fit for his own satisfaction, to be used
and abused and when of no further use, discarded.
What they hate, more than anything else, is to be ignored and shown no
emotion when interacting with them. Becoming emotionally flat is a sure fire
way to get a narcissist to lose interest and move onto someone vulnerable to
their "charisma".
After the final debate, there was a few moments when the camera panned to
Trump, alone at the podium clutching his notes looking angry and ready to
eat the notes before stuffing them in his jacket. He wasn't angry that he
thought he might have lost the debate. He was angry that for a few moments
there was no attention on him, and he didn't calm down until his family
entourage joined him on stage and they walked out together. That's only my
opinion, but the body language says a lot.
Now the Presidency and the whole world is an object and plaything, as if
they weren't before, but he isn't beholden to anybody, which frees him from
constraints that previous presidents had. That's new.
Readers, I'm eliminating "The Trail" coverage from Water Cooler's 2016
election coverage, for a few reasons. First, the political class, across
the board, is working actively for one candidate, as if they were
extensions of that candidate's campaign. Hence, at least insofar as
material generated in the Acela corridor goes, there's no news to
aggregate. Second, and as a result of the first, the volume and toxicity
of the talking points in this election is so great that it's starting to
affect my health; when I find myself drinking most of a bottle of wine,
instead of the glass I had planned, it's time to re-assess. The
surreality is worse than I've ever seen in my thirteen years of daily
blogging on politics, and that includes the run-up to the Iraq War, when
the political class also lost its mind; the opportunity cost of investing
in such surreality is simply too great, particularly when I could be
improving other coverage. So, for the remainder of the campaign, I'm
going to focus on topics that are not bright shiny objects or clickbait:
on policy, money, understanding the voters (in ways that go beyond the
material that appears under Class Warfare), and institutional issues
within the parties. Where I focus on the "horse race," it will only be in
swing states. Finally, I don't expect volatility to cease on November 8;
I believe the political class suffers from a legitimacy crisis, which the
election will not solve. Readers may wonder if I have a dog in this
fight, and the answer is yes: I want divided government and gridlock.
It's always possible to make thing worse!
Looks like I made the right call on that (well before the Podesta emails,
too). Especially on " I don't expect volatility to cease" .
This time of the year, I do enjoy baking melt in your mouth Russian tea
cakes lest I make the short list of feeding the enemy, it may be a good time
to switch to Mexican Wedding Cookies.
Nephews this past weekend were taunting this ole lady ( me) for reading
NC alledgely a hotbed for "fake news". All of a sudden I found new respect
for being cavalier.
"Carefully parsing Politfact's story against what Clinton actually said,
I rate Clinton's carefully engineered statement as not proven, and certainly
not true. "17 of our intelligence agencies have confirmed" is not the same
as "James Clapper says that 17 of our intelligence agencies have confirmed."
Clapper should have been fired. Let me say first I am not a spook. But I
know a bit about intelligence and for the chief of U.S. intelligence to
announce that Russia had hacked into the DNC's server was either a lie or
beyond stupid. One does not let one's enemies know what you know. It doesn't
help you it would help them. Think about it. Let us assume that said hacker
was in the Kremlin, hacking away. That server has an IP address. Now, Clapper
has just announced not only that the U.S. has the technology to find hackers,
it also knows the IP address of a Kremlin server. How exactly would revealing
that information to the world help the U.S.? Ans. it wouldn't. I haven't a
clue why Clapper did this, but he should have been immediately fired.
adding: on the one hand liberals decry NSA spying as an evil over
throwing of Constitutional protections. On the other hand liberals encourage
eliminating or electioneering the vote in the electoral college (a
Constitutionally mandated part of the election of presidents) to guarantee
Hillary's win. (If the recounts aren't done by EC vote day, do those EC
votes go uncounted?) No double-standard there. Nope. Consistency and
principal, if it's personally advantageous.
"If the recounts aren't done by EC vote day, do those EC votes go
uncounted?" They shouldn't. I believe federal statutes establish a
procedure for dealing with this.
The election of the president is complete when the votes of the
electors are opened and counted in the newly-elected House of
Representatives on its first day in session in the new year. (The
election of the vice president is completed when the voltes of the
electors are opened and counted in the Senate). The way to deal with a
situation like this might be: The Republican slate of electors, pledged
to vote for Trump and Pence, files returns, claiming that when the
recount is completed it will show that they were elected ("they"
referring to the slate of electors, not Trump and Pencevotes for
presidential and vice presidential candidates actually elect the electors
who will cast the electoral votes). The Democratic slate of electors,
pledged to vote for Clinton and Kaine, likewise files a return claiming
that they (again, the electors) were so elected. The House of
Representatives then votes to decide which return to accept, and which to
reject., regarding the president,, and the Senate so votes concerning the
returns of the vice -resident. (I haven't researched the law on this
since the time of Bush v. Gore,but that's the conclusion I think I
remember coming to after reading the United States Code provisions on
presidential elections. I'm pretty sure that statutes haven't changed).
" the idea that Democrats are as susceptible to epistemic closure as
Republicans was alien to me. No more."
The Republicans built their own closed-loop media ecosphere first with Fox
news and Right Wing Talk radio. During the W Bush administration, there was no
way team Dem could be anything but critics making team Dem seem more like
critical thinkers and adversarial to entrenched power than they actually were.
As soon as the Democrats had their own charismatic, infallible, 'Great Leader'
to rally around (Obama) and their own little closed loop media eco-sphere that
grew up around the cult of Obama, with supposedly left-leaning brand image
(MSNBC, Orange Satan, Huffington Post) the Democrats quickly zipped themselves
up in a tight, impenetrable sack of epistemic closure to match the Republicans.
The Democrat's impenetrable sack was Neo-Liberal just like the Republicans, but
the Democrat's sack (pardon the analogy/pun) smelled of sweet meritocratic
credentialism and minority identity politics.
If this past election cycle has taught me anything it's that "Team Dem" blue
juice drinkers are probably worse (more blinded) than the right-wing crowd. A
Bush voter that voted Republican in every election since 2000 can most likely
admit Bush's faults and admit the Republican party has quite a bit of work to
do. Your typical two-time Obama voter that voted Hillary this last election is
incapable of recognizing Obama's many flaws and if you try to talk to them
about the Podesta emails you get fingers-in-the-ears "La-La-La" just as Lambert
stated. According to the Team Blue cult members Hillary Clinton didn't suck as
a candidate- she was robbed, and anyone who criticizes Clinton from the left OR
the right is a damn Russian double agent.
The state of political discourse in the country is so bad I don't know where
to begin. 99 out of every 100 Americans are completely insane at the moment.
Being part of that reluctant 1% ( Jill voters), I now feel the icky slime
as if I had voted for HC. I was once sane, but now doubting it much. Feeling
voters remorse big time. Should've left it blank the first time.
Perhaps not insane just brainwashed (and without adequate education,
historical knowledge, and good memory, unable to make sense of any of what
is happening). Maybe that is why so much of what passes for "news" is
targeted mainly at people's emotions.
Why did none of the 17 intelligence agencies warn US gov employees
(including SoS) that Russia had the capability to hack private servers and why
was using private servers for gov business not made illegal?
Especially servers that were completely unencrypted for nine-months. If
only we had an intelligence apparitions to help secure government e-mail
conversation on secure servers. Oh wait
I couldn't work this in, but this "objectively pro-Putin" crap is -
showing my age, hear - like arguing that John McNamara was a Yankee
mole because he left Bill Buckner in at first base in Game Six of the
1986 World Series. I mean, come on.
I was at that game. Had religiously followed the Sox from the
time my grandfather first took me to see Teddy Ballgame play. Used
to fill out box scores when listening to a game on the radio The
Buckner miscue devastated me and will be forever etched in my
memory.
I saw it on an enormous old black and white TV while I was
working as a janitor. Vacuumed the rugs, then sat down and
watched the game. Horrible moment, just horrible.
Is anyone going to seriously deny that Israel has a huge influence not just
on our elections, but our foreign policy as well? As usual, it is the elephant
in the room.
Submitted for your approval. An awful lot of electrons spilt for what feelz
like buyers remorse. Clinton lost because at that point in time when it was
most important Hillz was hated more than the Donald pick your reason pizzagate,
hacked emails, past history, comfy fbi bs, the list goes on.
Now you have the Donald enjoy his divine light. Revel in the caucasian version
of the bath party. I know I will.
Tim Ryan, challenger to Nancy Pelosi demoratic leadership, was all over the
talk shows proclaiming 'we need a new message' . His entire challenge is based
on presenting 'a new message'. New PR slogans .
The morons still don't get that it's not about crafting a "message" but
about action that reflects that they have managed to venture into the real
world.
"Imagine having a presidential candidate in the pocket of a foreign nation!"
scolded Hillary Clinton, as she went to pledge four hundred billion dollars to
Israel for its plan to use Palestinians as ballast.
with time we will probly come to learn that the wikileak of Podesta et al
emails like so many such situations was an inside job, not hackers much less
Russki intel. my guess is the H campaign made a few job offers to Bernie Bro
techies in hopes of reaching his audience. and one of them decided to download
on these Clinton grifters in hopes a better future Dem Party might rise from
the neoCon neoLiberal smashup. or maybe it's just my fondest wish. as a fellow
Bernie Bro
My private speculation, too. Bernie supporters would not be my guess, but
rather somebody embedded in the Democrat nomenklatura for a long time, and
somebody smart enough to use a cutout when phishing Podesta. "Embedded" long
enough to get the hatred
really
curdled
An optimistic sign that the snark-fog-of-war is lifting over at Atrios?
"They-Had-One-Job". I prefer "She-Had-One-Job" but that may be too personal.
I'm sure the commenters will smack him back into line.
What gets me about the whole "ebil Russians" argument is that it was yet
more evidence that Clinton should never be elected IF what she claimed was
true. Her big selling point was that she was tested, highly competent, and
experienced. Yeah, so competent that she couldn't pick campaign staff with the
sense to avoid a simple phishing exercise AFTER being warned of the risk? I am
constantly bombarded with horror stories of what the Feds would do to me if I
had a data breach and hackers got PII (finance business). Yet here's a woman
who essentially brags that they were hacked and we're supposed to agree that
makes her eminently qualified?
I told one of her supporters that her pushing the Russian hacker excuse was
yet another reason not to vote for her. Their reply was to claim I probably
blamed rape victims for wearing short skirts! Yeah, because the "campaign" was
obviously supposed to be a coronation rather than a job interview, and obvious
incompetence is to be rewarded, right?
Right the Russian-hacker claim is soooo obviously a cynical ploy
(exploitation) of a campaign that had very little of meaningful substance to
offer voters that I cannot even believe folks would seriously discuss it.
But here we are
Does Russia run covert operations to subvert whichever government they
perceive as threat or are you saying that Trump is a very principled patriot
and a diligent man, and would not allow himself to be used to subvert the US?
This are the two most important questions and the first one is true and the
second is not.
A large number of real things could possibly have made the outcome
different. By and large reasonable reasons for losing a close selection cannot
be entirely debunked, though they could be ranked, and likely every ranking
will be different.
However "17 agencies" was not a respectable argument at all. It was simply a
lie that Lambert has debunked.
The people Trump has been selecting do NOT look like the ones who might turn
our relationship with Russia from cold-war-with-no-name into Peace (which makes
the larger claim of Russian involvement seem remote to the point of being a bad
joke). Sadly, quite the reverse, with even small advances like the Iran deal
likely being reversed. But making peace with Russia and her client states would
actually be the most excellent thing to do right now (if not 70 years ago), and
strangely I believe Russia is reasonable enough to want that, and not simply to
take our place on top of the global-chaos-we-made, which they wouldn't be doing
anyway.
"... One thing not mentioned yet, is Trump getting slammed by his populist base for his Secretary of State picks, which seem to come down to Romney and Giuliani. Romney is the worst of Wall Street, a complete tool of the neoliberal program, and Giuliani has a Hillary Clinton-like record on bloated speaking fees and pay-to-play deals with his law firm, Giuliani Partners. ..."
"... That's the biggest test case to see whether Trump, like Obama before him, is going to forget about his populist base and take the carrot Wall Street is offering him. ..."
"... If Trump really wanted to shake things up, he could pick Tulsi Gabbard for Secretary of State, that would be a clever move, far better than Giuliani or Romney. ..."
One thing not mentioned yet, is Trump getting slammed by his populist base for his Secretary
of State picks, which seem to come down to Romney and Giuliani. Romney is the worst of Wall Street,
a complete tool of the neoliberal program, and Giuliani has a Hillary Clinton-like record on bloated
speaking fees and pay-to-play deals with his law firm, Giuliani Partners. Either one of those
clowns as Secretary of State would be a complete betrayal of everything Trump said he stood for
on foreign policy. Romney however is drawing howls of protest from Rust Belt Trump supporters,
because he's so pro-NAFTA, pro-TPP:
https://www.thenation.com/article/more-nafta-anyone-romney-positions-free-trade-champion/
That's the biggest test case to see whether Trump, like Obama before him, is going to forget
about his populist base and take the carrot Wall Street is offering him. Another big one
is whether John Bolton, neocon war pig just like Clinton pals Victoria Nuland and Robert Kagan,
ends up with a big foreign policy role. Forget about cooperation with Russia on ISIS in that case.
So, those are some serious issues that Trump might want to distract his base from, but they're
the major issues that will determine what kind of foreign policy, economic and military, Trump
will really pursue.
As far as Jill Stein, what the hell is she doing? The biggest Green Party issue right now should
be helping block the Dakota Accesss Pipeline debacle, a consortium of short-sighted interests
aiming at exporting Bakken crude overseas, including Warren Buffett, billionaire Democratic supporter,
whose in $6 billion to DAPL via Phillips 66, and Kelcy Warren, billionaire Republican supported,
CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, another DAPL partner.
Instead she's playing some dumb political game, totally ignoring the one issue any real
"Green Party" would be focusing on right now.
P.S. If Trump really wanted to shake things up, he could pick Tulsi Gabbard for Secretary
of State, that would be a clever move, far better than Giuliani or Romney.
Hi Naked Capitalism. I haven't been on this site for some time. But I felt it necessary to
comment due to an ad hominem attack from a commenter "James" regarding the show I produce at RT
called Boom Bust.
From my vantage point as producer at RT, I have been able to see the whole anti-Russia campaign
unfold in all its fury. I have a lot of thoughts on this but I want to restrict my comments to
the specific argument James makes. here:
"it's also obvious that RT invites him on the network because he lambasts the American political
establishment and weakens the public's confidence in its leaders. This is clearly a goal of Moscow,
and they use people like Steve Keen to do it. I'm sure Steven Keen doesn't think of his role that
way, but RT and Russian intelligence certainly do."
Since I produce the show that Steve Keen appears on, I am well-placed to give you a view on
this. James' comment is flat out false. What James writes is something he has fabricated in his
imagination connecting dots he believes should be connected based on no first hand evidence
whatsoever.
What actually happens on Boom Bust is this:
Since no one I work with at RT has a sophisticated background in economics, finance or financial
reporting, they give us a wide berth in putting together content for our show with nearly no top
down dictates at all. That means we as American journalists have a pretty much free hand to report
economic news intelligently and without bias. We invite libertarian, mainstream, non-mainstream,
leftist, Democratic commentators, Republican commentators you name it. As for guests, they are
not anti-American in any way shape or form. They are disproportionately non-mainstream.
We have no pro-Russian agenda. And that is in part because Russia is a bit player on the economic
stage, frankly. Except for sanctions, it has mostly been irrelevant on our show since inception.
Let me share a strange anecdote on that. We had a guest on our show about three years ago,
early in my tenure. We invited him on because he had smart things to say about the UK economy.
But he had also written some very negative things about Putin and Russia. Rather than whitewash
this we addressed it specifically in the interview and asked him an open-ended question about
Russia, so he could say his piece. I was ASTONISHED when he soft-pedaled his response and made
no forceful case as he had done literally days ago in print. This guy clearly self-censored
for what reason I don't know. But it is something that has stayed with me ever since.
The most important goal from a managerial perspective has been that our reporting is different
i.e. covers missing and important angles of the same storyline that are missing in the mainstream
media or that it covers storylines that are missing altogether.
Neither Steve Keen nor any other guest on our show appears "because he lambasts the American
political establishment". This is false. He appears on our show because he is a credible economist
who provides a differentiated view on economics and insight that we believe will help our viewers
understand the global economy. If Paul Krugman had something to say of that nature and would appear
on our show, we would welcome him. In fact, I and other producers have reached out to him many
times to no avail, especially after we had Gerald Friedman give his take on the dust-up surrounding
Bernie Sanders' economic plan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yna275KzuDQ
Look, I understand the scepticism about RT and its motives. It IS a state-funded news outlet
with news story angles that sometimes contrast sharply with western media. And it has not been
critical of the Russian government as far as I can tell. But you can't ascribe nefarious motives
to individual economists or reporters based on inaccurate or false third hand accounts. You are
just making things up, creating a false narrative based on circumstantial evidence. This is just
adding to the building peer pressure associated with what almost seems like an orchestrated campaign
to discredit non-mainstream sources of news.
You are in good company with that suspicion of a campaign to "sanitize" the public's sources
of information. If one were to consider the Corporate sector as the equivalent of a state,
then almost all news sources are liable to extra strong scrutiny. Going back to Bernays, the
"shepherding" of the news sources used by the majority of the population is crucial to maintaining
control of public perceptions. In that sense, the present struggle for control of the news
narrative is understandable.
Keep up the good work.
This means we need more outlets besides Google and Facebook; outlets impervious to witch
hunts maybe offshore enterprises, after all that's the trend. The more the merrier for manufacturing
dissent in a good sense. What Russia does cannot harm us but it is always good to hear their
take; and China is interesting as well. We get such gobbledegook from MSM we would never understand
a single issue without alternative news. It's a little late for them to be all hysterical about
losing their grip they've been annoying us and boring us to death for 5 decades; and selling
us down the river. I'm amazed they have a following at all.
"... "The flood of 'fake news' this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation." ..."
"... "Russia's increasingly sophisticated propaganda machinery including thousands of botnets, teams of paid human 'trolls,' and networks of websites and social-media accounts echoed and amplified right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers. The effort also sought to heighten the appearance of international tensions and promote fear of looming hostilities with nuclear-armed Russia." ..."
"... "You've seen reports. Russia's hacked into a lot of things. China's hacked into a lot of things. Russia even hacked into the Democratic National Committee, maybe even some state election systems. So, we've got to step up our game. Make sure we are well defended and able to take the fight to those who go after us. ..."
"... "As President, I will make it clear, that the United States will treat cyber attacks just like any other attack. We will be ready with serious political, economic and military responses." ..."
No one outside of a few obsessed cranks would've noticed it if the
Washington Post
hadn't given it front page prominence last week: a
formerly obscure web site, propornot.com, which purports to identify a
"Russian active measures" campaign with some very specific goals in mind As
Post
"reporter" Craig Timberg
put it
:
"The flood of 'fake news' this
election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign
that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of
punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and
undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who
tracked the operation."
While the
Post
piece doesn't link directly to the propornot site
because doing so would've exposed
its laughably amateurish "methodology"
for all to see Timberg does
mention their list of online
Boris Badenovs
, including not only Antiwar.com but also the Drudge
Report, WikiLeaks, David Stockman's Contra Corner, the Ron Paul Institute,
LewRockwell.com, Counterpunch, Zero Hedge, Naked Capitalism, Truthdig,
Truth-out, and a host of others. These sites, according to the
Post
,
not only promoted a barrage of "fake news" with the aim of defeating Mrs.
Clinton, but they did so at the behest of a "centrally-directed" (per
propornot) intelligence operation undertaken by the Russians. So what did
this "fake news" consist of? Timberg "reports":
"Russia's increasingly sophisticated
propaganda machinery including thousands of botnets, teams of paid human
'trolls,' and networks of websites and social-media accounts echoed and
amplified right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as
a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand
control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers. The effort
also sought to heighten the appearance of international tensions and promote
fear of looming hostilities with nuclear-armed Russia."
Never mind that it was Hillary Clinton herself who heightened
international tensions by threatening military retaliation against the
Russians for supposedly unleashing via WikiLeaks a flood of embarrassing
emails.
In a speech
touted as outlining her foreign policy platform, she railed:
"You've seen reports. Russia's hacked into
a lot of things. China's hacked into a lot of things. Russia even hacked
into the Democratic National Committee, maybe even some state election
systems. So, we've got to step up our game. Make sure we are well defended
and able to take the fight to those who go after us.
"As President, I will make it clear, that
the United States will treat cyber attacks just like any other attack. We
will be ready with serious political, economic and military responses."
According to the "experts" at propornot granted anonymity by Timberg
due to alleged fear of "Russian hackers" to so much as note this clear
threat is to brand oneself as a "Russian agent of influence."
And what about Mrs. Clinton's health problems was reporting on this
driven by Russian spies embedded in the alternative media? Or was it
occasioned by
this video
, which saw her falling to the ground after leaving the 9/11
ceremony early? Are the folks at propornot and their fans at the
Washington Post
saying the amateur videographer who took that footage
is a Russian secret agent? Were the television networks and
other outlets
that showed the footage "useful idiots," to employ a
favorite cold war smear revived by propornot? Given their criteria for
labeling people agents of the Kremlin, the answer to these questions has to
be
yes
and now we are falling down the rabbit hole, in a
free-fall descent into lunacy.
Propornot's "
criteria
"
for inclusion on their blacklist is actually an ideological litmus test: if
you hold certain views, you're in the pay of the Kremlin, or else an "
unwitting
agent
" as former CIA head Mike Morell said of Trump. If you say
anything at all positive about Russia or Putin or a long list of entities,
like China or "radical political parties in the US or Europe" (does this
include the GOP?) it's a dead giveaway. We're told to "investigate this by
searching for mentions of, for example, 'russia', on their site by Googling
for 'site:whateversite.com Russia', and seeing what comes up."
If only Sherlock Holmes had had Google at his disposal, those detective
stories would've been a lot shorter!
The propornot site is filled with complex graphs, and the text is
riddled with "scientific"-sounding phrases, but when you get right down to
it their "methodology" boils down to this: if you don't fit within a very
narrow range of allowable opinion, either falling off the left edge or the
right edge, you're either a paid Russian troll or else you're being
"manipulated" by forces you don't understand and don't want to understand.
Did you cheer on Brexit? You're Putin's pawn!
Are you worried about "World War III, nuclear devastation, etc." instead
of being content in the knowledge that their preferred policy unmitigated
hostility toward Russia - would "just result in a Cold War 2 and Russia's
eventual peaceful defeat, like the last time"? Well, then, clearly you're
either on Putin's payroll, or else you'd like to be.
Other proscribed opinions include: "gold standard nuttery and attacks on
the US dollar," believing "the mainstream media can't be trusted," and
"anti-'globalism.'" And to underscore their complete lack of self-awareness,
we're told that additional warning signs of Putinism are "hyperbolic
alarmism" and "generally ridiculous over-the-top assertions."
In their world, it isn't hyperbolic alarmism to point to ramshackle
Russia, with a GDP equal to Spain's and a declining military budget that
pales before our own, as an existential threat to the West. And if you're a
reporter for the
Washington Post
, which has destroyed what
reputation it had by effectively becoming the house organ of the Democratic
National Committee, generally ridiculous overt-the-top assertions, such as
those proffered by propornot, are "news."
The
Post
piece also cites
an article
published on the "War On The Rocks" web site (which is
exactly what it sounds like). The authors, a triumvirate of neocons, avers
that they've been "tracking" "Russian propaganda" efforts since 2014, and
they've concluded that the Grand Goal of the Russkies is to "Erode trust
between citizens and elected officials and democratic institutions" as if
this process isn't occurring naturally due to the depredations of a corrupt
and arrogant political class.
Another insidious theme of Russian "active measures" as identified by
these geniuses is "Stoking fears over the national debt, attacking
institutions
such as the Federal Reserve
, and attempts to discredit Western financial
experts and business leaders." So we mustn't talk about the national debt
because to do so brands one as a cog in Putin's propaganda machine. Gee,
based on these criteria, we can only conclude that every vaguely
conservative politician running for office in the last decade or so is part
of the Vast Russian Conspiracy, not to mention numerous economists.
And that's not all not by a long shot. Here's a list of more Forbidden
Topics we're not supposed to discuss, except maybe in whispers in the
privacy of our own homes: "
Police
brutality
,
racial tensions,
protests,
anti-government standoffs
,
online privacy concerns
, and
alleged government misconduct
are all emphasized [by the Vast Russian
Conspiracists ed.] to magnify their scale and leveraged to undermine the
fabric of society." After all, Russia Today is "emphasizing" these issues
so mum's the word!
Yes, these people are serious but why should anyone take them
seriously? Why is the
Washington Post
"reporting" this nonsense
and putting it on the front page, no less? In short, what's the purpose of
this virulent propaganda campaign? After all, Hillary Clinton has been
defeated, along with her campaign theme of "A vote for Trump is a vote for
Putin." What does a continuation of this losing mantra hope to accomplish?
The folks at propornot are explicit about their goal: they want the
government to step in. They want to close down these "agents of influence."
In their own words, they want the FBI and the Department of Justice to
launch "formal investigations" of the sites on their blacklist on the
grounds that "the kind of folks who make propaganda for brutal oligarchies
are often involved in a wide range of bad business." They accuse the
proprietors of the listed web sites including us, by the way of having
"violated the Espionage Act, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and other
related laws."
Oh, but they say they want to "avoid McCarthyism"! They just want to shut
us down and shut us up.
These people are authoritarians, plain and simple: under the guise of
fighting
authoritarianism, they seek to ban dissenting views, jail the
dissenters, and impose a narrow range of permissible debate on the public
discourse. They are dangerous, and they need to be outed and publicly
shamed.
To be included on their list of "subversives" is really a badge of honor,
and one we here at Antiwar.com wear proudly.
"... Western democracies have found it essential to align themselves firmly with lies in order to pursue their agendas. Now these Western governments are attempting to discredit the truthtellers who challenge their lies. ..."
"... Russian news services are under attack from the EU and Western presstitutes as purveyors of "fake news. " Abiding by its Washington master's orders, the EU actually passed a resolution against Russian media for not following Washington's line. ..."
"... As George Orwell predicted, telling the truth is now regarded by Western "democratic" governments as a hostile act. ..."
"... Does propornot.com's funding come from the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy, George Soros? ..."
"... In the West those who disagree with the murderous and reckless policies of public officials are demonized as "Russian agents." The president-elect of the United States himself has been designated a "Russian agent." ..."
"... Clearly, Western governments and Western media have no respect for truth, so how can the West possibly be democratic? ..."
"... The presstitute Washington Post played its assigned role in the claim promoted by Washington that the alternative media consists of Russian agents. Craig Timberg, who appears devoid of integrity or intelligence, and perhaps both, is the WaPo stooge who reported the fake news that "two teams of independent researchers" - none of whom are identified - found that the Russians exploited my gullibility, that of CounterPunch, Professor Michel Chossudosky of Global Researh, Ron Paul, Lew Rockwell, Justin Raimondo and that of 194 other websites to help "an insurgent candidate" (Trump) "claim the White House." ..."
"... Western governments are running out of excuses. Since the Clinton regime, the accumulation of war crimes committed by Western governments exceed those of Nazi Germany. Millions of Muslims have been slaughtered, dislocated, and dispossessed in seven countries. Not a single Western war criminal has been held accountable. ..."
The "war on terror" has simultaneously been a war on truth. For fifteen years-from 9/11 to Saddam
Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction" and "al Qaeda connections," "Iranian nukes," "Assad's use
of chemical weapons," endless lies about Gadaffi, "Russian invasion of Ukraine"-the governments of
the so-called Western democracies have found it essential to align themselves firmly with lies
in order to pursue their agendas. Now these Western governments are attempting to discredit the truthtellers
who challenge their lies.
As George Orwell predicted, telling the truth is now regarded by Western "democratic" governments
as a hostile act. A brand new website,
propornot.com, has just made
its appearance condemning a list of 200 Internet websites that provide news and views at variance
with the presstitute media that serves the governments' agendas. Does propornot.com's funding
come from the CIA, the National Endowment for Democracy, George Soros?
I am proud to say that paulcraigroberts.org is on the list.
In the West those who disagree with the murderous and reckless policies of public officials
are demonized as "Russian agents." The president-elect of the United States himself has been designated
a "Russian agent."
This scheme to redefine truthtellers as propagandists has backfired. The effort to discredit truthtellers
has instead produced a catalogue of websites where reliable information can be found, and readers
are flocking to the sites on the list. Moreover, the effort to discredit truthtellers shows that
Western governments and their presstitutes are intolerant of truth and diverse opinion and are committed
to forcing people to accept self-serving government lies as truth.
Clearly, Western governments and Western media have no respect for truth, so how can the West
possibly be democratic?
The
presstitute Washington Post played its assigned role in the claim promoted by Washington that
the alternative media consists of Russian agents. Craig Timberg, who appears devoid of integrity
or intelligence, and perhaps both, is the WaPo stooge who reported the fake news that "two teams
of independent researchers" - none of whom are identified - found that the Russians exploited my
gullibility, that of CounterPunch, Professor Michel Chossudosky of Global Researh, Ron Paul, Lew
Rockwell, Justin Raimondo and that of 194 other websites to help "an insurgent candidate" (Trump)
"claim the White House."
Western governments are running out of excuses. Since the Clinton regime, the accumulation
of war crimes committed by Western governments exceed those of Nazi Germany. Millions of Muslims
have been slaughtered, dislocated, and dispossessed in seven countries. Not a single Western war
criminal has been held accountable.
The despicable Washington Post is a prime apologist for these war criminals. The entire Western
print and TV media is so heavily implicated in the worst war crimes in human history that, if justice
ever happens, the presstitutes will stand in the dock with the Clintons, George W. Bush and Dick
Cheney, Obama and their neocon operatives or handlers as the case may be.
The only thing that is "new" is the technological means, which depended on series of intellectual
scientific revolutions and profound paradigm shifts in mathematical physics. Otherwise, it is
the same as it has always been .
The oldest and best developed forms of social science and engineering where warfare.
Everything civilization has developed to become is due to the long, long history of warfare.
Intense paradoxes arise as sets of consistent contradictions from those basic social facts.
The oldest book on The Art of War begins by stating that "success in war depends on deceits,"
and ends with "spies are the most important soldiers."
In war, practice dissimulation, and you will succeed.
Page 35. Chapter XIII.
THE USE OF SPIES
The essential political problems regarding "the truth" were recognized long ago:
In the fifth century BC,
Greek dramatist Aeschylus said:
"In war, truth is the first casualty."
While I agreed with everything that Paul Craig Roberts wrote, and especially that, so far,
9/11 was the most spectacular symbol of the "War on Truth," there is nothing "new" in Roberts'
presentations, because he does not attempt to make political science become more consistent with
physical science, since he does not attempt to transform political science in ways which go through
series of intellectual scientific revolutions and profound paradigm shifts, in the ways that mathematical
physics already has.
There is nothing "new" in civilization being based upon being able to back up lies with violence.
"Western Civilization" simply became able to do that on a greater scale than ever before! The
only things which are "new" are due to enforced frauds being able to be done with exponentially
advancing technologies, due to the prodigious progress in mathematical physics, which has driven
exponentially increasing fraudulence, becoming more and more blatant, such that more and more
people are noticing the apparent anomalies that governments were always the biggest forms of organized
crime, dominated by the best organized gangs of criminals.
We should look for inspiration to mathematical physics regarding how to transform political
science! The main theme of progress in physical science has been to develop UNITARY MECHANISMS
in order to encompass previous presumptions of DUALITIES.
IF "Western Civilization" is going to renew itself, then it should apply the progress it made
in scientific methods to better understand political science. However, that can not be done without
going through series of intellectual scientific revolutions and profound paradigm shifts. In my
opinion, authors like Roberts, as well as most of the rest of the content published on Zero Hedge
, still only engages in superficially correct analysis of the increasingly apparent anomalies
that Globalized Neolithic Civilization, as dominated by Western Civilization, has driven sociopolitical
systems based upon enforcing frauds to become exponentially more fraudulent, since what was "new"
that has been added were the technologies which enabled that to happen.
It is because the progress in mathematical physics enabled technologies to become trillions
of times more powerful and capable than ever before in human history that we should be looking
at how and why that was possible in order to perhaps transform political science enough to cope
with the consequences of having done that. I.e., stop thinking about "truth versus lies" as DUALITIES,
but rather, attempt to develop UNITARY MECHANISMS which encompass both!
The establishment lost the information war because they keep lying. Everyone who takes an interest
in the world around them is onto them. They are panicking because they wanted to go to war against
Assad and got caught up in a campaign of terror and deception. People all over the world are rising
up against the vampire globalists need for more blood, war, and money. Leaders all over the world
are terrified because they know how truly appalling their actions were and they never thought
that those actions would see the light of day. First with Brexit, then the Trump victory, in France
the National Front Party, in Germany The AfD, in Austria the Freedom Party, the world is rejecting
the establishment and their bloody wars!
This idea of McCarthy style attack turned in promotion with some sites having large flow of
donations from outrages readers.
Notable quotes:
"... By Max Blumenthal, a senior editor of the Grayzone Project at AlterNet, and the award-winning author of Goliath and Republican Gomorrah. His most recent book is The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza. Follow him on Twitter at @MaxBlumenthal. Originally published at Alternet ..."
"... it was created about three months ago when the Red baiting was already in full swing in the media. ..."
"... it now has a wikipedia page as of 15 Nov. ..."
"... Congratulations! That site is like a who's who of influential critical reporting. I suspect, as with so many of the bubble-dwellers attempts, that this slapdash but probably overpriced effort will drive traffic to those sites while reducing the credibility of its promoters. An instant classic own-goal. I look forward to the inevitable and embarassing revelations about their founders and funding. ..."
"... Under general tenets of defamation law (statutory and in common law), it is not just the original entity or person defaming (including defamation "per se") another that is liable for such torts, but others who carelessly or recklessly repeat the original defamatory statements/claims (in this case, both The Washington Post & New York Times bear similar potential liability as PropOrNot). ..."
"... Requires actual malice since it's the media you're suing but that can be proven by reckless indifference to the truth which this might actually meet the standard of, especially since the site isn't making this claim based on anything other than the content of the views espoused by the sites. ..."
"... i vaguely thought the actual malice requirement was tied to the target being a public figure; maybe running a blog qualifies. ..."
"... Propornot is directly accusing NC and the rest of a crime (espionage), which constitutes defamation per se, so I think the only issue before the court would be whether it was done with reckless indifference. ..."
"... The MSM did such a fine job reporting the news during the campaign. (16 anti-Sanders stories in 16 hours from the WaPo. A new record.) Are small news/opinion sites cutting into their online advertising revenue. ;) ..."
"... Second, had you bothered to read the actual PropOrNot site, it accuses all of the sites listed as being "propaganda outlets" under the influence of "coordinators abroad" (#11 in its FAQ). ..."
"... And under #7, PropOrNot asserts that "some" of the sites are guilty of violating the Espionage Act and the Foreign Agent Registration Act, as in accusing them of being spies and calling for investigation (by implication of all, since how do you know which is or isn't) by the FBI and DoJ. ..."
"... Their MSM propaganda isn't working and they see it. They already heavily censor comments on their MSM sites. Other MSM sights such as Bloomberg closed down comments altogether. Expect more of that. ..."
"... what weakens people's confidence in their leaders is their not addressing people's issues and lying about their inability to do so. Despite protestations from the likes of much of our 'intelligentsia', mainstream media, and most of our political class, the majority of people are not stupid. There is a reason why terms like 'lame stream media' resonate with a large number of people. ..."
"... For instance when Obama is out there talking about a recovery and people know that there is no such thing in their lives, their communities then HE has lost their confidence not someone giving an interview on RT. ..."
"... Or to put it another way the problem isn't someone going on RT and saying the emperor isn't wearing clothes, the problem is that the emperor isn't wearing clothes. ..."
"... Steve Keen is great, and I love his work, but it's also obvious that RT invites him on the network because he lambasts the American political establishment and weakens the public's confidence in its leaders. This is clearly a goal of Moscow, and they use people like Steve Keen to do it. I'm sure Steven Keen doesn't think of his role that way, but RT and Russian intelligence certainly do. ..."
"... How do you know any of this? how would you know would Russian intelligence's goals are, or how they think of Steve Keen? this is all just McCarthyism 2016, accusing the left of being dupes or willing agents of Russia. McCarthy had his 200 communists in the state department, this website and the Washington Post have their 200 Russian propaganda websites. Why are you catapulting this bullshit? ..."
"... James do you happen to remember when those intelligence agencies reported Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction.? How about when North Korea hacked Sony? Both of which were inaccurate and dare I say it propaganda intended to mislead the American public. ..."
"... Why does Naval Intelligence have anything to do with this investigation? ..."
"... Why were 17 agencies watching the DNC? ..."
"... The immediate claims that Russia hacked the DNC were never credible to any one with even a bit of knowledge about high level hacking. The 17 agency thing was outright laughable once you asked the simple question of what most of them had to do with this investigation. And USA Today was and is the print equivalent of the Yahoo front page. ..."
"... oh so now you're an intelligence expert, but somehow you still don't have any evidence, because the "17 intelligence agencies" don't have any evidence either. they didn't have evidence of wmd's but i bet you fell for that, too. i think the most dishonest line in your post is this: You should wander out of the alt-left echo chamber once in a while and stop thinking that any criticism of Russia is 'red-baiting' and propaganda ..."
"... If Russia is actively trying to influence American politics, then they have been far more effective than the US and get a much bigger bang for their buck. For one thing, they didn't have to drop a single bomb to effect a regime change. So assuming you are correct, the noise is just a hysterical regime change envy. ..."
"... So are RT and Sputnik propaganda outlets? Sometimes they are, but sometimes they report the truth that our MSM, having given up the last shreds of their journalistic integtity in return for access, won't report. ..."
"... Given the widespread funding of media (including government-owned media) by Western governments, I would say that US and Euro hysteria about Russian propaganda, real and imagined, is yet another off-putting display of noxious American exceptionalism. ..."
"... I grew up listening to broadcasts of RFE and VOA behind the Iron Curtain, and mixed in with honest reporting was a heavy dose of propaganda aimed at weakening Eastern European governments. Now, it is the America For Bulgaria Foundation that funds several media outlets in the country. What they all have in common is rabid Russophobia-driven editorial stances, and one can easily conclude that it is driven by the almighty dollar rather than by honest, deeply held convictions. So, America can do it but whines like a toddler when it is allegedly done to it?! What a crock. ..."
"... The worst thing is that regardless of whatever propaganda wars are going on, this list constitutes a full frontal attack on free speech in the alleged "Land of the Free." Besides NC, there are number of sites distinguished by thorough, quality reporting of the kind that WaPo and NYT no longer engage in. Having grown up behind the Iron Curtain, this is chilling to me. Dissident voices speaking against the endless wars for profit and neoliberalism are in effect being intimidated and smeared by anonymous thugs. This, while the militarized local police and federal agencies, closely coordinated by "fusion centers", have ruthlessly put down a number of citizen protests, have engaged in spying on all of us, and have gone after whistleblowers for exposing the reach and scope of the surveillance state. These are the hallmarks of dictatorships, not of the alleged "world's greatest democracy and beacon of freedom." What the eff happened to America, and why are you equating challenging the oppressive and exploitative status quo with being "unwitting Russian dupes?" Seems to me that the useful idi0t here is you, with all due respect. ..."
"... American intelligence uses exactly the same tactics, and has since at least WW1. Selling the American public on the Iraq war is a classic example. Remember that all news is biased, some much more so than others (we report, you decide.) ..."
"... The advent of the internet and the subsequent broadening of readily available news of all slants has made it much harder for any intelligence agency of any specific country to control the news( but it has made it extremely easy for them to monitor what we are reading). ..."
"... . The normal tell for this is being state sponsored, or having a big sugar daddy providing the funding, and Yves doesn't have any of that. ..."
"... Some of us happen to believe that 'lambast[ing] the American political establishment and weaken[ing] the public's confidence in its leaders' is in the best interests of everyone on the planet, including the American public. If that constitutes propaganda, I'm not about to look that gift horse in the mouth. RT isn't perfect I personally find their relentless cheerleading for economic growth rather wearying but it knocks spots off the competition and consistently sends me scurrying to the internet to chase up on new faces and leads. I'm grateful for that. ..."
"... Steve Keen is great, and I love his work, but it's also obvious ..."
"... It is obvious that Russia has been trying to influence American politics. The very existence of RT makes that obvious. What is not obvious is why modestly left-of-center Americans' political concerns should be subject to McCarthyite attacks in our most influential news outlets. We've been subject to internally generated far-right propaganda for decades now and have seen minimal, feeble 'mainstream' efforts to counter it. The far right has done tremendous damage to our nation and is poised to do much more now that its doyens control all branches of the federal government. ..."
"... What I interpret this as is a strike by 'think tank' grifters against those who are most likely to damage their incomes, their prestige and their exceedingly comfortable berths on the Acela corridor. It's a slightly panicky, febrile effort by a bunch of heels who are looking at losing their mid-6-figure incomes . and becoming like so many of the rest of us: over-credentialed, under-paid and unable to afford life in the charming white parts of our coastal metropolises. ..."
"... You've just libeled me. You have no evidence whatsoever to substantiate your claim. Nor do you have any evidence that Russia has been "aggressively" trying to influence US politics. This is one of many hysterical lines offered by Team Dem over the course of this election, up there with depicting all Trump voters as racist yahoos. ..."
"... "Russia is aggressively trying to influence American politics" Apparently with the help of Hillz. Was her decision to use a private email server made with the help of Putin? ..."
"... If you'd like, take a trip in the Wayback Machine to 1959. Then you'll find many criticisms of US society by the Civil Rights movement sharing the same sinister tone as criticisms made by Soviet new outlets. Then you'll also find a gaggle of US pols and their minions claiming on that basis that the Civil Rights movement is communist inspired, funded, and run. Then you'll also find many people who don't bother to distinguish source from story and end up enjoying the official Kool Aid. ..."
"... It reminds me of a story from Northern Ireland in the 1960's when the leader of a civil rights march was asked by a BBC reporter 'is it true that your organisation has been infiltrated by radicals and communists?' His reply was to sigh and say 'I f**king wish it was true'. ..."
"... @hemeantwell This same claim of communist inspiration and connection was also thrown at the anti-war movement. I remember arguing with a friend of my parents in the summer of 1969, after my freshman year at college where I was active in the anti-war and anti-draft movements. After countering all of the arguments made by this gentleman, he was left with nothing to say but "Well, that's the Commie's line " as a final dismissal. ..."
"... Right up to his death on 4 Apr 1968, Martin Luther King was accused by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI of "knowingly, willingly and regularly cooperating with and taking guidance from communists." Now there's a US national holiday in King's honor. ..."
"... It's all propaganda of one sort or another. I exhort you to read Plato and understand that the Sophists for which Socrates held so much ire are much the same as anon and administration sources for so much of what drives journalism. ..."
"... NC separates the wheat from the chaff. ..."
"... Verdict on PropOrNot: Looks like Prop to me. Getting really sloppy, Oligarchy ..."
"... This has all the earmarks of an effort by the Nuland Neocons that joined Camp Hillary, and now in defeat constitute a portion Hillary's professional dead enders. ..."
"... Camp Hillary, as you call it, has decamped and is on the march. It has powerful allies in the intelligence community, the media and actors on the world stage who deem Trump to be an existential threat to America and world. The story of Russian inspired fake news is paving the way for regime change, an HRC specialty. The recount is the tip of the spear. If they can pull this coup off, sites like this will move from the useful idiot category to the enemy of the state category overnight. ..."
"... Manfred Keeting November 26, 2016 at 4:01 am If you weren't on the Nixon's enemies list, there was something wrong with you ..."
"... First as tragedy, then as farce. People literally killed themselves because of McCarthyism. No one is going to kill themselves over this farce. ..."
"... Aha, I have solved the mystery. It is elementary my dear Watson! The PropOrNot site is itself a Russian propaganda ploy on the part of the KGB! What? errr, ok, the FSB then. ..."
"... But Max himself is an interesting character. I've been scratching my head wondering how a guy one step removed (Sidney Blumenthal) from the Clintons' inner circles is ambitious about exposing the ludicrous claims made by those same people regarding Palestine and Syria. ..."
"... I like the idea some commenter had (too lazy to find it right now) that all these strategems were long-prepared, and in place for a Clinton victory. Now the Clinton faction in the political class is deploying them anyhow. They'd better hurry, because influence peddling at the Clinton Foundation isn't as lucrative as it once was . ..."
"... For long time readers this russian(chinese) propaganda should be obvious. And it is ok, get used to it. Great opportunity to learn "how to read between the lines", and when you understand, solidifying into a basic skill. ..."
"... Be careful NC. MSM are in panic. They see that their propaganda is less and less effective and start targeting those who offer an alternative against their obsolete narratives. Be prepared: when they will realize that these don't work at all, their fake democracy will become an open dictatorship. ..."
"... The US MSM is all propaganda all the time-every bit as bad as Pravda ever was. RT now is the "anti-propaganda." They were even carrying Jesse Ventura and other Americans who are blacklisted by the MSM. ..."
"... This is a "hail mary pass." ..."
"... A hail mary pass that was intercepted by the opposing team and run back for a touchdown. ..."
"... What exactly is the origin of the Russia bashing that's been going on as of late? I feel like I missed some important public dis somewhere that would explain it all. Condoleeza Rice's general dated anti-Soviet attitude I could understand, but that doesn't explain the escalating bigotry pouring out of Obama and Clinton (and their various surrogates). Is it a case of a bomb in search of a war? ..."
"... Looks to me like it came out of the HRC campaign. ..."
"... What exactly is the origin of the Russia bashing that's been going on as of late? I think it can be traced back to this . ..."
"... I don't think there is an easy answer to your question, but I think it goes around to the failed Ukrainian coup (well, partially failed) and the realisation within a certain element of the neocon establishment that Putin had been inadvertently strengthened by their policy failures in the Ukraine and Syria. I think there was a concerted element within the Blob to refocus on 'the Russian threat' to cover up their failures in the Middle East and the refusal of the Chinese to take the bait in the Pacific. ..."
"... This rolled naturally into concerns about cyberwar and it was a short step from there to using Russian cyberespionage to cover up the establishments embarrassment over wikileaks and multiple other failures exposed by outsiders. As always, when a narrative suits (for different reasons) the two halves of the establishment, the mainstream media is always happy to run it unquestioningly. ..."
"... So in short, I think its a mixture of genuine conspiracy, mixed in with political opportunism. ..."
"... Listen to Gore Vidal (in 1994!) and find out why: https://www.c-span.org/video/?61333-1/state-united-states ..."
"... That is very good question and it does not have a simple answer. I have been pondering this for 8 years now. The latest bout of Russia-hatred began as Putin began to re-assert their sovereignty after the disastrous Yeltsin years. This intensified after Georgia, Ukraine and Syria. In adddition the US was preprogrammed to hate Russia for historical reasons. Mostly because of the Soviet era but also when the US inherited the global empire from the Brits we also got some of their dislike of the Russian empire dating back to the 19th century. ..."
"... It all started when Putin arrested the Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, when Putin put a stop to the shock therapy looting of Russia by the Harvard mafia and Jeffrey Sachs. Didn't he know that oligarch's are above the law? They are in the US. Didn't he know that money can buy you immunity from prosecution like it does in Europe and the US? Can't have that, hence the Ukraine, deprive him of his warm water naval base. Then there was the Crimean referendum. Out smarted again! Can't have that! ..."
"... And so the Democratic Party ends, not with a bang, but with a McCarthyite lynch mob. ..."
"... Didn't we used to call "fake news" rumors? And when did newspapers stop printing rumors? ..."
"... Based on the evidence of above mentioned link, this "PropOrNot" can be part of a project of U.S. government to manipulate media to create an anti-Russia climate or more likely another method of attack on what they consider "Left" so status quo in economic policies of U.S. can be maintained. ..."
"... it scares the pants off me ..."
"... I'm with you Tom Stone. There is nothing funny about this. The MSM at this point is the greatest purveyor of fake news on the planet, I am talking about not just CNN and Fox, but the BBC, France24 and so on. ..."
"... Pretty much everything they have said and every video they has shown on east Aleppo is either a lie or a fake. As someone noted the other day (I can't remember who) if the stories about east Aleppo were actually true, then the Russians and Syrians have destroyed approximately 900 hospitals including the 'last pediatric hospital in east Aleppo' which has been completely demolished on at least three separate occasions in the last few months. The main stream outlets don't even try to be consistent. ..."
"... It's 90 hospitals not 900, but 90 is just as ridiculous given the whole country of Syria only has 88 hospitals/clinics. ..."
"... Weapons of Mass Distraction. Another nail in the coffin of credibility of the NYT and WaPo. Recall after the Stupid War and how there were zero weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq that the NYT and Wapo declined to mention or explore their own culpability in beating the drums of war. This will be more of the same. ..."
"... I suspect that PropOrNot's outburst was developed during the campaign by well heeled and connected Hilary supporters to be unveiled after the election to muzzle increasingly influential web sites including NC. As it stands PropOrNot shot a blank. If Hilary had won the campaign against "fake news" would probably have taken on a more ominous tone. ..."
"... PropOrNot is asserting that the sites on the 'List", both right and left, were responsible for the Clinton loss by spreading false Russian propaganda. This would make more sense, as a political project, if Clinton had won. Asking the Trump DOJ and Trump's/Comey's FBI to investigate the asserted causes of Trump's win is bizarre. ..."
"... Excellent observation, preparation for a post Killery election purge of the alternate media. ..."
"... Lots of panic for the Washington regime. The clownish asshole loser that they carefully groomed proved less repulsive than their chosen Fuehrer Clinton. Now they are distraught to see that their enemy Russia sucks much less than the USA. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Jill Stein has embarrassed herself with this effort. I gave money to her until she made her final vp choice Baraka called Bernie a white supremacist! I did vote for her and now feel it really was a wasted vote. 1% in the national totals. Ok. Being a useful idiot for the Clintons no way. ..."
"... When the rot is complete and the edifice tumbles? Or when TINA wins, and the voices go silent? My bet is on the later. Collectively, the money got all 4 aces (and a few more hidden up their sleaves and a few more hidden in their boots, etc no end of aces.) ..."
"... Charles Hugh-Smith's response to the "list": "The Washington Post: Useful-Idiot Shills for a Failed, Frantic Status Quo That Has Lost Control of the Narrative" ..."
Yves here. As indicated in Links, we'll have more to say about this in due course. Note, however,
that as Blumenthal points out, some of the sites that are listed as PropOrNot allies receive US government
funding. As Mark Ames pointed out via e-mail, "The law is still clear that US State Dept money and
probably BBG money cannot be used
to propagandize American audiences." So if these sites really are "allies" in terms of providing
hard dollars or other forms of support (shared staff, research), this site and its allies may be
in violation of US statutes.
By Max Blumenthal, a senior editor of the Grayzone Project at AlterNet, and the award-winning
author of Goliath and Republican Gomorrah. His most recent book is The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance
in Gaza. Follow him on Twitter at @MaxBlumenthal. Originally published at
Alternet
A shady website that claims
"Russia is Manipulating US Opinion Through Online Propaganda" has compiled a blacklist of websites
its anonymous authors accuse of pushing fake news and Russian propaganda. The blacklist includes
over 200 outlets, from the right-wing Drudge Report and Russian government-funded Russia Today, to
Wikileaks and an array of marginal conspiracy and far-right sites. The blacklist also includes some
of the flagship publications of the progressive left, including Truthdig, Counterpunch, Truthout,
Naked Capitalism, and the Black Agenda Report, a leftist African-American opinion hub that is critical
of the liberal black political establishment.
Called PropOrNot, the blacklisting organization was described by the Washington Post's Craig Timberg
as "a nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds."
The Washington Post agreed to preserve the anonymity of the group's director on the grounds that
exposure could result in their being targeted by "Russia's legions of skilled hackers." The Post
failed to explain what methods PropOrNot relied on to conclude that "stories planted or promoted
by the Russian disinformation campaign were viewed more than 213 million times." (Timberg also cited
a report co-authored by Aaron Weisburg, founder of the one-man anti-Palestinian "Internet Haganah"
operation, who has been
accused of interfering
in federal investigations, stealing the personal information of anarchists, online harassment, and
fabricating information to smear his targets.)
Despite the Washington Post's charitable description of PropOrNot as a group of independent-minded
researchers dedicated to protecting the integrity of American democracy, the shadowy group bears
many of the qualities of the red enemies it claims to be battling. In addition to its blacklist of
Russian dupes, it lists a collection of outlets funded by the U.S. State Department, NATO and assorted
tech and weapons companies as "allies." PropOrNot's methodology is so shabby it is able to peg widely
read outlets like Naked Capitalism, a leading left-wing financial news blog, as Russian propaganda
operations.
Though the supposed experts behind PropOrNot remain unknown, the site has been granted a veneer
of credibility thanks to the Washington Post, and journalists from the New York Times, including
deputy Washington editor
Jonathan
Weissman to former Obama senior advisor
Dan Pfeiffer
, are hailing Timberg's story as Pulitzer-level journalism. "Russia appears to have successfully
hacked American democracy,"
declared Sahil
Kapur, the senior political reporter for Bloomberg. The dead-enders of Hillary Clinton's campaign
for president have also seized on PropOrNot's claims as proof that the election was rigged, with
Clinton confidant and Center For American Progress president Neera Tanden
declaring
, "Wake up people," as she blasted out the Washington Post article on Russian black ops.
PropOrNot's malicious agenda is clearly spelled out on its website. While denying McCarthyite
intentions, the group is openly
attempting
to compel "formal investigations by the U.S. government, because the kind of folks who make propaganda
for brutal authoritarian oligarchies are often involved in a wide range of bad business." The group
also seeks to brand major progressive politics sites (and a number of prominent right-wing opinion
outlets) as "'gray' fake-media propaganda outlets" influenced or directly operated by Russia's Federal
Security Service (FSB). It can then compel Facebook and Google to
ban them , denying them the ad revenue they rely on to survive.
Though PropOrNot's hidden authors claim, "we do not reach our conclusions lightly," the group's
methodology leaves more than enough room to smear an outlet on political grounds. Among the criteria
PropOrNot identifies as clear signs of Russian propaganda are, "Support for policies like Brexit,
and the breakup of the EU and Eurozone" and, "Opposition to Ukrainian resistance to Russia and Syrian
resistance to Assad."
By these standards, any outlet that raises the alarm about the considerable presence of extreme
right-wing elements among the post-Maidan Ukrainian government or that questions the Western- and
Saudi-funded campaign for regime change in Syria can be designated a Russia dupe or a paid agent
of the FSB. Indeed, while admitting that they have no idea whether any of the outlets they blacklisted
are being paid by Russian intelligence or are even aware they are spreading Russian propaganda, PropOrNot's
authors concluded that any outlets that have met their highly politicized criteria "have effectively
become tools of the Russian intelligence services, and are worthy of further investigation."
Among the most ironic characteristics of PropOrNot is its claim to be defending journalistic integrity,
a rigorous adherence to the facts, and most of all, a sense of political levity. In fact, the group's
own literature reflects a deeply paranoid view of Russia and the outside world. According to PropOrNot's
website , Russia is staging a hostile takeover of America's alternative online media environment
"in order to Make Russia Great Again (as a new 'Eurasian' empire stretching from Dublin to Vladisvostok),
on the other. That means preserving Russian allies like Bashar al-Assad in Syria, breaking up the
'globalist' EU, NATO, and US-aligned trade and defense organizations, and getting countries to join
'Eurasianist' Russian equivalents Or else."
The message is clear: Stamp out the websites blacklisted by PropOrNot,or submit to the malevolent
influence of Putin's "new global empire."
Among the websites listed by PropOrNot as "allies" are a number of groups funded by the U.S. government
or NATO. They include InterpreterMag, an anti-Russian media monitoring blog
funded through
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, an arm of the U.S. government, which is edited by the hardline neoconservative
Michael Weiss. Polygraph Fact Check,
another project of Radio Free
Europe/Radio Liberty aimed at Russian misinformation, is listed as an "ally." So is Bellingcat, the
crowdsourced military analysis blog run by Elliot Higgins through the Atlantic Council, which receives
funding from the
U.S. State Department, various Gulf monarchies and the weapons industry. (Bellingcat is
directly funded
by Google, according to Higgins.)
Unfortunately for PropOrNot's mysterious authors, an alliance requires the consent of all parties
involved. Alerted to his designation on the website, Bellingcat's Higgins immediately disavowed it:
"Just want to note I hadn't heard of Propornot before the WP piece and never gave permission to them
to call Bellingcat 'allies,'" he
wrote .
As scrutiny of PropOrNot increases, its credibility is rapidly unraveling. But that has not stopped
Beltway media wiseguys and Democratic political operatives from hyping its claims. Fake news and
Russian propaganda have become the great post-election moral panic, a creeping Sharia-style conspiracy
theory for shell-shocked liberals. Hoping to punish the dark foreign forces they blame for rigging
the election, many of these insiders have latched onto a McCarthyite campaign that calls for government
investigations of a wide array of alternative media outlets. In this case, the medicine might be
worse than the disease.
What I meant by my sarcastic remark is that there seems to be absolutely no reason to trust
anything it says, from its content, to the fact that it was created about three months ago
when the Red baiting was already in full swing in the media.
Congratulations! That site is like a who's who of influential critical reporting. I suspect,
as with so many of the bubble-dwellers attempts, that this slapdash but probably overpriced effort
will drive traffic to those sites while reducing the credibility of its promoters. An instant
classic own-goal. I look forward to the inevitable and embarassing revelations about their founders
and funding.
The full list was a mix of really good sites and the unknown personal blogs of some whack-a
-doodles producing "content" of little value. I see the list linked to is smaller.
"Collectively, this propaganda is undermining our public discourse by providing a warped view
of the world, where Russia can do no wrong, and America is a corrupt dystopia that is tearing
itself apart."
Meanwhile publicans even they would deem credible like the L.A. times report there are 63,000
homeless youths in los angeles. Corrupt dystopia? No it can not be.
"It is vital that this effort be exposed for what it is: A coordinated attempt to deceive U.S.
citizens into acting in Russia's interests."
look idiots, the truth as I understand it is neither Russian interest NOR US government interests
are necessarily in my interest
I am an attorney. I am not soliciting or advising any entity or person, but those identified
by PropOrNot, including Naked Capitalism, should consult competent legal counsel, having appropriate
and specific experience regarding defamation law (maybe even in a "pooled," co-ordinated effort
with others' among the over 200 entities named by PropOrNot) to seek a legal opinion as to whether
there exists a viable defamation claim against The Washington Post, and also, via Weisburg, The
New York Times, as both publications repeated potentially defamatory claims made by PropOrNot.
Under general tenets of defamation law (statutory and in common law), it is not just the
original entity or person defaming (including defamation "per se") another that is liable for
such torts, but others who carelessly or recklessly repeat the original defamatory statements/claims
(in this case, both The Washington Post & New York Times bear similar potential liability as PropOrNot).
Understanding the distinction between an attorney, and *my* attorney, and as a matter of general
interest, I am curious: What about individual posters in their capacities as employees, contractors,
or just rabble?
Requires actual malice since it's the media you're suing but that can be proven by reckless
indifference to the truth which this might actually meet the standard of, especially since the
site isn't making this claim based on anything other than the content of the views espoused by
the sites. /also an attorney but the wrong specialty. I'd be pleased to help if I can though
all of the sites I read regularly are on the list and whoever's propaganda op the site is the
whole concept of what it represents scares the pants off me.
All private individual gets you is compensatory damages and everyone's readership and donations
have increased.
"We hold that, so long as they do not impose liability without fault, the States may define
for themselves the appropriate standard of liability for a publisher or broadcaster of defamatory
falsehood injurious to a private individual. But this countervailing state interest extends
no further than compensation for actual injury. For the reasons stated below, we hold that
the States may not permit recovery of presumed or punitive damages, at least when liability
is not based on a showing of knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth."
Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U.S. 323, 347-349 (1974).
Propornot is directly accusing NC and the rest of a crime (espionage), which constitutes
defamation per se, so I think the only issue before the court would be whether it was done with
reckless indifference.
Seriously, Yves, please feel free to contact me offlist I would be delighted to pro bono
the heck out of this including at the direction of whoever you hire.
The MSM did such a fine job reporting the news during the campaign. (16 anti-Sanders stories
in 16 hours from the WaPo. A new record.) Are small news/opinion sites cutting into their online
advertising revenue. ;)
I like you and your blog, but I'm almost positive your site has been guilty of accidently publishing
Russian propaganda at some point. You've probably linked to stories that sound legit but can be
traced all the way back to some Russian operation like RT, even though the third party source
you got the story from seemed ok.
The creator of the app never said all the sites on the list knowingly did it.
First the fact that a story appeared on RT does not make it propaganda. We featured videos
from Ed Harrison on the RT program Boom/Bust, which is about the US economy and has featured respected
US and foreign academics, like Steve Keen.
What Steve Keen has to say is not suddenly propaganda by virtue of appearing on RT.
If you read Eddy Bernay's book Propaganda, he defines it as an entity or cause promoting its
case. Thus when a news organization that is government-affiliated, like Voice of America or RT,
presents a news story that is straight up reporting, that does not qualify as propaganda either
(like "Marine Le Pen Gains in French Polls"). In fact, for a government site to be seen as credible
when it does present propaganda, it has to do a fair bit of reasonably unbiased reporting.
Second, had you bothered to read the actual PropOrNot site, it accuses all of the sites
listed as being "propaganda outlets" under the influence of "coordinators abroad" (#11 in its
FAQ).
Several individuals on Twitter called this out as libel with respect to NC. And under #7,
PropOrNot asserts that "some" of the sites are guilty of violating the Espionage Act and the Foreign
Agent Registration Act, as in accusing them of being spies and calling for investigation (by implication
of all, since how do you know which is or isn't) by the FBI and DoJ.
And you defend this witch hunt? Seriously? Do you have any idea of what propaganda consists
of? Hint: it is not reporting accurately and skeptically.
Their MSM propaganda isn't working and they see it. They already heavily censor comments
on their MSM sites. Other MSM sights such as Bloomberg closed down comments altogether. Expect
more of that.
And they will take every measure to close down any other independent sites people have turned
to get some truth which millions of us know we aren't getting from the MSM.
Those of us who have a grasp on what is going on in this country will find #7 is very disturbing.
As it tells us what they have in mind to discredit and close down independent sites.
As you know, propaganda doesn't have to [be] false. It can be more about selectively reporting
certain facts or emphasizing certain facts over others to smear your target and mislead people.
Steve Keen is great, and I love his work, but it's also obvious that RT invites him on the network
because he lambasts the American political establishment and weakens the public's confidence in
its leaders. This is clearly a goal of Moscow, and they use people like Steve Keen to do it. I'm
sure Steven Keen doesn't think of his role that way, but RT and Russian intelligence certainly
do.
And the site clearly states that some sites are knowingly coordinating with Russian agents
(like RT) and some are likely unaware that they are being influenced. They likely think NC falls
into the unaware category.
I think they should be more specific as to what sites they believe fall into the 'knowingly'
and 'unknowingly' categories, but I also don't believe the app is an entirely crazy idea. Russia
is aggressively trying to influence American politics as we saw in the most recent US election
and coming up with a response is a good idea even if this particular one should be improved.
Um, James what weakens people's confidence in their leaders is their not addressing people's
issues and lying about their inability to do so. Despite protestations from the likes of much
of our 'intelligentsia', mainstream media, and most of our political class, the majority of people
are not stupid. There is a reason why terms like 'lame stream media' resonate with a large number
of people.
For instance when Obama is out there talking about a recovery and people know that there
is no such thing in their lives, their communities then HE has lost their confidence not someone
giving an interview on RT.
Or to put it another way the problem isn't someone going on RT and saying the emperor isn't
wearing clothes, the problem is that the emperor isn't wearing clothes.
Pretending not to notice doesn't mean that no one has noticed. Considering the Washington/NY/California
bubble, most people probably have and have been screaming at their television that he needs to
get dressed.
what did we see in "the most recent election"? what is your evidence that Russia is "aggressively
trying to influence American politics?"
Steve Keen is great, and I love his work, but it's also obvious that RT invites him
on the network because he lambasts the American political establishment and weakens the public's
confidence in its leaders. This is clearly a goal of Moscow, and they use people like Steve
Keen to do it. I'm sure Steven Keen doesn't think of his role that way, but RT and Russian
intelligence certainly do.
How do you know any of this? how would you know would Russian intelligence's goals are,
or how they think of Steve Keen? this is all just McCarthyism 2016, accusing the left of being
dupes or willing agents of Russia. McCarthy had his 200 communists in the state department, this
website and the Washington Post have their 200 Russian propaganda websites. Why are you catapulting
this bullshit?
Well put. I could equally well argue that it's in Russia's interests that American leadership
not be questioned, if it's following policies that are clearly stupid and likely to weaken America's
position in the world. So the PropOrNot site might actually be a double blind backed by Russia,
using fear of Russian influence to manipulate people into uncritical acceptance of their leaders
and prevent questioning of poor decisions, thereby weakening America. (ALERT: If it's not obvious
to readers, this is sarcasm).
If your methodology is gazing into the tea leaves to figure out what Russia's position is,
then smearing anybody that advocates a similar position, then that's such a ridiculously flimsy
veneer of logic that it can be used to reach pretty much any conclusion you like (as my example
above demonstrates). Tell me again who is guilty of propaganda in this scenario?
I suppose all 17 intelligence agencies could be wrong.
And RT has a pattern of inviting dissidents that have extremely negative views of American
leadership. You can say this negative view justified but that doesn't negate the fact that Russia
wants to amplify that discontent as much as possible.
i suppose they still haven't provided any evidence whatsoever. just like you. What 17 agencies?
what evidence are they relying on? Why does Obama say the election was not fixed by Russia, that
there was no ramping up of cyber attacks?
You could be working for David Brock at correct the record. the way you blindly accept the
talking points of the Clinton campaign indicates that. you just keep repeating them, and don't
respond to the criticisms of propornot as a source, or the reporter who uncritically accepted
their little mccarthyite hit list. linking to a usa today article that blindly repeats the same
talking points, again sans evidence, does not support your argument.
I was not claiming Russia fixed the election results. I was referring to the email hacking
directed at the Clinton camp during the election campaign.
And my claim that Russia was likely involved in the email hacking is backed up by 17 intelligence
agencies and reporting from various independent news outlets. If you had bothered to read the
article, which you apparently didn't, you would know that the 17 agencies are the 'Office of the
Director of National Intelligence' plus the 16 agencies listed in the link available in the article
I provided.
If USA Today reporting is not credible to you but Russia Today's reporting is, then I'm afraid
your trust of Kremlin created propaganda outlets over independent news outlets only underscores
my point that Russian information warfare has been very successful at influencing and shaping
parts of American public opinion.
I also don't think US intelligence agencies would make this accusation publicly if they were
not confident. They could have just as easily made this accusation against China but have not
because it doesn't fit China's MO. Russia has engaged in similar types of email hacking operations
in former Eastern European countries it has been seeking to control and influence.
And comparing an app to McCarthyism is absurd. McCarthysim was the state targeting individuals
and organizations. This is private citizens compiling a list by their own accord, which they are
free to do. When a left wing blog makes a list of the top ten most right-wing and GOP influenced
websites, are they also engaging in 'McCarthism'? Is the left engaging in 'McCarthyism' when it
accuses Fox News of being GOP influenced propaganda? C'mon.
Regardless, I am done with this conversation for now. You can think what you want.
James do you happen to remember when those intelligence agencies reported Iraq had Weapons
of Mass Destruction.? How about when North Korea hacked Sony? Both of which were inaccurate and
dare I say it propaganda intended to mislead the American public.
Short of watching the hacking in real time there is no way those agencies would have been able
to trace any competent hacker.So here are some very serious questions for you. Do you think the
Russians hire script kiddies? Why does Naval Intelligence have anything to do with this investigation?
Same with at least half of those agencies?
Why were 17 agencies watching the DNC? Don't they have anything better to do, like
figuring out who hacked the State Department, the IRS and Social Security?
The immediate claims that Russia hacked the DNC were never credible to any one with even
a bit of knowledge about high level hacking. The 17 agency thing was outright laughable once you
asked the simple question of what most of them had to do with this investigation. And USA Today
was and is the print equivalent of the Yahoo front page.
You say you are done, but I sincerely hope so e of what was said here percolates in your thoughts.
Most of us here understand propaganda, misinformation, and yes confirmation bias. You seem to
need to learn to look critically at your usual sources as well as those you have warned about.
Being wrong about something in the past doesn't mean you are always wrong. In fact, the CIA
and FBI have been on the money about countless things in the past, but I'm sure you know this
and are just trying to deflect. And it's not true that NK being involved in the Sony hack has
been debunked. Opinion is mixed among independent security analysts. Look it up.
And I think you should take your own advice as far as confirmation bias and understanding propaganda
are concerned. Nobody who relies on FSB cut outs like RT for information and analysis has room
to talk about their intelligence and critical thinking. NC and other alternative 'anti-establishment'
news sources you consume are full of their own bias. You should wander out of the alt-left echo
chamber once in a while and stop thinking that any criticism of Russia is 'red-baiting' and propaganda.
Mr. Putin isn't a damsel in distress that needs your defending.
oh so now you're an intelligence expert, but somehow you still don't have any evidence,
because the "17 intelligence agencies" don't have any evidence either. they didn't have evidence
of wmd's but i bet you fell for that, too. i think the most dishonest line in your post is this:
You should wander out of the alt-left echo chamber once in a while and stop thinking that any
criticism of Russia is 'red-baiting' and propaganda
while you're searching for evidence to back up the rancid propaganda exposed by glenn greenwald's
article in the intercept, you can look for one single post expressing this conviction. just one.
after all the lies by our intelligence agencies, using the same methods as this smear, to uncritically
accept anonymous quotes betrays either a great naοvetι or intellectual dishonesty.
Gee, if only there were some North American country that would try to influence foreign elections,
for example say Russian or Ukrainian ones.
But let me extend James's thought above by advocating for our leaders to obtain public encryption
keys so that we may send our grievances privately without enabling any foreign interference. Won't
that just invigorate our democracy?
If Russia is actively trying to influence American politics, then they have been far more
effective than the US and get a much bigger bang for their buck. For one thing, they didn't have
to drop a single bomb to effect a regime change. So assuming you are correct, the noise is just
a hysterical regime change envy.
So are RT and Sputnik propaganda outlets? Sometimes they are, but sometimes they report
the truth that our MSM, having given up the last shreds of their journalistic integtity in return
for access, won't report.
Given the widespread funding of media (including government-owned media) by Western governments,
I would say that US and Euro hysteria about Russian propaganda, real and imagined, is yet another
off-putting display of noxious American exceptionalism.
I grew up listening to broadcasts of RFE and VOA behind the Iron Curtain, and mixed in
with honest reporting was a heavy dose of propaganda aimed at weakening Eastern European governments.
Now, it is the America For Bulgaria Foundation that funds several media outlets in the country.
What they all have in common is rabid Russophobia-driven editorial stances, and one can easily
conclude that it is driven by the almighty dollar rather than by honest, deeply held convictions.
So, America can do it but whines like a toddler when it is allegedly done to it?! What a crock.
The worst thing is that regardless of whatever propaganda wars are going on, this list
constitutes a full frontal attack on free speech in the alleged "Land of the Free." Besides NC,
there are number of sites distinguished by thorough, quality reporting of the kind that WaPo and
NYT no longer engage in. Having grown up behind the Iron Curtain, this is chilling to me. Dissident
voices speaking against the endless wars for profit and neoliberalism are in effect being intimidated
and smeared by anonymous thugs. This, while the militarized local police and federal agencies,
closely coordinated by "fusion centers", have ruthlessly put down a number of citizen protests,
have engaged in spying on all of us, and have gone after whistleblowers for exposing the reach
and scope of the surveillance state. These are the hallmarks of dictatorships, not of the alleged
"world's greatest democracy and beacon of freedom." What the eff happened to America, and why
are you equating challenging the oppressive and exploitative status quo with being "unwitting
Russian dupes?" Seems to me that the useful idi0t here is you, with all due respect.
American intelligence uses exactly the same tactics, and has since at least WW1. Selling
the American public on the Iraq war is a classic example. Remember that all news is biased, some
much more so than others (we report, you decide.)
The advent of the internet and the subsequent broadening of readily available news of all
slants has made it much harder for any intelligence agency of any specific country to control
the news( but it has made it extremely easy for them to monitor what we are reading).
Naked capitalism uses a wide variety of sources, and obviously has no coordination with any
intelligence agency. The normal tell for this is being state sponsored, or having a big sugar
daddy providing the funding, and Yves doesn't have any of that.
As always, it's up to the reader to use their critical thinking skills and form their own opinions.
Some of us happen to believe that 'lambast[ing] the American political establishment and
weaken[ing] the public's confidence in its leaders' is in the best interests of everyone on the
planet, including the American public. If that constitutes propaganda, I'm not about to look that
gift horse in the mouth. RT isn't perfect I personally find their relentless cheerleading for
economic growth rather wearying but it knocks spots off the competition and consistently sends
me scurrying to the internet to chase up on new faces and leads. I'm grateful for that.
" Steve Keen is great, and I love his work, but it's also obvious "
Damning with faint praise. A dainty smear tactic noted as such since the days of .. Shakespeare.
It is obvious that Russia has been trying to influence American politics. The very existence
of RT makes that obvious. What is not obvious is why modestly left-of-center Americans' political
concerns should be subject to McCarthyite attacks in our most influential news outlets. We've
been subject to internally generated far-right propaganda for decades now and have seen minimal,
feeble 'mainstream' efforts to counter it. The far right has done tremendous damage to our nation
and is poised to do much more now that its doyens control all branches of the federal government.
And yet this libelous attack is more focused on left-leaning opinion sites than on the ultra-right.
The latter were thrown into this list almost as window dressing. Conceivably because the far right
is very adept at self-defense. But more because the prestige and financial well-being of the center-"left"
is endangered by the rise of an adversarial, econo-centric left. The insiders from this branch
of our duopoly never have been harmed by their historic "opposition" (Tea Party kooks + corrupt
Beltway Republicans).
What I interpret this as is a strike by 'think tank' grifters against those who are most
likely to damage their incomes, their prestige and their exceedingly comfortable berths on the
Acela corridor. It's a slightly panicky, febrile effort by a bunch of heels who are looking at
losing their mid-6-figure incomes . and becoming like so many of the rest of us: over-credentialed,
under-paid and unable to afford life in the charming white parts of our coastal metropolises.
I was wondering what Brock has been up to since the dissolution of "Correct the Record."
Has it been dissolved or has it morphed into something else? This looks like too seamless a
transition from the Clinton campaign strategy we have all grown to love to the revenge strategy
we have come to expect from such people. I look forward to the discovery portions of the libel
suits to come. Hopefully Yves and Lambert will be taking up a collection for so worthy an enterprise
soon.
You've just libeled me. You have no evidence whatsoever to substantiate your claim. Nor
do you have any evidence that Russia has been "aggressively" trying to influence US politics.
This is one of many hysterical lines offered by Team Dem over the course of this election, up
there with depicting all Trump voters as racist yahoos.
Ed Harrison, who is the producer of the show and replied later in this thread, is the
one who booked Keen and interviewed and other economists and firmly disputes your assertion that
his show has anything to do with promoting an anti-US line. And as a former diplomat, Harrison
would be far more sensitive than most to that sort of issue. I'm repeating his comment below:
Hi Naked Capitalism. I haven't been on this site for some time. But I felt it necessary
to comment due to an ad hominem attack from a commenter "James" regarding the show I produce
at RT called Boom Bust.
From my vantage point as producer at RT, I have been able to see the whole anti-Russia campaign
unfold in all its fury. I have a lot of thoughts on this but I want to restrict my comments
to the specific argument James makes. here:
"it's also obvious that RT invites him on the network because he lambasts the American political
establishment and weakens the public's confidence in its leaders. This is clearly a goal of
Moscow, and they use people like Steve Keen to do it. I'm sure Steven Keen doesn't think of
his role that way, but RT and Russian intelligence certainly do."
Since I produce the show that Steve Keen appears on, I am well-placed to give you a view
on this. James' comment is flat out false. What James writes is something he has fabricated
in his imagination connecting dots he believes should be connected based on no first hand
evidence whatsoever.
What actually happens on Boom Bust is this:
Since no one I work with at RT has a sophisticated background in economics, finance or financial
reporting, they give us a wide berth in putting together content for our show with nearly no
top down dictates at all. That means we as American journalists have a pretty much free hand
to report economic news intelligently and without bias. We invite libertarian, mainstream,
non-mainstream, leftist, Democratic commentators, Republican commentators you name it. As
for guests, they are not anti-American in any way shape or form. They are disproportionately
non-mainstream.
We have no pro-Russian agenda. And that is in part because Russia is a bit player on the
economic stage, frankly. Except for sanctions, it has mostly been irrelevant on our show since
inception.
Let me share a strange anecdote on that. We had a guest on our show about three years ago,
early in my tenure. We invited him on because he had smart things to say about the UK economy.
But he had also written some very negative things about Putin and Russia. Rather than whitewash
this we addressed it specifically in the interview and asked him an open-ended question about
Russia, so he could say his piece. I was ASTONISHED when he soft-pedaled his response and made
no forceful case as he had done literally days ago in print. This guy clearly self-censored
for what reason I don't know. But it is something that has stayed with me ever since.
The most important goal from a managerial perspective has been that our reporting is different
i.e. covers missing and important angles of the same storyline that are missing in the mainstream
media or that it covers storylines that are missing altogether.
Neither Steve Keen nor any other guest on our show appears "because he lambasts the American
political establishment". This is false. He appears on our show because he is a credible economist
who provides a differentiated view on economics and insight that we believe will help our viewers
understand the global economy. If Paul Krugman had something to say of that nature and would
appear on our show, we would welcome him. In fact, I and other producers have reached out to
him many times to no avail, especially after we had Gerald Friedman give his take on the dust-up
surrounding Bernie Sanders' economic plan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yna275KzuDQ
Look, I understand the scepticism about RT and its motives. It IS a state-funded news outlet
with news story angles that sometimes contrast sharply with western media. And it has not been
critical of the Russian government as far as I can tell. But you can't ascribe nefarious motives
to individual economists or reporters based on inaccurate or false third hand accounts. You
are just making things up, creating a false narrative based on circumstantial evidence. This
is just adding to the building peer pressure associated with what almost seems like an orchestrated
campaign to discredit non-mainstream sources of news.
"Russia is aggressively trying to influence American politics" Apparently with the help
of Hillz. Was her decision to use a private email server made with the help of Putin?
James, we get it. We US citizens are not to be permitted to criticize our own government or
corporations as that might "weaken public confidence" in our Dear Leaders.
We cannot be trusted to think for ourselves in discerning what is and is not propaganda, for
after all we would be able to discern the same coming from the US side.
The overt stifling of dissent that was such an outrageous feature of the Clinton campaign "is
clearly a goal" of your side.
Who needs Putin when we have mindless ClintonBots to do all the dirty work here?
This is a secular trend, a great wave. If Steve Keen were going on Tass 24 hours a day, seven
days a week, Live!!! With ***Nude*** WOMBATS!!!!, undermining confidence in neoliberal economists
- let me pause to gasp in horror - it would be the merest bit of froth on that wave. Taking Jame's
view as a proxy for the views of the intelligence community, if they really believe this - and
it's not just a ploy for budget time - then the country truly is doomed.
NOTE * Note the authoritarian followership of "leaders." So my response with institutions is
not precisely on point.
The idea that banks were trusted more than organized labor was troublesome to me till I remembered
the labor leaders like Trumka and the continued betrayals of membership by the likes of the AFL
CIO. At that point I got it really was a toss up.
My revenue is suffering because my rag is bullshit, but all these alternatives are unfair competition
- please Mr Government shut them done, because I, the one and only Great Bezos (or Great Bozo),
is loosing money.
If you'd like, take a trip in the Wayback Machine to 1959. Then you'll find many criticisms
of US society by the Civil Rights movement sharing the same sinister tone as criticisms made by
Soviet new outlets. Then you'll also find a gaggle of US pols and their minions claiming on that
basis that the Civil Rights movement is communist inspired, funded, and run. Then you'll also
find many people who don't bother to distinguish source from story and end up enjoying the official
Kool Aid.
It reminds me of a story from Northern Ireland in the 1960's when the leader of a civil
rights march was asked by a BBC reporter 'is it true that your organisation has been infiltrated
by radicals and communists?' His reply was to sigh and say 'I f**king wish it was true'.
@hemeantwell This same claim of communist inspiration and connection was also thrown
at the anti-war movement. I remember arguing with a friend of my parents in the summer of 1969,
after my freshman year at college where I was active in the anti-war and anti-draft movements.
After countering all of the arguments made by this gentleman, he was left with nothing to say
but "Well, that's the Commie's line " as a final dismissal.
'US pols and their minions claiming that the Civil Rights movement is communist inspired,
funded, and run.'
Right up to his death on 4 Apr 1968, Martin Luther King was accused by J. Edgar Hoover
and the FBI of "knowingly, willingly and regularly cooperating with and taking guidance from communists."
Now there's a US national holiday in King's honor.
That same year, my dad visited Moscow and Czechoslovakia during the Prague Spring. After he
returned, we started receiving crudely mimeographed newsletters from Moscow - actual Soviet
propaganda , delivered right to our mailbox in Texas.
So laden were they with hoary old Marxist rhetoric that we started satirizing it in our underground
student newspaper, mocking the public school administration as "capitalist running dogs" and "colonialist
oppressors." (This did not go over well.)
To his regret, my dad sent one of the Soviet flyers to the FBI, but never got a reply. He suspected
that they put him on a watch list, rather than investigating how the Soviets were distributing
their crude invective through the US mail.
So laden were they with hoary old Marxist rhetoric that we started satirizing it in our underground
student newspaper, mocking the public school administration as "capitalist running dogs" and "colonialist
oppressors." (This did not go over well.)
They link American propaganda all the time. If you take off your blinders, you'll find that
most news is just propaganda, because the basis for most news stories is what person X says. What's
sad is that people like you believe there is some kind of "objective" news source in the "free
world" that is telling it like it is. There isn't and there never has been.
It's all propaganda of one sort or another. I exhort you to read Plato and understand that
the Sophists for which Socrates held so much ire are much the same as anon and administration
sources for so much of what drives journalism.
I have identified a motif that pretty much always gives away a Hillary bot- it was used about
several dozen thousand times as part of 'Correct the Record' during the runup to November 8. And
here we have it again. It goes like this: I was always in favor of (fill in the
blank with the supposed offenders name) until I found out this 'truth'.
Also, why not just admit you are a Clinton Supporter who finds it convenient that a lot of
the sites could be trashed for being critical of HRC
Let me just make a list of the weasel words (setting aside the famous "I like you, but ____"
trope, which I have never yet seen used in good faith in all my many years of blogging, partly
because of the assumption that whether a random commenter "likes" the blog is important.
almost positive
guilty of accidentally
at some point
probably linked (but with no evidence)
can be traced (but not by James!)
some . operation like
The ginormous pile of steaming innuendo and faux reasonableness aside, James seems to think
that the NC readership has no critical thinking skills at all. Apparently, NC readers are little
children who need expert guidance from James and his ilk - bless their hearts! - to distinguish
crap from not crap.
If there is any take away from this foul
Bernays-inspired campaign season, it is
that fear can and will overrule reason completely.
Half of the voters (whichever lost) were set up
for a cognitive dissonance cork blowing episode.
No one should expect reason to be an effective defense against cognitive attempts to rectify that
dissonance .neither side can be unplugged
from their self-selected news matrix, without
blowing their cork. It will not matter that this list
is comical, because it is a dog whistle to the
audience preloaded with fear (and the other side would've done a variation of the thene if they
had lost).
(pretty funny of them to list your site though..I guess
the Russians must've also been quite upset by all
the American mortage fraud in housing bubble #1
and felt a need to head explodes)
I suppose this comment will add me to some list maintained by some very frightened but misguided
people? What's the line "lighten up, Francis"?
This has all the earmarks of an effort by the Nuland Neocons that joined Camp Hillary,
and now in defeat constitute a portion Hillary's professional dead enders.
Camp Hillary, as you call it, has decamped and is on the march. It has powerful allies
in the intelligence community, the media and actors on the world stage who deem Trump to be an
existential threat to America and world. The story of Russian inspired fake news is paving the
way for regime change, an HRC specialty. The recount is the tip of the spear. If they can pull
this coup off, sites like this will move from the useful idiot category to the enemy of the state
category overnight.
The brilliance of this move will eliminate all possibly of civil unrest since America democracy
will be saved from a Russia threat that requires a declaration of war and severe restrictions
on media freedom.
I can guarantee you Trump is looking over his shoulder and sees it coming and is working furiously
to build a case for his own legitimacy. He is doing his best to sound normal.
Obama has relegated himself to the sidelines. He hates conflict, but will back Hillary if she
can pull it off.
"Camp Hillary, as you call it, has decamped and is on the march." True that. Even a lost election
can't stop them. Heard over the holiday- Andrew Cuomo for prez. So the same people who didn't
show up to vote for Hillz can now not show up to vote for her waterboy/bagman.
For sure. The "history doesn't repeat but it rhymes" is suddenly sickeningly applicable here.
I hope they've bitten off more than they can chew in this case. There is that argument that
we are "siloing" in our little corners of the web, however everybody read the newspapers and
listed to the radio back then. Which means a very, very small subset of the population set the
agenda. Nowadays, the "far-left" and "far-right" are only a click away from each other (and they
always did seem to have more in common with each other than the center which has gone from mushy
to absolutely rotten). A unified pushback on this is not impossible and who knows where it might
lead?
Aha, I have solved the mystery. It is elementary my dear Watson! The PropOrNot site is
itself a Russian propaganda ploy on the part of the KGB! What? errr, ok, the FSB then. By
adding sites such as the Naked Capitalism site to the list, it will be discredited in its entirety
thus letting the nefarious Russian propaganda websites be given a free pass. Mystery solved! And
sorry Max but "Naked Capitalism" a leading left-wing financial news blog"? I'd rather label it
a practical and empirical financial news blog myself.
Seriously, I am wondering if something else is going on here ("tin-foil hat" mode on) with
this piece of trash. No doubt people here have heard all the cries of "fake news" since the election.
This was on top of months of claims of Russian hacking of the election which is still ongoing
(cough cough, Jill Stein). Now Merkel is screaming blue murder of probable Russian hacking of
the German elections next year and just this week the EU Parliament has passed a resolution which
in part states that Russian media exists to "undermine the very notion of objective information
or ethical journalism," and one of its methods is to cast all other information "as biased or
as an instrument of political power."
I am given to understand that the military use the term "preparing the battlefield" and that
is what I think that we are seeing here. There have already been calls for FaceBook and Google
to implement censorship of "fake news" which will amount to censorship of social and news feeds
the same media Trump used to bf the entire news establishment in this years election. Could
we be seeing the beginnings of calls to censor the internet? All to fight terrorism and black
propaganda of course. The Left would have absolutely no problem with this and if was used to get
rid of sites that contrasted the mainstream media's narrative, more people would be forced to
use the mainstream media for their news which would make them happy. Something to think about.
And sorry Max but "Naked Capitalism" a leading left-wing financial news blog"? I'd rather
label it a practical and empirical financial news blog myself.
While the level of discussion here is generally at a much deeper level than most sites and
commenters don't fit into neat little ideological boxes, I don't think it's a particularly egregious
generalization to call a site with readers that overwhelmingly support things like financial regulation,
single-payer health care and post-office banking "left-wing".
But Max himself is an interesting character. I've been scratching my head wondering how
a guy one step removed (Sidney Blumenthal) from the Clintons' inner circles is ambitious about
exposing the ludicrous claims made by those same people regarding Palestine and Syria.
The list of news sites on the said fact-free, unsourced, anonymous webpage are all, so far
as I can tell, news sites that have disagreed with neocon foreign policy preferences on several
occasions.
I am so tired of the use of "left" and " right" and "progressive" and "libertarian" that when
I see these words I go off into a daze. These words are bandied about in so many different ways
for so many different reasons, that they have almost become meaningless. I would rather that people
or organizations be described in detail who supposedly have these "left" "right" etc. characteristics,
then I would know what was being claimed.
yes, and one good way to that sort of detailed description is to read here regularly for a
while: there's hardly any political self-tagging or confessional drama going on, but any one person's
comments over a few months do add up to a picture of how her/his life experience, unlabelled political
principles, intellectual ( not the same as academic!) background and style of spontaneous
reaction (yes Mr Mencken, 'humor!) all fit together. And this gradually reveals a lot more than
Left-Right status updates or biographical oversharing ever could: not so much about the person
- who has a right to all the unknownness s/he wants - but about the experiences and reasoning
that might connect a statement that delights you and another that leaves you aghast when both
come from the same person and within about a dozen lines. And all this with no fuzzy-fake "consensus"
in sight: mutual respect across abyssal differences is hard-won and correspondingly cared for.
"The internet" still gets blamed for "ruining face-to-face interaction" by people who probably
flatter themselves about the richness of their past social lives. But I can't imagine when I'll
ever have a spare few years and some mysterious money (not to mention some "social skills" and
a valid passport ) with which to visit Maine, Oregon, Arizona, Buenos Aires (etc etc etc) for
extended casual conversations there. In the absence of that option, whatever you all have the
patience to write here counts as THE escape route out of political parochialism and geographical
niche.
I like the idea some commenter had (too lazy to find it right now) that all these strategems
were long-prepared, and in place for a Clinton victory. Now the Clinton faction in the political
class is deploying them anyhow. They'd better hurry, because influence peddling at the Clinton
Foundation
isn't as lucrative as
it once was .
Surely any site that accepts donations could be funded by a foreign power without knowing?
ps A couple of my students make 50p a post for challenging negative posts on travel websites by
making up how great was their experience.
And, um, so what? They can waste money anywhere they want. How much has the US spent over my
lifetime propagandizing the Middle East and how did that work out?
The Neera Tandeen tweet is revealing in that it shows how hypocritical all the pearl-clutching
was over Trump's complete lack of discretion in pushing bogus and fabricated stories. A cursory
glance through the rest of her feed shows a bunch of equally thoroughly scrutinized claims that
the Putin/Comey/Deplorables triumvirate conspired to steal the election from the forces of Good.
For long time readers this russian(chinese) propaganda should be obvious. And it is ok,
get used to it. Great opportunity to learn "how to read between the lines", and when you understand,
solidifying into a basic skill.
"The only way to get smarter is by playing a smarter opponent." and now you have a good ones,
not a cheap wapo columnist but organised, educated, trained information warfare hacks.
we are on the early days, more to come, much worse to come.
Be careful NC. MSM are in panic. They see that their propaganda is less and less effective
and start targeting those who offer an alternative against their obsolete narratives. Be prepared:
when they will realize that these don't work at all, their fake democracy will become an open
dictatorship.
I loved naked capitalism's election coverage, but here is an anecdote of how it angered conventional
liberals.
I read a particle physics blog by Columbia mathematician Peter Woit, who wrote an election
post-mortem (he occasionally writes about politics). Not Even Wrong is one of the most popular
blogs in theoretical physics, I've several excellent physicists post in the comments to previous
entries. I was very surprised to see Woit blame naked capitalism (and others) for the electoral
defeat of Hillary Clinton, he's a very conventional thinker normally so I would have expected
him to not even know about naked capitalism. I'm still surprised he knew about it.
My guess? There is a lot of communication in the country between people who do read some of
these 200 news media organizations, with the vast majority who stick to conventional sources such
as the NYT, the WSJ, and who think that Vox and The Atlantic are intellectual sources. When people
get exposed to alternative media for the first time, even educated people, their most likely response
is some combination of anger, laughter, and asking if the writer also believes that 9/11 is an
inside job.
I hate to get tin foily, but that blog is typical of a few I've seen expressing real anger
at the amorphous 'left' for not getting on board the Hilary train. There is an element of vengefulness
in some of the writing and combined with the evidence of the article above, it seems there is
an element within the establishment (the losing half) who are in full on McCarthy mode and of
course the first stage of a purge is to accuse the targets of being traitors and in the pay of
foreign interests. Trump and the people around him are dangerous of course, but I think a defeated
neolib/neocon establishment is equally dangerous. We are in worrying times, and its not just the
far right we have to be worried about.
Woit also includes the NYT in his list of culprits so I don't know what planet he resides.
Also interesting to note his jetting off to Paris as tonic. Oh the humanity!!
It's incredible how many otherwise smart people can't think for themselves.
Once a newspaper touches a story the facts are lost forever, even to the protagonist. -Norman
Mailer
I am unable to understand how a man of honor can take a newspaper in his hand without a
shudder of disgust. -Charles Baudelaire
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but
newspapers. -Thomas Jeffereson
Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper. -Thomas Jefferson
If you're not careful, the newspaper will have you hating people being oppressed and loving
the people doing the oppressing -Malcolm X
Journalism is organized gossip. -Edward Egglestone
If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read it, you are misinformed.
-Mark Twain (allegedly, but it could be misinformation)
It's hard to know what to believe! You can believe your own eyes, but even your mind connects
the dots without you knowing it.
This is not the Washington Post's finest hour - although they probably haven't had one of those
for years at this point. I'm down to the Redskins coverage in the WaPo, which is still quite good
actually.
I used to be a Washington Post paper boy, so I'l put one last quote from Charles Osgood
It was while making newspaper deliveries, trying to miss the bushes and hit the porch, that
I first learned about accuracy in journalism
-Charles Osgood
I notice that Woit has disabled comments on this particular post (all other posts have comments
enabled). Probably he justifies it by telling himself that he is running a physics related blog
and isn't interested in promoting discussion on non-physics related matters like politics (but
he still wants to promote his own political opinions on his physics blog!). It's typical of the
fingers-in-the-ears reaction that ivory tower liberals to Trump's win.
Calling Susan out by name, misrepresenting her viewpoints, and then turning of comments is
completely indefensible.
I always felt he has needlessly politicized string theory research l by making his case against
it primarily in popular science books and on his blog rather than in peer-reviewed journals and
academic papers. Since when is it a good idea to let public perception influence our scientific
whims? Whether or not his arguments are valid is beside the point, it wasn't the right way to
go about attempting to influence the field.
I am re-posting the following from an insightful comment on the Liberty Blitzkrieg report on
this scam site:
"The anonymous "executive director" of the Propornot website, quoted by the Washington Post,
was mostly a likely a "senior military intelligence" impostor cum serial teen pornographer named
Joel Harding. He is facing a lawsuit over the copyright infringement of Internet-distributed (teen)
pornography (Case No. 1:16-cv-00384-AJT-TCB) in the US District Court for the eastern district
of Virginia, Alexandria division. This is in the public domain.
BTW, Harding's fellow trolls have been known to ascribe the rank of Brig Gen to their pathetic
troll leader in private messages to the unsuspecting.
No wonder Joel Harding wished to remain the anonymous "executive director" whose laughably
scientific work was quoted by Washington Post. But why didn't Washington Post's Craig Timberg
check this up? Basic journalistic checks thrown out of the mixed gender bathroom window? Details
of Harding's trolling activities are available on the very Internet that is trolled by Joel Harding
through his 3,000-odd troll sites.
And to think that I used to be an avid reader of Washington Post's science and Technology reports
now galls me.
There is a growing assumption that the patriotic paranoid activities of Joel Harding and associates
are a cover for their Ukrainian teen pornography distribution business."
The US MSM is all propaganda all the time-every bit as bad as Pravda ever was. RT now is
the "anti-propaganda." They were even carrying Jesse Ventura and other Americans who are blacklisted
by the MSM.
A hail mary pass that was intercepted by the opposing team and run back for a touchdown.
Methinks the WaPo, "PropOrNot", and the rest of the MSM involved with this stunt are going
to have a lesson in The Streisand Effect. Michael Krieger of Liberty Blitzkrieg (whom I greatly
admire BTW) has said he already has many new followers and donors.
What exactly is the origin of the Russia bashing that's been going on as of late? I feel
like I missed some important public dis somewhere that would explain it all. Condoleeza Rice's
general dated anti-Soviet attitude I could understand, but that doesn't explain the escalating
bigotry pouring out of Obama and Clinton (and their various surrogates). Is it a case of a bomb
in search of a war?
Looks to me like it came out of the HRC campaign. LOL James Carville was talking about
the KGB tampering with the vote tally .not knowing they've been out of business since 1991. The
whole thing makes absolutely no sense, and it won't fly with the American public, many of whom
watch RT, or may be married to or dating Russians. Even Randy Newman likes Putin enough to write
a song about him.
The funny thing is it's been an open secret that the Democratic party has known about electronic
voting fraud (always swinging to the Right) for years but refuses to go near the subject publicly
supposedly because they didn't want people to lose faith in election results and stop voting.
The Obama administration said on Friday that despite Russian attempts to undermine the
presidential election , it has concluded that the results "accurately reflect the will of the
American people."
From the NYT article you mention. It is now axiomatic that the Putin government was actively
attempting to subvert our election. This despite the fact that absolutely no compelling evidence
has ever been given.
After the nineties opening foreign influence was accepted and russia started integrating into
the western world. Some years later the resurged nationalist kicked out western companies, broke
cultural-social contacts.
West is made on free trade-free business-free ideas flow. if russia not trading on common terms,
west gonna take it by force. and russia holds one-fourth of fresh water, one-fifth of world forests,
one sixth of arable but never before used land, and never before properly explored mineral wealth.
All these can help to secure a prosperous 21.century for the west.
Same like before the american conquest, only difference now local indigenous people wield nuclear
weapons and have unlimited chinese support, so no rush let them make mistakes. (and they do, ukraine-syria-azerbaijan
just the latest)
I don't think there is an easy answer to your question, but I think it goes around to the
failed Ukrainian coup (well, partially failed) and the realisation within a certain element of
the neocon establishment that Putin had been inadvertently strengthened by their policy failures
in the Ukraine and Syria. I think there was a concerted element within the Blob to refocus on
'the Russian threat' to cover up their failures in the Middle East and the refusal of the Chinese
to take the bait in the Pacific.
This rolled naturally into concerns about cyberwar and it was a short step from there to
using Russian cyberespionage to cover up the establishments embarrassment over wikileaks and multiple
other failures exposed by outsiders. As always, when a narrative suits (for different reasons)
the two halves of the establishment, the mainstream media is always happy to run it unquestioningly.
So in short, I think its a mixture of genuine conspiracy, mixed in with political opportunism.
Don't forget Snowden and Assange. The intelligence community is, I'm sure, furious about those
two. With Snowden still in Russia, it's basically a weeping sore on the intelligence community's
face. Those people do not like exposure at all.
I remember that, shortly after Snowden's revelations, the war drums really started to beat
for Syria.
In all success* is the seeds of failure. Once upon a time, the "beating of war drums" was a
great distraction from whatever ill's were currently affecting a nation. But the US now has such
an overwhelming military that not only is there absolutely no threat to the US land mass, but
for a given person there are at least two degrees of freedom between them and anybody actually
involved in these wars themselves. We lost a soldier ONE soldier on Thanksgiving day and sure
it was all over the news but how many USians actually know even a member of his family, let alone
him? About zero to a first approximation.
So it just isn't working as a distraction. TPTB I don't think really get that yet.
*the word success here is used in a morally neutral sense
Likewise don't forget Chelsea/Bradley Manning! He was the one who put WikiLeaks on the map
and is now paying a horrible price for his courage and love of humanity. His name is constantly
dropped from the list of whistle blower heroes. Why? Because of his gender ambiguity? Whatever
his gender Manning is an American hero worth remembering.
I think that's about right PlutoniumKun but I would add your moniker the US is gonna spend
a FORTUNE (I TRILLION dollars using Austin Powers voice) updating our nuclear arsenal. Can't really
justify using ISIS, so the Soviet boogyman has to be resurrected .
A friend of mine is convinced that Obama and the Beltway crowd have never gotten over Russia
giving asylum to Edward Snowden. If you look at the timing between Snowden's revelations and the
U.S. ginning up its anti-Russia talk and activities, there is some correlation.
What exactly is the origin of the Russia bashing that's been going on as of late?
That is very good question and it does not have a simple answer. I have been pondering
this for 8 years now. The latest bout of Russia-hatred began as Putin began to re-assert their
sovereignty after the disastrous Yeltsin years. This intensified after Georgia, Ukraine and Syria.
In adddition the US was preprogrammed to hate Russia for historical reasons. Mostly because of
the Soviet era but also when the US inherited the global empire from the Brits we also got some
of their dislike of the Russian empire dating back to the 19th century.
It all started when Putin arrested the Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, when Putin
put a stop to the shock therapy looting of Russia by the Harvard mafia and Jeffrey Sachs. Didn't
he know that oligarch's are above the law? They are in the US. Didn't he know that money can buy
you immunity from prosecution like it does in Europe and the US? Can't have that, hence the Ukraine,
deprive him of his warm water naval base. Then there was the Crimean referendum. Out smarted again!
Can't have that!
Yes. There was a Michael Hudson piece posted here in 2014 that lays it all out. Apparently
those wanting to bring "democratic institutions" to Russia haven't given up yet.
This Propornot outfit has all the makings of a National Endowment for Democracy scam, including
its sudden appearance in the Post, which has been publishing crazy regime-change-esque editorials
on Russia for more than two years now.
It's all my fault. I studied Russian in high school (4 years) and college (1 year), and even
subscribed to Pravda briefly in college (as did all of my classmates) to improve reading skills.
I also spent a month in Russia in 1971. This is how I became a dirty commie. By commenting on
NC a half dozen times in the past, I have forever tainted it. Sorry!
BTW, what is the W3C approved sarcasm tag? /sarc or /s?
I also took 4 years of Russian in HS. When in the Cold War, it is best to understand your opponents
(not enemies), rather than be ignorant. That is how one can play chess and win and yes, it is
as much a matter of intimidation and annoyance, as it is cold calculation. Bobby Fischer vs Boris
Spassky. States have no enemies. Former allies become opponents and vice versa pragmatism rules.
Well Joe McCarthy was a Republican so this is yet another example of Democrats taking on that
mantle of paranoid fear and war-mongering. Flipping Clintons, the best Republican President and
candidate the Dems could come up with.
The MSM can no longer fool the people that there has been an economic recovery, that is why
nobody believes the media anymore and that is why Donald Trump won the election. Watching news
today is like watching a bad puppet show. The masses are finally waking up to the fact that their
government has sold them down the river to big corporations and predatory bankers. Took the sheeple
long enough.
It's an idiotic new red scare, and I can tell you the well credentialed, supposedly smart liberals
in my circles will eat it right up. Their critical thinking is completely out the window at this
point, and they'll accept apparently anything to avoid coming to terms with Clinton having lost
to Trump. It's terrifying.
9. Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize
investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on your
screen is there to harm you. Bookmark PropOrNot and other sites that investigate foreign propaganda
pushes.
It was so jarring I kept reading that last sentence, thinking I'd missed the snark. Fully expected
it to end with "as an example," not to lend it cred.
The article you mention in In These Times is by Timothy Snyder :), who despite being a well-known
historian is no mean propagandist himself, having suggested that the Ukrainians not the Soviets
liberated Auschwitz.
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2014/03/07/crimea-putin-vs-reality/
Timothy Snyder is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. That he would recommend PoN
is at least a small indication of who stands behind it. Snyder is has given bad odor to the term
"historian" over the past three years. He is to objective history what Bernays was to objective
journalism.
Snyder: "The army group that liberated Auschwitz was called the First Ukrainian Front." The
NYR of Books has suppressed the comment section on its blog, probably to spare Snyder the embarrassment
of having his howlers pointed out by readers.
Ah so, thanks to you both. Two tells made me suspicious: lots of apparently good advice, then
the little drop of poison just nonchalantly dropped in the mix; and Yale historian ;) .
My comment there hasn't made it out of moderation yet. But someone else tore into him for the
same reason I did, recommending PoN:
Because you have no idea who the hell they are, anymore than anyone else does, they've just
released a list of non-MSM news sites that they disagree with. They smear long running and
well trusted sites as "propaganda" outlets without offering any evidence or stating any sort
of methodology. You have litereally abandoned the professional ethic which ought to go along
with being a published.historian and University professor purely because it makes you FEEL
BETTER.
I just asked him, as a Yale historian, to please tell us how the list was compiled, or at least
give some reason for his unqualified recommendation. I went on to say that I read several of the
sites listed, esp. Counterpunch and of course, NC. Even helpfully provided a link to this article,
saying the idea that NC pushes foreign propaganda is ludicrous, and the WaPo article was being
thoroughly debunked here.
Ended with "I call upon the author to explain! (h/t Nick Cave)"
More likely, what "truth" 'they' are trying to manufacture. (When did the new 'owners' take
up the reins at WaPo? There might be a correlation, and a causation involved)
This is why I'm looking forward to any legal cases that may arise out of this - I plan to follow
such *very* closely. Would love to see discovery documents upon the editorial and ownership staff
. the legal equivalent of a public enema, "you shall have no more secrets "
After all, didn't Fox News win a case essentially stating that it was OK to flat out lie and
fabricate from whole cloth? Then why can't Democrat media organs do likewise?
Why didn't I think of that earlier? "Political Infotainment." If my reading serves me right,
I was under the impression that newspapers of a hundred years ago and earlier displayed their
political allegiances openly. A reader could easily work out the underlying story from separating
"story" from "interpretation." Now, news outlets are supposedly impartial and pure of heart. Yet
another cherished myth bites the dust. Perhaps it is better this way.
Based on the evidence of above mentioned link, this "PropOrNot" can be part of a project
of U.S. government to manipulate media to create an anti-Russia climate or more likely another
method of attack on what they consider "Left" so status quo in economic policies of U.S. can be
maintained.
What is going on with the press/MSM lately? It is like one big game of mind control. Is that
what journalism is for to persuade people to do what the system wants them to do and I hope
I am not stretching here but a la Bernays? I mean when I think about this it is really sort of
terrifying as the MSM has done little else but constantly broadcast to people that life in America
is just fine and everyone is happy when in fact the opposite is true there is a lot of hardship
out there since the financial crisis, a lot of people never recovered, millions or tens of millions.
So how can people not be drawn to alternative news sites which thankfully are quite abundant now
and want political change? It just seems like the WaPo, NYT are living in this one little sliver
of opulence and prosperity while the rest of us just shake our heads and wonder what has happened
to this country, especially as we see their darling was not voted in as President. So now they
are striking out and attempting to smear the reputations of good sites, And what is this fake
news thing I am not on social media and have no idea what the fake news is is it about the
pizza places? And why are the social media sites being censored I had read on zh that when the
Comey story hit before the election that that news was not trending at all which was very strange
according to those who would know better.
I don't know where all this fear is coming from in the MSM but I imagine they have lost their
grasp of the American mind. I worry every time I tune in that I am being lied to and misled for
a reason. A political reason. I grew up in the 50's and remember real journalism and I want it
back. I want to know what is really going on. Everywhere.
It has worked for a hundred years, since WWI and the Creel Commission, the destruction of a
vibrant American Left. Imagine the panic in the boardroom suites, the millennials no longer think
that socialism is a bad word, and supported an aging leftist for president. OMFG! It's all Russia's
fault providing an alternate plausible narrative. Can't have that. Outsourcing jobs to Asia, burdening
college students with immense debts, incredible corruption personified by the Queen of Wall Street
couldn't have anything to do with it. All power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
It's finally happened, they have over reached and are about to fall off the edge. Relish the panic.
When everything hits the fan, I'll be glad to have you other filthy propagandists in the FEMA
camp alongside me, breaking rocks, eating gruel, and discussing the path to insanity.
I really wish that reporters like those at the Post and the Times had done us all a favor and
walked into the ocean after their abysmal election coverage. Why anyone listens to these outlets
anymore is a question that I ponder at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering what the hell
happened to my country.
On PropOrNot's list is usslibertyveterans.org, which might be an indication its neocon origins.
The site has few articles, no comments and its visit counter shows under 3,800 hits. It looks
like it was created 4 months ago. It is propaganda because?
Their
stats page shows that ProOrNot's strategy might backfire. Yesterday was a record day for hits.
Or maybe usslibertyveterans.org is a fishing lure.
Who could possibly have a problem with a site on the USS Liberty? Certainly narrows down the
list of suspects considerably, assuming it wasn't a deliberate false track. For those not familiar
with the USS Liberty, it was the USN ship attacked, nearly sunk with heavy casualties, by Israel
in 1967. A lot of military still have bitterness towards Israel and the American leadership due
to the lack of justice and cover-up over that incident.
The surrounding of "Russian propaganda" with the letter 'y' reminds me a bit of
this :
(((Echo))) is a symbol used by anti-Semitic members of the alt-right to identify certain
individuals as Jewish by surrounding their names with three parentheses on each side. The symbol
became a subject of online discussions and media scrutiny in June 2016 after Google removed
a browser extension that automatically highlights Jewish surnames in the style.
Note that Israel has a lot to lose if Trump pulls the US out of the Middle East. Here's some
Russian propaganda on the issue:
Tila Tequila's Descent Into Nazism Is A Long Time Coming
The self-proclaimed "alt-reich queen" has a long history of anti-Semitism, and an even longer
one of internet trolling.
Again unless this is a false lead, these guys are looking more and more Israeli or Israeli
sympathizers. Other tweets per Greenwald at same link also suggest a pretty low maturity level.
Possibly kids or college level??
This is a lot worse than "Yellow Cake" and it scares the pants off me. This is the "Official
line", signed off on by the editors of WaPo. Think about that for a minute. And then think about
the campaign to get the EC to enthrone HRC.
Trump dissed the MSM and they are pissed off, so are their masters who wanted Obama to slide
through TPP in the period between Hillary's win and the inauguration. They blew more than $1Billion
on a loser and they may have decided that losing is not acceptable and that it will be HRC on
the throne, whatever it takes. The recklessness displayed by the MSM here is breathtaking at a
moment when the USA is more divided than it has been since the election of 1860.
I'm with you Tom Stone. There is nothing funny about this. The MSM at this point is the
greatest purveyor of fake news on the planet, I am talking about not just CNN and Fox, but the
BBC, France24 and so on.
Pretty much everything they have said and every video they has shown on east Aleppo is
either a lie or a fake. As someone noted the other day (I can't remember who) if the stories about
east Aleppo were actually true, then the Russians and Syrians have destroyed approximately 900
hospitals including the 'last pediatric hospital in east Aleppo' which has been completely demolished
on at least three separate occasions in the last few months. The main stream outlets don't even
try to be consistent.
The people who run things here and in Europe are apparently desperate and this latest
move is an indication of how desperate they actually are. It is indeed scary.
I am publicly apologizing to Sarah Palin who I used to think was a dingbat for all of her criticism
of the MSM aka Lame stream media. She was far, far more correct than I ever thought possible.
But look at the silver lining how many people like me who thought that the large media got
the essential facts correct can now see how much we're being fed pure propaganda .how much of
what you see depends on what your looking for .
Weapons of Mass Distraction. Another nail in the coffin of credibility of the NYT and WaPo.
Recall after the Stupid War and how there were zero weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq
that the NYT and Wapo declined to mention or explore their own culpability in beating the drums
of war. This will be more of the same.
"Some critics of our coverage during that time have focused blame on individual reporters.
Our examination, however, indicates that the problem was more complicated. Editors at several
levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps
too intent on rushing scoops into the paper. Accounts of Iraqi defectors were not always weighed
against their strong desire to have Saddam Hussein ousted. Articles based on dire claims about
Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into
question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all."
So the Times DID admit some culpability, but it wasn't as if the Times volunteered to donate
a portion of their profits(deepen their losses?) to help Iraqi victims or US soldiers and their
families.
And given the Times Syria coverage, where even the sanctimonious Nick Kristof (August 28, 2013)
called on for Obama to bomb Syria for credibility reasons, nothing has changed at the Times.
"Yet there is value in bolstering international norms against egregious behavior like genocide
or the use
of chemical weapons. Since President Obama established a "red line" about chemical weapons use,
his
credibility has been at stake: he can't just whimper and back down."
The Times playbook is to parrot what TPTB wants to do and then if the readers subsequently
revolt in disgust, apologize later.
After I quit my digital subscription to the Times, it seems I'm limited to 10 articles/month.
This might be more than the safely recommended monthly dose of the NYTimes.
The dissimulation, the feigned ignorance (the irony). During the 1930s, the New York Times
actually acted as propaganda agents for Stalin. They collaborated with the Soviet Security Services
to prevent the rescue of millions of Ukrainian peasants (deplorables).
"In 1932 Duranty received a Pulitzer Prize for a series of reports about the Soviet Union,
11 of them published in June 1931. He was criticized then and later for his denial of widespread
famine (193233) in the USSR, most particularly the mass starvation in Ukraine. Years later, there
were calls to revoke his Pulitzer; The New York Times, which submitted his work for the prize
in 1932, wrote that his articles constituted "some of the worst reporting to appear in this newspaper."
Editors were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper.
And there you have it, boys and girls, the one driving force behind journalism as practiced
in the corporate media. If I had been paid for every time I was told to fudge a story lest the
local broadcast stations break it first, I would have been able to pay my mortgage.
This whole Russian propaganda campaign is nothing more then elites attempting to slam shut
the Overton Window that the Trump campaign has pried open a bit this year. This article explains
why they will most likely fail:
I suspect that PropOrNot's outburst was developed during the campaign by well heeled and
connected Hilary supporters to be unveiled after the election to muzzle increasingly influential
web sites including NC. As it stands PropOrNot shot a blank. If Hilary had won the campaign against
"fake news" would probably have taken on a more ominous tone.
Wolf mentioned that the list will function as a dog-whistle for money - that is, advertisers
- telling them about the dangerous places. Maybe not shooting a blank in the short run. In the
long run, of course, advertisers will follow the eyeballs anywhere.
The MSM became so biased during the Presidential election, it drove many Americans toward social
media where you could at least view campaign speaches unfiltered. The same process is now being
applied in the support of manmade climate change alarmism with hopefully the same result
i think you meant the same process is applied in the support of oil company propaganda. the
msm slavishly supported the pro fracking clinton, slavishly acted for years as if there were an
actual scientific debate, instead of fossil fuel shills vs scientists.
I really hope this doesn't get buried in the comments, because it's important to note that
Ames is actually incorrect. He would have been right as recently as 3 years ago but no longer
is.
The provisions of the Smith-Mundt act that prevented materials produced by the BGG from being
used for domestic purposes were repealed by the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 (actually
passed in 2013, when incorporated into the NDAA), which states:
The Secretary and the Broadcasting Board of Governors are authorized to use funds appropriated
or otherwise made available for public diplomacy information programs to provide for the preparation,
dissemination, and use of information intended for foreign audiences abroad about the United
States, its people, and its policies, through press, publications, radio, motion pictures,
the Internet, and other information media, including social media, and through information
centers, instructors, and other direct or indirect means of communication.
It also contains a provision that supposedly prevents the BBG from influencing domestic public
opinion, yet also says the following.
Nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit the Department of State or the Broadcasting
Board of Governors from engaging in any medium or form of communication, either directly or
indirectly, because a United States domestic audience is or may be thereby exposed to program
material, or based on a presumption of such exposure.
Worth noting: passed under Obama and discounted at the time but venues such as Mother Jones,
who did the heavy lifting of telling progressives they were paranoid.
I am guessing the proviso you quote may have been intended to cover the possibility of people
in places like Florida hearing broadcasts aimed at Cuba or other targets, but it certainly raises
questions.
What I find most despicable in all this is the cowardice of these people making up their accusations
and refusing to say who they are. Beneath contempt.
As a loophole it's not perfect (the intent of the primary provision it qualifies seems rather
clear on its face), but we're talking about people who wrote elaborate memos justifying torture
and extra judicial murder, and who went before Congress (i.e. Holder) to claim that "due process"
does not necessarily mean "judicial process." A loophole like that is more than enough to judge
such activities legal enough. I certainly can't imagine anyone in the current administration prosecuting
it.
In regards to all this 'fake news' and 'Russian propaganda' hysteria, one potential problem
I keep seeing mentioned is that certain sites could be banned from FleeceBook thereby destroying
these sites' page hits and ad revenue.
I don't use the FleeceBook so I guess I don't understand how this works. I can come to this
or any other website any time I want so why would I care that it's been banned by FleeceBook?
I don't remember exactly how I first heard of NC but I'm guessing I followed a link from one of
the other left-leaning sites I read regularly (which coincidentally also are authored by Boris
Badinov according to the WaPo). Is FB sort of like AOL back in the day where AOL users thought
they were surfing the intertubes but in reality were in some sort of AOL-approved pen? And if
that's the case I have to wonder how long it will be before FB becomes just like AOL is today,
ie mainly used by the less internet savvy. I already hear rumors that the youngsters consider
FB something only old people use.
I am genuinely interested if anyone can explain this would it really hurt websites that much
to be banned by FB? Wouldn't there be a backlash against FB for doing so?
PS: The thing that made me start using NC as my go-to source for news besides the excellent
original financial reporting was the fact that you guys started including regular links to sites
like BAR, Counetrpunch, etc that I was already reading anyway. I feel like I can read here without
missing out on what was going on elsewhere there's only so much one can read in a day. Keep
up the great work!
I would assume that's how they intend to hurt these sites, but we get virtually no traffic
from Facebook. However, being banned from FB would seriously dent out policy influence.
Unfortunately, Faceborg is the best way for me to stay in touch with certain people. For example,
it has a closed group called FDL-LLN which is limited to former commenters on FireDogLake. (LLN
stands for Late Late Night, which was a subforum for people to post music and discuss musical
artists; the LLN heading was used for the FB group out of, I believe, both nostalgia and the friendships
that many formed as FDL "pups".)
In addition, if you post an NC link on FB, it gets seen by many people who might not otherwise
become aware of the site.
Ah Jess I miss LLN and Suz an Tut and all the rest. But not enough to go Faceborg. Somethings
are lost some remain. I still have a phone which i use every so often.
Bob.
After a few years of FB econ sites, hashing things out with the usual suspects, things began
to increasingly change as the primaries got to the wire. Once solid commenters replete with knowlage
and experience began to mimic the very people and camps they once railed against.
It was on then when I took on these people for such actions that I started to get the FB treatment,
ending in privacy washing.
Disheveled Marsupial . especially when noting Hillary's history and bad side, sad to think
it might have been one of the old gang that put in a complaint to FB.
There is something bizarre about this whole scenario.
PropOrNot is asserting that the sites on the 'List", both right and left, were responsible
for the Clinton loss by spreading false Russian propaganda. This would make more sense, as a political
project, if Clinton had won. Asking the Trump DOJ and Trump's/Comey's FBI to investigate the asserted
causes of Trump's win is bizarre.
It only makes sense, IMHO, if this project was already in the works pre-election anticipating
a Clinton win, where it would have had the benefit of targeting both the right and the left and
continuing the drum beat for war. If that is the case, the losers appear to be too shell-shocked
or committed, financially or ideologically, to think through the implications of letting this
go forward.
I do like the idea of NC, and other left-wing sites, forming a coalition with right-wing sites
to take legal action. Ralph Nader's "Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle
the Corporate State" comes to mind.
Wasn't the reality of Russia intervention in Syria well underway by that time as well? Wasn't
the whole US Syrian ploy dependent on everybody selling the people a clear distinction between
evil Assad, evil ISIS, and good moderates (ahem al-quaeda)?
That narrative was clearly no longer believed even by the journalists writing it. Why? Sites
like this one and others. Why does it matter? Because aim was to get rid of Assad to cut Russia
out of Mideast, having failed to achieve that goal two years earlier in Ukraine. Cui bono?
Good points. Also, IIRC, internet governance is due to be turned over to a non-governmental
organization in the not too distant future. Might this not be a way of achieving the elimination
of net neutrality during a Democratic Administration that would not want to be seen as sticking
the knife in themselves?
In that scenario, it would look a lot like the present Administration is secretly working the
refs in the same way that they tried to push the TPP and its' associated ISDS provisions before
the whistle was blown on them.
This whole bizarre "fake news" meme along with the and the Russians are coming is getting widespread
media traction including Vanity Fair. It's getting repeated in Canadian media too.
Now PropOrNot not is not credited as the source but the more plausible sounding Foreign Policy
Research Institute and lots of references to the Washington Post's "reporting".
I think this is a deliberate campaign to discredit progressive and independent news sources.
God forbid that citizens should read a variety of sources and make up their own minds.
I have wondered for about a year now if someone is handing out anti-Russian story quotas
or maybe anti-Russian story cash, with a bonus for anything that goes viral. I'm not sure how
else you explain
stuff like this from a Gawker site that was mainly focused on minimum wage law and whether
the Tilted Kilt could legally fire you for being too fat.
This current listicle feels very much the same, except with less professionalism and more credulity.
Either someone is getting paid enough not to care how asinine this looks, or the inmates really
are running the media asylum.
Naked Capitalism is in great company: BAR, Counterpunch, Antiwar, Consortium News. I didn't
need to read these sites to come to my views though, all they did is to confirm what I had come
to believe all on my own: that Hillary is a corrupt warmonger, that the American government has
been captured by the moneyed elites, that the Democrat Party is a rat nest of neoliberal infestation.
And while I was naturally predisposed toward Russia by virtue of where I was born and by Bulgarian
history, my college career was marked by my support for all of the bad policies that brought us
the new Cold War with Russia: NATO expansion, the bombing of Serbia, the economic ruin of Russia,
the unipolar world order. I was young, stupid, and ambitious. Later on I simply settled into profound
indifference toward Russia and a general anti-war attitude brought about by my own service. It
wasn't until the hysterical MSM crapstorm of breathless smears about Sochi that I began to notice
the US policies against Russia. So for me, the most effective pro-Russia propaganda outlets proved
to be US MSM, WaPo and NYT being the most effective of all. Just one of life's little ironies.
So WaPo wants to sling mud and go on a witch hunt? I suggest that they indict themselves first
and foremost, for being a mindless disseminators of US government propaganda.
"a new 'Eurasian' empire stretching from Dublin to Vladisvostok"
Why Dublin? With a flick of the finger, they could have had the flyover terrain between there
and Shannon.
And why Vladivostock? You can go a lot farther East than that and still be in Russia.
For Pete's sake, why have they not included Sapporo and the rest of Japan. Aren't they vulnerable
too?
And the Aleutians; for that matter, why not the rest of Alaska too? After all, we only bought
it from them at a knock-down price. Anyone knows they got
a raw deal. Shouldn't they want that back too?
Shannon Airport would have been appropriate as during the Cold War it was Aeroflots main base
for flying on to Cuba. Its now only a short drive from Trumps Irish golf course.
Conflicted. On the one hand, as a long time reader of a diversity of listed websites (on the
lefty side mostly), this comes across as ham fisted and, frankly, bizarre. Not only the laughable
story itself, but that it has been picked up and reposted by a host of other rather mainstream
and 'liberal' surrogates.
It is *bizarre* because Russia today is nothing of what the boogeyman USSR was in times past:
an alternative political-economic arrangement to then industrial capitalism. Russia Today (wink,
wink) is as capitalist and as democratic as any of the other players on this particular stage
(plenty of the former, not so much of the latter). An economic competitor, sure, but no USSR.
So the anti-Russia/Putin propaganda just consistently reads hollow to anyone who spends any time
just reading run of the mill reporting of goings on in the world (reporting aside from propaganda
stories). In other words, if you are a relatively informed reader of diverse sources and traveler,
the anti-Russia stuff just comes across as contrived from the get go.
But then again, I got a chance to visit with some 1000s of academic colleagues at a national
convention recently. This is where the 'conflicted' point comes from. As Good Liberals, academics
dine daily on a strict NYT, WAPO, NPR diet, with the more 'edgy' types hanging at VOX and HuffPo.
And they BELIEVE everything their beloved media tells them through these sources, without reservation
(and with the requisite snark and smirk). The academy is nearly completely captured and now so
deeply immersed in its echo chamber that any information that might challenge its perception of
the world is immediately dismissed as nefarious propaganda (either paid for by the Koch bros,
or Putin). Of course, since the elite academy is overwhelmingly Ivy educated, their worldview
loops back to their Ivy educated friends at said media outlets. Creating a bubble that is increasingly
impenetrable to reason and critical analysis.
Lots of panic for the Washington regime. The clownish asshole loser that they carefully
groomed proved less repulsive than their chosen Fuehrer Clinton. Now they are distraught to see
that their enemy Russia sucks much less than the USA.
Russians get a much better deal than the US subject population. The Russian head of state has
approval ratings that US politicians scarcely dream of. Russia complies with the Paris Principles,
the gold standard for institutionalized human rights protection under international review. The
USA does not. Russia's incorruptible President keeps kleptocrats in check, while the US banana
republic installs them in high office. Russia complies with the rule of law: they refrain from
use or threat of force and rely on pacific dispute resolution, using proportional and necessary
force in compliance with UN Charter Chapter VII. The US shits on rule of law, interpreting human
rights instruments in bad faith and flouting jus cogens to maintain impunity for the gravest crimes.
In the precise terms of Responsibility to Protect, the US government does not even meet the minimal
test for state sovereignty: compliance with the International Bill of Human Rights, the Rome Statute,
and the UN Charter. Naturally the US is bleeding legitimacy and international standing, and Russia
is going from strength to strength. If Russia invaded, we would strew flowers and sweets.
The collapse of the USSR did Russia a world of good. Now it's time for the USA to collapse
and free America.
it boils down to Soros vs Putin. Anyone who is not with Soros is with Putin, according to Soros.
Soros cannot digest the death threat he was given by Putin, to stay away from Russia or else.
Since Soros was born in old communist europe, he seems to believe he has the right to regime change
there. And he has been very successful primarily because he is in bed with the CIA and the Russians
are just now waking up again.
So sorry! I am a foreign "propagandist" reader, commenter and contributer from Spain, and I
am just shoked to see this! How sad is this, it pretty much looks like McCarthysm again!!!!
Hi Naked Capitalism. I haven't been on this site for some time. But I felt it necessary to
comment due to an ad hominem attack from a commenter "James" regarding the show I produce at RT
called Boom Bust.
From my vantage point as producer at RT, I have been able to see the whole anti-Russia campaign
unfold in all its fury. I have a lot of thoughts on this but I want to restrict my comments to
the specific argument James makes. here:
"it's also obvious that RT invites him on the network because he lambasts the American political
establishment and weakens the public's confidence in its leaders. This is clearly a goal of Moscow,
and they use people like Steve Keen to do it. I'm sure Steven Keen doesn't think of his role that
way, but RT and Russian intelligence certainly do."
Since I produce the show that Steve Keen appears on, I am well-placed to give you a view on
this. James' comment is flat out false. What James writes is something he has fabricated in his
imagination connecting dots he believes should be connected based on no first hand evidence
whatsoever.
What actually happens on Boom Bust is this:
Since no one I work with at RT has a sophisticated background in economics, finance or financial
reporting, they give us a wide berth in putting together content for our show with nearly no top
down dictates at all. That means we as American journalists have a pretty much free hand to report
economic news intelligently and without bias. We invite libertarian, mainstream, non-mainstream,
leftist, Democratic commentators, Republican commentators you name it. As for guests, they are
not anti-American in any way shape or form. They are disproportionately non-mainstream.
We have no pro-Russian agenda. And that is in part because Russia is a bit player on the economic
stage, frankly. Except for sanctions, it has mostly been irrelevant on our show since inception.
Let me share a strange anecdote on that. We had a guest on our show about three years ago,
early in my tenure. We invited him on because he had smart things to say about the UK economy.
But he had also written some very negative things about Putin and Russia. Rather than whitewash
this we addressed it specifically in the interview and asked him an open-ended question about
Russia, so he could say his piece. I was ASTONISHED when he soft-pedaled his response and made
no forceful case as he had done literally days ago in print. This guy clearly self-censored
for what reason I don't know. But it is something that has stayed with me ever since.
The most important goal from a managerial perspective has been that our reporting is different
i.e. covers missing and important angles of the same storyline that are missing in the mainstream
media or that it covers storylines that are missing altogether.
Neither Steve Keen nor any other guest on our show appears "because he lambasts the American
political establishment". This is false. He appears on our show because he is a credible economist
who provides a differentiated view on economics and insight that we believe will help our viewers
understand the global economy. If Paul Krugman had something to say of that nature and would appear
on our show, we would welcome him. In fact, I and other producers have reached out to him many
times to no avail, especially after we had Gerald Friedman give his take on the dust-up surrounding
Bernie Sanders' economic plan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yna275KzuDQ
Look, I understand the scepticism about RT and its motives. It IS a state-funded news outlet
with news story angles that sometimes contrast sharply with western media. And it has not been
critical of the Russian government as far as I can tell. But you can't ascribe nefarious motives
to individual economists or reporters based on inaccurate or false third hand accounts. You are
just making things up, creating a false narrative based on circumstantial evidence. This is just
adding to the building peer pressure associated with what almost seems like an orchestrated campaign
to discredit non-mainstream sources of news.
You are in good company with that suspicion of a campaign to "sanitize" the public's sources
of information. If one were to consider the Corporate sector as the equivalent of a state, then
almost all news sources are liable to extra strong scrutiny. Going back to Bernays, the "shepherding"
of the news sources used by the majority of the population is crucial to maintaining control of
public perceptions. In that sense, the present struggle for control of the news narrative is understandable.
Keep up the good work.
Isn't that a compliment? I mean it does say "leading" (and I have to agree).
As for "left-wing", well NC does frequently feature articles by Bill Black & others associated
with the University of Mo. Kansas City; and UMKC has long been known for its lefty, socialist/commie
leanings I know because my 81 y.o. mother told me so (and I had a prof. there teaching "History
of Economic Thought" who came right out & claimed to be a Socialist horrors!)
Lambert foresaw that there would be a witch hunt after the election. He indicated that it would
come from the Democratic Party and the conserva-Dem establishment. And, ecco!, a witch hunt. So
what could possibly be the source?
I am noticing on my Facebook feeds that the ooshy liberals are in a feeding frenzy: They believe
that they are victims of some breakdown in information. The shocker was that the news being passed
around in DemPartyLandia was that the Democrats were on the verge of retaking both houses of Congress
and the presidency. Meanwhile, Water Cooler showed that the neither house of Congress was truly
in play and the presidential race was a dead heat. After the election, various lists began to
circulate. The one cited by Yves isn't the first. I saw one list that included The Onion, The
Daily Currant, and Duffel Blog. You mean Duffel Blog's story on U.S. soldiers trying en masse
to join the Canadian army isn't true?
Further, much of liberaldom is now deep into trying to flip the Electoral College or amend
the Constitution immediately, as well as the Trump as Fascist meme.
Yes, America, land of self-proclaimed bad-asses, turns out to be the realm of panic. And many
policies and stances are going to have to be suddenly revised: Ooshy liberals, who supported charter
schools for years, are suddenly shocked that DeVos of Amway is a charter-school addict. The disastrous
foreign-policy adventures of the last few years have to be offloaded very soon on Trump, so that
Obama can be thanked for being scandal-free.
And, evidently, the conspiracy is now so big that it can't be blamed solely on Al-Jazeera.
This means we need more outlets besides Google and Facebook; outlets impervious to witch hunts
maybe offshore enterprises, after all that's the trend. The more the merrier for manufacturing
dissent in a good sense. What Russia does cannot harm us but it is always good to hear their
take; and China is interesting as well. We get such gobbledegook from MSM we would never understand
a single issue without alternative news. It's a little late for them to be all hysterical about
losing their grip they've been annoying us and boring us to death for 5 decades; and selling
us down the river. I'm amazed they have a following at all.
The military industrial complex and all the elites are behind all this massive propaganda stuff
and fake news. They want war and nothing is going to stand in their way not the democrats, not
the republicans, no one. HRC knew this hence her "paranoia" about Russia. It's crazy. I hope
Trump has the balls to stand up against them. Thanks NC for being here --
With the Washington Post at least, there is a pretty handy avenue of response. Namely that
its CEO Jeff Bezos, who clearly approves of the editorial policy, is also owner of Amazon.com
If you don't approve of Mr. Bezos using his media platform to revive McCarthyism and Yellow Journalism,
keep that in mind when doing your holiday shopping, and when you see that item you were thinking
of buying on amazon, take a moment to see about buying it elsewhere, even if it costs a bit more
to do so. If Mr. Bezos want to use the Washington Post to promote censorship of media control,
make him pay for it in a drop in Amazon's stock price.
"Information globalism is a free flow of information across the world irrespective of race,
source geography. Its up to a competent reader being selective- choosing what sort of information
they want consuming. Its the bases of choice, a basic human right."
The Clinton campaign announced today they'll be joining the recount effort. Greens start a
recount effort, Friday WaPo prints vile rumors, Saturday Clinton campaign announces it is joining
the Wisc recount effort. This is banana republic stuff.
One of the most egregious examples is the group's inclusion of Naked Capitalism, the widely
respected left-wing site run by Wall Street critic Yves Smith. That site was named by Time
Magazine as one of the best 25 Best Financial Blogs in 2011 and by Wired Magazine as a crucial
site to follow for finance, and Smith has been featured as a guest on programs such as PBS'
Bill Moyers Show. Yet this cowardly group of anonymous smear artists, promoted by the Washington
Post, has now placed them on a blacklist of Russian disinformation.
From the propornot website (deliberately not linking it) the YYY thing is really creepy.
The YYYcampaignYYY is an effort to crowdsource identifying Russian propaganda outlets and
sympathizers. To participate, when you see a social-media account, commenter, or outlet echoing
Russian propaganda themes, highlight it with YYYs accordingly!
Reminds me of the (((name of jewish person))) thing that popped up very briefly in the right
wing fever swamp only to be instantly proudly self-added by a ton of jewish liberals.
I have come to the conclusion, based on personal observation, that anyone who includes the
words "our leaders" in their narrative is not to be trusted. Granted, it's a personal thing, as
I have been advocating whenever possible that we should under no circumstances apply that label
to our elected officials but should instead always use their proper designation: "public servants."
Anyone want to wager a thorough check of the MSM for the last fifty years or more would eventually
uncover the first one of their ilk to refer to elected officials as "our leaders"? To then be
followed by all of the others?
Because how better to persuade the voting public that they should just fill in the bubble or
push the button without asking a lot of silly questions about issues than by subtly brainwashing
them with the implication the people they're voting for are better equipped to deal with the important
stuff? Because "our leaders" are clearly better qualified to make the decisions than we are.
Interesting. Google's n-gram viewer shows that "our leaders" is much more prevalent
in books during and after wartime, peaking in 1942-44, with a somewhat steady rise between
just before WW1 and the end of WW2 (upon which each war is superimposed), and an odd reversal
upward around 1996 whose incline isn't much deflected by 9/11, and which levels off around 2005.
It's almost like looking at the Third Way made flesh.
My ex husband told me that back in the 70s when he was applying for a government job, he had
to undergo an extensive FBI check. The fibbies found out he had a subscription to "Soviet Life"
(a magazine about cultural, economic stuff in the USSR). As a result, his neighbors, family, past
co-workers were all interviewed to see if he was a "subversive." The Russophobia has a long history.
I agree with many commenters that Pravda's ProPorNet's listing is heading somewhere scary.
The MSM got the message that they have no credibility anymore, and they're in a panic, as are
the neocons/neolibs. I think after the US backed Ukrainian coup failed to nudge Russia into a
war, this "Russian aggression" meme started in earnest. Now that the election is over and the
"favored one" lost, it is quite telling to me that the panicked establishment isn't going to go
quietly. They were planning on having WWIII, and are furious now.
I'm too young to remember McCarthyism, but this stuff is frightening.
[..]Also included are popular libertarian hubs such as Zero Hedge, Antiwar.com and the Ron
Paul Institute, along with the hugely influential right-wing website the Drudge Report and the
publishing site WikiLeaks.
[..]One of the most egregious examples is the group's inclusion of Naked Capitalism, the widely
respected left-wing site run by Wall Street critic Yves Smith. That site was named by Time Magazine
as one of the best 25 Best Financial Blogs in 2011 and by Wired Magazine as a crucial site to
follow for finance, and Smith has been featured as a guest on programs such as PBS' Bill Moyers
Show. Yet this cowardly group of anonymous smear artists, promoted by the Washington Post, has
now placed them on a blacklist of Russian disinformation.[..]
Key line from Greenwald IMO: "The Post story served the agendas of many factions: those who
want to believe Putin stole the election from Hillary Clinton; those who want to believe that
the internet and social media are a grave menace that needs to be controlled, in contrast to the
objective truth which reliable old media outlets once issued; those who want a resurrection of
the Cold War."
me: The only way the mainstream media can get its power back is by killing or at least crippling
the internet.
A bunch of people in the U.S. got fed up, and now it means that a lot of people who were used
to only having contact with other people like themselves and hanging out at fancy parties are
being told they need to start interacting with the general public or get a different job, and
they're not happy about it.
Just last week I made my first ever reader contribution to NCnow I wish I had waited a few
days so my donation could be interpreted as an "FU" to ProporNot. :)
This Washington Post piece is so insidious as to make my blood run cold. We've seen
in "education reform" how the Gates Foundation and Walton Foundation would place un-sourced propaganda
in articles by friendly reporters in the WaPost and the NYTimes and then reference
the news outlets as proving their propaganda to be "fact."
As some know, I am a professional conspiracy theorist, having served as a local-level
criminal prosecutor for over 32 years. I see a grave threat to the First Amendment when
an anonymous source suspected to have ties to the military-industrial complex calls for the government
to investigate news sources for espionage.
I also find it interesting that The Intercept didn't make the list, despite the presence
of Glenn Greenwald. Given Pierre Omidyar's closeness to the current administration (was FirstLook
created to take Greenwald and Taibbi out of circulation during the 2012 election?), is there some
sort of "tell" here about where this attack on Free Speech is coming from?
Those on this blacklist should pool resources to pursue retraction, repudiation, and an admission
by the Post editorial board that Timberg's outrageously un-sourced "reporting" is libelous
and was published with an at best reckless and at worst intentional disregard for the truth.
Probably true, though also worth noting that (as has been observed frequently here), the Intercept's
regular reporting on Ukraine and Syria was often little better than mainstream outlets.
What is even more alarming, this seems to be coordinated with Jane Harmon's recent advocacy
of a FISA drone court which also targets "enemy" web sites. Is this a prelude to shutting down
dissenting web sites based on their status as foreign agents of our arch enemy "Russia" which
the European Parliament has equated with Daesh. There is a sense of impending revolution world
wide, is this the first step to preempt such? Is martial law the next step? There seemed to be
a lot of projection involved when the neo-libs accused Trump of fascism and not accepting election
results. Who is now not accepting election results and who are the real fascists calling for the
shutting down of news outlets?
Yet another reason why political establishment got what it deserved this election cycle. They
still think that a bit of propaganda denied them a victory and there is nothing wrong with their
policies
WaPo is now too vile to read.
McClatchy is still a fairly good news source. And, oh, look at this: Clinton campaign will join
recount effort in Wisconsin. Not surprising.
Jill Stein has embarrassed herself with this effort. I gave money to her until she made
her final vp choice Baraka called Bernie a white supremacist! I did vote for her and now feel
it really was a wasted vote. 1% in the national totals. Ok. Being a useful idiot for the Clintons
no way.
Ah yes, one more chance to steal the election. Syria must fall and be partitioned. Russia must
be driven from the Ukraine, the internet must be cleansed of dissent. Patent and Copyright monopolies
must be imposed on the world. This election took TPTB by surprise, they are surprised no longer.
Trump does not want to be President, he's scared to death. The consensus is that the results will
not change. Don't be so sure. There may yet be a coronation and then the shit will hit the proverbial
fan. Apparently it was not enough for TPTB to control both parties, they also control the minor
parties. Et tu Jill Stein!
Hillary and her handlers had the choice to lose to Bernie or to Trump. They chose Trump.
(OK, maybe not consciously.)
Now, they are are NOT happy with the result but please notice that Bernie is looking better,
has more news coverage, even appearing on The View, for crying out loud! Yes veal pen, "outreach",
whatever. Doesn't matter what they Think They are crafting.
If they keep up the Rooskie angle they will be amazed how good Bernie starts to look.
A little FB censorship. Ditto! Shut down some international protests. (In North Dakota) Bingo!
Drive people into the street! Whoooee!
They, DNC, Bezos et al, will pine for him before this is all over. Because he is the symbol
for what could have happened if they had followed the law and had gone peacefully.
They can't see it yet.
BTW, RT has a 30 minute segment with Chris Hedges at Standing Rock circulating now.
Seems legit to me. Decide for yourself.
Yves stand up and take a bow. You have been noticed by the filth. One of the many reassuring
signs to come from the corridors of power lately. Is it possible change really is coming?
I have just learned of a group in the European Parliament led by a Polish MEP and member of
the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformers in Europe that is likewise attempting to create a
fear of "fake news" from those sites that don't follow the MSM Editors' example of restraint in
publication.
It has this week received a huge injection of public money to extend its work. It seems that
North America and Europe are in lockstep on the need to keep the people ignorant.
If this site is seriously trying to help snowflakes create information-safe-places, then it
needs to protect them from my blog, too.
Fair is fair. I deserve recognition.
I also think Ilargi @ The Automatic Earth is being snubbed through their non-inclusion of that
site.
Everybody should email them and demand that all worthy blogs get included in their precious list.
When the rot is complete and the edifice tumbles? Or when TINA wins, and the voices go silent?
My bet is on the later. Collectively, the money got all 4 aces (and a few more hidden up their
sleaves and a few more hidden in their boots, etc no end of aces.)
Then the silence reigns and TINA is happy. Despair is walled offed into its own echo chamber
and silence is taken for acquiescence and indifference.
Until it doesn't.
Human history just keeps playing the same music. Mind you, big nature might be adding a new
wrinkle to march-of-death tune. Interesting times, very interesting.
Charles Hugh-Smith's response to the "list": "The Washington Post: Useful-Idiot Shills for
a Failed, Frantic Status Quo That Has Lost Control of the Narrative"
"... I look into the latest pathetic attempt by a flailing establishment to bolster their discredited mouthpiece media organs and counter the ascendant alternative media. ..."
"... I appreciate the attempted sleuthing here, but I'm afraid what you uncovered is the business address that Domains By Proxy uses for their registrations. ..."
Yes, corbettreport.com has made this new, mysterious, anonymously-authored "propaganda list"
of websites to watch out for in the era of #FakeNews and Russians under every rock. And yes, the
list is as ridiculous as that sounds. Join me today as
I look into the latest pathetic
attempt by a flailing establishment to bolster their discredited mouthpiece media organs and
counter the ascendant alternative media.
(Spoiler: they're going to lose this battle as
well.)
Our Mission:
We believe that effective Cybersecurity is required to
facilitate economic growth, protect critical infrastructure and
maintain political stability. To accomplish this objective,
SINET is dedicated to building a cohesive, worldwide
Cybersecurity community with the goal of accelerating innovation
through collaboration. SINET is a catalyst that connects senior
level private and government security professionals with
solution providers, buyers, researchers and investors. SINET
sponsors highly interactive networking sessions designed to:
* Introduce leading innovators in the Cybersecurity industry
* Encourage collaboration by breaking down communication
barriers
* Facilitate high level sharing of ideas and best practices
vital to the strengthening and accelerating Cybersecurity
innovations.
SINET Programs in NY, WDC, Silicon Valley and London are
Supported by DHS, Science & Technology Directorate.
Check out his bio:
http://la.cybertechconference.com/content/robert-d-rodriguez
Formerly US Secret Service, works with DHS, UK Government,
Australian Government, US Air Force, etc. "He has been called
upon numerous times by Federal Government Agencies to help
advise and build private sector outreach initiatives with
corporations, the entrepreneurial and venture capital
communities" Just the guy to call to "maintain political
stability" when the Main Stream misinformation networks have
discredited themselves.
And the Cybersponse Chairman, Founder, and CEO Joseph
Loomis
(Mr. Corporate Brand Protection)
https://www.crunchbase.com/person/joseph-loomis#/entity
"Mr. Loomis was previously the founder & CEO of Net Enforcers, a
private online security company focused on counterfeit and
corporate brand protection technology services A formally
licensed Private Investigator, Mr. Loomis is also a cooperative
member with the FBI and DEA's divisions on Cybercrime."
I appreciate the attempted sleuthing here, but I'm afraid
what you uncovered is the business address that Domains By Proxy
uses for their registrations.
For those who don't know,
Domains By Proxy is a business that allows people to register a
website without putting their personal address and contact
details up there for the entire internet to see
, so all of
the info in a DBP registration are DBP corporate details, and
will appear on every site registered with them, including (duh
duh duhhhh)
Now the idea that DBP is tied into a shady NSA and gov-connected
corp like cybersponse is not surprising to me, but it doesn't
tell us anything about PropOrNot.
Okaaaayyyy! I was looking at the "important dates" part
and hadn't even noticed that the rest of the info was exactly
the same
But that's what's so great about this site! As the tired
old saying goes: several heads are better than one: everyone
encouraging, checking, brainstorming, analysing, researching
and rechecking, lighting the way and moving forward together
through this opaque cloud that is the information age!
"... Labeling everyone who dissents or questions the ruling elite's narrative as tools of an enemy power is classic McCarthy-era witch-hunting, i.e. a broad-brush way of marginalizing and silencing critics with an accusation that is easy to fabricate but difficult to prove. ..."
"... The real useful-idiot shills are the editors and hacks paid by the Washington Post, who are busy penning articles such as "Why the electoral college should choose Hillary Clinton". Isn't this fundamentally a call to over-ride the Constitutional framework of the republic's democracy? ..."
"... Substitution is a useful technique to reveal propaganda: if Trump had lost by a thin margin, would the The Washington Post publish an article "Why the electoral college should choose Donald Trump"? ..."
"... The fundamental source of the Post's hysterical accusations is the ruling elite has lost control of the narrative. This is the source of the mainstream media's angst-tinged hysteria and frantic efforts to marginalize and discredit any dissenting narratives that undermine or question the power of a corrupted, self-serving ruling elite that has failed the nation and its citizens. ..."
"... This is why Donald Trump was routinely labeled a Russian shill by the mainstream media during the campaign. ..."
"... Yes and no. The print media is dying. Less than 10% of people now buy a newspaper and their circulation is dropping by about 10% every year. They are also getting thinner as advertising revenue falls and many have ceased publication. This also applies to magazines with many titles now defunct and others just about there (Newsweek). ..."
"... The idea of the ruling elite as a conspiracy in common meaning of the word it is not, since they have no specific plan of action or even specific ultimate objective to be achieved, short of holding onto the power and expand the limits of control by whatever means available. What they use are the methods and techniques of manipulating of the population stratified into the casts or classes via propaganda of the abstract concepts of economic development, political process, social policies, law, religion, science, vertical mobility, sports, nationalism, racism etc., and in the cases when it fails they use raw brutality as the ultimate expression of "innate" morality of their power. ..."
"... Personally I think we would do well to go back to the good old days (pre-Church Commission 1978) when the CIA was allowed to use domestic journalists as assets. In a relative sense their work was much more honest and truthful than what today's Media Barons inflict on the public. ..."
"... Who manipulates the news and tries to sway public opinion? Answer: The 'progressive' wealthy elite. ..."
"... Who monitors every single movement of the average citizen, from his or her shopping and viewing habits to by-the-second GPS location---and then constructs a detailed profile of said citizen? Answer: the Amazons/Facebooks/Apples/Googles of this world. ..."
...My "crime" is a simple one: challenging the ruling elite's narrative. Labeling all dissent
"enemy propaganda" is of course the classic first phase of state-sponsored propaganda and the favorite
tool of well-paid illiberal apologists for an illiberal regime.
Labeling everyone who dissents or questions the ruling elite's narrative as tools of an enemy
power is classic McCarthy-era witch-hunting, i.e. a broad-brush way of marginalizing and silencing
critics with an accusation that is easy to fabricate but difficult to prove.
Such unsupported slander is a classic propaganda technique. It has more in common with Nazi propaganda
than with real journalism.
The real useful-idiot shills are the editors and hacks paid by the Washington Post, who are
busy penning articles such as "Why the electoral college should choose Hillary Clinton". Isn't this
fundamentally a call to over-ride the Constitutional framework of the republic's democracy?
In other words, the ruling elite's candidate lost, so let's subvert democracy to "right this terrible
wrong" that was wrought by fed-up debt-serfs.
Substitution is a useful technique to reveal propaganda: if Trump had lost by a thin margin,
would the The Washington Post publish an article "Why the electoral college should choose Donald
Trump"?
Any site suggesting such an outlandish subversion of American democracy would of course by labeled
Russian-controlled propaganda by The Washington Post. In other words, it's OK for the organs of Imperial
Propaganda to call for the subversion of the Constitution, but if someone else dares to do so, you
know the drill: they're labeled a tool of Russian propaganda.
Just as a reminder, this is the status quo / ruling elite's handiwork The Washington Post shills/propagandists
support: a status quo of institutionalized privilege, corruption and systemically soaring wealth
and income inequality:
The institutionalized impoverishment of non-elite students:
The institutionalized impoverishment of the bottom 99.9%:
The institutionalized impoverishment of everyone below the protected technocrat-insider class
of shills, apparatchiks and professionals
This is what The Washington Post is pushing: a parasitic, predatory, exploitive, ruinously corrupt
and venal ruling class and its army of apologists/lackeys/factotums.
The fundamental source of the Post's hysterical accusations is the ruling elite has lost control
of the narrative. This is the source of the mainstream media's angst-tinged hysteria and frantic
efforts to marginalize and discredit any dissenting narratives that undermine or question the power
of a corrupted, self-serving ruling elite that has failed the nation and its citizens.
This is why Donald Trump was routinely labeled a Russian shill by the mainstream media during
the campaign.
Regardless of what you think of Trump or Clinton, what can we say about a supposedly
responsible media that so cavalierly spews fact-free accusations of foreign control? This is the
height of irresponsible propaganda being passed off as "journalism."
The delicious irony of The Washington Post's hysterical campaign to smear dissenters as tools
of Russian propaganda is that it only serves to discredit the Post itself.
The NYT has been promoting murder and mayhem around the world for years on the pretext of democracy.
Have they ever done an expose on the American tax money that got laundered through the Federal
Reserve to fund the filthy Bolsheviks?
Have they ever done an expose on the narcotics business that fattens the bankbooks of DC screwballs?
Have they ever done an expose on the USS Liberty?
Have they ever done a real expose on anything other than easy targets?
The NYT would never touch a story that would upset their DC feeders.
The NYT is like some kind of gossip paper and a soap opera all rolled up into birdcage liners.
East Indian -> TeamDepends
Nov 27, 2016 12:06 AM
Russians are no longer commies,
And commies are no longer Russians.
Russians are now crony capitalists, and American elite control the American society more than
Stalin ever could control the Russian society.
land_of_the_few -> East Indian
Nov 27, 2016 5:51 AM
The Russians are capitalists now but they are not the Oligarch-robbed dolts the MSM would like
you to believe. It *was* like that in the 90s - a lot of the robber barons were thrown out and now
sit moaning in the West that it's "so unfair", and pretend to be hard-done-by "political" exiles.
These are people who can't comply with enforced post-Yeltsin features such as "actually filling out
compulsory tax returns" for companies and individuals, and "filing company accounts". There is a
capital amnesty scheme where oligarchs can come back with the money they took (normally ftom fraudulent
privatisation and asset-stripping) and do business as long as they actually follow the tax and accounts
rules.
AViewFromDublin -> TeamDepends
Nov 27, 2016 2:03 AM
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Arthur SchopenhauerGerman philosopher (1788 - 1860)
rrrr -> balz Nov 26, 2016 11:54 PM
It is not a question of whether the Washington Post and the New York Times are right or wrong,
or desperate, or smart, or anything like that. Rather, it is only a question of how many people
see it their way, and whether there are enough such people to wield the power the WP and NYT are
trying to bring about. All the posts on this page completely underestimate the potential influence
these powerful entities seek to incite and control. The men behind entities such as these have
been doing such things for a very long time. They have very consistently succeeded. To prevail
they do not have to defeat us permanently all at once. All they have to do is grind us down over
centuries. This they are doing.
effendi -> sun tzu
Nov 27, 2016 4:34 AM
Yes and no. The print media is dying. Less than 10% of people now buy a newspaper and their
circulation is dropping by about 10% every year. They are also getting thinner as advertising
revenue falls and many have ceased publication. This also applies to magazines with many titles
now defunct and others just about there (Newsweek).
20 years ago nearly every commuter had a newspaper, now I rarely see a single paper and most are
playing Scary Bird or watching videos on their phones or pads.
WaPo has fallen from 431,000 in March 2013 to 330,000 in Sept 2015. NYT from 731,000 to 528,000.
Wall St Journal from 1,481,000 to 1,064,000 etc etc. I'll bet that their circulation will continue
to fall and as circulation falls the distribution costs rise per each copy (if a delivery truck
delivers a bundle of newspapers then the cost to deliver is higher than when they delivered 10
bundles). They also have to trim staff and expenses so they also cut back on what investigative
research they can do.
Many no longer even watch TV.
swmnguy
Nov 26, 2016 10:20 PM
That Washington Post story was the single worst story I've seen in a US publication since Judith
Miller's stories pimping the Bush Administration's tales of Iraq's "Weapons of Mass Destruction."
The technique is almost identical. Shady anonymous sources making unsupported allegations. Named
sources not-quite-fully endorsing the allegations, with weasel-words and "seems like," "resembles,"
"may be connected," etc. The language reads to the unaware reader like a careful endorsement of
the allegations, but if you've seen this sort of thing before, you recognize legal advice as to
just how close one can come without exactly lying. One wonders if Cheryl Mills was the source
of such advice. If not her, someone like her.
... ... ...
Oldwood -> Meyer Bauer
Nov 26, 2016 11:24 PM
They know their credibility is gone, so what do they have to lose? And their lies are evermore
extreme and obvious, but is not desperation as much as calculation. All of this is being layered
on top of each other to give context to their public rationalization that will be used to mount
increasingly violent protests. A recount adds credence to these hostilities but an economic quake
in the markets will create more public demand to prevent Trump from taking office than a Hillary
win in the recount. This is about using crisis to justify unconstitutional acts while blaming
Trump for all of it....something could have never done with a simple Hillary win.
The WAPO shills are prostitutes for the global ruling elite and political
establishment that have been horrible embarrassed of losing last shred of
credibility, revealing themselves of buffoons, morons, big fucking mouth
mofos who do not know a shit, not because they lie but cause they are
impotent in shaping public opinion and manipulate outcome of election thru
propaganda lies they are paid for to proliferate and are now in panic that
their bosses will whip their asses hard and fuck them up literally and
metaphorically out of their cushy repugnant and dirty jobs as poor excuses
for journalists, actually abhorrent influence peddlers.But their disdain for
ordinary people and those who picket up fight for them is echoing the
inhumane attitude of their ruling elite bosses.
Here is who are those ruling elite WAPO sold out to and foe whose silver
coin the spew the McCarthyism venom:
Structure of Society vs. Moral Attitudes [of Elites].
Every society consist of a continuously emerging elite, a group of
often interbred families or clans that persuaded themselves that it is
their prerogative to control the rest of society, seen as animalistic
masses, immoral abominations of humanity. They see themselves, whether
they admit it or not, as reluctant saviors of the humanity, against all
odds. Their self-proclaimed objective and perceived necessity is to
become the absolute moral arbiters, life and death decision makers. They
believe that they are Hegelian type "ubermensch", supermen, meant as the
only true humans, the building blocks and foundations of perfect social
order and the power structure able to support it. Hence, to hold the
power is their solemn duty, a burden they must carry for the higher good
of the society at large.
They consider themselves not as much better humans as they just
consider the rest of the humanity as a certain earthly creatures, items
of natural world, a resource to be harvested or exploited in any way they
deem necessary.
Such a attitude permeates all the decision-making processes within
the ruling elite, all understood not as means of survival and dominance
but as a self-sacrifice for the higher end, for higher purposes than
their individual well-being, one of the paranoid delusions deviously
nurtured among themselves.
In their obviously psychopathic or even psychotic state of mind it
is all about the binary moral order, the good and the evil, absolute
truths and absolute values, incomprehensible concepts to those who don't
belong, those unable to achieve the higher state of consciousness beyond
any notion of forethought or petty human concerns. Seen as a matter of
the objective reality, their law is their will and their morality is
their immediate need or benefit, all the other considerations rescinded.
They regard themselves beyond any earthly moral insecurities or doubts as
an expression of the ultimate justice and absolute truth.
What is astounding that all those assertions are not developed and
accepted by the ruling elite as much as dogmas of their rule but rather
as a rational conclusion based on the results of numerous experiments and
detailed observations of the society at large and its behavior. The
ruling elite rationally concludes that their rule is the only thing that
works for all the society.
The idea of the ruling elite as a conspiracy in common meaning of
the word it is not, since they have no specific plan of action or even
specific ultimate objective to be achieved, short of holding onto the
power and expand the limits of control by whatever means available. What
they use are the methods and techniques of manipulating of the population
stratified into the casts or classes via propaganda of the abstract
concepts of economic development, political process, social policies,
law, religion, science, vertical mobility, sports, nationalism, racism
etc., and in the cases when it fails they use raw brutality as the
ultimate expression of "innate" morality of their power.
chindit13
Nov 27, 2016 9:42 AM
Personally I think we would do well to go back to the good old days (pre-Church
Commission 1978) when the CIA was allowed to use domestic journalists as assets. In a relative
sense their work was much more honest and truthful than what today's Media Barons inflict on
the public.
The world really is upside down. Intel agencies are truly the dinosaurs of the modern world,
with little to no relative power.
Who manipulates the news and tries to sway public opinion? Answer: The 'progressive'
wealthy elite.
Who monitors every single movement of the average citizen, from his or her shopping and
viewing habits to by-the-second GPS location---and then constructs a detailed profile of said
citizen? Answer: the Amazons/Facebooks/Apples/Googles of this world.
Everyone looks over his or her shoulder fearing the approach of those who inhabit the world of
shadows, yet freely opens the doors and windows to the real and genuine threat to privacy and
personal freedom. It's like kids who have nightmares of Tyrannosaurus Rex, but think Mark
Zuckerberg is one cool dude.
How I miss the days of trench coats, black fedoras, the quiet back streets of post-war Vienna
on a cloudy late-Autumn afternoon, and the cold comfort of a Walther PPK, all the while
trading shots---vodka and 9mm Kunz/9x18 Makarov---with young Vlad Putin!
The Washington Post has a history of misrepresenting Ron Paul's views. Last year the supposed
newspaper of record ran a feature article by David A. Fahrenthold in which Fahrenthold
grossly mischaracterized Paul as an advocate for calamity, oppression, and poverty - the opposite
of the goals Paul routinely expresses and, indeed, expressed clearly in a speech at the event upon
which Fahrenthold's article purported to report. Such fraudulent attacks on the prominent advocate
for liberty and a noninterventionist foreign policy fall in line with the newspaper's agenda. As
Future of Freedom Foundation President Jacob G. Hornberger put it in a February editorial, the Post's
agenda is guided by "the interventionist mindset that undergirds the mainstream media."
On Thursday, the Post published a new article by Craig Timberg complaining of a "flood" of so-called
fake news supported by "a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading
articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump
and undermining faith in American democracy," To advance this conclusion, Timberg points to PropOrNot,
an organization of anonymous individuals formed this year, as having identified "more than 200 websites
as routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season." Look on the PropOrNot list.
There is the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity's (RPI) website
RonPaulInstitute.org listed among
websites termed "Russian propaganda
outlets."
What you will not find on the PropOrNot website is any particularized analysis of why the RPI
website, or any website for that matter, is included on the list. Instead, you will see only sweeping
generalizations from an anonymous organization. The very popular website drudgereport.com even makes
the list. While listed websites span the gamut of political ideas, they tend to share in common an
independence from the mainstream media.
Timberg's article can be seen as yet another big media attempt to shift the blame for Democratic
presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's loss of the presidential election away from Clinton, her campaign,
and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) that undermined Sen Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) challenge
to Clinton in the Democratic primary.
The article may also be seen as another step in the effort to deter people from looking to alternative
sources of information by labeling those information sources as traitorous or near-traitorous.
At the same time, the article may be seen as playing a role in the ongoing push to increase tensions
between the United States and Russia - a result that benefits people, including those involved in
the military-industrial complex, who
profit from the growth of US "national security" activity in America and overseas.
This is not the first time Ron Paul and his institute has been attacked for sounding pro-Russian
or anti-American. Such attacks have been advanced even by
self-proclaimed libertarians .
Expect that such attacks will continue. They are an effort to tar Paul and his institute so people
will close themselves off from information Paul and RPI provide each day in furtherance of the institute's
mission to continue and expand
Paul's "lifetime of public advocacy for a peaceful foreign policy and the protection of civil liberties
at home." While peace and liberty will benefit most people, powerful interests seek to prevent the
realization of these objectives. Indeed, expect attacks against RPI to escalate as the institute
continues to reach growing numbers of people with its educational effort. This article was
originally published at
The Ron Paul Institute .
The only reason pro-Russian site were sympathetic to Trump is that Hillary was a despicable neocon warmonger,
that could unleash WWIII.
As for eroding faith in US government, "They want to essentially erode faith in the U.S. government
or U.S. government interests," the US government can do this job perfectly well without any assistance
from Russians. Disappearing jobs and stagnant paychecks does not increase faith in the government.
And DemoRats and especially Obama "bait and switch" maneuver (open betray of working people interests
after the election, despite promises during the election campaign) essentially put him among the most
despicable figures in the US political spectrum. Even die in wool republicans look somewhat more honest.
They at least do not hide their despise for common folk and openly propose to milk them as hard as possible.
Notable quotes:
"... They want to essentially erode faith in the U.S. government or U.S. government interests," said Clint Watts, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who along with two other researchers has tracked Russian propaganda since 2014. "This was their standard mode during the Cold War. The problem is that this was hard to do before social media ..."
"... Another group, called PropOrNot, a nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and technology backgrounds, planned to release its own findings Friday showing the startling reach and effectiveness of Russian propaganda campaigns. ..."
"... PropOrNot's monitoring report, which was provided to The Washington Post in advance of its public release, identifies more than 200 websites as routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season, with combined audiences of at least 15 million Americans. On Facebook, PropOrNot estimates that stories planted or promoted by the disinformation campaign were viewed more than 213 million times. ..."
" They want to essentially erode faith in the U.S. government or U.S. government interests,"
said Clint Watts, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who along with two other researchers
has tracked Russian propaganda since 2014. "This was their standard mode during the Cold War. The
problem is that this was hard to do before social media ."
Watts's report on this work, with colleagues Andrew Weisburd and J.M. Berger, appeared on the
national security online magazine War on the Rocks this month under the headline "
Trolling for Trump: How Russia Is Trying to Destroy Our Democracy. " Another
group, called PropOrNot, a nonpartisan collection of researchers with foreign policy, military and
technology backgrounds, planned to release its own findings Friday showing the startling reach and
effectiveness of Russian propaganda campaigns.
The researchers used Internet analytics tools to trace the origins of particular tweets and mapped
the connections among social-media accounts that consistently delivered synchronized messages. Identifying
website codes sometimes revealed common ownership. In other cases, exact phrases or sentences were
echoed by sites and social-media accounts in rapid succession, signaling membership in connected
networks controlled by a single entity.
PropOrNot's monitoring report, which was provided to The Washington Post in advance of its
public release, identifies more than 200 websites as routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during
the election season, with combined audiences of at least 15 million Americans. On Facebook, PropOrNot
estimates that stories planted or promoted by the disinformation campaign were viewed more than 213
million times.
[Could better Internet security have prevented Trump's win?]
Some players in this online echo chamber were knowingly part of the propaganda campaign, the researchers
concluded, while others were "useful idiots" - a term born of the Cold War to describe people or
institutions that unknowingly assisted Soviet Union propaganda efforts.
"... A business-oriented president could be helpful in this intellectual world, too, by taking actions like doubling the budget for the National Science Foundation, which was created in 1950 when Harry S. Truman was president, and infusing the National Institutes of Health, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities with more cash. ..."
Shiller is wrong -- sky high salaries are result of neoliberalism and are part of wealth redistribution toward top 1%.
Trumo with his "bastard neoliberalism" (neoliberalism without globalization) will not change that.
He is also somewhat hostile to government agences.
A businessman with a lifetime of experience in management has been elected president of the
United States. Donald J. Trump's administration may be viewed as an experiment - an opportunity
to discover whether one particular businessman's perspective and skills will be assets in
governing a nation.
Mr. Trump's background evidently appealed to voters, but he should be careful not to be
overconfident. His election may be a culmination of a trend in society of lionizing business
stars and expecting too much of them.
We've seen this phenomenon in the outlandish salaries paid to top chief executives and in the
public enthusiasm for them. Rakesh Khurana, dean of Harvard College, described the trend
eloquently in his book "Searching for a Corporate Savior: The Irrational Quest for Charismatic
C.E.O.s" (Princeton, 2002). He discerned a long trend in American business toward choosing chief
executives from outside a company and paying them handsomely for some presumed business flair
despite their ignorance of the long-term internal issues facing a company.
Professor Khurana warned that expecting these people to perform acts of genius was asking for
trouble. The charismatic outsider tends to become authoritarian, alienating others in the
company. The executive's desperate efforts to live up to their promise may sometimes result in
wild gambles. There are grounds for concern that President Trump could be this kind of outsider
chief executive.
Mr. Trump has a number of business books to his name, all written with co-authors. Often these
books are amusing, if simplistic and boastful. "How to Get Rich" (Random House, 2004, written
with Meredith McIver) has advice like "Business Rule #1: If you don't tell people about your
success, they probably won't know about it," "Business Rule #2: Keep it short, fast and direct"
and "Business Rule #3: Begin working at a young age. I did." Maybe these nostrums are important
for Mr. Trump but they seem to have little to do with making a country rich.
But there is still possibly another, more interesting strand in his advice: Mr. Trump's
admonition to be ambitious.
"How to Get Rich" also includes a "final rule," "Think big and live large." The book says: "In
some ways, it's easier to buy a skyscraper than a small house in a bad section of Brooklyn." I've
actually been giving a version of this advice for years to my students: Go for big ideas and
avoid the trivia. My version of big and Mr. Trump's are different, of course: He is known for his
large, splashy buildings, while I try to encourage out-of-the-box economic ideas. Big ideas can
lead to great things when they are encouraged, perhaps especially by a president.
Ambitious thinking led to big infrastructure projects like the Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge
and La Guardia Airport, the kinds of projects we could use today. It also led to intellectual and
humane triumphs, like the Dorothea Lange photo record of poverty in America, financed by the New
Deal program the Farm Security Administration. Those stunning images gave dignity to the people
of that difficult time.
A business-oriented president could be helpful in this intellectual world, too, by taking
actions like doubling the budget for the National Science Foundation, which was created in 1950
when Harry S. Truman was president, and infusing the National Institutes of Health, the National
Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities with more cash.
But of
course a president must resist the temptation to meddle in their grant-making process. These are
democratic institutions and must stay that way.
"... For various reasons these days, the entire American media is extraordinarily hostile to Russia, certainly much more so than it ever was toward the Communist Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s. ..."
"... Indeed, we are constantly bombarded with stories of alleged Russian conspiracies that appear to be "false positives," dire allegations seemingly having little factual basis or actually being totally ridiculous. Meanwhile, even the crudest sort of anti-Russian conspiracy might easily occur without receiving any serious mainstream media notice or investigation. ..."
In fact, I would extend this notion to a general principle. Substantial control of the media is
almost always an absolute prerequisite for any successful conspiracy, the greater the degree of
control the better. So when weighing the plausibility of any conspiracy, the first matter to
investigate is who controls the local media and to what extent.
Let us consider a simple thought-experiment.
For various reasons these days, the entire
American media is extraordinarily hostile to Russia, certainly much more so than it ever was toward
the Communist Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s.
Hence I would argue that the likelihood
of any large-scale Russian conspiracy taking place within the operative zone of those media organs
is virtually nil.
Indeed, we are constantly bombarded with stories of alleged Russian
conspiracies that appear to be "false positives," dire allegations seemingly having little factual
basis or actually being totally ridiculous. Meanwhile, even the crudest sort of anti-Russian
conspiracy might easily occur without receiving any serious mainstream media notice or
investigation.
This argument may be more than purely hypothetical. A crucial turning point in America's renewed
Cold War against Russia was the passage of the 2012 Magnitsky Act by Congress, punitively targeting
various supposedly corrupt Russian officials for their alleged involvement in the illegal
persecution and death of an employee of Bill Browder, an American hedge-fund manager with large
Russian holdings. However, there's actually
quite a bit of evidence
that it was Browder himself who was actually the mastermind and
beneficiary of the gigantic corruption scheme, while his employee was planning to testify against
him and was therefore fearful of his life for that reason. Naturally, the American media has
provided scarcely a single mention of these remarkable revelations regarding what might amount to a
gigantic
Magnitsky Hoax
of geopolitical significance.
"... Bannon is targeted because the left knows he is dangerous. ..."
"... Internally Bannon is the keeper of the Trump flame and must be a protector of the Trump agenda. ..."
"... To be a great president Trump must deliver on his core promises of sealing our boarders, recharging economy, renegotiating the detrimental globalist trade deals upgrading veterans healthcare to be the finest in the world, creating a job boom in our inner cities while conducting a foreign policy that keeps us out of war while entering a new period of detente and hardheaded negotiations with Putin and the Russians that will enable us to work in coordination to crush our mutual enemy ISIS. ..."
Bannon is targeted because the left knows
he is dangerous. Bannon has a keen understanding of alternative media and the Internet. Bannon
understands the greater cultural divides and developments in the electorate which made the Trump
victory possible. Bannon also knows that the Trump administration must not be co-opted by the
party establishment types or the neocons who's war policies Trump disagrees with. Internally Bannon
is the keeper of the Trump flame and must be a protector of the Trump agenda.
To be a great president Trump must deliver
on his core promises of sealing our boarders, recharging economy, renegotiating the detrimental
globalist trade deals upgrading veterans healthcare to be the finest in the world, creating a
job boom in our inner cities while conducting a foreign policy that keeps us out of war while
entering a new period of detente and hardheaded negotiations with Putin and the Russians that
will enable us to work in coordination to crush our mutual enemy ISIS.
"... British MEP James Carver noted the report is "worryingly reminiscent of the Cold War." ..."
"... Moscow has never prevented anyone from making reports from Russia based on their contents and ideology, the diplomat said, adding that it now might be forced to act accordingly and respond to the EU's moves if Russian journalists are oppressed in the West. "It's not our choice, and we don't want to fuel tensions," she said. ..."
"... Moscow earlier said it would be forced to take reciprocal steps to the EU lawmakers' "unfriendly actions." ..."
In the Wednesday vote, 304 MEPs supported the resolution based on the report 'EU strategic communication
to counteract propaganda against it by third parties', with 179 voting against it and 208 abstaining.
... ... ...
Before the Wednesday vote, the document had been criticized by some MEPs, who called it both "insane"
and "ridiculous." The EU "desperately needs an enemy, be it Russia or any other," that it can blame
for any of its own failures, French MEP Jean-Luc Schaffhaueser told RT. Spanish MEP Javier Couso
Permuy said "it fosters hysteria against Russia," while British MEP James Carver noted the report
is "worryingly reminiscent of the Cold War."
The Russian authorities have always treated foreign media working in Russia with respect, and
have "never discriminated" against journalists from other countries, Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman
Maria Zakharova said in an interview with Rossiya 1 TV channel.
Moscow has never prevented anyone from making reports from Russia based on their contents and
ideology, the diplomat said, adding that it now might be forced to act accordingly and respond to
the EU's moves if Russian journalists are oppressed in the West. "It's not our choice, and we don't
want to fuel tensions," she said.
Moscow earlier said it would be forced to take reciprocal steps to the EU lawmakers' "unfriendly
actions." Having called the MEPs' move "cynical," the Russian Federation Council member on international
affairs, Igor Morozov, said that European lawmakers "should be aware that their unfriendly actions"
would cause a "very tough response" from Moscow.
It seems long gone are the days when the corporate media could label anti-establishment information
as a "conspiracy theory" if they wanted their viewers to ignore it. However, with
more than half of the US population believing in these so-called "
conspiracy theories ," the new moniker of the establishment for information they don't want you
to see has become "fake news."
Since the election's "surprise" outcome, the corporate media has railed against their alternative
competitors
labeling them as "fake" while their own frequently flawed, misleading, and false stories are
touted as "real" news. World leaders have now begun calling out "fake news" in a desperate attempt
to lend legitimacy to the corporate media, which continues to receive dismal approval ratings from
the American public. Out-going US president Barack Obama
was the first to speak out against the danger of "misinformation," though he failed to mention
the several instances where
he himself lied and spread misinformation to the American public.
Now, the European Union has also effectively declared war on anti-establishment information as
a wave of populism threatens the super-state's survival. German Chancellor Angela Merkel
has now joined Obama in speaking out against "fake news," saying that such "misinformation" was
manipulating public opinion on the internet. She also said that the growth of movements critical
of her policies had been caused by these "fake" sites, saying "we must confront this phenomenon and
if necessary, regulate it." Merkel also cited "concerns about the stability of our familiar order"
for her criticisms of "fake news." Merkel, whose opposing party is
set to make major gains in the next German election, stands to gain much from the censorship
of alternative view points.
As Merkel launched Europe's war against "fake news," the EU parliament just
passed a resolution
that calls for the EU to "respond to information warfare," particularly Russian "propaganda"
from alternative news websites like Russia Today (RT) which receive Russian-government funding.
RT and Sputnik news agencies were named directly as the most dangerous "tools of
Russian propaganda." The resolution blames Moscow for the rise of populism in Europe, saying that
by providing viewpoints that diverge from the corporate media's narrative it has sought to "incite
fear and divide Europe." Apparently
the mishandling of the refugee crisis , the EU's
decision
to eliminate the self-determination of certain issues by member nations, or the EU's move
to create an
EU super army were no match for "Russian propaganda" in creating widespread disillusionment with
the European Union's current policies.
The resolution also mentioned Russian media organizations alongside terrorist groups such as
the Islamic State , which led
several
MEPs to call the resolution "ridiculous" and as fostering
anti-Russian hysteria . As a result of the resolution's passage, EU member states are expected
to "boost financing" for "counter-propaganda projects." It seems clear that the EU and the rest of
the Western establishment has learned nothing from the decline of the corporate media as state-sanctioned
propaganda is not having the same effect it used to. It's about time.
What are your thoughts? Please comment below and share this news!
For them neocon/neoliberal propaganda 24/7 is OK, but anti-neoliberalism, anti-neoconservatism information, which sometimes is pro-Russian propaganda is not.
Viva to McCarthyism! The hint is that you do not have a choice -- Big Brother is watching you like
in the USSR. Anti-Russian propaganda money in action. It is interesting that Paul Craig Roberts who
served in Reagan administration is listed as "left-wing"... Tell me who is your ally (
Bellingcat) and I will tell who you are...
As Moon of Alabama noted "I wholeheartedly
recommend to use the list
that new anonymous censorship entity provides as your new or additional "Favorite Bookmarks" list. It
includes illustrious financial anti-fraud sites like Yves Smith's
Naked Capitalism ,
Wikileaks , well informed libertarian sites
like Ron Paul and
AntiWar.com and leftish old timers like
Counterpunch . Of general (non-mainstream)
news sites Consortiumnews , run by Robert
Parry who revealed the Iran-contra crimes, is included as well as
Truthdig and
Truth-out.org ."
Extended list is here
It a real horror to see how deep pro Russian propaganda penetrated the US society ;-) This newly minted
site lists as allies, and with such allies you can reliably tell who finance it
Look like some guys from Soviet Politburo propaganda department make it to the USA :-) The site
definitely smells with
McCarthyism -- the practice
of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence. Which
was the standard way of suppressing dissidents in the USSR. So this is really "Back in the
USSR" type of sites.
But the list definitely has value: the sites listed are mostly anti-establishment, anti status-quo, anti-neocon/neolib sites not so much pro-Russian.
After all Russia is just another neoliberal state, although they deviate from Washington consensus
and do not want to be a puppet of the USA, which is the key requirement for the full acceptable into
the club of "Good neoliberal states". Somehow this list can be called
the list of anti US Imperialism sites or anti--war sites. And this represents the value of the list as people may
not know about their existence.
The new derogatory label for the establishment for information they don't want you to see has become
"fake news." Conspiracy theories do nto work well anymore. That aqures some patina of respectability
with age :-). "Since the election's "surprise" outcome, the corporate media has railed against their
alternative competitors
labeling them as "fake" while their own frequently flawed, misleading, and false stories are touted
as "real" news. World leaders have now begun calling out "fake news" in a desperate attempt to lend
legitimacy to the corporate media, which continues to receive dismal approval ratings from the American
public. Out-going US president Barack Obama
was the first to speak out against the danger of "misinformation," though he failed to mention the
several instances where he himself
lied and spread misinformation to the American public."
The most crazy inclusion is probably Baltimore Gazette. Here how editors define its mission: "Baltimore Gazette is Baltimore's oldest
US news source and one of the longest running
daily newspapers published in the United States. With a focus on local content, the Gazette thrives
to maintain a non-partisan newsroom making their our content the most reliable source available in print and
across the web."
PropOrNot is an independent team of concerned American citizens (an
independent from whom? Concerned about what ? Looks like they are very dependent and so so
much concerned, Playing pro-establishment card is always safe game -- NNB) with a wide range of backgrounds
and expertise, including professional experience in computer science, statistics, public policy,
and national security affairs. We are currently volunteering time and skills to identify propaganda
- particularly Russian propaganda - targeting a U.S. audience. We collect public-record information
connecting propaganda outlets to each other and their coordinators abroad, analyze what we find,
act as a central repository and point of reference for related information, and organize efforts
to oppose it. 2 We formed PropOrNot as an effort to prevent propaganda from distorting U.S. political
and policy discussions (they want it to be distorted in their own
specific pro-neoliberal way --NNB).
We hope to strengthen our cultural immune systems against hostile influence (there is another
name for that -- it is usually called brainwashing --NNB) and improve public
discourse generally. However, our immediate aim at this point is to empower the American voter and
decrease the ability of Russia to influence the ensuing American election.
paulcraigroberts.org --
this is the fierce anti-establishment site which was created by former highly placed
official in Reagan administration Paul Craig Roberts.
ronpaulinstitute.org --
major libertarian anti-war site of former presidential candidate Ron Paul, who in the past was
the only candidate with realistic and anti-neocon foreign policy platorm. Highly recommended.
President-elect Donald Trump recently had an 'off the record' meeting with members of the American
press, aka mainstream media. Such events are not unusual for presidents and future presidents, but
according to a variety anonymous sources, Donald Trump has not extended an olive branch to media
figures who displayed their open bias against him throughout the campaign. >
According to The Hill, Trump said that being in front of the mainstream media was like, "Being
in front of a fucking firing squad". Other sources claim he repeatedly said that he was in a
"room full of liars". If he indeed said either of those things, it is difficult to disagree
with such an assessment. He also claimed that he "hated" CNN, feelings which seem self-evidently
mutual.
According to the generally anti-Trump Politico, the President-elect blasted NBC for using unflattering
photographs of him throughout their coverage.
Whether or not these reports are fully accurate is beside the point. Frankly, why would one trust
off the record comments from people who publicly slandered Trump on the record and did so without
a hint of shame.
What is more significant is what Trump said about his use of social media during his lengthy interview
on CBS's 60 Minutes. Here, Trump said that social media is an effective way to bypass big-media
and speak directly to the public. He also stated that it is a quick, cheap and effective way to clarify
misstatements made by the mainstream media.
This is unequivocally true and it is heartening. To think that a small smartphone has the ability
to reach as many and at times even more people than the mainstream media with their millions of dollars
worth of cameras, microphones, lights, sets, drivers, vehicles, offices and staff, is a sign that
the world is no longer beholden to the arrogant gatekeepers of news, perhaps better referred to as
"fake news".
Donald Trump was indeed given a very unfair time by the media and he has no reason to forget nor
forgive. He also has no reason to placate them, and frankly due to the power of new-media, online
media and his own highly effective use of social media, he doesn't need them.
They are relics of the past and he is a symbol of the future.
Steven Barry
The alt-media is the samizdat (google it) of the internet age. The genie is out of the
bottle and there is no putting it back.
Simon
Excellent. Yet even 'IF' the reports of this meeting are exaggerated, there is a fact that
is undeniable; The new President is holding Court in his own palace, on top of his own castle,
in New York.
All the supplicants are coming to him. Even the Japanese Prime minister. He sits there in the
economic capital of the USA rather than being in Washington - where presumably something like
the HQ of the Republican Party would be the more normal venue for a president-elect.
Far away in the DC Swamp (which voted 94% Hillary) the politicians, the hacks, the lobbyists
the 'professionals' are in panic - there's no way to meet him, no way to do lunch at 30mins
notice. All they have is the tragic ghost of BHO wandering around the White House, but the
glitz the zeitgeist the locus is now at Trump Tower. Every day we see its lobby and the golden
lift in the news.
Many believe nothing will change, but so far there are plenty signs that it has.
tom > Simon
Let's hope the Trump Tower doesn't get 9/11'd.
le-DeplorableFroggy > tom
As long as the Mossad terrorists are kept OUT of the US from now on, and every zionist
stooge is either locked up or thrown OUT of this country, NO more israHell/Mossad false flags
in the US.
● How Ehud Barak Pulled Off 9-11 - (bollyn dot com/how-ehud-barak-pulled-off-9-11-2)
● MADE IN ISRAEL - 9-11 and the Jewish Plot Against America PDF - (shop.americanfreepress dot
net/store/c/25-Israel.html)
● 9-11 EVIL - Israel's Central Role in the September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks - (shop.americanfreepress
dot net/store/c/25-Israel.html)
● Get the Hell Out of Our Country! Parts 1 to 5 - (veteranstoday dot
com/2015/02/05/get-the-hell-out-of-our-country/)
● Israel a cornered rat - "In 10 years there will be no more Israel" - Henry 'Balloonie'
Kizzinger - (darkmoon dot me/2014/israel-a-cornered-rat/)
● Netanyahu tells ministers not to talk to Trump's people - (theuglytruth.wordpress dot
com/2016/11/21/netanyahu-tells-ministers-not-to-talk-to-trumps-people/#more-162166)
7.62x54r 3 days ago
US media ( and other NATO media ) are propagandists. The US Big 6 should have their
licenses yanked for putting forth a flawed and wholly dishonest product. Screw them.
FRIEDMAN: What do you see as America's role in the world? Do you believe that the role
TRUMP: That's such a big question.
FRIEDMAN: The role that we played for 50 years as kind of the global balancer, paying more for
things because they were in our ultimate interest, one hears from you, I sense, is really shrinking
that role.
TRUMP: I don't think we should be a nation builder. I think we've tried that. I happen to think
that going into Iraq was perhaps I mean you could say maybe we could have settled the civil war,
O.K.? I think going into Iraq was one of the great mistakes in the history of our country. I think
getting out of it - I think we got out of it wrong, then lots of bad things happened, including the
formation of ISIS. We could have gotten out of it differently.
FRIEDMAN: NATO, Russia?
TRUMP: I think going in was a terrible, terrible mistake. Syria, we have to solve that problem
because we are going to just keep fighting, fighting forever. I have a different view on Syria than
everybody else. Well, not everybody else, but then a lot of people. I had to listen to [Senator]
Lindsey Graham, who, give me a break. I had to listen to Lindsey Graham talk about, you know, attacking
Syria and attacking, you know, and it's like you're now attacking Russia, you're attacking Iran,
you're attacking. And what are we getting? We're getting - and what are we getting? And I have some
very definitive, I have some very strong ideas on Syria. I think what's happened is a horrible, horrible
thing. To look at the deaths, and I'm not just talking deaths on our side, which are horrible, but
the deaths - I mean you look at these cities, Arthur, where they're totally, they're rubble, massive
areas, and they say two people were injured. No, thousands of people have died. O.K. And I think
it's a shame. And ideally we can get - do something with Syria. I spoke to Putin, as you know, he
called me, essentially
UNKNOWN: How do you see that relationship?
TRUMP: Essentially everybody called me, all of the major leaders, and most of them I've spoken
to.
FRIEDMAN: Will you have a reset with Russia?
TRUMP: I wouldn't use that term after what happened, you know, previously. I think - I would love
to be able to get along with Russia and I think they'd like to be able to get along with us. It's
in our mutual interest. And I don't go in with any preconceived notion, but I will tell you, I would
say - when they used to say, during the campaign, Donald Trump loves Putin, Putin loves Donald Trump,
I said, huh, wouldn't it be nice, I'd say this in front of thousands of people, wouldn't it be nice
to actually report what they said, wouldn't it be nice if we actually got along with Russia, wouldn't
it be nice if we went after ISIS together, which is, by the way, aside from being dangerous, it's
very expensive, and ISIS shouldn't have been even allowed to form, and the people will stand up and
give me a massive hand. You know they thought it was bad that I was getting along with Putin or that
I believe strongly if we can get along with Russia that's a positive thing. It is a great thing that
we can get along with not only Russia but that we get along with other countries.
JOSEPH KAHN, managing editor: On Syria, would you mind, you said you have a very strong idea about
what to do with the Syria conflict, can you describe that for us?
TRUMP: I can only say this: We have to end that craziness that's going on in Syria. One of the
things that was told to me - can I say this off the record, or is everything on the record?
isn't impressed with Trump's national security appointments so far. Here he comments on Flynn's
views:
Iran is another subject on which Flynn displays far more simplistically expressed emotion than
any careful attention to facts and the pros and cons of U.S. policy options. His attitude is demonstrated
in
Congressional testimony in June 2015, which can be fairly summarized as saying that Iran is
bad in every respect and we should have no dealings with it on anything. (Jim Lobe
has
collated some of the lowlights from this statement). Flynn stated that "regime change in Tehran
is the best way to stop the Iranian nuclear weapons program"-with no further elaboration on how
this would be brought about, leaving us to suppose that it is the Iraq 2003 model. He has given
no indication since then of dropping his blanket opposition to the negotiated agreement that limits
Iran's nuclear program and has successfully been in operation for more than a year, nor does he
show any awareness of the U.S. intelligence community's public judgment that Iran had stopped
any nuclear weapons program several years before he was testifying.
Among other things, Flynn claims to know that "Iran has every intention of building a nuclear
weapon" despite the fact that their government abandoned any attempt to do so over a decade ago.
He claims that Iran's government has stated this intention "many times," but the truth is that their
government has consistently denied ever seeking to build such a weapon. Many of the things that Flynn
asserts in his testimony are demonstrably untrue, but they are part of a pattern of consistently
exaggerating the threat from Iran and ignoring evidence that contradicts his alarmist assessments.
Later in his testimony, he says this about Iran's relations with certain other states:
Just look at the cooperation with North Korea, China and Russia. Connect those dots, and you
get the outline of a global alliance aimed at the U.S., our friends, and our allies.
This is not a case of "connecting dots" at all. It is an invention of an "alliance" where none
exists on the basis of some very weak evidence. There is some limited cooperation between these states,
but they are not allies nor do they regularly work together as if they were. We see in Flynn's testimony
a nod towards the imaginary global "alliance" that Flynn and Ledeen concoct in their book (here is
a
video of the co-authors talking about the book from earlier this year), so this is a view that
he already held over a year ago. That brings me back to the conclusion I
reached over the summer when I first started writing about Flynn:
The fact that he believes (or claims to believe) things as obviously false global "alliance"
of villains should make it clear that he is happy to indulge and recycle extremely dangerous and
foolish ideological talking points. That's not someone any of us should want working in or advising
a future administration.
Unfortunately, he will be advising the next president in a very influential position, and we should
have no illusions about the quality of advice Flynn will be giving him.
But as an investigation published by Truthout in 2011
revealed , the target list that JSOC used for its "night raids" and other operations to kill
supposed Taliban was based on a fundamentally flawed methodology that was inherently incapable of
distinguishing between Taliban insurgents and civilians who had only tangential contacts with the
Taliban organization. And it was Flynn who devised that methodology.
The "night raids" on Afghan homes based on Flynn's methodology caused so much Afghan anger toward
Americans that Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan, acknowledged the problem
of Afghan antagonism toward the entire program publicly in a March 2010 directive.
The system that led to that Afghan outrage began to take shape in Iraq in 2006, when Flynn, then-intelligence
chief for JSOC, developed a new methodology for identifying and locating al-Qaeda and Shia Mahdi
Army members in Iraq. Flynn revealed the technologies used in Iraq in an
unclassified article published in 2008.
At the center of the system was what Flynn called the "Unblinking Eye," referring to 24-hour drone
surveillance of specific locations associated with "known and suspected terrorist sites and individuals."
The drone surveillance was then used to establish a "pattern of life analysis," which was the main
tool used to determine whether to strike the target. We now know from reports of drone strikes in
Pakistan that killed entire groups of innocent people that "pattern of life analysis" is frequently
a matter of guesswork that is completely wrong.
Flynn's unclassified article also revealed that "SIGINT" (signals intelligence), i.e., the monitoring
of cell phone metadata, and "geo-location" of phones were the other two major tools used in Flynn's
system of targeting military strikes. JSOC was using links among cell phones to identify suspected
insurgents.
Flynn's article suggested that the main emphasis in intelligence for targeting in Iraq was on
providing analysis of the aerial surveillance visual intelligence on a target to help decide in real
time whether to carry out a strike on it.
But when McChrystal took command of US forces in Afghanistan in mid-2009 and took Flynn with him
as his intelligence chief, Flynn's targeting methodology changed dramatically. JSOC had already begun
to carry out "night raids" in Afghanistan -- usually attacks on private homes in the middle of the
night -- and McChrystal wanted to increase the tempo of those raids. The number of night raids
increased from 20 per month in May 2009 to 90 per month six months later. It reached an average
of
more than 100 a month in the second half of 2009 and the first half of 2010.
At this point, the targets were no longer Taliban commanders and higher-ups in the organization.
They included people allegedly doing basic functions such as logistics, bomb-making and propaganda.
In order to rapidly build up the highly secret "kill/capture" list (called the "Joint Prioritized
Effects List," or JPEL) to meet McChrystal's demands for more targets, Flynn used a technique called
"link analysis." This technique involved the use of software that allowed intelligence analysts to
see the raw data from drone surveillance and cell phone data transformed instantly into a "map" of
the insurgent "network." That "map" of each network associated with surveillance of a location became
the basis for adding new names to the JPEL.
Flynn could increase the number of individual "nodes" on that map by constantly adding more cell
phone metadata for the computer-generated "map" of the insurgency. Every time JSOC commandos killed
or captured someone, they took their cell phones to add their metadata to the database. And US intelligence
also gathered cell phone data from the population of roughly 3,300 suspected insurgents being held
in the Afghan prison system, who were allowed to use mobile phones freely in their cells.
What the expansion of cell phone data surveillance meant was that an ever-greater proportion of
the targets on Flynn's "kill/capture list" were not identified at all, except as mobile phone numbers.
As Matthew Hoh, who served as the senior US civilian official in Zabul Province until he quit in
protest in September 2009, explained to me, "When you are relying on cell phones for intelligence,
you don't get the names of those targeted."
There was no requirement for any effort to establish the actual identity of the targets listed
as cell phone numbers in order to guard against mistakes.
What made Flynn's methodology for expanding the kill/capture list even riskier was that there
was no requirement for any effort to establish the actual identity of the targets listed as cell
phone numbers in order to guard against mistakes.
Using such a methodology in the Afghan socio-political context guaranteed that a high proportion
of those on the kill/capture list were innocent civilians. As former deputy to the European Union
special representative to Afghanistan Michael Semple (one of the few genuine experts in the world
on the Taliban movement) explained to me, most Afghans in the Pashtun south and east of Afghanistan
"have a few Taliban commander numbers saved to their mobile phone contacts" as a "survival mechanism."
Nader Nadery, a commissioner of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission in 2010, estimated
that the total civilian deaths for all 73 night raids about which the commission had complaints that
year was 420. But the commission acknowledged that it didn't have access to most of the districts
dominated by the Taliban. So the actual civilian toll may well have been many times that number --
meaning that civilians may have accounted for more than half of the 2,000 alleged "Taliban" killed
in JSOC's operations in 2010.
The percentage of innocent people among those who were captured and incarcerated was even higher.
In December 2010, the US command in Afghanistan leaked to a friendly blogger that 4,100 "Taliban"
had been captured in the previous six months. But an unclassified February 5, 2011, internal document
of the Combined Joint Inter-Agency Task Force responsible for detention policy in Afghanistan, which
I obtained later in 2011, showed that only 690 Afghans were admitted to the US detention facility
at Parwan during that six-month period. Twenty percent of those were later released upon review of
their files. So alleged evidence of participation in the Taliban insurgency could not have existed
for more than 552 people at most, or 14 percent of the total number said to have been captured. But
many of those 552 were undoubtedly innocent as well.
basarov
9 hours ago
Porter is either a paid CIA/dimocrat party shill or perhaps extraordinarily stupid.
It was OBAMA who implemented the vaunted 'surge" and flooded Afghanistan with an extra 30,000
US mercenaries. And I believe that obama was the US leader in 2009. To whine about a 3 star general,
under orders to carry out an obama policy and then blame Trump by association reminds one of a
3 year old trying to make sense of Kabuki....surreal or simply delusional?
We see that america needs a police state oligarchy; americans cannot distinguish between bovine
excreta and caviar.
And so did the American people by sitting in the passive bubble of patriotism while we continue
to scorch the Earth with imperialism abroad while having a surveillance state at home. We are
ALL guilty!
Ultimately, isn't it Obama, as commander-in-chief, who's responsible for the dirty work of his
team of assassins in JSOC? As far as I know, Obama is not out of office yet...
I don't know why we are there or in Iraq. It was the Saudi families and Saudi funding that created
the terrorism of 9-11. It was the Bush Admin NeoCons and the Neoliberal philosopy that created
the longest war in our history. It is entirely coincidental that this war like Vietnam inflicts
its greatest toll on a bunch of impoverished villagers.
Thanks for mentioning Viet Nam. Flynn appears to have been cut from the same cloth as Gen. Wm.
Westmoreland, who first brought us "victory" by body count.
Former Congressman and Libertarian icon Ron Paul has warned that 'shadow government' neocons could
orchestrate a 'false flag' incident in order to drag new president Donald Trump into a fresh war.
"I don't how anybody can say they know what is going to happen," Paul told
The Daily Caller, referring to Trump's foreign policy.
"All we need is a false flag and an accident and everybody will be for teaching them a lesson,"
Paul said, warning that such an event could trigger new foreign entanglement.
"The neocons always talked about it before 9/11 they kept saying, 'we aren't going to get our
program in until we have a Pearl Harbor event,'" the former congressman stated, stopping short of
saying he believes those attacks were staged.
"I think other countries could use false flags." Paul also added.
Paul also warned that a shadow government will continue to operate when Trump is president, just
as it did during Obama's time in office.
"Obama probably was much more attune to a different foreign policy of less aggression but why
then does he do it?" Paul said.
"I think there's the shadow government, the military-industrial complex, the CIA, and all the
things that can be done because they just melt away and they do exactly what the establishment says."
the former Congressman added.
Paul warned that those within the shadow government are seeking to influence Trump now.
"He's very friendly with a lot of them right now, he's talking to them," Paul said, adding that
"We don't have a final answer, we have to wait to see who get's appointed."
"He doesn't talk about blowback and coming out of these countries. He has a better policy with
Russia but I think he still is talking with the neoconservatives." Paul also stated.
"The deep state is very very powerful and they have a lot of control," Paul said, adding "That
is one of my big issues about how shadow government is so powerful in all administrations."
Earlier this month, Paul
issued the same warnings, saying that neocons and shadow government figures are going to attempt
to infiltrate and influence Trump's presidency and prevent him from achieving successful change.
"The Trump campaign, meanwhile, delved into message tailoring, sentiment manipulation and
machine learning." - Oh, please, this sounds like a stereotypical Google-centric view of things.
They of course left out the most important part of the campaign, the key to its inception, which
could be described in terms like "The Trump campaign, meanwhile, actually noticed the widespread
misery and non-recovery in the parts of the US outside the elite coastal bubbles and DC beltway,
and spotted a yuuuge political opportunity." In other words, not sentiment manipulation that
was, after all, the Dem-establishment-MSM-wall-street-and-the-elite-technocrats' "America is already
great, and anyone who denies it is deplorable!" strategy of manufactured consent so much as
actual *reading* of sentiment. Of course if one insisted on remaining inside a protective elite
echo chamber and didn't listen to anything Trump or the attendees actually said in those huge
flyover-country rallies that wasn't captured in suitably outrageous evening-news soundbites, it
was all too easy to believe one's own hype.
" former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who has known Trump socially for decades and
is currently advising the president-elect on foreign policy issues " - I really, really hope this
is just Hammerin' Hank tooting his own horn, as he and his sycophants in the FP establishment
and MSM are wont to do.
"Trump dumps the TPP: conservatives rue strategic fillip to China" (Guardian)
Another wedge angle for Trumps new-found RINO "friends" to play. Trump will have as many problems
with Ayn Ryan Congress as Obama/Clinton on economic issues.
"The TPP excludes China, which declined to join, proposing its own rival version, the Regional
Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which excludes the US." You see, it is all China's
fault. No info presented on why China "declined" to join.
And if Abe's Japan were really an independent country, they'd pick up the TPP baton and sell
it to China.
Former Congressman and Libertarian icon Ron Paul has warned that 'shadow government' neocons could
orchestrate a 'false flag' incident in order to drag new president Donald Trump into a fresh war.
"I don't how anybody can say they know what is going to happen," Paul told
The Daily Caller, referring to Trump's foreign policy.
"All we need is a false flag and an accident and everybody will be for teaching them a lesson,"
Paul said, warning that such an event could trigger new foreign entanglement.
"The neocons always talked about it before 9/11 they kept saying, 'we aren't going to get our
program in until we have a Pearl Harbor event,'" the former congressman stated, stopping short of
saying he believes those attacks were staged.
"I think other countries could use false flags." Paul also added.
Paul also warned that a shadow government will continue to operate when Trump is president, just
as it did during Obama's time in office.
"Obama probably was much more attune to a different foreign policy of less aggression but why
then does he do it?" Paul said.
"I think there's the shadow government, the military-industrial complex, the CIA, and all the
things that can be done because they just melt away and they do exactly what the establishment says."
the former Congressman added.
Paul warned that those within the shadow government are seeking to influence Trump now.
"He's very friendly with a lot of them right now, he's talking to them," Paul said, adding that
"We don't have a final answer, we have to wait to see who get's appointed."
"He doesn't talk about blowback and coming out of these countries. He has a better policy with
Russia but I think he still is talking with the neoconservatives." Paul also stated.
"The deep state is very very powerful and they have a lot of control," Paul said, adding "That
is one of my big issues about how shadow government is so powerful in all administrations."
Earlier this month, Paul
issued the same warnings, saying that neocons and shadow government figures are going to attempt
to infiltrate and influence Trump's presidency and prevent him from achieving successful change.
Donald Trump's unorthodox US presidential transition continued on Monday when he held talks with
one of the most prominent supporters of leftwing Democrat Bernie Sanders.
The president-elect's first meeting of the day at Trump Tower in New York was with Tulsi Gabbard,
a Democratic maverick who endorsed the socialist Sanders during his unsuccessful primary battle with
Hillary Clinton.
... ... ...
At first glance Gabbard, who is from Hawaii and is the first Hindu member of the US Congress,
seems an unlikely counsellor. She resigned from the Democratic National Committee to back Vermont
senator Sanders and formally nominated him for president at the party convention in July, crediting
him with starting a "movement of love and compassion", although by then Clinton's victory was certain.
But the Iraq war veteran has also expressed views that might appeal to Trump, criticising Obama,
condemning interventionist wars in Iraq and Libya and taking a hard line on immigration. In 2014,
she called for a rollback of the visa waiver programme for Britain and other European countries with
what she called "Islamic extremist" populations.
In October last year she tweeted: "Al-Qaeda attacked us on 9/11 and must be defeated. Obama won't
bomb them in Syria. Putin did. #neverforget911." She was then among 47 Democrats who joined Republicans
to pass a bill mandating a stronger screening process for refugees from Iraq and Syria coming to
the US.
"... Judging by the people who Trump has appointed, it is looking like an ugly situation for the US. If he actually hires people like John Bolton, we will know that a betrayal was certain. While I think that it is probable that he is the lesser evil, he was supposed to avoid neoconservatives and Wall Street types (that Clinton associates herself with). ..."
"... I think it would be a mistake to attribute too much "genius" to Trump and Kushner. It sounds like Kushner exhibited competence, and that's great. But Trump won in great measure because Democratic Party governance eviscerated those communities. ..."
"... This is akin to how Obama got WAY too much credit for being a brilliant orator. People wanted change in '08 and voted for it. That change agent betrayed them, so they voted for change again this time. Or, more accurately, a lot of Obama voters stayed home, the Republican base held together, and Trump's team found necessary little pockets of ignored voters to energize. But that strategy would never have worked if not for Obama's and Clinton's malfeasance and incompetence. Honestly, Hillary got closer to a win that she had a right to. That ought to be the real story. ..."
Does anyone else get the overwhelming impression that the US is heading for an impending collapse
or serious decline at least, unless it puts a fight it against the status quo?
Judging by the people who Trump has appointed, it is looking like an ugly situation for
the US. If he actually hires people like John Bolton, we will know that a betrayal was certain.
While I think that it is probable that he is the lesser evil, he was supposed to avoid neoconservatives
and Wall Street types (that Clinton associates herself with).
I find it amazing how tone deaf the Clinton campaign and Democratic Establishment are. Trump
and apparently his son in law, no matter what else, are political campaigning geniuses given their
accomplishments. For months people were criticizing their lack of experience in politics like
a fatal mistake..
I think that no real change is going to happen until someone authentically left wing takes
power or if the US collapses.
I think it would be a mistake to attribute too much "genius" to Trump and Kushner. It sounds
like Kushner exhibited competence, and that's great. But Trump won in great measure because Democratic
Party governance eviscerated those communities.
This is akin to how Obama got WAY too much credit for being a brilliant orator. People
wanted change in '08 and voted for it. That change agent betrayed them, so they voted for change
again this time. Or, more accurately, a lot of Obama voters stayed home, the Republican base held
together, and Trump's team found necessary little pockets of ignored voters to energize. But that
strategy would never have worked if not for Obama's and Clinton's malfeasance and incompetence.
Honestly, Hillary got closer to a win that she had a right to. That ought to be the real story.
It is not clear to me what exactly a collapse entails. The US doesn't have obvious lines to
fracture across, like say the USSR did. (I suppose an argument could be made for "cultural regions"
like the South, Cascadia etc separating out, but it seems far less likely to happen, even in the
case of continuing extreme economic duress and breakdown of democracy/civil rights).
The US is and has been in a serious decline, and will probably continue.
"... Suspension of the rules is a procedure generally used to quickly pass non-controversial bills in the United States House of Representatives .such as naming Post Offices " ..."
"... "We cannot delay action on Syria any further . if we don't get this legislation across the finish line in the next few weeks, we are back to square one." ..."
"... "the brave Syrian defector known to the world as Caesar, who testified to us the shocking scale of torture being carried out within the prisons of Syria." ..."
"... "The administration has decided not to decide. And that itself, unfortunately, has set a course where here we sit and watch and the violence only worsens. Mr. Speaker, America has been sitting back and watching these atrocities for far too long. Vital U.S. national security interests are at stake." ..."
"... "Four years ago I thought we should have aided the Free Syrian Army. They came to us in Washington and begged us for help they were simply looking for weaponry. I really believe if we had given it to them, the situation in Syria would have been different today." ..."
"... "We're going into the New Year 2017, Assad still clings to power, at the expense of killing millions of his citizens." ..."
"... "The world has witnessed this terrible tragedy unfold before our eyes. Nearly half a million Syrians killed. Not soldiers men, women, children killed." ..."
"... "It is the sense of Congress that ..."
"... (1) Bashar al-Assad's murderous actions against the people of Syria have caused the deaths of more than 400,000 ..."
"... civilians " ..."
"... "committing crimes against humanity and war crimes against civilians including murder, torture and rape. No one has been spared from this targeting, even children." ..."
"... "We (previously) heard the testimony of Raed Saleh of the Syrian White Helmets. These are the doctors, nurses and volunteers who actually, when the bombs come, run towards the areas that have been hit in order to try to get the injured civilians medical treatment They have lost over 600 doctors and nurses." ..."
"... "It is Russia, it is Hezbollah, that are the primary movers of death and destruction it is the IRGC fighters from Iran ..."
"... "Yes, we want to go after Assad's partners in violence along with Iranian and Hezbollah forces ..."
"... "the Syrian regime . often plays a useful role for US and Israeli interests." ..."
"... "We always wanted [President] Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who weren't backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran the greatest danger to Israel is by the strategic arc that extends from Tehran, to Damascus to Beirut. And we saw the Assad regime as the keystone in that arc." ..."
"
Suspension of the rules is a procedure generally used to quickly pass non-controversial bills
in the United States House of Representatives .such as naming Post Offices "
In this case, the resolution calls for evaluating and developing plans for a"No Fly Zone" which
is an act of war. This is obviously controversial and it seems clear the resolution should have been
debated and discussed under normal rules with a normal amount of Congressional presence and debate.
The motivation for bypassing normal rules and rushing the bill through without debate was articulated
by the bill's author and ranking Democrat Eliot Engel, who said:
"We cannot delay action on Syria any further . if we don't get this legislation across
the finish line in the next few weeks, we are back to square one."
The current urgency may be related to the election results, since Trump has spoken out against
"regime change" foreign policy. As much as they are critical of Obama for not doing more, Congressional
neoconservatives are concerned about the prospect of a President who might move toward peace and
away from war.
The Caesar Fraud
HR5732 is titled the "Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act". Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Ed
Royce (R-Ca) explained that the resolution is named after "the brave Syrian defector known to
the world as Caesar, who testified to us the shocking scale of torture being carried out within the
prisons of Syria."
In reality, the Caesar story was a
grand deception involving the CIA with funding from Qatar to sabotage the 2014 Geneva negotiations.
The 55,000 photos which were said to show 11,000 torture victims have never been publicly revealed.
Only a tiny number of photos have been publicized.
However, in 2015 Human Rights Watch was granted access to view the entire set. They revealed that
almost one half the photos show the opposite of what was claimed: instead of victims tortured by
the Syrian government, they actually show dead Syrian soldiers and civilian victims of car bombs
and other terror attacks!
The "Caesar" story, replete with masked 'defector', was one of the early propaganda hoaxes regarding
Syria.
False Claims that the US has been doing nothing
One of the big lies regarding Syria is that the US has been inactive. Royce says:
"The administration has decided not to decide. And that itself, unfortunately, has set
a course where here we sit and watch and the violence only worsens. Mr. Speaker, America has been
sitting back and watching these atrocities for far too long. Vital U.S. national security interests
are at stake."
The ranking Democrat Eliot Engel said:
"Four years ago I thought we should have aided the Free Syrian Army. They came to us in
Washington and begged us for help they were simply looking for weaponry. I really believe if
we had given it to them, the situation in Syria would have been different today."
This is nonsense. The US was actively coordinating, training and supplying armed opposition groups
beginning in late 2011. When the Qadaffi government was toppled in Fall 2011, the CIA oversaw the
theft of the Libyan armories and shipment of weapons to Syrian armed opposition as documented in
the
Defense Intelligence Agency report of October 2012.
These weapons transfers were secret. For the public record it was acknowledged that the US was
supplying communications equipment to the armed opposition while Saudi Arabia and Qatar were supplying
weaponry. This is one reason that Saudi purchases of weapons skyrocketed during this time period;
they were buying weapons to replace those being shipped to the armed opposition in Syria. It was
very profitable for US arms manufacturers.
Huge weapons transfers to the armed opposition in Syria have continued to the present. This past
Spring, Janes Defense
reported the details of a U.S. delivery of 2.2 million pounds of ammunition, rocket launchers
and other weaponry to the armed opposition.
Claims that the US has been inactive are baseless. In reality the US has done everything short
of a direct attack on Syria. And the US military is starting to cross that barrier. On September
17 the US air coalition did a direct attack on the Syrian Army in Deir Ezzor, killing 80 Syrian soldiers
and enabling ISIS to launch an attack on the position.
Claims that it was a "mistake" are highly dubious.
The claims by Congressional hawks that the US has been 'inactive' in the Syrian conflict are part
of the false narrative suggesting the US must "do something" which leads to a No Fly Zone and full
scale war. Ironically, these calls for war are masked as "humanitarian". And never do the proponents
bring up the case of Libya where the US and NATO "did something": destroyed the government and left
chaos.
Congress as a Fact-Free House of Propaganda
With only a handful of representatives present and no debate, the six Congress members engaged
in unrestrained propaganda and misinformation. The leading Democrat, Eliot Engel, said "We're
going into the New Year 2017, Assad still clings to power, at the expense of killing millions of
his citizens."
That number is way off anyone's charts.
Rep Kildee said "The world has witnessed this terrible tragedy unfold before our eyes. Nearly
half a million Syrians killed. Not soldiers men, women, children killed."
The official text of the resolution says:
"It is the sense of Congress that (1) Bashar al-Assad's murderous actions against the people of Syria have caused the deaths
of more than 400,000 civilians "
The above accusations from "millions of citizens" to "half a million" to "400,000 civilians"
are all preposterous lies.
Credible
estimates of casualties in the Syrian conflict range from 300,000 to 420,000. The opposition
supporting Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates the documented 2011-2016 death toll as follows:
killed pro Syrian forces 108,000
killed anti government forces 105,000
killed civilians 89,000
In contrast with Congressional and media claims, civilians comprise a minority of the total death
count and the largest casualty group is those fighting in defense of the the Syrian state. These
facts are ignored and never mentioned because they point to the reality versus the propaganda narrative
which allows the USA and allies to continue funding terrorism and a war of aggression against Syria.
The Congressional speakers were in full self-righteous mode as they accused the Syrian government
of "committing crimes against humanity and war crimes against civilians including murder, torture
and rape. No one has been spared from this targeting, even children."
A naive listener would never know that the Syrian government is primarily fighting the Syrian
branch of Al-Qaeda, including thousands of foreigners supplied and paid by foreign governments.
The Congressional speakers go on to accuse the Syrian military of "targeting" hospitals, schools
and markets. A critical listener might ask why they would do that instead of targeting the Al-Qaeda
terrorists and their allies who launch dozens and sometimes hundreds of
hell cannon missiles into government held Aleppo every day.
The Congressional propaganda fest would not be complete without mention of the "
White
Helmets ". House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce said:
"We (previously) heard the testimony of Raed Saleh of the Syrian White Helmets. These are
the doctors, nurses and volunteers who actually, when the bombs come, run towards the areas that
have been hit in order to try to get the injured civilians medical treatment They have lost over
600 doctors and nurses."
This is more Congressional nonsense.
There are no nurses or doctors associated with the White Helmets. The organization was created
by the USA and UK and heavily promoted by a "
shady PR firm ". The White Helmets operate solely in areas controlled by Nusra and associated
terrorist groups. They do some rescue work in the conflict zone but their main role is in the information
war
manipulating public opinion.
The White Helmets actively promote US/NATO intervention through a No Fly Zone. Recently the White
Helmets has become a major source of claims of innocent civilian victims in east Aleppo. Given the
clear history of the White Helmets, these claims should be treated with skepticism. What exactly
is the evidence?
The same skepticism needs to be applied to video and other reports from the Aleppo Media Center.
AMC is a creation of the
Syrian Expatriates Organization whose address on K Street, Washington DC indicates it is a US
marketing operation.
What is really going on?
The campaign to overthrow the Syrian government is failing and there is possibility of a victory
for the Syrian government and allies. The previous flood of international jihadi recruits has dried
up. The Syrian Army and allies are gaining ground militarily and negotiating settlements or re-locations
with "rebels" who previously terrorized Homs, Darraya (outer Damascus) and elsewhere.
In Aleppo, the Syrian army and allies are tightening the noose around the armed opposition in
east Aleppo. This has caused alarm among neoconservative lawmakers devoted to Israel, Saudi Arabia
and U.S. empire. They are desperate to prevent the Syrian government from finally eliminating the
terrorist groups which the West and allies have promoted for the past 5+ years.
"Pro Israel" groups have been major campaigners for the passage of HR5732. The name of Simon
Wiesenthal is even invoked in the resolution. With crocodile tears fully flowing, Rabbi Lee Bycel
wrote "
Where is the Conscience of the World? " as he questioned why the "humanitarian" HR5732 was not
passed earlier.
Israeli interests are one of the primary forces sustaining and promoting the conflict. Syria is
officially at war with Israel which continues to occupy the Syrian Golan Heights; Syria has been
a key ally of the Lebanese resistance; and Syria has maintained its alliance with Iran.
In 2010 Secretary of State
Clinton urged Syria to break relations with Hezbollah, reduce relations with Iran and come to
settlement with Israel. The Syrian refusal to comply with these Washington demands was instrumental
in solidifying Washington's
hostility .
Congressional proponents of HR5732 make clear the international dimension of the conflict. Royce
explains:
"It is Russia, it is Hezbollah, that are the primary movers of death and destruction it
is the IRGC fighters from Iran ."
Engel echoes the same message:
"Yes, we want to go after Assad's partners in violence along with Iranian and Hezbollah
forces ."
These statements are in contrast with the analysis of some writers who believe Israel is not deeply
opposed to the Damascus government. For example Phyllis Bennis recently
wrote that belief in an "arc of resistance" has been "long debunked" and that "the Syrian
regime . often plays a useful role for US and Israeli interests."
It's remarkable that this faulty analysis continues to be propounded. In words and deeds Israel
has made its position on Syria crystal clear. Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren
explained in an interview:
"We always wanted [President] Bashar Assad to go, we always preferred the bad guys who
weren't backed by Iran to the bad guys who were backed by Iran the greatest danger to Israel
is by the strategic arc that extends from Tehran, to Damascus to Beirut. And we saw the Assad
regime as the keystone in that arc."
If the Syrian government and allies continue to advance in Aleppo, Deir Ezzor, outer Damascus
and the south, the situation will come to a head. The enemies of Syria predominately the USA, Gulf
Countries, NATO and Israel will come to a decision point. Do they intervene directly or do they
allow their regime project to collapse?
HR5732 is an effort to prepare for direct intervention and aggression.
One thing is clear from the experience of Libya: Neoconservatives do not care if they leave a
country in chaos. The main objective is to destabilize and overthrow a government which is too independent.
If the USA and allies cannot dominate the country, then at least they can destroy the contrary authority
and leave chaos.
What is at stake in Syria is whether the USA and allies Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc. are able
to destroy the last secular and independent Arab country in the region and whether the US goal of
being the sole superpower in the world prevails.
The rushed passing of HR5732 without debate is indicative that:
"regime change" proponents have not given up their war on Syria;
they seek to escalate US aggression;
the US Congress is a venue where blatant lies are said with impunity and where violent actions
are advanced behind a cynical and amoral veneer of "humanitarianism" and crocodile tears.
The Imperial Presidency of the United States has evolved over the last century to the point that
the executive holds certain powers that can be considered dictatorial. Arguably, the most consequential
decision in politics is to wage war. The Constitution specifically reserves this right for Congress.
The President, as Commander-in-Chief, directs the wars that Congress declares. However, starting
with Truman's intervention in the Korean War in 1950 and continuing with invasions of Vietnam, Grenada,
Iraq and Afghanistan and the bombings of dozens more countries, the President's ability to unilaterally
initiate war with a sovereign nation has been normalized. Congress has not declared war since 1941
despite the fact the U.S. military has intervened in nearly every corner of the world in the years
since.
In recent years, George W. Bush assumed the power to kidnap, torture, and assassinate any
individual, anywhere in the world, at any time, without even a pretense of due process. Upon replacing
Bush, Barack Obama legitimized Bush's kidnapping and torture (by refusing to prosecute the perpetrators
or provide recourse to the victims) while enthusiastically embracing the power to assassinate at
will. Noam Chomsky has said this represents Obama trashing the 800-year-old Magna Carta, which King
John of England would have approved of.
Can there be anything more dictatorial than the power of a single individual to kill and make
war at will? While American presidents thankfully do not have the power to unilaterally impose taxes,
pass legislation, or incarcerate without charges inside U.S. borders, the illegitimate authority
they do possess to carry out unrestrained violence across the world is unquestionably a dictatorial
feature.
There has not been a single American president since World War II that has not exceeded his constitutional
authority by committing crimes that would meet the standard by which officials were convicted and
executed at the Nuremberg trials.
Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 to imprison Japanese Americans in concentration camps was a flagrant
violation of the Fifth Amendment right not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without
due process of law.
Truman's firebombing of Tokyo, nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and invasion of Korea
violated provisions of multiple treaties that are considered the "supreme law of the land" per Article
VI of the U.S. Constitution.
Eisenhower's use of the CIA to overthrow democratically elected presidents in Iran and Guatemala,
as well as the initiation of a terrorist campaign against Cuba, violated the UN Charter, another
international treaty that the Constitution regards as the supreme law of the land.
Kennedy was guilty of approving the creation of a mercenary army to invade Cuba, as well as covert
warfare in Vietnam. Johnson massively escalated U.S. military involvement in Vietnam with the introduction
of ground troops, which he fraudulently justified through misrepresentation of the Gulf of Tonkin
incident.
Succeeding Johnson, Nixon waged a nearly genocidal air campaign against not only Vietnam but Cambodia
and Laos, killing hundreds of thousands of people, destroying ecosystems across Indochina, and leaving
an unfathomable amount of unexploded ordnance, which continues to kill and maim hundreds of people
each year.
Ford covertly supported the South African invasion of Angola and overtly supported the Indonesian
invasion of East Timor. Carter continued supporting the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, as well
as providing financial and military support to military dictatorships in Guatemala and El Salvador.
Reagan oversaw the creation and operation of a terrorist army in Nicaragua, sponsored military dictatorships
throughout Central America, and directly invaded Grenada.
Bush the Elder invaded Panama and Iraq. Clinton oversaw sanctions in Iraq that killed as many
as 1 million people, carried out an air war that indiscriminately pulverized civilian targets from
15,000 feet in Serbia, and bombed a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan that produced medications for half
the country. Bush the Lesser invaded and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama continued both of those
wars, as well as dramatically expanding the drone assassination program in as many as seven countries.
So I beg to differ with Blow and anyone else who claims the presidency deserves respect. Any institution
or position that permits such illegal and immoral actions unchecked should be eradicated and replaced
with some alternative that does not.
Liberal Clinton defender Matt Yglesias argues that from a historical perspective, Trump is uniquely
dangerous. "(P)ast presidents," Yglesias writes, "have simply been restrained by restraint. By a
belief that there are certain things one simply cannot try or do."
It is hard to take such vacuous proclamations with a straight face. As we have seen, every single
American president since at least WWII has engaged in serious violations of international and domestic
law to cause death, destruction and misery across the world, from murdering individuals without due
process to unleashing two nuclear bombs on civilian populations in a defeated country that was seeking
to surrender.
When Trump assumes the presidency, he will inherit a frightening surveillance/military/incarceration
apparatus that includes a targeted killing program; a vast NSA domestic and international spying
network; a death squad (the Joint Special Operations Command); and an extralegal system for indefinite
kidnapping and imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay.
Partisans see a problem only when the presidency is in the "wrong" hands. If Obama is at the helm,
liberals are fine with unconstitutional mass surveillance or killing an American citizen without
charge or trial every now and then. Conservatives trusted Bush to warrantlessly surveill Americans,
but were outraged at the Snowden revelations.
Principled opponents recognize that no one should be trusted with illegitimate authority. The
hand-wringing and hyperventilation by liberals about the dangers of a Trump presidency ring hollow
and hypocritical.
American presidents long ago became the equivalent of elected monarchs, beyond the democratic
control of the those they purportedly serve. The occupant of the office is able to substitute his
own judgments and whims for a universally applicable set of laws and limits on the exercise of power.
It is what Dolores Vek describes as "actually existing fascism." Both parties have contributed to
it, the media has normalized it, and the public has accepted its creation and continued existence
without rebelling against it. It's time to stop treating the presidency itself with respect and start
actively delegitimizing it.
"... Did the United States not know that intervening in "the lands of Islam" would act as a catalyst for Jihad? Was it
by chance that the United States intervened only in secular states, turning them into manholes of religious extremism? Is
it a coincidence that these interventions were and are often supported by regimes that sponsor political Islam? Conspiracy
theory, you say? No, these are historical facts. ..."
"... The South has understood where the North has not: the selective nature of humanitarian interventions reflects their
punitive nature; sanctions go to non-client regimes; interventions seem to be a new excuse for the hegemonic ambitions of
the United States and its allies; they are a new rationale for NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union; they are a way
to suppress Russia and deprive it of its zones of influence. (3) ..."
"... What a far-sighted motion was that of the coalition of the countries of the Third World (G77) at the Havana Summit
in 2000! It declared its rejection of any intervention, including humanitarian, which did not respect the sovereignty of
the states concerned. (4) This was nothing other than a rejection of the Clinton Doctrine, announced in 1999, in the wake
of the war of Kosovo, which made "humanitarian intervention" the new bedrock, or perhaps the new facade, of the foreign policy
of the United States. It was the same policy followed and developed by Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary of
state. (5) ..."
"... At the moment of this writing, any speculation as to the policy choices of Trump's foreign policy is premature.
..."
"... Like Donald Trump, George W. Bush was a conservative Republican non-interventionist. He advocated "America First,"
called for a more subdued foreign policy and adopted Colin Powell's realism "to attend without stress" (7) with regard to
the Near and Middle East. But his policy shifted to become the most aggressive and most brutal in the history of the United
States. Many international observers argue that this shift came as a response to the September 11 attacks, but they fail
to note that the aggressive germs already existed within Bush's cabinet and advisers: the neo-conservatives occupied key
functions in his administration. ..."
"... Up until now, Trump's links with the neo-cons remain unclear. The best-known neo-cons, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol,
and Robert Kagan, appear to have lost their bet by supporting Hillary Clinton's candidacy. But others, less prominent or
influential, seem to have won it by supporting Trump: Dick Cheney, Norman Podhoretz, and James Woolsey, his adviser and one
of the architects of the wars in the Middle East. ..."
"... it is more realistic to suppose that as long as the United States has interests in the countries of the South and
the Near and Middle East, so long it will not hesitate to intervene. ..."
"... In this context, Trump's defeat and Clinton's accession are not sufficient reasons to declare the decline of interventionism
-- the end of an era and the beginning of another. ..."
"... (Translated from the French by Luciana Bohne) ..."
If the discourse of humanitarianism seduced the North, it has not been so in the South, even less in the Near and Middle
East, which no longer believe in it. The patent humanitarian disasters in Kosovo, Iraq, Libya, and Syria have disillusioned
them.
It is in this sense that Trump's victory is felt as a release, a hope for change, and a rupture from the policy of Clinton,
Bush, and Obama. This policy, in the name of edifying nations ("nation building"), has destroyed some of the oldest nations
and civilizations on earth; in the name of delivering well-being, it has delivered misery; in the name of liberal values,
it has galvanized religious zeal; in the name of democracy and human rights, it has installed autocracies and Sharia law.
Who is to blame?
Did the United States not know that intervening in "the lands of Islam" would act as a catalyst for Jihad? Was it
by chance that the United States intervened only in secular states, turning them into manholes of religious extremism?
Is it a coincidence that these interventions were and are often supported by regimes that sponsor political Islam? Conspiracy
theory, you say? No, these are historical facts.
Can the United States not learn from history, or does it just doom itself to repeat it? Does it not pose itself the
question of how al-Qaeda and Daesh originated? How did they organize themselves? Who trained them? What is their mobilizing
discourse? (1) Why is the US their target? None of this seems to matter to the US: all it cares about is
projecting its own idealism. (2)
The death of thousands of people in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya or Syria, has it contributed to the well being of these
peoples? Or does the United States perhaps respond to this question in the manner of Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton's
Secretary of State, who regretted the death of five-hundred-thousand Iraqi children, deprived of medications by the American
embargo, to conclude with the infamous sentence, "[But] it was worth it "?
Was it worth it that people came to perceive humanitarian intervention as the new crusades? Was it worth it that they
now perceive democracy as a pagan, pre-Islamic model, abjured by their belief? Was it worth it that they now perceive modernity
as deviating believers from the "true" path? Was it worth that they now perceive human rights as human standards as contrary
to the divine will? Was it worth it that people now perceive secularism as atheism whose defenders are punishable by beheading?
Have universal values become a problem rather than a solution? What then to think of making war in their name? Has humanitarian
intervention become punishment rather than help?
The South has understood where the North has not: the selective nature of humanitarian interventions reflects their
punitive nature; sanctions go to non-client regimes; interventions seem to be a new excuse for the hegemonic ambitions
of the United States and its allies; they are a new rationale for NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union; they are
a way to suppress Russia and deprive it of its zones of influence. (3)
What a far-sighted motion was that of the coalition of the countries of the Third World (G77) at the Havana Summit
in 2000! It declared its rejection of any intervention, including humanitarian, which did not respect the sovereignty of
the states concerned. (4) This was nothing other than a rejection of the Clinton Doctrine, announced in 1999, in the wake
of the war of Kosovo, which made "humanitarian intervention" the new bedrock, or perhaps the new facade, of the foreign
policy of the United States. It was the same policy followed and developed by Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary
of state. (5)
The end of interventionism?
But are Clinton's defeat and Trump's accession to power sufficient reasons to declare the decline of interventionism?
Donald Trump is a nationalist, whose rise has been the result of a coalition of anti-interventionists within the Republican
Party. They professe a foreign policy that Trump has summarized in these words: "We will use military force only in cases
of vital necessity to the national security of the United States. We will put an end to attempts of imposing democracy
and overthrowing regimes abroad, as well as involving ourselves in situations in which we have no right to intervene."
(6)
But drawing conclusions about the foreign policy of the United States from unofficial statements seems simplistic.
At the moment of this writing, any speculation as to the policy choices of Trump's foreign policy is premature.
One can't predict his policy with regard to the Near and Middle East, since he has not yet even formed his cabinet.
Moreover, presidents in office can change their tune in the course of their tenure. The case of George W. Bush provides
an excellent example.
Like Donald Trump, George W. Bush was a conservative Republican non-interventionist. He advocated "America First,"
called for a more subdued foreign policy and adopted Colin Powell's realism "to attend without stress" (7) with regard
to the Near and Middle East. But his policy shifted to become the most aggressive and most brutal in the history of the
United States. Many international observers argue that this shift came as a response to the September 11 attacks, but they
fail to note that the aggressive germs already existed within Bush's cabinet and advisers: the neo-conservatives occupied
key functions in his administration. (8)
Up until now, Trump's links with the neo-cons remain unclear. The best-known neo-cons, Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol,
and Robert Kagan, appear to have lost their bet by supporting Hillary Clinton's candidacy. But others, less prominent or
influential, seem to have won it by supporting Trump: Dick Cheney, Norman Podhoretz, and James Woolsey, his adviser and
one of the architects of the wars in the Middle East.
These indices show that nothing seems to have been gained by the South, still less by the Near and Middle East. There
appears to be no guarantee that the situation will improve.
The non-interventionism promised by Trump may not necessarily equate to a policy of isolationism. A non-interventionist
policy does not automatically mean that the United States will stop protecting their interests abroad, strategic or otherwise.
Rather, it could mean that the United States will not intervene abroad except to defend their own interests,
unilaterally -- and perhaps even more aggressively. Such a potential is implied in Trump's promise to increase
the budget for the army and the military-industrial complex. Thus, it is more realistic to suppose that as long as
the United States has interests in the countries of the South and the Near and Middle East, so long it will not hesitate
to intervene.
In this context, Trump's defeat and Clinton's accession are not sufficient reasons to declare the decline of interventionism
-- the end of an era and the beginning of another. The political reality is too complex to be reduced to statements
by a presidential candidate campaigning for election, by an elected president, or even by a president in the course of
performing his office.
No one knows what the future will bring.
Marwen Bouassida is a researcher in international law at North African-European relations, University of Carthage,
Tunisia. He regularly contributes to the online magazine Kapitalis.
The Imperial Presidency of the United States has evolved over the last century to the point that
the executive holds certain powers that can be considered dictatorial. Arguably, the most consequential
decision in politics is to wage war. The Constitution specifically reserves this right for Congress.
Notable quotes:
"... The anger against outsourcing jobs is very real and very dangerous for current corrupt neocon/neolib elite in Washington with their dream of global dominance and global neoliberal empire spanning all countries on all continents much like Trotsky dreamed about global Communist empire. ..."
"... The key information about his real intention would be the candidate for the Secretary of State. But even here uncertainty will remain. For example, it is not completely clear to me that if Bolton would be appointed he will be able to pursue the policies of his neocon past. After all Trump has distinct authoritarian inclinations and Bolton is not stupid enough not to understand that. ..."
"... Hopefully his foreign policy will be less jingoistic that Obama foreign policy. "Our goal is peace and prosperity, not war," said Trump, "unlike other candidates, war and aggression will not be my first instinct." ..."
"... "lovin' Putin" is a propaganda trick which enforces a certain judgment on the US-Russia relations ..."
"... Putin was and remain an obstacle on building global neoliberal empire governed by the USA. So hate toward him by Washington establishment is quite natural. Nothing personal, just business. In other words, demonization of Putin and hysterical anti-Russian campaign (including Hillary attempt to convert Democratic Party into a War party) is just a sign of disapproval of Washington his lack of desire to convert Russian into yet another vassal state. ..."
"... The key question here is not whether Trump will be able to pursue isolationist agenda and improve the US relationship with Russia. The key question is whether he will allowed to do that and resist strong attempts to co-opt him into standard set of neocon policies, which Washington pursued for several decades. ..."
"... Any idea that he will peruse isolationist agenda is undermined by the amount of Iran hawks in his close circle. ..."
"... My impression is that his administration will try to bait Russia in order to prevent any strengthening of China-Russia alliance which was the main blowback of Obama policies toward Russia. ..."
"... This was nothing other than a rejection of the Clinton Doctrine, announced in 1999, in the wake of the war of Kosovo, which made "humanitarian intervention" the new bedrock, or perhaps the new facade, of the foreign policy of the United States. It was the same policy followed and developed by Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary of state. (5) ..."
"... The US Empire has been nice to the Russians before. It was called detente and caused almost (not quite) as much hysteria in war-mongering (proto-neoconservative) circles as Trump's 'neo-detente' is causing now. However, the proviso is (and always was) that the warmongering could be ramped up again any time the Americans chose, and of course it was again under Reagan. ..."
"... From the point of view of American imperialism, Trump's plan to (temporarily) be nice to Russia makes a lot of strategic sense: as you point out, under Obama American imperial forces were becoming increasingly overstretched. In any case, for historical reasons, Russia (white, capitalist, Christian) doesn't make as good an enemy as the mysterious dark forces of 'Radical Islam'. ..."
"... So I am guessing under Trump we will see temporary rapprochement with Russia in the East, and more concentration on command and control of the Middle East. I am also guessing Obama's 'Pivot to China' will be allowed to quietly continue. It's also likely the US' policy of quietly picking off 'weak links' in the 'pink tide' in South American (cf Brazil, Honduras) will continue. ..."
"... For the moment I take great comfort in the hostility Trump displayed to Eliot Cohen and his ilk https://twitter.com/EliotACohen/status/798512852931788800 ..."
"... "After exchange w Trump transition team, changed my recommendation: stay away. They're angry, arrogant, screaming "you LOST!" Will be ugly." ..."
Trump first and foremost is the symptom, not cause of crisis of neoliberalism in the USA. Ideology
is dead, like Bolshevism was dead soon after the end of WWII in the USSR.
Trump has two major path of his governance. He might try relying on nationalist insurgence
his election provoked and squeeze the "deep state" and neocon cabal in Washington, or he will
be co-opted by Republican brass. He probably understand that his positioning during election campaign
as a fighter against globalization and neoliberalism excesses in the USA is the key link that
provides political support for his administration. And throwing a couple on neocons or banksters
against the wall would be a populist gesture well received by American public.
The anger against outsourcing jobs is very real and very dangerous for current corrupt
neocon/neolib elite in Washington with their dream of global dominance and global neoliberal empire
spanning all countries on all continents much like Trotsky dreamed about global Communist empire.
My feeling is that a lot of people are really ready to fight for Trump and that creates for
problem for the "deep state", if Trump "indoctrination" by Washington establishment fails.
Past revolts in some US cities are just the tip of the iceberg. Obama lost not only his legacy
with Trump election. He lost his bid to keep all members of top 1% and first of all financial
oligarchy that drives the events on 2008 unaccountable.
So "accountability drive" which will be interpreted by neoliberals as "witch hunt" might well
be in the cards. I encourage everybody in this blog to listen to the following Trump election
advertisement.
Also I would not assume that he is a newcomer to political games. Real estate business is very
a political activity. So a more plausible hypothesis is that he is a gifted politician both by
nature and due to on the job training received in his occupation.
His idea of creating a circle of advisors who compete with each other and thus allow him to
be the final arbiter of major decisions is not new. He is not hostile to conflicts within his
inner circle.
The key information about his real intention would be the candidate for the Secretary of
State. But even here uncertainty will remain. For example, it is not completely clear to me that
if Bolton would be appointed he will be able to pursue the policies of his neocon past. After
all Trump has distinct authoritarian inclinations and Bolton is not stupid enough not to understand
that.
Hopefully his foreign policy will be less jingoistic that Obama foreign policy. "Our goal
is peace and prosperity, not war," said Trump, "unlike other candidates, war and aggression will
not be my first instinct."
There have been two constants in his campaign: "stomp the weaker" and "lovin' Putin".
That's it.
"lovin' Putin" is a propaganda trick which enforces a certain judgment on the US-Russia
relations . You should better stay above this level in this blog.
Putin was and remain an obstacle on building global neoliberal empire governed by the USA.
So hate toward him by Washington establishment is quite natural. Nothing personal, just business.
In other words, demonization of Putin and hysterical anti-Russian campaign (including Hillary
attempt to convert Democratic Party into a War party) is just a sign of disapproval of Washington
his lack of desire to convert Russian into yet another vassal state.
The key question here is not whether Trump will be able to pursue isolationist agenda and
improve the US relationship with Russia. The key question is whether he will allowed to do that
and resist strong attempts to co-opt him into standard set of neocon policies, which Washington
pursued for several decades.
His "Contract with America" does not cover foreign policy issues except rejection of TPP, NAFTA
and like.
Any idea that he will peruse isolationist agenda is undermined by the amount of Iran hawks
in his close circle.
My impression is that his administration will try to bait Russia in order to prevent any
strengthening of China-Russia alliance which was the main blowback of Obama policies toward Russia.
Also under Trump the USA might be more selective as running six concurrent conflicts (Afghanistan,
Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Ukraine). Which during Obama administration proved to be pretty expensive.
Libya is now a failed state. In Ukraine the standard of living dropped to the level of $2 per
day for the majority of population and the country became yet another debt slave, always balancing
on the wedge of bankruptcy. And costs for the USA are continuing to mount in at least three of
the six countries mentioned ( profits extracted in Ukraine and Iraq partially offset that). It
is unclear whether Trump administration will continue this Obama policy of multiple unilateral
engagements but I think is that during Trump administration the resistance to the USA unilateral
interventionism will be stronger as neoliberalism itself became much less attractive ideology.
Which is more difficult to "export". Similar to the fact that "communism" was more difficult to
export after 60th by the USSR. In a way, after 2008 it is a "damaged good" notwithstanding its
recent victories in Brazil and Argentina. See for example discussion at:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/22/does-clintons-defeat-mean-the-decline-of-us-interventionism/
The South has understood where the North has not: the selective nature of humanitarian interventions
reflects their punitive nature; sanctions go to non-client regimes; interventions seem to be
a new excuse for the hegemonic ambitions of the United States and its allies; they are a new
rationale for NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union; they are a way to suppress Russia
and deprive it of its zones of influence. (3)
What a far-sighted motion was that of the coalition of the countries of the Third World
(G77) at the Havana Summit in 2000! It declared its rejection of any intervention, including
humanitarian, which did not respect the sovereignty of the states concerned. (4) This was
nothing other than a rejection of the Clinton Doctrine, announced in 1999, in the wake of the
war of Kosovo, which made "humanitarian intervention" the new bedrock, or perhaps the new facade,
of the foreign policy of the United States. It was the same policy followed and developed by
Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary of state. (5)
But, of course, we can only guess how Trump administration will behave.
'The key question here is not whether Trump will be able to pursue isolationist agenda and
improve the US relationship with Russia. The key question is whether he will allowed to do
that and resist strong attempts to co-opt him into standard set of neocon policies, which Washington
pursued for several decades.'
The US Empire has been nice to the Russians before. It was called detente and caused almost
(not quite) as much hysteria in war-mongering (proto-neoconservative) circles as Trump's 'neo-detente'
is causing now. However, the proviso is (and always was) that the warmongering could be ramped
up again any time the Americans chose, and of course it was again under Reagan.
From the point of view of American imperialism, Trump's plan to (temporarily) be nice to
Russia makes a lot of strategic sense: as you point out, under Obama American imperial forces
were becoming increasingly overstretched. In any case, for historical reasons, Russia (white,
capitalist, Christian) doesn't make as good an enemy as the mysterious dark forces of 'Radical
Islam'.
So I am guessing under Trump we will see temporary rapprochement with Russia in the East,
and more concentration on command and control of the Middle East. I am also guessing Obama's 'Pivot
to China' will be allowed to quietly continue. It's also likely the US' policy of quietly picking
off 'weak links' in the 'pink tide' in South American (cf Brazil, Honduras) will continue.
'Trump: foreign policy continuity rather than change' may well be a typical graduate thesis
in 30 years' time.
I'm curious how Trump will deal with Erdogan. Erdogan seems to have all the tact and subtlety
of an angry Bison and with Trump's thin skin, there is bound to be a conflict at some stage. And
Erdogan is not Christian.
"... Many of these people voted for Obama in 2012. The reason they abandoned the Democrats this time is that they hadn't seen any improvement in their lives in the last 4 years. When Trump said Clinton was in the pocket of Wall Street, they agreed. They were right: she is. ..."
"... Berlusconi allied himself both with the nascent Lega and the remains of the neo-fascist MSI, members of which went on to hold high positions in his governments. The effects of this alliance were seen in spectacular fashion at the Genoa G8 meeting, which was used very effectively to outlaw street protest or at least to rebrand anyone protesting against government as 'extremist' (he similarly labelled anyone to his left as 'communist'). ..."
"... The Guardian's Trump nervous breakdown continues apace.... what would you talk about if he didn't exist?? ..."
"... As far as the part of non-deplorable voters are concerned, it is relatively clear what they want: economic security and perspective rather than the choice between unemployment and MacJobs, public services working reasonably well rather than garbage piling up in the streets, respectable political culture rather than corruption and nepotism. ..."
"... Obviously, and not without reason, the confidence of many voters in the ability of the political establishment has faded to a degree allowing exploitation by tycoons presented as 'can-do' strongmen. Neither crying nor shouting at the voters nor agreeing that the N-word is ok will change that. ..."
"... Trump wasn't as bad as Berlusconi however at the end of the day ordinary people are more concerned about their jobs, their own local economies, their hospitals, schools, local taxes, housing costs so in that respect they look to see change not the same oppressive status quo ..."
"... It's why Sarkozy was rejected yesterday outright as people don't want a fake offer and the neoliberal Establishment serving corporates, a bent media and banking interests at the cost to themselves and their families. ..."
Berlusconi was Italy's longest serving post war PM. Like Bill Clinton he was a talented totally
corrupt, sexually obsessed politician.
Derrick Hibbett
9m ago
People voted for Trump for a variety of reasons. Some wanted abortion made illegal, some were
KKK racists. It is pointless trying to "understand their concerns"; they will never support the
left.
Others voted for Trump because they believe he provide them with a secure job, with a salary
which allows them to support themselves and their families.
Many of these people voted for
Obama in 2012. The reason they abandoned the Democrats this time is that they hadn't seen any
improvement in their lives in the last 4 years. When Trump said Clinton was in the pocket of Wall
Street, they agreed. They were right: she is.
The problem is that in the absence of a strong labour movement they were prey to a trickster
who has no intention of challenging the corporations.
nadaward
22m ago
Something the article doesn't mention was Berlusconi's bringing of the far right out of the
political cupboard.
Berlusconi allied himself both with the nascent Lega and the remains of the neo-fascist MSI,
members of which went on to hold high positions in his governments. The effects of this alliance
were seen in spectacular fashion at the Genoa G8 meeting, which was used very effectively to outlaw
street protest or at least to rebrand anyone protesting against government as 'extremist' (he
similarly labelled anyone to his left as 'communist').
I'm not sure that apart from a sort of desire for privatization of the state apparatus Berlusconi
has or had strong political views. I think questions such as immigration were used in an instrumental
fashion.
It's often said that Berlusconi also brought what in Italy is called the language of the 'Bar
Sport' into the political arena. In other words he cancelled the veneer of respectability in political
language, with great help from the Lega. There was a sort of 'naughty boy' factor involved in
this taboo breaking that had enormous appeal outside of the 'educated classes'. People suddenly
felt entitled to let it all hang out and say what they wanted. A sort of nine-year stag night.
The more people objected to his version of 'pussy grabbing' the more they could be successfully
labelled stuck-up do-gooders.
On the question of the Church and its complicity, I think that had a lot to do with the conservative
papacies of the times.
pfcbg
23m ago
I love Donald Donny T. He is a phenomenal leader. Unlike Hillary, he isn't going to ally himself
with Islamists of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but in fact, might crush them. I love Donald Donny T.
He might unite with Russia crush Islamists.
qpdarloboy
25m ago
Berlusconi was a front man for the mafia. It's no coincidence that Forza Italia was launched
immediately after the judicial investigations into corruption in the existing political parties
looked set to wipe out the mafia's hold over Italian politics
Nick Pers
32m ago
it seems like the title of this article is inverted, Trump is like Berlusconi not the other
way around. At least chronologically Berlusconi's political engagement was much prior to Trump
and even on the financial level according to Forbes magazine Berlusconi is more than twice richer
than Trump and obviously had much more media influence, but I do not see how the contrary is true
as the title seems to suggest????
Hurrellr
1h ago
The Guardian's Trump nervous breakdown continues apace.... what would you talk about if
he didn't exist??
Actually perhaps nervous breakdown is the wrong metaphor, perhaps its
more like an orgasm ... he hits the sweet spot, you can protest endlessly... years and years
lie ahead of you blathering on about Trump being the devil. The ultimate orgasmic showcasing
of virtue. Christmas has come early!
carlygirl
2h ago
While it has received scant attention, Trump has also promised to repeal a 1954 ban that
prevents tax-exempt organisations like churches from getting involved in politics, a change
that could give churches an even more powerful role in US politics.
Pure idiocy. Putting cults that believe in 'invisible men' in charge of political policy - it
would be like the Taliban taking control of Afghanistan.
pollyp57 -> carlygirl
22m ago
The American religious right has a great deal in common with the Taliban - they aren't mad
keen on science, they want to impose their own version of social control and they both
absolutely agree that women should lip up and get on with the housework.
Peter Krall
2h ago
try and seriously understand what his voters want
What is this supposed to mean? Understanding that some deplorables feel terrorised by the
'p.c.-police' if using the N-word is deprecated and bowing to them? Sorry, no! It may be
possible to win the votes of these people by pursuing Trump's/Berlusconi's agenda but if this
agenda is to be pursued: why not just let them do it?
As far as the part of non-deplorable voters are concerned, it is relatively clear what
they want: economic security and perspective rather than the choice between unemployment and
MacJobs, public services working reasonably well rather than garbage piling up in the streets,
respectable political culture rather than corruption and nepotism.
Understanding this is the easy part. The problem is delivering.
Obviously, and not
without reason, the confidence of many voters in the ability of the political establishment
has faded to a degree allowing exploitation by tycoons presented as 'can-do' strongmen.
Neither crying nor shouting at the voters nor agreeing that the N-word is ok will change that.
Streatham
2h ago
And don't let's forget Berlusconi's pal Blair, he of the 'eye-catching initiatives' like
the destruction of Iraq. Trump and Berlusconi together will never be responsible for as much
evil as the billionaire Blair - close friend as well, of course, of Bill 'The Sleaze' Clinton.
SpiderJerusalem01
2h ago
People aren't that concerned with tabloid journalism. They worry about jobs, taxes, the
economy. You know, the real stuff. But then, when you don't have those worries I guess you can
indulge in fluff pieces.
That's why the jig is up for you elitists. The world is changing, and not in your favour. Heh.
Dimitri
3h ago
Of course this whole nightmare can be avoided if the electoral collage actually decides to
select the candidate who won the popular vote by over a million and a half...'such stuff as
dreams are made on.'...
tictactom -> Dimitri
3h ago
Careful. You'll get ticked off for listening to MSM propaganda talking like that!
FishDog -> Dimitri
3h ago
They will state by state.
Somefing Looms -> Dimitri
2h ago
Clinton stole votes in several large urban areas - those where the returns were abnormally
slow to be returned.
imo, Clinton lost the popular vote by millions if a true vote were recorded.
But, even if she didn't, without the Electoral College, a handful of states and even large
cities would be choosing the POTUS every term in perpetuity, irrespective of the wishes of
those elsewhere in the county.
Why do you think that's a good idea?
shaftedpig
3h ago
Trump wasn't as bad as Berlusconi however at the end of the day ordinary people are
more concerned about their jobs, their own local economies, their hospitals, schools, local
taxes, housing costs so in that respect they look to see change not the same oppressive status
quo
.
It's why Sarkozy was rejected yesterday outright as people don't want a fake
offer and the neoliberal Establishment serving corporates, a bent media and banking interests
at the cost to themselves and their families.
If you want to know who the culprit
politicos are look at people like Schauble who are openly threatening us and the democracy we
voted for. This guy wasn't even elected by us but feels he has a right to dictate to us as one
of his political ancestors once tried.
"... Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until toward the very end of the campaign. ..."
"... On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which is one of the premier "alt-right" media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naοve about the New World Order. I don't believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the role that Zionism plays in it. ..."
"... To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist, and establishment hack. ..."
"... Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon. And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure). ..."
"... You cannot drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration. ..."
"... Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. ..."
"... What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties. ..."
"... The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political hibernation now that Trump is elected. ..."
After my post-election column last week, a lady wrote to me and said, "I have confidence he [Trump]
plans to do what is best for the country." With all due respect, I don't! I agree wholeheartedly
with Thomas Jefferson. He said, "In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence
in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
If Donald Trump is going to be anything more than just another say-anything-to-get-elected phony,
he is going to have to put raw elbow grease to his rhetoric. His talk got him elected, but it is
going to be his walk that is going to prove his worth.
And, as I wrote last week, the biggest indicator as to whether or not he is truly going to follow
through with his rhetoric is who he selects for his cabinet and top-level government positions. So
far, he has picked Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and Stephen Bannon as White House
chief strategist.
Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until
toward the very end of the campaign. He is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee.
If that doesn't tell you what he is, nothing will. Trump probably picked him because he is in so
tight with House Speaker Paul Ryan (a globalist neocon of the highest order) and the GOP establishment,
thinking Priebus will help him get his agenda through the GOP Congress. But ideologically, Priebus
does NOT share Trump's anti-establishment agenda. So, this appointment is a risk at best and a sell-out
at worst.
On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which
is one of the premier "alt-right" media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the
globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon
is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naοve about the New World
Order. I don't believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the
role that Zionism plays in it.
To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and
especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he
is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into
hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is
a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And
John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist,
and establishment hack.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the globalist elite gave Newt Gingrich the assignment
of cozying up to (and "supporting") Trump during his campaign with the sole intention of being in
a position for Trump to think he owes Gingrich something so as to appoint him to a key cabinet post
in the event that he won. Gingrich could then weave his evil magic during a Donald Trump presidential
administration.
Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon.
And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure).
If Donald Trump does not see through this man, and if he appoints him as a cabinet head in his administration,
I will be forced to believe that Donald Trump is clueless about "draining the swamp." You cannot
drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly
what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration.
Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on
repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. Granted, he hasn't
even been sworn in yet, and it's still way too early to make a true judgment of his presidency. But
for a fact, his cabinet appointments and his first one hundred days in office will tell us most of
what we need to know.
What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy
and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we
do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever
on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties.
There is a reason we have lost more liberties under Republican administrations than Democratic
ones over the past few decades. And that reason is the conservative, constitutionalist, Christian,
pro-freedom people who should be resisting government's assaults against our liberties are sound
asleep because they trust a Republican President and Congress to do the right thing -- and they give
the GOP a pass as our liberties are expunged piece by piece. A pass they would NEVER give to a Democrat.
The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he
ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully
that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political
hibernation now that Trump is elected.
I tell you again: this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the course of a nation. Frankly,
if this opportunity is squandered, there likely will not be another one in most of our lifetimes.
"... Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until toward the very end of the campaign. ..."
"... On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which is one of the premier "alt-right" media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naοve about the New World Order. I don't believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the role that Zionism plays in it. ..."
"... To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist, and establishment hack. ..."
"... Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon. And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure). ..."
"... You cannot drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration. ..."
"... Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. ..."
"... What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties. ..."
"... The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political hibernation now that Trump is elected. ..."
After my post-election column last week, a lady wrote to me and said, "I have confidence he [Trump]
plans to do what is best for the country." With all due respect, I don't! I agree wholeheartedly
with Thomas Jefferson. He said, "In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence
in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
If Donald Trump is going to be anything more than just another say-anything-to-get-elected phony,
he is going to have to put raw elbow grease to his rhetoric. His talk got him elected, but it is
going to be his walk that is going to prove his worth.
And, as I wrote last week, the biggest indicator as to whether or not he is truly going to follow
through with his rhetoric is who he selects for his cabinet and top-level government positions. So
far, he has picked Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and Stephen Bannon as White House
chief strategist.
Reince Priebus is an establishment insider. He did NOTHING to help Trump get elected until
toward the very end of the campaign. He is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee.
If that doesn't tell you what he is, nothing will. Trump probably picked him because he is in so
tight with House Speaker Paul Ryan (a globalist neocon of the highest order) and the GOP establishment,
thinking Priebus will help him get his agenda through the GOP Congress. But ideologically, Priebus
does NOT share Trump's anti-establishment agenda. So, this appointment is a risk at best and a sell-out
at worst.
On the other hand, Stephen Bannon is probably a very good pick. He headed Breitbart.com, which
is one of the premier "alt-right" media outlets that has consistently led the charge against the
globalist, anti-freedom agenda of the political establishment in Washington, D.C. Albeit, Bannon
is probably blind to the dangers of Zionism and is, therefore, probably naοve about the New World
Order. I don't believe anyone can truly understand the New World Order without being aware of the
role that Zionism plays in it.
To be honest, the possible appointments of Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie, John Bolton and
especially Newt Gingrich are MORE than troubling. Rudy Giuliani is "Mr. Police State," and if he
is selected as the new attorney general, the burgeoning Police State in this country will go into
hyperdrive. NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is already warning us about this. Chris Christie is
a typical New England liberal Republican. His appointment to any position bodes NOTHING good. And
John Bolton is a Bush pro-war neocon. But Newt Gingrich is the quintessential insider, globalist,
and establishment hack.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the globalist elite gave Newt Gingrich the assignment
of cozying up to (and "supporting") Trump during his campaign with the sole intention of being in
a position for Trump to think he owes Gingrich something so as to appoint him to a key cabinet post
in the event that he won. Gingrich could then weave his evil magic during a Donald Trump presidential
administration.
Newt Gingrich is a HIGH LEVEL globalist and longtime CFR member. He is the consummate neocon.
And he has a brilliant mind (NO morals, but a brilliant mind--a deadly combination, for sure).
If Donald Trump does not see through this man, and if he appoints him as a cabinet head in his administration,
I will be forced to believe that Donald Trump is clueless about "draining the swamp." You cannot
drain the swamp by putting the very people who filled the swamp back in charge. And that's exactly
what Trump would be doing if he appoints Gingrich to any high-level position in his administration.
Trump is already softening his position on illegal immigration, on dismantling the EPA, on
repealing Obamacare, on investigating and prosecuting Hillary Clinton, etc. Granted, he hasn't
even been sworn in yet, and it's still way too early to make a true judgment of his presidency. But
for a fact, his cabinet appointments and his first one hundred days in office will tell us most of
what we need to know.
What we need to know right now is that WE CANNOT GO TO SLEEP. We cannot sit back in lethargy
and complacency and just assume that Donald Trump is going to do what he said he would do. If we
do that, we might as well have elected Hillary Clinton, because at least then we would be forever
on guard against her forthcoming assaults against our liberties.
There is a reason we have lost more liberties under Republican administrations than Democratic
ones over the past few decades. And that reason is the conservative, constitutionalist, Christian,
pro-freedom people who should be resisting government's assaults against our liberties are sound
asleep because they trust a Republican President and Congress to do the right thing -- and they give
the GOP a pass as our liberties are expunged piece by piece. A pass they would NEVER give to a Democrat.
The difference in this election is that Donald Trump didn't run against the Democrats; he
ran against the entire Washington establishment, including the Republican establishment. Hopefully
that means that the people who supported and voted for Trump will NOT be inclined to go into political
hibernation now that Trump is elected.
I tell you again: this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the course of a nation. Frankly,
if this opportunity is squandered, there likely will not be another one in most of our lifetimes.
"... Former associates complain of Flynn's political tunnel vision that could wreak havoc in the Middle East. His consulting company, the Flynn Intel Group, appears to lobby for the Turkish government and Flynn recently wrote an article calling for all-out US support for Turkey, who Washington has been trying to stop launching a full scale invasion of Syria and Iraq. ..."
Flynn notoriously sees Islamic militancy not only as a danger, but as an existential threat to
the US. He tweeted earlier this year that "fear of Muslims is RATIONAL".
There is an obsessive, self-righteous quality to Flynn's approach that led him to join chants
of "lock her up" in reference to Hillary Clinton during election rallies. Former associates complain
of Flynn's political tunnel vision that could wreak havoc in the Middle East. His consulting company,
the Flynn Intel Group, appears to lobby for the Turkish government and Flynn recently wrote an article
calling for all-out US support for Turkey, who Washington has been trying to stop launching a full
scale invasion of Syria and Iraq. Unsurprisingly, the Turkish president welcomed Trump's election
with enthusiasm and sharply criticised protests against it in the US (something that would be swiftly
dealt with by police water cannon in Turkey).
A striking feature of the aspirants for senior office under Trump is a level of personal greed
high even by the usual standards of Washington. Trump famously campaigned under the slogan "Drain
the Swamp" and castigated official corruption, but it is turning out that the outflow pipe from swamp
is the entry point of the new administration.
Michael Flynn, expected to advise Donald Trump on counterproductive killing operations misleading
labeled "national security," is generally depicted as a lawless
torturer and assassin. But, whether for partisan reasons or otherwise, he's a lawless torturer
and assassin who has blurted out some truths he shouldn't be allowed to forget.
"Lt. Gen. Flynn, who since leaving the DIA has become an outspoken critic of the Obama administration,
charges that the White House relies heavily on drone strikes for reasons of expediency, rather
than effectiveness. 'We've tended to say, drop another bomb via a drone and put out a headline
that "we killed Abu Bag of Doughnuts" and it makes us all feel good for 24 hours,' Flynn said.
'And you know what? It doesn't matter. It just made them a martyr, it just created a new reason
to fight us even harder.'"
"When you drop a bomb from a drone you are going to cause more damage than you are going to
cause good. The more weapons we give, the more bombs we drop, that just fuels the conflict."
Will Flynn then advise Trump to cease dropping bombs from drones? Or will he go ahead and advise
drone murders, knowing full well that this is counterproductive from the point of view of anyone
other than war profiteers?
From the same report:
"Asked . . . if drone strikes tend to create more terrorists than they kill, Flynn . . . replied:
'I don't disagree with that,' adding: 'I think as an overarching strategy, it is a failed strategy.'"
So Trump's almost inevitable string of drone murders will be conducted under the guidance of a
man who knows they produce terrorism rather than reducing it, that they endanger the United States
rather than protecting it. In that assessment, he agrees with the vast majority of Americans who
believe that the wars of the past
15 years have made the United States less safe, which is the view of numerous other
experts as well.
Flynn, too, expanded his comments from drones to the wars as a whole:
"What we have is this continued investment in conflict. The more weapons we give, the more
bombs we drop, that just fuels the conflict. Some of that has to be done but I am looking for
the other solutions."
Flynn also, like Trump, accurately cites the criminal 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq as critical to
the creation of ISIS:
"Commenting on the rise of ISIL in Iraq, Flynn acknowledged the role played by the US invasion
and occupation of Iraq. 'We definitely put fuel on a fire,' he told Hasan. 'Absolutely there
is no doubt, history will not be kind to the decisions that were made certainly in 2003. Going
into Iraq, definitely it was a strategic mistake."
So there will be no advice to make similar strategic mistakes that are highly profitable to the
weapons industry?
Flynn, despite perhaps being a leading advocate of lawless imprisonment and torture, also admits
to the counterproductive nature of those crimes:
"The former lieutenant general denied any involvement in the litany of abuses carried out by
JSOC interrogators at Camp Nama in Iraq, as revealed by the
New York Times and
Human Rights Watch, but admitted the US prison system in Iraq in the post-war period 'absolutely'
helped radicalise Iraqis who later joined Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and its successor organisation,
ISIL."
Recently the International Criminal Court teased the world with the news that it might possible
consider indicting US and other war criminals for their actions in Afghanistan. One might expect
all-out resistance to such a proposal from Trump and his gang of hyper-nationalist war mongers, except
that . . .
"Flynn also called for greater accountability for US soldiers involved in abuses against Iraqi
detainees: 'You know I hope that as more and more information comes out that people are held accountable
History is not going to look kind on those actions and we will be held, we should be held, accountable
for many, many years to come.'"
Let's not let Flynn forget any of these words. On Syria he has blurted out some similar facts
to those Trump has also articulated:
"Publicly commenting for the first time on a previously-classified August 2012
Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) memo,
which had predicted 'the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality
in Eastern Syria ( ) this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want' and confirmed
that 'the Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood, and [Al Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving
the insurgency in Syria,' the former DIA chief told Head to Head that 'the [Obama] Administration'
didn't 'listen' to these warnings issued by his agency's analysts. 'I don't know if they turned
a blind eye,' he said. 'I think it was a decision, I think it was a willful decision.'"
Let that sink in. Flynn is taking credit for having predicted that backing fighters in Syria could
lead to something like ISIS. And he's suggesting that Obama received this information and chose to
ignore it.
Now, here's a question: What impact will "bombing the hell" out of people have? What good will
"killing their families" do? Spreading nukes around? "Stealing their oil"? Making lists of and banning
Muslims? Is it Flynn's turn to willfully ignore key facts and common sense in order to "advise" against
his better judgment a new president who prefers to be advised to do what he was going to do anyway?
Or can Flynn be convinced to apply lessons learned at huge human cost to similar situations going
forward even with a president of a different party, race, and IQ?
Trump essentially betrayed Flynn, who tried to did the billing of Kushner and persuade Russia to abstain from anti-Israel vote.
Notable quotes:
"... The big takeaways from this book is the (1) systemic manipulation of intelligence analysts' conclusions to fit political narratives (I have personally seen my work modified to "soften" the message/conclusions for x, y, or z reasons) and (2) Radical Islam is not a new phenomenon that spawned as a response to "American imperialism" as often preached from the lecterns of western universities. ..."
"... There is no love lost between Lt Gen Flynn and President Obama, and Flynn's frustration with Obama's lack of leadership is clear throughout this work. ..."
"... General Flynn is a career Army combat intelligence officer with extensive hard experience mostly in the Middle East, a lifetime Democrat, who seems to understand and is able to clearly and concisely define the threat of Radical Islam (NOT all Islam) far better than both the Bush ("W") and Obama administrations politicos in Washington were willing to hear or accept. ..."
"... in contrast to what his detractors might opine, General Flynn is speaking of Radical Islam as a "tribal cult," and not taking aim at the religion itself. ..."
"... The general's comments on human intelligence and interrogation operations being virtually nonexistent makes one wonder if all the Lessons Learned that are written after every conflict and stored away are then never looked at again - I suspect it's true. ..."
"... My unit, the 571st MI Detachment of the 525th MI Group, ran agents (HUMINT) throughout I Corps/FRAC in Vietnam. The Easter Offensive of 1972 was actually known and reported by our unit before and during the NVA's invasion of the South. We were virtually the only intelligence source available for the first couple of weeks because of weather. Search the internet for The Easter Offensive of 1972: A Failure to Use Intelligence. ..."
"... I totally concur with Lt. General, Michael T. Flynn, US Army, (ret), that any solution to "Radical Islamic Terrorism" today has to also resolve the ideology issue, along side the other recommendations that he discusses in his book. ..."
"... Provocative, bellicose, rhetorical, and patriotic, the author leaves the reader wondering if his understanding of the enemy is hubris or sagacity. Much of that confusion can be attributed to conditioning as a an American and seeing prosecution of American wars as apolitical and astrategic. General Flynn's contribution to the way forward, "Field of Fight" is certainly political and at a minimum operational strategy. His practical experience is normative evidence to take him at his word for what he concludes is the next step to deal with radicals and reactionaries of political Islam. ..."
"... One paradox that he never solved was his deliberate attempt to frame terrorist as nothing more that organized crime, but at the same respect condemn governments that are "Islamic Republics," whom attempt to enforce the laws as an ineffective solution, and attempting to associate the with the other 1.6 billion Muslims by painting them as "Radical Islam." ..."
When I had heard
in the news that Lt Gen Flynn might be chosen by Donald Trump as his Vice Presidential nominee,
I was quick to do some research on Flynn and came across this work. Having worked in the intelligence
community myself in the past several years, I was intrigued to hear what the previous director
of the DIA had to say. I have read many books on the topic of Islam and I am glad I picked this
up.
The big takeaways from this book is the (1) systemic manipulation of intelligence analysts'
conclusions to fit political narratives (I have personally seen my work modified to "soften" the
message/conclusions for x, y, or z reasons) and (2) Radical Islam is not a new phenomenon that
spawned as a response to "American imperialism" as often preached from the lecterns of western
universities.
If you have formed your opinion of Islam and the nature of the West's fight in the Middle East
on solely what you hear in the main steam media (all sides), you would do well to read this book
as a starting point into self-education on an incredibly complex topic.
There is no love lost between Lt Gen Flynn and President Obama, and Flynn's frustration
with Obama's lack of leadership is clear throughout this work. Usually this political opining
in a work such as this is distracting, but it does add much-needed context to decisions and events.
That said, Lt Gen Flynn did a great job addressing a complex topic in plain language. While this
is not a seminal work on
General Flynn is a career Army combat intelligence officer with extensive hard experience mostly
in the Middle East, a lifetime Democrat, who seems to understand and is able to clearly and concisely
define the threat of Radical Islam (NOT all Islam) far better than both the Bush ("W") and Obama
administrations politicos in Washington were willing to hear or accept.
He supports what he can
tell us with citations. Radical Islam has declared war on Western democracies, most of all on
the US. Its allies include Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and others. Their war against us
is a long-term effort, and our politicians (except Trump?) don't want to hear it. We need to demand
that our politicos prepare for this assault and start taking wise, strong steps to defeat it.
Western Europe may already have been fatally infiltrated by "refugees" who will seek to Islamize
it, and current birth rates suggest that those nations will have Muslim majorities in 20 years.
General Flynn details what we must do to survive the assault. I bought the Kindle version and
began reading it, but then paid more for the audible version so that I could get through it faster.
Please buy and read this book!
Looking Inward First, is What Generates the Strategy-Shifting Process. Flynn Gets This. Few
Others Do.
To begin with, I will say that the book is not exactly what one might expect from a recently
retired General. For starters, there were numerous spelling errors, an assortment of colloquialisms
and some instances in which the prose took on a decidedly partisan tone. The means of documenting
sources was something akin to a blog-posting, in that he simply copied and pasted links to pages,
right into the body of the work. I would have liked to have seen a more thoroughly researched
and properly cited work. All of this was likely due to the fact that General Flynn released his
book in the days leading up to Donald J. Trump's announcement of his Vice Presidential pick. As
Flynn is apparently a close national security advisor to Trump, I can understand why his work
appears to be somewhat harried. Nonetheless, I think that the book's timeliness is useful, as
the information it contains might be helpful in guiding Americans' election choices. I also think
that despite the absence of academic rigor, it makes his work more accessible. No doubt, this
is probably one of Mr. Trump's qualities and one that has catapulted him to national fame and
serious consideration for the office he seeks. General Flynn makes a number of important points,
which, despite my foregoing adverse commentary, gives me the opportunity to endorse it as an essential
read.
In the introductory chapter, General Flynn lays out his credentials, defines the problem, and
proceeds to inform the reader of the politically guided element that clouds policy prescriptions.
Indeed, he is correct to call attention to the fact that the Obama administration has deliberately
exercised its commanding authority in forbidding the attachment of the term "Islam" when speaking
of the threat posed by extremists who advocate and carry out violence in the religion's name.
As one who suffered at the hands of the administration for speaking truth to power, he knows all
too well what others in the Intelligence Community (IC) must suffer in order to hold onto their
careers.
In chapter one, he discusses where he came from and how he learned valuable lessons at home
and in service to his country. He also gives the reader a sense of the geopolitical context in
which Radical Islamists have been able to form alliances with our worst enemies. This chapter
also introduces the reader to some of his personal military heroes, as he delineates how their
mentorship shaped his thinking on military and intelligence matters. A key lesson to pay attention
to in this chapter is what some, including General Flynn, call 'politicization of intelligence.'
Although he maintains that both the present and previous administration have been guilty of this,
he credits the Bush administration with its strategic reconsideration of the material facts and
a search for better answers. (He mentions this again in the next chapter on p.42, signifying this
capability as a "leadership characteristic" and later recalls the president's "insight and courage"
on p. 154.)
Chapter two of The Field of Fight features an excellent summary of what transpires in a civil
war and the manner in which Iraqis began to defect from al-Qa'ida and cooperate with U.S. forces.
In this task, he explains for the layperson what many scholars do, but in far fewer pages. Again,
this makes his work more accessible. He also works through the process of intelligence failures
that are, in his opinion, produced by a superordinate policy failure housed in the upper echelons
of the military structure. In essence, it was a misperception (willful or not) that guided thinking
about the cause of the insurgency, that forbade an ability to properly address it with a population-centric
Counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy. He pays homage to the adaptability and ingenuity of General
Stanley McChrystal's Task Force 714, but again mentions the primary barrier to its success was
bureaucratic in nature.
The main thrust of chapter 3, aptly named "The Enemy Alliance," is geared toward tying together
the earlier assertion in chapter regarding the synergy between state actors like Iran, North Korea,
Syria, and the like. It has been documented elsewhere, but the Iranian (non-Arab Shi'a) connection
to the al-Qa'ida (Arab Sunni) terrorist organization can't be denied. Flynn correctly points out
how the relationship between strange bedfellows is not new in the Middle East. He briefly discusses
how this has been the case since the 1970s, with specific reference to the PLO, Iran, Syria, Hamas,
Hezbollah, Bosnia and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's. He also references President Obama's "curious sympathy"
(p. 92) for enemies in places such as Venezuela and Cuba.
General Flynn then reminds readers of some facts that have either been forgotten, or virtually
unknown, by most Americans. Namely, the role that Saddam Hussein actually played with regard to
the recruitment of foreign terrorists, the internal policies of appeasement for Islamists in his
army and the support he lent to Islamists in other countries (e.g., Egypt, Sudan and Afghanistan).
He also reminds the readers of the totalitarian mindset that consumes Islamist groups, such as
al-Qa'ida and the Islamic State. All the while, and in contrast to what his detractors might opine,
General Flynn is speaking of Radical Islam as a "tribal cult," and not taking aim at the religion
itself. This chapter is perhaps the most robust in the book and it is the sort of reading that
every American should do before they engage in conversations about the nature of political Islam.
Chapter four is a blueprint for winning what used to be called the 'global war on terror.' Although
such a phraseology is generally laughed at in many policy circles, it is clear, as General Flynn
demonstrates, that some groups and countries are locked in combat with us and our partners in
the West. Yet, as he correctly points out, the Obama administration isn't willing to use global
American leadership in order to defeat those who see us, and treat us, as their collective enemy.
General Flynn's prescription includes four strategic objectives, which I won't recite here, as
I'm not looking to violate any copyright laws. The essence of his suggestions, however, starts
with an admission of who the enemy is, a commitment to their destruction, the abandonment of any
unholy alliances we have made over the years, and a counter-ideological program for combating
what is largely an ideologically-based enemy strong suit. He points to some of the facts that
describe the dismal state of affairs in the Arab world, the most damning of which appear on pages
127-128, and then says what many are afraid to say on page 133: "Radical Islam is a totalitarian
political ideology wrapped in the Islamic religion." Nonetheless, Flynn discusses some of the
more mundane and pecuniary sources of their strength and the means that might be tried in an effort
to undermine them.
The concluding chapter of General Flynn's work draws the reader's attention to some of the works
of others that have been overlooked. He then speaks candidly of the misguided assumptions that,
coupled with political and bureaucratic reasons, slows adaptation to the changing threat environment.
Indeed, one of the reasons that I found this book so refreshing is because that sort of bold introspection
is perhaps the requisite starting point for re-thinking bad strategies. In fact, that is the essence
of both the academic and practical work that I have been doing for years. I highly recommend this
book, especially chapter 3, for any student of the IC and the military sciences.
It's ironic that the general wrote about Pattern Analysis, when DIA in late-1971 warned that
the Ho Chi Minh Trail was unusually active using this technique.
The general's comments on human intelligence and interrogation operations being virtually nonexistent
makes one wonder if all the Lessons Learned that are written after every conflict and stored away
are then never looked at again - I suspect it's true.
My unit, the 571st MI Detachment of the 525th MI Group, ran agents (HUMINT) throughout I Corps/FRAC
in Vietnam. The Easter Offensive of 1972 was actually known and reported by our unit before and
during the NVA's invasion of the South. We were virtually the only intelligence source available
for the first couple of weeks because of weather. Search the internet for The Easter Offensive
of 1972: A Failure to Use Intelligence.
At a time when so much is hanging in the balance, General Flynn's book plainly
lays out a strategy for not only fighting ISIS/ISIL but also for preventing totalitarianism from
spreading with Russia, North Korea and Cuba now asserting themselves - again.
Sadly, because there is some mild rebuke towards President Obama, my fear is people who should
read this book to gain a better understanding of the mind of the jihadist won't because they don't
like their president being called out for inadequate leadership. But the fact remains we are at
war with not just one, but several ideologies that have a common enemy - US! But this book is
not about placing blame, it is about winning and what it will take to defeat the enemies of freedom.
We take freedom for granted in the West, to the point where, unlike our enemies, we are no
longer willing to fight hard to preserve those freedoms. General Flynn makes the complicated theatre
of fighting Radical Islam easier to understand. His experience in explaining how we can and have
won on the battlefield gives me great comfort, but also inspires me to want to help fight for
the good cause of freedom.
My sincerest hope is that both Trump and Clinton will read this book and then appoint General
Flynn as our next Defense Secretary!
I totally concur with Lt. General, Michael T. Flynn, US Army, (ret), that any solution to "Radical
Islamic Terrorism" today has to also resolve the ideology issue, along side the other recommendations
that he discusses in his book. All of the radical fighting that has taken place in the world,
ever since the beginning evolution of the Islamic religion over 1400 years ago, has revolved around
radical interpretations of the Qur'an.
Until there is an Islamic religious reformation, there
will never be a lasting resolution to the current "Radical Islamic Terrorist" problem. It is a
religious ideology interpretation issue. Until that interpretation is resolved within the Islamic
world, there will always be continuing radical interpretation outbreaks, from within the entire
Islamic world, against all other forms of non-Islamic religions and their evolving cultures.
If
you require further insight, recommend you read " Heretic, Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now"
, by Ayaan Hirisi Ali. DCC
Provocative, bellicose, rhetorical, and patriotic, the author leaves the
reader wondering if his understanding of the enemy is hubris or sagacity. Much of that confusion
can be attributed to conditioning as a an American and seeing prosecution of American wars as
apolitical and astrategic. General Flynn's contribution to the way forward, "Field of Fight" is
certainly political and at a minimum operational strategy. His practical experience is normative
evidence to take him at his word for what he concludes is the next step to deal with radicals
and reactionaries of political Islam.
One paradox that he never solved was his deliberate attempt to frame terrorist as nothing more
that organized crime, but at the same respect condemn governments that are "Islamic Republics,"
whom attempt to enforce the laws as an ineffective solution, and attempting to associate the with
the other 1.6 billion Muslims by painting them as "Radical Islam."
As if there is any relationship
to relationship to Islam other than it is the predominant religion in a majority of the area where
they commit their criminal activity. As if the political war with terrorist is a function of a
label that is of itself a oversimplification of the issues. Indeed, suggesting it is a nothing
more than 'political correctness" and ignoring the possibility that it might be a function of
setting the conditions in an otherwise polygon of political justice. This argument alone is evidence
of the his willingness to develop domestic political will for war with a simple argument. Nevertheless,
as a national strategy, it lacks the a foundational argument to motivate friendly regional actors
who's authority is founded on political Islam.
In 2008 a national election was held and the pyrrhic nature of the war in Iraq adjudicated
via the process of democratic choice that ended support for continued large scale conventional
occupation. That there is some new will to continue large scale conventional occupation seems
unlikely, and as a democratic country, leaders must find other means to reach the desired end
state, prosecuting contiguous operations to suppress, neutralize, and destroy "ALL" who use terrorism
to expand and enforce their political will with a deliberate limited wars that have methodological
end states. Lastly, sounding more like a General MacArther, the General Flynn's diffuse strategy
seems to ignore the most principles of war deduced by Von Clausewitz and Napoleon: Concentration
of force on the objective to be attacked. Instead, fighting an ideology "Radical Islam" seems
more abstract then any splatter painting of modern are in principle form it suggests a commitment
to simplicity to motivate our nation to prepare for and endure the national commitment to a long
war.
Since we can all agree there is no magical solution, then normative pragmatism of the likes
that General. Flynn's assessment provides, must be taken into account in an operation and tactical
MDMP. Ignoring and silencing Subject Matter Experts (SME's) will net nothing more than failure,
a failure that could be measured in innocent civilian lives as a statistical body count. I could
see General Flynn's suggestions and in expertise bolstering a movement to establish a CORP level
active duty unit to prepare, plan, and implemented in phases 0, IV, & V (JP 5-0) . Bear in mind,
Counter Insurgency (COIN) was never considered a National strategy but instead at tactical strategy
and at most an operational strategy.
Several times in its nearly 250 years of existence our Nation has been at
a crossroads. Looking back on our War for Independence, the Civil War, and WWII we know the decisions
made in those tumultuous times forever altered the destiny of our Republic.
We are once again at one of those crossroads where the battle lines have been drawn, only this
time in an asymmetrical war between western democracy and the radical Islamists and nation states
who nurture them. In his timely book Field of Fight, Lt. General Michael T. Flynn provides a unique
perspective on this war and what he believes are some of the steps necessary to meet this foe.
Field of Fight begins as an autobiography in which the author gives you a sense of who he is
as a man and a soldier. This background information then provides the reader with a better perspective
through which to evaluate his analysis of the challenges we face as well as the course of action
he believes we need to take to meet those challenges.
The following are a few of the guidelines General Flynn proposes for developing a winning strategy
in our war with radical Islam and other potential foes:
1. Properly assess your environment and clearly define your enemy;
2. Face reality for politicians, this is never an easy thing to do;
3. Understand the social context and fabric of the operational environment;
4. Recognize who's in charge of the enemy's forces.
In Field of Fight General Flynn makes the case that we are losing this war with radical Islam
because our nation's leadership has failed to develop a winning strategy. Further he opines that
our current leaders lack the clarity of vision and moral certitude that understands American democracy
is a "better way", that not all forms of human government are equal, and that there are principled
reasons worth fighting for - the very basic of those being, "life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness."
I'll admit I'm concerned about the future of our country. As a husband and a father of five
I wonder about the world we leaving for our children to inherit. I fear we have lost our moral
compass thus creating a vacuum in which human depravity as exemplified by today's radical Islamists
thrives.
Equally concerning to me is what happens when the pendulum swings the other way. Will we have
the moral and principled leaders to check our indignation before it goes too far? When that heart
rending atrocity which is sure to come finally pushes the American people to white hot wrath who
will hold our own passions in check? In a nation where Judeo-Christian moral absolutes are an
outdated notion what will keep us from becoming that which we most hate?
As I stated at the start of this review, today we are at a crossroads. Once again our nation
needs principled men and women in positions of leadership who understand the Field of Fight as
described by General Flynn and have the wisdom and courage to navigate this battlefield.
* * *
In summary, although I don't agree with everything written in this book I found it to be an
educational read which will provided me with much food for thought over the coming months. As
a representative republic choosing good leadership requires that we as citizens understand the
problems and challenges we face as a nation. Today radical Islam is one of those challenges and
General Flynn's book Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its
Allies gives a much needed perspective on the subject.
Gen Flynn has been in the news a lot lately. He apparently did not get on well in DC with his
views on fighting terrorism. That is very relevant now as we are seeking better ways to fight
ISIS and terror in general. I read his book today to learn what is on his mind. Flynn had a lot
of experience starting in the 82nd Airborne and was almost always in intelligence work. Army intelligence
is narrowly focused - where is the enemy, how many of them are there, how are they armed and what
is the best way to destroy them. Undoubtedly he was good at this. However, that is not the kind
of intelligence we need to defeat ISIS. Flynn's book shows no sign of cultural awareness, which
is the context by which we must build intelligence about our opponent. In Iraq, he did learn the
difference between who was Sunni and who was Shia but that was it. He shows no sign of any historical
knowledge about these groups and how they think and live. In looking at Afghanistan, he seems
unaware of the various clans and languages amongst different people. The 2 primary languages of
Afghanistan are Pashto and Dari. Dari is essentially the same as Farsi, so the Persian influence
has been strong in the country for a long time. Flynn seems totally unaware. Intelligence in his
world is obtained from interrogation and captured documents. They are processed fast and tell
him who their next target should be. This kind of work is not broad enough to give him a strategic
background. He sees USA's challenges in the world as a big swath of enemies that are all connected
and monolithic. North Korea, China, Iran, Russia, Syria, ISIS, and so forth. All need to be dealt
with in a forceful manner. He never seems to think about matching resources with objective.
This monlithic view of our opponents is obviously wrong. Pres George W Bush tried it that way
with the Axis of Evil. The 1950's Cold War was all built in fear of the monolithic Soviet Union
and China. All these viewpoints were failures.
Flynn does not see it though. In the book, Flynn says invading Iraq in 2003 might have been the
wrong choice. He would have invaded Iran. The full Neocon plan was for 7 countries in 5 years,
right after knocking down Iraq, then we would do the same to Iran. I hope we have lost a lot of
that hubris by now. But with poor vision by leaders like Flynn, we might get caught up again in
this craziness.
To beat ISIS and Al Qaeda type groups we need patience and allies. We have to dry up the source
of the terrorists that want to die. That will be done with a combination of cultural outreaches
as well as armed force.
I am sure the Presidential candidates will both see that Flynn does not have that recipe. Where
is a General that does? We have often made this mistake. Sixty Six years ago, we felt good that
Gen Douglas MacArthur "knew the Oriental mind" and he would guid us to victory in Korea. That
ended up as a disaster at the end of 1950. I think we are better off at working with leaders that
understand the people that are trying to terrorize us. Generals don't develop those kinds of empathic
abilities.
"... "Bolton is a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose, hell-bent on repeating virtually every foreign policy mistake the U.S. has made in the last 15 years - particularly those Trump promised to avoid as president," ..."
"... "It's important that someone who was an unrepentant advocate for the Iraq War, who didn't learn the lessons of the Iraq War, shouldn't be the secretary of state for a president who says Iraq was ..."
Senator Rand Paul said Tuesday in an
op-ed for Rare that he would oppose President-elect Donald Trump's rumored selection of former
U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as Secretary of State.
"Bolton is a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose, hell-bent
on repeating virtually every foreign policy mistake the U.S. has made in the last 15 years - particularly
those Trump promised to avoid as president,"
Paul wrote citing U.S. interventions in Iraq and Libya
that Trump has criticized but that Bolton strongly advocated.
Reports since have indicated that former New York City mayor and loyal Trump ally, Rudy Giuliani
is being considered for the post.
The Washington Post's David Weigel
reports , "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a newly reelected member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
said this morning that he was inclined to oppose either former U.N. ambassador John Bolton or former
New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani if they were nominated for secretary of state."
"It's important that someone who was an unrepentant advocate for the Iraq War, who didn't learn
the lessons of the Iraq War, shouldn't be the secretary of state for a president who says Iraq
was a big lesson," Paul told the Post. "Trump said that a thousand times. It would be a
huge mistake for him to give over his foreign policy to someone who [supported the war]. I mean,
you could not find more unrepentant advocates of regime change."
"... "How many people sleep better knowing that the Baltics are part of NATO? They don't make us safer, in fact, quite the opposite . We need to think really hard about these commitments," said William Ruger, vice president of research and policy at the Charles Koch Institute. ..."
"... A prominent member of the outsiders is Rand Paul, skeptic of Bush's foreign policy, who has criticized Bolton in the last few days. Paul on Tuesday blasted Bolton in an op-ed in Rare as "a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose." ..."
"... However, neo-cons are bad at losing, so they have redoubled efforts to land one of their own next to Trump. Lindsey Graham, a prominent foreign policy hawk in the Senate, issued an endorsement of Bolton on Thursday, saying: "He understands who our friends and enemies are. We see the world in very similar ways." ..."
"... He also slammed Paul's criticism of Bolton: "You could put the number of Republicans who will follow Rand Paul's advice on national security in a very small car. Rand is my friend but he's a libertarian and an outlier in the party on these issues." ..."
"... Meanwhile, the biggest warmonger, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, who has not said who he'd like to see in Trump's cabinet, laid down a marker on Tuesday by warning the future Trump administration against trying to seek an improved relationship with adversary Russia. "When America has been at its greatest, it is when we have stood on the side those fighting tyranny. That is where we must stand again," he warned. ..."
"... MENA is the most important, perhaps the only leverage that the US has to hold the global reserve currency. As long as the US retain the world's money, the US can finance its debt while collecting rent worldwide. Also, the US can export its inflation. ..."
"... No US President can, or will willingly let these three to fail, because the collapse will be horrifying. ..."
"... the U.S. Empire has globalised its reach as an instrument of the deep state and its oligarchy of owner/operators. Ostensibly to bring democracy to the oppressed, its real purpose was to enrich the rent-seekers on the MIC value chain and to protect and serve the private globalist interests who were the clients of the deep state. National funds flow has always been net outbound, and not the other way around, as in any successful precendent for empire. This continues to be true to this day because of the influence the wealthy rent-seekers on this value chain have over the federal government. Simple as that. ..."
"... Raytheon, Lockheed and Boeing are corporate sponsors of the Rockefeller/CFR. James Woolsey, Stephen Hadley, John Bolton, Eliot Cohen and John McCain are CFR members. Also Bill Clinton, Janet Yellen, John Paulson, Lloyd Blankfein and George Soros. See member lists at cfr dot org. Cohen, Bolton, Woolsey, and McCain were also members of PNAC. ..."
"... Yes. Out of NATO, stop the endless pointless wars in the M.E., embrace George Washington and avoiding "foreign entaglements." ..."
"... Agree...but, easier said than done. A large component of our economy is wholly dependent on government funded MIC and arms sales. Dependency on government spending as large part of our economy has seeped into nearly every aspect of our market place. ..."
"... There is a problem with the long term approach...is that the every attempt will be made to stop such a transition in its tracks. Even if it means world war. ..."
"... With modern travel and communications neither policy would work any longer but I'll take nationalism. Bottom line on hawks, the budget is busted out! Cant afford guns and butter anymore. ..."
"... The empire building has made all but a few a lot poorer and the majority on earth more miserable. I am not naive, I know violence is sometimes necessary, but eternal offence as a strategy ensures enemies will find ways to focus on that top dog and beat you. Beside what I think or believe about foreign policy, it doesn't matter we are broke in affording empire. Period. ..."
"... You guys crazy or sumpthin? You want full employment at good wages? All out War is your best bet. No messy "fixing" anything, just flip the switch and off you go. Draft all those troublemakers, turn them into cannon fodder, crank up the printing presses and happy days are here again. ..."
"... What is with you people? It is almost like Saudi Arabia doesn't exist and doesn't buy our politicians. It is almost as if Hillary Clinton never existed, nor her Saudi asset girlfriend (yes, married to an Israeli asset). Look, if you're going to blame the Jews every time, also blame the Wahhabis. And then you might want to also say fuck you to the British who are responsible for both nations. ..."
"... Look, if you're going to blame the Jews every time, also blame the Wahhabis ..."
"... Wahabism/Salafism has been used since Reagan as a weapon for covert war. Saudi Petrodollars recycle back to the U.S. MIC as they pass through the CIA Hillary Clinton approved very large increases in weapons to the Saudi's especially as they funded the Clinton machine. Clintons are CFR agents, and that has a heavy jewish illuminst influence. ..."
"... In what fucking dimension do people this fucking incompetent still have jobs, let alone credibility? Preposterous that they even still have jobs. The US has blown 5-6 trillion on losing one war after the other, has caused massive disorder and chaos in the Mideast to absolutely no one's benefit except Israel, or so Israel believes, and destabilized the entire region to the point that a WWIII could erupt at any moment. ..."
"... Disaster and incompetence at this level can only be rewarded with sackings and terminations across the board. But no, not in the US. The public is more preooccupied with fictional racists and Donald's bawdy pussy talk. ..."
"... Trump has been provided an easy litmus test, who has ever advocated deposing Assad must be rejected, not because Assad is such a great guy, but because those who would replace him are radical islamists all. Russia could be cultivated as a friend and do more for world peace than the Arab world which has a fatal jihad disease. ..."
"... The presidency is more of a ceremonial position now. If the deep state doesn't like the president, it can simply fire him, as it did with Kennedy (and arguably Nixon). It can also make his life a living hell or force a foreign policy showdown as it did with Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs. ..."
"... Controlled demolitions take weeks of planning and preparation. So the implication is that someone planned the WTC7 collapse weeks in advance. WTC7 held a number of offices, including offices of the SEC. Many files were destroyed. ..."
In late October, when it was still conventional wisdom that Hillary was "guaranteed" to win the presidency, the WaPo explained that
among the neo-con, foreign policy "elites" of the Pentagon, a feeling of calm content had spread: after all, it was just a matter
of time before the "pacifist" Obama was out, replaced by the more hawkish Hillary.
As the
WaPo reported , "there is one corner of Washington where Donald Trump's scorched-earth presidential campaign is treated as a
mere distraction and where bipartisanship reigns. In the rarefied world of the Washington foreign policy establishment, President
Obama's departure from the White House - and the possible return of a more conventional and hawkish Hillary Clinton - is being met
with quiet relief ."
The Republicans and Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are laying the groundwork for a more assertive American
foreign policy via a flurry of reports shaped by officials who are likely to play senior roles in a potential Clinton White House.
Oops.
Not only did the "foreign policy" elite get the Trump "scorched-earth distraction" dead wrong, it now has to scramble to find
what leverage - if any - it has in defining Trump's foreign policy. Worse, America's warmongers are now waging war (if only metaphorically:
we all know they can't wait for the real thing) against libertarians for direct access to Trump's front door, a contingency they
had never planned for.
As The Hill reported
earlier , "a battle is brewing between the GOP foreign policy establishment and outsiders over who will sit on President-elect
Donald Trump's national security team. The fight pits hawks and neoconservatives who served in the former Bush administrations against
those on the GOP foreign policy edges."
Taking a page out of Ron Paul's book, the libertarians, isolationists and realists see an opportunity to pull back America's commitments
around the world, spend less money on foreign aid and "nation-building," curtail expensive military campaigns and troop deployments,
and intervene militarily only to protect American interests. In short: these are people who believe that human life, and the avoidance
of war, is more valuable than another record quarter for Raytheon, Lockheed or Boeing.
On the other hand, the so-called establishment camp, many of whom disavowed Trump during the campaign, is made up of the same
people who effectively ran Hillary Clinton's tenure while she was Secretary of State, fully intent on creating zones of conflict,
political instability and outright war in every imaginable place, from North Africa to Ukraine. This group is pushing for Stephen
Hadley, who served as national security adviser under George W. Bush. Another Bush ally, John Bolton whose name has been floated
as a possible secretary of State, also falls into this camp.
According to The Hill, other neo-con, establishment candidates floated include Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob
Corker (R-Tenn.), outgoing Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), rising star Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), and senior fellow at conservative think-tank
American Enterprise Institute and former Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.).
"These figures all generally believe that the United States needs to take an active role in the world from the Middle East to
East Asia to deter enemies and reassure allies."
In short, should this group prevail, it would be the equivalent of 4 more years of HIllary Clinton running the State Department.
The outsider group sees things differently.
They want to revamp American foreign policy in a different direction from the last two administrations. Luckily, this particular
camp is also more in line with Trump's views questioning the value of NATO, a position that horrified many in the establishment camp.
"How many people sleep better knowing that the Baltics are part of NATO? They don't make us safer, in fact, quite the opposite
. We need to think really hard about these commitments," said William Ruger, vice president of research and policy at the Charles
Koch Institute.
A prominent member of the outsiders is Rand Paul, skeptic of Bush's foreign policy, who has criticized Bolton in the last
few days. Paul on Tuesday blasted Bolton in an op-ed in Rare as "a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed
to oppose."
... ... ...
However, neo-cons are bad at losing, so they have redoubled efforts to land one of their own next to Trump. Lindsey Graham,
a prominent foreign policy hawk in the Senate, issued an endorsement of Bolton on Thursday, saying: "He understands who our friends
and enemies are. We see the world in very similar ways."
He also slammed Paul's criticism of Bolton: "You could put the number of Republicans who will follow Rand Paul's advice on
national security in a very small car. Rand is my friend but he's a libertarian and an outlier in the party on these issues."
Funny, that's exactly what the experts said about Trump's chances of winning not even two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, the biggest warmonger, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, who has not said who he'd like to
see in Trump's cabinet, laid down a marker on Tuesday by warning the future Trump administration against trying to seek an improved
relationship with adversary Russia. "When America has been at its greatest, it is when we have stood on the side those fighting tyranny.
That is where we must stand again," he warned.
Luckily, McCain - whose relationship with Trump has been at rock bottom ever since Trump's first appearance in the presidential
campaign - has zero impact on the thinking of Trump.
Furthermore, speaking of Russia, Retired Amy Col. Andrew Bacevich said there needs to be a rethink of American foreign policy.
He said the U.S. must consider whether Saudi Arabia and Pakistan qualify as U.S. allies, and the growing divergence between the U.S.
and Israel. "The establishment doesn't want to touch questions like these with a ten foot pole," he said at a conference on Tuesday
hosted by The American Conservative, the Charles Koch Institute, and the George Washington University Department of Political Science.
Furthermore, resetting the "deplorable" relations with Russia is a necessary if not sufficient condition to halt the incipient
nuclear arms build up that has resulted of the recent dramatic return of the Cold War. As such, a Trump presidency while potentially
a failure, may be best remember for avoiding the launch of World War III. If , that is, he manages to prevent the influence of neo-cons
in his cabinet.
And then there are the wildcards: those Trump advisers who are difficult to peg into which camp they fall into. One example is
retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, who was selected by Trump as his national security
adviser. Flynn is a "curious case," said Daniel Larison, senior editor at The American Conservative. The retired Army general has
said he wants to work with Russia, but also expressed contrary views in his book "Field of Fight."
According to Larison, Flynn writes of an "enemy alliance" against the U.S. that includes Russia, North Korea, China, Iran, Syria,
Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, al-Qaida, Hezbollah, and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. From that standpoint, he is about
as "establishment" as they come.
It's also not crystal clear which camp Giuliani falls into. The former mayor is known as a fierce critic of Islamic extremism
but has scant foreign policy experience.
Most say what is likely is change.
"Change is coming to American grand strategy whether we like it or not,' said Christopher Layne, Robert M. Gates Chair in National
Security at Texas A&M University.
"I think we are overdue for American retrenchment. Americans are beginning to suffer from hegemony fatigue," he said.
And, let's not forget, the tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children who are droned to death every year by anonymous
remote-control operators in the US just so the US can pursue its global hegemonic interest. They most certainly have, and unless
something indeed changes, will continue to suffer, leading to even more resentment against the US, and even more attacks against
US citizens around the globe, and on US soil. Some call them terrorism, others call them retaliation.
Help me here with this word (or whatever it means) REALISTS :
Article: Ron Paul's book, the libertarians, isolationists and REALISTS see an opportunity . to intervene militarily only to
protect American interests.
So dear Libertarians, as I am about to show you two examples, but the list is long, that you have a problem, because of (US)
reality:
1) You are told by the left and right massmedia that the US is something like that: King of natural gas. We'll be the world
exporter. That we have enough natural gas for 100 years, or some nonsense like that. But here is the REALITY :
US "still" had to import almost 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2015.
2) Again, you might hear from the left and right massmedia that: US is shale this. US is shale that, even that shale is not
oil, but some form of kerogen. In any event, here' the reality: US crude oil imports, by Millions of Barrels a Day: 2014: 7,344
2015: 7,363 As of July 2016: 8,092 (MBD)
Key Point (in my opinion): Libertarians, you can't have both of best worlds -two incomparable believes. You have to chose,
otherwise you'll be a hypocrite while being a neocon as well.
MENA is the most important, perhaps the only leverage that the US has to hold the global reserve currency. As long as the
US retain the world's money, the US can finance its debt while collecting rent worldwide. Also, the US can export its inflation.
No US President can, or will willingly let these three to fail, because the collapse will be horrifying.
This construction of the U.S. empire is a myth. Unlike the British, Spanish, French, Portuguese, or any other empire throughout
history you care to name, the construction of the U.S. Empire has been a drastic net drain on U.S. finances.
Unlike any preceding
empire, which invaded other lands in search of wealth and captured client states to monetize added value, the U.S. Empire
has globalised its reach as an instrument of the deep state and its oligarchy of owner/operators. Ostensibly to bring democracy
to the oppressed, its real purpose was to enrich the rent-seekers on the MIC value chain and to protect and serve the private
globalist interests who were the clients of the deep state. National funds flow has always been net outbound, and not the other
way around, as in any successful precendent for empire. This continues to be true to this day because of the influence the wealthy
rent-seekers on this value chain have over the federal government. Simple as that.
In the process, the USA has been hollowed out from the inside, and risks imminent collapse. The greatest hope we can hold out
for a Trump presidency is a recognition of the truth of this. Bannon gets close sometimes, but I still have my doubts that there
is true recognition of just how dire these current circumstances are. In this, people like Ron Paul are right on target - to save
the Republic, the Empire and its enabling institutions (like the Fed) must go.
Raytheon, Lockheed and Boeing are corporate sponsors of the Rockefeller/CFR. James Woolsey, Stephen Hadley, John Bolton, Eliot
Cohen and John McCain are CFR members. Also Bill Clinton, Janet Yellen, John Paulson, Lloyd Blankfein and George Soros. See member
lists at cfr dot org. Cohen, Bolton, Woolsey, and McCain were also members of PNAC.
Michael Flynn's book "Field of Fight" is co-authored by neocon Michael Ledeen, defender of Israel and
promoter of "universal fascism" . Ledeen
is a member of the "Foundation for Defense of Democracies" where Trump advisor James Woolsey is chairman. Woolsey, Clinton's ex-CIA
director, is also a member of the "Flynn Intel Group".
Agree...but, easier said than done. A large component of our economy is wholly dependent on government funded MIC and arms
sales. Dependency on government spending as large part of our economy has seeped into nearly every aspect of our market place.
The gov expansion into and control of the economy has so distorted the markets, and created so much dependency that we are
now in a situation where without it, our economy collapses. It would take decades to fix this problem without collapsing the economy
while you are doing it...
However, we would still feel the pain as we transition the economy. There is a problem with the long term approach...is
that the every attempt will be made to stop such a transition in its tracks. Even if it means world war.
With modern travel and communications neither policy would work any longer but I'll take nationalism. Bottom line on hawks,
the budget is busted out! Cant afford guns and butter anymore.
The empire building has made all but a few a lot poorer and the majority on earth more miserable. I am not naive, I know
violence is sometimes necessary, but eternal offence as a strategy ensures enemies will find ways to focus on that top dog and
beat you. Beside what I think or believe about foreign policy, it doesn't matter we are broke in affording empire. Period.
You guys crazy or sumpthin? You want full employment at good wages? All out War is your best bet. No messy "fixing" anything,
just flip the switch and off you go. Draft all those troublemakers, turn them into cannon fodder, crank up the printing presses
and happy days are here again.
Only those doped up hippies worry about nukes. Don't listen to them.
I hear you do not like yo read, but you must read this ZH post that neatly summarizes the NeoCon influence in Wash. which has
run it's course with little tangible returns and many negative debt outcomes including loss of millions of lives . Time to change
or face world condemnation worse than Germany received after WWII. America has always been regarded as a savior Nation until the
Neocons took over Wash. for narrow corporate, DOD and foreign interests.
You have now heard all the arguments and must decide---compromise will only lead to more strife and possible economic collapse.
This is the most important decision of your Presidency ---all other decisions and promises depend on this one.
Fuck those stinking neo-con bastards. We are not going to be fighting Israel's wars again. This is the United States, not Israel,
no matter how much jew money controls congress and no matter how much jew money controls the media. I hope Trump understands this
very clearly.
What is with you people? It is almost like Saudi Arabia doesn't exist and doesn't buy our politicians. It is almost as if
Hillary Clinton never existed, nor her Saudi asset girlfriend (yes, married to an Israeli asset). Look, if you're going to blame
the Jews every time, also blame the Wahhabis. And then you might want to also say fuck you to the British who are responsible
for both nations.
The reason "Islamophobia" is even a thing is because Saudis paid Jewish SJWs to make it a thing, all while they pay WASPs like
Bolton to go apeshit on non-Wahhabi Muslims.
Yes, before you even start, I'm aware of the claims that the Saudis are some sort of "crypto-Jews". Whatever. They need to
be named regardless.
I don't recall the US fighting any wars that would directly benefit Saudi Arabia. Sure, the Saudis have a lot of money, but they
are just a bunch of camel-fuckers who got rich because they are sitting on oil. They are still a bunch of dumb camel-fuckers.
They don't have any nukes. I imagine the Saudis do nothing without the approval of the CIA Israel is a whole different story.
Look, if you're going to blame the Jews every time, also blame the Wahhabis
Let's deconstruct this statement shall we:
1971 Nixon goes off gold standard. Why? Deficit spending on Vietnam War was causing European Central Banks to hold dollars
they didn't want. They bought gold with it rather than mainstreet American goods. This then started depleting American Gold...especially
to France.
1973 Nixon sends his special JEW Kissinger to Saudi. Why? To make the petrodollar a world standard.
The Saudi Kissinger deal: Saudi gets protection by American War Machine, they get to Cartelize with OPEC, they get transhipment
protection by U.S. Navy, Saudi Illegitimate Coup is OK'd and sanctioned by the West, they get front line American Gear. Today
that gear includes the latest Jets and AWAC's.
What does America get, especially the Western Illuminist Bankers? All Saudi Petrodollars are to cycle into Western Capital
Market, including Western Banks. Saudi's are to buy TBILLs with their petrodollars. All oil is to be priced in dollars, to then
create demand for said dollars. Saudi's do not get to own a powerful financial center. (Can you name me a powerful Saudi bank?)
Our Jewish friends are not stupid and have been running the money game since forever.
The Coup for Saudi was actually a British MI6 project. If you trace MI6 back in time, it was an arm of Bank of England. BOE
was brought into existence by Jewish Capital out of Amsterrrdaaaamn.
Wahabism/Salafism has been used since Reagan as a weapon for covert war. Saudi Petrodollars recycle back to the U.S. MIC
as they pass through the CIA Hillary Clinton approved very large increases in weapons to the Saudi's especially as they funded
the Clinton machine. Clintons are CFR agents, and that has a heavy jewish illuminst influence.
So- absolutely, the Salafists are on the side of our Illuminist friends.
The Shites, especially those of Iran/Persia - have had their "funds" absconded with and/or locked up.
So, which side of Islam has our Jewish Illuminist Cabal masters selected?
if you can post some reliable source material to support your post I'd like the see it. it generally tracks with my understanding
but i could use some solid source material.
if you can post some reliable source material to support your post I'd like the see i
Google 1973 Saudi Kissinger deal:
For BOE the sources are more obscure. I personally have tracked them through time using population statistics and the like.
I need to write a book, so I can quote myself.
BOE, Cromwell, the Orange Kings - the usurpation of England, are all related by way of Stock Market Capital in Amersterdamn.
You can trace our Jewish friends arrival in Amersterdamn with their loss of East West Mechanism (silver gold exchange rates on
the caravan routes). They lost it to the portuguese when Vasco de Gama discovered the Sourthern route.
The person who best cataloged these maneuvers was an american Alexander Del Mar - a great monetary historian. Look for his
books.
This stuff will take you years of effort, and I applaud anyone who takes it on.
For the circulation of dollars during Vietnam War, See Hudson's books... especially Super Imperialism
Dr. Bonzo Nov 19, 2016 11:04 PM
The Republicans and Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are laying the groundwork for a more assertive American
foreign policy via a flurry of reports shaped by officials who are likely to play senior roles in a potential Clinton White
House.
In what fucking dimension do people this fucking incompetent still have jobs, let alone credibility? Preposterous that
they even still have jobs. The US has blown 5-6 trillion on losing one war after the other, has caused massive disorder and chaos
in the Mideast to absolutely no one's benefit except Israel, or so Israel believes, and destabilized the entire region to the
point that a WWIII could erupt at any moment.
Disaster and incompetence at this level can only be rewarded with sackings and terminations across the board. But no, not
in the US. The public is more preooccupied with fictional racists and Donald's bawdy pussy talk.
A nation of fucking morons. I swear.
Victor999 -> Dr. Bonzo Nov 20, 2016 4:09 AM
You answered your own question....Israel is the first priority of American foreign policy - always.
Chaos is precisely what Israel ordered in order to weaken central governments of the ME and destroy their military capability.
WWIII? Doesn't matter in the least for Israel who will quietly stand aside and let the goyim fight it out, and then pick up the
remains. We're all fucking morons for allowing the Jews to take over our money supply, our government, our intelligence services,
our media - and hide themselves under the protective cloak of liberalism, political correctness and 'anti-Semitism' to shut down
all rational debate and guard them against 'discriminatory' practices.
Neochrome Nov 19, 2016 11:06 PM
First of all, McStain should STFU, we'll send a nurse to change his depends, no need to get all cranky.
Giuliani's foreign expertise comes down apparently to be so "brave" to kick down Serbs when they are down and to proclaim to
their face that they have deserved to be bombarded.
Bolton is exactly opposite of everything that Trump campaigned on.
Again, Mitt doesn't look half-bad considering the alternatives...
Kagemusho Nov 19, 2016 11:13 PM
The Elite always signal their intent through the Traditional Media...like this:
Empire or Not? A Quiet Debate Over U.S. Role
by Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, 21 August 2001
https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/linkscopy/empireOrNot.html
You will find the bastards were planning for war and just needed their Pearl Harbor 2 in order to launch it. The same PNAC,
Office of Special Plans NeoCon nutcases that want to get close to Trump were talking so glibly and blithely about 'empire'. I
knew even then that this was the Elite signaling intent, and we all know what happened a few weeks later. This article should
provide the benefit of hindsight when considering Cabinet postings. These NeoCon Israel-Firster assholes belong in prison for
war crimes!
Salzburg1756 Nov 19, 2016 11:16 PM
neocon = Israel-Firster
If Trump disempowers them, he will be a great/good president.
the.ghost.of.22wmr -> Salzburg1756 Nov 20, 2016 12:18 AM
Trump has been provided an easy litmus test, who has ever advocated deposing Assad must be rejected, not because Assad
is such a great guy, but because those who would replace him are radical islamists all. Russia could be cultivated as a friend
and do more for world peace than the Arab world which has a fatal jihad disease.
The Kurds have served our shared interests well , but like all Muslims have no real interest in becoming westernized and will
turn on us once they have achieved their goals.
UnschooledAustr... -> dunce Nov 20, 2016 1:50 AM
You are wrong about the Kurds. Besides the Alevites the only sane people in this mess called the islamic world.
shovelhead -> dunce Nov 20, 2016 9:35 AM
The Kurds are an ethnic identity, not a religious one. While most are of an Islamic rootstock, the are Kurds of various religious
beliefs. The Kurds are fighting for an autonomous region where all religions can co-exist without one being dominant and forcing
others to conform.
The Kurds problem is they are not physically separated by geography like Sicily, who falls under the Italian State but are
still distinctly Sicilian in language and culture while the outside world sees them as Italian.
The Kurds problem is that someone in Europe drew a line on a map without consulting them whether they wanted their traditional
homeland to be divided between three different countries.
Dabooda Nov 20, 2016 12:37 AM
BERNIE SANDERS would be a genius choice for Secretary of State. A kick in the teeth to the Clintonistas and the neocons, an
olive branch to liberals of good will, and a hilarious end to the American civil war that the MSM and Soros are trying to drum
up. Bernie's foreign policy was the only thing I
liked about him.
sinbad2 -> Dabooda Nov 20, 2016 1:02 AM
What a fantastic idea, political genius.
UnschooledAustr... -> Dabooda Nov 20, 2016 1:30 AM
I - non-US citizen living in the US - frequently argued that I would have loved seeing Bernie run as VP for Trump.
Not a lot of people who got it. You did.
BTW: Fuck Soros.
Big Ben Nov 20, 2016 12:51 AM
The presidency is more of a ceremonial position now. If the deep state doesn't like the president, it can simply fire him,
as it did with Kennedy (and arguably Nixon). It can also make his life a living hell or force a foreign policy showdown as it
did with Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs.
Incidentally, I've been looking at some websites that claim that the 911 attacks could not have happened the way the government
claimed. There were actually THREE buildings that collapsed: the North and South Towers and WTC7 which was never hit by an airplane.
The government claims it collapsed due to fires, but a whole bunch of architects and structural engineers say that isn't possible.
And if you look at the video of the collapse, it looks like a perfect controlled demolition. There have been a number of large
fires in steel framed skyscrapers and none of them has caused a collapse. And even if a fire somehow managed to produce a collapse,
it would create a messy uneven collapse where the parts with the hottest fires collapse first.
Controlled demolitions take weeks of planning and preparation. So the implication is that someone planned the WTC7 collapse
weeks in advance. WTC7 held a number of offices, including offices of the SEC. Many files were destroyed.
Also Steven Jones, a retired BYU physics professor and other scientists have found particles of thermite in the dust from the
North and South tower collapses. Thermite is an incendiary used to cut steel. This suggests that the collapse of the the North
and South Towers was also caused by something other than an airplane collision.
I have seen claims that GW Bush's younger brother was a high executive in the company that handled WTC security.
So were the 9/11 attacks a preplanned event designed to create support for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq?
95% or more of the individuals Trump is considering for his administration, including those
already picked have a deep-seated obsession with Iran. This is very troubling. It's going to lead
to war and not a regular war where 300,000 people die. This is a catastrophic error in judgment
I don't give a sh...t who makes such an error, Trump or the representative from Kalamazoo! This
is so bad that it disqualifies whatever else appears positive at this time.
And one more deeply disturbing thing; Pompeo, chosen to head the CIA has threatened Ed Snowden
with the death penalty, if Snowden is caught, and now as CIA Director he can send operatives to
chase him down wherever he is and render him somewhere, torture him to find out who he shared
intelligence with and kill him on the spot and pretend it was a foreign agent who did the job.
He already stated before he was assigned this powerful post that Snowden should be brought back
from Russia and get the death penalty for treason.
Pompeo also sided with the Obama Administration on using U. S. military force in Syria against
Assad and wrote this in the Washington Post: "Russia continues to side with rogue states
and terrorist organizations, following Vladimir Putin's pattern of gratuitous and unpunished affronts
to U.S. interests,".
That's not all, Pompeo wants to enhance the surveillance state, and he too wants to tear up
the Iran deal.
Many of you here are extremely naοve regarding Trump.
b's speculation has the ring of truth. I've often wondered if Trump was encouraged to run
by a deep-state faction that found the neocons to be abhorrent and dangerous.
Aside: I find those who talk about "factions" in foreign policy making to be un-credible.
Among these were those that spoke of 'Obama's legacy'. A bullshit concept for a puppet.The
neocons control FP. And they could only be unseated if a neocon-unfriendly President
was elected.
Trump is turning animosity away from Russia and toward Iran. But I doubt that it will result
in a shooting war with Iran. The 'deep-state' (arms industry and security agencies) just wants
a foreign enemy as a means of ensuring that US govt continues to fund security agencies and
buy arms.
And really, Obama's "peace deal" with Iran was bogus anyway. It was really just a
placeholder until Assad could be toppled. Only a small amount of funds were released to Iran,
and US-Iranian relations have been just as bad as they were before the "peace deal". So all
the hand-wringing about Trump vs. Iran is silly.
What is important is that with Iran as the nominal enemy du jour plus Trump's campaign
pledge to have the "strongest" military (note: every candidate was for a strong military),
the neocons have no case to make that Trump is weak on defense.
And so it is interesting that those that want to undermine Trump have resorted to the claim
that he is close to Jews/Zionists/Israel or even Jewish himself. Funny that Trump wasn't
attacked like that before the election, huh?
The profound changes and profound butt-hurt lead to the following poignant questions:
>> Have we just witnessed a counter-coup?
>> Isn't it sad that, in 2016(!), the only
check on elites are other elite factions? An enormous cultural failure that has produced a
brittle social fabric.
>> If control of NSA snooping power is so crucial, why would ANY ruling block ever allow
the another to gain power?
Indeed, the answer to this question informs one's view on whether the anti-Trump
protests are just Democratic Party ass-covering/distraction or a real attempt at a 'color
revolution'.
"... Trump's main problem in this respect is that the diversity of viewpoints within the military, the NSA or other government agencies might already be too narrow and he needs a Republican version of Stephen Cohen who has always advocated for engagement with Russia, along with other people from outside Washington DC but with experience in state legislatures for the various departments. ..."
"... I agree and I suspect Trump regards Putin as a fellow CEO and perhaps the best one on the planet. ..."
"... A more fundamental problem is that the US has not yet reached rock bottom. So, its delusions remain strong. Trump, as said before, may be a false dawn unless the bottom is closer than suspected and he has new allies (perhaps foreign allies). ..."
It is not about politics, but Trump's peculiar management style, Timofey Bordachev, Director
of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies of the Faculty of World Economy
and International Affairs at Russia's High School of Economics, told RIA Novosti.
"Those who have been studying the business biography of the newly elected president have
noted that he has always played off his high-ranking employees against each other. While doing
so he remained above the fight," he said.
And
Gevorg Mirzayan, an assistant professor of the Political Science department at the Financial
University in Moscow pointed out two purposes for the nominations.
The above brings rationality to the diverse selections made by Trump.
However, the black swan event will be an economic collapse (fast or protracted over several
years). That will be the defining event in the Trump presidency. I have no inkling how he or those
who may replace him would respond.
I had guessed myself that Trump was going to run the government as a business corporation. Surrounding
himself with people of competing viewpoints, and hiring on the basis of experience and skills
(and not on the basis of loyalty, as Hillary Clinton might have done) would be two ways Trump
can change the government and its culture. Trump's main problem in this respect is that the diversity
of viewpoints within the military, the NSA or other government agencies might already be too narrow
and he needs a Republican version of Stephen Cohen who has always advocated for engagement with
Russia, along with other people from outside Washington DC but with experience in state legislatures
for the various departments.
If running the US government as a large mock business enterprise brings a change in its culture
so it becomes more open and accountable to the public, less directed by ideology and identity
politics, and gets rid of people engaged in building up their own little empires within the different
departments, then Trump might just be the President the US needs at this moment in time.
Interesting that Russian academics have noted the outlines of Trump's likely cabinet and what
they suggest he plans to do, and no-one else has. Does this imply that Americans and others in
the West have lost sight of how large business corporations could be run, or should be run, and
everyone is fixated on fake "entrepreneurship" or "self-entrepreneur" (whatever that means) models
of running a business where it's every man, woman, child and dog for itself?
I agree and I suspect Trump regards Putin as a fellow CEO and perhaps the best one on the planet.
Trump may have noted how Putin did an incredible turnaround of Russia and it all started with
three objectives: restore the integrity of the borders, rebuild the industrial base and run off
the globalists/liberals/kreakles. I am certainly not the first one to say this and I think that
there is a lot of basis for that analysis. However, Trump will have a far more difficult challenge
and frankly I don't think he has enough allies or smarts to pull it off.
A more fundamental problem is that the US has not yet reached rock bottom. So, its delusions
remain strong. Trump, as said before, may be a false dawn unless the bottom is closer than suspected
and he has new allies (perhaps foreign allies).
"... Thank you for this very good link. The swamp cant be drained with an election, the society has been infested and corrupt beyond redemption. There can't be a revolution either, because no charismatic figure could lead it, and the majority of the people prefer to bury their head in the sand. ..."
"... It'd be nice to think that the coming devolution won't be an exact repeat, e.g. a neo-Dark Age for hundreds of years, but who can say? Maybe science and philosophy won't be entirely lost this time around. But of course all speculation is rendered nul and void IF we have WW3 ..."
"... If Trump appoints any vetted neocons to high positions in his administration, he runs the risk of synchronized resignations if he decides to move closer to Russia. ..."
"... Fake Libertarians need to understand that Radical islam is a problem not because of America's wars in the Middle East or NATO. Radical islam is inherently violent. India has been a victim of this virus since the 8th century! India never invaded any country. ..."
Thank you for this very good link. The swamp cant be drained with an election, the society has
been infested and corrupt beyond redemption. There can't be a revolution either, because no charismatic
figure could lead it, and the majority of the people prefer to bury their head in the sand.
What will eventually happen is an economic implosion and chaos. The "elite" won't be able to
finance a repressive force since their "electronic money" will not be trusted, and everything
will fall apart.
And years after, small communities will gradually re-emerge since there will
be a need to protect the people with a local police force. But the notion of a super-state or
even more of a NWO will not survive, after an initial depopulation we'll have something similar
than what you had at the begining of the middle age, a life organized around small independant
comunities of 3,000 or 5,000 people.
Very close to my thinking ... and a precedent is the demize of the Roman Empire, when Europe devolved
into numerous small feudal regions, such as in England for over a thousand years, i.e after numerous
internal wars, such as the Wars of the Roses and the reign of Henry VIII, it wasn't until the
1600s and the so-called "Enlightenment" that England was unified ... and it wasn't until the 1700s
that Scotland was conquered and "Great Britain" existed, also having incorporated Wales and Ireland,
with at least Eire having gained independence during the 1920s, Wales never being really integrated,
nor Scotland now moving away from the centre of the whole shebang ... London always.
It'd be nice to think that the coming devolution won't be an exact repeat, e.g. a neo-Dark
Age for hundreds of years, but who can say? Maybe science and philosophy won't be entirely lost
this time around. But of course all speculation is rendered nul and void IF we have WW3 despite,
or because(?) of Trump and similar phenonema in the West.
If Trump appoints any vetted neocons to high positions in his administration, he runs the risk
of synchronized resignations if he decides to move closer to Russia.
And when that is picked up by the arch deceivers at the WaPo, NYT, WSJ etc, it will be embarrassing
for Mr Trump and for the foreign policy he campaigned on.
Mr. Trump, please move closer to Russia - Putin has longed for sane dialogue with the US for the
last 8 or more years and has gotten the cold shoulder.
Fake Libertarians need to understand that Radical islam is a problem not because of America's
wars in the Middle East or NATO. Radical islam is inherently violent. India has been a victim
of this virus since the 8th century! India never invaded any country.
Islam fundamentally is incompatible with a modern society.
"... "I think it was a decision. I think it was a willful decision," ..."
"... "the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [Al- Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria," ..."
"... "the West, Gulf countries and Turkey." ..."
"... "If the situation unravels, there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime." ..."
"... "dire consequences" ..."
"... "ISI (the Islamic State of Iraq) could also declare an Islamic State through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards of unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory," ..."
The US didn't interfere with the rise of anti-government jihadist groups in Syria that finally degenerated
into Islamic State, claims the former head of America's Defense Intelligence Agency, backing a secret
2012 memo predicting their rise. Trends
Islamic State
An interview with retired Lieutenant
General Michael Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), given to Al Jazeera's
Mehdi Hasan, confirms earlier suspicions that Washington was monitoring jihadist groups emerging
as opposition in Syria.
The classified DIA
report presented in August 2012, stated that "the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI
[Al- Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria," being supported by
"the West, Gulf countries and Turkey."
The document recently declassified through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), analyses the
situation in Syria in the summer of 2012 and predicts: "If the situation unravels, there is the
possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria and
this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian
regime."
The report warns of "dire consequences" of this scenario, because it would allow Al-Qaeda
to regain its positions in Iraq and unify the jihadist Sunni forces in Iraq, Syria and the rest of
the Sunnis in the Arab world against all other Muslim minorities they consider dissenters.
"ISI (the Islamic State of Iraq) could also declare an Islamic State through its union with
other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards of unifying
Iraq and the protection of its territory," the DIA report correctly predicted at the time.
Those groups eventually emerged as Islamic State (IS formerly ISIS/ISIL) and Al-Nusra Front, an Islamic
group loyal to Al-Qaeda.
"... Why doesn't the White House just shut the fuck up ..."
"... And as one of its sources, dear old Aunty BBC quotes "a volunteer with the White Helmets Civil Defence force" who told the AFP news agency that he had "never heard such intense artillery bombardments". ..."
"... Recycling the same bullshit as used to justify the first Iraq war. Every time there is a war, babies are trotted out to justify escalation and slaughter. By the million. This baby ploy works on the suckers every time... ..."
Premature babies in Aleppo have been removed from their incubators after air strikes destroyed
hospitals across the city, prompting condemnation of the Syrian government and Russia by the US
and the UN.
Harrowing video footage shows tiny babies being removed from their incubators in a smoke-filled
ward, with nurses reduced to tears as they detach the tubing providing support and wrap the babies
in blankets.
Now where have I heard a similar story before? .
Why doesn't the White House just shut the fuck up or, failing that, send a drone flying off
to Moscow so as to zap the Evil One and any bystanders in his vicinity?
"The Syrian regime and its allies, Russia in particular, bear responsibility for the immediate
and long-term consequences these actions have caused in Syria and beyond" - said Susan Rice, of
course.
And as one of its sources, dear old Aunty BBC quotes "a volunteer with the White Helmets Civil
Defence force" who told the AFP news agency that he had "never heard such intense artillery bombardments".
Aleppo must be one of the most intensely scrutinized area on earth drones, satellites, radars
and electronic sensors of every type by both US and Russia. Yet, the DOS (Department of Shit?)
exclusively relies on the "Observer" dude in London and other miscreants for their claims of sinister
Russian air strikes. The DOS needs a 'tard wrangler for these various groups.
The other possibility is that Russia has perfected stealth on every wavelength including visible
light and have zero-noise jet engines.
Recycling the same bullshit as used to justify the first Iraq war. Every time there is a war,
babies are trotted out to justify escalation and slaughter. By the million. This baby ploy works
on the suckers every time...
"... 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. ..."
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.
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 .
"... He's proud that the first job offer-to former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn for national security adviser-went to a "registered Democrat," and that the country is going to see "a lot of interesting choices." Mr. Trump "knows how to mix and match, get the best out of people, and I think it says something about what a historic figure he could be." ..."
"... I never went on TV one time during the campaign. Not once. You know why? Because politics is war. General Sherman would never have gone on TV to tell everyone his plans. ..."
"... Breitbart is the most pro-Israel site in the United States ..."
Stephen K. Bannon in a rare interview talks with Kimberley A. Strassel of the Wall Street Journal
about the winning campaign of Donald J. Trump and his part in helping the president-elect accomplish
his vision for America. Bannon also refutes charges of being antisemitic or a white nationalist saying
the allegations, "just aren't serious. It's a joke."
... ... ... Why does he think that leftists are so fixated on him? "They were ready to coronate
Hillary Clinton. That didn't happen, and I'm one of the reasons why. So, by the way, I wear these
attacks as an emblem of pride." Mr. Bannon believes Mr. Trump to be uniquely suited to make the
case, as "one of the best political orators in American history, rated with William Jennings Bryan."
He's proud that the first job offer-to former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn for national security
adviser-went to a "registered Democrat," and that the country is going to see "a lot of interesting
choices." Mr. Trump "knows how to mix and match, get the best out of people, and I think it says
something about what a historic figure he could be."
I never went on TV one time during the campaign. Not once. You know why? Because politics is
war. General Sherman would never have gone on TV to tell everyone his plans.
"Breitbart is the most pro-Israel site in the United States"
"... He's proud that the first job offer-to former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn for national security adviser-went to a "registered Democrat," and that the country is going to see "a lot of interesting choices." Mr. Trump "knows how to mix and match, get the best out of people, and I think it says something about what a historic figure he could be." ..."
"... I never went on TV one time during the campaign. Not once. You know why? Because politics is war. General Sherman would never have gone on TV to tell everyone his plans. ..."
"... Breitbart is the most pro-Israel site in the United States ..."
Stephen K. Bannon in a rare interview talks with Kimberley A. Strassel of the Wall Street Journal
about the winning campaign of Donald J. Trump and his part in helping the president-elect accomplish
his vision for America. Bannon also refutes charges of being antisemitic or a white nationalist saying
the allegations, "just aren't serious. It's a joke."
... ... ... Why does he think that leftists are so fixated on him? "They were ready to coronate
Hillary Clinton. That didn't happen, and I'm one of the reasons why. So, by the way, I wear these
attacks as an emblem of pride." Mr. Bannon believes Mr. Trump to be uniquely suited to make the
case, as "one of the best political orators in American history, rated with William Jennings Bryan."
He's proud that the first job offer-to former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn for national security
adviser-went to a "registered Democrat," and that the country is going to see "a lot of interesting
choices." Mr. Trump "knows how to mix and match, get the best out of people, and I think it says
something about what a historic figure he could be."
I never went on TV one time during the campaign. Not once. You know why? Because politics is
war. General Sherman would never have gone on TV to tell everyone his plans.
"Breitbart is the most pro-Israel site in the United States"
First of all turns out Ed Lucas' personal pleasure object (aka "The
Economist") has no idea, who are the Chinese. Second the depiction of MLP
is uncanonical! I protest! We, human masses, demand more canonical depiction
of Marine Le Pen!
Reply
"... " Like [Andrew] Jackson's populism, we're going to build an entirely new political movement ," he says. "It's everything related to jobs. The conservatives are going to go crazy. I'm the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the world, it's the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all jacked up. We're just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks . It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution - conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement." ..."
"... Nobody in the Democratic party listened to his speeches, so they had no idea he was delivering such a compelling and powerful economic message. He shows up 3.5 hours late in Michigan at 1 in the morning and has 35,000 people waiting in the cold. When they got [Clinton] off the donor circuit she went to Temple University and they drew 300 or 400 kids." ..."
"... Bannon on Murdoch: "Rupert is a globalist and never understood Trump" ..."
"... " The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f-ed over . If we deliver-" by "we" he means the Trump White House "-we'll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we'll govern for 50 years. That's what the Democrats missed, they were talking to these people with companies with a $9 billion market cap employing nine people. It's not reality. They lost sight of what the world is about ." ..."
"... ... I'd say, IMO, Steve Bannon is more than an excellent choice for President Trump's team ... Bannon's education, business, work and military experience speaks highly of his abilities ... I wish the MSM would stop labelling him a white nationalist and concentrate on his successful accomplishments and what he could contribute to Trump's cabinet. ..."
Bannon next discusses the "battle line" inside America's great divide.
He absolutely - mockingly - rejects the idea that this is a racial line. "I'm not a white nationalist,
I'm a nationalist. I'm an economic nationalist, " he tells me. " The globalists gutted the American
working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to
not get f-ed over . If we deliver-" by "we" he means the Trump White House "-we'll get 60 percent
of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we'll govern for 50 years.
That's what the Democrats missed, they were talking to these people with companies with a $9 billion
market cap employing nine people. It's not reality. They lost sight of what the world is about
."
Bannon's vision: an "entirely new political movement", one which drives the conservatives crazy.
As to how monetary policy will coexist with fiscal stimulus, Bannon has a simple explanation: he
plans to "rebuild everything" courtesy of negative interest rates and cheap debt throughout the world.
Those rates may not be negative for too long.
" Like [Andrew] Jackson's populism, we're going to build an entirely new political movement
," he says. "It's everything related to jobs. The conservatives are going to go crazy. I'm the
guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the
world, it's the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all
jacked up. We're just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks . It will be
as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution - conservatives, plus populists,
in an economic nationalist movement."
How Bannon describes Trump: " an ideal vessel"
It is less than obvious how Bannon, now the official strategic brains of the Trump operation,
syncs with his boss, famously not too strategic. When Bannon took over the campaign from Paul
Manafort, there were many in the Trump circle who had resigned themselves to the inevitability
of the candidate listening to no one . But here too was a Bannon insight: When the campaign seemed
most in free fall or disarray, it was perhaps most on target. While Clinton was largely absent
from the campaign trail and concentrating on courting her donors, Trump - even after the leak
of the grab-them-by-the-pussy audio - was speaking to ever-growing crowds of thirty-five or forty
thousand. "He gets it, he gets it intuitively," says Bannon, perhaps still surprised he has found
such an ideal vessel. "You have probably the greatest orator since William Jennings Bryan, coupled
with an economic populist message and two political parties that are so owned by the donors that
they don't speak to their audience. But he speaks in a non-political vernacular, he communicates
with these people in a very visceral way. Nobody in the Democratic party listened to his speeches,
so they had no idea he was delivering such a compelling and powerful economic message. He shows
up 3.5 hours late in Michigan at 1 in the morning and has 35,000 people waiting in the cold. When
they got [Clinton] off the donor circuit she went to Temple University and they drew 300 or 400
kids."
Bannon on Murdoch: "Rupert is a globalist and never understood Trump"
At that moment, as we talk, there's a knock on the door of Bannon's office, a temporary, impersonal,
middle-level executive space with a hodgepodge of chairs for constant impromptu meetings. Sen.
Ted Cruz, once the Republican firebrand, now quite a small and unassuming figure, has been waiting
patiently for a chat and Bannon excuses himself for a short while. It is clear when we return
to our conversation that it is not just the liberal establishment that Bannon feels he has triumphed
over, but the conservative one too - not least of all Fox News and its owners, the Murdochs. "They
got it more wrong than anybody," he says. " Rupert is a globalist and never understood Trump.
To him, Trump is a radical. Now they'll go centrist and build the network around Megyn Kelly."
Bannon recounts, with no small irony, that when Breitbart attacked Kelly after her challenges
to Trump in the initial Republican debate, Fox News chief Roger Ailes - whom Bannon describes
as an important mentor, and who Kelly's accusations of sexual harassment would help topple in
July - called to defend her. Bannon says he warned Ailes that Kelly would be out to get him too
.
Finally, Bannon on how he sees himself in the administration:
Bannon now becomes part of a two-headed White House political structure, with Reince Priebus
- in and out of Bannon's office as we talk - as chief of staff, in charge of making the trains
run on time, reporting to the president, and Bannon as chief strategist, in charge of vision,
goals, narrative and plan of attack, reporting to the president too. Add to this the ambitions
and whims of the president himself, and the novel circumstance of one who has never held elective
office, the agenda of his highly influential family and the end runs of a party significant parts
of which were opposed to him, and you have quite a complex court that Bannon will have to finesse
to realize his reign of the working man and a trillion dollars in new spending.
"I am," he says, with relish, "Thomas Cromwell in the court of the Tudors."
" The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia.
The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f-ed over . If we deliver-" by "we" he
means the Trump White House "-we'll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the
black and Hispanic vote and we'll govern for 50 years. That's what the Democrats missed, they
were talking to these people with companies with a $9 billion market cap employing nine people.
It's not reality. They lost sight of what the world is about ."
... I'd say, IMO, Steve Bannon is more than an excellent choice for President Trump's team
... Bannon's education, business, work and military experience speaks highly of his abilities
... I wish the MSM would stop labelling him a white nationalist and concentrate on his successful
accomplishments and what he could contribute to Trump's cabinet.
........ from wiki ...
Stephen Kevin Bannon was born on November 27, 1953, in Norfolk, Virginia into a working-class,
Irish Catholic, pro-Kennedy, pro-union family of Democrats. He graduated from Virginia Tech in
1976 and holds a master's degree in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. In 1983,
Bannon received an M.B.A. degree with honors from Harvard Business School.
Bannon was an officer in the United States Navy, serving on the destroyer USS Paul F. Foster
as a Surface Warfare Officer in the Pacific Fleet and stateside as a special assistant to the
Chief of Naval Operations at the Pentagon.
After his military service, Bannon worked at Goldman Sachs as an investment banker in the Mergers
& Acquisitions Department. In 1990, Bannon and several colleagues from Goldman Sachs launched
Bannon & Co., a boutique investment bank specializing in media. Through Bannon & Co., Bannon negotiated
the sale of Castle Rock Entertainment to Ted Turner. As payment, Bannon & Co. accepted a financial
stake in five television shows, including Seinfeld. Sociιtι Gιnιrale purchased Bannon & Co. in
1998.
In 1993, while still managing Bannon & Co., Bannon was made acting director of Earth-science
research project Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona. Under Bannon, the project shifted emphasis from
researching space exploration and colonization towards pollution and global warming. He left the
project in 1995.
After the sale of Bannon & Co., Bannon became an executive producer in the film and media industry
in Hollywood, California. He was executive producer for Julie Taymor's 1999 film Titus. Bannon
became a partner with entertainment industry executive Jeff Kwatinetz at The Firm, Inc., a film
and television management company. In 2004, Bannon made a documentary about Ronald Reagan titled
In the Face of Evil. Through the making and screening of this film, Bannon was introduced to Peter
Schweizer and publisher Andrew Breitbart. He was involved in the financing and production of a
number of films, including Fire from the Heartland: The Awakening of the Conservative Woman, The
Undefeated (on Sarah Palin), and Occupy Unmasked. Bannon also hosts a radio show (Breitbart News
Daily) on a Sirius XM satellite radio channel.
Bannon is also executive chairman and co-founder of the Government Accountability Institute,
where he helped orchestrate the publication of the book Clinton Cash. In 2015, Bannon was ranked
No. 19 on Mediaite's list of the "25 Most Influential in Political News Media 2015".
Bannon convinced Goldman Sachs to invest in a company known as Internet Gaming Entertainment.
Following a lawsuit, the company rebranded as Affinity Media and Bannon took over as CEO. From
2007 through 2011, Bannon was chairman and CEO of Affinity Media.
Bannon became a member of the board of Breitbart News. In March 2012, after founder Andrew
Breitbart's death, Bannon became executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC, the parent company
of Breitbart News. Under his leadership, Breitbart took a more alt-right and nationalistic approach
towards its agenda. Bannon declared the website "the platform for the alt-right" in 2016. Bannon
identifies as a conservative. Speaking about his role at Breitbart, Bannon said: "We think of
ourselves as virulently anti-establishment, particularly 'anti-' the permanent political class."
The New York Times described Breitbart News under Bannon's leadership as a "curiosity of the
fringe right wing", with "ideologically driven journalists", that is a source of controversy "over
material that has been called misogynist, xenophobic and racist." The newspaper also noted how
Breitbart was now a "potent voice" for Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
Bannon: " The globalists gutted the American working class ..the Democrats were talking
to these people with companies with a $9 billion market cap employing nine people. It's not reality.
They lost sight of what the world is about ."
Well said. Couldn't agree more.
Bannon: " Like [Andrew] Jackson's populism, we're going to build an entirely new political
movement I'm the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan.
Dear Mr. Bannon, it has to be way more than $1trillion in 10 years. Obama's $831 billion American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) didn't make up the difference for all the job lost
in 2007/08. Manufacturing alone lost about 9 million jobs since 1979, when it peaked.
Trump needs to go Ronald Reagan 180% deficit spending. If Trump runs 100% like Obama, Trump
will fail as well.
"... "I'm thinking that Donald Trump seems a realistic and a pragmatist man," retired Gen. Ilker Basburg, a former chief of staff of the Turkish military, told reporters Wednesday. "I think he will open a direct link with the central Syrian government." ..."
"... However, Trump has said the main U.S. goal in Syria is the defeat of the Islamic State group and not the future of the Syrian government. He said the ouster of Arab strongmen in Egypt, Yemen and Libya have served to destabilize the Middle East and led to the rise of Islamic extremists. ..."
"... On Wednesday, Erdogan announced Turkish-backed forces were close to retaking al-Bab, a city about 20 miles east of Aleppo, from the Islamic State group. Turkey believes the capture of al-Bab as strategically important because it keeps Kurdish forces from taking it and consolidating their territory in northern Syria along the Turkish border. ..."
A former top Turkish general said Donald Trump's election could hasten the end of the Syrian
civil war by opening the door to negotiations with the Syrian government of President Bashar
Assad.
"I'm thinking that Donald Trump seems a realistic and a pragmatist man," retired Gen. Ilker
Basburg, a former chief of staff of the Turkish military, told reporters Wednesday. "I think he
will open a direct link with the central Syrian government."
The United States and Turkey have demanded that Assad step down as part of any agreement to end
the five-year Syrian war.
However, Trump has said the main U.S. goal in Syria is the defeat of the Islamic State group
and not the future of the Syrian government. He said the ouster of Arab strongmen in Egypt, Yemen
and Libya have served to destabilize the Middle East and led to the rise of Islamic extremists.
Basburg's views do not reflect those of the Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In
fact, Basburg was imprisoned for life in 2013 for conspiring against the Turkish government but
the courts overturned the conviction in 2014.
Nevertheless, Basburg said Turkey's interests in Syria have evolved since the war began in 2011,
in large part because of the role of Kurdish militants, whom the Turks consider an enemy. But the
Kurds are supported by the United States, Turkey's longtime ally. Turkey was alarmed when a
Kurdish-dominated rebel alliance seized the border city of Manbij from the Islamic State group.
On Wednesday, Erdogan announced Turkish-backed forces were close to retaking al-Bab, a city
about 20 miles east of Aleppo, from the Islamic State group. Turkey believes the capture of al-Bab
as strategically important because it keeps Kurdish forces from taking it and consolidating their
territory in northern Syria along the Turkish border.
Basburg said Turkey's top concern is having a secure border with Syria. With the United States
and Turkey re-evaluating their interests in Syria, he was optimistic a new administration "will
make some different policy."
"We have to work with [the current Syrian] government. Today, [it's] Assad. Tomorrow, somebody
else might be head of the government," he said.
Basburg also said Russia and Iran would also need to be involved in the negotiations.
"Turkey and the United States have been old friends," Basburg said, but U.S. ties to the Kurdish
forces have led to questions about that relationship.
ALEPPO, Syria - In the midst of sectarian violence that has overtaken Syria for more than five
years, nine-year-old Asil Kassab is shocked by the defeat of Democratic presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton.
"I am so unhappy that a woman was not elected President," Asil said, briefly ducking as a bomb
from an American MQ-1 Predator drone leveled the hospital behind her. "Hillary Clinton is truly a
role model for young girls like me. I was so hoping that she'd be the one to order the drone
strike that would inevitably end my life."
Despite Clinton's support for regime change in Syria, leading to what is arguably one of the
greatest humanitarian crises of the early century, Kassab surprisingly says she holds no ill
will.
"I don't put much stock in the misogynist agenda of American politics," said Kassab, who, like
many children, cannot remember a time before the war that has killed 400,000 people, including
her family, and created over 4.7 million refugees. "People will always criticize her because she
is a woman in a man's world; One who has the audacity to run for President."
"It is sexism that motivates her critics, plain and simple," she added. "It is sexism, and
racism, that caused her to lose the election!"
"... Pompeo was close to Trump's running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who served with Pompeo in the House. Last month, Pompeo helped prepare Pence for the vice presidential debate with Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia. ..."
"... Pompeo is a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence and one of the most vocal critics of the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran. ..."
"... He's a supporter of the National Security Agency's controversial bulk data collection program and sought to restore the agency's access to the data it had already collected under the Patriot Act from its inception through late last year. ..."
"... He was elected to Congress in 2010 on a wave of tea party support and with backing from the Koch Industries political action committee. The Wichita-based conglomerate's PAC is well known for its support of conservative candidates. ..."
"... Though Pompeo is generally known for his opposition to Obama administration policies, he's occasionally given heat to some fellow Republicans. Last year, his name was floated as a potential rival to Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to become House speaker. ..."
"... Pompeo has sponsored numerous bills that would maintain or increase sanctions on Iran over its nuclear weapons program. He's been a staunch opponent of the deal negotiated by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry that eases sanctions in exchange for dismantling the nuclear weapons program. ..."
"... Pompeo has served on the House Select Benghazi Committee. ..."
"... When the committee released its report on the attack in June, Pompeo and Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio released a separate report that was even more sharply critical of Clinton's handling of the affair. They wrote that Clinton intentionally misled Americans about the nature of the attack because Obama was up for re-election. ..."
"... Pompeo has made some controversial statements about Muslims. Weeks after the Boston marathon bombing in 2013, in a speech on the House floor, he not only accused Islamic faith leaders of not doing enough to condemn terrorist attacks, but also suggested they might be encouraging them. ..."
"... Couldn't give a fiddlers fuck about the issues of global warming at this stage and crisis we now face. I just want to know if the asshole is stupid enough to use NATO to get energy for this Country that neither we nor the Saudi's have any longer. ..."
"... If Trump is smart he will engage detente with the Russians at the expense of all of his war mongering staff. ..."
"... Looks like Trump decided to sell us down the river rather than drain the swamp. And now we're caught between his thugs and an army of crazy children in the streets. ..."
"... The buck still stops with Trump and he isn't even in office yet for anyone to judge him fairly. For me that means he gets a year or two. Further, he's a smart guy and I never assumed he was going to bring in 4000+ newbies into his administration. The fucking wheels would lock up immediately. He knows this. He needs competent, loyal people in these roles, period. ..."
"... Trump is already showing himself through his choices. This guy is a hard liner in the push for the govt to trample the constitution and treat the citizens like serfs. ..."
"... The advantage of the Trump win is the exposure that has already happened. The Ds and Rs have been exposed. MSM has been exposed for extreme bias. The rats that double down on their anti-Trump rhetoric think they are hiding their own crimes when really they are exposing themselves for all the world to see. The "Love Trumps Hate" protestors are exposing all their own hypocrisy for all the world to see. ..."
"... Appointing a member of the Bengazhi committee to run the CIA means Hillary is completely FUCKED though. That's a bonus, a big one. ..."
Moments after Donald Trump offered the Attorney General spot to senator Jeff Sessions (which he promptly
accepted), it was announced that Trump had also picked rep. Mike Pompeo as CIA director, who likewise
accepted.
Trump has offered position of CIA director to US Rep Mike Pompeo and Pompeo has accepted -transition
official
The selection of Pompeo, a three-term Republican from Wichita, started earlier this week when
he met with Donald Trump, according to the president-elect's transition team. Now we know what the
meetings were about. Courtesy of
McClatchy , here is profile of the new director of America's top spy agency:
* * *
Pompeo originally supported Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's presidential bid. Like most of his Kansas
colleagues, Pompeo backed Trump when it was clear the New York real-estate developer would become
the Republican presidential nominee, though not enthusiastically.
But Pompeo was close to Trump's running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who served with Pompeo
in the House. Last month, Pompeo helped prepare Pence for the vice presidential debate with Sen.
Tim Kaine of Virginia.
The most prominent Kansas elected official to endorse Trump early on was Secretary of State Kris
Kobach, now a member of the Trump transition team and a possible candidate for U.S. Attorney General.
Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and recently defeated Rep. Tim Huelskamp are both potential picks
for agriculture secretary.
Pompeo is a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence and one of the most vocal
critics of the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran.
He's a supporter of the National Security Agency's controversial bulk data collection program
and sought to restore the agency's access to the data it had already collected under the Patriot
Act from its inception through late last year.
He's a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and Harvard Law School. He's also a
member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Pompeo, who grew up in the traditionally Republican enclave of Orange County, California, founded
Thayer Aerospace, a company that made parts for commercial and military aircraft. After selling Thayer,
he became president of Sentry International, a company that manufactures and sells equipment used
in oil fields.
He was elected to Congress in 2010 on a wave of tea party support and with backing from the Koch
Industries political action committee. The Wichita-based conglomerate's PAC is well known for its
support of conservative candidates.
Though Pompeo is generally known for his opposition to Obama administration policies, he's occasionally
given heat to some fellow Republicans. Last year, his name was floated as a potential rival to Rep.
Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to become House speaker.
Earlier this year, he briefly flirted with a primary challenge to Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran after
the state's junior senator appeared to break with Senate Republican opposition to Obama's Supreme
Court nomination of Merrick Garland.
Joe Romance, an associate professor of political science at Fort Hays State University, said it
makes sense for Pompeo to consider a job in the executive branch, given the way the stage is set
from Kansas to Washington in the next several years.
"He's ambitious," Romance said. "Jerry Moran just got reelected. Roberts is not up until 2020.
So where do you need to move? And I don't think Ryan's going anywhere as speaker. So why not?"
Pompeo has sponsored numerous bills that would maintain or increase sanctions on Iran over
its nuclear weapons program. He's been a staunch opponent of the deal negotiated by President Barack
Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry that eases sanctions in exchange for dismantling the nuclear
weapons program.
In February, Pompeo and two of his Republican House colleagues unsuccessfully sought visas to
monitor the country's elections.
When Iran detained a group of American sailors earlier whose ship had wandered into its territorial
waters earlier this year, Pompeo introduced a bill requiring the Obama administration to investigate
whether Iran violated the Geneva Convention. It didn't become law. The sailors were not harmed, and
the Navy later concluded that the sailors had entered Iran's waters by mistake.
Pompeo has served on the House Select Benghazi Committee. The special panel was created in 2014 to probe the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Libya that killed
four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. One of its key targets was former Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton, on whose watch the attack had occurred.
When the committee released its report on the attack in June, Pompeo and Republican Rep. Jim Jordan
of Ohio released a separate report that was even more sharply critical of Clinton's handling of the
affair. They wrote that Clinton intentionally misled Americans about the nature of the attack because
Obama was up for re-election.
"Officials at the State Department, including Secretary Clinton, learned almost in real time that
the attack in Benghazi was a terrorist attack," Pompeo and Jordan wrote. "With the presidential election
just 56 days away, rather than tell the American people the truth and increase the risk of losing
an election, the administration told one story privately and a different story publicly."
Pompeo has made some controversial statements about Muslims. Weeks after the Boston marathon bombing
in 2013, in a speech on the House floor, he not only accused Islamic faith leaders of not doing enough
to condemn terrorist attacks, but also suggested they might be encouraging them.
"When the most devastating terrorist attacks on America in the last 20 years come overwhelmingly
from people of a single faith, and are performed in the name of that faith, a special obligation
falls on those that are the leaders of that faith," Pompeo said. " Instead of responding, silence
has made these Islamic leaders across America potentially complicit in these acts and more importantly
still, in those that may well follow."
But last month, three militiamen were arrested in western Kansas in an alleged plot to blow up
an apartment complex that's home to Somali Muslim refugees.
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said statements like
Pompeo's were detrimental to policies that keep all Americans safe.
"We believe it's counterproductive to our nation's safety and security because they will act based
on their faulty perceptions of Muslims and Islam," Hooper said, "and will not carry out policies
based on accurate and balanced information."
Yep... Like all the rest that pass through the "revolving doors" of D.C. he'll feather his nest
and continue "killing some folks" and "torturing some folks".
Only not in Syria or Ukraine -that is for certain!
some of his opinions are concerning but a quick bio read in wikipedia showed some pretty well
reasoned unorthodox stances.
he's not a global warming sycophant, nor particularly doctrinaire in things energy. but a bulk
collection fan..I was really hoping for someone with a track record of following the fourth amendment.
Couldn't give a fiddlers fuck about the issues of global warming at this stage and crisis
we now face. I just want to know if the asshole is stupid enough to use NATO to get energy for
this Country that neither we nor the Saudi's have any longer.
We'll know these cocksuckers are sincere when they tell us the truth about the "riches of bakken
oil" is 10 years and not 100 and that the systemic looting operation in the ME using our military
is counter productive given the tradeoff of war with the Russians and the accumulated debt to
fund our misadventures that will never find a buyer!
Let me preface this by saying I find bulk collection totally an affront to the constitution, however
"private" companies already have bulk collection in place. It's only the slightest catalyst from
there to the government requiring the companies hand over all that data. I'm surprised people
advocate for bulk data openly, when they know the hurdle to cross to access private databases
is very low. And that whole shooter's phone charade where Apple "stood up" to the FBI was so much
bluster when both sides likely already had the capability that they claimed not to have.
The "hurdle" is even lower than you state. The only "hurdle" is whether they can openly use that
data in court. They already have it all. All the data goes through collection "checkpoints."
Looks like Trump decided to sell us down the river rather than drain the swamp. And now we're
caught between his thugs and an army of crazy children in the streets.
This is why I would have preferred seeing Hillary win despite the fact that I voted for Trump.
It felt like a con and a con it was, apparently.
When was it anything but a con. Madness, when you keep doing the same thing again and again and
expecting a different result. The deep state has you suckered, and you still think its the land
of the free. Reality is relative to your perception. Its an extension of what you want to believe.
You live with your delusions, no one elses.
Nice we can all be deluded together. I don't mind this choice its not for the CIA director to
decide what is constitutional or not, that is for the Supreme court so we the people must challenge
the collection and use of the collected data in the Supreme court. The CIA director is to obey
the Law as it is presented to him.
That's not how the CIA works. They do a mea culpa, then 10 years later the same mea culpa. The
spooks were behind torture and secret prisons during the Bush admin, they're behind the not torture
that doesn't happen in prisons that we don't admit to. Only the language changed. We all pretend
to be offended when we find out that unspeakable acts are being committed in our names, or we
deny it - that's been working for the left for 2 terms.
The buck still stops with Trump and he isn't even in office yet for anyone to judge him fairly.
For me that means he gets a year or two. Further, he's a smart guy and I never assumed he was
going to bring in 4000+ newbies into his administration. The fucking wheels would lock up immediately.
He knows this. He needs competent, loyal people in these roles, period.
Time will tell on this. If his appointments start going apeshit like OBungler's did, then we
have a real problem. For individual citizens the choice is clear, hope for the best and keep planning
for the worst, which is what I've been doing for the last 12 years+. If you and your family are
not prepared for some major disruptions to your way of life and basic daily sustenance, then you
better get on it.
Lastly, the deep state is NEVER going away either. Not even sure they can be curbed. I honestly
don't have an answer for that one yet except to be prepared to completely and totally unplug from
everything, and become 'invisible, passive and benign' to the system itself at some point.
I logged in to thank you for this Voice Of Reason post. I don't know just what people expected.
Was he supposed to start appointing random biker dudes to cabinet posts? Come on. To some extent
one must work with the system if one is to have any hope of making changes to it.
Like baba looey keeps saying, let the man work, FFS.
Do people demand a really just system? Well, we'll arrange it so that they'll be satisfied
with one that's a little less unjust ... They want a revolution, and we'll give them reforms --
lots of reforms; we'll drown them in reforms. Or rather, we'll drown them in promises of reforms,
because we'll never give them real ones either!!
Trump is already showing himself through his choices. This guy is a hard liner in the push
for the govt to trample the constitution and treat the citizens like serfs. But Trump's supporters
are ok with it because it is "their guy" doing it, just like the Dems/liberals/whatever were ok
with Obama shredding the constitution and killing hundreds of thousands because Obama was "their
guy".
The velvet glove will come off soon and you will only have the iron fist.
With Trump, perhaps 60%. I'm happy with that, and will try not to bitch about the 40%.
Don't get me wrong... Putting HRC in a coffin, is a wonderful thing... But my sensibilities
tell me that 'DRAINING A SWAMP' is too much of a task for Donald Trump (or anyone else)...
Drain the swamp indeed! I can't believe people thought the Donald would change anything! Same
shit different color(literally and figuratively) douchebags!
Billy: Who is going to help Trump drain the swamp? The current swamp monsters? Why would they
want to ruin their own home? That was always the problem.
Either way, I am glad he got in. You knew you were going nowhere with Hillary. If Trump fails
then he will prove that outsiders are no good either. The election started out looking like insider
vs insider - Clinton vs Bush. That was a good reason for all the voters to stay home, or to write
"Me" or "None of the Above" on their ballots - for those who had paper ballots.
If Trump was a Conspiracy then his job was to make the plebs think they had a choice, to drag
them to the voting booth, to create the illusion of legitimacy for the new government. If Trump
can not change anything then the next "outsider" will have to put on an even bigger show and let
us remember, this election will be a hard act to follow. My biggest fear is post-election amnesia,
everything is already forgotten, let alone remembered in four years time. Is Wikileaks still chugging
away? Where is that fantastic leak that would supposedly send Hillary straight to jail? What came
of the Podesta emails? Are his spirits truly cooked? Are all the FBI investigations to be forgotten?
Come the next election, are we really going to see crimes greater than the Comet Pizza allegations
bubble to the surface? If the alleged crimes of the past year, and especially the last month or
week, are forgotten, does that mean they were simply elaborate theatre? Will people remember this
past year and, come the next election, declare "Well, look what happened in 2016! If that meant
nothing, then how on earth could any other news mean anything? Refuse to participate in the show."
The advantage of the Trump win is the exposure that has already happened. The Ds and Rs
have been exposed. MSM has been exposed for extreme bias. The rats that double down on their anti-Trump
rhetoric think they are hiding their own crimes when really they are exposing themselves for all
the world to see. The "Love Trumps Hate" protestors are exposing all their own hypocrisy for all
the world to see.
Worst thing about this election? I paid attention. Politicians lie, especially in the lead
up to an election. Everything they say can be safely ignored. Damn shame I got sucked into paying
attention to this one - for the first time in my life. But now, in order to gain the attention
of people who think like me, the next election will have to have theatrics of an order of magnitude
greater than this one. Scary, eh! ;)
Not every pick trump makes it going to please everyone. Trump is a hardliner on fighting Terrorism,
that means you aren't going to get Assange/Snowden love-ins, or someone trying to destroy the
intelligence overreach of the US. Appointing a member of the Bengazhi committee to run the
CIA means Hillary is completely FUCKED though. That's a bonus, a big one.
The guy is Half-TeaParty, with NeoCon leanings towards fighting terrorism. Trump is going to
be libertarian on War and Interventionism, but Neo-Con on Islamic Terror.
None of that has to do with "not draining the swamp"
Perfect example of why all this SHIT is going to continue! Terrorism is an idea. It is the PERFECT
tool for govts to exert control.
"Islamic Terror?" CIA started it all and the western propaganda machine has churned it into
something that morons suck up.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous
to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
- H.L. Mencken
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be
led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. H.
L. Mencken
Read more at:
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/hlmencke101109.html
Neocon Invasion of Team Trump Fully Underway Trump must stop neocon takeover of his administration
Wayne Madsen
The purge of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie loyalists from the Donald Trump presidential
transition team has little to do with Christie's Bridgegate scandal and everything to do with
a battle between Bush-era neoconservatives and national security realists for control over key
departments of the Trump administration.
It appears that Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner , the publisher of the New York Observer and
someone who is aligned with the Likud Party of Israel, is now the de facto chair of the Trump
transition team , especially when it comes to national security matters.
Vice President-elect Mike Pence, the official chairman of the team, is concentrating on domestic
policy appointments, such as the rumored appointment of Texas Senator Ted Cruz as Attorney General.
Kushner fired Christie and Christie loyalist, former House Intelligence Committee chairman
Mike Rogers, from the transition team and replaced them with the discredited neocon Frank Gaffney
of the Center for Security Policy.
It is likely that Gaffney will seek to bring a host of neocons who championed the U.S. invasion
of Iraq into the Trump administration.
Also fired was Matthew Freedman, another Christie loyalist. Kushner never liked Christie because
as a federal prosecutor in north Jersey, Christie successfully prosecuted Kushner's father, real
estate tycoon Charles Kushner, who received a prison sentence at Christie's urging.
Where one finds the likes of Gaffney, former CIA director James Woolsey, also a member of the
Trump transition team, and John Bolton, rumored to be in consideration for Secretary of State
or deputy Secretary of State, one will find the other neocons who drove the United States into
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These include Richard Perle, who claimed U.S. troops invading Iraq would be met with Iraqis
throwing "flowers and candy." This editor wrote the following about Perle's fatuous claim in a
March 31, 2003, article for CounterPunch: "Perle's military experience does not permit him to
distinguish between flowers and candy and bullets and mortar rounds."
There is someone far more sinister than Gaffney, Bolton, and Perle chomping at the bit to join
the new administration.
Wayne Madsen Reports has learned from multiple knowledgeable sources that the proponent of
neo-fascism, Michael Ledeen, is working closely with former Defense Intelligence Agency chief
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, to ensure that as many neocons from the Bush 43 and Reagan eras find senior
positions in the Trump administration.
Flynn co-authored a book with Ledeen that was released in July and titled, "The Field of Flight:
How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies."
The book represents typical neocon pabulum more than it does realism.
In July, Kushner's Observer, unsurprisingly, published a five-star review of the book.
Flynn, who distinguished himself admirably by suggesting that the Obama administration was
coddling the Islamic State and its allied jihadists in Syria, appears not to recognize that it
has long been the desire of neocons like Ledeen, Perle, Woolsey, and Bolton to divide the Arab
nation-states into warring factions so that Israel can hold ultimate sway over the entire Middle
East.
Breitbart launched his site in 2007 from Jerusalem, its a Mossad front.
Most of the posters in the begining were Jews and Christian Zionists. They started to use white
nationalists during the primary like they used them in Ukraine, then purged.
+1 Once I saw the zionists rubbing shoulders in the thicket of Trump's cabinet, I was hoping for
a 50/50 split. But I dare say the zionist neocons' takeover is complete. Mike Pompous-Ass is pure
MIC through and through (See Thayer Aerospace).
Another zionist cunt with Israel-first mentality whose only dubious virutes are hatred of muslims
and Hillary.
Zero change in domestic and foreign intelligence policies from Hitlery who was planning to
go to war with Iran by way of war against the Russo-Syrian alliance.
Any stupid fucker who is a proponent of blanket surveillance is a fucking traitor to every
values in individual freedom and rights that I hold dear.
The non-Semitic majority of Israel want to demonize the true Semitics (Arabs) by disparaging Islam
in order to steal their land and its resources. Since they cannot or do not want to do all of
the killing themselves, they use Christians to do their dirty work. The US Christian political
leaders (e.g. Pence/Pompeo) have been targetted by Israel:
One of the keys to AIPAC's success is its education arm, the American Israel Education Foundation
(AIEF). AIEF sponsors trips to Israel for Members of Congress and their staffs, and uses these
trips generally relay Likud's view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In all, AIEF spent $2,035,233
sponsoring congressional trips to Israel in 2011, according to data my blog,
Republic Report , gathered through
the Legistorm database. In contrast, the more moderate Israel lobby J Street - which
launched in 2008 to provide an alternative to AIPAC's hawkish advocacy - spent
only $45,954 on congressional trips to Israel. J Street's trips,
included more extensive
meetings with Palestinians and Israeli human rights groups. Which means that J Street was,
in this area, outspent by a factor of 44: 1 in 2011.
Republic Report has plotted this
data into the following chart:
Look at the itinerary
(requires free registration with Legistorm) of a nine-day, $20,000 AIEF trip Rep. Mike Pompeo
(R-KS) took in August 2011. During his trip, Pompeo was treated to meals, information sessions,
tours, and other activities with mostly hawkish high-ranking Israeli officials, academics, and
non-profit leaders. The sessions included "Terror from Gaza and Sinai" and "Hamas Next Door."
During the nine days, only an hour was spent with Palestinian officials, with a short meeting
scheduled in with Salam Fayyad, a Palestinian Authority Prime Minister
widely viewed as highly sympathetic to the Israeli government.
What you say is in fact true. But it's the "coordination" that takes place between government
and industry with that information that is lethal. When NSA "cherry picks" and manipulates that
date to remove it's "rivals" (perceived or otherwise) and uses the Justice Department acting as
the "stick", you know anything becomes possible!
"... I gather our President lectured our President Elect on the necessity to stand up to Russia. (My first thought is that like that stupid charitable campaign to Stand Up to Cancer!, another place where the phrase was either meaningless or foolhardy.) ..."
"... IF Russia ever started actually interfering in our relations with our neighbors or attempted to get us thrown out of our legal bases in foreign nations, I would say that Barack Obama might have a point. Since we are the party guilty of such actions, he would do better to clean up his own administration's relations with Russia, apologize to Russia, and then STFU. ..."
"... 'Obama Urges Trump to Maintain Pointless, Hyper-Aggresive Encirclement of Russia Strategy, Acknowledge Nuclear Apocalypse "Inevitable"' ..."
"... In the best of circumstances, Obama in his post-presidency will be akin to Jimmy Carter and stay out of politics, less or less. (I think he has exhausted all trust and value.) If he goes the Jimmy Carter route; he is bound to do worse and will fade away. I don't think he'll go the Clinton route unless Michelle tries to run for office. ..."
"... The good people of the US are awaiting DHS' final report on Russia's attempts to hack our elections. We deserve as much. ..."
"... If there's any basis to the allegations it's about time someone provided it. Up till now it's been unfounded assertions. Highly suspect at that. ..."
"... My guess is the whole Russian boogeyman was a ploy to attract those "moderate Republicans" who liked Romney. ..."
"... "My hope is that the president-elect coming in takes a similarly constructive approach, finding areas where we can cooperate with Russia where our values and interests align, but that the president-elect also is willing to stand up to Russia when they are deviating from our values and international norms," Obama said. "But I don't expect that the president-elect will follow exactly our approach." ..."
"... Yes, because "U.S. values" as defined by the actions of the last 16 years have been so enlightened and successful and because the U.S. is a sterling example of adhering to international norms ..."
"... Just how deluded, ignorant or sociopathic does a person need to be that they can say things like that without vomiting? ..."
I gather our President lectured our President Elect on the necessity to stand up to Russia.
(My first thought is that like that stupid charitable campaign to Stand Up to Cancer!, another
place where the phrase was either meaningless or foolhardy.)
IF Russia ever started actually interfering in our relations with our neighbors or attempted
to get us thrown out of our legal bases in foreign nations, I would say that Barack Obama might
have a point. Since we are the party guilty of such actions, he would do better to clean up his
own administration's relations with Russia, apologize to Russia, and then STFU.
Which I am sure he will do once everyone recognizes that that is the appropriate thing to do.
But as we well know everyone else will have to do the heavy lifting of figuring that out before
he will even acknowledge the possibility.
In the best of circumstances, Obama in his post-presidency will be akin to Jimmy Carter
and stay out of politics, less or less. (I think he has exhausted all trust and value.) If he
goes the Jimmy Carter route; he is bound to do worse and will fade away. I don't think he'll go
the Clinton route unless Michelle tries to run for office.
In this case, Obama is probably too vain and Michelle being the saner of the two might rein
him in? Best of any world would, as you say, STFU. (As the Ex Prez. Obamamometer, that is probably
not in the cards.)
Maybe he will end up like Geo Bush, sitting in the bathtub drooling while he paints childish
self-portraits
Or maybe he will end up like OJ, where he tries to go hang out with all his cool friends and they
tell him to get lost
Ppl still mention him as a master orator, etc. Lots of post presidency speaking engagements
I suppose. I'd prefer him not to but then again if he makes enough annually from it to beat the
Clintons we might get the satisfaction of annoying them
"My hope is that the president-elect coming in takes a similarly constructive approach,
finding areas where we can cooperate with Russia where our values and interests align, but that
the president-elect also is willing to stand up to Russia when they are deviating from our values
and international norms," Obama said. "But I don't expect that the president-elect will follow
exactly our approach." What Obama is saying is he wants Russia to join America in bombing
hospitals, schools, children, doctors, public facilities like water treatment plants, bridges,
weddings, homes, and civilians to list just few while arming and supporting terrorists for regime
change. And if anyone points this out, Russia like the US is supposed to say "I know you are but
what am I?"
Yes, because "U.S. values" as defined by the actions of the last 16 years have been so
enlightened and successful and because the U.S. is a sterling example of adhering to international
norms
Just how deluded, ignorant or sociopathic does a person need to be that they can say things
like that without vomiting?
Is this the same Russia that just hacked our election and subverted our fine democracy? Why,
President Obama, I believe it behooves you to stand up to Russia yourself. Show President-Elect
Trump how it is done sir!
Hasan (Interviewer) (From 11.15 onwards into the interview): "In 2012, your agency was
saying, quote: "The Salafists, the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda in Iraq [(which ISIS arose
out of)], are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria." In 2012, the US was helping
coordinate arms transfers to those same groups. Why did you not stop that if you're worried
about the rise of Islamic extremism?"
Flynn: "Well I hate to say it's not my job,
but my job was to ensure that the accuracy of our intelligence that was being presented was
as good as it could be, and I will tell you, it goes before 2012. When we were in Iraq, and
we still had decisions to be made before there was a decision to pull out of Iraq in 2011,
it was very clear what we were going to face."
Hasan (Interviewer): You are basically saying that even in government at the time,
you knew those groups were around, you saw this analysis, and you were arguing against it,
but who wasn't listening?"
Flynn: "I think the administration."
Hasan (Interviewer): "So the administration turned a blind eye to your analysis?"
Flynn: "I don't know if they turned a blind eye. I think it was a decision, a willful
decision."
Hasan (Interviewer): "A willful decision to support an insurgency that had Salafists,
Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood?"
Flynn: "A willful decision to do what they're doing You have to really ask the President
what is it that he actually is doing with the policy that is in place, because it is very,
very confusing."
Former US Intelligence Chief Admits Obama Took "Willful Decision" to Support ISIS Rise
"... Pompeo was close to Trump's running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who served with Pompeo in the House. Last month, Pompeo helped prepare Pence for the vice presidential debate with Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia. ..."
"... Pompeo is a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence and one of the most vocal critics of the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran. ..."
"... He's a supporter of the National Security Agency's controversial bulk data collection program and sought to restore the agency's access to the data it had already collected under the Patriot Act from its inception through late last year. ..."
"... He was elected to Congress in 2010 on a wave of tea party support and with backing from the Koch Industries political action committee. The Wichita-based conglomerate's PAC is well known for its support of conservative candidates. ..."
"... Though Pompeo is generally known for his opposition to Obama administration policies, he's occasionally given heat to some fellow Republicans. Last year, his name was floated as a potential rival to Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to become House speaker. ..."
"... Pompeo has sponsored numerous bills that would maintain or increase sanctions on Iran over its nuclear weapons program. He's been a staunch opponent of the deal negotiated by President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry that eases sanctions in exchange for dismantling the nuclear weapons program. ..."
"... Pompeo has served on the House Select Benghazi Committee. ..."
"... When the committee released its report on the attack in June, Pompeo and Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio released a separate report that was even more sharply critical of Clinton's handling of the affair. They wrote that Clinton intentionally misled Americans about the nature of the attack because Obama was up for re-election. ..."
"... Pompeo has made some controversial statements about Muslims. Weeks after the Boston marathon bombing in 2013, in a speech on the House floor, he not only accused Islamic faith leaders of not doing enough to condemn terrorist attacks, but also suggested they might be encouraging them. ..."
"... Couldn't give a fiddlers fuck about the issues of global warming at this stage and crisis we now face. I just want to know if the asshole is stupid enough to use NATO to get energy for this Country that neither we nor the Saudi's have any longer. ..."
"... If Trump is smart he will engage detente with the Russians at the expense of all of his war mongering staff. ..."
"... Looks like Trump decided to sell us down the river rather than drain the swamp. And now we're caught between his thugs and an army of crazy children in the streets. ..."
"... The buck still stops with Trump and he isn't even in office yet for anyone to judge him fairly. For me that means he gets a year or two. Further, he's a smart guy and I never assumed he was going to bring in 4000+ newbies into his administration. The fucking wheels would lock up immediately. He knows this. He needs competent, loyal people in these roles, period. ..."
"... Trump is already showing himself through his choices. This guy is a hard liner in the push for the govt to trample the constitution and treat the citizens like serfs. ..."
"... The advantage of the Trump win is the exposure that has already happened. The Ds and Rs have been exposed. MSM has been exposed for extreme bias. The rats that double down on their anti-Trump rhetoric think they are hiding their own crimes when really they are exposing themselves for all the world to see. The "Love Trumps Hate" protestors are exposing all their own hypocrisy for all the world to see. ..."
"... Appointing a member of the Bengazhi committee to run the CIA means Hillary is completely FUCKED though. That's a bonus, a big one. ..."
Moments after Donald Trump offered the Attorney General spot to senator Jeff Sessions (which he promptly
accepted), it was announced that Trump had also picked rep. Mike Pompeo as CIA director, who likewise
accepted.
Trump has offered position of CIA director to US Rep Mike Pompeo and Pompeo has accepted -transition
official
The selection of Pompeo, a three-term Republican from Wichita, started earlier this week when
he met with Donald Trump, according to the president-elect's transition team. Now we know what the
meetings were about. Courtesy of
McClatchy , here is profile of the new director of America's top spy agency:
* * *
Pompeo originally supported Florida Sen. Marco Rubio's presidential bid. Like most of his Kansas
colleagues, Pompeo backed Trump when it was clear the New York real-estate developer would become
the Republican presidential nominee, though not enthusiastically.
But Pompeo was close to Trump's running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who served with Pompeo
in the House. Last month, Pompeo helped prepare Pence for the vice presidential debate with Sen.
Tim Kaine of Virginia.
The most prominent Kansas elected official to endorse Trump early on was Secretary of State Kris
Kobach, now a member of the Trump transition team and a possible candidate for U.S. Attorney General.
Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and recently defeated Rep. Tim Huelskamp are both potential picks
for agriculture secretary.
Pompeo is a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence and one of the most vocal
critics of the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran.
He's a supporter of the National Security Agency's controversial bulk data collection program
and sought to restore the agency's access to the data it had already collected under the Patriot
Act from its inception through late last year.
He's a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and Harvard Law School. He's also a
member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Pompeo, who grew up in the traditionally Republican enclave of Orange County, California, founded
Thayer Aerospace, a company that made parts for commercial and military aircraft. After selling Thayer,
he became president of Sentry International, a company that manufactures and sells equipment used
in oil fields.
He was elected to Congress in 2010 on a wave of tea party support and with backing from the Koch
Industries political action committee. The Wichita-based conglomerate's PAC is well known for its
support of conservative candidates.
Though Pompeo is generally known for his opposition to Obama administration policies, he's occasionally
given heat to some fellow Republicans. Last year, his name was floated as a potential rival to Rep.
Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to become House speaker.
Earlier this year, he briefly flirted with a primary challenge to Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran after
the state's junior senator appeared to break with Senate Republican opposition to Obama's Supreme
Court nomination of Merrick Garland.
Joe Romance, an associate professor of political science at Fort Hays State University, said it
makes sense for Pompeo to consider a job in the executive branch, given the way the stage is set
from Kansas to Washington in the next several years.
"He's ambitious," Romance said. "Jerry Moran just got reelected. Roberts is not up until 2020.
So where do you need to move? And I don't think Ryan's going anywhere as speaker. So why not?"
Pompeo has sponsored numerous bills that would maintain or increase sanctions on Iran over
its nuclear weapons program. He's been a staunch opponent of the deal negotiated by President Barack
Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry that eases sanctions in exchange for dismantling the nuclear
weapons program.
In February, Pompeo and two of his Republican House colleagues unsuccessfully sought visas to
monitor the country's elections.
When Iran detained a group of American sailors earlier whose ship had wandered into its territorial
waters earlier this year, Pompeo introduced a bill requiring the Obama administration to investigate
whether Iran violated the Geneva Convention. It didn't become law. The sailors were not harmed, and
the Navy later concluded that the sailors had entered Iran's waters by mistake.
Pompeo has served on the House Select Benghazi Committee. The special panel was created in 2014 to probe the Sept. 11, 2012, attack in Libya that killed
four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. One of its key targets was former Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton, on whose watch the attack had occurred.
When the committee released its report on the attack in June, Pompeo and Republican Rep. Jim Jordan
of Ohio released a separate report that was even more sharply critical of Clinton's handling of the
affair. They wrote that Clinton intentionally misled Americans about the nature of the attack because
Obama was up for re-election.
"Officials at the State Department, including Secretary Clinton, learned almost in real time that
the attack in Benghazi was a terrorist attack," Pompeo and Jordan wrote. "With the presidential election
just 56 days away, rather than tell the American people the truth and increase the risk of losing
an election, the administration told one story privately and a different story publicly."
Pompeo has made some controversial statements about Muslims. Weeks after the Boston marathon bombing
in 2013, in a speech on the House floor, he not only accused Islamic faith leaders of not doing enough
to condemn terrorist attacks, but also suggested they might be encouraging them.
"When the most devastating terrorist attacks on America in the last 20 years come overwhelmingly
from people of a single faith, and are performed in the name of that faith, a special obligation
falls on those that are the leaders of that faith," Pompeo said. " Instead of responding, silence
has made these Islamic leaders across America potentially complicit in these acts and more importantly
still, in those that may well follow."
But last month, three militiamen were arrested in western Kansas in an alleged plot to blow up
an apartment complex that's home to Somali Muslim refugees.
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said statements like
Pompeo's were detrimental to policies that keep all Americans safe.
"We believe it's counterproductive to our nation's safety and security because they will act based
on their faulty perceptions of Muslims and Islam," Hooper said, "and will not carry out policies
based on accurate and balanced information."
Yep... Like all the rest that pass through the "revolving doors" of D.C. he'll feather his nest
and continue "killing some folks" and "torturing some folks".
Only not in Syria or Ukraine -that is for certain!
some of his opinions are concerning but a quick bio read in wikipedia showed some pretty well
reasoned unorthodox stances.
he's not a global warming sycophant, nor particularly doctrinaire in things energy. but a bulk
collection fan..I was really hoping for someone with a track record of following the fourth amendment.
Couldn't give a fiddlers fuck about the issues of global warming at this stage and crisis
we now face. I just want to know if the asshole is stupid enough to use NATO to get energy for
this Country that neither we nor the Saudi's have any longer.
We'll know these cocksuckers are sincere when they tell us the truth about the "riches of bakken
oil" is 10 years and not 100 and that the systemic looting operation in the ME using our military
is counter productive given the tradeoff of war with the Russians and the accumulated debt to
fund our misadventures that will never find a buyer!
Let me preface this by saying I find bulk collection totally an affront to the constitution, however
"private" companies already have bulk collection in place. It's only the slightest catalyst from
there to the government requiring the companies hand over all that data. I'm surprised people
advocate for bulk data openly, when they know the hurdle to cross to access private databases
is very low. And that whole shooter's phone charade where Apple "stood up" to the FBI was so much
bluster when both sides likely already had the capability that they claimed not to have.
The "hurdle" is even lower than you state. The only "hurdle" is whether they can openly use that
data in court. They already have it all. All the data goes through collection "checkpoints."
Looks like Trump decided to sell us down the river rather than drain the swamp. And now we're
caught between his thugs and an army of crazy children in the streets.
This is why I would have preferred seeing Hillary win despite the fact that I voted for Trump.
It felt like a con and a con it was, apparently.
When was it anything but a con. Madness, when you keep doing the same thing again and again and
expecting a different result. The deep state has you suckered, and you still think its the land
of the free. Reality is relative to your perception. Its an extension of what you want to believe.
You live with your delusions, no one elses.
Nice we can all be deluded together. I don't mind this choice its not for the CIA director to
decide what is constitutional or not, that is for the Supreme court so we the people must challenge
the collection and use of the collected data in the Supreme court. The CIA director is to obey
the Law as it is presented to him.
That's not how the CIA works. They do a mea culpa, then 10 years later the same mea culpa. The
spooks were behind torture and secret prisons during the Bush admin, they're behind the not torture
that doesn't happen in prisons that we don't admit to. Only the language changed. We all pretend
to be offended when we find out that unspeakable acts are being committed in our names, or we
deny it - that's been working for the left for 2 terms.
The buck still stops with Trump and he isn't even in office yet for anyone to judge him fairly.
For me that means he gets a year or two. Further, he's a smart guy and I never assumed he was
going to bring in 4000+ newbies into his administration. The fucking wheels would lock up immediately.
He knows this. He needs competent, loyal people in these roles, period.
Time will tell on this. If his appointments start going apeshit like OBungler's did, then we
have a real problem. For individual citizens the choice is clear, hope for the best and keep planning
for the worst, which is what I've been doing for the last 12 years+. If you and your family are
not prepared for some major disruptions to your way of life and basic daily sustenance, then you
better get on it.
Lastly, the deep state is NEVER going away either. Not even sure they can be curbed. I honestly
don't have an answer for that one yet except to be prepared to completely and totally unplug from
everything, and become 'invisible, passive and benign' to the system itself at some point.
I logged in to thank you for this Voice Of Reason post. I don't know just what people expected.
Was he supposed to start appointing random biker dudes to cabinet posts? Come on. To some extent
one must work with the system if one is to have any hope of making changes to it.
Like baba looey keeps saying, let the man work, FFS.
Do people demand a really just system? Well, we'll arrange it so that they'll be satisfied
with one that's a little less unjust ... They want a revolution, and we'll give them reforms --
lots of reforms; we'll drown them in reforms. Or rather, we'll drown them in promises of reforms,
because we'll never give them real ones either!!
Trump is already showing himself through his choices. This guy is a hard liner in the push
for the govt to trample the constitution and treat the citizens like serfs. But Trump's supporters
are ok with it because it is "their guy" doing it, just like the Dems/liberals/whatever were ok
with Obama shredding the constitution and killing hundreds of thousands because Obama was "their
guy".
The velvet glove will come off soon and you will only have the iron fist.
With Trump, perhaps 60%. I'm happy with that, and will try not to bitch about the 40%.
Don't get me wrong... Putting HRC in a coffin, is a wonderful thing... But my sensibilities
tell me that 'DRAINING A SWAMP' is too much of a task for Donald Trump (or anyone else)...
Drain the swamp indeed! I can't believe people thought the Donald would change anything! Same
shit different color(literally and figuratively) douchebags!
Billy: Who is going to help Trump drain the swamp? The current swamp monsters? Why would they
want to ruin their own home? That was always the problem.
Either way, I am glad he got in. You knew you were going nowhere with Hillary. If Trump fails
then he will prove that outsiders are no good either. The election started out looking like insider
vs insider - Clinton vs Bush. That was a good reason for all the voters to stay home, or to write
"Me" or "None of the Above" on their ballots - for those who had paper ballots.
If Trump was a Conspiracy then his job was to make the plebs think they had a choice, to drag
them to the voting booth, to create the illusion of legitimacy for the new government. If Trump
can not change anything then the next "outsider" will have to put on an even bigger show and let
us remember, this election will be a hard act to follow. My biggest fear is post-election amnesia,
everything is already forgotten, let alone remembered in four years time. Is Wikileaks still chugging
away? Where is that fantastic leak that would supposedly send Hillary straight to jail? What came
of the Podesta emails? Are his spirits truly cooked? Are all the FBI investigations to be forgotten?
Come the next election, are we really going to see crimes greater than the Comet Pizza allegations
bubble to the surface? If the alleged crimes of the past year, and especially the last month or
week, are forgotten, does that mean they were simply elaborate theatre? Will people remember this
past year and, come the next election, declare "Well, look what happened in 2016! If that meant
nothing, then how on earth could any other news mean anything? Refuse to participate in the show."
The advantage of the Trump win is the exposure that has already happened. The Ds and Rs
have been exposed. MSM has been exposed for extreme bias. The rats that double down on their anti-Trump
rhetoric think they are hiding their own crimes when really they are exposing themselves for all
the world to see. The "Love Trumps Hate" protestors are exposing all their own hypocrisy for all
the world to see.
Worst thing about this election? I paid attention. Politicians lie, especially in the lead
up to an election. Everything they say can be safely ignored. Damn shame I got sucked into paying
attention to this one - for the first time in my life. But now, in order to gain the attention
of people who think like me, the next election will have to have theatrics of an order of magnitude
greater than this one. Scary, eh! ;)
Not every pick trump makes it going to please everyone. Trump is a hardliner on fighting Terrorism,
that means you aren't going to get Assange/Snowden love-ins, or someone trying to destroy the
intelligence overreach of the US. Appointing a member of the Bengazhi committee to run the
CIA means Hillary is completely FUCKED though. That's a bonus, a big one.
The guy is Half-TeaParty, with NeoCon leanings towards fighting terrorism. Trump is going to
be libertarian on War and Interventionism, but Neo-Con on Islamic Terror.
None of that has to do with "not draining the swamp"
Perfect example of why all this SHIT is going to continue! Terrorism is an idea. It is the PERFECT
tool for govts to exert control.
"Islamic Terror?" CIA started it all and the western propaganda machine has churned it into
something that morons suck up.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous
to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
- H.L. Mencken
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be
led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. H.
L. Mencken
Read more at:
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/h/hlmencke101109.html
Neocon Invasion of Team Trump Fully Underway Trump must stop neocon takeover of his administration
Wayne Madsen
The purge of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie loyalists from the Donald Trump presidential
transition team has little to do with Christie's Bridgegate scandal and everything to do with
a battle between Bush-era neoconservatives and national security realists for control over key
departments of the Trump administration.
It appears that Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner , the publisher of the New York Observer and
someone who is aligned with the Likud Party of Israel, is now the de facto chair of the Trump
transition team , especially when it comes to national security matters.
Vice President-elect Mike Pence, the official chairman of the team, is concentrating on domestic
policy appointments, such as the rumored appointment of Texas Senator Ted Cruz as Attorney General.
Kushner fired Christie and Christie loyalist, former House Intelligence Committee chairman
Mike Rogers, from the transition team and replaced them with the discredited neocon Frank Gaffney
of the Center for Security Policy.
It is likely that Gaffney will seek to bring a host of neocons who championed the U.S. invasion
of Iraq into the Trump administration.
Also fired was Matthew Freedman, another Christie loyalist. Kushner never liked Christie because
as a federal prosecutor in north Jersey, Christie successfully prosecuted Kushner's father, real
estate tycoon Charles Kushner, who received a prison sentence at Christie's urging.
Where one finds the likes of Gaffney, former CIA director James Woolsey, also a member of the
Trump transition team, and John Bolton, rumored to be in consideration for Secretary of State
or deputy Secretary of State, one will find the other neocons who drove the United States into
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
These include Richard Perle, who claimed U.S. troops invading Iraq would be met with Iraqis
throwing "flowers and candy." This editor wrote the following about Perle's fatuous claim in a
March 31, 2003, article for CounterPunch: "Perle's military experience does not permit him to
distinguish between flowers and candy and bullets and mortar rounds."
There is someone far more sinister than Gaffney, Bolton, and Perle chomping at the bit to join
the new administration.
Wayne Madsen Reports has learned from multiple knowledgeable sources that the proponent of
neo-fascism, Michael Ledeen, is working closely with former Defense Intelligence Agency chief
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, to ensure that as many neocons from the Bush 43 and Reagan eras find senior
positions in the Trump administration.
Flynn co-authored a book with Ledeen that was released in July and titled, "The Field of Flight:
How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies."
The book represents typical neocon pabulum more than it does realism.
In July, Kushner's Observer, unsurprisingly, published a five-star review of the book.
Flynn, who distinguished himself admirably by suggesting that the Obama administration was
coddling the Islamic State and its allied jihadists in Syria, appears not to recognize that it
has long been the desire of neocons like Ledeen, Perle, Woolsey, and Bolton to divide the Arab
nation-states into warring factions so that Israel can hold ultimate sway over the entire Middle
East.
Breitbart launched his site in 2007 from Jerusalem, its a Mossad front.
Most of the posters in the begining were Jews and Christian Zionists. They started to use white
nationalists during the primary like they used them in Ukraine, then purged.
+1 Once I saw the zionists rubbing shoulders in the thicket of Trump's cabinet, I was hoping for
a 50/50 split. But I dare say the zionist neocons' takeover is complete. Mike Pompous-Ass is pure
MIC through and through (See Thayer Aerospace).
Another zionist cunt with Israel-first mentality whose only dubious virutes are hatred of muslims
and Hillary.
Zero change in domestic and foreign intelligence policies from Hitlery who was planning to
go to war with Iran by way of war against the Russo-Syrian alliance.
Any stupid fucker who is a proponent of blanket surveillance is a fucking traitor to every
values in individual freedom and rights that I hold dear.
The non-Semitic majority of Israel want to demonize the true Semitics (Arabs) by disparaging Islam
in order to steal their land and its resources. Since they cannot or do not want to do all of
the killing themselves, they use Christians to do their dirty work. The US Christian political
leaders (e.g. Pence/Pompeo) have been targetted by Israel:
One of the keys to AIPAC's success is its education arm, the American Israel Education Foundation
(AIEF). AIEF sponsors trips to Israel for Members of Congress and their staffs, and uses these
trips generally relay Likud's view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In all, AIEF spent $2,035,233
sponsoring congressional trips to Israel in 2011, according to data my blog,
Republic Report , gathered through
the Legistorm database. In contrast, the more moderate Israel lobby J Street - which
launched in 2008 to provide an alternative to AIPAC's hawkish advocacy - spent
only $45,954 on congressional trips to Israel. J Street's trips,
included more extensive
meetings with Palestinians and Israeli human rights groups. Which means that J Street was,
in this area, outspent by a factor of 44: 1 in 2011.
Republic Report has plotted this
data into the following chart:
Look at the itinerary
(requires free registration with Legistorm) of a nine-day, $20,000 AIEF trip Rep. Mike Pompeo
(R-KS) took in August 2011. During his trip, Pompeo was treated to meals, information sessions,
tours, and other activities with mostly hawkish high-ranking Israeli officials, academics, and
non-profit leaders. The sessions included "Terror from Gaza and Sinai" and "Hamas Next Door."
During the nine days, only an hour was spent with Palestinian officials, with a short meeting
scheduled in with Salam Fayyad, a Palestinian Authority Prime Minister
widely viewed as highly sympathetic to the Israeli government.
What you say is in fact true. But it's the "coordination" that takes place between government
and industry with that information that is lethal. When NSA "cherry picks" and manipulates that
date to remove it's "rivals" (perceived or otherwise) and uses the Justice Department acting as
the "stick", you know anything becomes possible!
"... Even when I was there, which was prior to their entry into the EU and NATO, but after the ascension of Putin, the Estonians put their museum about the deportations directly across from the Russian Embassy and hung a banner across the street with a hammer and sickle with "No people, no problem" written in Estonian. That's not the action of a people who are afraid. ..."
I was part of the second panel at TAC's foreign policy conference yesterday on U.S.-Russian
relations. Here are the remarks I gave:
U.S.-Russian relations are worse than they have been at any point since the end of the Cold
War, and both governments have defined their interests in Syria and Ukraine in such a way that
it is difficult to see how they will improve in the near future unless one of them changes its
positions. We can't control how Moscow interprets its interests in these places, but we can reassess
and modify how we think about ours.
Great powers always have some competing and conflicting interests, and so the task of wise
political leaders is to distinguish between disputes over what are ultimately tangential interests
and those that genuinely touch on matters of vital importance and then to find ways to manage
disputes over the latter without stumbling into armed conflict.
####
More at the link. There was also on interesting comment to the article:
VikingLS ,
November 17, 2016 at 8:25 pm
"Not exactly sure that the Baltic States would be terribly reassured by a more relaxed US attitude
toward Russia."
I lived in the Baltics for a while, I like it there, but to be blunt, so what?
Even when I was there, which was prior to their entry into the EU and NATO, but after the
ascension of Putin, the Estonians put their museum about the deportations directly across from
the Russian Embassy and hung a banner across the street with a hammer and sickle with "No people,
no problem" written in Estonian. That's not the action of a people who are afraid.
Honestly, given that the Baltic states also benefit from being a jumping off point for people
who want to do business in Russia, but not be in Russia, they'd be better off if the situation
deescalated.
From a Comparative Linguist POV, it will be a shame really to see those 2 ancient Indo-Aryan languages
(Lith and Latv) die out. But without Communist curation, those languages are doomed, unfortunately.
Oh well, at least they have been properly written down, again mostly thanks to the Communists,
before all people stop speaking and writing them.
"... What if the disk is passworded? What about that not all systems are exclusively for business/corporate use (see also BYOD) and therefore may be tuned to varying security postures owing to other factors? ..."
"... Physical access ≠ game over. Physical access + unguarded time + experience + tooling = game over. One used to could safely leave someone alone with their computer while one went to the kitchen for a glass of water. Now this tooling has made the time and experience components a bit less relevant to successful, quick pwnage with few or no tracks. Neato! ..."
The "Poison Tap" is not really that big of deal. It's usually trivially easy
to break into any computer that you can physically access. You can boot from a
CD or USB drive, for instance, or even just steal the hard drive. Security on USB
needs to be improved, but this is not even close to being the end of the world.
If you have the time with the physical machine anyway.
I could see kids having fun with this though. Going into a box store that has computers on display,
getting access (even better if they have a web cam on it). Upload porn or shocking material and showing
the customers and watching/recording the reactions and putting it on youtube.
Or more nefarious, the same thing but for casing a store (limited vantage from the web cam .but
may better than nothing).
Etc. lots you could do and more importantly not a lot of skill required. Lower bar for entry for
hacking mischief and a low cost.
LarryB, and how long will that take you? And will you have the computer back
together by the time they see you? And will logs suggest anything funny happened
around that time? What if the disk is passworded? What about that not all systems
are exclusively for business/corporate use (see also BYOD) and therefore may
be tuned to varying security postures owing to other factors?
Physical access ≠ game over. Physical access + unguarded time + experience + tooling = game over.
One used to could safely leave someone alone with their computer while one went to the kitchen for
a glass of water. Now this tooling has made the time and experience components a bit less relevant
to successful, quick pwnage with few or no tracks. Neato!
"... Now you are worried about yourselves, but there are only the dead and their survivors left
for whom you didn't speak up for. Give me one reason why anybody should worry about you, who seem to
believe that only you count because you are Americans. My very best wishes for your precious safety
and comfort and may you continue to look in the mirror and see no one there. Trust me, a mirror does
not lie. ..."
"... https://youtu.be/G0R09YzyuCI Collapse of Complex Societies by Dr. Joseph Tainter ..."
"... Eliminate the social cancer of private finance and unfettered inheritance or continue to repeat
history to assured extinction. ..."
I understand some of you are very worried about the election of Donald Trump. But I want you
think about this:
First they went for Yugoslavia, and you didn't worry: a country died
Then they went for Afghanistan and you didn't worry: 220,000 Afghans have died.
Then, they went for Iraq, and you didn't worry: 1 million Iraqis died.
Then they went for Libya, and you didn't worry: 30,000 to 50,000 people died. Did you worry
when Qaddafi was murdered with a bayonet up his rectum? No. And someone even laughed.
Then they went for Ukraine, and you didn't worry: 10,000 people died and are dying.
Then they went for Syria, and you didn't worry: 250,000 people died
Then they went for Yemen: over 6,000 Yemenis have been killed and another 27,000 wounded.
According to the UN, most of them are civilians. Ten million Yemenis don't have enough to eat,
and 13 million have no access to clean water. Yemen is highly dependent on imported food, but
a U.S.-Saudi blockade has choked off most imports. The war is ongoing.
Then there is Somalia , and you don't worry
Then there are the countries that reaped the fallout from the collapse of Libya. Weapons looted
after the fall of Gaddafi fuel the wars in Mali, Niger, and the Central African Republic.
Now you are worried about yourselves, but there are only the dead and their survivors left
for whom you didn't speak up for. Give me one reason why anybody should worry about you, who seem
to believe that only you count because you are Americans. My very best wishes for your precious
safety and comfort and may you continue to look in the mirror and see no one there. Trust me,
a mirror does not lie.
Sincerely,
One who does not worry about you.
PS By the way the butcher bill I am here presenting is very conservative on the body count
and does not include the wounded, the homeless, the refugees, or the cost of the wars to you,
who continue to believe that before Trump the world was a nice and comfortable place--for you.
@ 33 Great comment, but remember the tribe. French revolution, Marxism, Russian revolution, Israel,
neoliberalism. I am from the hard "Grapes of Wrath" left. Marxism was a brilliant Jewish ploy
to split the left, then identity politics. Oh, they are so clever and we are so dumb...
Nice continuation of the Killary Pac comment. I want to take it further.
Since the Marxism ploy to split the left the folks that own private finance have developed/implemented
another ploy to redirect criticism of themselves/their tools by adding goyim to the fringes of
private finance to make it look like a respectable cornerstone of our "civilization".
Oh, they are so clever and we are so dumb...
Eliminate the social cancer of private finance and unfettered inheritance or continue to
repeat history to assured extinction.
"President-elect Donald Trump has named retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as his new
national security adviser, according to a close source. The former DIA chief has been criticized
in US circles for refusing to take an anti-Russian stance."
"... We [Russia] have never initiated sanctions. These [sanctions] don't prevent us from building dialogue and continuing the dialogue on matters that are of interest to us, to Russia ..."
"... Russian President Vladimir Putin and outgoing US President Obama are likely to talk informally on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific summit in the Peruvian capital of Lima, Peskov said on Friday. ..."
"... The two administrations have not agreed on any separate meetings, but we can assume that President Putin and President Obama will cross paths on the sidelines of the forum and will talk ..."
"... "Russia, breaking international law. Turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East. The refugee and migration crisis. International terrorism. Hybrid warfare. And cyber-attacks," ..."
US President Barack Obama and EU leaders have agreed to keep anti-Russian sanctions in place for
a further year over the situation in Ukraine.
President Obama, who is on his final official visit to Europe, met with the leaders of Germany,
France, Italy, Spain and the UK on Friday.
Among the main topics on the agenda were extending sanctions against Russia, cooperation within
the framework of NATO, the rise of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) in Iraq and Syria, and
possible new anti-Russian sanctions over Moscow's actions in Syria.
"The leaders also affirmed the importance of continued cooperation through multilateral institutions,
including NATO," the White House added.
Sanctions won't stop Russia from improving its dialogue and ties with other countries, Kremlin
spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
"We [Russia] have never initiated sanctions. These [sanctions] don't prevent us from building
dialogue and continuing the dialogue on matters that are of interest to us, to Russia," Peskov
said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and outgoing US President Obama are likely to talk informally
on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific summit in the Peruvian capital of Lima, Peskov said on Friday.
"The two administrations have not agreed on any separate meetings, but we can assume that
President Putin and President Obama will cross paths on the sidelines of the forum and will talk,"
Peskov said.
Also on Friday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gave a speech at an event hosted by the
German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), where he said that Europe and the United States
"are close economic and trade partners" and mentioned potential threats for the alliance. "Russia,
breaking international law. Turmoil in North Africa and the Middle East. The refugee and migration
crisis. International terrorism. Hybrid warfare. And cyber-attacks," said Stoltenberg, listing
the perceived dangers.
"... a normal person might look at the slight thaw in Cold War 2.0 as an early positive indicator of the end of the Obama Era. ..."
"... Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) begs to differ. In a blistering statement he released today responding to the Trump/Putin telephone call, Sen. McCain condemned any efforts by President-elect Trump to find common ground with Putin. ..."
"... Interesting that Republican McCain has taken to using the Hillary Clinton campaign line (the one that lost her the election) that somehow the Russians were manipulating the US electoral process. The claim was never backed up by facts and Hillary's claim that some 17 US intelligence agencies agreed with her was shown to be a dangerous and foolish lie. ..."
"... What McCain doesn't say is that unlike US troops in Syria, the Russians are invited by the Syrian government and operate according to international law. Oh yes, and they are also fighting al-Qaeda and ISIS, which has sought to overthrow Assad for the past five years. ..."
"... Maybe McCain is just really sensitive after meeting with al-Qaeda and ISIS in Syria? ..."
"... As rumors swirl from Washington about neocons sniffing out top jobs in the incoming administration, it would serve president-elect Trump well to reflect on he true nature of the neocon beast... ..."
Sit down. This is going to shock you. (Not). We
reported yesterday on the telephone call between US president-elect Trump and Russian president
Putin, where the current and future presidents discussed the need to set aside differences and look
to more constructive future relations.
With serious observers of this past year's increasing tensions between US and Russia openly
worrying about a nuclear war breaking out, with some 300,000 NATO troops placed on Russia's border,
with sanctions hurting average businesspersons on both sides, a normal person might look at the
slight thaw in Cold War 2.0 as an early positive indicator of the end of the Obama Era.
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) begs to differ. In a blistering
statement he released today responding to the Trump/Putin telephone call, Sen. McCain condemned
any efforts by President-elect Trump to find common ground with Putin.
Any claim by Putin that he wants to improve relations with the US must be vigorously opposed,
writes McCain. He explains:
We should place as much faith in such statements as any other made by a former KGB agent who has
plunged his country into tyranny, murdered his political opponents, invaded his neighbors, threatened
America's allies, and attempted to undermine America's elections.
Interesting that Republican McCain has taken to using the Hillary Clinton campaign line (the
one that lost her the election) that somehow the Russians were manipulating the US electoral process.
The claim was never backed up by facts and Hillary's claim that some 17 US intelligence agencies
agreed with her was
shown to be a dangerous and foolish lie.
Why is Putin not to be trusted, according to McCain?
Vladimir Putin has rejoined Bashar Assad in his barbaric war against the Syrian people with the
resumption of large-scale Russian air and missile strikes in Idlib and Homs. Another brutal assault
on the city of Aleppo could soon follow.
What McCain doesn't say is that unlike US troops in Syria, the Russians are invited by the Syrian
government and operate according to international law. Oh yes, and they are also fighting al-Qaeda
and ISIS, which has sought to overthrow Assad for the past five years.
As rumors swirl from Washington about neocons sniffing out top jobs in the incoming administration,
it would serve president-elect Trump well to reflect on he true nature of the neocon beast...
"... "Welcome to the world of strategic analysis," Ivan Selin used to tell his team during the Sixties, "where we program weapons that don't work to meet threats that don't exist." Selin, who would spend the following decades as a powerful behind-the-scenes player in the Washington mandarinate, was then the director of the Strategic Forces Division in the Pentagon's Office of Systems Analysis. "I was a twenty-eight-year-old wiseass when I started saying that," he told me, reminiscing about those days. "I thought the issues we were dealing with were so serious, they could use a little levity." ..."
"Welcome to the world of strategic analysis," Ivan Selin used to tell his team during the
Sixties, "where we program weapons that don't work to meet threats that don't exist." Selin, who
would spend the following decades as a powerful behind-the-scenes player in the Washington mandarinate,
was then the director of the Strategic Forces Division in the Pentagon's Office of Systems Analysis.
"I was a twenty-eight-year-old wiseass when I started saying that," he told me, reminiscing about
those days. "I thought the issues we were dealing with were so serious, they could use a little
levity."
####
While I do have some quibbles with the piece (RuAF pilots are getting much more than 90 hours
a year flight time & equipment is overrated and unaffordable in any decent numbers), it is pretty
solid.
"... We are talking factories, not mere workshops, more specifically the plants for the production of all sorts of rather serious means of mass destruction. Clearly, this is a well-established industrial production, these are the targets for today's strikes. And they will continue. ..."
Russian Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft-carrying cruiser has begun combat operations in Syria,
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday.
"Today, we started a major operation to launch massive strikes on Daesh and al-Nusra Front
targets in the Idlib and Homs provinces [in Syria]," Shoigu said at Russian President Vladimir
Putin's meeting with the ministry's leadership and defense enterprises.
Russian Admiral Grigorovich frigate targeted terrorists in Syria with Kalibr cruise missile
strikes, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday.
The NGO faux whining about Aleppo will increase but in a few months they may lose their chief
audience and facilitator.
At a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the top leadership of the Russian
Armed Forces, Shoigu said the following:
Today at 10:30 and 11:00 we launched a large-scale operation against the positions of Islamic
State and Al-Nusra [terrorist groups] in the provinces of Idlib and Homs.
The main targets of the strikes are warehouses with ammunition, [terrorist] gatherings and
terrorist training centers, as well as plants for the production of various kinds of weapons
of mass destruction.
We are talking factories, not mere workshops, more specifically the plants for the production
of all sorts of rather serious means of mass destruction. Clearly, this is a well-established
industrial production, these are the targets for today's strikes. And they will continue.
"... Alexei Ulyukayev is a well-known economic liberal, with a career dating back to the turbulent market reforms of the 1990s ..."
"... "The arrest was big news on Russia's state-run TV channels." ..."
"... Yesterday RBK economic channel (pro-liberast independent one) could not shut up they were talking only about this. Ekho Moscvy was hysterical, as if it was not the crook arrested, but Lucavichev rabbi robbed and killed in his synagogue. ..."
"... "News of the minister's arrest sparked a mixture of shock and bewilderment." ..."
"... "Alexei Ulyukayev is a well-known economic liberal, with a career dating back to the turbulent market reforms of the 1990s." ..."
"... So to become a "liberal victim of the Regime" instead of "Regime's lackey" you must steal lots of money and get caught? A-okey! ..."
"... It's also charming when the article uses the tired clichι "some think" or "some people consider this" as a way of legitimizing their own speculations. ..."
The arrest was big news on Russia's state-run TV channels.
However, sources told the Novaya Gazeta website that Mr Ulyukayev himself did not take any
money, contradicting earlier reports, and there was no video footage of his arrest. [Novaya Gazeta
said that? Well what a surprise! - ME]
The economy ministry described the arrest as "strange and surprising".
Show of state strength or payback? By Sarah Rainsford, BBC News, Moscow
News of the minister's arrest sparked a mixture of shock and bewilderment.
A stream of commentators on state TV have been telling viewers that this means that
no-one is untouchable, or above the law. Even ministers.
So on one level, the FSB operation is a clear show of state strength. A message to senior officials
and far beyond.
But elsewhere there are doubts, and questions about the possible politics behind this.
Alexei Ulyukayev is a well-known economic liberal, with a career dating back to the turbulent
market reforms of the 1990s.
He's against increasing state-control of the economy and opposed the Bashneft privatisation
deal which was led by a close and powerful ally of President Putin.
So some suggest this could be a dramatic form of payback. More effective, than simply sacking
him.
Others see a symbolic blow to the liberal camp in government.
[my stress]
State TV! State TV! State TV!
D'ya hear me? - State TV!!!!!!!
Unlike the British Broadcasting Corporation, of course.
"The arrest was big news on Russia's state-run TV channels."
Yesterday RBK economic channel (pro-liberast independent one) could not shut up they were
talking only about this. Ekho Moscvy was hysterical, as if it was not the crook arrested, but
Lucavichev rabbi robbed and killed in his synagogue.
"News of the minister's arrest sparked a mixture of shock and bewilderment."
Mainly a good cheer and hope that other liberal ministers will soon follow in his steps.
"Alexei Ulyukayev is a well-known economic liberal, with a career dating back to the turbulent
market reforms of the 1990s."
So to become a "liberal victim of the Regime" instead of "Regime's lackey" you must steal
lots of money and get caught? A-okey!
It's also charming when the article uses the tired clichι "some think" or "some people consider
this" as a way of legitimizing their own speculations.
Nearly 60% (58.3%) of the population in Ukraine lives below the poverty line, according to data of
the M.V. Ptukha Institute of Demography and Social Surveys, the National Academy of Science of Ukraine.
In 2015, this indicator was half as much 28.6%. "The poverty index has increased twofold along
with the actual cost of living," says Svetlana Polyakova , the leading research fellow at the Living
Standard Department at the Demography Institute. "In addition, within the past year, we saw a growth
of the poverty level defined by the UN criteria for estimation of internationally comparable poverty
line in Central and Eastern Europe."
The highest poverty line was registered among the families having at least one child 38.6% and
pensioners 23%. The situation may deteriorate this year. According to the State Service of Statistics,
savings of Ukrainians in April-June fell by 5.297billion hryvnias (more than $200 million at the
current exchange rate).
The cost of living in Ukraine in 2016 makes up 1,544 hryvnias (about $60).
Earlier, Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman said the previous policy of populism and
"money printing and distribution to people" made the country weaker and the people poorer.
"... On Sunday's "60 Minutes," Trump said: "You know, we've been fighting this war for 15 years. We've spent $6 trillion in the Middle East, $6 trillion - we could have rebuilt our country twice. And you look at our roads and our bridges and our tunnels and our airports are obsolete." ..."
"... They want to confront Vladimir Putin, somewhere, anywhere. They want to send U.S. troops to the eastern Baltic. They want to send weapons to Kiev to fight Russia in Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea. ..."
"... At the end of the Cold War, however, with the Soviet Empire history and the Soviet Union having disintegrated, George H.W. Bush launched his New World Order. His son, George W., invaded Iraq and preached a global crusade for democracy "to end tyranny in our world." ..."
"... Result: the Mideast disaster Trump described to Lesley Stahl, and constant confrontations with Russia caused by pushing our NATO alliance right up to and inside what had been Putin's country. ..."
"... The opportunity is at hand for Trump to reconfigure U.S. foreign policy to the world we now inhabit, and to the vital interests of the United States. ..."
However Donald Trump came upon the foreign policy views he espoused, they were as crucial to his
election as his views on trade and the border.
Yet those views are hemlock to the GOP foreign policy elite and the liberal Democratic interventionists
of the Acela Corridor. Trump promised an "America First" foreign policy rooted in the national interest, not in nostalgia.
The neocons insist that every Cold War and post-Cold War commitment be maintained, in perpetuity.
On Sunday's "60 Minutes," Trump said: "You know, we've been fighting this war for 15 years.
We've spent $6 trillion in the Middle East, $6 trillion - we could have rebuilt our country twice.
And you look at our roads and our bridges and our tunnels and our airports are obsolete."
Yet the War Party has not had enough of war, not nearly.
They want to confront Vladimir Putin, somewhere, anywhere. They want to send U.S. troops to the
eastern Baltic. They want to send weapons to Kiev to fight Russia in Donetsk, Luhansk and Crimea.
They want to establish a no-fly zone and shoot down Syrian and Russian planes that violate it,
acts of war Congress never authorized.
They want to trash the Iran nuclear deal, though all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies told us, with
high confidence, in 2007 and 2011, Iran did not even have a nuclear weapons program.
Other hardliners want to face down Beijing over its claims to the reefs and rocks of the South
China Sea, though our Manila ally is talking of tightening ties to China and kicking us out of Subic
Bay.
In none of these places is there a U.S. vital interest so imperiled as to justify the kind of
war the War Party would risk.
Trump has the opportunity to be the president who, like Harry Truman, redirected U.S. foreign
policy for a generation.
After World War II, we awoke to find our wartime ally, Stalin, had emerged as a greater enemy
than Germany or Japan. Stalin's empire stretched from the Elbe to the Pacific.
In 1949, suddenly, he had the atom bomb, and China, the most populous nation on earth, had fallen
to the armies of Mao Zedong.
As our situation was new, Truman acted anew. He adopted a George Kennan policy of containment
of the world Communist empire, the Truman Doctrine, and sent an army to prevent South Korea from
being overrun.
At the end of the Cold War, however, with the Soviet Empire history and the Soviet Union having
disintegrated, George H.W. Bush launched his New World Order. His son, George W., invaded Iraq and
preached a global crusade for democracy "to end tyranny in our world."
A policy born of hubris.
Result: the Mideast disaster Trump described to Lesley Stahl, and constant confrontations with
Russia caused by pushing our NATO alliance right up to and inside what had been Putin's country.
How did we expect Russian patriots to react?
The opportunity is at hand for Trump to reconfigure U.S. foreign policy to the world we now inhabit,
and to the vital interests of the United States.
What should Trump say?
As our Cold War presidents from Truman to Reagan avoided World War III, I intend to avert Cold
War II. We do not regard Russia or the Russian people as enemies of the United States, and we
will work with President Putin to ease the tensions that have arisen between us.
For our part, NATO expansion is over, and U.S. forces will not be deployed in any former republic
of the Soviet Union.
While Article 5 of NATO imposes an obligation to regard an attack upon any one of 28 nations
as an attack on us all, in our Constitution, Congress, not some treaty dating back to before most
Americans were even born, decides whether we go to war.
The compulsive interventionism of recent decades is history. How nations govern themselves
is their own business. While, as JFK said, we prefer democracies and republics to autocrats and
dictators, we will base our attitude toward other nations upon their attitude toward us.
No other nation's internal affairs are a vital interest of ours.
Europeans have to be awakened to reality. We are not going to be forever committed to fighting
their wars. They are going to have to defend themselves, and that transition begins now.
In Syria and Iraq, our enemies are al-Qaida and ISIS. We have no intention of bringing down
the Assad regime, as that would open the door to Islamic terrorists. We have learned from Iraq
and Libya.
Then Trump should move expeditiously to lay out and fix the broad outlines of his foreign policy,
which entails rebuilding our military while beginning the cancellation of war guarantees that have
no connection to U.S. vital interests. We cannot continue to bankrupt ourselves to fight other countries'
wars or pay other countries' bills.
The ideal time for such a declaration, a Trump Doctrine, is when the president-elect presents
his secretaries of state and defense.
I was one of the millions of people that believed in you. Believed what you said. Heard you.
You got "hired" by 60 MILLION people. WE are your boss. YOU BECAME THE EMPLOYEE.
Something you are not used to.
I myself convinced nearly 20 people to vote for you over these last two years. Know what I
said?
"He's NOT a politician. He's a business man. He's an outsider something Washington, D.C.
SORELY needs. He's NOT the same 'business as usual' guy. Mr. Trump will change things for the
better in Washington. Clean it up. Make peace with Russia not war. Trump is a BUILDER not
a destroyer. He'll negotiate FAIR deals with countries. Install sensible immigration policies.
Reverse the stranglehold on health care policies that have bankrupted millions." I made them see
how biased the media was against you. How they lied by omission and sometimes outright lied
about you. (To a person, they NO LONGER WATCH, TRUST, OR HEED the media anymore.)
He'll change the culture of Washington because that's EXACTLY WHAT IT NEEDS. CHANGE."
Washington has become a den of vipers. Self-enriching criminals that have sucked the life blood
out of US YOUR EMPLOYERS . The phrase; "You're FIRED" must be repeated often to MANY people
over the next few years. People that have engorged themselves because of the previous employees,
who have mismanaged the nation, and lied to it's people.
Your very words from your speeches that convinced us to hire you. Your platform. Your slogans;
"Make America Great Again." "I'll take back this country for you".
You said that to 60 MILLION of us and we hired you based on it.
We hired you because we're SICK AND TIRED OF CAREER POLITICIANS. We hired you because we are
sick of the GREED, DUPLICITY, THE CORRUPTION of Congress and the past administrations that have
enriched the elite, while robbing from the American taxpayer.
Already, the public has noticed that you have had a LOT of the old-guard/same ol' same ol'
Republican Washington "insiders" advising you. We understand that you will need some guidance
in the first few months. All "apprentices" do.
However, we, as your employers, will NOT TOLERATE THE SAME OL' SAME OL' ANYMORE.
We hired YOU to do the right THINGS. "Drain The Swamp" "Take Our Country BACK".
Commencing January 21, 2017, that's exactly what we demand of you our new employee.
WE WILL WANT RESULTS. ACTIONS. CHANGE.
WE WILL WANT INVESTIGATIONS. ARRESTS. PROSECUTIONS OF THE PEOPLE THAT WRONGED THIS NATION.
STOLE FROM IT. CORRUPTED IT. DAMAGED IT.
Just like you monitored your "apprentices", and judged them on their performances, WE ARE JUDGING
YOU. And we are NOT going to be fooled, like the oppositions legions were and are; by a biased
media that lies to them. No one is going to get a "pass" anymore. Especially like your immediate
predecessor.
That's over.
On January 21, 2017, your official duties commence.
it was just yesterday that I had posted the following to a friend... very similar.
I know, well the Internet people that elected him may and can put tremendous pressure on him
to do the right thing... And I expect that to happen...I expect the people to demand through social
media that they keep their promises and that they do what they are told by the people that elected
them.....can you imagine the damage that could happen if the trump supporters starting to Diss
him because he didn't do what he was told by the people that elected him.
I think in the very near future countries will be run by the people of the country via the
Internet where everybody's voice counts and the people that want to share their voice will be
the actual leaders of the country and the people that want to watch sports and stick their head
in the sand will be sheeple.
I think referendums will be a much more common item
I wrote that in the hopes that someone on the "TTT" (Trump Transition Team) reads it, and maybe,
maybe, shows Trump himself.
We all know he trolls different sites - and I'll bet he trolls ZH.
I agree with you; the "internet people" elected him. The "alt-right" (which IS the new media)
elected him.
If we had no internet, and had to rely on the MSM, Clinton would have been elected.
Or worse.
But they are now the "old guard ". It is funny....sickening...and sad to watch them flail away
like they have relevancy -
THEY don't.
In a big way, this election was a wake up call to THEM (like the NYT piece on here shows),
to clean up THEIR act.
NO MORE business as usual. CFR meets and Washington insider parties of poo.
I actually DID convince 18 people to switch from Clinton to Trump (really, it was 12 from Cruz/Bush/Sanders,
and 6 outright flip Clinton to Trump).. and ALL of them HAD been a daily staple of watching the
MSM.
Getting them to stop was akin to getting a smoker off cigarettes. Some still do - but they
NOW know how the MSM LIES.
(One way I showed them? A tape on YouTube of 60 Minutes "editing techniques", linked below,
which REALLY opened some eyes)
The video embedded in this thread - when Ann Coulter was on Bill Maher and got mocked for her
backing Trump - in several instances - was me in 2014 and 2015. I got laughed at by many for coming
out for Trump back then.
However, what I wrote is true. I literally changed 18 people into Trump supporters from then
to now.
The reasons are many - but the MAIN one is;
I'm. PISSED. OFF.
I'm angry as to the mis-management, lies and over-regulation that has killed the little guy
in businesses. I'm angry as to the lies and deceit from the bought of main stream media. A whole
LOT of other reasons as well.
I am giving free reign for anyone here to re-post this on ANY internet forum they want; Brietbart,
Drudge, and ANY online newspaper comment op-ed section they wish.
I only am a commenter here. I choose not to become one on any other forum.
Please copy and paste it anywhere you'd like.
I'm just a little guy. A "peon". However, I did work hard for Trump. I expect no compensation.
No recognition.
I DO expect Trump however - to DO WHAT he said. As a political outsider.
I am concerned as to the vipers, old guard Washington insiders, and of course, the Deep State
- along with Israel - getting to Trump.
WE didn't elect them. We elected HIM.
So please - have at it. Post away.
I hope my post inspires others to do their own "Apprentice" type open letters to Trump.
He needs to hear from us (and I bet he does troll ZH and other finanical sites.)
SUBSCRIBE for Latest ECONOMIC CRISIS ECONOMIC NEWS MONETARY INFORMATION OIL MARKET PETROL MARKET
DOLLAR VALUE ECONOMIC FLUCTUATIONS ECONOMIC GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT GLOBAL MARKET COLLAPSE GOLD SILVER
FINANCIAL INVESMENT GLOBAL RESET BITCOIN AGENDA 21 GLOBAL RESET DAVOS 2016 GLOBAL RESET NEW WORLD
ORDER
"A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin is suggesting President-elect Donald Trump begin
rebuilding the U.S.-Kremlin relationship by urging NATO to withdraw forces from the Russian border.
Dmitry Peskov told the Associated Press that such a move "would lead to a kind of detente in Europe."...
...Peskov said in the interview that the NATO presence does not make Russia feel "safe."
"Of course, we have to take measures to counter," he said.
In a separate interview with the Associated Press on Thursday, Peskov insisted that Crimea, the
region of Ukraine annexed by the Kremlin in 2014, is part of Russia.
"No one in Russia - never - will be ready to start any kind of discussion about Crimea," he said,
refusing to call it "annexation."..."
"... It's a cliche to say that the cushiest positions of influence in any US administration go to figures who were seen to have brought something to the table during the campaign. ..."
"... a lot of high-ranking neoconservatives are expecting the exact opposite, figuring that they can step right into positions of power and influence despite openly campaigning against Trump. ..."
"... There are more than a few people who would normally be in line for top positions in a Republican White House, but who were very publicly part of the "Never Trump" crowd, attacking him throughout the primary and the general election. These same people are now making public their "willingness" to work with Trump. ..."
"... In other words, they want the usual spoils of victory, but having positioned themselves as so firmly in opposition to Trump's worldview, and to Trump in general, it's not at all clear how willing Trump's transition team is to consider such candidates for important positions. ..."
"... For many of the neocons, this is likely less about getting cushy jobs or fancy titles and more about ensuring that the US remains aggressively interventionist abroad. Indeed, many of these people split with Trump in the first place over concerns he was insufficiently hawkish, and now want jobs that would put them in a position to shift his new administration in those same hawkish directions. ..."
There are more than a few people who would normally be in line for top positions in a Republican
White House, but who were very publicly part of the "Never Trump" crowd, attacking him throughout
the primary and the general election. These same people are now making public their "willingness"
to work with Trump.
In other words, they want the usual spoils of victory, but having positioned themselves as
so firmly in opposition to Trump's worldview, and to Trump in general, it's not at all clear how
willing Trump's transition team is to consider such candidates for important positions.
The early indications are that a lot of the foreign policy-related positions are going to be led
by high-ranking former military officials who backed Trump's candidacy, with officials noting that
long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have left them with a lot of such officials to choose from.
For many of the neocons, this is likely less about getting cushy jobs or fancy titles and
more about ensuring that the US remains aggressively interventionist abroad. Indeed, many of these
people split with Trump in the first place over concerns he was insufficiently hawkish, and now want
jobs that would put them in a position to shift his new administration in those same hawkish directions.
"... No sooner had Trump been declared the 45th president of the United States, Soros-funded political operations launched their activities to disrupt Trump during Obama's lame-duck period and thereafter. The swiftness of the Purple Revolution is reminiscent of the speed at which protesters hit the streets of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, in two Orange Revolutions sponsored by Soros, one in 2004 and the other, ten years later, in 2014. ..."
"... The Soros-financed Russian singing group "Pussy Riot" released on YouTube an anti-Trump music video titled "Make America Great Again". The video went "viral" on the Internet. The video, which is profane and filled with violent acts, portrays a dystopian Trump presidency. Following the George Soros/Gene Sharp script to a tee, Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova called for anti-Trump Americans to turn their anger into art, particularly music and visual art. The use of political graffiti is a popular Sharp tactic. The street protests and anti-Trump music and art were the first phase of Soros's Purple Revolution in America ..."
" No sooner had Trump been declared the 45th president of the United States, Soros-funded political
operations launched their activities to disrupt Trump during Obama's lame-duck period and thereafter.
The swiftness of the Purple Revolution is reminiscent of the speed at which protesters hit the
streets of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, in two Orange Revolutions sponsored by Soros, one in 2004
and the other, ten years later, in 2014.
As the Clintons were embracing purple in New York, street demonstrations, some violent, all
coordinated by the Soros-funded Moveon.org and "Black Lives Matter", broke out in New York, Los
Angeles, Chicago, Oakland, Nashville, Cleveland, Washington, Austin, Seattle, Philadelphia, Richmond,
St. Paul, Kansas City, Omaha, San Francisco, and some 200 other cities across the United States.
The Soros-financed Russian singing group "Pussy Riot" released on YouTube an anti-Trump music
video titled "Make America Great Again". The video went "viral" on the Internet. The video, which
is profane and filled with violent acts, portrays a dystopian Trump presidency. Following the
George Soros/Gene Sharp script to a tee, Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova called for anti-Trump
Americans to turn their anger into art, particularly music and visual art. The use of political
graffiti is a popular Sharp tactic. The street protests and anti-Trump music and art were the
first phase of Soros's Purple Revolution in America."
He will be staging them as long as he has enough health to try. Of course he is not the only player.
Soros is just one of the agents of western imperialism.
Reply
"... No sooner had Trump been declared the 45th president of the United States, Soros-funded political operations launched their activities to disrupt Trump during Obama's lame-duck period and thereafter. The swiftness of the Purple Revolution is reminiscent of the speed at which protesters hit the streets of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, in two Orange Revolutions sponsored by Soros, one in 2004 and the other, ten years later, in 2014. ..."
"... One of Trump's political advertisements, released just prior to Election Day, stated that George Soros, Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, and Goldman Sachs chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein, are all part of "a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities". Soros and his minions immediately and ridiculously attacked the ad as "anti-Semitic". President Trump should be on guard against those who his campaign called out in the ad and their colleagues. Soros's son, Alexander Soros, called on Trump's daughter, Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner, to publicly disavow Trump. Soros's tactics not only seek to split apart nations but also families. Trump must be on guard against the current and future machinations of George Soros, including his Purple Revolution. ..."
Defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is not about to "go quietly into that good night". On the morning
after her surprising and unanticipated defeat at the hands of Republican Party upstart Donald Trump, Mrs. Clinton and her husband,
former President Bill Clinton, entered the ball room of the art-deco New Yorker hotel in midtown Manhattan and were both adorned
in purple attire. The press immediately noticed the color and asked what it represented. Clinton spokespeople claimed it was to represent
the coming together of Democratic "Blue America" and Republican "Red America" into a united purple blend. This statement was a complete
ruse as is known by citizens of countries targeted in the past by the vile political operations of international hedge fund tycoon
George Soros.
The Clintons, who both have received millions of dollars in campaign contributions and Clinton Foundation donations from Soros,
were, in fact, helping to launch Soros's "Purple Revolution" in America. The Purple Revolution will resist all efforts by the Trump
administration to push back against the globalist policies of the Clintons and soon-to-be ex-President Barack Obama. The Purple Revolution
will also seek to make the Trump administration a short one through Soros-style street protests and political disruption.
It is doubtful that President Trump's aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation of
Mrs. Clinton's private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when the nation
faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care. However, House Oversight and Government Reform
Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said he will continue hearings in the Republican-controlled Congress on Hillary Clinton, the
Clinton Foundation, and Mrs. Clinton's aide
Huma Abedin
. President Trump should not allow himself to be distracted by these efforts. Chaffetz was not one of Trump's most loyal supporters.
America's globalists and interventionists are already pushing the meme that because so many establishment and entrenched national
security and military "experts" opposed Trump's candidacy, Trump is "required" to call on them to join his administration because
there are not enough such "experts" among Trump's inner circle of advisers.
Discredited neo-conservatives from George W. Bush's White House, such as Iraq war co-conspirator Stephen Hadley, are being mentioned
as someone Trump should have join his National Security Council and other senior positions. George H. W. Bush's Secretary of State
James Baker, a die-hard Bush loyalist, is also being proffered as a member of Trump's White House team.
There is absolutely no reason for Trump to seek the advice from old Republican fossils like Baker, Hadley, former Secretaries
of State Rice and Powell, the lunatic former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, and others. There are plenty of Trump
supporters who have a wealth of experience in foreign and national security matters, including those of African, Haitian, Hispanic,
and Arab descent and who are not neocons, who can fill Trump's senior- and middle-level positions.
Trump must distance himself from sudden well-wishing neocons, adventurists, militarists, and interventionists and not permit them
to infest his administration. If Mrs. Clinton had won the presidency, an article on the incoming administration would have read as
follows:
"Based on the militarism and foreign adventurism of her term as Secretary of State and her husband Bill Clinton's two terms
as president, the world is in store for major American military aggression on multiple fronts around the world. President-elect
Hillary Clinton has made no secret of her desire to confront Russia militarily, diplomatically, and economically in the Middle
East, on Russia's very doorstep in eastern Europe, and even within the borders of the Russian Federation. Mrs. Clinton has dusted
off the long-discredited 'containment' policy ushered into effect by Professor George F. Kennan in the aftermath of World War.
Mrs. Clinton's administration will likely promote the most strident neo-Cold Warriors of the Barack Obama administration, including
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, a personal favorite of Clinton".
President-elect Trump cannot afford to permit those who are in the same web as Nuland, Hadley, Bolton, and others to join his
administration where they would metastasize like an aggressive form of cancer. These individuals would not carry out Trump's policies
but seek to continue to damage America's relations with Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, and other nations.
Not only must Trump have to deal with Republican neocons trying to worm their way into his administration, but he must deal with
the attempt by Soros to disrupt his presidency and the United States with a Purple Revolution
No sooner had Trump been declared the 45th president of the United States, Soros-funded political operations launched their
activities to disrupt Trump during Obama's lame-duck period and thereafter. The swiftness of the Purple Revolution is reminiscent
of the speed at which protesters hit the streets of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, in two Orange Revolutions sponsored by Soros, one
in 2004 and the other, ten years later, in 2014.
As the Clintons were embracing purple in New York, street demonstrations, some violent, all coordinated by the Soros-funded Moveon.org
and "Black Lives Matter", broke out in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Oakland, Nashville, Cleveland, Washington, Austin, Seattle,
Philadelphia, Richmond, St. Paul, Kansas City, Omaha, San Francisco, and some 200 other cities across the United States.
The Soros-financed Russian singing group "Pussy Riot" released on YouTube an anti-Trump music video titled "Make America Great
Again". The video went "viral" on the Internet. The video, which is profane and filled with violent acts, portrays a dystopian Trump
presidency. Following the George Soros/Gene Sharp script to a tee, Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova called for anti-Trump Americans
to turn their anger into art, particularly music and visual art. The use of political graffiti is a popular Sharp tactic. The street
protests and anti-Trump music and art were the first phase of Soros's Purple Revolution in America.
President-elect Trump is facing a two-pronged attack by his opponents. One, led by entrenched neo-con bureaucrats, including former
Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency director Michael Hayden, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff,
and Bush family loyalists are seeking to call the shots on who Trump appoints to senior national security, intelligence, foreign
policy, and defense positions in his administration. These neo-Cold Warriors are trying to convince Trump that he must maintain the
Obama aggressiveness and militancy toward Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and other countries. The second front arrayed against
Trump is from Soros-funded political groups and media. This second line of attack is a propaganda war, utilizing hundreds of anti-Trump
newspapers, web sites, and broadcasters, that will seek to undermine public confidence in the Trump administration from its outset.
One of Trump's political advertisements, released just prior to Election Day, stated that George Soros, Federal Reserve chair
Janet Yellen, and Goldman Sachs chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein, are all part of "a global power structure that is responsible
for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets
of a handful of large corporations and political entities". Soros and his minions immediately and ridiculously attacked the ad as
"anti-Semitic". President Trump should be on guard against those who his campaign called out in the ad and their colleagues. Soros's
son, Alexander Soros, called on Trump's daughter, Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner, to publicly disavow Trump. Soros's tactics
not only seek to split apart nations but also families. Trump must be on guard against the current and future machinations of George
Soros, including his Purple Revolution.
WikiLeaks series on deals involving
Hillary Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta. Mr Podesta is a long-term associate of the Clintons
and was President Bill Clinton's Chief of Staff from 1998 until 2001. Mr Podesta also owns the
Podesta Group with his brother Tony, a major lobbying firm and is the Chair of the Center for
American Progress (CAP), a Washington DC-based think tank.
globinfo freexchange
A letter under the title "Stay out of Syria" from
Jon Soltz
, an Iraq War Veteran and founder
of VoteVets.org, to John Podesta in May, 2013, confirms the multiple, serious warnings that the
Clinton/Podesta complex
had received about
the implications of the US involvement on Syrian mess.
Soltz's warnings couldn't be more clear. He points that "
arming
and training the Syrian rebels is a misguided and dangerous idea
" and that he helped to train
the Iraqi Army, and "
their concern is that many of the anti-Assad forces are the same terrorists
they've fought before and who continue to target them
". He also writes that "
there is no
winning scenario when we get involved in other nations' civil wars and proxy wars
".
Most important parts of the short letter:
Earlier this week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
voted 15-3 in favor of arming and training the Syrian rebels. This is a misguided and dangerous
idea. I helped to train the Iraqi Army during my second tour, and their concern is that
many
of the anti-Assad forces are the same terrorists they've fought before and who continue to target
them
. Plus, as Senator Tom Udall noted,
once we introduce weapons, we have zero control
over them
. The United States "could turn over the weapons we're talking about and next day
they end up in the hands of al-Qaida." Three Senators voted against the bill in committee, but
we need you to send a strong message to the other 97 that you oppose intervention in Syria's civil
war.
Moreover,
there is no winning scenario when we get involved
in other nations' civil wars and proxy wars
. On this point, Senator Chris Murphy said it best:
"We have failed over and over again in our attempts to pull the strings of Middle Eastern politics."
Let's not make the same mistake again.
Full letter:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/59165
Recall that, another letter from Clinton email
series, released also by WikiLeaks, proves that
Hillary had been seriously warned about the
oncoming Syrian chaos
,
already since 2011.
Apparently, the Clinton/Podesta complex completely ignored those
serious warnings. Hillary and her team are totally responsible for doing nothing to prevent, or
at least restrict, the Middle East chaos.
"... Ideally, the next step would be for Trump and Putin to meet, with all their key ministers, in a long, Camp David like week of negotiations in which everything, every outstanding dispute, should be put on the table and a compromise sought in each case. Paradoxically, this could be rather easy: the crisis in Europe is entirely artificial, the war in Syria has an absolutely obvious solution, and the international order can easily accommodate a United States which would " deal fairly with everyone, with everyone - all people and all other nations " and " seek common ground, not hostility; partnership, not conflict ". ..."
"... The truth is that the USA and Russia have no objective reasons for conflict only ideological issues resulting directly from the insane ideology of messianic imperialism of those who believe, or pretend to believe, that the USA is an "indispensable nation". What the world wants needs is the USA as a *normal* nation. ..."
"... The worst case? Trump could turn out to be a total fraud. I personally very much doubt it, but I admit that this is possible. More likely is that he just won't have the foresight and courage to crush the Neocons and that he will try to placate them. If he does so, they will instead crush him. It is a fact that while administrations have changed every 4 or 8 years, the regime in power has not, and that US internal and foreign policies have been amazingly consistent since the end of WWII. Will Trump finally bring not just a new administration but real "regime change"? I don't know. ..."
"... Alexander Solzhenitsyn used to say that regimes can be measured on a spectrum which ranges from regimes whose authority is their power and regimes whose power in in their authority. In the case of the USA we now clearly can see that the regime has no other authority than its power and that makes it both illegitimate and unsustainable. ..."
"... Finally, whether the US elites can accept this or not, the US Empire is coming to an end. ..."
"... With Hillary, we would have had a Titanic-like denial up to the last moment which might well have come in the shape of a thermonuclear mushroom over Washington DC. Trump, however, might use the remaining power of the USA to negotiate the US global draw-down thereby getting the best possible conditions for his country. ..."
So it has happened: Hillary did not win! I say that instead of saying that "Trump won" because
I consider the former even more important than the latter. Why? Because I have no idea whatsoever
what Trump will do next. I do, however, have an excellent idea of what Hillary would have done: war
with Russia. Trump most likely won't do that. In fact, he specifically said in his acceptance speech:
I want to tell the world community that while we will always put America's interests first,
we will deal fairly with everyone, with everyone - all people and all other nations. We will seek
common ground, not hostility; partnership, not conflict .
And Putin's reply was immediate:
We heard the statements he made as candidate for president expressing a desire to restore relations
between our countries. We realise and understand that this will not be an easy road given the
level to which our relations have degraded today, regrettably. But, as I have said before, it
is not Russia's fault that our relations with the United States have reached this point.
Russia is ready to and seeks a return to full-format relations with the United States. Let
me say again, we know that this will not be easy, but are ready to take this road, take steps
on our side and do all we can to set Russian-US relations back on a stable development track.
This would benefit both the Russian and American peoples and would have a positive impact on
the general climate in international affairs, given the particular responsibility that Russia
and the US share for maintaining global stability and security.
This exchange, right there, is enough of a reason for the entire planet to rejoice at the defeat
of Hillary and the victory of Trump.
Will Trump now have the courage, willpower and intelligence to purge the US Executive from the
Neocon cabal which has been infiltrating it for decades now? Will he have the strength to confront
an extremely hostile Congress and media? Or will he try to meet them halfway and naively hope that
they will not use their power, money and influence to sabotage his presidency?
I don't know. Nobody does.
One of the first signs to look for will be the names and backgrounds of the folks he will appoint
in his new administration. Especially his Chief of Staff and Secretary of State.
I have always said that the choice for the lesser evil is morally wrong and pragmatically misguided.
I still believe that. In this case, however, the greater evil was thermonuclear war with Russia and
the lesser evil just might turn out to be one which will gradually give up the Empire to save the
USA rather than sacrifice the USA for the needs of the Empire. In the case of Hillary vs Trump the
choice was simple: war or peace.
Trump can already be credited with am immense achievement: his campaign has forced the US corporate
media to show its true face the face of an evil, lying, morally corrupt propaganda machine. The
American people by their vote have rewarded their media with a gigantic "f*ck you!" a vote of no-confidence
and total rejection which will forever demolish the credibility of the Empire's propaganda machine.
I am not so naive as to not realize that billionaire Donald Trump is also one of the 1%ers, a
pure product of the US oligarchy. But neither am I so ignorant of history to forget that elites
do turn on each other , especially when their regime is threatened. Do I need to remind anybody
that Putin also came from the Soviet elites?!
Ideally, the next step would be for Trump and Putin to meet, with all their key ministers,
in a long, Camp David like week of negotiations in which everything, every outstanding dispute, should
be put on the table and a compromise sought in each case. Paradoxically, this could be rather easy:
the crisis in Europe is entirely artificial, the war in Syria has an absolutely obvious solution,
and the international order can easily accommodate a United States which would " deal fairly with
everyone, with everyone - all people and all other nations " and " seek common ground, not hostility;
partnership, not conflict ".
The truth is that the USA and Russia have no objective reasons for conflict only ideological
issues resulting directly from the insane ideology of messianic imperialism of those who believe,
or pretend to believe, that the USA is an "indispensable nation". What the world wants needs
is the USA as a *normal* nation.
The worst case? Trump could turn out to be a total fraud. I personally very much doubt it,
but I admit that this is possible. More likely is that he just won't have the foresight and courage
to crush the Neocons and that he will try to placate them. If he does so, they will instead crush
him. It is a fact that while administrations have changed every 4 or 8 years, the regime in power
has not, and that US internal and foreign policies have been amazingly consistent since the end of
WWII. Will Trump finally bring not just a new administration but real "regime change"? I don't know.
Make no mistake even if Trump does end up disappointing those who believed in him what happened
today has dealt a death blow to the Empire. The "Occupy Wall Street" did not succeed in achieving
anything tangible, but the notion of "rule of the 1%" did emerge from that movement and it stayed.
This is a direct blow to the credibility and legitimacy of the entire socio-political order
of the USA: far from being a democracy, it is a plutocracy/oligarchy everybody pretty much accepts
that today. Likewise, the election of Trump has already proved that the US media is a prostitute
and that the majority of the American people hate their ruling class. Again, this is a direct blow
to the credibility and legitimacy of the entire socio-political order. One by one the founding
myths of the US Empire are crashing down and what remains is a system which can only rule by force.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn used to say that regimes can be measured on a spectrum which ranges
from regimes whose authority is their power and regimes whose power in in their authority. In the
case of the USA we now clearly can see that the regime has no other authority than its power and
that makes it both illegitimate and unsustainable.
Finally, whether the US elites can accept this or not, the US Empire is coming to an end.
With Hillary, we would have had a Titanic-like denial up to the last moment which might well
have come in the shape of a thermonuclear mushroom over Washington DC. Trump, however, might use
the remaining power of the USA to negotiate the US global draw-down thereby getting the best possible
conditions for his country. Frankly, I am pretty sure that all the key world leaders realize
that it is in their interest to make as many (reasonable) concessions to Trump as possible and work
with him, rather than to deal with the people whom he just removed from power.
If Trump can stick to his campaign promises he will find solid and reliable partners in
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. Neither Russia nor China have anything at all to gain from a confrontation
or, even less so, a conflict with the USA. Will Trump have the wisdom to realize this and use it
for the benefit of the USA? Or will he continue with his anti-Chinese and anti-Iranian rhetoric?
Donald Trump's victory in the US Presidential election confirms what was already apparent from
the Brexit referendum and the Canadian parliamentary elections of 2015: Russophobia loses
elections.
As Donald Trump savours his victory Western elites
everywhere should take note of one overriding fact: Russophobia loses elections.
There have now been two elections in the West
in which Russia bashing and Putin bashing have taken centre stage.
These were the Brexit Referendum in Britain and the US Presidential
election.
In both elections the Western media and Western
governments united in claiming and did so relentlessly that Putin and Russia
were trying to influence the result in their favour.
They did not say that because they believed it.
There was never the slightest evidence it was the case.
On both occasions the claim was in fact false.
They said it because they are themselves viscerally
Russophobic, and they assume Western electorates are too.
In the case of the US Presidential election this
was taken to absurd, indeed ridiculous lengths.
Not only was Donald Trump one of the most
archetypical Americans in existence called ludicrously "the Siberian candidate",
but US Intelligence even
published a disgracefully dishonest statement
which
the
FBI refused to sign
which actually alleged that the
Russians were meddling in the election in order to influence its outcome by
providing hacked information to Wikileaks.
As for Donald Trump's policies towards Russia
which amount to nothing more than the sensible suggestion that it is better to
have a civilised dialogue with another country which is a nuclear superpower
rather than engage in pointless confrontations with it they have been distorted
and misrepresented to a ludicrous degree.
Even today, after Donald Trump has won, Jonathan
Freedland in the Guardian was at it again, making this fantastic comment in an
article
"Think of the anxiety this morning in Riga,
Vilnius or Tallinn. In the summer, Trump told the New York Times he did not
believe in Nato's core principle: that an attack on one member should be met by
a response from all. He seemed to see Nato as a mafia protection racket: unless
the little guys paid up, they should be left undefended. Vladimir Putin
Trump's hero, admired as the very model of a leader by the president-elect of
the United States will not need more of a hint than that.
The Russian
dictator will surely see his opportunity to invade one or more Baltic states
and expand his empire. President Trump would only admire the macho swagger of
such a move
."
(bold italics added)
So what happens when this "invasion" doesn't take
place (which it won't)?
Will Jonathan
Freedland apologise to Donald Trump (the man who in the article he calls an
"unstable bigot, sexual predator and compulsive liar") and Vladimir Putin ('the
Russian dictator")?
Will he admit he
was wrong about them all along?
I am
not holding my breath ..
Indeed the Putin bashing and Russia bashing during
this election have been so relentless that at times it has felt as if Hillary
Clinton was actually running against Vladimir Putin rather than Donald Trump.
" .the British Remain campaign's attempt to use
Putin as a scarecrow to frighten British voters into voting Remain was a total
failure.
There is no evidence it
persuaded a single British voter to change their vote.
I predict the same will be true in the US
election.
Though Britain and the US
are very different societies, I think the liberal elite in both countries is
making the same mistake: they think non-elite people (ie. the great mass of
voters) are as obsessed by Putin as they are.
I doubt this is the case.
I think most British and US voters broadly accept the elite's claims
about Putin: that he is corrupt, ruthless and authoritarian.
However my impression is that this goes hand in hand with a grudging
though cynical respect for him as a strong leader who is not to be messed
with.
More to the point I don't think they think much
about him or consider him or Russia dangerous.
On the contrary they see jihadi terrorism which unlike Russia has
actually carried out terrorist attacks on US and EU soil as the enemy, and
are open to the idea floated by Putin and Trump of the US and Russia joining
forces to fight this common enemy.
Issues like Ukraine and the Baltic States by contrast are remote and far away
and barely interest them.
As for the idea that such an extremely American
figure as Donald Trump whom US voters have come to know and form a view about
over several decades could possibly be a Russian agent, that is just too
farfetched for most voters.
Unless Hillary Clinton is careful she
could find that by banging on about Putin she is losing the voters' attention.
This whilst Donald Trump talks about issues voters genuinely care about
such as immigration, law and order and jobs
."
(bold italics added)
So it has proved.
Indeed rarely has a prediction I have made about an election been so
entirely and comprehensively vindicated.
It is probably asking too much to expect of the
West's liberal elite that they will now drop their visceral Russophobia.
It is probably too hardwired in them for that.
However the politicians amongst them should at
least wake up to the fact that after more than two years of the most stupendous
and intense anti-Russia media campaign I can remember (and my memory extends back
to the Cold War) electoral campaigns based on it have all failed.
Even before the Brexit referendum the warning signs
were already there with the unexpected defeat in the October 2015 parliamentary
elections in Canada of Stephen Harper, possibly the most outspokenly Russophobic
leader of the pre-1991 West.
The
results of the Brexit referendum and of the US Presidential election settle the
issue.
To be clear the fact that Russophobia loses
elections does not reflect the success of Russia's mythical "information war" or
the supposedly sinister power of RT (whose coverage of the US Presidential
election has by the way been both faultless and fair).
What it
reflects is the good sense and tough minded practicality of Western
electorates.
Quite simply, for a Western politician who wants to
win an election, Russophobia is a passport to nowhere.
The sooner they realise this, the better for them and for the world in
general.
The people loyal to the Syrian government
are happy
with Donald Trump winning the U.S. election:
At the passport counter, a Syrian officer's face lit up when he saw an American
traveler.
"Congratulations on your new president!" he exclaimed, giving an energetic thumbs
up. Mr. Trump, he said, would be "good for Syria."
The first significant step of the new administration comes while Trump is not even in
offices. Obama, selfishly concerned with his historic legacy, suddenly makes a 180
degree turn and starts to implement Trump polices. Lets consider the
initial position
:
Asked about Aleppo in an October debate with Clinton, Trump said it was a
humanitarian disaster but the city had "basically" fallen. Clinton, he said, was
talking in favor of rebels without knowing who they were.
The rebels fighting Assad in western Syria include nationalists fighting under the
Free Syrian Army banner, some of them trained in a CIA-backed program, and jihadists
such as the group formerly known as the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front.
The Obama administration, through the CIA led by Saudi asset John Brennan, fed
weapons, training and
billions of dollars
to "moderate rebels". These then
turned around
(vid) and either gave the CIA gifts to al-Qaeda in Syria (aka Jabhat al Nusra) or joined
it themselves. The scheme was
no secret
at
all
and Russia as well as Syria pointed this out several times. The Russian foreign
Minister Lavrov negotiated with the U.S. secretary of State Kerry who promised to
separate the "moderate rebels" from al-Qaeda. But Kerry never delivered. Instead he
falsely accuse Russia
of committing atrocities that never happened. The CIA kept the
upper hand within the Obama administration and continued its nefarious plans.
That changed the day the president-elect Trump set foot into the White House. While
Obama met Trump in the oval office, new policies, prepared beforehand, were launched.
The policies were held back until after the election and would likely not have been
revealed or implemented if Clinton had won.
The U.S. declared that from now on it
will fight
against al-Qaeda in Syria:
President Obama has
ordered the Pentagon to find and kill the leaders of an
al-Qaeda-linked group in Syria
that the administration had largely ignored
until now and that has been at the vanguard of the fight against the Syrian
government, U.S. officials said.
That shift is
likely to accelerate once President-elect Donald Trump takes
office. ... possibly in direct cooperation with Moscow
.
...
U.S. officials who opposed the decision to go after al-Nusra's wider leadership
warned that the United States would effectively be doing the Assad government's
bidding by weakening a group on the front line of the counter-Assad fight.
...
Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and other Pentagon leaders initially resisted the
idea of devoting more Pentagon surveillance aircraft and armed drones against al-Nusra.
Ash Carter is, together with John Brennan, the major anti-Russian force in the Obama
administration. He is a U.S. weapon industry promoter and the anti-Russia campaign,
which helps to sell U.S. weapons to NATO allies in Europe, is largely of his doing. He
saw al-Qaeda in Syria as a
welcome proxy force
against Russia.
But Obama has now shut down that policy. We are not yet sure that this is for good
but the above Washington Post account is
not the
only signal
:
rg the lg | Nov 11, 2016 11:02:07 AM |
5
Obama shifting policy is probably to protect his legacy from the reality that the US
promotes chaos as a national goal. It is also a cynical attempt to pre-empt any Trump
induced success in Syria?
The good news is that there is rioting in the
DuhMurriKKKan streets as a consequence of Trump being elected rather than Clinton ...
and all this time we were supposed to be afraid of Trump-ites hitting the streets if
their guy lost. I don't recall anyone suggesting there would be Clintonistas on the
streets if Trump won.
It is telling that the WaPo article emphasizes that "limited" US airstrikes are being
conducted and only after notifying Ru. IOW Putin has established a de facto no-fly
zone. He is now controlling where and when USG flies in Syria.
DTDuck now starts his balancing act; we'll soon know if he's got what it takes to
be a leader. He can't kiss Putin's ass without helping Assad. He can't help Assad and
kiss Bibi's ass. And yet he's already kissing Bibi's ass. Syria is about Yisrael.
Always has been. If DTDuck can come down on both sides of that fence, he's a genius.
And maybe he is. DTDuck has just proven that he doesn't need the MSM or AIPAC's
shekels to get elected. That means the iJews won't be able control him unless they
threaten him and his family physically. He's one dangerous dude as far as Ertz
Yisrael goes. But so was JFK.
I'm quite certain that Obama is playing his "Trump" card as a last-ditch effort to
encourage the Russians to delay their impending (full spectrum) offensive and keep
them off-balance for a few more days/ weeks and thus give his 'Russian quagmire'
dream another 40 winks. According to Al Jazeera, the Yanks are saying that they'll be
restricting the scope of their attacks on 'Terrorist Leaders' in Syria to drone
surveillance and strikes. Al Jaz's reporter was speaking to their Washington
correspondent and one of them (not sure which) mentioned that the US won't be sending
in boots or manned aircraft without the permission of the Syrian Govt. So, if nothing
else, this probably spells the end of any present or future (illegal) military
involvement by AmeriKKKa's Christian allies in Syria.
So imo, overall, it's a crock and a trick - small bikkies with a high risk of
Yankee treachery. If the Yankees were sincere (cough, cough) they'd cooperate
directly with Syria/Russia and agree on who's in charge of the joint mission. And if
the Russians are sincere they'll ask the Yankees to respect Syria's sovereignty and
stay out of Syria.
Inasmuch as the CIA has a very good idea where the leaders of al-Nusrah front are,
this is ostensibly a directive to bomb the CIA Will the US campaign against al-Nusrah
inexplicably fail?
Jack Smith: Clinton won the election. The electoral college overturns the popular
vote of course...unless the electors keep faith with democracy, and vote for the
winner?
A clean up operation maybe? Who knows what kind of dirt those moder...oops terrorist
leaders may have and who they could probably implicate. With Hillary in the white
house, any info that may come from them, could easily go under the carpet as
propaganda. Who knows what Trump could do?
This should make it untenable for the other colonial powers in NATO to keep
supporting AQ as well. So hopefully we have seen the end of any more white helmets
and other propaganda and we won't hear any more from that idiot sitting in his
basement in the UK that all the MSM take as the new messiah of truth. Maybe Ken Roth
will lose his job lose his job to.
@12 The democrats were perfectly fine with the
electoral college when it was going to work for them so they can STFU.
"According to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph
Dunford, after meeting with his Turkish counterpart, that "The coalition and Turkey
will work together on the long-term plan for seizing, holding and governing Raqqa."
b - please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but are you suggesting those
millions of Saudi/Qatari/Israeli dollars that personally enriched the Clinton's,
funded their private family foundation and bankrolled the DNC machine to anoint ONLY
Queen Clinton BOUGHT the necessary United States influence (CIA, Military, State, WH,
DNC) to ensure U.S. foreign policy 'stay the course no matter the damned
consequences' in Syria? Russia? Ukraine? until November 8 when she was to be crowned?
And now that she and her diabolical neocon pals have lost the opportunity to rip
apart the Middle East the U.S. client states - the Saudi's, Qatari's and Israeli's -
are taking there marbles back and going home b/c the new guy refuses to play their
way?
Might this provocative suggestion also account for the record breaking U.S. arms
sales to the Saudi's and Israeli's this year in preparation for that 'all hell would
break loose WWIII' she, her neocon pals and the Saudi's, Israeli's and Qatari's were
all lusting after.
Might this suggestion also account for Adelson's buying Trump's silence, loyalty
to Israel? We'll see how far Trump goes, but here's a link to his Israeli policy
position pre 11/8 -
http://bit.ly/2fIqhir
(the joint statement is posted at Medium. I posted a bit.ly
link b/c I feared the Medium link would have blown out the thread)
Finally, Giuliani's advice that the FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation
stay the course when asked about Obama pardoning the almost crowned Queen, make's a
great deal more sense, that is, if I'm reading your underlying suggestion correctly,
b.
P.S. - I can't help but to remain curious why we didn't see more leaked emails
from the Podesta stash between Hillary, John and maybe Obama, but at least Hillary
and John. After all, he kept nearly 60k emails on his gmail account and few that were
released dealt with foreign policy/donors/deals. Maybe a get out of the Ecuadorian
Embassy card is being played? Absolutely delicious if my reading into b's post today
is correct.
Everything potentially happening in Syria now revolves around Turkey and Russia.
Either Erdogan will invade with Turkish troops/armor to carve off his Kurdish buffer
zone/concentration camp in northern Syria, or he won't. Russia will either let them
or it won't.
The Turkmen/Al Zenki FSA head-choppers are over-extended and can't take al Bab (or
ar Raqqa) by themselves anymore. They will either be abandoned (which I don't think
will happen) to die at the hands of the Kurds and SAA, or they'll be reinforced by
the invading Turkish Army to 'finish' the creation of
Turkmeneli
(or as much as they can grab). The U.S. will sit on the sidelines and
watch, with the occasional coalition air strikes to make it look like we still matter
- at least as much as Russia.
Worst case: the Turks abandon the FSA/Al Zenki head-choppers because they don't
want to start WWIII with Russia. The U.S. will turn into Al Zenki's air force and
'support' their land-grabbing. CJTF-OIR commander Townsend will send the 101st to ar
Raqqa and maybe Deir Ez Zor to clean up our mess, but then pull out and abandon Syria
(the WW III thing) to roving gangs of well-armed head-choppers. It will be a
hell-hole of violence, but since no ISIS-held territory will be left on the map,
we'll declare victory and 'Mission: Accomplished!" just like we did in Afghanistan
and Iraq.
Putin: "Do you now realize what you have done?"
Americans: "Huh? Do you mean us? Hey - look over there! SQUIRREL!"
What I DO like about this story is that it's a Golden Opportunity for Vlad to test
Trump's sincerity BEFORE he becomes POTUS. I'd like Russia to start slaughtering
Obama's Ter'rists in Syria, en masse, tomorrow morning. It's a reliable way to find
out how much 'daylight' there is between the Trump Doctrine and the Obama Doctrine -
keeping in mind that this slice of Hopie Changie-ness has nothing whatsoever to do
with President-elect Trump.
@11 Hoarsewhisperer - I think it's unrealistic to expect the US simply to leave
Syria. The loss of face would be appalling, and it's unnecessary. If in fact the US
is coordinating with Russia and Syria, there's no loss of face, and Russia has always
accommodated the US presence in all its public pronouncements, conditional on that
coordination.
I think b's take makes sense - there were two sets of plans on
Obama's desk, and these moves are the Trump set.
There remains that school of thought long speculating that part of the US
"deep state" for lack of a better term, supported Trump as the man to reverse some of
these disastrous policies that simply can no longer win, and which must be walked
back from with as much tough face-saving as possible.
Personally, I'm curious to see what Trump's support turns out to be in the serving
military. Since I'm no expert, I'd like to see analysis one day that shows a war
between the Pentagon and the CIA, with the soldiers winning, and choosing Trump.
"... If one "fact" is known to be false then one is inclined to think those "facts" one is unfamiliar with are also false. I'll always think of Clinton's behavior on hearing of Gadaffi's death. That's the thing you want running the most powerful corporation on earth. ..."
"... I don't remember Krugman saying that Bush Sr. spent his days at the CIA so he trained as a professional assassin. ..."
If one "fact" is known to be false then one is inclined to think those "facts" one is unfamiliar
with are also false. I'll always think of Clinton's behavior on hearing of Gadaffi's death. That's
the thing you want running the most powerful corporation on earth.
The election was rigged by Russian intelligence, which was almost surely behind the hacking of
Democratic emails, which WikiLeaks then released with great fanfare. Nothing truly scandalous
emerged, but the Russians judged, correctly, that the news media would hype the revelation that
major party figures are human beings, and that politicians engage in politics, as somehow damning....
-- Paul Krugman
[ A wildly speculative, purposely inflaming even dangerous passage. And in keeping with previously
expressed, inflaming Krugman stereotypes.
I know, I know, the Russians are going to eat our children for breakfast but I am in no mood
for another era of Cold War McCarthyism. Children for what? OMG. ]
OMG, the Russians not being satisfied with eating the children of Cleveland are also going to
eat the Baltics and we all know that Baltics are already endangered (climate change and all).
Who knew?
"Save the Baltics from hungry Russians," must be the cry through the land. Save the Baltics,
I am ready.
I'm hearing is simply a recognition that Putin is a problem and that his agents are trying to
influence the election, which they sure appear to be doing and have done in many other cases in
many countries. It's SOP for this guy....
[ I know, I have no idea how to portray this as absurd as it actually is. Remember though,
I am always ready to go to the Baltics when called to battle. ]
What is important and saddening is the wild Cold War prejudice, a prejudice that extends to China
and would readily descend to name-naming. I get this, fortunately I get the prejudice.
No matter, when called as I have made clear I will be naming-names from A to Z, but I get this.
"... The American people don't know very much about war even if Washington has been fighting on multiple fronts since 9/11. The continental United States has not experienced the presence a hostile military force for more than 100 years and war for the current generation of Americans consists largely of the insights provided by video games and movies. The Pentagon's invention of embedded journalists, which limits any independent media insight into what is going on overseas, has contributed to the rendering of war as some kind of abstraction. Gone forever is anything like the press coverage of Vietnam, with nightly news and other media presentations showing prisoners being executed and young girls screaming while racing down the street in flames. ..."
"... Given all of that, it is perhaps no surprise that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, neither of whom has served in uniform, should regard violence inflicted on people overseas with a considerable level of detachment. ..."
"... They both share to an extent the dominant New York-Washington policy consensus view that dealing with foreigners can sometimes get a bit bloody, but that is a price that someone in power has to be prepared to pay. One of Hillary's top advisers, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, famously declared that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children due to U.S. led sanctions were "worth it." ..."
"... Hillary Clinton and her advisors, who believe strongly in Washington's leadership role globally and embrace their own definition of American exceptionalism, have been explicit in terms of what they would do to employ our military power. ..."
"... She would be an extremely proactive president in foreign policy, with a particular animus directed against Russia. ..."
"... Hillary has received support from foreign policy hawks, including a large number of formerly Republican neocons, to include Robert Kagan, Michael Chertoff, Michael Hayden, Eliot Cohen and Eric Edelman. James Stavridis, a retired admiral who was once vetted by Clinton as a possible vice president, recently warned of "the need to use deadly force against the Iranians. ..."
"... Hillary believes that Syria's president Bashar al-Assad is the root cause of the turmoil in that country and must be removed as the first priority. . It is a foolish policy as al-Assad in no way threatens the United States while his enemy ISIS does and regime change would create a power vacuum that will benefit the latter. ..."
"... Hillary has not recommended doing anything about Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, all of which have at one time or another for various reasons supported ISIS, but she is clearly no friend of Iran, which has been fighting ISIS. ..."
"... One of Hillary's advisors, former CIA acting Director Michael Morell, has called for new sanctions on Tehran and has also recently recommended that the U.S. begin intercepting Iranian ships presumed to be carrying arms to the Houthis in Yemen. ..."
"... Hillary's dislike for Russia's Vladimir Putin is notorious. Syria aside, she has advocated arming Ukraine with game changing offensive weapons and also bringing Ukraine and Georgia into NATO, which would force a sharp Russian reaction. One suspects that she might be sympathetic to the views expressed recently by Carl Gershman in a Washington Post op-ed that received curiously little additional coverage in the media. Gershman is the head of the taxpayer funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which means that he is a powerful figure in Washington's foreign-policy establishment. NED has plausibly been described as doing the sorts of things that the CIA used to do. ..."
"... She would increase U.S. military presence in the South China Sea to deter any further attempts by Beijing to develop disputed islands and would also "ring China with defensive missiles," ostensibly as "protection" against Pyongyang but also to convince China to pressure North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. One wonders what Beijing might think about being surrounded by made-in-America missiles. ..."
The American people don't know very much about war even if Washington has been fighting on
multiple fronts since 9/11. The continental United States has not experienced the presence a hostile
military force for more than 100 years and war for the current generation of Americans consists largely
of the insights provided by video games and movies. The Pentagon's invention of embedded journalists,
which limits any independent media insight into what is going on overseas, has contributed to the
rendering of war as some kind of abstraction. Gone forever is anything like the press coverage of
Vietnam, with nightly news and other media presentations showing prisoners being executed and young
girls screaming while racing down the street in flames.
Given all of that, it is perhaps no surprise that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, neither
of whom has served in uniform, should regard violence inflicted on people overseas with a considerable
level of detachment. Hillary is notorious for her assessment of the brutal killing of Libya's
Moammar Gaddafi, saying "We came, we saw, he died." They both share to an extent the dominant
New York-Washington policy consensus view that dealing with foreigners can sometimes get a bit bloody,
but that is a price that someone in power has to be prepared to pay. One of Hillary's top advisers,
former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, famously declared that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi
children due to U.S. led sanctions were "worth it."
In the election campaign there has, in fact, been little discussion of the issue of war and peace
or even of America's place in the world, though Trump did at one point note correctly that implementation
of Hillary's suggested foreign policy could escalate into World War III. It has been my contention
that the issue of war should be more front and center in the minds of Americans when they cast their
ballots as the prospect of an armed conflict in which little is actually at stake escalating and
going nuclear could conceivably end life on this planet as we know it.
With that in mind, it is useful to consider what the two candidates have been promising. First,
Hillary, who might reasonably be designated the Establishment's war candidate though she carefully
wraps it in humanitarian "liberal interventionism." As Senator and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton
has always viewed a foreign crisis as an opportunity to use aggressive measures to seek a resolution.
She can always be relied upon to "do something," a reflection of the neocon driven Washington foreign
policy consensus.
Hillary Clinton and her advisors, who believe strongly in Washington's leadership role globally
and embrace their own definition of American exceptionalism, have been explicit in terms of what
they would do to employ our military power.
She would be an extremely proactive president in foreign policy, with a particular animus
directed against Russia. And, unfortunately, there would be little or no pushback against the
exercise of her admittedly poor instincts regarding what to do, as was demonstrated regarding Libya
and also with Benghazi. She would find little opposition in Congress and the media for an extremely
risky foreign policy, and would benefit from the Washington groupthink that prevails over the alleged
threats emanating from Russia, Iran, and China.
Hillary has received support from foreign policy hawks, including a large number of formerly
Republican neocons, to include Robert Kagan, Michael Chertoff, Michael Hayden, Eliot Cohen and Eric
Edelman. James Stavridis, a retired admiral who was once vetted by Clinton as a possible vice president,
recently warned of "the need to use deadly force against the Iranians. I think it's coming.
It's going to be maritime confrontation and if it doesn't happen immediately, I'll bet you a dollar
it's going to be happening after the presidential election, whoever is elected."
Hillary believes that Syria's president Bashar al-Assad is the root cause of the turmoil in
that country and must be removed as the first priority. . It is a foolish policy as al-Assad in no
way threatens the United States while his enemy ISIS does and regime change would create a power
vacuum that will benefit the latter. She has also called for a no-fly zone in Syria to protect
the local population as well as the insurgent groups that the U.S. supports, some of which had been
labeled as terrorists before they were renamed by current Secretary of State John Kerry. Such a zone
would dramatically raise the prospect of armed conflict with Russia and it puts Washington in an
odd position vis-ΰ-vis what is occurring in Syria. The U.S. is not at war with the Syrian government,
which, like it or not, is under international law sovereign within its own recognized borders. Damascus
has invited the Russians in to help against the rebels and objects to any other foreign presence
on Syrian territory. In spite of all that, Washington is asserting some kind of authority to intervene
and to confront the Russians as both a humanitarian mission and as an "inherent right of self-defense."
Hillary has not recommended doing anything about Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, all of which
have at one time or another for various reasons supported ISIS, but she is clearly no friend of Iran,
which has been fighting ISIS. As a Senator, she threatened to "totally obliterate" Iran but
she has more recently reluctantly supported the recent nuclear agreement with that country negotiated
by President Barack Obama. But she has nevertheless warned that she will monitor the situation closely
for possible violations and will otherwise pushback against activity by the Islamic Republic. As
one of her key financial supporters is Israeli Haim Saban, who has said he is a one issue guy and
that issue is Israel, she is likely to pursue aggressive policies in the Persian Gulf. She has also
promised to move America's relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to a "new level" and
has repeatedly declared that her support for Israel is unconditional.
One of Hillary's advisors, former CIA acting Director Michael Morell, has called for new sanctions
on Tehran and has also recently recommended that the U.S. begin intercepting Iranian ships presumed
to be carrying arms to the Houthis in Yemen. Washington is not at war with either Iran or Yemen
and the Houthis are not on the State Department terrorist list but our good friends the Saudis have
been assiduously bombing them for reasons that seem obscure. Stopping ships in international waters
without any legal pretext would be considered by many an act of piracy. Morell has also called for
covertly assassinating Iranians and Russians to express our displeasure with the foreign policies
of their respective governments.
Hillary's dislike for Russia's Vladimir Putin is notorious. Syria aside, she has advocated
arming Ukraine with game changing offensive weapons and also bringing Ukraine and Georgia into NATO,
which would force a sharp Russian reaction. One suspects that she might be sympathetic to the views
expressed recently by Carl Gershman in a Washington Post op-ed that received curiously little additional
coverage in the media. Gershman is the head of the taxpayer funded National Endowment for Democracy
(NED), which means that he is a powerful figure in Washington's foreign-policy establishment. NED
has plausibly been described as doing the sorts of things that the CIA used to do.
After making a number of bumper-sticker claims about Russia and Putin that are either partially
true, unproven or even ridiculous, Gershman concluded that "the United States has the power to contain
and defeat this danger. The issue is whether we can summon the will to do so." It is basically a
call for the next administration to remove Putin from power-as foolish a suggestion as has ever been
seen in a leading newspaper, as it implies that the risk of nuclear war is completely acceptable
to bring about regime change in a country whose very popular, democratically elected leadership we
disapprove of. But it is nevertheless symptomatic of the kind of thinking that goes on inside the
beltway and is quite possibly a position that Hillary Clinton will embrace. She also benefits from
having the perfect implementer of such a policy in Robert Kagan's wife Victoria Nuland, her extremely
dangerous protιgι who is currently Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs
and who might wind up as Secretary of State in a Clinton Administration.
Shifting to East Asia, Hillary sees the admittedly genuine threat from North Korea but her response
is focused more on China. She would increase U.S. military presence in the South China Sea to
deter any further attempts by Beijing to develop disputed islands and would also "ring China with
defensive missiles," ostensibly as "protection" against Pyongyang but also to convince China to pressure
North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. One wonders what Beijing might think
about being surrounded by made-in-America missiles.
Trump's foreign policy is admittedly quite sketchy and he has not always been consistent. He has
been appropriately enough slammed for being simple minded in saying that he would "bomb the crap
out of ISIS," but he has also taken on the Republican establishment by specifically condemning the
George W. Bush invasion of Iraq and has more than once indicated that he is not interested in either
being the world's policeman or in new wars in the Middle East. He has repeatedly stated that he supports
NATO but it should not be construed as hostile to Russia. He would work with Putin to address concerns
over Syria and Eastern Europe. He would demand that NATO countries spend more for their own defense
and also help pay for the maintenance of U.S. bases.
Trump's controversial call to stop all Muslim immigration has been rightly condemned but it contains
a kernel of truth in that the current process for vetting new arrivals in this country is far from
transparent and apparently not very effective. The Obama Administration has not been very forthcoming
on what might be done to fix the entire immigration process but Trump is promising to shake things
up, which is overdue, though what exactly a Trump Administration would try to accomplish is far from
clear.
Continuing on the negative side, Trump, who is largely ignorant of the world and its leaders,
has relied on a mixed bag of advisors. Former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency General Michael
Flynn appears to be the most prominent. Flynn is associated with arch neocon Michael Ledeen and both
are rabid about Iran, with Flynn suggesting that nearly all the unrest in the Middle East should
be laid at Tehran's door. Ledeen is, of course, a prominent Israel-firster who has long had Iran
in his sights. The advice of Ledeen and Flynn may have been instrumental in Trump's vehement denunciation
of the Iran nuclear agreement, which he has called a "disgrace," which he has said he would "tear
up." It is vintage dumb-think. The agreement cannot be canceled because there are five other signatories
to it and the denial of a nuclear weapons program to Tehran benefits everyone in the region, including
Israel. It is far better to have the agreement than to scrap it, if that were even possible.
Trump has said that he would be an even-handed negotiator between Israel and the Palestinians
but he has also declared that he is strongly pro-Israel and would move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem,
which is a bad idea, not in America's interest, even if Netanyahu would like it. It would produce
serious blowback from the Arab world and would inspire a new wave of terrorism directed against the
U.S.
Regarding the rest of the Middle East, Trump would prefer strong leaders, i.e. autocrats, who
are friendly rather than chaotic reformers. He rejects arming rebels as in Syria because we know
little about whom we are dealing with and find that we cannot control what develops. He is against
foreign aid in principle, particularly to countries like Pakistan where the U.S. is strongly disliked.
In East Asia, Trump would encourage Japan and South Korea to develop their own nuclear arsenals
to deter North Korea. It is a very bad idea, a proliferation nightmare. Like Hillary, he would prefer
that China intervene in North Korea and make Kim Jong Un "step down." He would put pressure on China
to devalue its currency because it is "bilking us of billions of dollars" and would also increase
U.S. military presence in the region to limit Beijing's expansion in the South China Sea.
So there you have it as you enter the voting booth. President Obama is going around warning that
"the fate of the world is teetering" over the electoral verdict, which he intends to be a ringing
endorsement of Hillary even though the choice is not nearly that clear cut. Part of the problem with
Trump is that he has some very bad ideas mixed in with a few good ones and no one knows what he would
actually do if he were president. Unfortunately, it is all too clear what Hillary would do.
"... Islamic State(IS), the defender of Mosul, is a paper tiger, blown out of all proportion by western media. IS is, as this writer has been saying for years, an armed mob made up of 20-something malcontents, religious fanatics, and modern-day anarchists. At its top is a cadre of former Iraqi Army officers with military experience. ..."
"... These former officers of Saddam Hussain are bent on revenge for the US destruction of their nation and the lynching of its late leader. But IS rank and file has no military training, little discipline, degraded communications, and ragged logistics. ..."
"... In fact, today's Islamic State is what the Ottoman Empire used to term, 'bashi-bazouks," a collection of irregular cut-throats and scum of the gutter sent to punish and terrorize enemies by means of torture, rapine, looting and arson. ..."
"... Western and Kudish auxiliary forces have been sitting 1.5 hours drive from Mosul and the IS town of Raqqa for over a year. Instead, western mainly US warplanes have been gingerly bombing around these targets in what may be an effort to convince breakaway ISIS to rejoin US-led forces fight the Damascus regime. ..."
"... Note that ISIS does not appear to have ever attacked Israel though it is playing an important role in the destruction of Syria. Some reports say Israel is providing logistic and medical support for IS. ..."
"... The siege of Mosul is being played up by western media as a heroic second Stalingrad. Don't be fooled. IS has only 3-5,000 lightly armed fighters in Mosul and Raqqa, maybe even less. The leaders of IS are likely long gone. IS has few heavy weapons, no air cover at all, and poor communications. Its rag-tag fighters will run out of ammunitions and explosives very quickly. ..."
"... Encircling Mosul are at least 50,000 western-led soldiers, backed by heavy artillery, rocket batteries, tanks, armored vehicles and awesome air power ..."
"... The western imperial forces are composed of tough Kurdish pasha merga fighters, Iraqi army and special forces, some Syrian Kurds, Iranian 'volunteers' irregular forces and at least 5,000 US combat troops called "advisors", plus small numbers of French, Canadian and British special forces. Hovering in the background are some thousands of Turkish troops, supported by armor and artillery ready to 'liberate' Iraq which was once part of the Ottoman Empire. ..."
As a former soldier and war correspondent who has covered 14 conflicts, I look at all the media hoopla
over tightening siege of Mosul, Iraq and shake my head. This western-organized "liberation" of Mosul
is one of the bigger pieces of political-military theater that I've seen.
Islamic State(IS),
the defender of Mosul, is a paper tiger, blown out of all proportion by western media. IS is, as
this writer has been saying for years, an armed mob made up of 20-something malcontents, religious
fanatics, and modern-day anarchists. At its top is a cadre of former Iraqi Army officers with military
experience.
These former officers of Saddam Hussain are bent on revenge for the US destruction of their
nation and the lynching of its late leader. But IS rank and file has no military training, little
discipline, degraded communications, and ragged logistics.
In fact, today's Islamic State is what the Ottoman Empire used to term, 'bashi-bazouks," a
collection of irregular cut-throats and scum of the gutter sent to punish and terrorize enemies by
means of torture, rapine, looting and arson.
What has amazed me about the faux western war against ISIS is its leisurely nature, lack of ιlan,
and hesitancy. In my view, ISIS was mostly created by the US and its allies as a weapon to be used
against Syria's government just as the Afghan mujahadin were used by the US and the Saudis to overthrow
the Soviet-backed Afghan government. Israel tried the same tactics by helping create Hamas in Palestine
and Hezbullah in Lebanon. Both were cultivated to split the PLO.
ISIS is an ad hoc movement that wants to punish the West and the Saudis for the gross carnage
they have inflicted on the Arab world.
Western and Kudish auxiliary forces have been sitting 1.5 hours drive from Mosul and the IS
town of Raqqa for over a year. Instead, western mainly US warplanes have been gingerly bombing
around these targets in what may be an effort to convince breakaway ISIS to rejoin US-led forces
fight the Damascus regime.
Note that ISIS does not appear to have ever attacked Israel though it is playing an important
role in the destruction of Syria. Some reports say Israel is providing logistic and medical support
for IS.
The siege of Mosul is being played up by western media as a heroic second Stalingrad. Don't
be fooled. IS has only 3-5,000 lightly armed fighters in Mosul and Raqqa, maybe even less. The leaders
of IS are likely long gone. IS has few heavy weapons, no air cover at all, and poor communications.
Its rag-tag fighters will run out of ammunitions and explosives very quickly.
Encircling Mosul are at least 50,000 western-led soldiers, backed by heavy artillery, rocket
batteries, tanks, armored vehicles and awesome air power
The western imperial forces are composed of tough Kurdish pasha merga fighters, Iraqi army
and special forces, some Syrian Kurds, Iranian 'volunteers' irregular forces and at least 5,000 US
combat troops called "advisors", plus small numbers of French, Canadian and British special forces.
Hovering in the background are some thousands of Turkish troops, supported by armor and artillery
ready to 'liberate' Iraq which was once part of the Ottoman Empire.
For the US, current military operations in Syria and Iraq are the realization of an imperialist's
fondest dream: native troops led by white officers, the model of the old British Indian Raj. Washington
arms, trained, equips and financed all its native auxiliaries.
The IS is caught in a dangerous dilemma. To be a political movement, it was delighted to control
Iraq's second largest city. But as a guerilla force, it should not have holed up in an urban area
where it was highly vulnerable to concentrated air attack and being surrounded. This is what's happening
right now.
In the mostly flat Fertile Crescent with too few trees, ground forces are totally vulnerable to
air power, as the recent 1967, 1973 Israel-Arab wars and 2003 Iraq wars have shown. Dispersion and
guerilla tactics are the only hope for those that lack air cover.
IS forces would best advised to disperse across the region and continue their hit-and-run attacks.
Otherwise, they risk being destroyed. But being mostly bloody-minded young fanatics, IS may not heed
military logic and precedent in favor of making a last stand in the ruins of Mosul and Raqqa
When this happens, western leaders will compete to claim authorship of the faux crusade against
the paper tiger of ISIS.
That's how
paranoia
works. We project onto a feared "other" our own unacceptable desires. In Putin's
case, it's our unacceptable wish to incinerate him and all Russians with him that
we may rule the world.
Not out of avarice, mind you. Or so the
noble lie
goes. But out of
our selfless compassion. Our
Christian
compassion, if that floats your
boat. Yes, indeed. We selfless, exceptional Americans are willing to bear the
heavy burden of world hegemonynot for all the power and wealth it brings us.
Perish the thought! But for the peace and prosperity our rule will bestow on all
the colored peoples of the earthdrop by dropbeneath us.
That's what our leaders tell us. And that's what the mainstream media echo
back to usagain and again and again. That we're the best. The greatest. The
goodest. The purest. We act always only for others. Our motives can never be
questioned. For Americans alone can judge what is good and what is evil. We're
like God in that way. That's why Americans ate so much from the Tree of Knowledge
in the first place!
Continue reading
→
This neocon propagandists (or more correctly neocon provocateur) got all major facts wrong. And
who unleashed Flame and
Stuxnet I would like to ask him.
Was it Russians? And who invented the concept of "color revolution" in which influencing of election
was the major part of strategy ? And which nation instituted the program of covert access to email boxes
of all major webmail providers? He should study the history of malware and the USA covert operations
before writing this propagandist/provocateur opus to look a little bit more credible...
Notable quotes:
"... Email, a main conduit of communication for two decades, now appears so vulnerable that the nation seems to be wondering whether its bursting inboxes can ever be safe. ..."
The 2016 presidential race will be remembered for many ugly moments, but the most lasting historical
marker may be one that neither voters nor American intelligence agencies saw coming: It is the first
time that a foreign power has unleashed cyberweapons to disrupt, or perhaps influence, a United States
election.
And there is a foreboding sense that, in elections to come, there is no turning back.
The steady drumbeat of allegations of Russian troublemaking - leaks from stolen emails and probes
of election-system defenses - has continued through the campaign's last days. These intrusions, current
and former administration officials agree, will embolden other American adversaries, which have been
given a vivid demonstration that, when used with some subtlety, their growing digital arsenals can
be particularly damaging in the frenzy of a democratic election.
"Most of the biggest stories of this election cycle have had a cybercomponent to them - or the
use of information warfare techniques that the Russians, in particular, honed over decades," said
David Rothkopf, the chief executive and editor of Foreign Policy, who has written two histories of
the National Security Council. "From stolen emails, to WikiLeaks, to the hacking of the N.S.A.'s
tools, and even the debate about how much of this the Russians are responsible for, it's dominated
in a way that we haven't seen in any prior election."
The magnitude of this shift has gone largely unrecognized in the cacophony of a campaign dominated
by charges of groping and pay-for-play access. Yet the lessons have ranged from the intensely personal
to the geostrategic.
Email, a main conduit of communication for two decades, now appears so vulnerable that the
nation seems to be wondering whether its bursting inboxes can ever be safe. Election systems,
the underpinning of democracy, seem to be at such risk that it is unimaginable that the United States
will go into another national election without treating them as "critical infrastructure."
But President Obama has been oddly quiet on these issues. He delivered a private warning to President
Vladimir V. Putin of Russia during their final face-to-face encounter two months ago, aides say.
Still, Mr. Obama has barely spoken publicly about the implications of foreign meddling in the election.
His instincts, those who have worked with him on cyberissues say, are to deal with the problem by
developing new norms of international behavior or authorizing covert action rather than direct confrontation.
After a series of debates in the Situation Room, Mr. Obama and his aides concluded that any public
retaliation should be postponed until after the election - to avoid the appearance that politics
influenced his decision and to avoid provoking Russian counterstrikes while voting is underway. It
remains unclear whether Mr. Obama will act after Tuesday, as his aides hint, or leave the decision
about a "proportional response" to his successor.
Cybersleuths, historians and strategists will debate for years whether Russia's actions reflected
a grand campaign of interference or mere opportunism on the part of Mr. Putin. While the administration
has warned for years about the possibility of catastrophic attacks, what has happened in the past
six months has been far more subtle.
Russia has used the techniques - what they call "hybrid war," mixing new technologies with old-fashioned
propaganda, misinformation and disruption - for years in former Soviet states and elsewhere in Europe.
The only surprise was that Mr. Putin, as he intensified confrontations with Washington as part of
a nationalist campaign to solidify his own power amid a deteriorating economy, was willing to take
them to American shores.
The most common theory is that while the Russian leader would prefer the election of Donald J.
Trump - in part because Mr. Trump has suggested that NATO is irrelevant and that the United States
should pull its troops back to American shores - his primary motive is to undercut what he views
as a smug American sense of superiority about its democratic processes.
Madeleine K. Albright, a former secretary of state who is vigorously supporting Hillary Clinton,
wrote recently that Mr. Putin's goal was "to create doubt about the validity of the U.S. election
results, and to make us seem hypocritical when we question the conduct of elections in other countries."
If so, this is a very different use of power than what the Obama administration has long prepared
the nation for.
Four years ago, Leon E. Panetta, the defense secretary at the time, warned of an impending "cyber
Pearl Harbor" in which enemies could "contaminate the water supply in major cities or shut down the
power grid across large parts of the country," perhaps in conjunction with a conventional attack.
This is a excellent interview covering many topics discussed here
regarding ME, USA, geopolitics, Turkeys mission, etc. Its from the Bulgarian perspective.
"Interview conducted by Antoinette Kiselincheva with Boyan Chukov, former adviser on Foreign Policy
and National Security in two governments of the Republic of Bulgaria, former diplomat in Paris and Madrid,
foreign intelligence officer."
"...Q: Does the US seriously they want to deal with DAESH or is it just a show? Because it is funny
to observe how a country which claims to have the most powerful army in the world, lost so much time
in a hopeless effort to chase away a handful of jihadis.
BC: The attack on Mosul can be seen through the prism of globalization. There is another hypothesis.
Do not forget that in June 2014, the city was handed over to the jihadists without a fight. The special
forces of the United States left to the terrorists heavy military equipment, armor, ammunition, some
very badly guarded bases for supply, and half a billion dollars in cash in several banks in Mosul. So
DAESH procured modern weapons and considerable financial resources. Now they are looking for a decorative
victory in Mosul to maintain globalism and Pan-Americanism in the face of Hillary Clinton. This is the
reason to believe information that about 1.2 billion dollars is offered to bribe the leaders of the
jihadists to leave Mosul.
Analysts believe that the goal is not primarily to transfer jihadists from Mosul to Aleppo and Rakka,
but for DAESH fighters to be transferred to northern Afghanistan, where weapons are stored in seven
(again) poorly protected US bases. There are serious suspicions that the US special forces will once
more try to play in Afghanistan, the elegant scheme of June 2014 in Mosul, with the transfer of weapons
in a theatrical way. The placement of DAESH in Afghanistan will allow the jihadists to deploy an offensive
line on Herat-Mara with the task to reaching the port of Turkmenbashi (Krasnovodsk) in Turkmenistan
and to continue their offensive along the Caspian Sea toward Kazakhstan and the Russian Volga region."
US national interest automatically receive a soteriological status (Soteriology the
notion of salvation through Christ), US universality and value system becomes a
sacred and religious complex,"spiritual obviousness" and a "moral imperative."
I see this 'Christian' emphasis in most all Russian propaganda. Katehon is only the
most obvious of them all. Soteriology is the notion of the salvation of society through
religion, and it was perfected in India, if not invented there, and was adapted to
Thailand, as Christine Gray detailed in
Thailand: The Soteriological State in the 1970s
, in order to enable the exploitation
of the people by the apparatchiks in Bangkok and AC/DC for their distinct purposes.
The collapse of the Syrian state is required by the US to finally trigger chaos in
the Middle East, which the Caliphate will then bring across Eurasia and Europe. This
will allow Washington to eliminate alternative military, political and economic
centers, primarily Russia and China. Consequently by wreaking havoc in Asia and
Africa, and as a result of structures organized by Soros, Europe fell into a very
difficult migrant situation (because of the betrayal of European elites). Further
terrorist acts by jihadists in major European countries, worsened the economic
attractiveness of the European economy. The dollar system in the world, is in
critical condition and can not withstand the debt overload. A war in Syria is a handy
tool to destabilize the American competitors in the economic race. This is why
Beijing out of the role of a neutral observer in the Syrian crisis. In Syria there
are 1000 fighters of the Chinese special forces, pursuing and destroying jihadists of
Uighur origin. An agreement was signed between Damascus and Beijing. Chinese presence
on Syrian territory like that of the Russians and Iranians is in line with
international law.
Stark as it is ... if it looks like a duck ... the peoples of the individual European
nations need to get hold of themselves and exit, or destroy an re-create the EU. It has
been suborned by the USA and they are in the USA'a sights as clearly as are Russia and
China.
No matter which of the 'effective' candidates is elected on Tuesday ... the only
thing that will be communicated by his/her election is the impotence of the US populace
when it comes to reigning in the neo-con putsch there that has brought all this death,
devastation, destruction, and deceit about.
And certainly it is no reach to envision the US destroying Erdogan at this point, and
adding Turkey to it's list of states destroyed in the name of 'democracy and freedom'.
Here's something you probably never saw or heard about in the west. This is Putin answering questions
regarding ISIS from a US journalist at the Valdai International Discussion Club in late 2014.
from the U.S.. much love for you Putin. you really opened the eyes of many, even in our country.
this man is the definition of president and the u.s hasnt had one for over 40 years... smh.
As an American I can say that all of this is very confusing. However, one thing I believe is
true, Obama and Hillary are the worst thing to ever happen to my country !!!! Average Americans
don't want war with Russia. Why would we ?? The common people of both countries don't deserve
this !!!!
+Emanuil Penev Obama is a human puppet who chose to be controlled, He is therefore culpable
for his action of supporting Islamic terrorists. Right now Islamic invasion of western countries
is the real problem. The USA is now under the control of Obama the Muslim Trojan horse who wants
the world to be under the rule of an Islamic empire. USA's military action in the Middle East
is the result of USA being under occupation by a Muslim Trojan horse that wants to create tidal
waves of Muslim refugees harboring Muslim radicals and terrorists for invading Europe and the
USA. Watch video (copy and paste for search) *From Europe to America The Caliphate Muslim Trojan
Horse The USA is a victim, not a culprit, in the Muslim invasion of western counties. Obama and
his cohorts are the culprits.
basically Russia wants to be friends with America again and America ain't having it. they have
the capabilities to set up shop all around the world. it's like putting guard towers in everyone's
lawn just in case somebody wants commit crime. but you never see inside the towers or know who
is in them but they have giant guns mounted on them ready to kill. that's how Putin feels. I mean
I get it but every other country has nukes. get rid of the nukes and the missile defense will
go away. if the situation were reversed it would be out president voicing this frustration. but
Putin said it, America is a good example of success that's what Russia needs to do is be more
like America. they have been doing it in the last year or so. I think America will come around
and we will have good relations with Russia again. so wait... did we support isis as being generally
isis or support all Qaeda / Saddam's regime which lead to isis??
The US supported multiple Rebel Groups that fought against Syria, they armed them, gave them
money, and members of those groups split up and formed more Rebel groups or joined different ones.
ISIS (at the time, not as large) was supported by the rebel groups the US armed and they got weapons
and equipment from said Rebel Groups, even manpower as well.. That is how ISIS came to be the
threat it is today.
putin doesnt view the us as a threat to russia..?? he has said countless times that he considers
the us as a threat.. and that russian actions are a result of us aggression
US people are a threat for all the world because they are not interested in politics, they
don't want to know truth, they believe to their one-sided media and allow their government and
other warmongers in the US military industry to do whatever they wish all over the world. US politics
are dangerous and lead to a new big war where US territory won't stay away this time. It''s time
for Americans to understand it. If you allow your son to become a criminal, don't be surprised
that your house will be burned some day.
Obama and Clinton are progressive evil cunts funded by Soros. Their decision making is calculated
and they want these horrendous results because it weakens the US and benefits globalism. Putin
kicked the globalists the fuck out, and when Trump wins he will do the same! They are scared shitless.
TRUMP/PENCE 2016
With a stupid and warmongering opponent such as the USA, Russia do not need to construct a
narrative or think out some elaborate propaganda. Russia simply needs to speak the truth. And
this is why the US and its puppets hates Russia and Putin so much.
"Russia expects Washington to provide an explanation after a report claimed that Pentagon cyber-offensive
specialists have hacked into Russia's power grids, telecommunications networks, and the Kremlin's
command systems for a possible sabotage."
Vladimir Putin in particular, and Russia in general, have been the focus of an intensive high-drama
propaganda campaign of late. Are you buying it? For the time being, Russophobia has replaced Islamophobia
as the driving force behind the lies. Various US officials have been frantically warning Americans
that the Russians are behind everything: hacking the DNC, controlling Trump, influencing the election
and breaking the Syrian ceasefire agreement. They might as well add making your girlfriend break
up with you, making your toast get burnt and making your car run out of fuel for all the evidence
they have presented. Many of these totally unfounded allegations stem from (naturally) the Clinton
campaign, home to career criminals
Bill and
Hillary
Clinton , who are desperately seeking to find something to gain some sort of shred of popularity
or advantage over Trump, who fills up arenas with 1000s of people more easily than Clinton can fill
a high school gym with 50. Many US officials and war hawks are trying to get in on the action; CIA
man Mike Morell indicated
it would be a good idea to covertly kill Russians to make them "pay a price" ;
Hillary Clinton called
Vladimir Putin the "grand godfather of extreme nationalism" and blamed him for the rising
popularity of right-wing leaders; and even standing VP
Joe Biden came out and
said that, "We're sending a message to Putin it will be at the time of our choosing and under
the circumstances that have the greatest impact" . It seems there is no depth to which some US
leaders won't stoop in order to gain some political advantage, even it means lying, demonizing and
destroying geopolitical partnerships in order to garner a few brownie points.
Vladimir Putin: It's All About Distraction During Election Season
You would think Russian President Vladimir President would be agitated by all of this mud-slinging.
At times he has been, for instance when he
issued a warning a few months ago about an impending WW3 due to NATO's constant aggression and
advancement towards Russian borders. However, judging by his own words and mostly calm demeanor,
he has seen through the agenda and understands what is going on. Putin spells out how it's all inflamed
rhetoric before an election season, an old trick used by politicians to distract when they have no
meaningful solutions for internal and domestic problems.
"You can expect anything from our American friends the only novelty is that for the first
time, on the highest level, the United States has admitted involvement in these activities, and
to some extent threatened [us] which of course does not meet the standards of international
communication. As if we didn't know that US Government bodies snoop on and wiretap anyone? Everyone
knows this
Apparently, they are nervous. The question is why. I think there is a reason. You know,
in an election campaign, the current government carefully crafts a pre-election strategy, and
any government, especially when seeking re-election, always has unresolved issues. They need to
show, to explain to the voters why they remain unresolved. In the US, there are many such problems
for example, the massive public debt is a time bomb for the US economy and global financial
system more examples can be cited in foreign policy in these conditions, many choose to resort
to the usual tactics of distracting voters from their problems try to create an enemy and rally
the nation against that enemy
Iran and the Iranian threat did not work well for that. Russia is a more interesting story."
And that's exactly what this whole thing is: a giant story. However, as Voltaire once said, if
you can make someone believe absurdities, you can make them commit atrocities. Let's see what else
Vladimir Putin has to say on other topics of interest.
Russian Hacking: A Laughable Claim so the Clintons and DNC Can Try to Avoid Culpability
Let's face it: the whole Russophobia affair is about avoiding blame, dodging responsibility and
evading liability. Thanks to WikiLeaks, Project Veritas and many other sources, we know the entire
Hillary Clinton campaign has been rigged beyond belief. Fake primaries, fake speeches, fake images,
fake videos, fake crowds, fake supporters and fake debates. There is seemingly no depth of criminality
to which that woman won't sink. She's selling out the presidency before she even gets there, such
as the stunt of trying to promise future presidential executive orders to mega donors. There is not
a shred of evidence that Russia is affiliated with WikiLeaks or behind any of the DNC hacks. As this
Zero Hedge article
NSA Whistleblower: US Intelligence Worker Likely Behind DNC Leaks, Not Russia states:
"On "Judge Napolitano Chambers," the Judge said that while the DNC, government officials,
and the Clinton campaign all accuse the Russians of hacking into the DNC servers, "the Russians
had nothing to do with it." Napolitano then mentioned Binney, arguing the NSA veteran and whistleblower
who "developed the software that the NSA now uses, which allows it to capture not just metadata
but content of every telephone call, text message, email in the United States of every person
in [the country]" knew the NSA had hacked the DNC - not the Russians.
If Judge Napolitano and Binney are right and the NSA did hack the DNC, what was the motive?
According to the Judge, "members of the intelligence community simply do not want [Clinton]
to be president of the United States."
"She doesn't know how to handle state secrets," Napolitano continued. And since "some of
the state secrets that she revealed used the proper true names of American intelligence agents
operating undercover in the Middle East," some of these agents were allegedly captured and killed,
prompting NSA agents to feel compelled to act. Whether NSA agents hacked the DNC or not, one thing
is clear: there's no real evidence linking the DNC and Arizona and Illinois voting system hacks
to the Russian government."
The Mythical "Russian Threat"
Vladimir Putin directly addressed another mythical story, that of the so-called Russian threat
and Russian aggression , at the recent Valdai forum in Sochi from October 24-27, 2016:
"There is another mechanism to ensure the transatlantic security, European security, the
OC security and their attempt at turning this organization (NATO) into an instrument of someone's
political interests. So what the OC is doing is simply void. Mythical threats are devised like
the so-called Russian military threat. Certainly this can be (used to) gain some advantage, get
new budgets, make your allies comply with your demands, make NATO deploy the equipment and troops
closer to our border Russia is not trying to attack anyone. That would be ridiculous The population
of Europe is 300 million and the population of the US is 300 million, while the population of
Russia is 140 million, yet such menaces are served as a pretext. Hysteria has been fueled in the
US with regard to Russia's alleged influence with the current presidential election.
Is there anyone who seriously thinks that Russia can influence the choice of the American
people? Is the US a banana republic? The US is a great power. If I'm wrong please correct me."
Here's what he had to say about who the real aggressor is when it comes to the US (around and
Russia:
"Is it known to you that Russia, in the 90s, completely halted (as did the USSR) any strategic
aviation in the further afield regions of patrol, i.e. not in the closer abroad. We halted such
activity completely. US geostrategic aviation however, with nuclear weapons on board. They continued
to encircle us! What for? Who are you concerned about? Or why are you threatening us? We continued
with the non-patrol year after year. It is only since about 3 years ago that we restarted aviation
patrol further abroad.
Which party is the provocateur here? Is it us?
We have only 2 military bases abroad. They are known areas of terrorism dangers US bases
on the other hand are all over the world. And you are telling me that I am the aggressor? Have
you any common sense?
What are US forces doing in Europe, including nuclear weaponry? What business have they
got there? Listen to me. Our military budget, while increased slightly from last year, in the
dollar equivalent, is about US$50 billion. The military budget of the Pentagon is almost 10 times
that amount. $575 billion, I think Congress singed off on. And you're telling me I'm the aggressor
here? Have you no common sense at all? Is it us putting our forces on the border of the US? Or
other states? Is it NATo, or who, that is moving their bases closer to us? Military infrastructure!
It's not us. Does anyone even listen to us? Or try to have some kind of dialogue with us? The
repeated answer we get is 'mind your own business' and 'each country can choose its own security
measures'. Very well, so will we
And finally, on the antiballistic missile defense system, who was it that exited from the
treaty which was vital to the entire system of international security? Was it us? No. It was the
States. In a one-sided way, they simply withdrew from the treaty. Now they are threatening us,
turning their missiles towards us, not only from Alaska, but also from Europe too
We want to develop normal relations in the sphere of security, in the fight against terrorism,
in the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. We want to work together with you so long as you
want that too."
US Repeatedly Broke Its Promises to Russia and Destroyed Trust
The Western MSM is so one-sided in its coverage of geopolitical events like Ukraine and Syria.
Anyone not toeing the line with US-UK-NATO interests is painted in a bad light. In point of fact,
it has actually been the US who has been breaking agreements with Russia since the end of the Cold
War. US leaders lied to Russian leaders at the time, by promising that NATO would not extend any
further eastward, and possibly even hinting that Russia could join NATO. As Eric Zuesse explains
in his article
America Trashes NATO Founding Act; Rushes Weapons to Russia's Borders :
"The NATO
Founding
Act was agreed to between the US and Russia in 1997 in order to provide to Russia's leader
Boris Yeltsin some modicum of assurance that America wouldn't invade his country. When his predecessor
Mikhail Gorbachev had ended the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact military alliance in 1991, the
representatives of US President GHW Bush told him that NATO wouldn't move "one inch to the east"
(toward Russia), but as soon as Gorbachev committed himself to end the Cold War, Bush
told his agents, regarding what they had all promised to Gorbachev (Bush's promise which had
been conveyed through them), "To hell with that! We prevailed, they didn't". In other words: Bush's
prior instructions to them were merely his lies to Gorbachev, his lies to say that the US wouldn't
try to conquer Russia (move its forces eastward to Russia's borders); but, now, since Gorbachev
was committed and had already agreed that East Germany was to be reunited with and an extension
of West Germany (and the process for doing that had begun), Bush pulled that rug of lies out from
under the end of the Cold War "
Bill Clinton carried on the great American legacy of exceptionalism (that is, excepting themselves
from obeying international law) spearheaded by Daddy Bush of surrounding and dominating Russia by
allowing NATO into the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. Russia got shafted by trusting the US
numerous times after the fall of the Soviet Union. Here's Vladimir Putin once again on America's
broken promises (in April
2016):
"In the early 2000s, we agreed with the Americans to destroy weapons-grade plutonium, on
both sides. We were talking about the excessive amounts that were manufactured by both the US
and Russia. This is the enriched uranium from which nuclear weapons are made. 34000 tonnes, from
both sides. We signed an agreement, and decided that this material would be destroyed in a specific
manner. It would be destroyed in an industrial way for which special plants needed to be built.
We fulfilled our obligations we built the necessary plant. Our American partners did not. Moreover,
recently they announced that rather than destroy the enriched material in the manner that we agreed,
and signed an international agreement on, that they would dilute it and store it in a holding
capacity. This means they retain the potential to bring it back
Surely our American partners must understand that, jokes are one thing, such as creating
smear campaigns against Russia, but questions of nuclear security are another thing entirely they
must learn to fulfill their promises.
They once said they would close down Guantanamo. And? Is it closed? No."
Incidentally, this is the exact same plutonium agreement which made the news last month, when
as reported on October 3rd, 216,
Russia suspended
their deal with the US on disposal of plutonium from decommissioned nuclear warheads. A decree
signed by Vladimir Putin lists " the radical change in the environment, a threat to strategic
stability posed by the hostile actions of the US against Russia, and the inability of the US to deliver
on the obligation to dispose of excessive weapons plutonium under international treaties, as well
as the need to take swift action to defend Russian security" as the reasons for why Russia chose
to suspend the deal.
Conclusion: Wake up and Smell the Russophobia
Expect Vladimir Putin and Russia to keep being demonized by the Clintons and more importantly
the NWO manipulators who so desperately want them in power. Although the Clintons are a powerful
modern American mafia family, replete with a long body count behind them, it's important to remember
they are lackeys for far greater and more pervasive powers (check out some of
Hillary's lovey-dovey letters to Lynn Forester de Rothschild here ). There's a lot at stake here.
Right now, Vladimir Putin and Russia are being used with the sole purpose of getting Clinton elected.
Although Putin is not perfect and has his own dark side, he deserves respect for standing his ground
and refusing to become another US puppet. If we are to believe his own words, he has no qualm with
Americans or even America itself, but rather the selfish, imperialistic and murderous agenda of the
NWO agents running the USA:
"We have a great deal of respect and love for the United States, and especially for the
American people [however] the expansion of jurisdiction by one nation beyond the territory of
its borders, to the rest of the world, is unacceptable and destructive for international relations."
It's up to the American public to switch off CNN (Clinton News Network) and all the other duplicitous
MSM channels and get truly informed. Vladimir Putin is reaching out his hand to America, in the hope
that enough Americans can reclaim their country and work together with other nations in peace. On
the issue of Vladimir Putin and Russia, the MSM is not just one-sided, it's outright lying.
"... progressivism & humanitarianism in war profiteering aka mongering...... "Civilian protective operations" panders a neocon excuse for organized state run murder. Bill went after the Tsar as soon as his closet neocon found out they could have the Germans send a mechanized brigade of Warsaw Pact armaments to the Croats and Yeltsin did nothing. ..."
"... The Russian version of Chamberlain and Munich was Croatian independence. ..."
"... Most career military pilots I knew were terrified by the thought of no more perpetual bombing. ..."
"... They would think Clinton and the neocons can keep a low boil going in the PNAC for another 100 years without tripping into a real war, or bankrupting the USA. ..."
"... It is a signifier of the moral bankruptcy that the exceptional carry as a badge. ..."
War hysteria in a country with imperial nostalgia, one-man rule and a weak economy cannot be
taken lightly.
Michael Khodarkovsky is a professor of history at Loyola University.
[ The fostering of fear of and disdain for Russia is continual now and however false the characterizations
of Russia are, and they are indeed false, the fear and disdain will influence and be self-defeating
for American foreign policy from here till a dramatic change comes from another administration.
I unfortunately find no such change in the offing. ]
progressivism & humanitarianism in war profiteering aka mongering......
"Civilian protective operations" panders a neocon excuse for organized state run murder.
Bill went after the Tsar as soon as his closet neocon found out they could have the Germans
send a mechanized brigade of Warsaw Pact armaments to the Croats and Yeltsin did nothing.
The Russian version of Chamberlain and Munich was Croatian independence.
ilsm -> anne... , -1
Most career military pilots I knew were terrified by the thought of no more perpetual bombing.
They would think Clinton and the neocons can keep a low boil going in the PNAC for another
100 years without tripping into a real war, or bankrupting the USA.
It is a signifier of the moral bankruptcy that the exceptional carry as a badge.
With the "defenses available" to Syria they could enforce no fly zones on GCC and their blood
thirsty allies as as might US over Raqqa.
IMO the whole flight crew of the U.S. aircraft along with their three back-end commanders need
to be permanently removed from flying status. And the aircraft's mission liaison at CENTCOM needs
to be reamed as well.
"... Now the threat is real; and for the foreseeable future we will have to live with and seek to reduce two closely interlinked dangers: the direct and potentially apocalyptic threat posed by terrorists, mainly (though by no means exclusively) based in the Muslim world, and the potential strengthening of those terrorists' resolve by misguided US actions. ..."
"... The most unilateralist Administration in modern American history has been forced to recognise, in principle at least, the country's pressing need for allies ..."
"... Apart from the fact that most European armies are useless when it comes to serious warfare, they are already showing great unwillingness to give the US a blank cheque for whatever military action the Bush Administration chooses to take. ..."
"... A strong sense of righteousness has always been present in the American tradition; but until 11 September, an acute sense of victimhood and persecution by the outside world was usually the preserve of the paranoid Right. ..."
"Who says we share common values with the Europeans? They don't even go to church!" Will the atrocities
of September 11 push America further to the right or open a new debate on foreign policy and the
need for alliances? In this exclusive online essay from the London Review of Books, Anatol Lieven
considers how the cold war legacy may affect the war on terrorism
Not long after the Bush Administration took power in January, I was invited to lunch at a glamorous
restaurant in New York by a group of editors and writers from an influential American right-wing
broadsheet. The food and wine were extremely expensive, the decor luxurious but discreet, the clientele
beautifully dressed, and much of the conversation more than mildly insane. With regard to the greater
part of the world outside America, my hosts' attitude was a combination of loathing, contempt, distrust
and fear: not only towards Arabs, Russians, Chinese, French and others, but towards 'European socialist
governments', whatever that was supposed to mean. This went with a strong desire - in theory at least
- to take military action against a broad range of countries across the world.
Two things were particularly striking here: a tendency to divide the world into friends and enemies,
and a difficulty verging on autism when it came to international opinions that didn't coincide with
their own - a combination more appropriate to the inhabitants of an ethnic slum in the Balkans than
to people who were, at that point, on top of the world.
Today Americans of all classes and opinions have reason to worry, and someone real to fear and
hate, while prolonged US military action overseas is thought to be inevitable. The building where
we had lunch is now rubble. Several of our fellow diners probably died last week, along with more
than six thousand other New Yorkers from every walk of life. Not only has the terrorist attack claimed
far more victims than any previous such attack anywhere in the world, but it has delivered a far
more damaging economic blow. Equally important, it has destroyed Americans' belief in their country's
invulnerability, on which so many other American attitudes and policies finally rested.
This shattering blow was delivered by a handful of anonymous agents hidden in the wider population,
working as part of a tightly-knit secret international conspiracy inspired by a fanatical and (to
the West) deeply 'alien' and 'exotic' religious ideology. Its members are ruthless; they have remarkable
organisational skills, a tremendous capacity for self-sacrifice and self-discipline, and a deep hatred
of the United States and the Western way of life. As Richard Hofstader and others have argued, for
more than two hundred years this kind of combination has always acted as a prompt for paranoid and
reactionary conspiracy theories, most of them groundless.
Now the threat is real; and for the foreseeable future we will have to live with and seek to reduce
two closely interlinked dangers: the direct and potentially apocalyptic threat posed by terrorists,
mainly (though by no means exclusively) based in the Muslim world, and the potential strengthening
of those terrorists' resolve by misguided US actions.
The latter danger has been greatly increased by the attacks. The terrorists have raised to white
heat certain smouldering tendencies among the American Right, while simultaneously - as is usually
the case at the start of wars - pushing American politics and most of its population in a sharply
rightward direction; all of which has taken place under an unexpectedly right-wing Administration.
If this leads to a crude military response, then the terrorists will have achieved part of their
purpose, which was to provoke the other side to indiscriminate retaliation, and thereby increase
their own support.
It is too early to say for sure how US strategies and attitudes will develop. At the time of writing
Afghanistan is the focus, but whatever happens there, it isn't clear whether the US Administration
will go on to launch a more general campaign of military pressure against other states which have
supported terrorist groups, and if so, what states and what kind of military pressure? US policy
is already pulled in two predictable but contradictory directions, amply illustrated in the op-ed
pages of US newspapers and in debates within the Government.
The most unilateralist Administration in modern American history has been forced to recognise,
in principle at least, the country's pressing need for allies. There are the beginnings, too, of
a real public debate on how US policy needs to be changed and shaped to fight the new 'war'. All
this is reminiscent of US attitudes and behaviour at the start of the Cold War, when Communism was
identified as the central menace to the US and to Western capitalism and democracy in general.
On the other hand, the public desire for revenge has strengthened certain attitudes - especially
in the Republican Party and media, as well as parts of the Administration - which, if they prevail,
will not only be dangerous in themselves, but will make the search for real allies difficult. And
real allies are essential, above all in the Arab and Muslim worlds. In the longer run, only the full
co-operation of Arab regimes - along with reform and economic development - can prevent the recruitment,
funding and operations of Arab-based terrorist groups.
As for Europe, British military support may be unconditional, but most European countries - Russia
among them - are likely to restrict their help to intelligence and policing. Apart from the fact
that most European armies are useless when it comes to serious warfare, they are already showing
great unwillingness to give the US a blank cheque for whatever military action the Bush Administration
chooses to take.
Yet a blank cheque is precisely what the Administration, and the greater part of US public opinion,
are asking for. This is Jim Hoagland, veteran establishment foreign correspondent and commentator,
in the generally liberal Washington Post:
"Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and many of the other Arab states Powell hopes to recruit for the bin
Laden posse have long been part of the problem, not part of the solution to international terrorism.
These states cannot be given free passes for going through the motions of helping the United States.
And European allies cannot be allowed to order an appetiser of bin Laden and not share in the costs
of the rest of a meal cooked in hell."
If this is the Post, then the sentiments in the right-wing press and the tabloids can well be
imagined. Here is Tod Lindberg, the editor of Policy Review, writing in the Washington Times:
"The United States is now energetically in the business of making governments pick a side: either
with us and against the terrorists, or against us and with them... Against the category of enemy
stands the category of 'friend'. Friends stand with us. Friends do whatever they can to help. Friends
don't, for example, engage in commerce with enemies, otherwise they aren't friends."
A strong sense of righteousness has always been present in the American tradition; but until 11
September, an acute sense of victimhood and persecution by the outside world was usually the preserve
of the paranoid Right. Now it has spread and, for the moment at least, some rather important ideas
have almost vanished from the public debate: among them, that other states have their own national
interests, and that in the end nothing compels them to help the US; that they, too, have been the
victims of terrorism - in the case of Britain, largely funded from groups in the United States -
but have not insisted on a right of unilateral military retaliation (this point was made by Niall
Ferguson in the New York Times, but not as yet in any op-ed by an American that I have seen); and
that in some cases these states may actually know more about their own part of the world than US
intelligence does.
Beyond the immediate and unforeseeable events in Afghanistan - and their sombre implications for
Pakistan - lies the bigger question of US policy in the Arab world. Here, too, Administration policy
may well be a good deal more cautious than the opinions of the right-wing media would suggest - which
again is fortunate, because much opinion on this subject is more than rabid. Here is AM Rosenthal
in the Washington Times arguing that an amazing range of states should be given ultimatums to surrender
not only alleged terrorists but also their own senior officials accused by the US of complicity:
"The ultimatum should go to the governments of Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Sudan and
any other devoted to the elimination of the United States or the constant incitement of hatred against
it... In the three days the terrorists consider the American ultimatum, the residents of the countries
would be urged 24 hours a day by the United States to flee the capital and major cities, because
they would be bombed to the ground beginning the fourth."
Rosenthal isn't a figure from the lunatic fringe ranting on a backwoods radio show, but the former
executive editor of the New York Times, writing in a paper with great influence in the Republican
Party, especially under the present Administration.
No Administration is going to do anything remotely like this. But if the Secretary of State, Colin
Powell, has emerged as the voice of moderation, with a proper commitment to multilateralism, other
voices are audible, too. Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defence, has spoken of "ending states
which support terrorism", and in the case of Iraq, there are those who would now like to complete
the work of the Gulf War and finish off Saddam Hussein.
Here, too, the mood of contempt for allies contributes to the ambition. Thus Kim Holmes, vice-president
of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, argued that only deference to America's Arab allies prevented
the US from destroying the Iraqi regime in 1991 (the profound unwillingness of Bush Senior to occupy
Iraq and take responsibility for the place also played its part in the decision): "To show that this
war is not with Islam per se, the US could be tempted to restrain itself militarily and accommodate
the complex and contradictory political agendas of Islamic states. This in turn could make the campaign
ineffectual, prolonging the problem of terrorism."
Getting rid of Saddam Hussein is not in itself a bad idea. His is a pernicious regime, a menace
to his own people and his neighbours, as well as to the West. And if the Iraqi threat to the Gulf
States could be eliminated, US troops might be withdrawn from Saudi Arabia: it was their permanent
stationing on the holy soil of Islam that turned Osama bin Laden from an anti-Soviet mujahid into
an anti-American terrorist.
But only if it were to take place in the context of an entirely new policy towards Palestine would
the US be able to mount such a campaign without provoking massive unrest across the Arab world; and
given what became of promises made during the Gulf War, there would first of all have to be firm
evidence of a US change of heart. The only borders between Israel and Palestine which would have
any chance of satisfying a majority of Palestinians and Arabs - and conforming to UN resolutions,
for what they are worth - would be those of 1967, possibly qualified by an internationalisation of
Jerusalem under UN control. This would entail the removal of the existing Jewish settlements in the
Occupied Territories, and would be absolutely unacceptable to any imaginable Israeli Government.
To win Israeli agreement would require not just US pressure, but the threat of a complete breach
of relations and the ending of aid.
There may be those in the Administration who would favour adopting such an approach at a later
stage. Bush Sr's was the most anti-Israeli Administration of the past two generations, and was disliked
accordingly by the Jewish and other ethnic lobbies. His son's is less beholden to those lobbies than
Clinton's was. And it may be that even pro-Israeli US politicians will at some point realise that
Israel's survival as such is not an issue: that it is absurd to increase the risk to Washington and
New York for the sake of 267 extremist settlers in Hebron and their comrades elsewhere.
Still, in the short term, a radical shift is unlikely, and an offensive against Iraq would therefore
be dangerous. The attacks on New York and the Pentagon and the celebrations in parts of the Arab
world have increased popular hostility to the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular,
a hostility assiduously stoked by Israeli propaganda. But when it comes to denouncing hate crimes
against Muslims - or those taken to be Muslims - within the US, the Administration has behaved decently,
perhaps because they have a rather sobering precedent in mind, one which has led to genuine shame:
the treatment of Japanese Americans during world war two.
This shame is the result of an applied historical intelligence that does not extend to the Arab
world. Americans tend - and perhaps need - to confuse the symptoms and the causes of Arab anger.
Since a key pro-Israel position in the US has been that fundamental Palestinian and Arab grievances
must not be allowed legitimacy or even discussed, the only explanation of Arab hostility to the US
and its ally must be sought in innate features of Arab society, whether a contemporary culture of
anti-semitism (and anti-Americanism) sanctioned by Arab leaderships, or ancient 'Muslim' traditions
of hostility to the West.
All of which may contain some truth: but the central issue, the role of Israeli policies in providing
a focus for such hatred, is overwhelmingly ignored. As a result, it is extremely difficult, and mostly
impossible, to hold any frank discussion of the most important issue affecting the position of the
US in the Middle East or the open sympathy for terrorism in the region. A passionately held nationalism
usually has the effect of corrupting or silencing those liberal intellectuals who espouse it. This
is the case of Israeli nationalism in the US. It is especially distressing that it should afflict
the Jewish liberal intelligentsia, that old bedrock of sanity and tolerance.
An Administration which wanted a radical change of policy towards Israel would have to generate
a new public debate almost from scratch - which would not be possible until some kind of tectonic
shift had taken place in American society. Too many outside observers who blame US Administrations
forget that on a wide range of issues, it is essentially Congress and not the White House or State
Department which determines foreign policy; this is above all true of US aid. An inability or unwillingness
to try to work on Congress, as opposed to going through normal diplomatic channels, has been a minor
contributory factor to Britain's inability to get any purchase on US policy in recent years.
The role of Congress brings out what might be called the Wilhelmine aspects of US foreign and
security policy. By that I do not mean extreme militarism or a love of silly hats, or even a shared
tendency to autism when it comes to understanding the perceptions of other countries, but rather
certain structural features in both the Wilhemine and the US system tending to produce over-ambition,
and above all a chronic incapacity to choose between diametrically opposite goals. Like Wilhelmine
Germany, the US has a legislature with very limited constitutional powers in the field of foreign
policy, even though it wields considerable de facto power and is not linked either institutionally
or by party discipline to the executive. The resulting lack of any responsibility for actual consequences
is a standing invitation to rhetorical grandstanding, and the pursuit of sectional interests at the
expense of overall policy.
Meanwhile, the executive, while in theory supremely powerful in this field, has in fact continually
to woo the legislature without ever being able to command its support. This, too, encourages dependence
on interest groups, as well as a tendency to overcome differences and gain support by making appeals
in terms of overheated patriotism rather than policy. Finally, in both systems, though for completely
different reasons, supreme executive power had or has a tendency to fall into the hands of people
totally unsuited for any but the ceremonial aspects of the job, and endlessly open to manipulation
by advisers, ministers and cliques.
In the US, this did not matter so much during the Cold War, when a range of Communist threats
- real, imagined or fabricated - held the system together in the pursuit of more or less common aims.
With the disappearance of the unifying threat, however, there has been a tendency, again very Wilhelmine,
to produce ambitious and aggressive policies in several directions simultaneously, often with little
reference at all to real US interests or any kind of principle.
The new 'war against terrorism' in Administration and Congressional rhetoric has been cast as
just such a principle, unifying the country and the political establishment behind a common goal
and affecting or determining a great range of other policies. The language has been reminiscent of
the global struggle against Communism, and confronting Islamist radicalism in the Muslim world does,
it's true, pose some of the same challenges, on a less global scale, though possibly with even greater
dangers for the world.
The likelihood that US strategy in the 'war against terrorism' will resemble that of the Cold
War is greatly increased by the way Cold War structures and attitudes have continued to dominate
the US foreign policy and security elites. Charles Tilly and others have written of the difficulty
states have in 'ratcheting down' wartime institutions and especially wartime spending. In the 1990s,
this failure on the part of the US to escape its Cold War legacy was a curse, ensuring unnecessarily
high military spending in the wrong fields, thoroughly negative attitudes to Russia, 'zero-sum' perceptions
of international security issues in general, and perceptions of danger which wholly failed, as we
now see, to meet the real threats to security and lives.
The idea of a National Missile Defense is predicated on a limited revival of the Cold War, with
China cast in the role of the Soviet Union and the Chinese nuclear deterrent as the force to be nullified.
Bush's foreign and security team is almost entirely a product of Cold War structures and circumscribed
by Cold War attitudes (which is not true of the President himself, who was never interested enough
in foreign policy; if he can get his mind round the rest of the world, he could well be more of a
free-thinker than many of his staff).
The collapse of the Communist alternative to Western-dominated modernisation and the integration
(however imperfect) of Russia and China into the world capitalist order have been a morally and socially
ambiguous process, to put it mildly; but in the early 1990s they seemed to promise the suspension
of hostility between the world's larger powers. The failure of the US to make use of this opportunity,
thanks to an utter confusion between an ideological victory and crudely-defined US geopolitical interests,
was a great misfortune which the 'war against terrorism' could in part rectify. Since 11 September,
the rhetoric in America has proposed a gulf between the 'civilised' states of the present world system,
and movements of 'barbaric', violent protest from outside and below - without much deference to the
ambiguities of 'civilisation', or the justifications of resistance to it, remarked on since Tacitus
at least.
How is the Cold War legacy likely to determine the 'war against terrorism'? Despite the general
conviction in the Republican Party that it was simply Reagan's military spending and the superiority
of the US system which destroyed Soviet Communism, more serious Cold War analysts were always aware
that it involved not just military force, or the threat of it, but ideological and political struggle,
socio-economic measures, and state-building. The latter in particular is an idea for which the Bush
team on their arrival in office had a deep dislike (if only to distance themselves from Clinton's
policies), but which they may now rediscover. Foreign aid - so shamefully reduced in the 1990s -
was also a key part of the Cold War, and if much of it was poured into kleptocratic regimes like
Mobutu's, or wasted on misguided projects, some at least helped produce flourishing economies in
Europe and East Asia.
The Republican Party is not only the party of Goldwater and Reagan, but of Eisenhower, Nixon and
Kissinger. Eisenhower is now almost forgotten by the party. 'Eisenhower Republicans', as they refer
to themselves, are usually far closer to Tony Blair (or perhaps more accurately, Helmut Schmidt)
than anyone the Republican Party has seen in recent years, and I'd wager that the majority of educated
Americans have forgotten that the original warning about the influence of the 'military industrial
complex' came from Eisenhower.
Kissinger is still very much alive, however, and his history is a reminder that one aspect of
the American capacity for extreme ruthlessness was also a capacity for radical changes of policy,
for reconciliation with states hitherto regarded as bitter enemies, and for cold-blooded abandonment
of close allies and clients whose usefulness was at an end. It would not altogether surprise me if
we were now to see a radical shift towards real co-operation with Russia, and even Iran.
In general, however, the Cold War legacies and parallels are discouraging and dangerous. To judge
by the language used in the days since 11 September, ignorance, demonisation and the drowning out
of nuanced debate indicate that much of the US establishment can no more tell the difference between
Iran and Afghanistan than they could between China and the Soviet Union in the early 1960s - the
inexcusable error which led to the American war in Vietnam. The preference for militarised solutions
continues (the 'War on Drugs', which will now have to be scaled back, is an example). Most worryingly,
the direct attack on American soil and American civilians - far worse than anything done to the US
in the Cold War - means that there is a real danger of a return to Cold War ruthlessness: not just
in terms of military tactics and covert operations, but in terms of the repulsive and endangered
regimes co-opted as local American clients.
The stakes are, if anything, a good deal higher than they were during the Cold War. Given what
we now know of Soviet policymaking, it is by no means clear that the Kremlin ever seriously contemplated
a nuclear strike against America. By contrast, it seems likely that bin Laden et al would in the
end use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons if they could deliver them.
There is also the question of the impact of US strategies (or, in the case of Israel, lack of
them) on the unity of the West - assuming that this is of some importance for the wellbeing of humanity.
However great the exasperation of many European states with US policy throughout the Cold War, the
Europeans were bound into the transatlantic alliance by an obvious Soviet threat - more immediate
to them than it was to the US. For the critical first decade of the Cold War, the economies of Europe
were hopelessly inferior to that of the US. Today, if European Governments feel that the US is dragging
them into unnecessary danger thanks to policies of which they disapprove, they will protest bitterly
- as many did during the Cold War - and then begin to distance themselves, which they could not afford
to do fifty years ago.
This is all the more likely if, as seems overwhelmingly probable, the US withdraws from the Balkans
- as it has already done in Macedonia - leaving Europeans with no good reason to require a US military
presence on their continent. At the same time, the cultural gap between Europeans and Republican
America (which does not mean a majority of Americans, but the dominant strain of policy) will continue
to widen. 'Who says we share common values with the Europeans?' a senior US politician remarked recently.
'They don't even go to church!' Among other harmful effects, the destruction of this relationship
could signal the collapse of whatever hope still exists for a common Western approach to global environmental
issues - which would, in the end, pose a greater danger to humanity than that of terrorism.
· Anatol Lieven is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington
DC.
Briefly, it seems Podesta received an email "You need to change your password", asked for professional advice from his
staff if it was legit, was told "Yes, you DO need to change your password", but then clicked on the link in the original email,
which was sent him with malicious intent, as he suspected at first and then was inappropriately reassured about - rather than
on the link sent him by the IT staffer.
Result - the "phishing" email got his password info, and the world now gets to see all his emails.
Personally, my hope is that Huma and HRC will be pardoned for all their crimes, by Obama, before he leaves office.
Then I hope that Huma's divorce will go through, and that once Hillary is sworn in she will at last be courageous enough to
divorce Bill (who actually performed the Huma-Anthony Weiner nuptials - you don't have to make these things up).
Then it could happen that the first same-sex marriage will be performed in the White House, probably by the minister of DC's
Foundry United Methodist Church, which has a policy of LBGQT equality. Or maybe Hillary, cautious and middle-of-the-road as usual,
will go to Foundry UMC sanctuary for the ceremony, recognizing that some Americans' sensibilities would be offended by having
the rite in the White House.
As Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan wrote, "Love is all there is, it makes the world go round, love and only love, it can't be denied.
No matter what you think about it, you just can't live without it, take a tip from one who's tried."
How the US ensures that its weapons and equipment don't
fall into Al-Qa`idah hands
"American and other Western intelligence officials have
expressed concern that some of the more than 100 rebel
formations fighting inside Syria may have ties to Al Qaeda
that they could exploit as security worsens in the country or
after the collapse of the government.... A small number of
CIA officers have been operating secretly in southern
Turkey for several weeks, helping allies decide which Syrian
opposition fighters across the border will receive weapons to
fight the government." * I am assured that the US has a
fool-proof system at hand.
The CIA operatives ask the person
in question: are you with Al-Qa`idah? If the person says no,
he is told: take the weapons and money and run. If he says
yes, he is told: not good. Take the money and weapons and run
but don't use them against us one day, OK?
Weeks before the Obama administration and other Western
nations recognized a new Syrian opposition coalition as "the
legitimate representative" of the Syrian people, Syrian
rebels were receiving training in the use of light and heavy
weapons with the backing of the Jordanian, British and U.S.
governments, participants in the training have told
McClatchy....
By November, another rebel said, the training had expanded
to anti-tank weapons and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.... *
This is from Raqqah in Syria. * The main square there has
been renamed Prophet Muhammad Square, and a giant flag of
Al-Qa`idah is posted. And do you still need a fortune teller
to tell you how things are going in Syria?
What this article really reveals is that Western media
were deliberately or ignorantly spreading the notion that
Syrian rebels were desperate for arms and ammunition and that
they were getting no external support whatsoever when tons
(literally, tons) of shipments were arriving to them from as
early as 2012.
*
"The groups demanded to raise the prophet's banner - solid
black with 'There is no god but God.' " * Somebody needs to
tell the New York Times that what it calls the "prophet's
banner" is none other than the flag of Al-Qa`idah. What an
informed paper.
I am dying to know this: Who are the "secular opposition
groups supported by the West" who are fighting in Syria? Give
me one name, or one unit? Who?
"The weapons, including automatic rifles, rocket-propelled
grenades and ammunition are funneled mostly across the
Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of intermediaries
overseen mainly by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, American officials
said. Even that limited effort is being revamped in the wake
of evidence that most arms sent to Syrian opposition fighters
are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists, not to the more
secular opposition groups supported by the West." *
"Some Syrians who seek a more secular revolution blame the
lack of Western support for driving the rebellion into the
arms of the extremists". * So if only NATO would bomb Syria
there would be more secularism as in the Islamist state of
new Libya? Where do you get those people?
Until recently, if someone suggested that Al-Qa`idah is
present in Syria, he/she would be accused of being a shabbiha
* for the Assad regime. But when the New York Times says it,
** it becomes true.
"... Though Al Qaeda got the ball rolling on America's revenge wars in the Middle East 15 years ago by killing several thousand Americans and others in the 9/11 attacks, the terrorist group has faded into the background of U.S. attention, most likely because it messes up the preferred "good guy/bad guy" narrative regarding the Syrian war. ..."
"... For instance, the conflict in Aleppo between Syrian government forces and rebels operating primarily under Al Qaeda's command is treated in the Western media as simply a case of the barbaric Assad and his evil Russian ally Vladimir Putin mercilessly bombing what is portrayed as the east Aleppo equivalent of Disney World, a place where innocent children and their families peacefully congregate until they are targeted for death by the Assad-Putin war-crime family. ..."
"... The photos sent out to the world by skillful rebel propagandists are almost always of wounded children being cared for by the "White Helmet" rebel civil defense corps, which has come under growing criticism for serving as a public-relations arm of Al Qaeda and other insurgents. (There also are allegations that some of the most notable images have been staged, like a fake war scene from the 1997 dark comedy, "Wag the Dog.") ..."
"... The new offensive was a strong sign that rebel groups vetted by the United States were continuing their tactical alliances with groups linked to Al Qaeda, rather than distancing themselves as Russia has demanded and the Americans have urged. ..."
"... What the article also makes clear in a hazy kind of way is that Al Qaeda's affiliate, the recently renamed Nusra Front, and its jihadist allies, such as Ahrar al-Sham, are waging the brunt of the fighting while the CIA-vetted "moderates" are serving in mostly support roles. ..."
"... "the vast majority of the American-vetted rebel factions in Aleppo were fighting inside the city itself and conducting significant bombardments against Syrian government troops in support of the Qaeda-affiliated fighters carrying out the brunt of front-line fighting." ..."
"... "offensive have been vetted by the CIA and have received arms from the agency, including anti-tank missiles. ..."
"... "In addition to arms provided by the United States, much of the rebels' weaponry comes from regional states, like Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Mr. Lister said, including truck-borne multiple-rocket launcher systems and Czech-made Grad rockets with extended ranges." ..."
"... In other words, the U.S. government and its allies have smuggled sophisticated weapons into Syria to arm rebels who are operating in support of Al Qaeda's new military offensive against Syrian government forces in Aleppo. By any logical analysis, that makes the United States an ally of Al Qaeda.... ..."
Buried deep inside Saturday's New York Times was a grudging acknowledgement that the U.S.-armed
"moderate" rebels in Syria are using their U.S. firepower to back an Al Qaeda offensive.
A curious aspect of the Syrian conflict a rebellion sponsored largely by the United States and
its Gulf state allies is the disappearance in much of the American mainstream news media of references
to the prominent role played by Al Qaeda in seeking to overthrow the secular Syrian government of
Bashar al-Assad.
There's much said in the U.S. press about ISIS, the former "Al Qaeda in Iraq" which splintered
off several years ago, but Al Qaeda's central role in commanding Syria's "moderate" rebels in Aleppo
and elsewhere is the almost unspoken reality of the Syrian war. Even in the U.S. presidential debates,
the arguing between Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton has been almost exclusively
about ISIS, not Al Qaeda.
Though Al Qaeda got the ball rolling on America's revenge wars in the Middle East 15 years
ago by killing several thousand Americans and others in the 9/11 attacks, the terrorist group has
faded into the background of U.S. attention, most likely because it messes up the preferred "good
guy/bad guy" narrative regarding the Syrian war.
For instance, the conflict in Aleppo between Syrian government forces and rebels operating
primarily under Al Qaeda's command is treated in the Western media as simply a case of the barbaric
Assad and his evil Russian ally Vladimir Putin mercilessly bombing what is portrayed as the east
Aleppo equivalent of Disney World, a place where innocent children and their families peacefully
congregate until they are targeted for death by the Assad-Putin war-crime family.
The photos sent out to the world by skillful rebel propagandists are almost always of wounded
children being cared for by the "White Helmet" rebel civil defense corps, which has come under growing
criticism for serving as a public-relations arm of Al Qaeda and other insurgents. (There also are
allegations that some of the most notable images have been staged, like a fake war scene from the
1997 dark comedy, "Wag the Dog.")
Rare Glimpse of Truth
Yet, occasionally, the reality of Al Qaeda's importance in the rebellion breaks through, even
in the mainstream U.S. media, although usually downplayed and deep inside the news pages, such as
the article * in Saturday's New York Times by Hwaida Saad and Anne Barnard describing a rebel offensive
in Aleppo. It acknowledges:
"The new offensive was a strong sign that rebel groups vetted by the United States were
continuing their tactical alliances with groups linked to Al Qaeda, rather than distancing themselves
as Russia has demanded and the Americans have urged.
The rebels argue that they cannot afford to shun any potential allies while they are under
fire, including well-armed and motivated jihadists, without more robust aid from their international
backers."
(You might note how the article subtly blames the rebel dependence on Al Qaeda on the lack of
"robust aid" from the Obama administration and other outside countries even though such arms shipments
violate international law.)
What the article also makes clear in a hazy kind of way is that Al Qaeda's affiliate, the
recently renamed Nusra Front, and its jihadist allies, such as Ahrar al-Sham, are waging the brunt
of the fighting while the CIA-vetted "moderates" are serving in mostly support roles. The Times
reported:
"The insurgents have a diverse range of objectives and backers, but they issued statements
of unity on Friday. Those taking part in the offensive include the Levant Conquest Front, a militant
group formerly known as the Nusra Front that grew out of Al Qaeda; another hard-line Islamist
faction, Ahrar al-Sham; and other rebel factions fighting Mr. Assad that have been vetted by the
United States and its allies."
The article cites Charles Lister, a senior fellow and Syria specialist at the Middle East Institute
in Washington, and other analysts noting that "the vast majority of the American-vetted rebel
factions in Aleppo were fighting inside the city itself and conducting significant bombardments against
Syrian government troops in support of the Qaeda-affiliated fighters carrying out the brunt of front-line
fighting."
Lister noted that 11 of the 20 or so rebel groups conducting the Aleppo "offensive have been
vetted by the CIA and have received arms from the agency, including anti-tank missiles.
"In addition to arms provided by the United States, much of the rebels' weaponry comes from
regional states, like Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, Mr. Lister said, including truck-borne multiple-rocket
launcher systems and Czech-made Grad rockets with extended ranges."
The U.S./Al Qaeda Alliance
In other words, the U.S. government and its allies have smuggled sophisticated weapons into
Syria to arm rebels who are operating in support of Al Qaeda's new military offensive against Syrian
government forces in Aleppo. By any logical analysis, that makes the United States an ally of Al
Qaeda....
"... Now the threat is real; and for the foreseeable future we will have to live with and seek to reduce two closely interlinked dangers: the direct and potentially apocalyptic threat posed by terrorists, mainly (though by no means exclusively) based in the Muslim world, and the potential strengthening of those terrorists' resolve by misguided US actions. ..."
"... The most unilateralist Administration in modern American history has been forced to recognise, in principle at least, the country's pressing need for allies ..."
"... Apart from the fact that most European armies are useless when it comes to serious warfare, they are already showing great unwillingness to give the US a blank cheque for whatever military action the Bush Administration chooses to take. ..."
"... A strong sense of righteousness has always been present in the American tradition; but until 11 September, an acute sense of victimhood and persecution by the outside world was usually the preserve of the paranoid Right. ..."
"Who says we share common values with the Europeans? They don't even go to church!" Will the atrocities
of September 11 push America further to the right or open a new debate on foreign policy and the
need for alliances? In this exclusive online essay from the London Review of Books, Anatol Lieven
considers how the cold war legacy may affect the war on terrorism
Not long after the Bush Administration took power in January, I was invited to lunch at a glamorous
restaurant in New York by a group of editors and writers from an influential American right-wing
broadsheet. The food and wine were extremely expensive, the decor luxurious but discreet, the clientele
beautifully dressed, and much of the conversation more than mildly insane. With regard to the greater
part of the world outside America, my hosts' attitude was a combination of loathing, contempt, distrust
and fear: not only towards Arabs, Russians, Chinese, French and others, but towards 'European socialist
governments', whatever that was supposed to mean. This went with a strong desire - in theory at least
- to take military action against a broad range of countries across the world.
Two things were particularly striking here: a tendency to divide the world into friends and enemies,
and a difficulty verging on autism when it came to international opinions that didn't coincide with
their own - a combination more appropriate to the inhabitants of an ethnic slum in the Balkans than
to people who were, at that point, on top of the world.
Today Americans of all classes and opinions have reason to worry, and someone real to fear and
hate, while prolonged US military action overseas is thought to be inevitable. The building where
we had lunch is now rubble. Several of our fellow diners probably died last week, along with more
than six thousand other New Yorkers from every walk of life. Not only has the terrorist attack claimed
far more victims than any previous such attack anywhere in the world, but it has delivered a far
more damaging economic blow. Equally important, it has destroyed Americans' belief in their country's
invulnerability, on which so many other American attitudes and policies finally rested.
This shattering blow was delivered by a handful of anonymous agents hidden in the wider population,
working as part of a tightly-knit secret international conspiracy inspired by a fanatical and (to
the West) deeply 'alien' and 'exotic' religious ideology. Its members are ruthless; they have remarkable
organisational skills, a tremendous capacity for self-sacrifice and self-discipline, and a deep hatred
of the United States and the Western way of life. As Richard Hofstader and others have argued, for
more than two hundred years this kind of combination has always acted as a prompt for paranoid and
reactionary conspiracy theories, most of them groundless.
Now the threat is real; and for the foreseeable future we will have to live with and seek to reduce
two closely interlinked dangers: the direct and potentially apocalyptic threat posed by terrorists,
mainly (though by no means exclusively) based in the Muslim world, and the potential strengthening
of those terrorists' resolve by misguided US actions.
The latter danger has been greatly increased by the attacks. The terrorists have raised to white
heat certain smouldering tendencies among the American Right, while simultaneously - as is usually
the case at the start of wars - pushing American politics and most of its population in a sharply
rightward direction; all of which has taken place under an unexpectedly right-wing Administration.
If this leads to a crude military response, then the terrorists will have achieved part of their
purpose, which was to provoke the other side to indiscriminate retaliation, and thereby increase
their own support.
It is too early to say for sure how US strategies and attitudes will develop. At the time of writing
Afghanistan is the focus, but whatever happens there, it isn't clear whether the US Administration
will go on to launch a more general campaign of military pressure against other states which have
supported terrorist groups, and if so, what states and what kind of military pressure? US policy
is already pulled in two predictable but contradictory directions, amply illustrated in the op-ed
pages of US newspapers and in debates within the Government.
The most unilateralist Administration in modern American history has been forced to recognise,
in principle at least, the country's pressing need for allies. There are the beginnings, too, of
a real public debate on how US policy needs to be changed and shaped to fight the new 'war'. All
this is reminiscent of US attitudes and behaviour at the start of the Cold War, when Communism was
identified as the central menace to the US and to Western capitalism and democracy in general.
On the other hand, the public desire for revenge has strengthened certain attitudes - especially
in the Republican Party and media, as well as parts of the Administration - which, if they prevail,
will not only be dangerous in themselves, but will make the search for real allies difficult. And
real allies are essential, above all in the Arab and Muslim worlds. In the longer run, only the full
co-operation of Arab regimes - along with reform and economic development - can prevent the recruitment,
funding and operations of Arab-based terrorist groups.
As for Europe, British military support may be unconditional, but most European countries - Russia
among them - are likely to restrict their help to intelligence and policing. Apart from the fact
that most European armies are useless when it comes to serious warfare, they are already showing
great unwillingness to give the US a blank cheque for whatever military action the Bush Administration
chooses to take.
Yet a blank cheque is precisely what the Administration, and the greater part of US public opinion,
are asking for. This is Jim Hoagland, veteran establishment foreign correspondent and commentator,
in the generally liberal Washington Post:
"Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and many of the other Arab states Powell hopes to recruit for the bin
Laden posse have long been part of the problem, not part of the solution to international terrorism.
These states cannot be given free passes for going through the motions of helping the United States.
And European allies cannot be allowed to order an appetiser of bin Laden and not share in the costs
of the rest of a meal cooked in hell."
If this is the Post, then the sentiments in the right-wing press and the tabloids can well be
imagined. Here is Tod Lindberg, the editor of Policy Review, writing in the Washington Times:
"The United States is now energetically in the business of making governments pick a side: either
with us and against the terrorists, or against us and with them... Against the category of enemy
stands the category of 'friend'. Friends stand with us. Friends do whatever they can to help. Friends
don't, for example, engage in commerce with enemies, otherwise they aren't friends."
A strong sense of righteousness has always been present in the American tradition; but until 11
September, an acute sense of victimhood and persecution by the outside world was usually the preserve
of the paranoid Right. Now it has spread and, for the moment at least, some rather important ideas
have almost vanished from the public debate: among them, that other states have their own national
interests, and that in the end nothing compels them to help the US; that they, too, have been the
victims of terrorism - in the case of Britain, largely funded from groups in the United States -
but have not insisted on a right of unilateral military retaliation (this point was made by Niall
Ferguson in the New York Times, but not as yet in any op-ed by an American that I have seen); and
that in some cases these states may actually know more about their own part of the world than US
intelligence does.
Beyond the immediate and unforeseeable events in Afghanistan - and their sombre implications for
Pakistan - lies the bigger question of US policy in the Arab world. Here, too, Administration policy
may well be a good deal more cautious than the opinions of the right-wing media would suggest - which
again is fortunate, because much opinion on this subject is more than rabid. Here is AM Rosenthal
in the Washington Times arguing that an amazing range of states should be given ultimatums to surrender
not only alleged terrorists but also their own senior officials accused by the US of complicity:
"The ultimatum should go to the governments of Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Sudan and
any other devoted to the elimination of the United States or the constant incitement of hatred against
it... In the three days the terrorists consider the American ultimatum, the residents of the countries
would be urged 24 hours a day by the United States to flee the capital and major cities, because
they would be bombed to the ground beginning the fourth."
Rosenthal isn't a figure from the lunatic fringe ranting on a backwoods radio show, but the former
executive editor of the New York Times, writing in a paper with great influence in the Republican
Party, especially under the present Administration.
No Administration is going to do anything remotely like this. But if the Secretary of State, Colin
Powell, has emerged as the voice of moderation, with a proper commitment to multilateralism, other
voices are audible, too. Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defence, has spoken of "ending states
which support terrorism", and in the case of Iraq, there are those who would now like to complete
the work of the Gulf War and finish off Saddam Hussein.
Here, too, the mood of contempt for allies contributes to the ambition. Thus Kim Holmes, vice-president
of the right-wing Heritage Foundation, argued that only deference to America's Arab allies prevented
the US from destroying the Iraqi regime in 1991 (the profound unwillingness of Bush Senior to occupy
Iraq and take responsibility for the place also played its part in the decision): "To show that this
war is not with Islam per se, the US could be tempted to restrain itself militarily and accommodate
the complex and contradictory political agendas of Islamic states. This in turn could make the campaign
ineffectual, prolonging the problem of terrorism."
Getting rid of Saddam Hussein is not in itself a bad idea. His is a pernicious regime, a menace
to his own people and his neighbours, as well as to the West. And if the Iraqi threat to the Gulf
States could be eliminated, US troops might be withdrawn from Saudi Arabia: it was their permanent
stationing on the holy soil of Islam that turned Osama bin Laden from an anti-Soviet mujahid into
an anti-American terrorist.
But only if it were to take place in the context of an entirely new policy towards Palestine would
the US be able to mount such a campaign without provoking massive unrest across the Arab world; and
given what became of promises made during the Gulf War, there would first of all have to be firm
evidence of a US change of heart. The only borders between Israel and Palestine which would have
any chance of satisfying a majority of Palestinians and Arabs - and conforming to UN resolutions,
for what they are worth - would be those of 1967, possibly qualified by an internationalisation of
Jerusalem under UN control. This would entail the removal of the existing Jewish settlements in the
Occupied Territories, and would be absolutely unacceptable to any imaginable Israeli Government.
To win Israeli agreement would require not just US pressure, but the threat of a complete breach
of relations and the ending of aid.
There may be those in the Administration who would favour adopting such an approach at a later
stage. Bush Sr's was the most anti-Israeli Administration of the past two generations, and was disliked
accordingly by the Jewish and other ethnic lobbies. His son's is less beholden to those lobbies than
Clinton's was. And it may be that even pro-Israeli US politicians will at some point realise that
Israel's survival as such is not an issue: that it is absurd to increase the risk to Washington and
New York for the sake of 267 extremist settlers in Hebron and their comrades elsewhere.
Still, in the short term, a radical shift is unlikely, and an offensive against Iraq would therefore
be dangerous. The attacks on New York and the Pentagon and the celebrations in parts of the Arab
world have increased popular hostility to the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular,
a hostility assiduously stoked by Israeli propaganda. But when it comes to denouncing hate crimes
against Muslims - or those taken to be Muslims - within the US, the Administration has behaved decently,
perhaps because they have a rather sobering precedent in mind, one which has led to genuine shame:
the treatment of Japanese Americans during world war two.
This shame is the result of an applied historical intelligence that does not extend to the Arab
world. Americans tend - and perhaps need - to confuse the symptoms and the causes of Arab anger.
Since a key pro-Israel position in the US has been that fundamental Palestinian and Arab grievances
must not be allowed legitimacy or even discussed, the only explanation of Arab hostility to the US
and its ally must be sought in innate features of Arab society, whether a contemporary culture of
anti-semitism (and anti-Americanism) sanctioned by Arab leaderships, or ancient 'Muslim' traditions
of hostility to the West.
All of which may contain some truth: but the central issue, the role of Israeli policies in providing
a focus for such hatred, is overwhelmingly ignored. As a result, it is extremely difficult, and mostly
impossible, to hold any frank discussion of the most important issue affecting the position of the
US in the Middle East or the open sympathy for terrorism in the region. A passionately held nationalism
usually has the effect of corrupting or silencing those liberal intellectuals who espouse it. This
is the case of Israeli nationalism in the US. It is especially distressing that it should afflict
the Jewish liberal intelligentsia, that old bedrock of sanity and tolerance.
An Administration which wanted a radical change of policy towards Israel would have to generate
a new public debate almost from scratch - which would not be possible until some kind of tectonic
shift had taken place in American society. Too many outside observers who blame US Administrations
forget that on a wide range of issues, it is essentially Congress and not the White House or State
Department which determines foreign policy; this is above all true of US aid. An inability or unwillingness
to try to work on Congress, as opposed to going through normal diplomatic channels, has been a minor
contributory factor to Britain's inability to get any purchase on US policy in recent years.
The role of Congress brings out what might be called the Wilhelmine aspects of US foreign and
security policy. By that I do not mean extreme militarism or a love of silly hats, or even a shared
tendency to autism when it comes to understanding the perceptions of other countries, but rather
certain structural features in both the Wilhemine and the US system tending to produce over-ambition,
and above all a chronic incapacity to choose between diametrically opposite goals. Like Wilhelmine
Germany, the US has a legislature with very limited constitutional powers in the field of foreign
policy, even though it wields considerable de facto power and is not linked either institutionally
or by party discipline to the executive. The resulting lack of any responsibility for actual consequences
is a standing invitation to rhetorical grandstanding, and the pursuit of sectional interests at the
expense of overall policy.
Meanwhile, the executive, while in theory supremely powerful in this field, has in fact continually
to woo the legislature without ever being able to command its support. This, too, encourages dependence
on interest groups, as well as a tendency to overcome differences and gain support by making appeals
in terms of overheated patriotism rather than policy. Finally, in both systems, though for completely
different reasons, supreme executive power had or has a tendency to fall into the hands of people
totally unsuited for any but the ceremonial aspects of the job, and endlessly open to manipulation
by advisers, ministers and cliques.
In the US, this did not matter so much during the Cold War, when a range of Communist threats
- real, imagined or fabricated - held the system together in the pursuit of more or less common aims.
With the disappearance of the unifying threat, however, there has been a tendency, again very Wilhelmine,
to produce ambitious and aggressive policies in several directions simultaneously, often with little
reference at all to real US interests or any kind of principle.
The new 'war against terrorism' in Administration and Congressional rhetoric has been cast as
just such a principle, unifying the country and the political establishment behind a common goal
and affecting or determining a great range of other policies. The language has been reminiscent of
the global struggle against Communism, and confronting Islamist radicalism in the Muslim world does,
it's true, pose some of the same challenges, on a less global scale, though possibly with even greater
dangers for the world.
The likelihood that US strategy in the 'war against terrorism' will resemble that of the Cold
War is greatly increased by the way Cold War structures and attitudes have continued to dominate
the US foreign policy and security elites. Charles Tilly and others have written of the difficulty
states have in 'ratcheting down' wartime institutions and especially wartime spending. In the 1990s,
this failure on the part of the US to escape its Cold War legacy was a curse, ensuring unnecessarily
high military spending in the wrong fields, thoroughly negative attitudes to Russia, 'zero-sum' perceptions
of international security issues in general, and perceptions of danger which wholly failed, as we
now see, to meet the real threats to security and lives.
The idea of a National Missile Defense is predicated on a limited revival of the Cold War, with
China cast in the role of the Soviet Union and the Chinese nuclear deterrent as the force to be nullified.
Bush's foreign and security team is almost entirely a product of Cold War structures and circumscribed
by Cold War attitudes (which is not true of the President himself, who was never interested enough
in foreign policy; if he can get his mind round the rest of the world, he could well be more of a
free-thinker than many of his staff).
The collapse of the Communist alternative to Western-dominated modernisation and the integration
(however imperfect) of Russia and China into the world capitalist order have been a morally and socially
ambiguous process, to put it mildly; but in the early 1990s they seemed to promise the suspension
of hostility between the world's larger powers. The failure of the US to make use of this opportunity,
thanks to an utter confusion between an ideological victory and crudely-defined US geopolitical interests,
was a great misfortune which the 'war against terrorism' could in part rectify. Since 11 September,
the rhetoric in America has proposed a gulf between the 'civilised' states of the present world system,
and movements of 'barbaric', violent protest from outside and below - without much deference to the
ambiguities of 'civilisation', or the justifications of resistance to it, remarked on since Tacitus
at least.
How is the Cold War legacy likely to determine the 'war against terrorism'? Despite the general
conviction in the Republican Party that it was simply Reagan's military spending and the superiority
of the US system which destroyed Soviet Communism, more serious Cold War analysts were always aware
that it involved not just military force, or the threat of it, but ideological and political struggle,
socio-economic measures, and state-building. The latter in particular is an idea for which the Bush
team on their arrival in office had a deep dislike (if only to distance themselves from Clinton's
policies), but which they may now rediscover. Foreign aid - so shamefully reduced in the 1990s -
was also a key part of the Cold War, and if much of it was poured into kleptocratic regimes like
Mobutu's, or wasted on misguided projects, some at least helped produce flourishing economies in
Europe and East Asia.
The Republican Party is not only the party of Goldwater and Reagan, but of Eisenhower, Nixon and
Kissinger. Eisenhower is now almost forgotten by the party. 'Eisenhower Republicans', as they refer
to themselves, are usually far closer to Tony Blair (or perhaps more accurately, Helmut Schmidt)
than anyone the Republican Party has seen in recent years, and I'd wager that the majority of educated
Americans have forgotten that the original warning about the influence of the 'military industrial
complex' came from Eisenhower.
Kissinger is still very much alive, however, and his history is a reminder that one aspect of
the American capacity for extreme ruthlessness was also a capacity for radical changes of policy,
for reconciliation with states hitherto regarded as bitter enemies, and for cold-blooded abandonment
of close allies and clients whose usefulness was at an end. It would not altogether surprise me if
we were now to see a radical shift towards real co-operation with Russia, and even Iran.
In general, however, the Cold War legacies and parallels are discouraging and dangerous. To judge
by the language used in the days since 11 September, ignorance, demonisation and the drowning out
of nuanced debate indicate that much of the US establishment can no more tell the difference between
Iran and Afghanistan than they could between China and the Soviet Union in the early 1960s - the
inexcusable error which led to the American war in Vietnam. The preference for militarised solutions
continues (the 'War on Drugs', which will now have to be scaled back, is an example). Most worryingly,
the direct attack on American soil and American civilians - far worse than anything done to the US
in the Cold War - means that there is a real danger of a return to Cold War ruthlessness: not just
in terms of military tactics and covert operations, but in terms of the repulsive and endangered
regimes co-opted as local American clients.
The stakes are, if anything, a good deal higher than they were during the Cold War. Given what
we now know of Soviet policymaking, it is by no means clear that the Kremlin ever seriously contemplated
a nuclear strike against America. By contrast, it seems likely that bin Laden et al would in the
end use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons if they could deliver them.
There is also the question of the impact of US strategies (or, in the case of Israel, lack of
them) on the unity of the West - assuming that this is of some importance for the wellbeing of humanity.
However great the exasperation of many European states with US policy throughout the Cold War, the
Europeans were bound into the transatlantic alliance by an obvious Soviet threat - more immediate
to them than it was to the US. For the critical first decade of the Cold War, the economies of Europe
were hopelessly inferior to that of the US. Today, if European Governments feel that the US is dragging
them into unnecessary danger thanks to policies of which they disapprove, they will protest bitterly
- as many did during the Cold War - and then begin to distance themselves, which they could not afford
to do fifty years ago.
This is all the more likely if, as seems overwhelmingly probable, the US withdraws from the Balkans
- as it has already done in Macedonia - leaving Europeans with no good reason to require a US military
presence on their continent. At the same time, the cultural gap between Europeans and Republican
America (which does not mean a majority of Americans, but the dominant strain of policy) will continue
to widen. 'Who says we share common values with the Europeans?' a senior US politician remarked recently.
'They don't even go to church!' Among other harmful effects, the destruction of this relationship
could signal the collapse of whatever hope still exists for a common Western approach to global environmental
issues - which would, in the end, pose a greater danger to humanity than that of terrorism.
· Anatol Lieven is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington
DC.
"... An important thing about that Time article regarding the Sony Hack is that it is almost two years old. Important because I'm still having to tell people that despite what the President and the government said North Korea didn't hack Sony because of a really bad movie, but that insiders did it for reasons that were never part of the media blitz about it. And believe me, considering that Clinton is lying through her teeth beyond even the government about this, I point this out a lot. ..."
"... Something that jumped out at me in December 2014 was a blog post by David E Martin. His blog post more or less laid out the whole game planand in so doing, I suspect he thwarted the planned story line. It was amazing to read that the whole plot had actually been presented to Congress years before. ..."
"... I'm inferring his intention in writing the post was to spill enough beans to prevent a catastrophic false flag event, as that is why he wrote his book "Coup d'Twelve" . (He spoke about this on numerous radio interviews at the time, and as also discussed it in person.) ..."
"... Never let an opportunity for a bit of Russian bashing go to waste it seems. Is there anything at all in the history of the entire world that the Russians aren't responsible for? ..."
An important thing about that Time article regarding the Sony Hack is that it is almost two
years old. Important because I'm still having to tell people that despite what the President and
the government said North Korea didn't hack Sony because of a really bad movie, but that insiders
did it for reasons that were never part of the media blitz about it. And believe me, considering
that Clinton is lying through her teeth beyond even the government about this, I point this out
a lot.
Something that jumped out at me in December 2014 was a blog post by David E Martin. His
blog post more or less laid out the whole game planand in so doing, I suspect he thwarted
the planned story line. It was amazing to read that the whole plot had actually been presented
to Congress years before.
I'm inferring his intention in writing the post was to spill enough beans to prevent a catastrophic
false flag event, as that is why he wrote his book
"Coup d'Twelve" . (He spoke about this on numerous radio interviews at the time, and as also
discussed it in person.)
I had to laugh when I read this in the article though:
"A recent linguistic analysis cited in the New York Times found that the hackers' language
in threats against Sony was written by a native Russian speaker and not a native Korean speaker."
Never let an opportunity for a bit of Russian bashing go to waste it seems. Is there anything
at all in the history of the entire world that the Russians aren't responsible for?
New evidence appears to show how hackers earlier this year stole more than 50,000 emails
of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, an audacious electronic attack blamed on Russia's government
and one that has resulted in embarrassing political disclosures about Democrats in the final
weeks before the U.S. presidential election.
The hackers sent John Podesta an official-looking email on Saturday, March 19, that appeared
to come from Google. It warned that someone in Ukraine had obtained Podesta's personal Gmail
password and tried unsuccessfully to log in, and it directed him to a website where he should
"change your password immediately."
Podesta's chief of staff, Sara Latham, forwarded the email to the operations help desk of
Clinton's campaign, where staffer Charles Delavan in Brooklyn, New York, wrote back 25 minutes
later, "This is a legitimate email. John needs to change his password immediately."
And if the ploy was that low-grade, that means that the Russki superbrains in the KGB didn't
have to be behind it. Dear Lord.
This really is a hubris followed by nemesis thing, isn't it? And how sad it is, how tragic,
that it was Brooklyn that brought Podesta down. Somehow I think Delavan is going to have
a hard time getting a job in politics again, but he did the country a great service.
Social engineering wins again. This was something I learned about long ago when Black Box Voting.org
started (approx. 2004). It was one of the many vulnerabilities in various points of election systems,
both with paper and paperless. Very easy to get officials to reveal passwords that allowed accessthat's
in addition to the corruption situations. (Or rather, the social engineering angle would be just
one of the tools used by insiders.)
"... It takes a village of idiots to raise a few more idiots. And that village gets paid. And that cost sink generates more resource and administrative cost sinks. So the nominal costs declared are the tip of a larger boondoggle iceberg. ..."
"... I know this may be too simplistic a question for someone with the brilliance of Hillary Clinton and our current Military leaders, but would someone explain to me why we need to essentially recruit and train people for a civil war? ..."
So if HRC triples that, we will graduate roughly 150 soldiers at the price of 10 million
each, if I'm doing my figures correctly. Maybe they should hire contingent faculty and graduate
students to handle the 101 courses, they might get the same results for cheaper.
If you want to know more about Division 30, as this training program's fighting unit is
called, read the wiki page
, which has some great gems like:
In September 2015, a second group of Division 30 rebels with 12 Toyota pick-up trucks,
medium machine guns and ammunition crossed the Syrian-Turkish border and ended up giving
up much of their weaponry and ammunition to the Al-Nusra Front in order to secure passage
farther into Syria.[13][14]
By the end of September 2015, General Lloyd Austin, head of US Central Command, said
the remaining members of Division 30 were limited in number, "We're talking four or five".
Division 30's current whereabouts are unknown after they allegedly stopped receiving funding
and supplies from the U.S.[3]
I can't even keep track of my coworkers, I have no idea how they can possibly say, "Oh yeah,
there's four or five of them left".
Maybe they should hire contingent faculty and graduate students to handle the 101 courses,
they might get the same results for cheaper.
I'd like to suggest web-based training instead. I mean, we have no problem with remote-controlled
drone assasinations, surely a cost-effective distance learning program isn't too much to ask.
Maybe they should hire contingent faculty and graduate students to handle the 101 courses,
they might get the same results for cheaper
I'd like to suggest web-based training instead. I mean, we have no problem with remote-controlled
drone assassinations. Surely a distance-learning, interactive training curriculum for our designated
freedom fighters isn't too much to ask. Add in a posttest and certification levels and you've
got a Common Core for Democracy.
As I recall from reading Seymour Hersh on this .the program was set up as a replacement
for the CIA's program to supply rebels, but the Pentagon lost the fight, partially on this.
Both programs are still running.
You missed the bit where one of our lovely "moderate" groups released video of beheading
sick children in hospital beds, and that as a result we were planning to "review" our support
of them. I'm sure that "review" is going well, in fact I think they should put McCain in charge
of it, after all he knows these "moderates" personally and was filmed sharing lots of yuks
and high-fives with them.
It takes a village of idiots to raise a few more idiots. And that village gets paid. And
that cost sink generates more resource and administrative cost sinks. So the nominal costs
declared are the tip of a larger boondoggle iceberg.
I know this may be too simplistic a question for someone with the brilliance of Hillary
Clinton and our current Military leaders, but would someone explain to me why we need to essentially
recruit and train people for a civil war?
If this war is one that the people have been driven
to engage in, wouldn't the real problem be picking the best of the multitudes of volunteers
who are dedicated to freeing their country? I seem to remember there being a pretty good number
of people behind the US Civil War, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, etc. Sure
there was coercion as well, but that was internal not external. Perhaps their problems is not
the execution of the 'training', but the fact that they are trying to instigate an unwanted
civil war.
Just a thought, but I do think the Press might want to explore that possible aspect. Because
as a betting woman, I'd say the odds are that a whole lot of Americans who have thought about
this have come to the same conclusion I have. This isn't about what SYRIANS want.
I just want to point out that German media is worst, because Germans need the most convincing
to go to war with Russia. The western media now has to combat the anti-war tendencies they propagated
onto Germans ever since the end of WW2. If you read the comments on all these anti-Putin propaganda
articles, you can tell that Germans hate their own media for doing so.
Hey, I`m from Germany (Stuttgart), and i can definitely say, that we Germans hate our media and
get the informations we need from the Internet. Angela Merkel do what Obama says to her and we
can do nothing. if we go to the street and make a Demonstration they say we are nazi or the media
say nothing. many People (the old People) in Germany hate Putin and belive the lies from the media,
but we, the young people dont belive the lies. We love Putin and wish Angela Merkel will be a
little bit like Putin.
I'm also German (Lahr, Schwartzwald) and totally agree. NEVER watch German TV. It is like for
imbeciles. Cooking, singing, festivals everything to keep us from thinking for ourselves. I also
get all my info from sites like this one and many others. Love Putin and think Ouma Merkel sold
out to the US.
Most of the psyop against Putin and Rus in general is due to the fact that the Central Banks,
IMF, Federal Reserve, etc cannot worm their way into Rus for their own purposes. Those banks
have destroyed every country that they have managed to get their dirty fingers into; the US included.
Putin is not a bad man; my ONLY 'problem' with him is his divorce, beyond that, he appears
to be above board in every way. NOBODY knows what happened within his family, so it is all tabloid
speculation.
The SECOND major reason that everyone wants to malign Rus (and Putin by proxy) is they have
re-appeared on the world stage as a power to be dealt with. They seem to have recovered from the
collapse of the Soviet Union, and are working their way into proper capitalism, BUT, again, the
fingers of the bankers (hence the West) cannot get their groping claws into the country, so they
are pissed! They want Rus to be a colony of the west; to bend on their whim. That did not occur.
Third is the inability of the US 'security' agencies inability to penetrate and turn Rus into
one of their nightmares. CIA, DIA, NSA, etc ALL want to conduct coup's, fiddle with the banking,
mess with people's minds, randomly change the power structure at will, but they cannot, so they
are pissed off as well.
NOW that the West appears to be imploding, and the BRICS seem to be getting ready to break
loose from the almighty US Dollar, they (the West) are woobeling back and forth with much veracity
(typical of an Empire about to topple over on it's own weight). Think of a child's top that is
loosing it's spin and is preparing to fall over.
SO, the only way the powers-that-be can distract the 'public' from the truth is to make up
pure BS.
Excellent. Another point to grasp is that the Banksters do not want a true capitalism, where inefficiency
fails, & competition trims profits.
They want what we now have in the West : a crony corporatist state, where ever fewer giant globalist
multinationals dominate both commerce & countries, pay no taxes, to the benefit of their CEOs
, shareholders & their banksters.
In short, effectively, a Fascism.
Book : Pawns in the Game, by William Guy Carr. See where those "Atlantic Integrationists" came
from.
Russia today is the only power standing up to the world oligarchy. If Russia falls then we will
all be living as slaves behind a barb wired fence, with chips under our skin, etc. etc.
Yes, and Russia has actually been making efforts to keep the dollar afloat, because they know
the US hegemons will get even nastier of their precious dollar becomes worthless. Their goal isn't
to integrate Ukraine into the EU. They want to create a failed state on Russia's border, and also
hopefully engage them militarily in Syria and in places like Chechnya.
I've heard tell...Russia's central banking institution does not belong to the state. Does this
sound familiar? I do not believe that the international banking system give two turds about the
affairs of Russia, unless...Russia moves to control it's own central bank, then there would be
real war.
Bankers have no allegiance except to money!
I am an American and hate what my government has done -- Mr Putin is the greatest world leader
of our time -- My President is a total mess and a danger to world peace -- He's jealous of Mr Putin --
It is interesting to speculate what will happen when the dollar falls . The zionist entity will
not get the billion of dollars they need to continue with the Apartheid state . The zionists are
the major reason the USA is being destroyed from the inside. When there will be nothing to loot
in the USA , I bet they will go back to Germany for another round of looting as they did before
the advent of Hitler . So those Khazars in about 80 years have destroyed two European nations
, Germany and the USA . Given a chance they would do the same with Russia .
Well, look, we had two national elections, and he won them, fair and square. So a majority of
the people in the US chose him. That he's influenced by groups of one sort or another is a separate
issue.
His major problem has been and remains his revanchist mentor, the notorious Polish Brzezinski,
who has been pushing him to oppose Russia. Obama is a lawyer, and he has very little knowledge
of history, which could have helped him enormously. How? By showing him that bids for mastery
of Europe, to think only of that area, which has seen tremendous contention with Russia over Ukraine,
are bound to lead to wars if they're not replaced by a healthy respect for spheres of influence
of the most important states, i.e., the US and Russia.
Obama should never have allowed the Fascist coup that brought the Nazi Svoboda and Pravyi Sektor
to power after Maidan in Kiev. That fascist government won't survive without US/EU help and funding.
That was mistake number one. Mistake number two is even worse, and it's being made now. It is
the extremely ill-considered attempt to destroy the pro-Russian Eastern Ukrainians, that is, to
reassert Kiev's power over Eastern Ukraine (though it'd take US arms and aid).
I frankly don't see that any responsible Russian statesman, Tsarist, Communist or post-Communist,
could allow as vital and historically linked to Russia an area as Ukraine, let alone Eastern Ukraine,
to be removed from Russia's rightful sphere of influence in Europe. If Obama wants peace, he should
chuck Brzezinski and leave at the very least Eastern Ukraine, at this point, to the Russophile
forces there.
Agree, Patty.
The same for the un-elected Mandarins in Brussels. They are a real swamp. Lazy, clueless, overpaid
and greedy still. They are powerhungry despite their tremendous lack of any political clout. Vasalls
through blackmail by 3 letter agencies?
The same for german Mrs. Merkel. Being a german citizen, I am ashamed of thus woman and her orwellian
,politics'.
Today, the former CEO of Thyssen-Krupp, Prof. Dr. Dieter Spethmann, a lawyer, called for her urgent
removal from the job by publishing an Open Letter in mmnews (a blog).
I could care less the FBI or CIA comes knocking ..for what ? Voicing an opinion ? Good I will
when I tell them to , Screw Off! My opinion sticks! Mr Putin is the greatest world leader of our
time and don't expect another one like him for a good long time -- He takes no shit, bribes or
bullshit -- Its what we need here in America! God bless him in his struggles with corrupt NATO
and my twisted, warmongering Government!
look at all the blogs/comments in Uk nationalistic papers eg Daily mail-readers comments are full
of vile nonsense and insane idiocy-there is no hope of peaceful resolution Rus and west while
ordinary people are so ill informed, do not even wish to understand, completely prejudiced, have
such entrenched attitudes perpetuated by mass media, playstation/xbox games and zombie films exported
from USA that have morally corrupted peoples and nations. NGO's being funded by USA to subvert
other states, look out for cyberwarfare too. Please support The Saker too, very high intelligence
from this analyst.
The Russia bashing is indeed perplexing. But it is not universal. One explanation is that Americans
are afraid of the rivalry. Also Americans have been brought up with a negative imagine of "KGB"
and it is impossible to shake this. Russia would love to be part of Europe and increase ties and
business. Europe is game; but not USA. It represents a challenge to its own supremacy. I think
this is the underlying problem. Putin came out of nowhere, as many of the "Putin Videos" show.
His first priority was to rebuild the morale of the Russian army and to do this he picked on Chechnia.
Perhaps today he would do things differently. He also turned on many oligarchs who had helped
him. But he did this because he did not ask nor want their "help" which he considered self-serving;
they wanted to control him, not the other way round. He may regret having been too hard on some
(Boris Bereshovski for instance) but it had to be done. All these things played into the hands
of the anti-Russians in US. One thing is sure. Neither Russia nor Putin had anything to do with
the riots in Maidan which are the root cause of all the disasters occurring in that country. If
Putin "took advantage" of the break-down in Kiev to retake Crimea so much to his credit. It was
certainly not "planned". The State Dept got faked out. Now they are licking their wounds by Putin
bashing day in day out. Rather pathetic really. The best would be to welcome Russia into the world
economy. It can make a great contribution.
Well, Washington D.C. IS afraid of rivalry. Remeber the 1992 ,Wolfowitz Doctrine'? Even one of the mouthpieces, the NYT, was slightly disgusted.
The essence of that vile doctrine: do not allow any rival to rise and challenge US power, hegemony.
I was brought up to hate Russia, to fear Russia but not anymore! It was all lies and manipulation!
Do not include all Americans because its just not true but yes, Russophobia is from decades and
decades of brainshing in America.. Believe me, since literally the age of 5 I was taught to fear
Russia. From school drills in preparation of " Russia coming to get us" to Putin being a communist
dictator to now, Russia is more dangerous than terrorists organization is ALL lies by our government
and media! People need to wake the hell up -- It is our government bombing and invading countries,
our government funding millions to Isreal to slaughter Palestines, funding Nazi Ukraine president
to kill Russian speaking E Ukrainians! Our government funded and trained ISIS! The world is not
n chaos because of your government!
Americans are NOT afraid of Russia. The powers that be are afraid of Russia because they cannot
control Russia (and probably never will, but history has proven man wrong at every turn).
MOST Americans are asleep at the wheel of a paper vehicle traveling 1000 mile per hour towards
a hole in the ground filled with burning oil and are happy for it! American society has become
the antithesis of the founding fathers.
I am not at all afraid of Russia. In fact they're much like us , who want peace and wished our
countries were friends and allies like we should be -- But NO -- We have twisted butthead warmongers
who want to cause trouble and keep Russia down because heaven forbid they might be bigger and
better than us! I say good for them -- We are NOT excepectionals , we should be equals --
Guess what, the Russians are not afraid of USA either.
But we all ARE afraid of a wounded animal, they are the most dangerous. And USA is a wounded dying
animal. I will be very surprised if humanity managed to avoid a nuclear war within the next 10
years. The fake "capitalism" is collapsing and the only way out is a major war.
Just consider the speech's given by Western Leader's at the opening session of the UN recently-Cameron
posits critical thinking as being aligned with ISIS-Obama casting Russia as a threat equal to
ISIS and Ebola, ...these statements are allowed to pass uncritically into the mainstream without
a second thought. This depraved leadership sends shivers down my spine as it indicates just serious
our problems are and how far down the rabbit hole we have fallen. Capitalism in crisis produces
fascism at home and primitive accumulation in the form of Imperialism abroad. America is broke
and going from Broke having invested trillions in PNAC they are doubling down on full spectrum
dominance-a fallacy that will never be reached leaving poverty stricken societies in their wake.
Societies akin to the Hunger Games-quasi-feudal fiefdoms only serfs had more rights than today's
wage slaves-tenure on the land,access to the mode of production ability the keep and trade the
fruits of their labour at least to an extent. The fall of the Soviet Union was a catastrophe for
the workers of the world-Not only did we not get a peace dividend from the end of the cold war
but a century of social gains won by labour have been rolled back to practically nothing the finishing
touches being put into place with the free trade deals about to be unleashed upon the Western
Worker-notice austerity was and is not an option for Putin's Russia-he has put his neck on the
line for his people and his country and they will do the same for him and the Motherland.
America has to hire mercenaries to fight their battles which is why they can't win. And these
false flags are getting a little tiresome. And Mr. Lavrov as FM he is the consummate diplomat,
he does not brow beat or chest pound,nor does he humiliate his adversaries even though circumstances
have offered him ample opportunities-people like MCCAIN OBAMA and KERRY embarrass themselves and
their nation often enough without Russia having to add insult to injury-Russia is above that but
truth telling is another matter and must be pursued no matter how embarrassing for certain parties
the exercise maybe Russia does need to increase it's public relations budget every thing from
student exchanges on up to film festivals Sochi would make an excellent venue for the glitterati......and
serves as a reminder of just how immature the West truly is when one harken's back to the coverage
of the Olympics. This Ukraine situation needs to be resolved in opposition to the fascists putsch
ruling now before it blows up in all of our faces. Cohen nailed it-we are 5 min. to midnight and
closing. Our real enemy is not in the Kremlin or the Middle East-but right here on Wall Street
and Pennsylvania Avenue-time for Occupy 2.0 with Agenda.
Yes, and Ebola isn't a real threat. The only reason it's in the US is because people have been
idiots and have not taken the proper precautions. Russia has a vaccine ready to go. ISIS was created
by the US, and they're not a real threat. I am not afraid of Russia or the KGB or Putin or Boris
and Natasha. All of it is fear, fear, fear, fear, fear.
Oh Yes, and not forgetting the hybrid not so Holy Hollywood, the entertainment industry who of
course are run by the Banksters. The missing link in humanity the genetic modification from apes
to human form, the Banksters. Do you remember the "Man from Atlantis" and the "Planet of the Apes"
and the oil magnets "Dallas"
What this shows more than anything is how desperate the western elites are. They know Russia,
China and others are rising powers and that the US empire's days are numbered. The dollar's reign
as world reserve currency is coming to an end and they know that the US a busted, bankrupt economic
house of cards that could completely collapse at any time taking down US power with it. Hence,
the risk taking and recklessness. We're in a very dangerous time.
It just takes a few to manipulate the minds of public opinion and perception. That is mind control
and you have to ignore mainstream media and go online to find unadulterated truth. Putin has other
means to deal with the US; he doesn't have to stoop so low to call obama what he really is: an
illegitimate child who became an illegitimate president, a man who came from nowhere and has nothing
to offer but war with third world nations who have no nuclear defense. America is as confused
as Africa and his zionist handlers like it that way.
The basic problem is, and always will be, that people believe what they want to believe irregardless
of facts, evidence, proof or common sense. The believe that which they think will benefit themselves,
soothe their ego, fill their pockets, bring tem pleasure etc and deliberatly ignore, condemn,
and close their eyes to learning something that may not fit that goal. They rationalize away their
deliberate ignorance and refuse to look for truth under some morally relative "label" or "cause"
so that they don't have to face truth about themselves and their true intentions.
The "US Deep State" is actually called the "US National Security State" which is comprised of
the Black House, Satanic Pentagon, Cancerous CIA, Police State FBI, and a few other agencies.
Their job is to make the world safe and prosperous for the 1% Owners of the United States.
All this demonizing of President Putin is for a purpose: To paint the Narrative of who the
Bad Guy is during our upcoming WW3! Remember when those ICBMs are flying, that is the END of WW3,
not the beginning!
Be very careful, mate. The western press might be defaming Putin, but he is far from being a saint.
Putin is a powerful man and is there by virtue of a desire for power. Powerful men do whatever
they can to remain powerful and it just so happens that this now goes against the interests of
the banksters and the biatches that they control in power. If Putin believed for a minute that
his best interest lay in doing what those scummers wanted, he would do so in a heartbeat.
The New York Times reported
Tuesday that Obama won't attempt to revise the so-called "First Strike" doctrine before leaving
office in January 2017.
The paper noted he had faced criticism, including some from "former senior aides," over unfulfilled
campaign and first-term promises, to work towards "a world without nuclear weapons."
"For months, arms control advocates have argued for a series of steps to advance the pledge he
made," the Times said. "An unequivocal no-first-use pledge would have been the boldest of those measures."
The source of complaints about the President's about-face are from roughly six years ago. In 2010,
when Obama renewed the START treaty with Russia, he also agreed to modernize the US nuclear arsenal,
per Congressional Republicans' demands.
The Times said that a shift away from First Strike would be mostly cosmetic, with US presidents
dating back to Harry Truman, having pledged to only use nuclear weapons as a "last resort."
History, however, casts a pall over these pledges.
Truman ordered the dropping of two atomic bombs on an already-battered Imperial Japan in 1945,
despite the fact that some American
military officials
at the time and, in the years afterexpressed doubt that the nuclear bombings were needed to
force a Japanese surrender. Those critics included Dwight Eisenhower, Pacific fleet commander Adm.
Chester Nimitz, and Truman's Chief of Staff, Adm. William Leahy. The United States is still the only
nation in history to use nuclear weapons against an adversary.
According to The New York Times' Tuesday report, President Obama had considered a move
away from First Strike this summer, not long after he became the first US President to visit Hiroshima-the
first of the two Japanese cities targeted by nuclear weapons, under orders from Truman.
Obama was, however, persuaded to move away from altering the policy by his cabinet. The Secretaries
of Defense, State and Energy-Ash Carter, John Kerry, and Ernest Moniz-were all opposed to the move.
Kerry and Carter were particularly concerned about upsetting allies in East Asia, South Korea
and Japan, in the context of perceived US "weakness," in the face of possible North Korean military
strikes.
The Times also noted Kerry objecting to "weaken[ing] the nuclear deterrent while Russia is running
practice bombing runs over Europe and China is expanding its reach in the South China Sea."
President Obama also ran the risk of adopting a policy that would be quickly reversed by the next
administration, the paper noted.
"[Donald] Trump bristled at the idea [of abandoning first strike], saying he would never want
to weaken America's leverage," The Times said. "[Hillary] Clinton has not spoken on the issue
during her campaign."
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday accused American politicians of whipping up hysteria about a
mythical Russian threat as a ploy to distract voters from their own failings in the run-up to the
U.S. presidential election.
Putin, addressing an audience of foreign policy experts gathered in southern Russia, repeatedly
lashed out at the Obama administration, saying it did not keep its word on Syria, did not honour
deals, and had falsely accused Moscow of all manner of sins.
The U.S. government has formally accused Russia of a campaign of cyber attacks against Democratic
Party organisations, while Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton has accused Republican rival Donald
Trump of being a Putin "puppet".
Putin said he found it hard to believe that anyone seriously thought Moscow was capable of influencing
the Nov. 8 election.
"Hysteria has been whipped up," said Putin.
He said that was a ruse to cover up for the fact that the U.S. political elite had nothing to
say about serious issues such as the country's national debt or gun control.
War hysteria in a country with imperial nostalgia, one-man rule and a weak economy cannot
be taken lightly.
Michael Khodarkovsky is a professor of history at Loyola University.
[ The fostering of fear of and disdain for Russia is continual now and however false the
characterizations of Russia are, and they are indeed false, the fear and disdain will influence
and be self-defeating for American foreign policy from here till a dramatic change comes from
another administration. I unfortunately find no such change in the offing. ]
progressivism & humanitarianism in war profiteering aka mongering......
"Civilian protective operations" panders a neocon excuse for organized state run murder.
Bill went after the Tsar as soon as his closet neocon found out they could have the Germans
send a mechanized brigade of Warsaw Pact armaments to the Croats and Yeltsin did nothing.
The Russian version of Chamberlain and Munich was Croatian independence.
ilsm -> anne... , -1
Most career military pilots I knew were terrified by the thought of no more perpetual bombing.
They would think Clinton and the neocons can keep a low boil going in the PNAC for another
100 years without tripping into a real war, or bankrupting the USA.
It is a signifier of the moral bankruptcy that the exceptional carry as a badge.
With the "defenses available" to Syria they could enforce no fly zones on GCC and their
blood thirsty allies as as might US over Raqqa.
All their arguments does not stand even entry level programmer scrutiny. Especially silly are "Russian
keyboard and timestamps" argument. As if, say Israelis or, say, Estonians, or any other country with
sizable Russian speaking population can't use those to direct investigation at the wrong track ;-).
If I were a Russian hacker trying to penetrate into DNC servers I would use only NSA toolkit and
libraries that I can find on black market. First on all they are reasonably good. the second that help
to direct people to in a wrong direction. and if knew Spanish or English or French reasonably well I
would use them exclusively. If not I would pay for translation of set of variables into those languages
and "forget" to delete symbol table in one of the module giving raw meat to idiots like those.
Actually you can find a lot of such people even in London, Paris, Madrid and NYC, and some of them
really do not like the US neoliberal administration with its unending wars of expansion of neoliberal
empire :-) But still they are considered to be "security expert". When you hear now the word "security
expert", please substitute it for "security charlatan" for better comprehensions -- that's almost always
the case about people posing as security experts for MSM. The only reliable exception are whistleblowers
-- those people sacrifices their lucrative carriers for telling the truth, so they can usually be trusted.
They might exaggerate things on the negative side, though. I personally highly respect William Binney.
The "regular" security expects especially from tiny, struggling security companies in reality they
are low paid propagandists amplifying the set of prepared talking point. The arguments are usually pretty
childish. BTW, after the USA/Israeli operation against Iran using Stixnet and Flame in Middle East,
complex Trojans are just commonplace and are actually available to more or less qualified hacker, or
even a unqualified person with some money and desire to take risks.
I especially like the phrase "beyond a reasonable doubt that the hack was in fact an operation of
the Russian state." Is not this a slander, or what ? Only two cagagiry of peopel: impetcils and paid
presstitutes has think about complex hacking operation origin "beyond reasonable doubt")
How do we really know that the
breaches of the Democratic National Committee were conducted by organizations working on behalf
of the Russian state? With the CIA considering a major counterstrike against the superpower,
as NBC has reported , it's worthwhile for the public to measure how confident we can be that
Putin's government actually deserves retribution.
"When you're investigating a cybersecurity breach, no one knows whether you're a Russian hacker
or a Chinese hacker pretending to be a Russian hacker or even a U.S. hacker pretending to be a Chinese
hacker pretending to be a Russian hacker," reporter Jordan Robertson says during the third episode
of
a solid new podcast from Bloomberg, called "Decrypted." In the new episode, he and fellow reporter
Aki Ito
break down the facts that put security experts beyond a reasonable doubt that the hack was
in fact an operation of the Russian state.
Here are the key points:
Familiar techniques. Crowdstrike
came in first, once DNC IT teams suspected breaches and recognized the techniques of the two
groups it calls Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear. Others refer to them as APT 28 and 29, where APT stands
for " Advanced
Persistent Threat ." Crowdstrike's co-founder Dmitri Alperovitch broke down his reasoning
on its blog , writing, "We've had lots of experience with both of these actors attempting
to target our customers in the past and know them well. In fact, our team considers them some
of the best adversaries out of all the numerous nation-state, criminal and hacktivist/terrorist
groups we encounter on a daily basis."
Redundancy is Russian. The Crowdstrike post explains that the fact that two organizations
were inside and apparently not working together is consistent with Russian operations. " While
you would virtually never see Western intelligence agencies going after the same target without
de-confliction for fear of compromising each other's operations, in Russia this is not an uncommon
scenario," Alperovitch writes.
Such nice code. Bloomberg turns to an ex-cop at one of the companies that Crowdstrike recruited
to check its work, Mike Buratowski at
Fidelis . His company put the code
discovered on DNC servers into a virtual environment to test it. "You look at the complexity of
what the malware was able to do. The fact that it had the ability to, basically, terminate itself
and wipe its tracks, hide its tracks. You know, that's not stuff you see in commoditized malware,
really," Buratowski said. In other words, this wasn't the kind of malware a cybercriminal could
buy on the black market. It was bespoke stuff made by teams of pros. Buratowski later calls the
code "elegant." Motherboard gives examples of
phishing
emails used , which showed careful attention to detail. Too good, he contends, for one person
or a small team to build.
Russian keyboards and timestamps. Investigators found evidence in the code that it had been
written on a Russian style keyboard and
found timestamps across multiple pieces of code consistent with the Russian workday.
Motive. This was an extremely complex hack that took a lot of time and effort. Again, the
Crowdstrike post helps here. It discusses evidence that the spies returned to the scene of the
crime repeatedly to change out code to avoid detection. Buratowski refers to it as an entity with
more operational discipline than an individual or a loose group could sustain. Which begs the
question: who but a nation-state would have sufficient motive to work that hard? Further, the
same groups were linked both to the hacks on
John Podesta and
Colin Powell , which suggests a multi-front initiative. That goes beyond what a hacker collective
might do for bragging rights or lulz.
Information war. The DNC emails dropped the day before the party's national convention. "Releasing
the emails the evening before the convention started? Now you're looking at it like: that really
smacks of an information operation," Buratowski says.
Official attribution from the US government . Washington sees evidence of breaches all the
time. It seldom points the finger at specific states, the Decrypted team argues. The fact that
it has is powerful. "There are ways the government can really know what's going on," Robertson
said, "in a way that no private cybersecurity could ever match."
From there, the podcast asks: what does this hack mean for the U.S. election. They come to basically
the same conclusions that
the Observer did in September : voting systems are very safe-voter rolls are less so, but nation-states
probably want to discredit our system more than they want to change outcomes.
How sure can we be? Buratowski says, "Barring seeing someone at a keyboard or a confession, you're
relying on that circumstantial evidence." So, we can never really know for sure. In fact, even Crowdstrike's
attribution is based on prior experience, which assumes that they have attributed other hacks correctly
in the past. Former congressional staffer Richard Diamond
in USA Today argues that the hacks can be explained by bad passwords, but he also neglects
to counter Crowdstrike's descriptions of the sophisticated code placed inside the servers. From Bloomberg's
version of events, how the hackers got in was really the least interesting part of their investigation.
So what does it all mean? It's natural for political junkies to wonder if there might be further
disclosures coming before Election Day, but - if this is an information operation-it might be even
more disruptive to hold documents until after the election in order to throw doubt on our final choice.
Either way, further disclosures will probably come.
"... I find the whole hysteria over Russian hacking very one-sided. If the US takes it upon itself, out of sincere concern, to help out "moderates" in overthrowing a repressive, evil government in Syria, Libya and Iraq, maybe the same thing happening to the US itself is not that weird? Here is a tyrannical government with little regard for its demotivated and demoralized citizens who can not on their own displace it. This government threatens nuclear war and kills an unjustified number of its own citizens. Its public infrastructure is in ruins and oligarchy is everywhere. In the past the US has set the example for dealing with such troubled states; its time the doctor took his own medicine. ..."
"... Ahhhh, but that exactly where the "exceptional" clause kicks in. You see, America is justified in intervening in other countries' business because we see further, with a clearer gaze and a purer heart, than any other country in the world. Mired as they are in ignorance or inertia, no other country is qualified to judge us, and any mistakes that we make only occur because of the depths of our love for others and our passion for freedom. ..."
"... America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse that the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War. ~John le Carre ..."
"... It is terrifying to watch Clinton rave about adopting a more "muscular, aggressive" approach to foreign affairs - with little or no push back from the national media, either party or even many citizens. Hell, they are applause lines at her rallies. ..."
"... If 15 years of endless wars, trillions of dollars of wasted money, hundreds of thousands of casualties on all sides and metastasizing terrorist threat with no end in sight doesn't give one a little pause before advocating more of the same, then we might have a problem. ..."
"... Hillary said twice during the debates that "America is great because America is good." Translation: We can do whatever we damn well please because we can. Lord, help us all. I'm so sick of hearing this and our endless criminal wars. ..."
I find the whole hysteria over Russian hacking very one-sided. If the US takes it upon itself,
out of sincere concern, to help out "moderates" in overthrowing a repressive, evil government
in Syria, Libya and Iraq, maybe the same thing happening to the US itself is not that weird?
Here is a tyrannical government with little regard for its demotivated and demoralized citizens
who can not on their own displace it. This government threatens nuclear war and kills an unjustified
number of its own citizens. Its public infrastructure is in ruins and oligarchy is everywhere.
In the past the US has set the example for dealing with such troubled states; its time the
doctor took his own medicine.
The "evidence" for Russian hacking is so suspect that anyone who repeats the story instantly
stamps themselves as either a con or a mark. It's depressing to see media corruption so blatantly
displayed. Now I know what 2003 must have felt like (I was too young to have much of an opinion
back then).
The "17 intelligence agencies" claim is complete Clinton bullshit. I'm kind of amazed that
journalists are now stating this as fact. I could say I'm shocked but nothing the presstitutes
do surprises me anymore. They are busy preening for their future White House access. It kind
of makes me want to get drunk and vote for the orange haired guy.
Just finished trying to "re-educate" my husband after he listened to [and apparently believed]
a report in the CBS Evening News on the "Russian hacking of Clinton's e-mails." They reported
it as complete "fact," without even a perfunctory "alleged."
Too difficult to do this correction one person at a time, while the networks have such massive
reach.
It *is* highly asymmetric warfare. And as is normal when working the insurgent side, the
trick isn't to try to win by a large number of winning individual engagements, but rather of
delegitimatizing the side with the resource advantage in a broader, cultural way. Delegitimize
the mainstream media actively. If you win the culture war, you win the political war too just
as a bonus. Tell the truth, unapologetically. That's as bad-ass as it gets.
This is sound advice. Problem is, how to delegitimate media generally? Actual insurgents
avoid direct confrontations with superior occupying power and opt for a variety of other strategies
of attack, including: IED's, flash attacks, suicide bombings, disruption of civilian life,
etc. What are some equivalent, concrete (and legal) strategies for disrupting the order of
imposed media? The use of social media seems to be one option, and maybe the most successful.
Yet this tends to reach only certain segments of population who are unlikely to watch CNN or
read the Post in any case. How can one harm the media powers where it hurts them most, by reaching
and disrupting their actual consumers, who tend to be older, establishment-minded, white, etc ?
How to delegitimize the media? They are doing that themselves. In spades. Listen to the
people around you, they are getting wise to it. Just point it out to anyone who'll listen.
It isn't the bombs and attacks that win an insurgency, none of that stuff works if the cause
isn't widely understood and shared. The victory is wonto recycle a clichιin the hearts and
minds of the ordinary people. Naked Capitalism is a big ammo depot and we are the grunts and
the munitions are ideas. And as I alluded to above, the power of truth. Truth will kick ass
and take names if you let it.
"Truth will kick ass and take names if you let it."
Thanks for the spirit-raising exhortation Kurt!! Many Americans are walking around with
heads like over-inflated cognitive dissonance balloons. If you listen closely, you can hear
these balloons popping off all the time, resulting in yet another person able to confront reality.
What other intelligence agencies are there than the CIA and NSA? Does anyone know the other
15, and why are these intelligence agencies never spoken of in the media except when its useful
for Clinton?
The idea is essentially that even if the evidence did exist, it should be welcomed with
the same enthusiasm that US interventions have in Syria and Libya.
Ahhhh, but that exactly where the "exceptional" clause kicks in. You see, America is justified
in intervening in other countries' business because we see further, with a clearer gaze and
a purer heart, than any other country in the world. Mired as they are in ignorance or inertia,
no other country is qualified to judge us, and any mistakes that we make only occur because
of the depths of our love for others and our passion for freedom.
America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this the worst I can remember:
worse than McCarthyism, worse that the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous
than the Vietnam War. ~John le Carre
historical madness/hysterical madness take your pick.
It is terrifying to watch Clinton rave about adopting a more "muscular, aggressive" approach
to foreign affairs - with little or no push back from the national media, either party or even
many citizens. Hell, they are applause lines at her rallies.
If 15 years of endless wars, trillions of dollars of wasted money, hundreds of thousands
of casualties on all sides and metastasizing terrorist threat with no end in sight doesn't
give one a little pause before advocating more of the same, then we might have a problem.
she's a scorned woman beginning with her father. she's passive-aggressive with women projects
her never ending insecurities. SO she has something to prove vengeance is mine.
Hillary said twice during the debates that "America is great because America is good." Translation:
We can do whatever we damn well please because we can. Lord, help us all. I'm so sick of hearing
this and our endless criminal wars.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday it was hard for him to work with the current U.S.
administration because it did not stick to any agreements, including on Syria.
Putin said he was ready to engage with a new president however, whoever the American people chose,
and to discuss any problem.
"... Hillary has suggested on several occasions publicly that Trump cannot be trusted with the 'Nuclear Codes' because he is erratic and unstable. Now that most people agree that no matter where they came from the Wikileaks is telling the truth we can see how Hillary's own people are scared of her 'mood swings' and her health problems.... ..."
"... She is the one who should not have access to the Nuclear Codes much less be running for President ..."
"... Hillary's own campaign team is waging a war on women. ..."
"... The American media, nothing but despicable State Sycophant Propaganda Ministry runt traitors! ..."
"... Whether Russia is behind it or not is irrelevant. Its not like the USA is an innocent player in hacking other countries. What's of importance is the contents of the emails. Whoever hacked them - if any at all (they were most likely provided by disgruntled DNC insiders) did not alter them (as proven by security checks). HRC, the DNC and her campaign team are deeply corrupt, hence she is unqualified to lead the USA. ..."
"... So here's the REAL story. Amb. Stevens was sent to Benghazi post haste in order to retrieve US made Stinger missiles supplied to Ansar al Sharia without Congressional oversight or permission. Hillary brokered the deal through Stevens and a private arms dealer named Marc Turi. Then some of the shoulder fired missiles ended up in Afghanistan used against our own military. It was July 25th, 2012 when a Chinook helicopter was taken down by one of our own Stingers, but the idiot Taliban didn't arm the missile and the Chinook didn't explode, but had to land anyway. An ordnance team recovered the serial number off the missile which led back to a cache of Stingers being kept in Qatar by the CIA Obama and Hillary were now in full panic mode and Stevens was sent in to retrieve the rest of the Stingers. This was a "do-or-die" mission, which explains the stand down orders given to multiple commando teams. ..."
"... It was the State Dept, not the CIA that supplied them to our sworn enemies, because Petraeus wouldn't supply these deadly weapons due to their potential use on commercial aircraft. Then, Obama threw Gen. Petraeus under the bus after he refused to testify that he OK'd the BS talking points about a spontaneous uprising due to a Youtube video. ..."
"... Obama and Hillary committed treason...and THIS is what the investigation is all about, why she had a private server, (in order to delete the digital evidence), and why Obama, two weeks after the attack, told the UN that the attack was because of a Youtube video, even though everyone knew it was not. Further...the Taliban knew that this administration aided and abetted the enemy without Congressional approval when Boehner created the Select Cmte, and the Taliban began pushing the Obama Administration for the release of 5 Taliban Generals. Bowe Bergdahl was just a pawn...everyone KNEW he was a traitor. ..."
Hillary has suggested on several occasions publicly that Trump cannot be trusted with the 'Nuclear
Codes' because he is erratic and unstable. Now that most people agree that no matter where they came
from the Wikileaks is telling the truth we can see how Hillary's own people are scared of her 'mood
swings' and her health problems....
She is the one who should not have access to the Nuclear
Codes much less be running for President because she also is a Criminal and belongs in Federal
Prison.
This is coded speech microaggression. They are discriminating against her because she is a
woman, implying she is 'moody' you know 'hysterical'... hysterectomy... its sexist, its misogynist
its harassment, its abuse, its hate speech.
Come on Liberal media, where are you ... call it out... this is your bread and butter...
Hillary's own campaign team is waging a war on women.
They did it to Sarah Palin and Barbara Bachman... You know they'd do it if Trump said Hillary
was 'moody'.
The American media, nothing but despicable State Sycophant Propaganda Ministry runt traitors!
Whether Russia is behind it or not is irrelevant. Its not like the USA is an innocent player
in hacking other countries. What's of importance is the contents of the emails. Whoever hacked
them - if any at all (they were most likely provided by disgruntled DNC insiders) did not alter
them (as proven by security checks). HRC, the DNC and her campaign team are deeply corrupt, hence
she is unqualified to lead the USA.
Wikileaks needs to get this out (I have not verified the info sent to me last night):
So here's the REAL story. Amb. Stevens was sent to Benghazi post haste in order to retrieve
US made Stinger missiles supplied to Ansar al Sharia without Congressional oversight or permission.
Hillary brokered the deal through Stevens and a private arms dealer named Marc Turi. Then some
of the shoulder fired missiles ended up in Afghanistan used against our own military. It was July
25th, 2012 when a Chinook helicopter was taken down by one of our own Stingers, but the idiot
Taliban didn't arm the missile and the Chinook didn't explode, but had to land anyway. An ordnance
team recovered the serial number off the missile which led back to a cache of Stingers being kept
in Qatar by the CIA Obama and Hillary were now in full panic mode and Stevens was sent in to
retrieve the rest of the Stingers. This was a "do-or-die" mission, which explains the stand down
orders given to multiple commando teams.
It was the State Dept, not the CIA that supplied them to our sworn enemies, because Petraeus
wouldn't supply these deadly weapons due to their potential use on commercial aircraft. Then,
Obama threw Gen. Petraeus under the bus after he refused to testify that he OK'd the BS talking
points about a spontaneous uprising due to a Youtube video.
Obama and Hillary committed treason...and THIS is what the investigation is all about,
why she had a private server, (in order to delete the digital evidence), and why Obama, two weeks
after the attack, told the UN that the attack was because of a Youtube video, even though everyone
knew it was not. Further...the Taliban knew that this administration aided and abetted the enemy
without Congressional approval when Boehner created the Select Cmte, and the Taliban began pushing
the Obama Administration for the release of 5 Taliban Generals. Bowe Bergdahl was just a pawn...everyone
KNEW he was a traitor.
So we have a traitor as POTUS that is not only corrupt, but compromised...and a woman that
is a serial liar, perjured herself multiple times at the Hearing whom is running for POTUS. Only
the Dems, with their hands out, palms up, will support her. Perhaps this is why no military aircraft
was called in because the administration knew our enemies had Stingers.
Tim Kaine: "I don't think we can dignify documents dumped by WikiLeaks and just assume that they're
all accurate and true,"
They were confirmed true when John Podesta's Twitter password was distributed in one of the
WikiLeaks email releases and his Twitter account was hijacked the same day by a troll saying,
"Trump 2016! Hi pol". Checkmate b!tch. see more DNC Russian Hacker Pepe
Regular Guy
12 minutes ago The way they parse words, the Kaine statement still doesn't state the documents
are not accurate. He makes an editorial statement to mislead the listener into thinking there
is some reason to question the facts.
Sounds pretty much like poor temperament to me when you have mood problems. Can we please put
national security on hold for now, we have to check her mood ring. It is imperative for the best
outcome that we check her head space. WOW! That's a real dumb explanation. Maybe if we use the
word mood instead of temperament that will be better than telling people she has health problems
in her head.
"... If you say so. For now I'll leave any decisions or actions taken on these outcomes to Russian citizens. I would, however, kindly tell Victoria Nuland and her ilk to fuck off with their senile Cold War fantasies, morally bankrupt, third-rate Great Game machinations, and total spectrum dominance sociopathy. ..."
"... "Personally, I don't believe that Ukraine is governed by fascists, or that Ukraine shot down that jetliner, but I'm sure a lot of Russians do." ..."
"... There's definitely some of 'em hanging about, but yeah it mostly seems to be a motley assortment of oligarchs, gangsters, and grifters tied into international neoliberal capital and money flows. No doubt Russian believe a lot things. I find Americans tend to believe a lot things as well. ..."
"So democratic structures have to be robust and transparent before we care about them?"
No.
My point was it's very misleading. Misleading to set the parameters of discussion on U.S. posture
toward Russia in such a way as to assume that Putin's actions against a purported Russian "democracy"
have anything at all to do with USian antagonism of Russia. I'm sure you'll note current U.S.
military cooperation with that boisterous hotbed of democratic activity, Saudi Arabia, in Yemen.
Our allies in the house of Saud require help in defending their democratic way of life against
the totalitarianism of Yemeni tribes, you see. The U.S. opposes anti-democratic forces whenever
and where ever it can, especially in the Middle East. I guess that explains USian antipathy to
Russia.
"I'd give a pretty high value to an independent press and contested elections."
Yeah, it'd be interesting to see what the U.S. looked like with those dynamics in place.
"Those have been slowly crushed in Russia. The results for transparency have not been
great."
If you say so. For now I'll leave any decisions or actions taken on these outcomes to Russian
citizens. I would, however, kindly tell Victoria Nuland and her ilk to fuck off with their senile
Cold War fantasies, morally bankrupt, third-rate Great Game machinations, and total spectrum dominance
sociopathy.
"Personally, I don't believe that Ukraine is governed by fascists, or that Ukraine shot
down that jetliner, but I'm sure a lot of Russians do."
There's definitely some of 'em hanging about, but yeah it mostly seems to be a motley assortment
of oligarchs, gangsters, and grifters tied into international neoliberal capital and money flows.
No doubt Russian believe a lot things. I find Americans tend to believe a lot things as well.
"... Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich has just penned an extremely powerful warning about the warmongers in Washington D.C. Who funds them, what their motives are, and why it is imperative for the American people to stop them. ..."
"... Washington, DC, may be the only place in the world where people openly flaunt their pseudo-intellectuality by banding together, declaring themselves "think tanks," and raising money from external interests, including foreign governments, to compile reports that advance policies inimical to the real-life concerns of the American people. ..."
"... As a former member of the House of Representatives, I remember 16 years of congressional hearings where pedigreed experts came to advocate wars in testimony based on circular, rococo thinking devoid of depth, reality, and truth. I remember other hearings where the Pentagon was unable to reconcile over $1 trillion in accounts, lost track of $12 billion in cash sent to Iraq, and rigged a missile-defense test so that an interceptor could easily home in on a target. War is first and foremost a profitable racket. ..."
"... According to the front page of this past Friday's Washington Post, the bipartisan foreign-policy elite recommends the next president show less restraint than President Obama. Acting at the urging of "liberal" hawks brandishing humanitarian intervention, read war, the Obama administration attacked Libya along with allied powers working through NATO. ..."
It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only
one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and
the losses in lives.
A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority
of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit
of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.
Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich has just penned an extremely powerful warning about the
warmongers in Washington D.C. Who funds them, what their motives are, and why it is imperative for
the American people to stop them.
Washington, DC, may be the only place in the world where people openly flaunt their pseudo-intellectuality
by banding together, declaring themselves "think tanks," and raising money from external interests,
including foreign governments, to compile reports that advance policies inimical to the real-life
concerns of the American people.
As a former member of the House of Representatives, I remember 16 years of congressional hearings
where pedigreed experts came to advocate wars in testimony based on circular, rococo thinking
devoid of depth, reality, and truth. I remember other hearings where the Pentagon was unable to
reconcile over $1 trillion in accounts, lost track of $12 billion in cash sent to Iraq, and rigged
a missile-defense test so that an interceptor could easily home in on a target. War is first and
foremost a profitable racket.
How else to explain that in the past 15 years this city's so called bipartisan foreign policy
elite has promoted wars in Iraq and Libya, and interventions in Syria and Yemen, which have opened
Pandora's box to a trusting world, to the tune of trillions of dollars, a windfall for military
contractors. DC's think "tanks" should rightly be included in the taxonomy of armored war vehicles
and not as gathering places for refugees from academia.
According to the
front page of this past Friday's Washington Post, the bipartisan foreign-policy elite recommends
the next president show less restraint than President Obama. Acting at the urging of "liberal"
hawks brandishing humanitarian intervention, read war, the Obama administration attacked Libya
along with allied powers working through NATO.
The think tankers fell in line with the Iraq invasion. Not being in the tank, I did my own
analysis of the call for war in October of 2002, based on readily accessible information, and
easily concluded that there was no justification for war. I distributed it widely in Congress
and led 125 Democrats in voting against the Iraq war resolution. There was no money to be made
from a conclusion that war was uncalled for, so, against millions protesting in the United States
and worldwide, our government launched into an abyss, with a lot of armchair generals waving combat
pennants. The marching band and chowder society of DC think tanks learned nothing from the Iraq
and Libya experience.
The only winners were arms dealers, oil companies, and jihadists. Immediately after the fall
of Libya, the black flag of Al Qaeda was raised over a municipal building in Benghazi, Gadhafi's
murder was soon to follow, with Secretary Clinton quipping with a laugh, "We came, we saw, he
died." President Obama apparently learned from this misadventure, but not the Washington policy
establishment, which is spoiling for more war.
The self-identified liberal
Center for American Progress (CAP) is now calling for Syria to be bombed, and estimates America's
current military adventures will be tidied up by 2025, a tardy twist on "mission accomplished."
CAP, according to
a report in The Nation, has received funding from war contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing,
who make the bombers that CAP wants to rain hellfire on Syria.
As the drumbeat for an expanded war gets louder, Allen and Lister
jointly signed an op-ed in the Sunday Washington Post, calling for an attack on Syria. The
Brookings Institute,
in a report to Congress , admitted it received $250,000 from the US Central Command, Centcom,
where General Allen shared leadership duties with General David Petraeus. Pentagon money to think
tanks that endorse war? This is academic integrity, DC-style.
And why is Central Command, as well as the Food and Drug Administration, the US Department
of transportation, and the US Department of Health and Human Services giving money to Brookings?
Former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, who famously
told Colin
Powell , "What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we
can't use it," predictably
says of this current moment , "We do think there needs to be more American action." A former
Bush administration top adviser is also
calling for the United States to launch a cruise missile attack on Syria.
The American people are fed up with war, but a concerted effort is being made through fearmongering,
propaganda, and lies to prepare our country for a dangerous confrontation, with Russia in Syria.
The demonization of Russia is a calculated plan to resurrect a raison d'κtre for stone-cold
warriors trying to escape from the dustbin of history by evoking the specter of Russian world
domination.
It's infectious. Earlier this year the BBC broadcast
a fictional show that contemplated
WWIII, beginning with a Russian invasion of Latvia (where 26 percent of the population is ethnic
Russian and 34 percent of Latvians speak Russian at home).
The imaginary WWIII scenario conjures Russia's targeting London for a nuclear strike. No wonder
that by the summer of 2016
a poll showed two-thirds of UK citizens approved the new British PM's launching a nuclear
strike in retaliation. So much for learning the lessons detailed in the Chilcot report.
As this year's presidential election comes to a conclusion, the Washington ideologues are regurgitating
the same bipartisan consensus that has kept America at war since 9/11 and made the world a decidedly
more dangerous place.
The DC think tanks provide cover for the political establishment, a political safety net, with
a fictive analytical framework providing a moral rationale for intervention, capitol casuistry.
I'm fed up with the DC policy elite who cash in on war while presenting themselves as experts,
at the cost of other people's lives, our national fortune, and the sacred honor of our country.
Any report advocating war that comes from any alleged think tank ought to be accompanied by
a list of the think tank's sponsors and donors and a statement of the lobbying connections of
the report's authors.
It is our patriotic duty to expose why the DC foreign-policy establishment and its sponsors
have not learned from their failures and instead are repeating them, with the acquiescence of
the political class and sleepwalkers with press passes.
It is also time for a new peace movement in America, one that includes progressives and libertarians
alike, both in and out of Congress, to organize on campuses, in cities, and towns across America,
to serve as an effective counterbalance to the Demuplican war party, its think tanks, and its
media cheerleaders. The work begins now, not after the Inauguration. We must not accept war as
inevitable, and those leaders who would lead us in that direction, whether in Congress or the
White House, must face visible opposition.
Just like Ron Paul (with whom he agrees on matters of foreign policy and the Fed), he was painted
by MSM as a kook. I wonder why. While I understand that many here would never vote for him because
he believes in things like social programs, so do all of the Republicans in Congress. He would
have made a far better president than zero or McCain.
The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed
the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political
organizations. The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and
WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations
of Russian-directed efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the
US election process. Such activity is not new to Moscow-the Russians have used similar tactics
and techniques across Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We
believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most
officials could have authorized these activities.
First of all the fact that intelligence community issue a statement on such a matter is
very strange. There is executive branch and three letter agencies should generally keep their
mouth shut and allow others to voice the concerns, etc.
This might be a sigh of complete disorganization of executive branch with intelligence agencies
becoming a power players. Kind of "Deep State" morphing into "surface state".
There are might be also multiple valid reasons for disclosing such a sensitive information:
1. I want your money stupid Pinocchio.
2. Smoke screen to hide their own nefarious activities and/or blunders within the USA. Actually
existence of Hillary private server is somewhat incompatible with the existence of NSA.
This is one thing when Podesta using gmail. It's quite another when the Secretary of state
uses "bathroom server" with incompetent or semi-competent tech staff and completely clueless
entourage.
3. Pre-emptive strike reflecting some internal struggle within US Intelligence community
itself with a neocon faction going "all in" to force the viewpoint, and more aggressive toward
Russia stance, which might not be shared by others.
Please note that CIA and DOD are fighting each other in Iraq and Syria to a certain extent.
4. Increase Anti-Russian hysteria, which helps Hillary as a candidate of neocon establishment.
5. Russians might recently uncover some nefarious activities (I heard FSB did discover compromised
computers in some ministries) and this is the preparation for the blowback.
The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and
by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed
efforts....
-- Joint Statement from the Department of Homeland Security
and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security
[ "Consistent with the methods and motivations..." is a shocking supposition to be made
public, but we have been subject to such suppositions, seemingly with increasing frequency,
for these last 15 years. ]
Weapons of Mass Destruction! We have irrefutable evidence! Yellowcake!
Keith B. Alexander:"Those who would want to weave the story that we have millions or hundreds
of millions of dossiers on people, is absolutely false From my perspective, this is absolute
nonsense."
...
Senator Wyden: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of
millions of Americans?"
DNI Clapper"No, sir."
Senator Wyden: "It does not?"
DNI Clapper:"Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, collect,
but not wittingly."
The [IN]operative word there was "collect" which in NSAspeak does not mean... collect.
Not shocking at all unless you are ignorant about tracing and analyzing hacks. The traces and
approaches are like fingerprints. Nobody in the business have any doubts that the Russians
did this - but they will never give you the details of how they got to that conclusion, because
this is a public website and the hacking wars are like the missile wars, if the other side
knows what you got they can counter it and make your job harder.
likbez -> DeDude... , -1
You might be a little bit naοve as for traces.
The first rule of such activities on state level is to pretend that you are somebody else
deliberately leaving false clues (IP space, keyboard layout, etc), everything that you call
traces.
Historically it was the USA that started cyberwar and who developed the most advanced capabilities
in this space. Remember the worm which tried to subvert functionality of Iranian centrifuges
electronics using specially designed malware and Trojans like Flame?
Using botnets essentially gives anybody substantial freedom about what IP space you want
to use. You can pretend to be Russian if you want to and use computers from Russian IP space.
More "paranoid claptrap" (or should that be Clappertrap?):
Edward Snowden: "...the breaking point was seeing the Director of National Intelligence,
James Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress. Seeing that really meant for me there was
no going back."
That's not untrue, but it seems to me to be getting worse.
Or at least, we had been making progress, but now we are seeing a massive regression. There
have always been racists and misogynists but they used to be hidden under rocks, and the GOP
used to take pains to make their dog whistles to them subtle.
Trump really has brought them out and given the gen a sense of validation and community.
Though my working theory is that he merely hopped on to an existing trend, driven by the
way digital media allows people to create their own comfortable ideological bubbles and find
community for whatever spiteful, paranoid or asinine beliefs people have. This includes left
and right, though pretty obviously the wingnuts on the right dominate their party and have
more numbers and power.
Speaking as someone who grew up under segregation in Oklahoma in the 50s and 60s, it has been
getting progressively worse since the 1980s (it did did significantly better from 1968- the
early 80s). Nixon started this with his "Southern Strategy" and Reagan dialed it up with his
"Welfare Queens" and "strapping young bucks." All Trump did was replace the dog whistles with
a bullhorn.
"That's not untrue, but it seems to me to be getting worse."
Because of economic stagnation and anxiety among lower class Republicans.
Trump blames immigration and trade unlike traditional elite Republicans. These are economic
issues.
Trump supporters no longer believe or trust the Republican elite who they see as corrupt
which is partly true.
They've been backing Nixon, Reagan, Bush etc and things are just getting worse. They've
been played.
Granted it's complicated and partly they see their side as losing and so are doubling down
on the conservatism, racism, sexism etc.
But Trump *brags* that he was against the Iraq war. That's not an elite Republican opinion.
likbez -> DrDick... , -1
My impression is that Trump_vs_deep_state is more about dissatisfaction of the Republican base with the
Republican brass (which fully endorsed neoliberal globalization), the phenomenon somewhat similar
to Sanders.
Working class and lower middle class essentially abandoned DemoRats (Clinton democrats)
after so many years of betrayal and "they have nowhere to go" attitude.
Looks like they have found were to go this election cycle and this loss of the base is probably
was the biggest surprise for neoliberal Democrats.
Now they try to forge the alliance of highly paid professionals who benefitted from globalization("creative
class"), financial speculators and minorities. Which does not look like a stable coalition
to me.
Some data suggest that among unions which endorsed Hillary 3 out of 4 members will vote against
her. And that are data from union brass. Lower middle class might also demonstrate the same
pattern this election cycle.
In other words both Parties are now split and have two mini-parties inside. I am not sure
that Sanders part of Democratic party would support Hillary. The wounds caused by DNC betrayal
and double dealing are still too fresh.
We have something like what Marxists call "revolutionary situation" when the elite loses
control of "peons". And existence of Internet made MSM propaganda far less effective that it
would be otherwise.
More stupidity. First off, the American elite (like all elites) is far from unitary and most of them back Republicans, though
they hedge their bets by also supporting centrist Democrats.
I would submit that there are very few voters that will vote from Clinton because of this "cold war rhetoric" schtick. Greenwald
keeps falling and cannot get up.
ilsm -> EMichael...
Few "will [move the] vote from Clinton because of this "cold war rhetoric" schtick.
Those "few" were awake during the 80's and see the nuclear/neocon dystopian horror behind Clinton. While Trump mentioned
using nukes, Hillary's nuke policy is 'well' laid out by Robert Kagan and the hegemon interests.
Recall Mao said "go ahead......' Nukes are just another form of the pointless body count strategy.
likbez -> ilsm...
Like before WWI, Hillary might be "a symptom of degenerate [neoliberal] aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power." Gen. Butler,
"War Is A Racket." is still a classic book on the subject.
All war is for profit. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were fought for profit. The profit from Iraqi oil and whatever was
expected from Afghanistan were irrelevant. Weapons of mass destruction, the Taliban, even Isis, were and are all issues that
could have been more efficiently handled, but instead were pretexts to convince the credulous of the necessity of war.
The real profit was the profit taken by the military-political-industrial complex in the treasure and stolen rights of the
American people. That is the bottom line for why we went to war, and why we are still there, and why, if our elites persist,
we might go to war with Russia or China.
The good news is that, because of the unrelenting depredations by American elites on the treasure and rights of the people,
the United States is increasingly unable to wage war effectively. The bad news is that our elites are too blind to see this.
America: Consuming your future today.
====
Peter T 10.23.16 at 8:56 am
faustusnotes
fear of "socialism" meaning, broadly, greater popular participation in politics was explicitly a major factor in the
German and Russian decisions for war. In both cases, they hoped victory would shore up increasingly fragile conservative dominance.
It also underlay British and French attitudes. 1870-1914 was a very stressful time for elites.
1915 was too early for any of the combatants to settle. By mid-late 1916 there were some voices in favour of negotiations,
but the Germans would have none of it then or in 1917. By the time the Germans were prepared to talk (mid 1918), they had lost.
Fear of socialism was again a major factor in the post-war settlements.
Liberals of today see World War I as the great disaster that shattered the pre-war liberal order. In the same way, the generation
post 1815 saw the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars as the great disaster that shattered the happy old order. The extent of the
damage and loss was much the same in each, although World War I took 5 years to do what the French wars did in 25.
===
Omega Centauri 10.23.16 at 1:13 am ( 33 )
The decision to continue it seems to be a natural consequence of the human proclivity towards doubling down. This operates
on many levels, some of which are related to the need for vindication of those involved in the decision to start the conflict.
There is also the horror that if you end a war without achieving something the masses can identify with as victory, then the
families of those killed will see that their loved ones died in vain -- for someone else's mistake (very bad for your political
future).
And of course if you quit, what is to stop the enemy from extracting reparations or worse from you, because in his eyes, you
are the criminal party. Much easier to try yet one more offensive, or to lure a formerly neutral party into joining in and opening
up another front, which you hope will break the stalemate.
The thing that appalls me so much about the Great War, is how so many nations were dragged in, by promises of booty
. In many ways it resembles the Peloponnisian war, in its inability to allow neutrals to be neutrals.
"... Continuing the war, once the bloodbath is underway and its futility is fully evident (which surely is objectively the case as early as 1915), seems to me to be the point where moral culpability on all sides applies most forcibly. ..."
"... It was a symptom of degenerate aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power. Continuing to turn the crank on the meat grinder without any realistic strategic hope or aim should have condemned the military establishment as well as the political establishment in several countries where it didn't. Hindenburg was there to appoint Hitler; Petain to surrender France. ..."
"... And, before the war? Are the arguments against war really connecting? ..."
"... That internationalist idea doesn't seem to survive the war's first hours, let alone first weeks. ..."
"... Universal conscription in France and Germany created a common experience. Several generations learned not so much the horror of mass slaughter as war as the instant of national glory in dramatic crises and short-lived conflicts with a decisive result. ..."
"... Certainly, there had been arguments made before the war and even several disparate political movements that had adopted ideas critical of imperialism by military means. I question, though, how engaged they were with mainstream politics of the day and therefore how fully developed we can say their ideas or arguments were. ..."
"... Consider the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 as examples of the state of the practical politics of a program for peace. The first Conference was called by the Czar and the second by Theodore Roosevelt - no little irony in either case. ..."
"... the 1907 Conference as an illustration of the growing war fever gripping western (so-called) civilization, as many of the delegates apparently sat around discussing how they longed for a cleansing war. ..."
"... I cannot pretend to understand the psychology, but I accept that it was prevalent, as least for a certain class. Morally reprehensible this glorification of war? I certainly think so. Was it engaged by fully developed argument? When? ..."
"... It was against the background of this Great Game of elite diplomacy and saber-rattling and brief, limited wars that efforts had been made to erect an arguably more idealistic apparatus of liberal international peace thru international law, limitations of armaments and the creation of formal mechanisms for the arbitration of disputes. ..."
"... If this was the institutional program produced by "the fully developed and strongly argued" case against war, it wasn't that fully developed or strongly argued, as demonstrated by the severe shortcomings of the Hague Conferences. ..."
"... The consequences were horrific as mass mobilization and industrialized warfare combined with primitive means of command-and-control and reactionary often incompetent leadership to create a blood-bath of immense scale. (See my first comment.) ..."
The case against war was fully developed and strongly argued in the years before 1914 . . .
Was it? I wonder about that.
Continuing the war, once the bloodbath is underway and its futility is fully evident (which surely is objectively the case
as early as 1915), seems to me to be the point where moral culpability on all sides applies most forcibly. It is on this
point that I think arguments from before the war cannot have the weight the horror of experience must give them. Elite leadership
across Europe failed.
It was a symptom of degenerate aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power. Continuing to turn the crank on the meat grinder
without any realistic strategic hope or aim should have condemned the military establishment as well as the political establishment
in several countries where it didn't. Hindenburg was there to appoint Hitler; Petain to surrender France.
It is inexplicable, really, unless you can see that the moral and practical case against war is not fully developed between the
wars; if there's a critique that made use of experience in its details in the 1920s and 1930s and made itself heard, I missed
it - it seems like opposites of such an appreciation triumph.
And, before the war? Are the arguments against war really connecting? There's certainly a socialist argument against
war, based on the illegitimacy of war's class divisions, which were conveniently exemplified in military rank and reactionary
attitudes among the officer class. That internationalist idea doesn't seem to survive the war's first hours, let alone first
weeks.
Universal conscription in France and Germany created a common experience. Several generations learned not so much the horror
of mass slaughter as war as the instant of national glory in dramatic crises and short-lived conflicts with a decisive result.
bruce wilder 10.22.16 at 8:47 pm.26
Certainly, there had been arguments made before the war and even several disparate political movements that had adopted
ideas critical of imperialism by military means. I question, though, how engaged they were with mainstream politics of the day
and therefore how fully developed we can say their ideas or arguments were.
Consider the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 as examples of the state of the practical politics of a program for peace.
The first Conference was called by the Czar and the second by Theodore Roosevelt - no little irony in either case.
Without looking it up I recall Barbara Tuchman using the 1907 Conference as an illustration of the growing war fever gripping
western (so-called) civilization, as many of the delegates apparently sat around discussing how they longed for a cleansing war.
I cannot pretend to understand the psychology, but I accept that it was prevalent, as least for a certain class. Morally
reprehensible this glorification of war? I certainly think so. Was it engaged by fully developed argument? When?
The long effort by reactionary forces to assemble a coalition capable of defeating Napoleon had created in Europe what for
a time was called the Concert of Europe. Austria, Prussia and Russia initially cooperated in suppressing liberal and nationalist
aspirations and that effort gradually morphed into efforts to harness or channel rising liberalism and nationalism and industrial
power.
It was the evolved apparatus descended from Metternich's Congress of Vienna thru Bismarck's Congress of Berlin that made wars
brief and generally decisive in regard to some policy end.
The long list of successive crises and brief wars that stevenjohnson references above - often cited as evidence of the increasing
fragility of the general peace - could just as well be cited as evidence for the continued effectiveness of the antique Concert
of Europe in containing and managing the risk of general war. (Fashoda 1898, Venezuela 1902, Russo-Japanese War 1905, Agadir 1911,
Balkan Wars 1911-1912 - it can be a very long list).
It was against the background of this Great Game of elite diplomacy and saber-rattling and brief, limited wars that efforts
had been made to erect an arguably more idealistic apparatus of liberal international peace thru international law, limitations
of armaments and the creation of formal mechanisms for the arbitration of disputes.
If this was the institutional program produced by "the fully developed and strongly argued" case against war, it wasn't
that fully developed or strongly argued, as demonstrated by the severe shortcomings of the Hague Conferences.
It was one of the mechanisms for peace by international law - the neutrality of Belgium mutually guaranteed by Britain and
Germany in the Treaty of London 1839 - that triggered Britain's entry as an Allied Power and general war. There is, of course,
no particular reason Australia should have taken an interest in Belgium's neutrality, but it was that issue that seemed to compel
the consensus of opinion in favor of war in Britain's government.
The consequences were horrific as mass mobilization and industrialized warfare combined with primitive means of command-and-control
and reactionary often incompetent leadership to create a blood-bath of immense scale. (See my first comment.)
What I don't find is the alternative lever or mechanism at the ready, put in place by this fully developed argument against
war. The mechanism in place was the neutrality of Belgium guaranteed by international law (arguably reinforced in the stipulations
of the Hague Conference of 1907). If Germany doesn't violate Belgian neutrality, the result in the West at least is stalemate
as France and Germany are evenly matched across their narrow and mostly impassable frontier; in the East, Russia must concede
to Germany even as Austria must concede to Russia; - instead of a general conflagration, the result is another negotiated settlement
of some sort, perhaps arbitrated by Britain or the U.S.
The urgent questions of the day regarding the organization of modern liberal polities in the territories of Ottoman Turkey,
Hapsburg Austria and Czarist Russia - what is the strongly argued and fully developed case there? How is the cause of Polish nationalism,
or Finnish nationalism or Yugoslav nationalism to be handled or managed without violence and war?
The antique system of a Concert of Europe had kinda sorta found a way by means of short and decisive engagements followed by
multi-power negotiation, a pattern that had continued with the gradual emergence of Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania. But, where was
the argument for managing irredentism and nationalist aspiration peacefully?
"... So Russia is already isolated, its economy is in shreds or not? Because you can't have isolation (as you, pressitudes, claimed since 2014) of Russia and demand it at the same time! At the same time, no ignoring Russia completely and talking only about "plox, don't use nukes, m'cay?" is not a "diplomacy". ..."
"... Absolutely schizophrenic Clinton-McFoul (yes, I know that his surname is spelled differently), which is still dominants in the alls of power of the West boils down to the following: ..."
"... 1) Talk harsh (really harsh!) with Russia on things we don't like ..."
"... 2) Cooperate with Russia when it possible as if never happened. ..."
"... And when Russia says that there are direct links between 1) and 2), that you can't expect to get 2) after doing 1) there is no use to fake a hurt innocence of Ukrainians from this old anecdote with the "А на за що?!" punchline, ..."
"... You want war? You will have one! Want peace? Then behave yourself accodringly. ..."
"... Eli Lake is a dork who used to be the 'National Security Correspondent' for the Daily Beast. You know what a rag that is. Also, he was educated at Trinity College, a private liberal-arts school. ..."
"... I know how we can reach a compromise me and the Russian government. Every year on the day that article was published, they could have "Eli Lake Day". On that day, an American company could be chosen at random to be kicked out of the country and have all its assets confiscated. The documents could lead off with, "Congratulations! You have been selected to receive the Eli Lake Award for Bankruptcy. You can thank Eli Lake and his big fucking mouth". ..."
Unsurprisingly this article is from the Blub-blub-bloomberg. What is surprising it's not by
Lyonya Bershidski. It's by another titan of handshakability Eli Lake.
Why, surely with the name like that the article must be honest, objective and answer to all
standards of the journalism (in the West)?
I was again surprised when the now standard litany of Kremlin sins suddenly became an accusation
of "Murder, Kidnapping and Jaywalking":
"Russia also poisons the international system in small ways It continues to support Kirsan
Ilyumzhinov as head of the International Chess Federation, despite his chummy visits to rogue
states like North Korea and Iran. His recent plan to hold the international chess championship
in Iran has drawn protest from the U.S. women's chess champion, Nazi Paikidze-Barnes, because
Iran requires women to cover their heads with a hijab."
Wow. Yet another bottom is crushed successfully and the standards of journalism in the Free
West get new way to fall! Or was it a secret way to endorse a "legitimate" head of the Chess Federation
fearless Gary Kimovich Kasparov?
With new way to fall achieved by crashing yet another bottom the article takes a plunge:
"Browder last month proposed a plan for Interpol to create a two-tiered system. Speaking
before a human-rights commission in Congress, he said that transparent countries like the U.S.
would have their red notice requests processed immediately, whereas countries like Russia,
known to abuse the system, would have their requests reviewed by a panel of objective and independent
experts before being sent out to member states."
How handshakable! Surely, such approach will demonstrate the equality of countries in the international
relations and the true value of the Rule of Law!
The article ends in now traditional for all Westie journos couple of self-contradicting
paragraphs:
"None of this should preclude diplomacy with Russia. The U.S. and Russia should still
have channels to discuss nuclear stockpiles and other matters. But as Secretary of State John
Kerry has learned in his fruitless engagements, Russian promises are worthless. Everyone in
U.S. politics, with the exception of Donald Trump and a few other extremists on the left and
right, understands this. Russia is a pariah.
Pariahs are not asked to cooperate on challenges to the global commons. They shouldn't
get to host events like the World Cup, as Russia is scheduled to do in 2018. They should not
be diplomatic partners in U.S. policy to disarm other pariahs like Iran. No, pariahs should
be quarantined. With Russia, it's the very least the U.S. and its allies can do to save the
international system from a country that seeks to destroy it."
So Russia is already isolated, its economy is in shreds or not? Because you can't have
isolation (as you, pressitudes, claimed since 2014) of Russia and demand it at the same time!
At the same time, no ignoring Russia completely and talking only about "plox, don't use nukes,
m'cay?" is not a "diplomacy".
Absolutely schizophrenic Clinton-McFoul (yes, I know that his surname is spelled differently),
which is still dominants in the alls of power of the West boils down to the following:
1) Talk harsh (really harsh!) with Russia on things we don't like
2) Cooperate with Russia when it possible as if never happened.
Now imagine that your neighbour decided to harm you in some nasty, really mean way. Imagine
him throwing seeds on you car, parked outside, and then filming how birds land (and shit) o your
car on his phone with lots, and lots of really "smart" comments. Then your neighbor uploads
this video on YouTube, his Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram etc, etc. Here he engages with other
commenters in the vein of "Yeah, I know he's a total douche! He got what he deserved! But wait,
guys I have more plans for my neighbour!!!:)".
Next week he asks you to borrow him a landmover as if nothing has ever happened before.
And when Russia says that there are direct links between 1) and 2), that you can't expect
to get 2) after doing 1) there is no use to fake a hurt innocence of Ukrainians from this old
anecdote with the "А на за що?!" punchline,
You want war? You will have one! Want peace? Then behave yourself accodringly.
Eli Lake is a dork who used to be the 'National Security Correspondent' for the Daily Beast.
You know what a rag that is. Also, he was educated at Trinity College, a private liberal-arts
school. But the day will come when it is Russia's choice to punish Americans for the ignorant
things people like Eli Lake said. I would do it in a heartbeat; I would chortle with glee as I
tore up American proposals for joint ventures, and send balaclava-sporting kids dressed like Voina
around to paint giant dicks on their office doors with the message, "This is for Eli", until they
fled for the airport gibbering with terror. But that's me. Russia probably won't do it, because
they are pragmatic and like business and profit.
I know how we can reach a compromise me and the Russian government. Every year on the
day that article was published, they could have "Eli Lake Day". On that day, an American company
could be chosen at random to be kicked out of the country and have all its assets confiscated.
The documents could lead off with, "Congratulations! You have been selected to receive the Eli
Lake Award for Bankruptcy. You can thank Eli Lake and his big fucking mouth".
"... Yes if next week motherland security and other 3 letter govt. are crying they need more cash to fight this then just maybe they did to themselves. ..."
"... Internet hacks - it's this election cycle's white power in an envelope! ..."
"... I would laugh so hard if a selection of sites [that] were shut down. ..."
"... We so need to officially declare this whole bloody mess a parody: ..."
I would laugh so hard if a selection of sites [that] were shut down. Waaah! Assange won't shut up!
So Twitter, WL.org, Reddit, where else would make good spots to shut down discussion in these
last days before the election. WL thought they had a good marketing gimmick going with the drip,
drip and who knows maybe a special event for C's birthday? or creating a November surprise (I
really liked that idea as it reflects how quickly info moves)
The petty back and forth between C and WL on top is a sight.
"... Submitted by Darius Shahtamasebi via TheAntiMedia.org, ..."
"... Consider the source. Biden is a blowhard and an embarassment. He said it for domestic consumption. Obama knows the Russians are not responsible and he will do nothing. ..."
"... > ... "... Joe Biden's statement that the White House was preparing to send Vladimir Putin a "message" ..." ..."
"... Absolutely. If the US and Russia got together - talk about a SUPERPOWER. The NeoCons are way too stupid to realize what a win-win this could be ..."
"... "Americans marvel at the level and effectiveness of brainwashing in North Korea, and express shock that North Koreans revere Kim Jung-un as god, but the truth is that Americans are every bit as brainwashed and just as effectively. The god most Americans worship today is materialism." ..."
"... the patriot VA state Senator who knows the truth as well https://www.sott.net/article/318592-Virginia-State-Senator-Richard-Black... ..."
This past week, America's oldest continuously published weekly magazine, the Nation, asked the
question : has the White House declared war on Russia?
As the two nuclear powers sabre-rattle over conflicts within Syria, and to some extent, over the
Ukrainian crisis, asking these questions to determine who will pull the trigger first has become
more paramount than it was at the peak of the Cold War.
The Nation's contributing editor, Stephen F. Cohen, reported Vice President Joe Biden's statement
that the White House was preparing to send Vladimir Putin a "message" - most likely in the form of
a cyber attack - amounted to a virtual "American declaration of war on Russia" in Russia's eyes.
Biden's threat is reportedly in response to allegations that Russia hacked Democratic Party offices
in order to disrupt the presidential election.
Chuck Todd, host of the "Meet the Press" on NBC,
asked Joe Biden: "Why haven't we sent a message yet to Putin?"
Biden responded, "We are sending a message [to Putin] We have a capacity to do it, and "
"He'll know it?" Todd interrupted.
"He'll know it. It will be at the time of our choosing, and under the circumstances that will
have the greatest impact," the U.S. vice president replied.
What are the effects of this kind of rhetoric when dealing with international relations? Western
media decided to pay little attention to Biden's statements, yet his words have stunned Moscow. As
reported by the Nation:
" Biden's statement, which clearly had been planned by the White House, could scarcely have
been more dangerous or reckless - especially considering that there is no actual evidence or logic
for the two allegations against Russia that seem to have prompted it."
The statements will not come without any measured response from Russia. According to presidential
spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Russia's
response
is well underway:
"The fact is, US unpredictability and aggression keep growing, and such threats against Moscow
and our country's leadership are unprecedented, because the threat is being announced at the level
of the US Vice President. Of course, given such an aggressive, unpredictable line, we have to
take measures to protect our interests, somehow hedge the risks."
The fact that our media refuses to pay attention to the dangers of our own establishment in sending
warnings to adverse nuclear powers based on unasserted allegations shows our media is playing a very
dangerous game with us - the people. This attempt to pull the wool over our eyes and prepare us for
a direct confrontation with Russia can be seen clearly in the battle for Aleppo, Syria.
As the Nation astutely noted:
"Only a few weeks ago, President Obama had agreed with Putin on a joint US-Russian military
campaign against 'terrorists' in Aleppo. That agreement collapsed primarily because of an
attack by US warplanes
on Syrian forces. Russia and its Syrian allies continued their air assault on east Aleppo now,
according to Washington and the mainstream media, against anti-Assad 'rebels.' Where, asks Cohen,
have the jihad terrorists gone? They had been deleted from the US narrative, which now accused
Russia of 'war crimes' in Aleppo for the same military campaign in which Washington was to have
been a full partner."
So where is this conflict headed? A top U.S. general, Marine General Joseph Dunford,
told the
Senate Armed Services Committee in September of this year that the enforcement of a "no-fly zone"
in Syria would mean a U.S. war with both Syria and Russia. Hillary Clinton is well aware of the repercussions
of this war, as she acknowledged in a
secret
speech to Goldman Sachs (recently released by Wikileaks):
"To have a no-fly zone you have to take out all of the air defense, many of which are located
in populated areas. So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we're not putting our
pilots at risk - you're going to kill a lot of Syrians So all of a sudden this intervention that
people talk about so glibly becomes an American and NATO involvement where you take a lot of civilians."
This is the same establishment that has been calling out Russia for allegedly committing war crimes
in Aleppo even though Clinton's proposal would result in far more civilian deaths and likely lead
to a direct war with Russia.
As the war against Syria transitions into a much wider global conflict that could include nuclear
powers Russia and China, our own media is deceiving us by dishonestly reporting on the events leading
up to the
activation of the doomsday clock.
History doesn't occur in a vacuum; when the U.S. and Russia confront each other directly, it won't
be because of a mere incident occurring in Syrian airspace.
It will be because the two nuclear powers have been confronting each other with little resistance
from the corporate media, which keeps us well entertained and preoccupied with political
charades
, celebrity gossip
, and outright
propaganda .
Zacktly. It's the NSA who is leaking the crooked DNC emails. Not Vlad.
MalteseFalcon d 847328_3527 Oct 23, 2016 8:50 PM
"What are the effects of this kind of rhetoric when dealing with international relations?
"
Consider the source. Biden is a blowhard and an embarassment. He said it for domestic consumption.
Obama knows the Russians are not responsible and he will do nothing.
... "... Several US, Turkish, Saudi, Qatari and British officers were
also killed along with the Israeli officers. The foreign officers who were killed in
the Aleppo operations room were directing the terrorists' attacks in Aleppo and Idlib. ..."
This is why Israhell is furious with this Prez. And why they are seen in the Podesta emails
making sure that none of 'those two-state solution' people get into key foreign/defense posts
under Her Fury.
It's going to be all war, all the time, boys, according to Israeli timetables and objectives.
Unless We The People say NO on Nov. 8 and make it stick.
Interesting that you bring up the "two-state solution" speculation along those lines goes like
this. Clinton & Rabin were working on a two-state solution Rabin was assinated and Clinton was
trolled by a modern day "Esther" to ensnare Clinton and destroy the two-state solution. You heard
it here first on ZH my friend
Anti-colonial agenda. Plus, Barry was bottom bitch to his Paki lover back in the day.
Mandel Bot -> jmack Oct 23, 2016 8:33 PM
Absolutely. If the US and Russia got together - talk about a SUPERPOWER. The NeoCons are
way too stupid to realize what a win-win this could be.
ebworthen Oct 23, 2016 7:59 PM
Hitlary and the M.I.C. (and Wall Street/D.C. Imperial City) have no idea how much at risk they
put themselves and the rest of us.
Russia has been here and where America never has been, and they have defeated many, many, a
foe. Abject stupidity to poke the Russian bear and disrespect our agreements post WWII and Cold
War.
Shameful, absolutely shameful! Rot in HELL you D.C. Vichy!
RawPawg Oct 23, 2016 7:59 PM
Meanwhile...in 'Merica. Sunday afternoon Football stands are Full. very surreal given the times
we live in,eh?
Lost in translation -> RawPawg Oct 23, 2016 8:23 PM
After I explained that Americans don't care about the Podesta emails as long as the NFL is
on, and have no idea what WikiLeaks is but can tell you everything about the NLCS, Mrs. Lost said...
"Americans marvel at the level and effectiveness of brainwashing in North Korea, and express
shock that North Koreans revere Kim Jung-un as god, but the truth is that Americans are every
bit as brainwashed and just as effectively. The god most Americans worship today is materialism."
The native Orthodox Christian Russian people took back their nation when they collapsed the
Soviet Union and drove the mass murdering Bolsheviks out, many of whom came to the US & EU nations
""You must understand, the leading Bolsheviks who took over Russia were not Russians. They
hated Russians. They hated Christians. Driven by ethnic hatred, they tortured and slaughtered
millions of Russians without a shred of human remorse. It cannot be overstated, Bolshevism
committed the greatest slaughter of all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant and
uncaring about this enormous crime is proof that the global media is in the hands of the perpetrators"""
Agreed. Just because we have a mad president, please don't think that we Americans are mad
(in the British sense of the word). We wish the Russian people no harm. In fact, many of us, myself
included, cheer your efforts in Syria to wipe out the rabid dogs of ISIS.
Please keep bombing the living shit out of them. And this is important, so please listen carefully...
Monitoring tweets to see who can get into our walled garden.
Recently, Zerocalcare, one of Italy's best young graphic novelists, whose
politics can be described as anarchist but jokey, Roman but semi-serious, was
denied a visa to attend Comicon in New York. The grounds are that his passport
showed recent travel in Syria and Iraq. Our minders didn't have to read tweets.
They only had to read his most recent book, Kobane Calling, in which he
illustrates a trip by a group of anarchistic Italians to Iraqi Kurdistan and
Rojava in Syria. His analysis of nationalism, religion, and ethnicity is quite
subtle. Plenty of highly amusing uses of Roman dialect, which is known for
"lewdness." Also, many bathroom jokesbut that's an Italian national
characteristic (don't call anyone a stronzo, ne).
Meanwhile, Zerocalcare was also nominated for a Strega Prize last year in
narrative for his graphic novel, Dimentica il Mio Nome, about his mother and
grandmother and their mysterious family. He is the first Italian graphic
novelist to be nominated for one of the major prizes.
Obvious an undesirable alien. Peter Thiel is so much more acceptable, as is
Henry Kissinger.
Succinct exposure of continuing American psycho militaristic aggression in ME:
"The United States no longer enters wars as we did in earlier eras. Our president does not announce
that we have taken up a new cause in a distant land. Congress does not declare war, which is its
constitutional responsibility. Instead, a few buttons are pressed and, with only a brief and quickly
forgotten spurt of news stories that obscure more than they reveal, we are at war."
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/10/19/plunges-into-war-with-yemen/STkGyrSwoHiCvIeP2gm6CM/story.html
That's a good piece; reasonable, and well-substantiated. I think a lot of Americans today do
not realize what a deliberate and considered process becoming involved in war is supposed to
be. He's absolutely correct that the doctrine has evolved from 'advise and consent' to 'it's
easier to obtain forgiveness than permission'.
"... Boris said this in response to the Russian and Syrian government air attacks upon Aleppo, which were certainly brutal. Then, about a week later, the West began, with clinical precision, to identify people in the last Iraqi Isis stronghold of Mosul with really radical beards and bomb them to smithereens, mercifully and humanitarianly sparing the local, decent, democratically minded citizens, who of course escaped the bombardment without so much as a graze. ..."
"... In Ukraine, Russia was the designated fall-guy for having NATO snuggled right up against its cheek, an overtly hostile military alliance which has advertised itself as Russia's enemy. ..."
"... In Crimea, similarly, Russia was looking at the probability of a NATO naval base right next door. The reasons for Russia's intervention in Syria are more complicated and were both geostrategic and economic, but had nothing whatever to do with belligerence. The USA was never invited into Syria, yet had been bombing in Syria ostensibly against ISIS, but making no secret of Washington's desire that Assad be overthrown for nearly two years before Russia stepped in, and few suggested the USA was being belligerent. ..."
"... The problem, then, is not that they are spreading misinformation, but that Russia Today is spreading truthful information which the UK government finds extremely unhelpful. Is it non-biased and non-partisan, does it always give balance and right of reply? No, no and thrice no. Does the BBC? ..."
"Andrew Mitchell was not alone in rattling the rusty sabre by suggesting we shoot down Russian
jets over Syria. We also had Boris Johnson, our Foreign Secretary, demanding - in the manner of
a clownish ayatollah - that people should protest outside the Russian embassy.
Boris said this in response to the Russian and Syrian government air attacks upon Aleppo,
which were certainly brutal. Then, about a week later, the West began, with clinical precision,
to identify people in the last Iraqi Isis stronghold of Mosul with really radical beards and bomb
them to smithereens, mercifully and humanitarianly sparing the local, decent, democratically minded
citizens, who of course escaped the bombardment without so much as a graze."
Still full of shite, of course Britain cannot seem to write anything which is not, and it's
only a matter of degree. Putin is neither overtly homophobic (I have no idea what his personal
beliefs are, which is as it should be, you should not be able to tell) nor belligerent. In
Ukraine, Russia was the designated fall-guy for having NATO snuggled right up against its cheek,
an overtly hostile military alliance which has advertised itself as Russia's enemy.
This was meant to be brought about by means of a political coup, because NATO did not want
to risk putting it to a vote, although it deliberately exaggerated the broadness of Ukrainian
enthusiasm for a European future.
In Crimea, similarly, Russia was looking at the probability of a NATO naval base right
next door. The reasons for Russia's intervention in Syria are more complicated and were both geostrategic
and economic, but had nothing whatever to do with belligerence. The USA was never invited into
Syria, yet had been bombing in Syria ostensibly against ISIS, but making no secret of Washington's
desire that Assad be overthrown for nearly two years before Russia stepped in, and few suggested
the USA was being belligerent.
The problem, then, is not that they are spreading misinformation, but that Russia Today
is spreading truthful information which the UK government finds extremely unhelpful. Is it
non-biased and non-partisan, does it always give balance and right of reply? No, no and thrice
no. Does the BBC?
The only way Hillary could be stopped would be if the Republican Party elite stood with Trump,
so Soros and the other donor who owns voting machines could be blocked from flipping/fractionalizing
votes. But that isn't happening. Soros machines are in key swing states like Colorado and Pennsylvania,
and we already have data from the primary that a good 15% (at least) can be flipped, compared to
exit polls/hand counts/paper trail or non-donor machines.
I guess it's still possible, like what happened in the Michigan Democratic primary, that the real
numbers are more like a 10% lead for Trump and they come out in force in unexpected locations, and
Clinton's small, unenthusiastic base stays home, thus making it too difficult to successfully flip.
But I'm trying not to count on something like that, because it seems too close optomism bias driven
"poll unskewing" I mean, the polls clearly ARE skewed in favor of Hillary, but I doubt they're
off by 15%.
Stein could never take over the Democratic Party. It isn't even clear to me that the Greens could
replace the Democrats, although I do think their massive increase in ballot access this year is a
credit to the party and to Stein. That shows real organizing and management effectiveness.
I started this campaign season advocating for purging Clintonians out of the now hollow Democratic
Party and taking it over. That still seems like the most efficient path to an actual left national
party, in part because our current system is so corrupted and calcified. But I'm not sure it's possible.
At this point, I can imagine a cataclysmic revolution happening during Clinton's term more easily
than a reformed, citizen friendly Democratic Party.
Notice that Netanyahu is suddenly "mending fences" with Russia. Could
someone have whispered in his ear; "Low yield nuke over Tel Aviv?" It
needn't be Russia directly. Say Hizbullah is 'gifted' a Pakistani warhead
through some devious back channels. America is running a proxy war in Syria.
Nothing says that Russia, or China cannot do something similar.
I see no discussion of spillover effects to Libya's neighbors. Think of the
spillover effects attendant to major chaos in Syria!
Israel doesn't have to worry about a stand up fight with the Syrian
Army. No, they have to worry about small unit and irregular warfare,
inside Israel. That's the kind of spillover a hotted up Syrian "Civil
War" would produce. Say, the Syrians and Russians establish their own
"No Fly Zone" over southern Syria, and enforce it against all comers,
including the Israeli Air Force. Then supply convoys to Hizbullah in
Lebanon would really ramp up. Voila! The Lebanon Israel border heats
up by orders of magnitude.
I am convinced that H Clinton does not understand the forces she wants
to juggle with.
Where in America would you resettle the millions of refuges from the
destruction of Israel?
I respect Juan Cole as a scholar, but his political commentary got so muddled in apologizing for
the Libyan disaster. I wrote him several times about problems in the Sahel, particularly among Tuareg,
resulting from the Libyan invasion, but he wriggled out of it, going to Libya and talking about how
great it was there and otherwise excusing the massacre.
Why suggest a no fly zone in Syria that can't be implemented. It is baffling.
Is it really that baffling? Read her emails. The No Fly Zone was the strategy used to destroy Gaddafi.
It's HRC's telegraph for invasion.
Cole misses that when Wallace asked her if she'd shoot down a Russian plan that violated the no-fly
zone, she dodged.
So what are people's sense of Clinton re Russia? Is it hubris, stupidity, or conspiracy, or
some combination of the three? I ask because her Wall Street speeches and foreshadowed Grand Bargain
are clearly conspiratorial; while her nonchalant violation of every security protocol seems pure
hubris; I guess I don't see how war with Russia could really benefit her that much, unless she
thinks it's the one thing that can keep her from being impeached; is that it, or is it something
else that's driving this, or just stupidity?
All the very serious people know the Russians are gonna cave. Who would fight a nuclear war
for Syria/ukraine? They can't match the US conventionally so we can just bleed them till they
let go.
It's been pointed out here that wargame scenarios of Russia vs NATO usually come out with Russia
winning. Why wouldn't that apply to other areas as well?
The War on Terra is getting tiresome and as pointed out above doesn't justify the really big
hardware, aircraft carriers, tanks etc.
They need a bigger enemy to keep the $$$ flowing from the chump taxpayer's pockets to billionaire
Raytheon shareholders' accounts in Panama. She serves Money and Death, and does a really good
job of it. You'd even say she's an expert.
And one point: GE owns NBC, and GE makes billions from war machines. Can't have a president
who might slow down the revenue stream, better yet to get a woman to put a friendly face on WW
III and why we need it so badly. Kinda like getting a young African American to sell health care
extraction and bank crimes and how they're really good, if just more young people would sign up
and if people would just stop "peddling fiction" about how awesome the economy is.
Oops! Good news then, I guess we really do have a diverse and unbiased press with no interest
is furthering the prospects of one candidate over another.
WJ wrote about Clinton on Russia: " Is it hubris, stupidity, or conspiracy, or some combination
of the three?"
Or is it that she thinks that the USA can fight a war against Russia, and win?
I suspect that a lot of the US foreign policy establishment are feeling bullish about their
BMD systems. They feel sure that they have finally escaped the toils of MAD. In other words, they
feel convinced, if it comes down to it, the USA can affordably prevail over Russia in a war at
any level of escalation, even though that would demand that the USA launch first strike.
If you want to see arrogance, just wait to see how that US elite behaves after they
win a major war, and come to enjoy truly unchecked power.
I'm sure. Luckily odds are most of us will be dead before that happens. Because it will either
be a long long time from now OR most of the country will be destroyed before victory can be declared
long enough to gloat.
If it weren't for the fact that it is a such a godawful idea for everyone BUT the elites, I'd
almost like to see the latter possibility which includes the loss of a whole lot of very expensive
"toys". But there are still humans attached to those toys, it will take a lot for them to get
they aren't winning, and even then they won't take responsibility for the massive amounts of damage
their hubris and sociopathy have caused see Clinton in re either Honduras or Libya or both.
I'm pretty sure the Pentagon does NOT believe that our BMD systems can protect against a full
scale Russian ICBM attack on the US mainland. I would hope if any foreign policy types believed
so, they would be quickly garroted from behind with piano wire.
Then again, maybe they did go ahead and convert a bunch of West Virginia coal mines to luxury
condos, like Dr. Strangelove suggested.
Russia has re-stated their policy not to strike first. By contrast, in 2012 Obama reversed
America's long-standing commitment not to do so.
That we are even discussing this shows just how far the War Party and their money pig-men have
descended into true clinical mental illness territory, Dr. Strangelove has nothing on the levels
of reality-bending criminal insanity of our Dear Leaders.
No idea if this is accurate or not, but Wikipedia states that BMD systems are not effective
against ICBMs, which can now travel at hypersonic (Mach 5-6) speeds delivering up to eight separate
warheads (!) with pinpoint accuracy. So that's something to look forward to.
I do like the piano wire remedy :-{). There are a bunch of people in the State Department that
signed a memo recently that clearly fit the requisite description for its use.
"In the run up to the Iraq War when false intelligence abounded and dominated the discussion,"
The problem is that you see everything through a Donkey vs Elephant prism in stark Manichean terms.
People see the elite lying over the Iraq war - which Trump brags he opposed - and then they see
the elite Hillary and DNC using Russia interference as a way to distract for the content of the leaked
emails.
They don't see Hillary as their champion, just another lying elite.
Obama's NSA chief blatantly lied to the American people and said they weren't spying on us en
masse.
Why should we trust them about anything?
If (when) Hillary is elected I'm sure she'll make Russia pay if it's behind these hacks. Otherwise
Russia is an excuse not to discuss the hacked email.
Maybe Putin is that stupid and he feels threatened over the way Hillary championed the democratic
opposition in a recent election, but it seems to me to be colossally stupid for Russia to pick a
fight with the U.S.
You don't think Hillary is going to push back if (when) she's elected? Given that she's a hawk
and was courting the support of hawks like Paul Wolfowitz during the election she was probably going
to push Russia anyway no matter the hacking.
I think many Americans are deeply skeptical by now of the competence, aims and basic good will
of much of the US foreign policy establishment. Faced with a choice between the Putin approach
to global security and stability, and that represented by the zealot, neocon-tilting HRC wing
of the US establishment, it's a tough call.
Clinton has had abundant opportunity to attempt to distance herself from the many Iraq-era
neocons who are embracing her campaign. She hasn't. That is telling and worrisome.
The crazily prejudiced disdain * that folks at the Economist have for Russia by the way extends
to China. The Economist reflects perfectly the British regret that China is no longer part of
what was a sun-never-sets empire. As for Russia, the prejudiced disdain that has been fostered
by the foreign policy establishment is blinding.
What was the position of the economist on invading Iraq? Right.
Someone who a few months ago told me "no one is stupid enough to want war with Russia", just
this week changed that to "no one wants a hot war" and "we don't have the troops for a hot war"
because well it turns out that Clinton knows the no fly zone will mean war with Russia.
Sadly this is one of the many who think that Clinton is the sane one.
Everything tells me that whatever the real goal (and no it is not obvious what that is) Hillary
Rodham Clinton is stupid enough to not care about war with Russia, doesn't understand that we
don't have the troops for a hot war, and frankly is perfectly willing to play chicken with a nuclear
power killing this country in the process. So far, Putin has been far saner than Hillary Clinton
has ever been, but I'm pretty damn sure his patience is wearing out. I can only hope that Europe
begins to wake up and realize that America following the wishes of SA and Israel are causing their
refugee problems NOT Russia. And sanely decide that following America further down the rat hole
is a loser for them and the world, because that might be the only thing that wakes them up from
their fevered dream.
Luckily (for the planet) I suspect Putin is content to play the long game - increase the alliance
(especially economic) with China, build up relationships with e.g. Iran and Turkey (and now cf
Philippines), and most of all court the EU states who are most terrified of increased sabre-rattling
by the US.
It is so bizarre that in such an unstable world with such critical issues - global warming,
horrific global debt and faltering bubble-based economies, Mideast chaos - HRC and her cronies
think it is a good idea to stir up trouble with Russia! Talk about "opportunity cost" at the very
least.
The War on Terror has never really been profitable enough for the military-industrial complex,
and anyway may be approaching its sell-by date. The MIC wanted a return to big-platform - aircraft
carriers, big ships, enormously expensive new planes, and missile systems, big artillery - programs
and spending.
For big-platform spending you need a big-platform enemy to justify it. Hence, the Russkies.
Patrick Cockburn is good on this.
Not incidentally, the arms industry of the early 20th century was a big reason for WWI; probably
including in July 1914 being behind the assassination of Jean Jaurθs, a top French socialist,
who was blocking it.
The fun one to watch today is the US Army versus the CIA (Milo Minderbinder would be thrilled).
In Iraq the US Army is supporting the government against al-Qaeda in Mosul. In Syria of course
the CIA is backing al-Qaeda in Aleppo against the government.
So the breathless press coverage of the son et lumiere of the Mosul push is turning
into a dud. Why? Because al-Qaeda is slinking away out of Mosul. But where are they going? Oh,
look, the US is helpfully providing buses to take 6000 of them to the fight in Syria, once they
cross that imaginary line known as "the border" they magically turn into good guys again.
Cue John McCain high-fiving! And cue Lurch our Secretary of State, telling
the UN and the world that Russia is the one that is guilty of war crimes. LOLOLOLOL
For months she had only intimated it, or delegated the real dirty work to her surrogates and campaign
staff, but at the final televised debate this week Hillary Clinton finally let loose: Donald Trump
is "a puppet" of the Kremlin, she declared.
It's worth pausing to consider just how extreme and incendiary that allegation is. For Trump
to be a "puppet" of a hostile foreign power-especially Russia, arguably America's oldest continuous
adversary-would be an event of earth-shaking magnitude, unrivaled in all U.S. history. It would
mean that by some nefarious combination of subterfuge and collusion, the sinister Russian leader
Vladimir Putin had managed to infiltrate our political system at its very core, executing a
Manchurian Candidate -style scheme that would've been dismissed as outlandish in even the
most hyperbolic 1960s-era espionage movie script.
Trump is often accused of violating the "norms" that typically govern the tenor of U.S. presidential
campaigns. And these accusations very often have validity: at the same debate, he declined to
preemptively endorse the legitimacy of the election outcome, which appears to be without precedent.
As everyone is now keenly aware, he's unleashed a constant torrent of brash histrionics that defy
discursive standards and violate "norms" of many kinds-You're rigged! I'm rigged! We're all rigged!
But Hillary too violated a longstanding norm this week with her "puppet" screed, which was
the culmination of her campaign's months-long effort to tarnish Trump as a secret Russian lackey
using the kind of retrograde nomenclature ("Puppet"? Really?) that would've made even the most
hardened old-time Cold Warrior blush. Because of Hillary's barb, there will henceforth be a precedent
for accusing a rival major-party nominee of being a stealth agent of a fearsome foreign power,
based on only the flimsiest of circumstantial evidence.
Extrapolating from Trump's stated belief that cooperation, rather than antagonism, with nuclear-armed
Russia is desirable, Hillary's boosters have long surmised that he must therefore be under the
spell of a devious foreign spymaster: it can't be that he genuinely prefers to be friendly with
Russia and forge an alliance with their military. The only tenable explanation by their lights
is this harebrained mind-control conspiracy theory.
One central irony to all this is that Trump basically has the same position vis-ΰ-vis
Russia as Barack Obama. As Trump pointed out in the Wednesday night debate, Obama attempted
to broker a military alliance with Putin's Russia only a few weeks ago; it fell through after
American forces in Syria bombed soldiers loyal to Assad in direct contravention of the terms of
the agreement. But it was an instance of deal-making nevertheless, so if Trump is guilty of accommodating
the dastardly Russian menace, Obama must be similarly guilty.
Hillary's increasingly hostile rhetoric on the homefront also likely contributed to "nuking"
the accord with Russia, as she's repeatedly accused Putin of subverting the American electoral
process by way of hacks, as well as lambasting him as the
"grand godfather'' of global extremist movements-including the U.S. "alt-right."
It would be one thing if these fantastic claims were ever substantiated with ample evidence,
but they're just not. At the debate, Hillary attributed her theory regarding the Russian orchestration
of recent hacks on her campaign and the Democratic National Committee to unnamed "intelligence
professionals." These unspecified individuals have also failed to produce tangible evidence linking
Russia to Trump, or Russia to the hacks. They are also the same sorts of people whose proclamations
about Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq were uncritically parroted by media allies.
She launched into the "puppet" rant after moderator Chris Wallace quoted an excerpt from one
of her speeches delivered to a foreign bank, which had been published by WikiLeaks. It should
be reiterated that Hillary had actively concealed these speech transcripts over the course of
the entire presidential campaign, and the only reason the American public can now view them is
thanks to WikiLeaks. But in an effort to change the subject from her newly revealed (and damning)
comments before admiring cadres of financial elites, Hillary accused the rogue publishing organization
of being party to a Russian plot. "This has come from the highest levels of the Russian government,
clearly, from Putin himself," Hillary proclaimed.
What evidence has been furnished that demonstrates "Putin himself" directed such efforts? Absolutely
none that we are yet aware of. One could feasibly posit that such a blithe willingness to launch
baseless attacks against foreign leaders is indicative of a poor temperament on Hillary's part;
it's exactly the kind of bluster that could escalate into hot conflict, and will likely sour the
U.S.-Russia bilateral relationship for years to come under a prospective Clinton Administration.
In addition to accusing Putin of hacking the U.S. election, Hillary again announced her staunch
support for a "no-fly zone" in Syria, which would necessitate the deployment of thousands more
U.S. ground troops to the war-torn country and provoke direct, hostile confrontation with Russia,
which is sustaining its client Assad. When asked by Wallace if she would authorize the shoot-down
of Russian warplanes, Hillary evaded the question. (A simple "no" would've been nice.)
It's long been known that Hillary is a hawk; she is supported by
many of the same neoconservatives who once gravitated to George W. Bush. But her bellicosity
toward Russia, which climaxed with the "puppet" diatribe, demonstrates that her hawkish tendencies
are far from conventional; they are extreme. Hillary seems to be at her most animated (and one
might say, perhaps even crazed) when she is aiming ire at supposed foreign adversaries, which
of late has almost entirely been Russia, Russia, Russia. (Russia was the number-one topic broached
at all this year's debates,
according
to a tally by Adam Johnson of the media-watchdog organization FAIR.)
The tenor of the international situation has gotten exceptionally dire. Last Friday it was
reported that the CIA is preparing to launch an "unprecedented" cyberattack on Russia; relations
between the two states are at a dangerous nadir not seen in decades, to the point that former
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has warned that a nuclear exchange is perilously likely.
Trump, for all his faults, has long advocated a sort of dιtente .
So why aren't these developments front-and-center in media coverage of the campaign? Instead,
it's still a relentless focus on Trump's many foibles, notwithstanding what appears to be Hillary's
steady sleepwalk into a potentially catastrophic war.
Michael Tracey is a journalist based in New York City.
destabilization
of the Middle East, and to prop up a key ally in Russia's front against US expansionism.
Carolinian
October 21, 2016 at 7:29 pm
Adam Curtis and his limitationshere's a taste from a review of new Beeb documentary
Conversely, Curtis concludes with an assertion of such stunning political puerility that it undermines
almost everything that has gone before. He argues of Putin's involvement in Syria: "The Russians
are still there and no one really knows what they want." Curtis does not know what "the Russians
want" only because his perceptions have been carefully managed by the western media. Russia has very
obvious strategic interests in being there. Among other things, it is trying to prevent the takeover
of another country on its doorstep by Islamic jihadists, to halt the further destabilization of the
Middle East, and to prop up a key ally in Russia's front against US expansionism.
Perhaps Curtis' limitation is that he's on the BBC. Apparently you aren't allowed to say anything
nice about Russia on Auntie. The review says Curtis also grants too many good intentions to our western
imperial overlords.
'Hypernormalization' also contained false absolutes. However, Curtis is
an artist, in that he has implicit messages contained within juxtapositions
that aren't necessarily consciously constructed. It's valid but inadequate
to criticize parts out of context of the whole piece.
FFS, it was almost their first response! And the fact that they changed the story in less
than 24 hrs, to blame the Afghan security forces instead, tells you the likely source of this story:
their ass.
'The US-led military coalition in Afghanistan issued a statement on Sunday that said US forces
conducted an airstrike at 2:15am local time on Saturday "against insurgents who were directly firing
upon US service members advising and assisting Afghan Security Forces in the city of Kunduz."'
Even as we write this, forces are advancing on Mosul to recapture the city from ISIL: the reason
they can do this is because of U.S. airstrikes and troops. Refugee organizations expect something
like 200,000-700,000 refugees from the city. The city was captured a couple of years ago when 1,000
Daesh fighters routed something like 60,000 defenders, mostly because the defenders weren't strongly
motivated to defend: people in the city now have a counter-assassination resistance against ISIL
executions.
That is our intervention. Our bombs will not kill civilians in the city: the disparate groups
of fighters that we support certainly won't commit the usual atrocities of war: the refugee crisis
will no doubt be handled responsibly and will be fully resourced: when the city is recaptured, the
ISIL fighters will be defeated once and for all and we'll never hear from them again.
The people who support this are crazy. They are insane and I can only talk to them in the jocular
way that you'd talk to people who are suffering from such severe mental illness that there is no
way to rationally convince them that their delusions are not real. But these people have not been
institutionalized: they are running our institutions.
LFC:
Deliberately targeting noncombatants is a clear violation of law and norms, and it cannot
be justified by saying: "well, we have to eliminate the violent rebels in this city, and we've offered
a pause to allow the rebels to leave, but the rebels have declined the offer, and therefore the lives
of the civilians [whether they be 30,000 or 200,000] in the city are of no particular concern to
us, . . .
The laws of war are a very particular and even peculiar species of bullshit. I am not a lawyer,
let alone a military lawyer or specialist in such things, but from casual reading of news reporting,
I think you are actually wrong in the above assertion. Giving a warning and an opportunity for combatants
or civilians to vacate an area actually does open up a broad exception. "Exception" is probably the
wrong term, technically, but in operation, . . . The offering of a warning, a pause and opportunities
to vacate are all the laws of war require, in order to excuse the collateral damage that follows
from combat operations against targets that are believed to shelter enemies among civilians.
One need only ask two questions: How many non-combatants have been killed accidentally as 'collateral
damage'? And how many military commanders have been punished for violating the 'laws of war' for
killing non-combatants? The laws of war usually only apply to the losers. The winners seldom if ever
apply them to themselves.
If you don't see any point in distinguishing between combatants and non-combatants (yes, the lines
are sometimes blurry, but they are often very clear), and if you don't think that intentions are
of any relevance - that is, if you think there's no difference whatsoever, for instance, between
(1) deliberately blowing up a hospital and (2) accidentally bombing a hospital in a culpably negligent
act of misidentification in the middle of a nighttime battle (as happened in a highly publicized
case in Afghanistan a while back), then we can't have a conversation b.c we are operating in different
universes of discourse.
Do I think intentions are relevant? Maybe. Do I think statements of
intention are relevant? Harder. I do not have any reliable way of sorting or confirming actual intentions,
as distinguished from propaganda.
I am afraid we are stuck with this universe of discourse. No one can offer LFC a corridor of safe
flight to a more morally certain world.
In my mind, I keep coming back to that NYT Mag profile of Ben Rhodes, the White House speechwriter
(Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications) trying to manage U.S. foreign policy
with rapid fire narratives. This is the world we live in. And, yes, it is one where it is not possible
to distinguish between deliberately blowing up a hospital and accidentally in a culpable act of negligence
blowing up a hospital. Not because there are not relevant moral distinctions, but because any story
is built around those putative distinctions without much regard for facts. As Layman points out,
the "information" given out by officials is dictated by a desire to manipulate public perceptions
and deflect criticism and follows a predictable pattern unrelated to facts of a case.
This discourse has become delusive, as Rich P says above. Sarcasm or mockery may be rude, but
appropriate.
I don't think you can grant even this. Belligerents
know full well that they will kill non-combatants with their preferred tactics, but they use those
tactics anyway because 1) they deem it a fair trade off for achieving their objective while reducing
the risk to their own combatants, and 2) they know there is little likelihood they will be called
to account, and if they are they know they can rely on the 'intentions' defense.
This is evident in their responses. Have they bombed a hospital, a school, a bomb shelter, a refugee
center? Well, yes, but it was OK because someone was shooting at them from that place. Have they
killed several hundred members of a wedding party? Well, it seems so, but they were just trying to
kill a few people, and those few were hiding in a wedding party, the dastardly cowards! What else
could they have done?
Bruce W.
No one can offer LFC a corridor of safe flight to a more morally certain world.
Actually
Bruce you are the one who has hopped on the plane to a morally certain world, a world in which it
is never possible to distinguish 'intentions' from 'propaganda' and thus a world in which one can
rest secure in the certainty that judgments, however tentative, should never be attempted.
My phrase, "morally certain world" was poor. It doesn't denote what I meant.
I think an objective
observer, weighing the balance of likelihood, would conclude that the U.S. military targeted the
MSF hospital and most probably did so, because the MSF hospital was only facility in the area where
Taliban fighters could seek sophisticated medical treatment. That the choice of target originated
in the U.S. chain of command was confirmed, so there is no dispute really that this choice was made,
though the motivation and objective have been obscured and can only be surmised. No one was disciplined
specifically for initiating the attack - we know this because no one was named let alone court martialled
and sent to Leavenworth as would be nominally appropriate for such an unauthorized(?) act of murder
and mayhem. The only discipline handed out was essentially administrative and only for the negligence
and general snafus that allowed the rest of the chain of command to execute the attack without objection.
Again, a reasonable and objective observer would wonder whether the initiator of the attack might
not have had a hand in arranging things so that the attack went ahead and wasn't short-circuited
by the ordinary and routine controls put in place to prevent such "mistakes".
Presumably, this balance of likelihood is why the MSF wanted an investigation independent of the
U.S. military's own self-examination.
"Blaming the victim" should not be the primary issue, here, though, of course, in the prolonged
sequence of contradictory explanations in an incident that attracted international attention at the
highest levels, the U.S. did at various times officially claim that the Taliban were firing from
the compound and that the MSF complex was not properly marked. There is no particular reason to think
that the sequence of explanations arrived at anything resembling the truth; only a defensible redoubt
of apologia.
Whether the attack on the MSF hospital in Kunduz constituted a "war crime" isn't the issue I want
to raise either. I think it was a war crime, but the U.S. has a general policy of committing war
crimes while denying that policy, so unless you think denial is itself a singular virtue is, I do
not understand the argument. If the problem is whether Russia is the bad guy and the U.S. is the
good guy, I don't think the U.S. has much the better argument, at least on the face of it. Pretty
much every "bad guy" atrocity in the record books has a corresponding atrocity with an American signature.
Shoot down a passenger airliner? Check. Unprovoked aggressive war? Check. And so on.
The thing that troubles me - the thing I want to draw attention to - is the delusive effect of
letting moral narrative dominate all policy discussion.
In the case of the Kunduz MSF hospital incident, the effect of moral-narrative-domination is that
we do not know who in the U.S. chain-of-command decided MSF should clear out and the MSF hospital
should close down (and people should be killed and maimed to achieve that objective). The civilian
leadership presumably is not willing to own this policy choice, and they are willing to let the military
bear the costs of demoralization, by disciplining, however mildly proportionate to the consequences
for the dead and maimed victims, those in the chain of command responsible for the "negligence" which
was ultimately trotted out as an excuse for "poor performance" (after several other explanations
failed to stymie high-level criticism).
Our American b.s. pretense of righteous conduct is seriously interfering with the political
ability to arrive at a deliberately chosen policy likely to achieve strategically chosen objectives,
to cooperate efficiently within the policy-making hierarchy, to cooperate with allies and rivals
(like Russia, which probably does not see the U.S. as particularly trustworthy or even entirely rational
in negotiation), and to generate public support and general legitimacy.
I would submit that the ordinary purpose of international law is not to mandate just conduct per
se, but to establish conventions that allow for political coordination, even between rivals, as well
as facilitate hierarchical control of the state's forces for the centralized control of policy. And,
domination-by-moral-narrative has become a serious handicap, a source of American foreign policy
palsy cum dementia.
I'm not taking the position that morality and ethical conduct do not matter. (I think long-time
readers will realize I am something of an impractical idealist.) What I am trying to draw attention
to is the effect of bull shit justifications: the narratives are drawn up in disregard for their
factual truth value. (Disregard for truth value is kind of the definition of bull shit).
In short, I think judgments should be attempted, even in the face of the obscuring propaganda,
but I think we have to confront the propaganda as propaganda and the doubts and uncertainties it
engenders, as well as the semi-deranged social climate of opinion it engenders, as Rich P points
out.
debate is over!
Back to the real world.
Anyone here care to give a more detailed view of this mess, who is allied with who where, etc?
OCT 20
Syria War 2016 - GoPro POV Footage Of Turkish Backed Turkmen Fighters In Heavy Clashes With The
Syrian Army In Latakia
First Person point of view GoPro footage of Turkish backed Turkmen fighter groups in heavy
clashes with the Syrian Arab Army in the border region between Turkey and Syria.
The fighters you see here are part of the so called Syrian Turkmen Brigades an informal armed
opposition structure composed of Syrian Turkmen primarily fighting against the Syrian Army, Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (YPG+FSA).
They are aligned with the Syrian opposition and are heavily supported by Turkey, who provides
funding and military training along with artillery and aerial support.
"... criminal record had to be suppressed by the Obama regime in order to move the oligarchs' candidate in the direction of the White House. So here we are on the verge of nuclear war with Russia and China, and the important issue before the American people is Trump's lewd comments with Billy Bush about sexually attractive women. ..."
"... why is lewd talk about women more important than military conflict with Russia, which could mean nuclear war and the end of life on earth? ..."
"... For Killary-Hillary the Russian issue is the unsupported and false allegation that the Russian government, in league with Donald Trump, hacked her emails and released them to WikiLeaks. The purpose of this absurd claim is to focus voters' attention away from the damning content of the emails. ..."
"... The real issue is that the idiots in Washington have convinced the Russian government that Russia is going to be the target of a pre-emptive nuclear strike. Once a nation is convinced of this, it is unlikely that they will just sit there waiting, especially a powerful nuclear power like Russia, which appears to have a strategic alliance with another major nuclear power-China. ..."
Russia's very able Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova,
said that
the US presidential campaign is "simply some sort of a global shame" unworthy of the American people.
She certainly hit the nail on the head.
Hitlery's criminal record had to be suppressed by the Obama regime in order to move the oligarchs'
candidate in the direction of the White House. So here we are on the verge of nuclear war with Russia
and China, and the important issue before the American people is Trump's lewd comments with Billy
Bush about sexually attractive women.
I mean really. Men's talk about women is like their fish and hunting stories. It has to be taken
with a grain of salt. But this aside, why is lewd talk about women more important than military
conflict with Russia, which could mean nuclear war and the end of life on earth?
Trump has declared that he sees no point in conflict with Russia and that he sees no point in
NATO a quarter century after the demise of the Soviet Union.
Is Trump's lewd talk about women worse than Hitlery's provocative talk about Russian President
Vladimir Putin, whom Hitlery calls "the new Hitler"? What kind of utter fool would throw gratuitous
insults at the President of a country that can wipe the US and all of Western Europe off of the face
of the earth in a few minutes?
Would you rather face a situation in which a few women were groped, or be vaporized in nuclear
war? If you don't know the correct answer, you are too stupid to be alive.
Are the American women really going to elect Hillary as a rebuff to Trump's lewd talk? If so,
they will confirm that it was a mistake to give women the vote, although there will be no one left
alive to record the mistake in the history books.
Hitlery, with the aid of the presstitutes-the whores who lie for a living and who constitute the
American print and TV media-have succeeded in focusing America's election of a president on issues
irrelevant to the dangerous situation with which Hitlery and her neoconservative colleagues confront
the world.
For Killary-Hillary the Russian issue is the unsupported and false allegation that the Russian
government, in league with Donald Trump, hacked her emails and released them to WikiLeaks. The purpose
of this absurd claim is to focus voters' attention away from the damning content of the emails.
The real issue is that the idiots in Washington have convinced the Russian government that
Russia is going to be the target of a pre-emptive nuclear strike. Once a nation is convinced of this,
it is unlikely that they will just sit there waiting, especially a powerful nuclear power like Russia,
which appears to have a strategic alliance with another major nuclear power-China.
A vote for the crazed killer bitch Hitlery is a vote for the end of life on earth.
On September 28 the French mission to the UN claimed that two hospitals in east-Aleppo had been bombed.
It documented this in a tweet with
a picture of destroyed buildings in Gaza. The French later deleted that tweet.
It is not the first time such false claims and willful obfuscations were made by "western" officials.
But usually they shy away from outright lies.
Not so the US Secretary of State John Kerry. In a press event yesterday, before talks with the French
Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault about a new UN resolution,
he said (vid
@1:00) about Syria:
Last night, the regime attacked yet another hospital, and 20 people were killed and 100 people
were wounded. And Russia and the regime owe the world more than an explanation about why they
keep hitting hospitals and medical facilities and children and women.These are acts that beg for
an appropriate investigation of war crimes. And those who commit these would and should be held
accountable for these actions.
No opposition group has claimed that such an extremely grave event happened. None. No press agency
has a record of it. The MI-6 disinformation outlet SOHR in Britain, which quite reliably notes every
claimed casualty and is frequently cited in "western" media", has not said anything about such an
event anywhere in Syria.
The grave incident Kerry claimed did not happen. Kerry made it up. (Was it supposed to happen, got
canceled and Kerry missed the memo?) Kerry used the lie to call for war crime investigations and
punishment. This in front of cameras, at an official event with a foreign guest in the context of
a United Nations Security Council resolution.
This is grave. This is nearly as grave as Colin Powell's false claims of WMD in Iraq in front of
the UN Security Council.
Early reports, like
this one at CBSNEWS, repeat the Kerry claim:
Kerry said Syrian forces hit a hospital overnight, killing 20 people and wounding 100, describing
what would be the latest strike by Moscow or its ally in Damascus on a civilian target.
But the New York Times write up of the event, which includes Kerry's demand for war crime investigations,
does not mention the hospital bombing claim. Not at all. For the self-acclaimed "paper of record",
Kerry's lie did not happen. Likewise the Washington Post which in its own write up
makes no mention of the false Kerry claim.
The latest AP write up by Matthew Lee
also omits the lie. This is curious as Matt Lee is obviously aware of it. The State Departments
daily press briefing yesterday
had a whole section
on it. Video (@3:30)
shows that it is Matt who asks these questions:
QUESTION: Okay. On to Syria and the Secretary's comments earlier this morning, one is: Do you
know what strike he was talking about in his comments overnight on a hospital in Aleppo?
MR KIRBY: I think the Secretary's referring actually to a strike that we saw happen yesterday
on a field hospital in the Rif Dimashq Governorate. I'm not exactly positive that that's what
he was referring to, but I think he was referring to actually one that was --
QUESTION: Not one in Aleppo?
MR KIRBY: I believe it was I think it was I think he my guess is I'm guessing here that
he was a bit mistaken on location and referring to one --
...
QUESTION: But you don't have certainty, though?
MR KIRBY: I don't. Best I got, best information I got, is that he was most likely referring to
one yesterday in this governorate, but it could just be an honest mistake.
QUESTION: If we could if we can nail that down with certainty what he was talking about --
MR KIRBY: I'll do the best I can, Matt.
...
This goes on for a while. But there was no hospital attack in Rif Dimashq nor in Aleppo. Later on
DoS spokesman Kirby basically admits that Kerry lied: "I can't corroborate that."
It also turns out that Kerry has no evidence for any war crimes and no plausible way to initiate
any official international procedure about such. And for what? To bully Russia? Fat chance, that
would be a hopeless endeavor and Kerry should know that.
Kerry is desperate. He completely lost the plot on Syria. Russia is in the lead and will do whatever
needs to be done. The Obama administration has, apart from starting a World War, no longer any way
to significantly influence that.
Kerry is only one tool of the Obama administration. Later that day the US Director of National Intelligence,
James Clapper, made other
accusations against Russia:
The US Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directedthe recent
compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.
The recent disclosures of alleged hacked e-mails on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by
the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed
efforts. These thefts and disclosures are intended to interfere with the US election process.
Such activity is not new to Moscow-the Russians have used similar tactics and techniques across
Europe and Eurasia, for example, to influence public opinion there. We believe, based on the scope
and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most officials could have authorized
these activities.
Translation: "WE DO NOT KNOW at all ("we are confident", "we believe", "directed") who did these
hacks and WE DO NOT HAVE the slightest evidence ("consistent with","based on the scope and sensitivity")
that Russia is involved, so let me throw some chaff and try to bamboozle you all."
The former British ambassador Craig Murray calls it
a
blatant neocon lie. It was obviously the DNC that manipulated the US election by, contrary to
its mandate, promoting Clinton over Sanders. The hackers only proved that. It is also easy to see
why these accusations are made now. Murray:
That the Obama administration has made a formal accusation of Russia based on no evidence is,
on one level, astonishing. But it is motivated by desperation. WikiLeaks have already announced
that they have a huge cache of other material relating to Hillary's shenanigans. The White House
is simply seeking to discredit it in advance by a completely false association with Russian intelligence.
The Obama administration is losing it. On Syria as well as on the election it can no longer assert
its will. Trump, despite all dirty boy's club talk he may do, has a significant chance to catch the
presidency. He (-44%) and Clinton (-41%) are
more disliked by the U.S electorate, than Putin (-38%). Any solution in Syria will be more in
Russia's than the Washington's favor.
Such desperation can be dangerous. Kerry is gasping at straws when he lies about Russia. The president
and his colleagues at the Pentagon and the CIA have more kinetic means to express themselves. Could
they order up something really stupid?
"... Clinton also says that the no-fly zone bombing in Syria she is arguing for "would kill a lot of Syrians" - all for humanitarian reasons of course. ..."
"... While this military/para-military operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia , which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region. ..."
"... Not new - the 2012 DIA analysis provided as much , and more, - but these email's prove that Clinton was and is well aware that U.S. allies are financing the radical Islamists in Syria and Iraq. ..."
Quotes from the Wikileaks stash of Hillary
Clinton speeches and emails
from her campaign chair John Podesta.
Clinton in a 2013 speech to the Jewish United Fund Advance & Major Gifts Dinner (via
The Intercept ):
[Arming moderates has] been complicated by the fact that the Saudis and others are shipping large
amounts of weapons-and pretty indiscriminately-not at all targeted toward the people that we think
would be the more moderate, least likely, to cause problems in the future, ...
Clinton also says that the no-fly zone bombing in Syria she is arguing for "would kill a lot
of Syrians" - all for humanitarian reasons of course.
The following was written by Podesta, a well connected former White House Chief of Staff, in an
2014 email to Clinton.
As introduction Podesta notes: "Sources include Western intelligence, US intelligence and sources
in the region.":
While this military/para-military operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic
and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi
Arabia , which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical
Sunni groups in the region.
Not new - the 2012 DIA analysis
provided as much , and more, - but these email's prove that Clinton was and is well aware that
U.S. allies are financing the radical Islamists in Syria and Iraq.
"... President Obama acknowledged that danger at the end of the Nuclear Security Summit meeting in Washington early this month. He warned of the potential for "ramping up new and more deadly and more effective systems that end up leading to a whole new escalation of the arms race." ... ..."
"... United States' first 'smart' nuclear bomb signals new arms race with China and Russia: analysts South China Morning Post - August 18 ..."
"... Washington's green light for a new generation of steerable and smart tactical nuclear weapons may signal the start of a new US nuclear arms race with China and Russia, military analysts say. ..."
"... Russia and China are believed to have been developing similar weapons for decades, but Chinese experts are apparently keen to learn the lessons of the former Soviet Union's failed attempt to keep up with the United States in the cold war. ..."
"... Tactical nuclear weapons, known as non-strategic nuclear weapons, are designed to support naval, land and air forces in areas close to friendly forces and perhaps even on contested friendly territory. ..."
"... The new US weapon, the B61-12, is America's first guided, or "smart" nuclear bomb. It weighs 350kg and can penetrate fortified structures several metres underground. ..."
"... These nuclear happenings are why I think Hillary Clinton's labeling of Donald Trump as 'Putin's Puppet' is the more important takeaway for last night's debate, much more so than Trump's refusal to go on record as accepting the results of the election. ..."
"... The American Voting Public has 19 days to discover the loss of detente, the three way nuclear weapon build up ..."
By Paul Sonne & Julian E. Barnes & Gordon Lubold...Oct 19, 2016...5:47 p.m. ET
"The U.S. has summoned Russia to a mandatory meeting before a special treaty commission to answer
accusations that Moscow has violated a Cold War-era pact that bans the production, maintenance or
testing of medium-range missiles, according to U.S. and Western officials.
The U.S. for years has alleged that Russia is breaching the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
Treaty, or INF Treaty, an agreement Washington and Moscow signed in 1987 to eliminate land-based
nuclear and conventional missiles with ranges from 500 to 5,500 kilometers, as well as their launchers.
Russia, in turn, has accused the U.S. of violating the pact.
Now the U.S. is convening the treaty's so-called Special Verification Commission to press its
case against Russia, triggering the compliance body's first meeting in 16 years, according to the
U.S. and Western officials. They said the SVC meeting would take place in the coming weeks."
Putin is one of the few sane politicians left in Europe. I would not object importing him and
putting him as a POTUS here instead of one psychically debilitated neocon warmonger (who is definitely
in the pocket of Wall Street, if not Russians, due to the amount of "compromat" on her and Bill
floating around) and another bombastic know-nothing billionaire who is unable to neither clearly
articulate, no capitalize on his winning anti-globalization position against such a compromised,
widely hated opponent.
Especially after the dirty details of her sinking Sanders became known. Why on the Earth he
can't just de-legitimize her by stressing that she obtained her position as the candidate from
Democratic Party by proven fraud by DNC is beyond me.
Looks like you might not understand that and the fact that neocons have had driven the US into
another useless war in Syria to protect not so much our own but Israeli and Saudi interests (the
key idea is partitioning of Syria and establishing a Sunni state as the counterweight the loss
of Iraq to Shiites, which means Iran) .
Race for Latest Class of Nuclear Arms Threatens
to Revive Cold War http://nyti.ms/268HJT6
NYT - WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER - APRIL 16, 2016
The United States, Russia and China are now aggressively pursuing a new generation of smaller,
less destructive nuclear weapons. The buildups threaten to revive a Cold War-era arms race and
unsettle the balance of destructive force among nations that has kept the nuclear peace for more
than a half-century.
It is, in large measure, an old dynamic playing out in new form as an economically declining
Russia, a rising China and an uncertain United States resume their one-upmanship.
American officials largely blame the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, saying his intransigence
has stymied efforts to build on a 2010 arms control treaty and further shrink the arsenals of
the two largest nuclear powers. Some blame the Chinese, who are looking for a technological edge
to keep the United States at bay. And some blame the United States itself for speeding ahead with
a nuclear "modernization" that, in the name of improving safety and reliability, risks throwing
fuel on the fire.
President Obama acknowledged that danger at the end of the Nuclear Security Summit meeting
in Washington early this month. He warned of the potential for "ramping up new and more deadly
and more effective systems that end up leading to a whole new escalation of the arms race." ...
---
United States' first 'smart' nuclear bomb signals new arms race with China and Russia:
analysts South China Morning Post - August 18
Washington's green light for a new generation of steerable and smart tactical nuclear weapons
may signal the start of a new US nuclear arms race with China and Russia, military analysts say.
Russia and China are believed to have been developing similar weapons for decades, but
Chinese experts are apparently keen to learn the lessons of the former Soviet Union's failed attempt
to keep up with the United States in the cold war.
Tactical nuclear weapons, known as non-strategic nuclear weapons, are designed to support
naval, land and air forces in areas close to friendly forces and perhaps even on contested friendly
territory.
The new US weapon, the B61-12, is America's first guided, or "smart" nuclear bomb. It weighs
350kg and can penetrate fortified structures several metres underground.
Unlike banned weapons of mass destruction, the B61-12 is designed to be carried by high-speed
stealth fighter jets to hit targets precisely with limited damage to structures and lives nearby.
...
im1dc -> im1dc... , -1
These nuclear happenings are why I think Hillary Clinton's labeling of Donald Trump as 'Putin's
Puppet' is the more important takeaway for last night's debate, much more so than Trump's refusal
to go on record as accepting the results of the election.
The American Voting Public has 19 days to discover the loss of detente, the three way nuclear
weapon build up , and connect Trump to Putin as Putin's Puppet.
This is far more important going forward than Trump being seen as a whiner and sore loser.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said she believes the US presidential campaign
is not worthy of the nation's people, calling it a "catastrophe" and "simply some sort of a global
shame" during a meeting with students on Tuesday.
Commenting on the heated 2016 presidential race in the US, Zakharova lamented that by accusing
Moscow of mounting cyber-attacks with an alleged aim of meddling in American politics, Washington
has turned Russia into a "real, serious factor of pre-election rhetoric."
They are constantly saying that Russia is carrying out cyber-attacks on certain US facilities,"
she said. Zakharova stressed that the US side provided no proof or any other data on the alleged
hackers' links to Moscow, which she says makes the allegations appear to be a "smokescreen" to cover
up serious domestic issues.
According to the spokeswoman, this "public bickering on Russia"as well as "locker-room jokes"
are "unworthy of a great power, [and] great people" of America.
"I simply believe that this campaign is not worthy of their people. As a person who was engaged
in information technologies when studying at the university, I believe that this is a catastrophic
campaign. May the colleagues of all kinds and countries forgive me, but I believe that this is simply
some sort of a global shame," Zakharova said at a meeting with students at the Moscow Aviation Institute,
Life.ru reported.
Earlier in October, the US government claimed it was "confident" that Russia was behind the hacking
attacks on US officials and organizations, alleging that revelations by WikiLeaks, DCLeaks and Guccifer
2.0. were directly authorized by the Russian government with the intention to "interfere with the
US election process."
"We believe, based on the scope and sensitivity of these efforts, that only Russia's senior-most
officials could have authorized these activities," read the report, published by the Director of
National Intelligence James Clapper. The accusations were based on the fact that attacks "in most
cases originated from servers operated by a Russian company."
Moscow, for its part, completely dismissed the allegations, denying any involvement in the attacks.
Commenting on the report, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov labeled the accusations "yet
another fit of nonsense,"adding that while many cyber-attacks Russia faces on a daily basis can be
traced back to US services, Russia refrains from calling US government responsible for cybercrimes.
This crazy warmonger Hillary Insists Putin Wants a 'Puppet' as US President. The truth is that with
the amount of "compromat" against her she is a puppet.
It didn't take long for the
final presidential debate in the US to be shifted to the Clinton campaign's favorite topic: accusing
the Trump campaign of being involved in a Russian plot to hack the US election to his benefit. Indeed,
it didn't even wait until the brief foreign policy segment.
During questions about immigration, the moderator asked a question of Hillary Clinton regarding
her comments at a closed-door speech to a Brazilian bank about open borders. Clinton quickly and
dramatically changed focus, noting that the quote came from WikiLeaks and declaring "what's really
important about WikiLeaks is that the Russian government has engaged in espionage against Americans."
She went on to declare that it was "clearly" Russian President Vladimir Putin behind the WikiLeaks
releases, and insisted that the entire intelligence community had confirmed Putin was doing so "to
influence our election." She then demanded Republican nominee Donald Trump "admit" to it.
When Trump noted that Clinton has "no idea" who was behind the hacks, and that he'd never even
met Putin, Clinton declared that Putin wanted Trump elected to be his puppet as US president. Trump
insisted it was Clinton, by contrast, who was the puppet.
Trump went on to say he'd condemn any foreign interference in the US election, no matter who it
was, but did say that he thought if the US and Russia got along it "wouldn't be so bad." Clinton
accused him of spouting "the Putin line."
The Clinton campaign has been accusing Russia of trying to hack the election since their summer
convention, blaming them for materially every leak that proved embarrassing to her campaign. Since
then, the allegations have gone hand-in-hand with claims that Trump is in on the matter. Russia denies
any involvement in the hacking, and has noted there is no public evidence to support the claims.
Beyond continuing to advance these allegations, the debate touched on foreign policy in a limited
fashion, with Clinton reiterating promises to impose a no fly zone in Syria to "gain some leverage
on the Russians." When asked about the possibility of that starting a war with Russia, she shifted
focus again to her confidence the no-fly zone would "save lives."
Twice in recent days, cruise missiles fired from an American destroyer have rained down
on Yemen.
Whoaaa. There may still be doubts about this. After all, what do the Houthis gain, especially
right after the Saudis have outdone themselves in atrocities.
Officials Saturday night were uncertain about what exactly happened, if there were multiple
incoming missiles or if there was a malfunction with the radar detection system on the destroyer.
Even if the Yemenis did, I fail to see why this is considered shocking and unacceptable. I
get that decades of kowtowing to Israel has conditioned the United States to not understand that
a blockade is inherently an act of war, but quite aside from starving the people of Yemen we've
been directly supporting the Saudi bombing. We've been belligerents in this conflict from the
start.
But come January, Democrats will continue to be the dominant political faction in the U.S. - more
so than ever - and the tactics they are now embracing will endure past the election, making them
worthy of scrutiny. Those tactics now most prominently include dismissing away any facts or documents
that reflect negatively on their leaders as fake, and strongly insinuating that anyone who questions
or opposes those leaders is
a stooge or agent of the Kremlin, tasked with a subversive and dangerously un-American mission
on behalf of hostile actors in Moscow.
To see how extreme and damaging this behavior has become,
let's just quickly examine two utterly false claims that Democrats over the past four days - led
by party-loyal journalists - have disseminated and induced thousands of people, if not more, to believe.
On Friday, WikiLeaks published its first installment of emails obtained from the account of Clinton
campaign chair John Podesta. Despite WikiLeaks' perfect, long-standing record of only publishing
authentic documents,
MSNBC's favorite ex-intelligence official, Malcolm Nance, within hours of the archive's release,
posted a tweet claiming - with zero evidence and without citation to a single document in the WikiLeaks
archive - that it was compromised with fakes:
As you can see, more than 4,000 people have re-tweeted this "Official Warning." That includes
not only random Clinton fans but also
high-profileClinton-supporting
journalists, who by spreading it around gave this claim their stamp of approval, intentionally
leading huge numbers of people to assume the WikiLeaks archive must be full of fakes, and its contents
should therefore simply be ignored. Clinton's campaign officials spent the day
fueling these
insinuations, strongly implying that the documents were unreliable and should thus be ignored.
Poof: Just like that, unpleasant facts about Hillary Clinton disappeared, like a fairy protecting
frightened children by waving her magic wand and sprinkling her dust over a demon, causing it to
scatter away.
Except the only fraud here was Nance's claim, not any of the documents published by WikiLeaks.
Those were all real. Indeed, at Sunday night's debate, when asked directly about the excerpts of
her Wall Street speeches found in the release, Clinton herself confirmed their authenticity. And
news outlets such as the New York Times and AP reported - and
continue to report - on their contents without any caveat that they may be frauds. No real print
journalists or actual newsrooms (as opposed to campaign operatives masquerading as journalists) fell
for this scam, so this tactic did not prevent reporting from being done.
But it did signal to Clinton's most devoted followers to simply ignore the contents of the release.
Anyone writing articles about what these documents revealed was instantly barraged with claims from
Democrats that they were fakes, by people often pointing to
"articles" like this one.
That article was shared almost 22,000 times on Facebook alone. In Nance's defense, it is true that
some unknown, random person posted a doctored email on the internet and claimed it was real, but
that did not come from the WikiLeaks archive and has nothing to do with assessing the reliability
of the archive (any more than
fake NYT stories on the internet impugn the reliability of articles in that paper). Not one person
has identified even a single email or document released by WikiLeaks of questionable authenticity
- that includes all of the Clinton officials whose names are listed as their authors and recipients
- yet these journalists and "experts" deliberately convinced who knows how many people to believe
a fairy tale: that WikiLeaks' archive is pervaded with forgeries.
More insidious and subtle,
but even worse, was what Newsweek and its Clinton-adoring writer Kurt Eichenwald did last night.
What happened - in reality, in the world of facts - was extremely trivial.
One of the emails
in the second installment of the WikiLeaks/Podesta archive - posted yesterday - was from Sidney Blumenthal
to Podesta. The sole purpose of Blumenthal's email was to show Podesta one of Eichenwald's endless
series of Clinton-exonerating articles,
this one about Benghazi. So in the body of the email to Podesta, Blumenthal simply pasted the
link and the full contents of the article. Although the purpose of Eichenwald's article (like everything
he says and does) was to defend Clinton, one paragraph in the middle acknowledged that one minor
criticism of Clinton on Benghazi was possibly rational.
Once WikiLeaks announced that this second email batch was online, many news organizations (including
The Intercept, along with the NYT and AP) began combing through them to find relevant information
and then published articles about them. One such story was published by Sputnik, the Russian government's
international outlet similar to RT, which highlighted that Blumenthal email. But the Sputnik story
inaccurately attributed the text of the Newsweek article to Blumenthal, thus suggesting that one
of Clinton's closest advisers had expressed criticism of her on Benghazi. Sputnik quickly removed
the article once Eichenwald pointed out that the words were his, not Blumenthal's. Then, in his campaign
speech last night, Trump made reference to the Sputnik article (hours after it was published and
spread on social media), claiming (obviously inaccurately) that even Blumenthal had criticized Clinton
on Benghazi.
That's all that happened. There is zero suggestion in the article, let alone evidence, that
any WikiLeaks email was doctored: It wasn't. It was just Sputnik misreporting the email. Once
Sputnik realized that its article misattributed the text to Blumenthal, it took it down. It's not
hard to imagine how a rushed, careless Sputnik staffer could glance at that email and fail to realize
that Blumenthal was forwarding Eichenwald's article rather than writing it himself. And while nobody
knows how this erroneous Sputnik story made its way to Trump for him to reference in his speech,
it's very easy to imagine how a Trump staffer on a shoddy, inept campaign - which has previously
cited InfoWars and white supremacist sites, among others - would have stumbled into
a widely shared
Sputnik story that had been published hours earlier on the internet and then passed it along
to Trump for him to highlight, without realizing the reasons to be skeptical.
In any event, based on the available evidence, this is a small embarrassment for Trump: He cited
an erroneous story from a non-credible Russian outlet, so it's worth noting. But that's not what
happened. Eichenwald, with increasing levels of hysteria, manically posted
no fewer than
three dozen tweets last night about his story, each time escalating his claims of what it proved.
By the time he was done, he had misled large numbers of people into believing that he found proof
that: 1) the documents in the WikiLeaks archive were altered; 2) Russia put forgeries into the WikiLeaks
archive; 3) Sputnik knew about the WikiLeaks archive ahead of time, before it was posted online;
4) WikiLeaks coordinated the release of the documents with the Russian government; and 5) the Russian
government and the Trump campaign coordinated to falsely attribute Eichenwald's words to Blumenthal.
In fact, Eichenwald literally has zero evidence for any of that. The point is not that his evidence
for these propositions is inconclusive or unpersuasive; the point is that there is zero evidence
for any of it. It's all just conspiracy theorizing and speculation that he invented. Worse, the article,
while hinting at these claims and encouraging readers to believe them, does not even expressly claim
any of those things. Instead, Eichenwald's increasingly unhinged tweets repeatedly inflated his insignificant
story from what it was - a misattribution of an email by Sputnik that Trump repeated - into a five-alarm
warning that an insidious Russian plot to subvert U.S. elections had been proven, with Trump and
fake WikiLeaks documents at the center.
By itself, this is not so notable: All journalists are tempted to hype their stories. But
Eichenwald went way, way beyond that, including - as demonstrated below - demonstrable lies.
But what makes it so significant is how many reasoned, perfectly smart journalists - just as they
did with Nance's "Official Warning" - started falling prey to the dual hysteria of Twitter group
dynamics and election blinders, to the point where CNN featured Eichenwald this morning to highlight
his major scoop linking Putin, Trump, and WikiLeaks in the plot to feed Americans heaps of Russian
disinformation.
Just watch how this warped narrative played out in a very short period of time, with nobody wanting
to get in the way of the speeding train for fear of being castigated as a Trump supporter or Putin
stooge (accusations that are - yet again - inevitably on their way as a result of this article):
To call all this overwrought deceit is to understate the case. In particular, the repeated claim
that his story has anything to do with, let alone demonstrates, that "wikileaks is working w/Putin"
or "wikileaks is compromised" is an outright fraud. The assertion in the second tweet - that "only
those two [Trump and Russia] knew" about the article - is an outright lie, since by the time Trump
cited it, it had been published hours earlier on the internet and shared widely on social media.
Moreover, none of the documents released by WikiLeaks have yet to be identified as anything but completely
authentic.
But look at his tweets: Each has been re-tweeted by close to 1,000 people, and in the case of
the most sensationalistic ones, many more. And they were quickly hyped by people who should know
better because anyone supporting Hillary Clinton wants to believe that this is true:
Russsia leaked hacked emails but created forgeries first plagiarizing a
reporter. Only Russian news posted the lie. Yet,
@realDonaldTrumphttps://t.co/mGizfPpHWF
Literally none of that happened. Or at least there is zero evidence that it did. These are smart,
rational people falling for a scam. Why? It's in part because Twitter fosters this group-think and
lack of critical thought - you just click a button and, with little effort, you've spread whatever
you want people to believe - but it's also because they're so convinced of the righteousness of their
cause (electing Clinton/defeating Trump) that they have cast all limits and constraints to the side,
believing that any narrative or accusation or smear, no matter how false or conspiratorial, is justified
in pursuit of it.
But while Donald Trump's candidacy poses grave dangers, so does group-think righteousness, particularly
when it engulfs those with the greatest influence. The problem is that none of this is going to vanish
after the election. This election-year machine that has been constructed based on elite unity in
support of Clinton - casually dismissing inconvenient facts as fraudulent to make them disappear,
branding critics and adversaries as tools or agents of an Enemy Power bent on destroying America
- is a powerful one. As is seen here, it is capable of implanting any narrative, no matter how false;
demonizing any critic, no matter how baseless; and riling up people to believe they're under attack.
For a long time, liberals heralded themselves as part of the "reality-based community" and derided
conservatives as faith-based victims of "epistemic closure." The dynamics seen here are anything
but byproducts of reason.
"... First, Clinton's neoliberalism is so bone deep that she refers to Medicare as a "single market" rather than "single payer"; ..."
"... Clinton frames solutions exclusively ..."
"... Policy Sciences ..."
"... Stalin spent his early days in a seminary. Masters of broken promises. I'm more interested in Clinton's Chinese connections. Probably tied through JP Morgan. The Chinese are very straightforward in their, dare I say, inscrutible way. The ministers are the ministers, and the palace is the palace. ..."
"... SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don't feel particularly courageous. I mean, if we're going to be an effective, efficient economy, we need to have all part of that engine running well, and that includes Wall Street and Main Street. ..."
"... Because she wont pay for quality speechwriters or coaching. Because she is a shyster, cheapskate and a fraud. They hired the most inept IT company to 'mange' their office server who then (in a further fit of cheapskate stupidity) hired an inept IT client manager who then (in a further fit of cheapskate stupidity) asked Reddit for a solution. ..."
"... One can say a lot of justifiable bad things about Ronald Reagan, but, he had competent advisors and he used them! With Hillary, Even if she knows she has accessed the best advice on the planet her instinct it to not trust it because "she knows better" and she absolutely will not tolerate dissent. Left to her own devices, she simply copies other people's thinking/ homework instead of building her own ideas with it. ..."
"... What surprises me is that Goldmans paid her for these speeches, you know? Hillary C typically pays "the audience" to listen to, and come to her speeches. You know? You know! ..."
"... I heard Hillary speak in summer '92, when Bill was running for Prez. She. was. amazing. No joke. Great speech, great ideas, great points. I thought then she should be the candidate. But there was in her speech just a tiny undercurrent of "the ends justify the means." i.e. 'we need to get lots of money so we can do good things.' Fast forward 20+ years. Seems to me that for the Clintons the "means" (getting lots of money) has become the end in itself. Reassuring Wall St. is one method for getting money large, large amounts of money. ..."
"... A fine illustration of the maxim that "crime makes you stupid." ..."
"... in that context ..."
"... So I guess the moral of the story is (a) more deterioration, this time from 2008 to 2016, and (b) Clinton can actually make a good decision, but only when forced to by a catastrophe that will impact her personally. Whether she'll be able to rise to the occasion if elected is an open question, but this post argues not. ..."
"... Bingo! Think about it: She was speaking to a group of people whose time is "valued" at 100's if not 1,000's of dollars per hour. She took up their "valuable" time but provided nothing except politics-as-usual blather tailored to that particular audience. Yet she was paid $225k for a single speech ..."
"... Hillary is a remarkably inarticulate person, which calls into question her intellectual fitness for the job (amidst many other questions, of course). I entirely agree with your depiction of her speeches as mindless drivel. ..."
"... Not to otherwise compare them, but Bush I's inarticulateness made him seem a buffoon, and that was not the case, either. ..."
"... Matt Tiabbi, Elizabeth Warren, Benie Sanders, Noam Chompskyall those used to seem like bastions of integrity have, thanks to Hillary, been revealed as slimy little Weasels who should henceforth be completely disregarded. I'd have to thank Hillary for pulling back the nlindets on that; if not for this election I might have been still foolishly listening to these people. ..."
"... What scares me most about Clinton is her belligerence towards Russia and clamoring for a no-fly zone in Syria. The no-fly zone will mean war with Russia. If only Clinton were saying this, we might be safe, but the entire Washington deep state seems to be of one mind in favor of a war. During the cold war this would have been inconceivable; everyone understood a nuclear war must not be allowed. This is no longer true and it is terrifying. Every war game the pentagon used to simulate a war with the U.S.S.R. escalated into an all out nuclear war. What is the "plan B" Obama is pursuing in Syria? ..."
"... The current fear/fever over nuclear war with Russia requires madness in the Kremlin - of which there is no evidence. Our Rulers are depending on Putin and his cohorts being the sane ones as rhetoric from the US and the West ratchets ever upwards. ..."
"... But then, the Kremlin is looking for any hint of sanity on US and NATO side and is finding little ..."
"... Curtis LeMay tried to provoke a nuclear war with the Soviets in the 1950's. By and large, however, the American state understood a nuclear war was unwinnable and avoided such a possibility. A no-fly zone in Syria would start a war with Russia. William Polk, who participated in the Cuban missle crisis and U.S. nuclear war games, argues in this article ..."
"... both of which present a clinical assessment that Hillary suffers from Parkinson's. Seems like an elephant in the room. ..."
"... The absolute vacuousness of Clinton's remarks, coupled with her ease at neoliberal conventional wisdom, make it clear that Goldman's payments were nothing more (or less) than a $675,000 anticipatory "so no quid pro quo ..."
"... The leaked emails confirm - even though she herself never writes them, which is really odd, when you consider that Podesta is her Campaign Chair and close ally going back decades - that she is compulsively secretive, controlling, and resistant to admitting she's wrong. The chain of people talking about how to get her to admit she was wrong about Nancy Reagan and AIDS was particularly fascinating that way; she was flat out factually inaccurate, and it had the potential to do tremendous harm to her campaign with a key donor group, and it was apparently still a major task to persuade her to say "I made a mistake." ..."
"... basically, every real world policy problem is related to every other real world policy problem ..."
"... Most noticeable thing is her subservience to them like a fresh college grad afraid of his boss at his first job ..."
As readers know, WikiLeaks has
released transcripts
of the three speeches to Goldman Sachs that Clinton gave in 2013, and for which she was paid
the eyewatering sum of $675,000. (The link is to an email dated January 23, 2016, from Cllinton staffer
Tony Carrk , Clinton's research director, which pulls out
"noteworthy quotes" from the speeches. The speeches themselves are attachments to that email.)
Readers, I read them. All three of them. What surprises - and when I tell you I had to take a
little nap about halfway through, I'm not making it up! - is the utter mediocrity of Clinton's thought
and mode of expression[1]. Perhaps that explains Clinton's
otherwise inexplicable refusal to release them. And perhaps my sang froid is preternatural,
but I don't see a "smoking gun," unless forking over $675,000 for interminable volumes of shopworn
conventional wisdom be, in itself, such a gun. What can Goldman Sachs possibly have thought they
were paying for?
WikiLeaks has, however, done voters a favor - in these speeches, and in the DNC and Podesta email
releases generally - by giving us a foretaste of what a Clinton administration will be like, once
in power, not merely on policy (the "first 100 days"), but on how they will make decisions. I call
the speeches a "munitions dump," because the views she expresses in these speeches are bombs that
can be expected to explode as the Clinton administration progresses.
With that, let's contextualize and comment upon some quotes from the speeches
The Democrats Are the Party of Wall Street
Of course, you knew that, but it's nice to have the matter confirmed. This material was flagged
by Carrk (as none of the following material will have been). It's enormously prolix, but I decided
to cut only a few paragraphs. From
Clinton's second
Goldman speech at the AIMS Alternative Investments Symposium:
MR. O'NEILL: Let's come back to the US. Since 2008, there's been an awful lot of seismic activity
around Wall Street and the big banks and regulators and politicians.
Now, without going over how we got to where we are right now , what would be your
advice to the Wall Street community and the big banks as to the way forward with those two important
decisions?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I represented all of you for eight years. I had great relations and
worked so close together after 9/11 to rebuild downtown, and a lot of respect for the work you
do and the people who do it, but I do - I think that when we talk about the regulators and the
politicians, the economic consequences of bad decisions back in '08, you know, were devastating,
and they had repercussions throughout the world.
That was one of the reasons that I started traveling in February of '09, so people could, you
know, literally yell at me for the United States and our banking system causing this everywhere.
Now, that's an oversimplification we know, but it was the conventional wisdom [really?!].
And I think that there's a lot that could have been avoided in terms of both misunderstanding
and really politicizing [!] what happened with greater transparency, with greater openness on
all sides, you know, what happened, how did it happen, how do we prevent it from happening?
You guys help us figure it out and let's make sure that we do it right this time .
And I think that everybody was desperately trying to fend off the worst effects institutionally,
governmentally, and there just wasn't that opportunity to try to sort this out, and that
came later .
I mean, it's still happening, as you know. People are looking back and trying to, you know,
get compensation for bad mortgages and all the rest of it in some of the agreements that are being
reached.
There's nothing magic about regulations, too much is bad, too little is bad. How do you get
to the golden key, how do we figure out what works? And the people that know the industry
better than anybody are the people who work in the industry .
And we need banking. I mean, right now, there are so many places in our country where
the banks are not doing what they need to do because they're scared of regulations , they're
scared of the other shoe dropping, they're just plain scared, so credit is not flowing the way
it needs to to restart economic growth.
So people are, you know, a little - they're still uncertain, and they're uncertain both because
they don't know what might come next in terms of regulations, but they're also uncertain because
of changes in a global economy that we're only beginning to take hold of.
So first and foremost, more transparency, more openness, you know, trying to figure out,
we're all in this together , how we keep this incredible economic engine in this country
going. And this [finance] is, you know, the nerves, the
spinal column.
And with political people, again, I would say the same thing, you know, there was a lot
of complaining about Dodd-Frank, but there was also a need to do something because for political
reasons , if you were an elected member of Congress and people in your constituency were
losing jobs and shutting businesses and everybody in the press is saying it's all the fault of
Wall Street, you can't sit idly by and do nothing, but what you do is really important.
And I think the jury is still out on that because it was very difficult to sort of sort through
it all.
And, of course, I don't, you know, I know that banks and others were worried about continued
liability [oh, really?] and other problems down the road, so it would be better if we could
have had a more open exchange about what we needed to do to fix what had broken and then try to
make sure it didn't happen again, but we will keep working on it.
MR. O'NEILL: By the way, we really did appreciate when you were the senator from New York and
your continued involvement in the issues (inaudible) to be courageous in some respects to associated
with Wall Street and this environment. Thank you very much.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don't feel particularly courageous. I mean, if we're going to be
an effective, efficient economy, we need to have all part of that engine running well, and that
includes Wall Street and Main Street.
And there's a big disconnect and a lot of confusion right now. So I'm not interested in,
you know, turning the clock back or pointing fingers , but I am interested in trying to
figure out how we come together to chart a better way forward and one that will restore confidence
in, you know, small and medium-size businesses and consumers and begin to chip away at the unemployment
rate [five years into the recession!].
So it's something that I, you know, if you're a realist, you know that people have different
roles to play in politics, economics, and this is an important role, but I do think that there
has to be an understanding of how what happens here on Wall Street has such broad consequences
not just for the domestic but the global economy, so more thought has to be given to the process
and transactions and regulations so that we don't kill or maim what works, but we concentrate
on the most effective way of moving forward with the brainpower and the financial power
that exists here.
"Moving forward." And not looking back. (It would be nice to know what "continued liability"
the banks were worried about;
accounting
control fraud ? Maybe somebody could ask Clinton.) Again, I call your attention to the weird
combination of certainty and mediocrity of it; readers, I am sure, can demolish the detail. What
this extended quotation does show is that Clinton and Obama are as one with respect to the
role of the finance sector. Politico describes Obama's famous meeting with the bankster CEOs:
Arrayed around a long mahogany table in the White House state dining room last week, the CEOs
of the most powerful financial institutions in the world offered several explanations for paying
high salaries to their employees - and, by extension, to themselves.
"These are complicated companies," one CEO said. Offered another: "We're competing for talent
on an international market.".
But President Barack Obama wasn't in a mood to hear them out. He stopped the conversation and
offered a blunt reminder of the public's reaction to such explanations. "Be careful how you make
those statements, gentlemen. The public isn't buying that.".
"My administration," the president added, "is the only thing between you and the pitchforks."
And he did! He did! Clinton, however, by calling the finance sector the "the nerves, the spinal
column" of the country, goes farther than Obama ever did.
So, from the governance perspective, we can expect the FIRE sector to dominate a Clinton administration,
and the Clinton administration to service it. The Democrats are the Party of Wall Street. The bomb
that could explode there is corrupt dealings with cronies (for which the Wikileaks material provides
plenty of leads).
Clinton Advocates a "Night Watchman" State
The next quotes are shorter, I swear! Here's a quote from
Clinton's third
Goldman speech (not flagged by Carrk, no doubt because hearing drivel like this is perfectly
normal in HillaryLand):
SECRETARY CLINTON: And I tell you, I see any society like a three-legged stool. You have to
have an active free market that gives people the chance to live out their dreams by their own
hard work and skills. You have to have a functioning, effective government that provides
the right balance of oversight and protection of freedom and privacy and liberty and all the rest
of it that goes with it . And you have to have an active civil society. Because there's
so much about America that is volunteerism and religious faith and family and community activities.
So you take one of those legs away, it's pretty hard to balance it. So you've got to get back
to getting the right balance.
Apparently, the provision
of public services is not within government's remit -- What are Social Security and Medicare?
"All the rest of it"? Not only that, who said the free market was the only way to "live
out their dreams"? Madison, Franklin, even Hamilton would have something to say about that! Finally,
which one of those legs is out of balance? Civil society? Some would advocate less religion in politics
rather than more, including many Democrats. The markets? Not at Goldman? Government? Too much militarization,
way too little concrete material benefits, so far as I'm concerned, but Clinton doesn't say, making
the "stool" metaphor vacuous.
From a governance perspective, we can expect Clinton's blind spot on government's role in provisioning
servies to continue. Watch for continued privatization efforts (perhaps aided by Silicon Valley).
On any infrastructure projects, watch for "public-private partnerships." The bomb that could explode
there is corrupt dealings with a different set of cronies (even if the FIRE sector does
have a finger in every pie).
Clinton's Views on Health Care Reflect Market Fundamentalism
MR. O'NEILL: [O]bviously the Affordable Care Act has been upheld by the supreme court. It's
clearly having limitation problems [I don't know what that means]. It's unsettling, people still
- the Republicans want to repeal it or defund it. So how do you get to the middle on that clash
of absolutes?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, this is not the first time that we rolled out a big program with the
limitation problems [Clinton apparently does].
I was in the Senate when President Bush asked and signed legislation expanding Medicare benefits,
the Medicare Part D drug benefits. And people forget now that it was a very difficult implementation.
As a senator, my staff spent weeks working with people who were trying to sign up, because
it was in some sense even harder to manage because the population over 65, not the most computer-literate
group, and it was difficult. But, you know, people stuck with it, worked through it.
Now, this is on - it's on a different scale and it is more complex because it's trying to create
a market. In Medicare, you have a single market , you have, you know, the government
is increasing funding through government programs [sic] to provide people over 65 the drugs they
needed.
And there were a few variations that you could play out on it, but it was a much simpler market
than what the Affordable Care Act is aiming to set up.
Now, the way I look at this, Tim, is it's either going to work or it's not going to work.
First, Clinton's neoliberalism is so bone deep that she refers to Medicare as a "single market"
rather than "single payer"; but then
Clinton erases single payer whenever possible . Second, Clinton frames solutions exclusively
in terms of markets (and not the direct provision of services by government);
Obama does the same on health care in JAMA , simply erasing the possibility of single payer.
Third, rather than advocate a simple, rugged, and proven system like Canadian Medicare (single payer),
Clinton prefers to run an experiment ("it's either going to work or it's not going to work")
on the health of millions of people (and, I would urge, without their informed consent).
From a governance perspective, assume that if the Democrats propose
a "public option," it will be miserably inadequate. The bomb that could explode here is the ObamaCare
death spiral.
The Problems Are "Wicked," but Clinton Will Be Unable to Cope With Them
MR. BLANKFEIN: The next area which I think is actually literally closer to home but where American
lives have been at risk is the Middle East, I think is one topic. What seems to be the ambivalence
or the lack of a clear set of goals - maybe that ambivalence comes from not knowing what outcome
we want or who is our friend or what a better world is for the United States and of Syria, and
then ultimately on the Iranian side if you think of the Korean bomb as far away and just the Tehran
death spot, the Iranians are more calculated in a hotter area with - where does that go? And I
tell you, I couldn't - I couldn't myself tell - you know how we would like things to work out,
but it's not discernable to me what the policy of the United States is towards an outcome either
in Syria or where we get to in Iran.
MS. CLINTON: Well, part of it is it's a wicked problem , and it's a wicked
problem that is very hard to unpack in part because as you just said, Lloyd, it's not clear
what the outcome is going to be and how we could influence either that outcome or a different
outcome.
(I say "cope with" rather than "solve" for reasons that will become apparent.) Yes, Syria's bad,
as vividly shown by Blankfein's fumbling question, but I want to focus on the term "wicked problem,"
which comes from the the field of strategic planning, though it's also infiltrated
information technology
and management
theory . The concept originated in a famous paper by Horst W. J. Rittel and Melvin M. Webber
entitled: "Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning" (PDF), Policy Sciences 4 (1973), 155-169.
I couldn't summarize the literature even if I had the time, but here is Rittel and Webber's introduction:
There are at least ten distinguishing properties of planning-type problems, i.e. wicked ones,
that planners had better be alert to and which we shall comment upon in turn. As you will see,
we are calling them "wicked" not because these properties are themselves ethically deplorable.
We use the term "wicked" in a meaning akin to that of "malignant" (in contrast to "benign") or
"vicious" (like a circle) or "tricky" (like a leprechaun) or "aggressive" (like a lion, in contrast
to the docility of a lamb). We do not mean to personify these properties of social systems by
implying malicious intent. But then, you may agree that it becomes morally objectionable for the
planner to treat a wicked problem as though it were a tame one, or to tame a wicked problem prematurely,
or to refuse to recognize the inherent wickedness of social problems.
And here is a list of Rittel and Webber's ten properties of a "wicked problem" (
and a critique ):
There is no definite formulation of a wicked problem Wicked problems have no stopping rule Solutions
to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good-or-bad. There is no immediate and no ultimate
test of a solution to a wicked problem. Every solution to a wicked problem is a "one-shot operation";
because there is no opportunity to learn by trial-and-error, every attempt counts significantly.
Wicked problems do not have an enumerable (or an exhaustively describable) set of potential solutions,
nor is there a well-described set of permissible operations that may be incorporated into the
plan. Every wicked problem is essentially unique. Every wicked problem can be considered to be
a symptom of another [wicked] problem. The causes of a wicked problem can be explained in numerous
ways. The choice of explanation determines the nature of the problem's resolution. [With wicked
problems,] the planner has no right to be wrong.
Of course, there's plenty of controversy about all of this, but if you throw these properties
against the Syrian clusterf*ck, I think you'll see a good fit, and can probably come up with other
examples. My particular concern, however, is with property #3:
Solutions to wicked problems are not true-or-false, but good-or-bad
There are conventionalized criteria for objectively deciding whether the offered solution to
an equation or whether the proposed structural formula of a chemical compound is correct or false.
They can be independently checked by other qualified persons who are familiar with the established
criteria; and the answer will be normally unambiguous.
For wicked planning problems, there are no true or false answers. Normally, many parties are
equally equipped, interested, and/or entitled to judge the solutions, although none has the power
to set formal decision rules to determine correctness. Their judgments are likely to differ widely
to accord with their group or personal interests, their special value-sets, and their ideological
predilections. Their assessments of proposed solutions are expressed as "good" or "bad" or, more
likely, as "better or worse" or "satisfying" or "good enough."
(Today, we would call these "many parties" "stakeholders.") My concern is that a Clinton administration,
far from compromising - to be fair, Clinton does genuflect toward "compromise" elsewhere - will try
to make wicked planning problems more tractable by reducing the number of parties to policy decisions.
That is, exactly, what "irredeemables" implies[2], which is unfortunate, especially when the cast
out amount to well over a third of the population. The same tendencies were also visible in the Clinton
campaigns approach to Sanders and Sanders supporters, and the general strategy of bringing the Blame
Cannons to bear on those who demonstrate insufficient fealty.
From a governance perspective, watch for many more executive orders acceptable to neither right
nor left, and plenty of decisions taken in secret. The bomb that could explode here is the
legitimacy of a Clinton administration, depending on the parties removed from the policy discussion,
and the nature of the decision taken.
Conclusion
I don't think volatility will decrease on November 8, should Clinton be elected and take office;
if anything, it will increase. A ruling party in thrall to finance, intent on treating government
functions as opportunities for looting by cronies, blinded by neoliberal ideology and hence incapable
of providing truly universal health care, and whose approach to problems of conflict in values is
to demonize and exclude the opposition is a recipe for continued crisis.
NOTES
[1]
Matt Taibbi takes the view that "Speaking to bankers and masters of the corporate universe, she
came off as relaxed, self-doubting, reflective, honest, philosophical rather than political, and
unafraid to admit she lacked all the answers." I don't buy it. It all read like the same old Clinton
to me, and I've read a lot of Clinton (see, e.g.,
here ,
here ,
here ,
here ,
here , and
here ).
[2] One is irresistibly reminded of Stalin's "No man, no problem," although some consider Stalin's
methods to be unsound. oho
October 17, 2016 at 1:14 pm
I had never read this article before. Near perfect diagnosis and even more relevant today than
it was then. For everyone's benefit, the central thesis:
Typically, these countries are in a desperate economic situation for one simple reason-the
powerful elites within them overreached in good times and took too many risks. Emerging-market
governments and their private-sector allies commonly form a tight-knit-and, most of the time,
genteel-oligarchy, running the country rather like a profit-seeking company in which they are
the controlling shareholders.
Of course, the U.S. is unique. And just as we have the world's most advanced economy, military,
and technology, we also have its most advanced oligarchy.
In a primitive political system, power is transmitted through violence, or the threat of
violence: military coups, private militias, and so on. In a less primitive system more typical
of emerging markets, power is transmitted via money: bribes, kickbacks, and offshore bank accounts.
Although lobbying and campaign contributions certainly play major roles in the American political
system, old-fashioned corruption-envelopes stuffed with $100 bills-is probably a sideshow today,
Jack Abramoff notwithstanding.
Instead, the American financial industry gained political power by amassing a kind of
cultural capital-a belief system. Once, perhaps, what was good for General Motors was good
for the country. Over the past decade, the attitude took hold that what was good for Wall Street
was good for the country. The banking-and-securities industry has become one of the top contributors
to political campaigns, but at the peak of its influence, it did not have to buy favors the
way, for example, the tobacco companies or military contractors might have to. Instead, it
benefited from the fact that Washington insiders already believed that large financial institutions
and free-flowing capital markets were crucial to America's position in the world.
A hypothesis (at least for "Main Street") proven true between 2009 and 2016:
Emerging-market countries have only a precarious hold on wealth, and are weaklings globally.
When they get into trouble, they quite literally run out of money -- or at least out of foreign
currency, without which they cannot survive. They must make difficult decisions; ultimately,
aggressive action is baked into the cake. But the U.S., of course, is the world's most powerful
nation, rich beyond measure, and blessed with the exorbitant privilege of paying its foreign
debts in its own currency, which it can print. As a result, it could very well stumble along
for years-as Japan did during its lost decade-never summoning the courage to do what it needs
to do, and never really recovering.
Lastly, the "bleak" scenario from 2009 that today looks about a decade too early, but could
with minor tuning (Southern instead of Eastern Europe, for example) end up hitting in a big way:
It goes like this: the global economy continues to deteriorate, the banking system in east-central
Europe collapses, and-because eastern Europe's banks are mostly owned by western European banks-justifiable
fears of government insolvency spread throughout the Continent. Creditors take further hits
and confidence falls further. The Asian economies that export manufactured goods are devastated,
and the commodity producers in Latin America and Africa are not much better off. A dramatic
worsening of the global environment forces the U.S. economy, already staggering, down onto
both knees. The baseline growth rates used in the administration's current budget are increasingly
seen as unrealistic, and the rosy "stress scenario" that the U.S. Treasury is currently using
to evaluate banks' balance sheets becomes a source of great embarrassment.
The conventional wisdom among the elite is still that the current slump "cannot be as
bad as the Great Depression." This view is wrong. What we face now could, in fact, be worse
than the Great Depression-because the world is now so much more interconnected and because
the banking sector is now so big. We face a synchronized downturn in almost all countries,
a weakening of confidence among individuals and firms, and major problems for government finances.
If our leadership wakes up to the potential consequences, we may yet see dramatic action on
the banking system and a breaking of the old elite. Let us hope it is not then too late.
That's a good reminder to us at NC that not all our readers have been with us since 2009 and
may not be familiar with the great financial crash and subsequent events. I remember reading the
Johnson article when it came out. And now, almost eight years later
There's a reason that there's a "Banana Republic" category. Every time I read an article about
the political economy of a second- or third-world country I look for how it applies to this country,
and much of the time, it does, particularly on corruption.
We truly must consider the possibility Goldman wrote the 3 speeches, then paid Hillary to give
them.
Next, leak them to Wiki. Everything in them is pretty close to pure fiction but it is neolib
banker fiction. Just makes it all seem more real when they do things this way.
Yike's, I'm turning into a crazy conspiracy theorist.
Don't fall for the 'status quo's' language Jedi mind trick crazyboy. I like to call myself
a "sane conspiracy theorist." You can too!
As for H Clinton's 'slavish' adherence to the Bankster Ethos; in psychology, there is the "Stockholm
Syndrome." Here, H Clinton displays the markers of "Wall Street Syndrome."
Ugh. Mindless drivel. Talking points provided by Wall St itself would sound identical.
Then there's this: She did NOT represent Wall St and the Banks while a Senator. They cannot
vote. They are not people. They are not citizens. She represented the PEOPLE. The PEOPLE that
can VOTE. You cannot represent a nonexistent entity like a corporation as an ELECTED official.
You can ONLY represent those who actually can, or do, vote. End of story.
I saw a video in high school years back that mentioned a specific congressional ruling that
gave Congress the equivalent to individual rights. I swear it was also in the 30s but I cannot
recall and have never been able to find what it was I saw. Do you have any insight here?
Historical Background and Legal Basis of the Federal Register / CFR Publications System
Why was the Federal Register System Established ?
New Deal legislation of the 1930's delegated responsibility from Congress to agencies to
regulate complex social and economic issues
Citizens needed access to new regulations to know their effect in advance
Agencies and Citizens needed a centralized filing and publication system to keep track of rules
Courts began to rule on "secret law" as a violation of right to due process under the Constitution
But don't forget. She is the most qualified candidate EVER . Remind me again
how this species was able to bring three stranded Apollo 13 astronauts back from the abyss, the
vacuum of space with some tape and tubing.
This is like watching a cheap used car lot advertisement where the owner delivers obviously
false platitudes as the store and cars collapse, break, and burst into flames behind them.
Stalin spent his early days in a seminary. Masters of broken promises. I'm more interested
in Clinton's Chinese connections. Probably tied through JP Morgan. The Chinese are very straightforward
in their, dare I say, inscrutible way. The ministers are the ministers, and the palace is
the palace.
The show is disappointing, the debaters play at talking nuclear policy, but have *nothing*
to say about Saudi Arabia's new arsenal.
When politicos talk nuclear, they only mean to allege a threat to Israel, blame Russia, or
fear-monger the North Koreans.
We're in the loop, but only the quietest whispers of the conflict in Pakistan are available.
It sounds pretty serious, but there is only interest in attacking inconvenient Arabs.
On Trump, what an interesting study in communications. The no man you speak of. Even himself
caught between his own insincerity towards higher purpose and his own ego as 'the establishment'
turns on him.
The proles of his support are truely a silent majority. The Republicans promised us Reagan
for twenty years, and it's finally the quasi-Democrat Trump who delivers.
> This is like watching a cheap used car lot advertisement where the owner delivers obviously
false platitudes as the store and cars collapse, break, and burst into flames behind them.
+100
With a wall of American flags waving in the background as the smoke and flames rise.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I don't feel particularly courageous. I mean, if we're going to
be an effective, efficient economy, we need to have all part of that engine running well, and
that includes Wall Street and Main Street.
this all reads like a cokehead's flow of consciousness on some ethereal topic with no intellectual
content on the matter to express. I would have said extemporaneous, but you know it was all scripted,
so that's even worse.
PHOTOJOURNALIST
"Do you know what the man is saying? Do you? This is dialectics.
It's very simple dialectics. One through nine, no maybes, no
supposes, no fractions - you can't travel in space, you can't go out
into space, you know, without, like, you know, with fractions - what
are you going to land on, one quarter, three-eighths - what are you
going to do when you go from here to Venus or something - that's
dialectic physics, OK? Dialectic logic is there's only love and hate, you
either love somebody or you hate them."
"Da5id's voice is deep and placid, with no trace of stress. The syllables roll off his tongue
like drool. As Hiro walks down the hallway he can hear Da5id talking all the way. 'i ge en i ge
en nu ge en nu ge en us sa tu ra lu ra ze em men .'" Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
Completely agree. When I first read excerpts from her speeches, I was appalled at the constant
use of "you know" peppering most of her sentences. To me, people who constantly bifurcate sentences
with "you know" are simply blathering. They usually don't have any in-depth knowledge of the subject
matter on which they are opining. Compare Hillary being asked to comment on a subject with someone
such as Michael Hudson or Bill Black commenting on a subject and she simply sounds illiterate.
I have this feeling that her educational record is based on an ability to memorize and parrot
back answers rather than someone who can reach a conclusion by examining multiple concepts.
Here's what I don't understand: The lady (and her husband) have LOADS of money. Yet this is
the best that she can do?
Really?
Heck, if I had half the Clintons' money, I'd be hiring the BEST speechwriters, acting coaches,
and fashion consultants on the planet. And I'd be taking their advice and RUNNING with it. Sheesh.
Some people have more money than sense.
Because she wont pay for quality speechwriters or coaching. Because she is a shyster, cheapskate
and a fraud. They hired the most inept IT company to 'mange' their office server who then (in
a further fit of cheapskate stupidity) hired an inept IT client manager who then (in a further
fit of cheapskate stupidity) asked Reddit for a solution.
Its in the culture: Podesta does it, Blumenthal does it
And now they blame the Russians!!!! Imagine the lunacy within the white house if this fool
is elected.
I think she is just not that smart. Maybe intelligent but not flexible enough to do much with
it.
Smart people seek the advice of even smarter people and knowing that experts disagree, they
make sure that there is dissent on the advisory team. Then they make up their mind.
One can say a lot of justifiable bad things about Ronald Reagan, but, he had competent
advisors and he used them! With Hillary, Even if she knows she has accessed the best advice on
the planet her instinct it to not trust it because "she knows better" and she absolutely will
not tolerate dissent. Left to her own devices, she simply copies other people's thinking/ homework
instead of building her own ideas with it.
I don't think so. The "you know" has a name, it's called a "verbal tick" and is one of the
first things that is attacked when one learns how to speak publicly. Verbal ticks come in many
forms, the "ums" for example, or repeating the last few words you just said, over and over again.
The brain is complex. The various parts of the brain needed for speech; cognition, vocabulary,
and vocalizations, actually have difficulty synchronizing. The vocalization part tends to be faster
than the rest of the brain and can spit out words faster than the person can put them together.
As a result, the "buffer" if you will runs empty, and the speech part of the brains simply fills
in the gaps with random gibberish.
You can train yourself out of this habit of course but it's something that takes practice.
So I take HRC's "you know" as evidence that these are unscripted speeches and is directly improvising.
How come her responses during the debates are not peppered with these verbal ticks. At least,
I don't recall her saying you know so many times. Isn't she improvising then?
As Lambert said, HRC doesn't do unscripted. The email leaks even sends us evidence that her
interviews were scripted and town hall events were carful staged. Even sidestepping that however,
dealing with verbal ticks is not all that difficult with a bit of practice and self-awareness.
"You know" is an insidious variation on "like" and "andum", the latter two being bias neutral
forms of mental vapor lock of tbe speech center pausing for higher level intellectual processes
to refill the speech centers tapped out RAM.
The "you know" variant is an end run on the listener's cognitive functions logic filters. Is
essence appropriating a claim to the listener.
I detest "you knows" immediately with "no i dont know, please explain."
The same with "they say" i will always ask "who are they?"
I think this is important to fo do to ppl for no ofher reason thanto nake them think critically
even if it is a fleeting annoyance.
Back on HRC, i have maintai we that many people overrate her intellectual grasp. Personally
I think she is a hea ily cosched parrot. "The US has achieved energy independence" . TILT. Just
because you state things smugly doesnt mean its reality.
I think what I call the lacunae words are really revealing in people's speech. When she says
"you know" she is emphasizing that she and the listener both know what she is "talking around."
Shared context as a form of almost - encryption, you could say. "This" rather than '"finance"
Here rather than at Goldman.I don't know what you'd call it exactly- free floating referent? A
habit, methinks, of avoiding being quoted or pinned down. It reminds me of the leaked emails everyone
is very careful to talk around things and they can because they all know what they are talking
about. Hillary is consistently referred to, in an eerie H. Rider Haggard way, as "her" - like
some She Who Must Not Be Named.
What surprises me is that Goldmans paid her for these speeches, you know?
Hillary C typically pays "the audience" to listen to, and come to her speeches. You know? You
know!
This election cycle just proves how bad things have become. The two top presidential candidates
are an egotistical ignoramus and the quintessential establishment politician and they are neck
and neck because the voting public is Planet Stupid. Things will just continue to fall apart in
slow motion until some spark (like another financial implosion) sets off the next revolution.
"Now, without going over how we got to where we are right now, what would be your advice
to the Wall Street community and the big banks as to the way forward with those two important
decisions?
"SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, I represented all of you [Wall St] for eight years."
I heard Hillary speak in summer '92, when Bill was running for Prez. She. was. amazing.
No joke. Great speech, great ideas, great points. I thought then she should be the candidate.
But there was in her speech just a tiny undercurrent of "the ends justify the means." i.e. 'we
need to get lots of money so we can do good things.' Fast forward 20+ years. Seems to me that
for the Clintons the "means" (getting lots of money) has become the end in itself. Reassuring
Wall St. is one method for getting money large, large amounts of money.
I heard similar impressions of her at the time, from women who had dealt with her: Book smart.
Street smart. Likeable. But what might have been the best compromise you could get in one decade,
may have needed re-thinking as you moved along in time. The cast of players changes. Those who
once ruled are now gone. Oh, but the money! And so old ideas can calcify. I'm not suggesting that
Trump is even in the ballpark in terms of making compromises, speeches, life changes or anything
else to have ever been proud of. Still, the capacity to grow and change is important in a leader.
So where are we going now?
A fine illustration of the maxim that "crime makes you stupid."
I've said this once, but I'll say it again: After the 2008 caucus debacle, Clinton fired the
staff and rejiggered the campaign. They went to lots of small venues, like high school
gyms - in other words, "deplorables" territory - and Clinton did her detail, "I have a plan" thing,
which worked really well in that context because people who need government to deliver
concrete material benefits like that, and rightly. They also organized via cheap phones, because
that was how to reach their voters, who weren't hanging out at Starbucks. And, history being written
by the winners, we forget that using that strategy, Clinton won all the big states and (if all
the votes are counted) a majority of the popular vote. So, good decision on her part. And so from
that we've moved to the open corruption of the Clinton Foundation and Clinton campaign apparatus
that takes 11 people to polish and approve a single tweet.
So I guess the moral of the story is (a) more deterioration, this time from 2008 to 2016,
and (b) Clinton can actually make a good decision, but only when forced to by a catastrophe that
will impact her personally. Whether she'll be able to rise to the occasion if elected is an open
question, but this post argues not.
"Apparently, the provision of public services is not within government's remit! What are Social
Security and Medicare? "
What is the US Post Office? Rumor has it that the PO is mentioned in the US Constitution, a
fact that is conveniently forgotten by Strict Constructionists.
With respect to regulation, I think it should be less a case of quantity, and more one of quality,
but Clinton seems to want to make it about finding the sweet spot of exactly how many regulations
will be the right amount.
In general, when companies are willing to spot you $225,000 to speak for some relatively short
period of time, willing to meet your demands regarding transportation, hotel accommodations, etc.,
why would you take the chance of killing the goose that's laying those golden eggs by saying anything
likely to tick them off?
I'd like to think she's kind of embarrassed to have people see how humdrum/boring her speeches
were for how much she was paid to give them, but I think there's got to be more "there" somewhere
that she didn't want people to be made aware of and it doesn't necessarily have to be Americans,
it could be something to do with foreign governments, foreign policy, trade, etc.
After learning how many people it takes to send out a tweet with her name on it, I have no
idea how she managed this speech thing, unless one of her requirements was that she had to be
presented with all questions in advance, so she could be prepared.
I am more depressed by the day, as it's really beginning to sink in that she's going to be
president, and it all just makes me want to stick needles in my eyes.
Also the "Wicked Problems" definitions are very, very interesting. Thank you for bringing those
in! I would add that these wicked problems lead to more wicked problems. It is basically dishonesty,
and to protect the lie you double down with more, and more, and more . Most of Clinton's decisions
and career seem to be knots of wicked problems.
The wicked problem is quickly becoming our entire system of governance. Clinton has been described
as the malignant tumor here before, but even she is a place holder for the rot. One head of the
Hydra that I feel Establishment players would generally be okay with sacrificing if it came to
it (and maybe I am wrong therebut it seems as if a lot of the push fro her comes from her inner
circle and others play along).
Hail Hydra! Immortal Hydra! We shall never be destroyed! Cut off one limb and two more shall
take its place! We serve the Supreme Hydra, as the world shall soon serve us!
I've heard/read in some places Hillary Clinton described as a "safe pair of hands". I don't
understand where this characterization comes from. She's dangerous.
If she wins with as strong of an electoral map as Obama in '08, she'll take it as a strong
mandate and she'll have an ambitious agenda and likely attempt to overreach. I've been meaning
to call my congressional reps early and say "No military action on Syria, period!"
She might use a "public option" as an ACA stealth bailout scheme, but I don't think the public
has much appetite to see additional resources being thrown at a "failed experiment". I worry that
Bernie's being brought on board for this kind of thing. He should avoid it.
Is she crazy enough to go for a grand bargain right away? That seems nutty and has been a "Waterloo"
for many presidents.
Remember how important Obama's first year was. Bailouts and ACA were all done that first year.
How soon can we put President Clinton II in lame duck status?
Not really surprised by the intellectual and rhetorical poverty demonstrated by these speeches.
Given the current trajectory of our politics, the bar hasn't really been set very high. In fact
it looks like we're going to reach full Idiocracy long before originally predicted.
You ask, " What can Goldman Sachs possibly have thought they were paying for? "
But I think you know. Corruption has become so institutionalized that it is impossible to point
to any specific Quid Pro Quo. The Quo is the entire system in which GS operates and the care and
feeding of which the politicians are paid to administer.
We focus on HRC's speeches and payments here but I wonder how many other paid talks are given
to GS each year by others up and down the influence spectrum. As Bill Black says, a dollar given
to a politician provides the largest possible Return on Investment of any expenditure. It is Wall
Street's long-term health insurance plan.
Yeah we know which part of the "stool" we'll be getting.If the finance sector is "the nerves,
the spinal column" of the country, I suggest the country find a shallow pool in which to shove
it head first.
I skimmed the /. comments on a story about this yesterday; basically everyone missed the obvious
and went with vox-type responses ("she's a creature of the system / in-fighter / Serious Person").
"So I'm not interested in, you know, turning the clock back or pointing fingers,
but I am interested in trying to figure out how we come together to chart a better way
forward and one that will restore confidence in, you know, small and medium-size businesses and
consumers and begin to chip away at the unemployment rate [five years into the recession!]."
Basically, even better than a get out of jail free card, in that it is rather a promise that
we won't go back and ever hold you responsible, and we have done the best we could so far to avoid
having you own up to anything or be held accountable in any way beyond some niggling fines, which
of course, you are happy to pay, because in the end, that is simply a handout to the legal industry,
who are your best drinking buddies.
The latter part of that quote is just mumbo jumbo non-sequitir blathering. Clinton appears
to know next to nothing about finance, only that it generates enormous amounts of cash for the
oh so deserving work that God told them to do.
+1 exactly: There will be no retrospective prosecutions and none in the future either, trust
me! Not the she is any better than Eric Holder but she is certain she should be paid more than
him.
Bingo! Think about it: She was speaking to a group of people whose time is "valued" at
100's if not 1,000's of dollars per hour. She took up their "valuable" time but provided nothing
except politics-as-usual blather tailored to that particular audience. Yet she was paid $225k
for a single speech
I've only skimmed through the speech transcripts; did I miss something of substance?
Hillary is a remarkably inarticulate person, which calls into question her intellectual
fitness for the job (amidst many other questions, of course). I entirely agree with your depiction
of her speeches as mindless drivel.
However, you may be overthinking the "wicked problem" language. While it is certainly
possible that she is familiar with the literature that you cite, nothing else in her speeches
suggests that she commands that level of intellectual detail. This makes me think that somewhere
along the line she befriended someone from the greater Boston area who uses "wicked" the way Valley
Girls use "like". When I first heard the expression decades ago, I found it charming and incorporated
it into my own common usage. And I don't use it anything like you describe. To me it is simply
used for emphasis. Nothing more or less than that, but I am amused to see an entire literature
devoted to the concept of a "wicked problem".
I remain depressed by this election. No matter how it turns out, it's going to wicked suck
; )
I think the inarticulateness/cliche infestation is a ploy and a deflection; this is a very
intelligent woman who can effectively marshall language when she feels the need. That need was
more likely felt in private meetings with the inner cabal at Goldman.
Not to otherwise compare them, but Bush I's inarticulateness made him seem a buffoon, and
that was not the case, either.
Finally, as a thought experiment, I'd like to suggest that, granting that Clintonismo will
privilege those interests which best fortify their arguments with cash, it's also true that Bill
and Hillary are all about Bill and Hillary. In other words, it could be that she has the same
hustler's disregard toward the lumpen Assistant Vice Presidents filling that room at GS as she
does for the average voter. Thus, the empty, past-their-expiration-date calories.
Sure, she'll take their money and do their bidding, but why even bother to make any more effort
than necessary? On a very primal level with these two, it's all about the hustle and the action,
and everyone's a potential rube.
As in, when Bill put his presidency on the line, the base were expected to circle the wagons.
As in, "I'm With Her". Not "She's With Us", natch. It's *always* about the Clintons.
"Speaking to bankers and masters of the corporate universe, she came off as relaxed, self-doubting,
reflective, honest, philosophical rather than political, and unafraid to admit she lacked all
the answers."
seriously, matt taibbi? next, i would like to hear about the positive, feelgood, warmfuzzy
qualities of vampire squids (hugs cthulhu doll).
Matt Tiabbi, Elizabeth Warren, Benie Sanders, Noam Chompskyall those used to seem like
bastions of integrity have, thanks to Hillary, been revealed as slimy little Weasels who should
henceforth be completely disregarded. I'd have to thank Hillary for pulling back the nlindets
on that; if not for this election I might have been still foolishly listening to these people.
agree w you except about Bernie. he always said he'd support the nominee. the suddenness of
his capitulation has led many of us to believe he was threatened. somewhere I read something about
"someone" planting kiddieporn on his son's computer if he didn't do I dunno. I reserve judgement
on Sanders until I learn more, . if i ever do
Clinton's remarks were typically vague, as one might expect from a politician; she doesn't
want to be pinned down. This may be part of the banality of her remarks.
What scares me most about Clinton is her belligerence towards Russia and clamoring for
a no-fly zone in Syria. The no-fly zone will mean war with Russia. If only Clinton were saying
this, we might be safe, but the entire Washington deep state seems to be of one mind in favor
of a war. During the cold war this would have been inconceivable; everyone understood a nuclear
war must not be allowed. This is no longer true and it is terrifying. Every war game the pentagon
used to simulate a war with the U.S.S.R. escalated into an all out nuclear war. What is the "plan
B" Obama is pursuing in Syria?
In the Russian press every day for a long time now they have been discussing the prospect of
a conflict. Russia has been conducting civil defense drills in its cities and advised its citizens
to recall any children living abroad. This is never reported in our press, which only presents
us with caricatures of Putin. Russians are not taken seriously.
During the cold war this would have been inconceivable; everyone understood a nuclear war
must not be allowed.
No it wasn't. Far from it. By some miracle, the globe escaped instant incineration but only
barely. The Soviets, to their credit, were not about to risk nuclear annihilation to get one
up on the US of Perfidy. Our own Dauntless Warriors were more than willing, and I believe it's
only through dumb luck that a first strike wasn't launched deliberately or by deliberate "accident."
Review the Cold War concept of Brinkmanship.
The current fear/fever over nuclear war with Russia requires madness in the Kremlin - of
which there is no evidence. Our Rulers are depending on Putin and his cohorts being the sane
ones as rhetoric from the US and the West ratchets ever upwards.
But then, the Kremlin is looking for any hint of sanity on US and NATO side and is finding
little
Curtis LeMay tried to provoke a nuclear war with the Soviets in the 1950's. By and large,
however, the American state understood a nuclear war was unwinnable and avoided such a possibility.
A no-fly zone in Syria would start a war with Russia. William Polk, who participated in the Cuban
missle crisis and U.S. nuclear war games, argues in this article
" "the nerves, the spinal column" of the country, goes farther than Obama ever did."
But this description is technically true. That is finance's proper function, co-ordinating
the flow of capital and resources, especially from where they're in excess to where they're needed.
It's a key decision-making system for the economy, preferably not for society as a whole. That
would be the political system.
So on this basic level, the problem is that finance, more and more, has put its own institutional
and personal interests ahead of its proper function. It's grown far too huge, and stopped performing
its intended function redistributing resources in favor of just accumulating them, in the
rather illusory form of financial instruments, some of them pure vapor ware.
So yes, this line reflects a very bad attitude on Hillary's part, but by misappropriating a
truth pretty typical propaganda.
No, finance does NOT "channel resources". Wash your mouth out. This is more neoliberal cant.
Financiers do not make investments in the real economy. The overwhelming majority of securities
trading is in secondary markets, which means it's speculation. And when a public company decides
whether or not to invest in a new project, it does not present a prospectus on that new project
to investors. It runs the numbers internally. For those projects, the most common source of funding
is retained earnings.
Clinton shows that she is either a Yale Law grad who does not have the slightest idea that
Wall Street does very little in the economy but fleece would-be investors, or that she is an obsequious
flatterer of those from whom she openly takes bribes.
Having heard Hillary, Chelsea (yes, she's being groomed) and many, many other politicians over
the years, including a stint covering Capitol Hill, Mme C's verbal style does not surprise to
me at all but rather strikes me as perfectly serviceable. It is a mellifluous drone designed to
lull the listener into thinking that she is on their side, and the weakness of the actual statements
only becomes clear when reading them on the page later (which rarely happens). The drowsy listener
will catch, among the words strung together like Christmas lights, just the key terms and concepts
that demonstrate knowledge of the brief and a soothing layer of vague sympathy. Those who can
award her $600K can assume with some confidence that, rhetoric aside, she will be in the tank
when needed. The rest of us have to blow away the chaff and peer into the yawning gaps lurking
behind the lawyerly parsing. In all fairness, this applies to 90% of seekers of public office.
The absolute vacuousness of Clinton's remarks, coupled with her ease at neoliberal conventional
wisdom, make it clear that Goldman's payments were nothing more (or less) than a $675,000 anticipatory
"so no quid pro quo here" bribe.
Who on earth gives up their vote to a politician who is so shameless an corrupt that she openly
accepts bribes from groups who equally shamelessly and corruptly are looting the commons? Apparently
many, but not me.
Nothing like making lemons out of lemonade, is there?
There really is a question why she didn't do this doc dump herself when Bernie asked. Yeah,
sure, she would have been criticized ("damned if you do, damned if you don't") but because of
who she is she'll be criticized no matter what. There is nothing she can do to avoid it.
Not only is there no smoking gun, it's almost as if she's trying to inject a modicum of social
conscience into a culture that has none. And no, she isn't speaking artfully; nor is she an orator.
Oh. Not that we didn't know already.
The most galling aspect is her devotion to the neoLibCon status quo. Steady as she goes. Apparently
a lot of people find the status quo satisfactory. Feh.
If this document dump came out during the primary campaign, then HRC may have lost. Even Black,
Southern ladies can smell the corrupting odor clinging to these "speeches".
Given the way DNC protected her during the primaries, and what looked like a pretty light touch
by Bernie and (who? O'Malley was it?) toward her, I doubt these speeches would have been her undoing.
Dull and relatively benign, and policy-wise almost identical to Obama's approach to the bankers'
role in the economic unpleasantness. "Consensus" stuff with some hint of a social conscience.
Not effective and not enough to do more than the least possible ("I told them they ought to
behave better. Really!") on behalf of the Rabble.
But not a campaign killer. Even so, by not releasing transcripts during the primary, she faced
- and still faces - mountains of criticism over it. No escape. Not for her.
I'm not sure that's an appropriate strategy for dealing with multiple interlocking wicked problems,
but I'm not sure why. Suppose we invoke the Precautionary Principle - is incremental change
really the way to avoid harm?
The Consensus (of Opinions That Matter) says it is. On the other hand, blowing up the System
leads to Uncertainty, and as we know, we can't have that. Mr. Market wouldn't like it
The leaked emails confirm - even though she herself never writes them, which is really
odd, when you consider that Podesta is her Campaign Chair and close ally going back decades -
that she is compulsively secretive, controlling, and resistant to admitting she's wrong. The chain
of people talking about how to get her to admit she was wrong about Nancy Reagan and AIDS was
particularly fascinating that way; she was flat out factually inaccurate, and it had the potential
to do tremendous harm to her campaign with a key donor group, and it was apparently still a major
task to persuade her to say "I made a mistake."
So while I think you are wrong that the speeches wouldn't have hurt her in the primary, I also
think Huma would have had to knock her out and tie her up (not in a fun way) to get those speeches
released.
I can't imagine a worse temperament to govern, particularly under the conditions she'll be
facing. But she'll be fully incompetent before too long, so I don't suppose it matters that much.
I'm morbidly curious to see how long they can keep her mostly hidden and propped up for limited
appearances, before having to let Kaine officially take over. Will we be able to figure out who's
actually in power based on the line-up on some balcony?
Fair points, though the "temperament" issue may be one that follows from the nature of the
job - even "No Drama Obama" is said to have a fierce anger streak, and secrecy, controlling behavior,
and refusing to admit error is pretty typical of presidents, VPs, and other high officials. The
King/Queen can do no wrong, dontchaknow. (cf: Bush, GW, and his whole administration for recent
examples. History is filled with them, though.)
As for Hillary's obvious errors in judgment, I think they speak for themselves and they don't
speak well of her.
TINA vs WATA (we are the alternative) the next two years are gonna be interesting evil is often
a cover for total incompetence and exposure our little tsarina will insist brigades that dont
exist move against enemies that are hardly there when she & her useless minions were last in/on
the seat of power(j edger version of sop) the netizens of the world were young and dumb now not
so much
I got into wicked problems 35 years ago in the outstanding book by Ian Mitroff and R. O. Mason,
"Challenging Strategic Planning Assumptions." First page of Chapter One has subsection title COMPLEXITY,
followed by "A Little Experiment" Lets try the experiment with current problems.
One could come up with a list of major problems, but here is the one used by C. West Churchman
mentioned along with Horst Riddle. Churchman back in the 80's said that the problems of the world
were M*P**3, or M, P cubed, or M * P * P *P with the letters standing for Militarism, Population,
Poverty and Pollution.
Here is how they ran the exercise
1. Suppose there were a solution to any of these 4 problems, would that solution be related
to the other problems. Clearly.
2. Thus 'whenever a policy maker attempts to solve a complex policy problem, it is related
to all the others
Repeated attempts in other contexts give the same result: basically, every real world
policy problem is related to every other real world policy problem
This is from page 4, the second page of the book.
I ran this exercise for several years in ATT Bell Labs and ATT.
List major problems
How long have they been around? (most for ever except marketing was new after breakup in
'84
If one was solved, would that solution be related in any way to the other ones?
Do you know of any program that is making headway? (occasionally Quality was brought up)
This could be done in a few minutes, often less than 5 minutes
5. Conclusion: long term interdependent problems that are not being addressed
Thus the only grade that matters in this course on Corporate Transformation that now begins
is that you have new insights on these problems. This was my quest as an internal consultant in
ATT to transform the company. I failed.
I was a Sanders supporter. Many here will disagree, but if Clinton wins I don't think she's
going to act as she might have acted in 2008, if she had won.
Clinton is a politician, and *all* politicians dissemble in private, unless they're the mayor
of a small town of about 50 people and even then! Politicians in doing their work *must*
compromise to some degree, with the best politicians compromising in ways that bring their constituents
more benefit, than not.
That said, Clinton is also a human being who is capable of change. This election cycle has
been an eye opener for both parties. If Clinton wins (and, I think she will), the memory of how
close it was with Sanders and the desperate anger and alienation she has experienced from Trump
supporters (and even Sanders' supporters) *must* have already gotten her thinking about what she
is going to have to get done to insure a 2020 win for Democrats, whether or not she is running
in 2020.
In sum, I think Clinton is open to change, and I don't believe that she is some deep state
evil incarnate; sge's *far* from perfect, and she's not "pure" in her positioning thank god!,
because in politics, purists rarely accomplish anything.
If Clinton reverts to prior form (assuming she makes (POTUS), 2020 will make 2016 look like
a cakewalk, for both parties including the appearance of serious 3rd party candidates with moxy,
smarts, and a phalanx of backers (unlike the current crop of two Johnson and Stein).
"... Russia's president was not surprised with US Vice President Joe Biden's recent threats towards Moscow, and said that it's not the first time Russian-American relations have been "sacrificed" for the sake of a US presidential campaign. "One can expect anything from our American friends. What has he revealed that is new? Don't we already know that US officials snoop and eavesdrop on everyone," ..."
"... Creating an enemy out of Russia is a means by which to distract attention from domestic problems during election campaign season, according to Putin. "There are many problems [in the US], and in these circumstances, many choose to resort to the tried and tested system of diverting voters' attention from their own problems. That's what we are currently witnessing, I think." ..."
"... "Portraying Iran and the Iranian nuclear threat as an enemy didn't work. [Portraying] Russia [as an enemy] seems more interesting. In my opinion, this particular card is now being actively played," Putin said. ..."
"... Putin has an uncanny knack for saying it as it is; that's one reason why US leaders hate him - they believe that honesty does not belong in politics. ..."
"... I cant believe this is actually happening. Putin is obviously speaking about blatant manipulations the US hide behind using media and tricks. People are dodging bullets to save their children in Syria at this very moment! But the BBC hide the bigger truth with isolated incidents of 'a cat up a tree', when there's a car crash down the road. ..."
"... "We are not against this country, but we oppose that decisions are made on a unilateral basis and are not thought through considering historic, cultural and religious peculiarities of one country or another," even if there is a conflict within the affected nation" This is why a global government will never work. That government will only do what is in their best interests, not in the best interests of each country. ..."
Deteriorating Russia-US relations: 'It all started from Yugoslavia'
Relations between Moscow and Washington did not deteriorate because of or during the Syrian conflict,
Putin said in a remark to a journalist, adding: "Just remember what was going on about Yugoslavia,
it all started from there." The Russian leader said that it's not about any third side in particular,
but relations worsen because "one country" wants to impose its policy and decisions upon the rest
of the world.
"We are not against this country, but we oppose that decisions are made on a unilateral basis
and are not thought through considering historic, cultural and religious peculiarities of one country
or another," even if there is a conflict within the affected nation, Putin said.
While meeting the media in Goa, southwest India, the Russian president was asked to comment on
hot issues as the US elections, the situation in Ukraine and Syria, and his refusal to visit France,
rather than Moscow's relations with its BRICS partners.
Deteriorating Russia-US relations: 'It all started from Yugoslavia'
Relations between Moscow and Washington did not deteriorate because of or during the Syrian conflict,
Putin said in a remark to a journalist, adding: "Just remember what was going on about Yugoslavia,
it all started from there." The Russian leader said that it's not about any third side in particular,
but relations worsen because "one country" wants to impose its policy and decisions upon the rest
of the world.
"We are not against this country, but we oppose that decisions are made on a unilateral basis
and are not thought through considering historic, cultural and religious peculiarities of one country
or another," even if there is a conflict within the affected nation, Putin said.
'Sanctions aim to suppress Russia's strength'
The US does not accept compromises, which is necessary to solve issues in world politics. Rather,
it chooses a "counterproductive" policy of sanctions, Putin said. "Apparently, they don't want to
compromise, they only want to dictate. Such a style has formed over the past 15-20 years in the US,
and they still can't deviate from it," Putin said, adding that restrictive measures never achieve
the aims that those who impose them hope for.
"Regarding sanctions against Russia, whatever they are said to be linked to, be it events in Ukraine
or Syria, I assure you, the aims of those who formulate such a policy [of restrictions] do not solve
any concrete problem," Putin told the media. Saying that "sanctions are aimed not at solving anything,
but at suppressing Russia's strengthening" as a robust participant in international affairs, the
president said that such intentions against Russia would never be fulfilled.
Moscow, in turn, does not plan to ease its retaliatory measures, caused by western policies, the
Russian leader told the journalists in Goa. "No way, they can get lost," he said.
'US officials snoop and eavesdrop on everyone'
Russia's president was not surprised with US Vice President Joe Biden's recent threats towards
Moscow, and said that it's not the first time Russian-American relations have been "sacrificed" for
the sake of a US presidential campaign. "One can expect anything from our American friends. What
has he revealed that is new? Don't we already know that US officials snoop and eavesdrop on everyone,"
Putin said, adding that Washington "spends billions of dollars" on its secret services "spying
not only on its potential opponents, but on its closest allies as well."
Russia portrayed as US enemy to divert voters' attention from domestic problems
Meanwhile, Russia is not going to meddle in the American presidential elections in any way, the
president told reporters, adding that Moscow has no idea what could happen after a new US leader
is elected. So far Hillary Clinton has chosen "an aggressive stance on Russia," and Donald Trump
has called for cooperation, "at least in fighting terrorism," but "no one knows what it will be like
after the elections," according to Putin, who said that both candidates might change their rhetoric.
Creating an enemy out of Russia is a means by which to distract attention from domestic problems
during election campaign season, according to Putin. "There are many problems [in the US], and in
these circumstances, many choose to resort to the tried and tested system of diverting voters' attention
from their own problems. That's what we are currently witnessing, I think."
"Portraying Iran and the Iranian nuclear threat as an enemy didn't work. [Portraying] Russia
[as an enemy] seems more interesting. In my opinion, this particular card is now being actively played,"
Putin said.
Olive Magnet
Putin has an uncanny knack for saying it as it is; that's one reason why US leaders hate
him - they believe that honesty does not belong in politics.
WinstonSmithLeader -> Olive Magnet
Putin hijacked the process of Russian integration into the West and its political-economy -
no more "free market" plundering and auctioning of Russia. The greedy US/UK-led terrorists were
had. The sore losers can barely hide it.
Olive Lobster
He is one of those rare leaders who do not have to read from a teleprompter as he speaks his
mind
Cyan Bullhorn -> Olive Lobster
I cant believe this is actually happening. Putin is obviously speaking about blatant manipulations
the US hide behind using media and tricks. People are dodging bullets to save their children in
Syria at this very moment! But the BBC hide the bigger truth with isolated incidents of 'a cat
up a tree', when there's a car crash down the road.
Yuri Ivanovich
"We are not against this country, but we oppose that decisions are made on a unilateral
basis and are not thought through considering historic, cultural and religious peculiarities of
one country or another," even if there is a conflict within the affected nation" This is why a
global government will never work. That government will only do what is in their best interests,
not in the best interests of each country.
"... The trees, the forest and pretty much the entire landscape are screaming 2000 and 2004 didn't matter a damn. ..."
"... All the same media outlets and elites that were screaming for the invasion of Iraq are now howling for evil Syrian blood and the removal of another 'monster' before he destroys all the peace and stability we bring to the region. ..."
"... This time, of course, there's no Bush/Cheney in charge. But no matter, the decisions and the rationale are identical. Democracy will flower in the region once America and the UK kill enough of the bad guys and install their own puppets (I mean 'good guys') ..."
"... Hillary and the democrats are in charge of the killing, so all the death must be both necessary and humanitarian. The possibility that more death and more wars and more invasions and more regime change is pretty much built into the 'solution' is unthinkable. ..."
"... Watching all the cheering for 'victory in Mosul' and over the 'hold-outs' in Libya has actually driven me to turn off the nets ..."
"... Violent regime-change is 'unavoidable' regardless of which party is in power. And the current war is always better, safer, and less prone to blow-back than all those other earlier stupid wars ..."
Reading thru the link, my favorite part was the stated purpose of the cocktail party for elite
NY reporters: "Give reporters their first thoughts . . ."
@244 Good eye, Bruce. The trees, the forest and pretty much the entire landscape are screaming
2000 and 2004 didn't matter a damn.
All the same media outlets and elites that were screaming for the invasion of Iraq are
now howling for evil Syrian blood and the removal of another 'monster' before he destroys all
the peace and stability we bring to the region.
This time, of course, there's no Bush/Cheney in charge. But no matter, the decisions and
the rationale are identical. Democracy will flower in the region once America and the UK kill
enough of the bad guys and install their own puppets (I mean 'good guys') .
Hillary and the democrats are in charge of the killing, so all the death must be both necessary
and humanitarian. The possibility that more death and more wars and more invasions and more regime
change is pretty much built into the 'solution' is unthinkable.
Watching all the cheering for 'victory in Mosul' and over the 'hold-outs' in Libya has
actually driven me to turn off the nets .
Violent regime-change is 'unavoidable' regardless of which party is in power. And the current
war is always better, safer, and less prone to blow-back than all those other earlier stupid wars
.
I learned that reading the pro-Hillary 'liberal' press.
"... Most establishment news reporting has taken note that no evidence has been offered by the U.S. officials making the attribution. Clearly, someone thinks it matters, because the attribution is being made. I doubt that getting hold of Podesta's email password required the mysterious skillz of Russian super hackers, but sure ymmv. Why does the NSA spend billions and billions again? I mock because it is impossible to make sense of any of it. ..."
"... Yes, apparently, you think that the U.S. should be in there blowing up hospitals and civilians instead. The Russians just cannot handle the job, while the U.S. has its Afganistan and Iraq training and experience in bringing an end to those horrific civil wars in a few short Friedman units. Proven expertise! ..."
"... The history of humanitarian intervention is long and glorious. Only just last week, America's great and good ally, the Saudi monarchy, was blowing up a funeral in Yemen with American munitions, killing over 100. But, I indulge in irrelevancies, the better to mock you. ..."
LFC: We do have Bruce Wilder mocking the notion that the Russians hacked into the DNC email.
Cyber specialists think it was the Russians to a 90 percent certainty, but of course Wilder knows
better. Anyway, who cares whether the Russians hacked the ******* email?
Most establishment news reporting has taken note that no evidence has been offered by the
U.S. officials making the attribution. Clearly, someone thinks it matters, because the attribution
is being made. I doubt that getting hold of Podesta's email password required the mysterious skillz
of Russian super hackers, but sure ymmv. Why does the NSA spend billions and billions again? I
mock because it is impossible to make sense of any of it.
LFC: I'm more concerned w the fact that Russian planes are deliberately blowing up hospitals
and civilians.
Yes, apparently, you think that the U.S. should be in there blowing up hospitals and civilians
instead. The Russians just cannot handle the job, while the U.S. has its Afganistan and Iraq training
and experience in bringing an end to those horrific civil wars in a few short Friedman units.
Proven expertise!
Oh, I'm so sorry I mocked you again, didn't I?
The history of humanitarian intervention is long and glorious. Only just last week, America's
great and good ally, the Saudi monarchy, was blowing up a funeral in Yemen with American munitions,
killing over 100. But, I indulge in irrelevancies, the better to mock you.
Follow events in Syria day by day if you like, but don't pretend you are a humanitarian cheering
for the underdog rather than a voyeur entertained by mass tragedy.
likbez 10.16.16 at 2:43 pm
@305
bruce wilder 10.16.16 at 12:43 pm
LFC: We do have Bruce Wilder mocking the notion that the Russians hacked into the DNC email.
Cyber specialists think it was the Russians to a 90 percent certainty, but of course Wilder
knows better. Anyway, who cares whether the Russians hacked the ******* email?
Most establishment news reporting has taken note that no evidence has been offered by the
U.S. officials making the attribution.
It looks like LFC is completely clueless about such notion as Occam's razor.
Why we need all those insinuations about Russian hackers when we know that all email boxes in
major Web mail providers are just a click away from NSA analysts.
Why Russians and not something like "Snowden II".
And what exactly Russians will get politically by torpedoing Hillary candidacy. They probably
have tons of "compromat" on her, Bill and Clinton Foundation. Trump stance on Iran is no less
dangerous and jingoistic then Hillary stance on Syria. Aggressive protectionism might hurt Russian
exports. And as for Syria, Trump can turn on a dime and became a second John McCain anytime. Other
then his idea of avoiding foreign military presence (or more correctly that allies should pay
for it) and anti-globalization stance he does not have a fixed set of policies at all.
Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end
of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country
according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled
by, the visible state whose leaders we choose. My analysis of this phenomenon is not an exposι
of a secret, conspiratorial cabal; the state within a state is hiding mostly in plain sight,
and its operators mainly act in the light of day. Nor can this other government be accurately
termed an "establishment." All complex societies have an establishment, a social network committed
to its own enrichment and perpetuation. In terms of its scope, financial resources and sheer
global reach, the American hybrid state, the Deep State, is in a class by itself. That said,
it is neither omniscient nor invincible. The institution is not so much sinister (although
it has highly sinister aspects) as it is relentlessly well entrenched. Far from being invincible,
its failures, such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, are routine enough that it is only
the Deep State's protectiveness towards its higher-ranking personnel that allows them to escape
the consequences of their frequent ineptitude.
In view of all this, LFC anti-Russian stance looks extremely naοve and/or represents displaced
anti-Semitism.
In a way Hillary laments about Russia interference are what is typically called "The pot calling
the kettle black" as she is exactly the specialist in this area. BTW there is a documented history
of the US interference into Russian elections of 2011-2012.
In which Hillary (via ambassador McFaul and the net of NGOs) was trying to stage a "color revolution"
(nicknamed "white revolution") in Russia and prevent the re-election of Putin. The main instrument
was claiming the fraud in ballot counting.
Can you imagine the reaction if Russian ambassador invited Trump and Sanders to the embassy
and offered full and unconditional support for their noble cause of dislodging the corrupt neoliberal
regime that exists in Washington. With cash injections to breitbart.com, similar sites, and especially
organizations that conduct polls after that.
And RT covered staged revelations of "Hillary campaign corruption" 24 x 7. As was done by Western
MSM in regard to Alexei Navalny web site and him personally as the savior of Russia from entrenched
corruption ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Navalny
)
Actually the USA has several organizations explicitly oriented on interference in foreign elections
and promotion of "color revolutions", with functions that partially displaced old functions of
CIA (as in Italian elections of 1948). For example, NED.
Why Russia can't have something similar to help struggling American people to have more honest
elections despite all the blatantly undemocratic mechanisms of "first to the post", primaries,
state based counting of votes, and the United States Electoral College ?
It would be really funny if Russians really resorted to color revolution tricks in the current
presidential elections :-)
Here is a quote that can navigate them in right direction (note the irony of her words after
DNC throw Sanders under the bus ;-)
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sharply criticized what she called "troubling
practices" before and during the vote in Russia. "The Russian people, like people everywhere,
deserve the right to have their voices heard and their votes counted," she said in Bonn, Germany.
With 99.9 percent of ballots processed, election officials said that United Russia had won
238 seats in Parliament, or about 53 percent, from 315 seats or 70 percent now. The Communist
Party won 92 seats; Just Russia, a social democratic party, won 64 seats and the national Liberal
Democratic Party won 56 seats.
RP: I mean, people pretty much have to take its effects seriously.
Do they? LFC can probably lecture us on our "complete lack of understanding that the world
contains moral ambiguities and that not everything is black-and-white and open-and-shut" while
hypernormalizing anything with imperative non sequiters.
@ 307, he apparently thinks my use of the Saudi attack in Yemen in my mockery of him is due
to a failure of reading comprehension on my part. He thinks he had criticized U.S. support for
the Saudi's war against Yemen, while arguing that American "standing to object . . . when blatant,
obvious war crimes are being committed" is unaffected when America itself or American allies commit
blatant obvious war crimes. He took the futility express, Rich, and arrived ahead of you, don't
you see? Things are complicated and we must not let our committing blatant obvious war crimes
prevent us from acting to intervene where we can stop blatant obvious war crimes with blatant
obvious war crimes of our own!
Hopefully, this little addendum to my previous mockery is not even worth a response. What are
the chances?
Clinton is converting Democratic Party into party of war with Russia...
Hillary was the Secretary of State when the USA tried to implement color revolution in Russia in
2011-2012.
Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Clinton told a press conference Monday there were now "credible reports about Russian interference in our elections," adding, "I want everyone-Democrat, Republican, Independent-to understand the real threat that this represents." ..."
"... Clinton's suggestion of a Trump-Putin axis was followed up Tuesday in a speech in North Carolina by her vice-presidential running mate, Senator Tim Kaine, which was billed as a "major national security address" by the Democratic campaign. ..."
"... Clinton appeared Monday at several Labor Day rallies, but she chose to focus her attack on Trump on national security issues, where she has consistently attacked the billionaire real estate speculator from the right. ..."
"... Asked by a reporter if the alleged Russian actions amounted to a cyberwar, Clinton replied, "I'm not comfortable using the word 'war'." This demurral was only to disguise her intentions from the American people. However, in a speech last week to the American Legion convention, Clinton declared that cyberattacks on the United States should be answered by military force. ..."
"... Clinton claimed that Putin had all but confirmed Russia's role in the hacking of the DNC-a flat-out lie-adding, "The team around him certainly believe that there is some benefit to them to doing this." She then declared that the prospect of additional hacking into the state government systems used to conduct the November 8 elections represented "a threat from an adversarial foreign power." ..."
"... The Democratic candidate also criticized the role of the Russian government in Syria, in backing the regime of President Bashar al-Assad against Islamist forces armed and financed by the United States and the Gulf monarchies. She denounced "the refusal of the Russians and the Iranians to put the kind of pressure on Assad that is necessary " ..."
"... The article published Monday by the Washington Post ..."
"... As in previous reports by the Post ..."
"... Meanwhile, the claims of Russian hacking are being used to whip up a crisis atmosphere about the administration of the election itself. Earlier this summer the FBI issued a "flash" alert to election officials in all 50 states over the threat of cyber intrusions. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson suggested that the entire US election system, including 9,000 polling places and 50 separate state election authorities, should be declared "critical infrastructure" subject to the same counterterrorism efforts as nuclear power plants and electrical power grids. ..."
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton this week publicly accused the Russian government
of intervening in the American election on behalf of her Republican opponent Donald Trump.
She cited an investigation by US intelligence agencies, first reported Monday night by the
Washington Post , into alleged Russian government hacking into the computer systems of the state
election officials in the United States.
Clinton told a press conference Monday there were now "credible reports about Russian interference
in our elections," adding, "I want everyone-Democrat, Republican, Independent-to understand the real
threat that this represents."
Clinton referred both to the Post report about hacking into state government computers
in Arizona and Illinois, and to the alleged Russian hacking of the emails of the Democratic National
Committee (DNC), which revealed backroom efforts by top DNC officials to ensure Clinton's victory.
Clinton's suggestion of a Trump-Putin axis was followed up Tuesday in a speech in North Carolina
by her vice-presidential running mate, Senator Tim Kaine, which was billed as a "major national security
address" by the Democratic campaign.
Kaine contrasted Clinton's going "toe-to-toe with Putin" as US secretary of state, to Trump's
suggestion that NATO was outmoded and that he could negotiate more successfully with Russia. He then
raised the question "why Trump seems to support Russian interests at the expense of American ones,"
suggesting that the billionaire real estate speculator was keeping his tax returns secret because
they might shed light on his financial ties to Russia. He concluded by citing the claim of former
acting CIA Director Michael Morell that Trump is an "unwitting agent" of the Russian intelligence
services.
Clinton appeared Monday at several Labor Day rallies, but she chose to focus her attack on
Trump on national security issues, where she has consistently attacked the billionaire real estate
speculator from the right.
Asked by a reporter if the alleged Russian actions amounted to a cyberwar, Clinton replied,
"I'm not comfortable using the word 'war'." This demurral was only to disguise her intentions from
the American people. However, in a speech last week to the American Legion convention, Clinton declared
that cyberattacks on the United States should be answered by military force.
Clinton claimed that Putin had all but confirmed Russia's role in the hacking of the DNC-a
flat-out lie-adding, "The team around him certainly believe that there is some benefit to them to
doing this." She then declared that the prospect of additional hacking into the state government
systems used to conduct the November 8 elections represented "a threat from an adversarial foreign
power."
The Democratic candidate also criticized the role of the Russian government in Syria, in backing
the regime of President Bashar al-Assad against Islamist forces armed and financed by the United
States and the Gulf monarchies. She denounced "the refusal of the Russians and the Iranians to put
the kind of pressure on Assad that is necessary "
Clinton reiterated her support for imposing a no-fly zone over parts of Syria held by the US-backed
"rebels," which would require US air strikes against Syrian anti-aircraft positions and could lead
to confrontations between Russian and American warplanes, which both conduct air strikes in the country.
"I think we need leverage," she said. "I've always believed that if that were on the table and
it were clear we were going to pursue it, that would give us the leverage we don't have now." Coming
just after the well-publicized failure of talks last weekend between Obama and Putin at the G20 summit
in China, Clinton was clearly seeking to stake out a more aggressive position on Syria than that
of the Obama administration.
The Democrat's claim to have discovered a Trump-Putin axis has two purposes: first, to cement
Clinton's standing as the consensus choice of the US military-intelligence apparatus; and second,
to integrate the election campaign itself into the war preparations by US imperialism, both in the
Middle East and against Russia (as well as China).
If Clinton wins the November 8 election over Trump, she will claim this to be a mandate for the
escalation of US military operations in Iraq and Syria, as well as the continued NATO military buildup
throughout Eastern Europe, openly aimed at preparing for war with Russia, a country with the world's
second-largest nuclear arsenal.
In her complaints about Russian interference in the US elections, Clinton is joining in the campaign
waged by the Pentagon and CIA to prepare US public opinion for such a conflict.
The article published Monday by the Washington Post is little more than a handout
from the intelligence agencies. It reports that the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and Department
of Homeland Security have started an investigation, led by Director of National Intelligence James
Clapper, into a "broad covert Russian operation in the United States to sow public distrust in the
upcoming presidential election and in US political institutions."
In addition to discrediting the election among the American people-hardly necessary given that
the entire political system is deeply despised and the two main candidates hated-Russian officials
allegedly seek to "provide propaganda fodder to attack US democracy-building policies around the
world," the Post claimed.
As in previous reports by the Post and the New York Times about alleged
Russian hacking of the DNC, no evidence of any kind is cited in the article, only the unsupported
claims of intelligence officials, who even the Post reporters admit lack "definitive proof"
of either cyberattacks or even plans for cyberattacks.
Apparently the public is expected to treat such claims as the gospel, despite the decades of lying
by these agencies to cover up assassinations, coup plots and other conspiracies abroad, and the systematic
violation of the democratic rights of the American people at home.
Meanwhile, the claims of Russian hacking are being used to whip up a crisis atmosphere about
the administration of the election itself. Earlier this summer the FBI issued a "flash" alert to
election officials in all 50 states over the threat of cyber intrusions. Homeland Security Secretary
Jeh Johnson suggested that the entire US election system, including 9,000 polling places and 50 separate
state election authorities, should be declared "critical infrastructure" subject to the same counterterrorism
efforts as nuclear power plants and electrical power grids.
"... Can you imagine the reaction if Russian ambassador invited Trump and Sanders to the embassy and offered full and unconditional support for their noble cause of dislodging the corrupt neoliberal regime that exists in Washington. With cash injections to breitbart.com, similar sites, and especially organizations that conduct polls after that. ..."
"... Why Russia can't have something similar to help struggling American people to have more honest elections despite all the blatantly undemocratic mechanisms of "first to the post", primaries, state based counting of votes, and the United States Electoral College ? ..."
"... It would be really funny if Russians really resorted to color revolution tricks in the current presidential elections :-) ..."
"... Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sharply criticized what she called "troubling practices" before and during the vote in Russia. "The Russian people, like people everywhere, deserve the right to have their voices heard and their votes counted," she said in Bonn, Germany. ..."
In a way Hillary laments about Russia interference are what is typically called "The pot calling
the kettle black" as she is exactly the specialist in this area. BTW there is a documented history
of the US interference into Russian elections of 2011-2012.
In which Hillary (via ambassador McFaul and the net of NGOs) was trying to stage a "color revolution"
(nicknamed "white revolution") in Russia and prevent the re-election of Putin. The main instrument
was claiming the fraud in ballot counting.
Can you imagine the reaction if Russian ambassador invited Trump and Sanders to the embassy
and offered full and unconditional support for their noble cause of dislodging the corrupt neoliberal
regime that exists in Washington. With cash injections to breitbart.com, similar sites, and especially
organizations that conduct polls after that.
And RT covered staged revelations of "Hillary campaign corruption" 24 x 7. As was done by Western
MSM in regard to Alexei Navalny web site and him personally as the savior of Russia from entrenched
corruption ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Navalny
)
Actually the USA has several organizations explicitly oriented on interference in foreign elections
and promotion of "color revolutions", with functions that partially displaced old functions of
CIA (as in Italian elections of 1948). For example, NED.
Why Russia can't have something similar to help struggling American people to have more
honest elections despite all the blatantly undemocratic mechanisms of "first to the post", primaries,
state based counting of votes, and the United States Electoral College ?
It would be really funny if Russians really resorted to color revolution tricks in the
current presidential elections :-)
Here is a quote that can navigate them in right direction (note the irony of her words after
DNC throw Sanders under the bus ;-)
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sharply criticized what she called "troubling
practices" before and during the vote in Russia. "The Russian people, like people everywhere,
deserve the right to have their voices heard and their votes counted," she said in Bonn, Germany.
With 99.9 percent of ballots processed, election officials said that United Russia had won
238 seats in Parliament, or about 53 percent, from 315 seats or 70 percent now. The Communist
Party won 92 seats; Just Russia, a social democratic party, won 64 seats and the national Liberal
Democratic Party won 56 seats.
"... "The fact is, US unpredictability and aggression keep growing, and such threats against Moscow and our country's leadership are unprecedented, because the threat is being announced at the level of the US Vice President," ..."
"... "Of course, given such an aggressive, unpredictable line, we have to take measures to protect our interests, somehow hedge the risks," ..."
"... such unpredictability is dangerous for the whole world." ..."
"... "Why haven't we sent a message yet to Putin," ..."
"... "We are sending a message [to Putin] We have a capacity to do it, and " ..."
"... "He'll known it?" ..."
"... "He'll know it. It will be at the time of our choosing, and under the circumstances that will have the greatest impact," ..."
"... current and former officials," ..."
"... "clandestine" ..."
"... "wide-ranging operation" ..."
"... embarrass" ..."
"... clandestine ..."
"... "If the US 'clandestine' pending cyberwar on Russia was serious: 1) it would not have been announced 2) it would be the NSA [National Security Agency] and not the CIA," ..."
US aggressiveness is growing, and threats to carry out cyberattacks against Russia are unprecedented,
presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, adding that Russia will take "precautionary measures."
"The fact is, US unpredictability and aggression keep growing, and such threats against Moscow
and our country's leadership are unprecedented, because the threat is being announced at the level
of the US Vice President," Peskov told RIA Novosti. "Of course, given such an aggressive,
unpredictable line, we have to take measures to protect our interests, somehow hedge the risks,"
he said, adding that " such unpredictability is dangerous for the whole world." Read
more CIA working
on 'clandestine' cyberattack against Russia report
US Vice President Joe Biden said on Friday that Washington is ready to respond to hack attacks
allegedly conducted by Russia and designed to interfere with the upcoming US elections.
"Why haven't we sent a message yet to Putin," Chuck Todd, host of the "Meet the Press"
show on NBC,
asked Joe Biden.
"We are sending a message [to Putin] We have a capacity to do it, and "
"He'll known it?" Todd interfered.
"He'll know it. It will be at the time of our choosing, and under the circumstances that will
have the greatest impact," the US vice president replied.
His threats coincided with an NBC News report citing " current and former officials,"
claiming that the CIA is planning a "clandestine" cyberattack on Russia in retaliation for
its alleged efforts to influence the US elections against Hillary Clinton. The "wide-ranging
operation" is meant to " embarrass" Russia's leadership, NBC News reported.
The report claimed to have direct knowledge of the situation, saying the CIA had been tasked with
providing options to the White House.
WikiLeaks, however, has expressed doubt over the seriousness of the report about the " clandestine
" cyberwar on Russia. "If the US 'clandestine' pending cyberwar on Russia was serious: 1) it would not have been announced
2) it would be the NSA [National Security Agency] and not the CIA," WikiLeaks wrote on Twitter.
Accusations against Russia have become louder in recent days with WikiLeaks releasing thousands
of the so called " Podesta emails, " exposing Hillary Clinton's connections to Wall Street
and controversial views on Syria, among other things. Some mainstream media outlets were quick to
accuse the Kremlin of teaming up with WikiLeaks, allegedly providing it with massive amounts of inside
scoops to post. The evidence-free allegations have been denied both by Moscow and by WikiLeaks.
Responding to accusations last week, the Russian presidential press secretary mentioned that
"tens of thousands of hackers" try to break into the sites of Russian officials on a daily
basis, but this never prompted Moscow to point a finger at Washington.
"... Vice President Joe Biden told "Meet the Press" moderator Chuck Todd on Friday that "we're sending a message" to Putin and that "it will be at the time of our choosing, and under the circumstances that will have the greatest impact." ..."
"... Former CIA officers interviewed by NBC said that there is a long history of the White House plotting potential cyber attacks against Russia. That said, none of them were ultimately carried out because "none of the options were particularly good, nor did we think that any of them would be particularly effective." ..."
"... All these senior government twerps are either life-long political suck-ups or ivory-tower dwelling posers. They have lived their whole lives in a virtual world of talking with absolutely no consequences to them or responsibility for their actions. ..."
"... They are confident that they can talk/lie/cheat or bluff their way out of any situation they get into - or force it off to someone else like the military and then blame them for the fallout. ..."
"... They are supported by junior suck-ups that are kept in terror over losing their cushy jobs in government or contracting who are paid over twice what anyone else would pay their sorry ass and justify their sellout by complaining how they have to "pay the mortgage". They have never been slapped side the head like they deserve. Absolute foolish arrogance. ..."
"... They want to distract from Hillary's WikiLeak fiasco. ..."
In what is looking
more and more like a season finale of the HBO series "House of Cards" with each passing day, the
Obama administration is now literally threatening a cyber war with Russia over allegations it was
behind the hacking of Clinton's emails. According to an exclusive
NBC report, the Obama administration "is contemplating an unprecedented cyber covert action"
(though it's unclear how exactly it's covert if Biden is announcing it to the world via an interview
with Chuck Todd) against Russia, in "retaliation for alleged " interference in the American presidential
election, and has asked the CIA to draft plans for a "wide-ranging "clandestine" cyber operation
designed to harass and "embarrass" the Kremlin leadership."
So now the Obama administration is overtly leveraging the full power of the United States to intimidate
foreign governments, and most likely Julian Assange, in order to maintain control of the Executive
Branch of the government. Does anyone within the mainstream media see any problems with this? Certainly
Chuck Todd and NBC do not. And notice that even the NBC article refers to " alleged " Russian interference
because not a shred of evidence has been presented to prove that senior Russian officials were actually
behind the hacking of Hillary's emails...but who needs facts when you have a complicit media eager
to advance whatever propaganda is necessary to maintain power?
The Obama administration is contemplating an unprecedented cyber covert action against Russia
in retaliation for alleged Russian interference in the American presidential election, U.S. intelligence
officials told NBC News.
Current and former officials with direct knowledge of the situation say the CIA has been asked
to deliver options to the White House for a wide-ranging "clandestine" cyber operation designed
to harass and "embarrass" the Kremlin leadership.
The sources did not elaborate on the exact measures the CIA was considering, but said the agency
had already begun opening cyber doors, selecting targets and making other preparations for an
operation. Former intelligence officers told NBC News that the agency had gathered reams of documents
that could expose unsavory tactics by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Vice President Joe Biden told "Meet the Press" moderator Chuck Todd on Friday that "we're sending
a message" to Putin and that "it will be at the time of our choosing, and under the circumstances
that will have the greatest impact."
When asked if the American public will know a message was sent, the vice president replied,
"Hope not."
Former CIA officers interviewed by NBC said that there is a long history of the White House plotting
potential cyber attacks against Russia. That said, none of them were ultimately carried out because
"none of the options were particularly good, nor did we think that any of them would be particularly
effective."
Two former CIA officers who worked on Russia told NBC News that there is a long history of
the White House asking the CIA to come up with options for covert action against Russia, including
cyber options - only to abandon the idea.
A second former officer, who helped run intelligence operations against Russia, said he was
asked several times in recent years to work on covert action plans, but "none of the options were
particularly good, nor did we think that any of them would be particularly effective," he said.
Others warned that the White House has always caved on plans to follow through with cyber attacks
because anything the U.S. can do against Russia, they can also do in response. As one of the former
CIA officers said, "if you are looking to mess with their networks, we can do that, but then the
issue becomes, they can do worse things to us in other places."
"We've always hesitated to use a lot of stuff we've had, but that's a political decision,"
one former officer said. "If someone has decided, `We've had enough of the Russians,' there is
a lot we can do. Step one is to remind them that two can play at this game and we have a lot of
stuff. Step two, if you are looking to mess with their networks, we can do that, but then the
issue becomes, they can do worse things to us in other places."
Putin is almost beyond embarrassing, he said, and anything the U.S. can do against, for example,
Russian bank accounts, the Russian can do in response.
"Do you want to have Barack Obama bouncing checks?" he asked.
Former CIA deputy director Michael Morell expressed skepticism that the U.S. would go so far
as to attack Russian networks.
"Physical attacks on networks is not something the U.S. wants to do because we don't want to
set a precedent for other countries to do it as well, including against us," he said. "My own
view is that our response shouldn't be covert -- it should overt, for everybody to see."
Here is a brieg clip of Biden discussing the "covert" planning with NBC's Chuck Todd.
If the Obama administration is willing to go to such great lengths, literally escalating tensions
with another superpower, to protect their candidate from whatever it is that she's hiding then we
suspect whatever WikiLeaks has yet to release could be really good.
I believe like the article suggests Obummer is going to use the full force
of the CIA to hack Assange, or shut him down before the real embarrassing shit hits the net. Assange
needs to drop it all now.
OR
It could be Obummer uses it as a pretext to say the Ruskies hacked the election in case the donald
wins and nullify the results.
Or
It could be an internal NSA and CIA war. NSA is actually behind email dumps to make sure hillary
does not win and expect to drop the juiciest emails from CLinton herself and possibly the 18 obummer
emails as well right before the election. Maybe the CIA is working for obummer and NSA has gone rogue.
I hope some real americans still work for the NSA and the CIA and rescue this country from 4 more
progressive socialist marxist cultural degredation years that are a certainty under hillary the shape
shifting candidate that would sell out america for a case of beer and another 250 million dollars.
Or
the mofos may actually be crazy as batshit and want to turn us all to ashes and glass.
All these senior government twerps are either life-long political suck-ups
or ivory-tower dwelling posers. They have lived their whole lives in a virtual world of talking with
absolutely no consequences to them or responsibility for their actions.
They are confident that they can talk/lie/cheat or bluff their way out of any situation they get
into - or force it off to someone else like the military and then blame them for the fallout.
Their
objective is to appear important, further their career, and gain power to look more important.
They
are supported by junior suck-ups that are kept in terror over losing their cushy jobs in government
or contracting who are paid over twice what anyone else would pay their sorry ass and justify their
sellout by complaining how they have to "pay the mortgage". They have never been slapped side the
head like they deserve. Absolute foolish arrogance.
"... Is the solution supposed to be that HRC's foreign policy team will be much better than Obama's? ..."
"... The US will unilaterally determine to seize sovereignty of Syrian airspace, intervene in a civil war on the side of the rebels, and shoot down Syrian government and Russian planes. ..."
"... Shooting down Russian planes is the plan. ..."
"... If anyone has any doubt how little Hillary and company have learned from invading Iraq, violent regime change in Iraq, and removing inconvenient one-time friends at will, we're living through it real time all over again. ..."
"... This is a community of adults: LFC, Lee, W Berry et al who lecture the rest of us for wankery, emotionalism etc. and who are now fully behind the candidate who is promising a 'do-over' of Iraq with the promise to this time get it right. ..."
"... Trump, whatever his real deficiencies is openly ready to cede Syrian air-space to Assad. Most informed observers I've read argue that the civil war in Syria has been extended by years thanks to US and UK wankery. ..."
"... At some point, the US may decide not to proceed with violent regime-change. Not yet, however, or so it seems. ..."
"... All the responsible US diplomats and generals who brought us Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria are lined-up to support the only candidate who is running on 4-8 years of violent regime change. ..."
"... With regard to Aleppo, the eastern part of the city has been under the control of the rebels for some years. The majority of the population is in western Aleppo, under government control. Eastern Aleppo is now cut off, and under attack by various pro-government forces supported by the Russian air force. Rebel forces in eastern Aleppo are estimated to be around half al-Qaeda linked Islamists and half local Sunnis. They regularly bombard the western part, as the government does the rebel enclave. ..."
"... The government has opened seven exit corridors for civilians to leave, and repeatedly offered the rebels evacuation to other areas (several similar offers have been accepted and carried through for rebel enclaves around Damascus). The latest news is that the rebels are reported to have mined the exits to prevent civilians leaving. ..."
"... A good foreign policy maxim is to choose a side that has a reasonable chance of winning and stick with it. Anything else prolongs the suffering without changing the outcome. US policy in the Middle East, as earlier in South-East Asia, seems unable to grasp this basic. ..."
"... Obviously you must want to turn a helpless population over to the evil Assad instead of the good(?) Islamists or the nonexistent moderates. Anything that equates to letting Assad win would be the ultimate proof of a love of dictators. ..."
"... I've often noticed that opponents of humanitarian intervention are cast as the ones peddling a simplistic, unrealistic set of fantasies - nonsense, in short. But whenever an actual case comes up, it appears that the reverse is true. The people calling for war are peddling fantastical nonsense. ..."
...I purposefully haven't addressed anything about the recent history of American involvement
in war in Syria, because that would lead to the same old accusations that this is about hating
America.
But now we're talking about the present as a guide to the future. Does anything about the known
history of recent American involvement in Syria indicate that there are detailed expert analyses
available that will do any good once filtered through policy? Is the solution supposed to
be that HRC's foreign policy team will be much better than Obama's?
What crap-for-brains doesn't seem to appreciate is that there are only two sets of pilots
and planes for the US to shoot down: pilots flying under the Syrian flag and those flying under
the Russian flag. There will be no 'random' misunderstandings and miscommunications for Hillary
to hide behind. And that's before Russia decides to flex in the Crimea, the Ukraine, and the Baltic
states.
The US will unilaterally determine to seize sovereignty of Syrian airspace, intervene in
a civil war on the side of the rebels, and shoot down Syrian government and Russian planes.
Shooting down Russian planes is the plan.
If anyone has any doubt how little Hillary and company have learned from invading Iraq,
violent regime change in Iraq, and removing inconvenient one-time friends at will, we're living
through it real time all over again.
This time we have the CT majority in favor of Bush III and her invasions.
@180 I'm extremely grateful, btw, to see you gaming out how the US plays chicken with the Russians
who 'back down' as a 'reason to vote for Hillary.'
This is a community of adults: LFC, Lee, W Berry et al who lecture the rest of us for wankery,
emotionalism etc. and who are now fully behind the candidate who is promising a 'do-over' of Iraq
with the promise to this time get it right.
Trump, whatever his real deficiencies is openly ready to cede Syrian air-space to Assad.
Most informed observers I've read argue that the civil war in Syria has been extended by years
thanks to US and UK wankery.
At some point, the US may decide not to proceed with violent regime-change. Not yet, however,
or so it seems.
All the responsible US diplomats and generals who brought us Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and
Syria are lined-up to support the only candidate who is running on 4-8 years of violent regime
change.
You're voting in favor of invading Iraq all over again. Thanks!!!
The Syrian/Iraqi wars are complicated. But they are both from the viewpoint of the major combatants
the same war, a contest between the two current major streams of political thought in the Islamic
Middle East. Iraqi and Lebanese Shi'a militias are active in support of the regime in Damascus,
as are Sunni Palestinian ones and the Druze. Christian and Yezidi groups and Kurdish nationalists
have lined up behind both Baghdad and Damascus. One the other side is a loose grouping of Salafi
Islamists ISIS, an-Nusra, the many groups under the FSA umbrella. There are, of course, a few
politiques in the middle, too small to count in the fighting, but much courted by the press, and
always trotted out as the "moderate opposition". Any intervention that tries to slice across the
broad lines of division soon gets hopelessly tangled diplomatically and militarily. As the US
has found out.
With regard to Aleppo, the eastern part of the city has been under the control of the rebels
for some years. The majority of the population is in western Aleppo, under government control.
Eastern Aleppo is now cut off, and under attack by various pro-government forces supported by
the Russian air force. Rebel forces in eastern Aleppo are estimated to be around half al-Qaeda
linked Islamists and half local Sunnis. They regularly bombard the western part, as the government
does the rebel enclave.
The government has opened seven exit corridors for civilians to leave, and repeatedly
offered the rebels evacuation to other areas (several similar offers have been accepted and carried
through for rebel enclaves around Damascus). The latest news is that the rebels are reported to
have mined the exits to prevent civilians leaving.
A good foreign policy maxim is to choose a side that has a reasonable chance of winning
and stick with it. Anything else prolongs the suffering without changing the outcome. US policy
in the Middle East, as earlier in South-East Asia, seems unable to grasp this basic.
Peter T: "A good foreign policy maxim is to choose a side that has a reasonable chance of winning
and stick with it. Anything else prolongs the suffering without changing the outcome. US policy
in the Middle East, as earlier in South-East Asia, seems unable to grasp this basic."
Obviously you must want to turn a helpless population over to the evil Assad instead of
the good(?) Islamists or the nonexistent moderates. Anything that equates to letting Assad win
would be the ultimate proof of a love of dictators.
I've often noticed that opponents of humanitarian intervention are cast as the ones peddling
a simplistic, unrealistic set of fantasies - nonsense, in short. But whenever an actual case comes
up, it appears that the reverse is true. The people calling for war are peddling fantastical nonsense.
Now that the most terrifyingly potent word in the English language, "PUSSY"
has been rediscovered and resurrected by the Democrat Digital Archaeologists, it is time
for reflection. "Pussy" has been detonated over the Trump campaign. Hillary Clinton will be elected.
Nuclear War with Russia and China now seems likely.
War may break out after Hillary's election but before she takes office (think June 22, 1941)
I am recommending downloading and securely storing as many recipes and photos of meals as possible!
Also war movies and series (Band of Brothers etc). Digital survivalists, the new reality.
Also, we MUST organize battalions of Social Justice Warriors
to pull the dead and dying from the smoking rubble, rebuild the electricity grid, maintain social
order and establish food supplies.
Most likely, the "deplorables" and the "irredeemables" will be otherwise occupied in their
own communities (that probably were not directly targeted)
Podesta's twitter account and i-devices were hacked yesterday using a password found in the
emails.
See here .
That is pretty good evidence that the emails are authentic, unless you believe the hackers
managed to guess his password by an astronomically lucky coincidence.
I think this is also evidence that the hacks were not carried out by an elite team of state-sponsored
cyber experts. Podesta was emailing his password in plain text, using a simple password, using
that password across multiple accounts. Further, he didn't bother to change his password despite
his mailbox being hacked and the contents spreading all over the internet!
This man is a dingbat on computer security matters. Literally anyone could have hacked him
using very simple techniques. That password (Hunter4567) could have been brute forced quickly
using tools available to everyone.
Have to go with Occam's razor and say this was probably not a massive Russian plot to influence
the election and install Trump, just an incompetent person getting caught with their pants down
by someone poking around.
(Busy with nurturing some illness, please bear with me.)
Quotes from the Wikileaks stash of Hillary
Clinton speeches and
emails from her campaign chair John Podesta.
Clinton in a 2013 speech to the Jewish United Fund Advance & Major Gifts Dinner (via
The Intercept ):
[Arming moderates has] been complicated by the fact that the Saudis and others are shipping large amounts of weapons-and pretty
indiscriminately-not at all targeted toward the people that we think would be the more moderate, least likely, to cause problems
in the future, ...
Clinton also says that the no-fly zone bombing in Syria she is arguing for "would kill a lot of Syrians" - all for humanitarian
reasons of course.
The following was written by Podesta, a well connected former White House Chief of Staff, in an 2014
email to Clinton. As introduction Podesta notes:"Sources
include Western intelligence, US intelligence and sources in the region.":
While this military/para-military operation is moving forward, we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence
assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia , which are providing clandestine
financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.
Not new - the 2012 DIA analysis
provided as much , and more, - but these email's prove that Clinton was and is well aware that U.S. allies are financing the
radical Islamists in Syria and Iraq.
"... Lavrov: Well, I don't know whether this would ... English is not my mother's tongue and I don't know whether - I don't know - whether I would sound - I mean - decent. There are so many pussies around your presidential campaigns on both sides that I prefer not to comment. ..."
"... Reflecting different national usages, cunt is described as "an unpleasant or stupid person" in the Compact Oxford English Dictionary, whereas Merriam-Webster indicates that it is a "usually disparaging and obscene" term for a woman[1] or an "offensive way to refer to a woman" in the United States. ..."
"... So Lavrov's not only a diplomat, he knows a little comedy too. :) He's one of the most interesting people in government today. ..."
The Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov
in a recent interview with CNN's Amanpour:
Amanpour: Russia had its own Pussy Riot moment. What do you think of Donald Trump's pussy riot
moment?
Lavrov: Well, I don't know whether this would ... English is not my mother's tongue and
I don't know whether - I don't know - whether I would sound - I mean - decent. There are so many
pussies around your presidential campaigns on both sides that I prefer not to comment.
CitizenKane123 | Oct 12, 2016 12:02:27 PM | 4
Pussies are soft, warms and comfortable. I think what Lavrov really meant was:
There are so many cunts around your presidential campaigns on both sides that I prefer not
to comment.
It should be noted that British English and American English have different definitions for the
C word, and I suspect Lavrov understands that. From Wikipedia:
Reflecting different national usages, cunt is described as "an unpleasant or stupid person"
in the Compact Oxford English Dictionary, whereas Merriam-Webster indicates that it is a "usually
disparaging and obscene" term for a woman[1] or an "offensive way to refer to a woman" in the
United States.
Although I would suggest that the OED does understate the strength of the word somewhat.
Podesta - what a clown! Is there some rulebook about Presidents having to be protestant, while
all the shady puppetmasters are zionist catholics or zionist zionists?
Looks like Obama in working overclock to ensure the election of Trump ... anti-Russian hysteria
might have results different that he expects. Whether we are to have a world of sovereign nation-states
or one in which a single imperial superpower contends with increasingly fragmentary post-national and
sub-national threats around the globe will depend on the decisions that are made in the near future:
in the next few years.
Greenwald's astute observations were presumably made in response to Secretary of State John Kerry's
recent remarks that both
Russia and Syria should face war crimes investigations for their recent attacks on Syrian civilians.
"Russia and the regime owe the world more than an explanation about why they keep hitting
hospitals, and medical facilities, and women and children," Mr. Kerry said in Washington,
where he spoke alongside French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, as reported by the Independent
.
Unsurprisingly, Russia responded by urging caution regarding allegations of war crimes considering
the United States has been waging wars in a number of countries since the end of World War II. It
has picked up a number of allegations of war crimes in the process.
Kerry's
continuous accusations that Russia bombed hospital infrastructure are particularly hypocritical
in light of the fact the United States has bombed hospitals in
Iraq
and
Afghanistan on more than one occasion over past decade.
Further, former congressman Ron Paul's Institute for Peace and Prosperity hit back at Kerry, accusing
him of completely fabricating the most recent alleged hospital attack. As the Institute
noted :
" In a press event yesterday, before talks with the French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault
about a new UN resolution,
he said
( vid @1:00) about
Syria:
"'Last night, the regime attacked yet another hospital, and 20 people were killed and 100 people
were wounded. And Russia and the regime owe the world more than an explanation about why they
keep hitting hospitals and medical facilities and children and women. These are acts that beg
for an appropriate investigation of war crimes. And those who commit these would and should be
held accountable for these actions.'
" No opposition group has claimed that such an extremely grave event happened. None. No press
agency has a record of it. The MI-6 disinformation outlet SOHR in Britain, which quite reliably
notes every claimed casualty and is frequently cited in 'western media,' has not said anything
about such an event anywhere in Syria. "
However, the most disturbing aspect of Kerry's allegation is that the accusations against
Russia run in tandem with Saudi Arabia's brutal assault on Yemen. Saudi Arabia, with the
aid of a few regional players - and with
ongoing American and British assistance (not to mention
billion dollar arms sales ) - has been bombing Yemen back into the Stone Age without any legal
basis whatsoever. Often, the Saudi-led coalition has completely decimated civilian infrastructure,
which has led a number of groups to accuse the coalition of
committing war crimes in the process.
Civilians and civilian infrastructure have been struck so routinely that the world has
become increasingly concerned the actual targets of the coalition strikes are civilians
(what could be a greater recruitment tool for al-Qaeda and ISIS in Yemen?) As
noted by Foreign Policy :
"The Houthis and their allies - armed groups loyal to Saleh - are the declared targets of the
coalition's 1-year-old air campaign. In reality, however, it is the civilians, such as Basrallah
and Rubaid, and their children, who are predominantly the victims of this protracted war. Hundreds
of civilians have been killed in airstrikes while asleep in their homes, when going about their
daily activities, or in the very places where they had sought refuge from the conflict. The United
States, Britain, and others, meanwhile, have continued to supply a steady stream of weaponry and
logistical support to Saudi Arabia and its coalition."
Just take one example of the cruel and disproportionate use of force that Saudi Arabia has used
in Yemen (using American-made and supplied aircraft and weapons) - against Judge Yahya Rubaid and
his family. As Foreign Policy
reported in March of this year:
"According to family members, Rubaid was a judge on a case against Yemeni President Abed Rabbo
Mansour Hadi, for treason in absentia. It is unclear whether his house was attacked for this reason.
What is clear, however, is that there was no legally valid basis for bombing his home, as he and
his family were civilians and under international law should not have been deliberately targeted."
At the time this article's publication,
over 140 Yemenis had
been killed and another 500 injured in a Saudi-coalition aerial attack on a funeral over the
weekend. The civilian death toll continues to rise in Yemen, completely unchallenged by any major
players at the U.N.
When the U.N. does attempt to quell Saudi actions , the Saudis threaten
severe
economic retaliation.
How Kerry can accuse Russia of committing war crimes in Syria with a straight face is unclear,
as reports of atrocious crimes committed in Yemen continue to surface.
This is not to say Russia and Syria should not be investigated for war crimes but maybe, just
maybe, we could live in a world where everyone responsible for committing these gross acts could
be held accountable, instead of just those who
pose an economic
threat to the West . Mango327
38BWD22
Oct 11, 2016 3:47 PM
Madeline Albright, "Yes, I think the death of 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5 years
old by US sanctions, was a good price that had to be paid so we could get to Sadam Hussein "???
This bitch along with Kissinger, Soros, Rice, Clinton, Obama, Kerry, and all the news organizations
who have been cheerleaders for the slaughter of innocents should all be charged with Crimes against
humanity and SHOT!
"Who wants to be the last man to die for a mistake?" -- John Kerry, 197x
That was the supposed anti-war Kerry speaking of the Vietnam War, who rode
such comments into a congressional seat. We didn't know then that he was Skull and Bones or what
it might mean. Now we know it in spades.
Now it's clear he's just a lying sack of war mongering, deep state shit.
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe
it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political,
economic and/or military consequences of the lie."
Goebbels used "Gas Lighting" as a form of Psychological manipulation on a population on a mass
scale. Operation Mocking Bird. It continues on today. 365 days a year, 24hrs a day, 7 days a week.
The Psyche Warefare / PsyOp War does not clos
There is an assumption that Russia would never go to war with the US over the Syrian dispute.
But yet, Russia is preparing for war. It has both first-strike and counter-strike capability in
the event the west (US State Dept.) continues with its bullying tactics and further escalates
its hostility. Russia is a sovereign nation; it has both the right and the power to do what is
in the best interests of its citizenry and its allies (Assad).
The US used to be that way until it was over-run in a silent, but effective liberal-coup that
has taken full control and stupidly re-newed the cold war with Russia.
And now America has been left more vulnerable that it ever has been. A simple shut-down of
the electric grid for several months, will, by itself, cut the population in half.
Ultra-liberalism is ultra self-destructive... we're about to see just how destructive that
really is.
Well this is a refreshing start, but only a start. Russia certainly had nothing to do with the
gunships that bombed the hospitals in Afghanistan into powder, killing patients including children,
doctors, nurses and other personell.
I for one would like to know who it was who flew those
planes and have them explain to all of us why they did not refuse orders? What sort of morals
have Americans got to behave ths way? The hospitals bombed in Syria, ditto. The Saudis are the
beasts they are and somebody needs to bomb them into oblivion. (Perhaps take out some other smug
financial centers too!) But Yemen is a very poor sandy country to begin with and Saudi must think
there's oil or something there. If some of the weapons used there weren't tactical nukes they
sure looked like them. Gee. Wonder where they got them?
Chomsky's been saying it for decades, "If they do it, they're terrorists; if we do it,
we're freedom fighters."
My take is that if you are the head of a government, you are a psychopath and any categorization
beyond this is moot.
Clinton / Trump, Obama / Putin, Assad / Erdogan, UN / Nationalism, whoever it may be, they're
all playing the same game, and we're not even allowed to watch, much less comment.
The only thing trickling-down (through a historical perspective) should be blood.
"... the DNC is handling the public v. private comments of one Hillary Clinton is to declare all the leaked material suspect because it's "postmarked Russia," according to Donna Brazile, whom I just watched on This Week so she says she hasn't read them, and is advising that no one read them. If you don't read them, that ends the discussion, which obviously was her goal. ..."
"... And it worked, as near as I can tell. Brazile hammered the public remarks only, so there you have it: just like the DNC hack that showed the games being played with the Sanders candidacy, the Wikileaks release on the paid speeches is delegitimized with one word: Russia. ..."
Well, and just so you know, the way the DNC is handling the public v. private comments
of one Hillary Clinton is to declare all the leaked material suspect because it's "postmarked
Russia," according to Donna Brazile, whom I just watched on This Week so she says she hasn't
read them, and is advising that no one read them. If you don't read them, that ends the discussion,
which obviously was her goal.
And it worked, as near as I can tell. Brazile hammered the public remarks only, so there
you have it: just like the DNC hack that showed the games being played with the Sanders candidacy,
the Wikileaks release on the paid speeches is delegitimized with one word: Russia.
Not that Stephanopolous seemed all that reluctant to let her off the hook he can say he brought
it up, but we all know today isn't about Clinton, it's once again about Trump.
I will say this: the town hall debate could be pretty interesting.
Following the first
official accusation lobbed at Russia on Friday by the Department of Homeland Security and Director
of National Intelligence on Election Security, in which US intelligence services formally stated
they were "confident" that the Russian government "directed the recent compromises of emails from
US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations", today Russia responded to
this latest diplomatic escalation by saying that U.S. accusations that Russia was responsible for
cyber attacks against Democratic Party organizations lack any proof and are an attempt by Washington
to fan "unprecedented anti-Russian hysteria", the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said.
After late on Friday the Kremlin called the U.S. allegations "nonsense", on Saturday Russia's
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov,
cited by Reuters , said on the ministry's website that "this whipping up of emotions regarding
'Russian hackers' is used in the U.S. election campaign, and the current U.S. administration, taking
part in this fight, is not averse to using dirty tricks."
"There is no proof whatsoever for such grave accusations," Ryabkov said. "(They are) ...fabricated
by those who are now serving an obvious political order in Washington, continuing to whip up unprecedented
anti-Russian hysteria."
Ryabkov reiterated an offer to Washington, first made last year, to hold consultations on fighting
cyber crime together, but he also criticized John Kerry after the U.S. Secretary of State said late
on Friday that Russian and Syrian actions in the Syrian civil war, including bombings of hospitals,
"beg for" a war crimes investigation.
Such remarks are unacceptable and Moscow is disappointed to hear "new typically U.S. claims for
being a global judge", Ryabkov said in comments to Interfax news agency published on Saturday.
As Reuters adds, referring to a resolution on Syria proposed by France for debate at the United
Security Council later on Saturday, he said: "Unfortunately, we see less and less common sense in
the actions of Washington and Paris". The draft resolution demands an end to air strikes and military
flights over Aleppo. Moscow has already said this draft is unacceptable.
So with hopes of any joint Syrian action in tatters, and the US formally accusing Russia of being
a state sponsor of cyber attacks against the US, with the chairman of the US senate cyber hacking
subcommittee going so far as introducing a bill imposing sanctions on Russia after the political
hacking allegations, which Russia has duly denied, the ball is now again in Obama's court, where
the next step is most likely to be even more diplomatic tensions, and military escalations.
pods: Oct 8, 2016 11:00 AM
US policy: "When did you stop beating your wife?"
jcaz -> RagaMuffin: Oct 8, 2016 11:14 AM
Don't sweat it, Vlad- real America knows what this is about, and who did what.....
Ha, the article actually uses 'the Putin', as in ' featuring the Putin dressed in a suit in
front of the Russian flag with the word "Peacemaker" in capital letters' paging the late
Sen. Joe McCarthy, we have a fifth-column crisis! I blame the Donald for mollycoddling evil commies
like the Putin.
Update on the "banner day for the Putin" Russian friend notes similar banner was hung in
Dresden, and the occasion is the Putin's birthday, 64th years young today.
Hillary: Huma dear, pour me another double Stoli & tonic, stat!
Huma: What if the schlubs hear you drink Stoli, maybe we should switch to Skyy?
Hillary: It's what Blankfein serves, only the best.
Huma: Maybe we should reconsider first strike, considering the caviar situation. Some VIP donors
will be sucking their thumbs.
Hillary: Memo to Blumenthal, we need a strategic caviar stockpile to last until the rubble is
sorted out.
"... To have a no fly zone you have to take out all of the air defense, many of which are located in populated areas. So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we're not putting our pilots at risk-you're going to kill a lot of Syrians. ..."
Hillary:
To have a no fly zone you have to take out all of the air defense, many of which are
located in populated areas. So our missiles, even if they are standoff missiles so we're not putting
our pilots at risk-you're going to kill a lot of Syrians.
And why is it that all the r2p humanitarians are calling for a no-fly zone? To protect Syrians. Obviously
the most humane way to do that is to 'kill a lot of Syrians'.
"... It's shameful that this country hasn't rejected the first use of nuclear weapons. It's also shameful that instead of working to eliminate nuclear weapons, the U.S. is actually planning to spend nearly a trillion dollars over the next 30 years to upgrade that arsenal. For what possible strategic purpose, one must ask? America's current nuclear deterrent is the most powerful and survivable in the world. No other country comes close. There's no rational reason to invest more money in nuclear weapons, unless you count the jobs and money related to building new nuclear submarines, weaponry, bombs, and all the other infrastructure related to America's nuclear triad of Trident submarines, land-based bombers, and fixed missile silos. ..."
"... Next time, Mr. Trump and Secretary Clinton, let's have some rigor, some honesty, and some wisdom on the issue of nuclear weapons. Not only America deserves it the world does. ..."
It's shameful that this country hasn't rejected the first use of nuclear weapons. It's also shameful that instead of working
to eliminate nuclear weapons, the U.S. is actually planning to spend nearly a trillion dollars over the next 30 years to upgrade
that arsenal. For what possible strategic purpose, one must ask? America's current nuclear deterrent is the most powerful and survivable
in the world. No other country comes close. There's no rational reason to invest more money in nuclear weapons, unless you count
the jobs and money related to building new nuclear submarines, weaponry, bombs, and all the other infrastructure related to America's
nuclear triad of Trident submarines, land-based bombers, and fixed missile silos.
Neither Trump nor Hillary addressed this
issue. Trump was simply ignorant. Hillary was simply disingenuous. Which candidate was worse? When you're talking about nuclear genocidal
death, it surely does matter. Ignorance is not bliss, nor is a lack of forthrightness and honesty.
Next time, Mr. Trump and Secretary Clinton, let's have some rigor, some honesty, and some wisdom on the issue of nuclear weapons.
Not only America deserves it the world does.
William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools
and blogs at Bracing Views. He can be reached at
[email protected]. Reprinted from Bracing
Views with the author's permission.
In the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 an invasion which many Iraqis believe left their country in the worst condition
it has been since the Mongol invasion of 1258 -- there was much discussion in the media about the Bush Administration's goal for
"nation-building" in that country. Of course, if there ever were such a goal, it was quickly abandoned, and one hardly ever hears
the term "nation-building" discussed as a U.S. foreign policy objective anymore.
The stark truth is that the U.S. really has no
intentions of helping to build strong states in the Middle East or elsewhere. Rather, as we see time and again e.g., in Yugoslavia,
Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Ukraine the goal of U.S. foreign policy, whether stated or not, is increasingly and more aggressively
the destruction and balkanization of independent states. However, it is important to recognize that this goal is not new.
In the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 an invasion which many Iraqis believe left their country in the worst condition
it has been since the Mongol invasion of 1258 -- there was much discussion in the media about the Bush Administration's goal for
"nation-building" in that country. Of course, if there ever were such a goal, it was quickly abandoned, and one hardly ever hears
the term "nation-building" discussed as a U.S. foreign policy objective anymore.
The stark truth is that the U.S. really has no
intentions of helping to build strong states in the Middle East or elsewhere. Rather, as we see time and again e.g., in Yugoslavia,
Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Ukraine the goal of U.S. foreign policy, whether stated or not, is increasingly and more aggressively
the destruction and balkanization of independent states. However, it is important to recognize that this goal is not new.
I think I got this interview with Nasrallah from Hezbollah from links this
morning, but it's a real eye-opener. Very interesting to hear the other side's
point of view. Worth your 10 min if you got time.
"... For three years, violent militants have run Aleppo. Their rule began with a wave of repression. They posted notices warning residents: "Don't send your children to school. If you do, we will get the backpack and you will get the coffin." Then they destroyed factories, hoping that unemployed workers would have no recourse other than to become fighters. They trucked looted machinery to Turkey and sold it. ..."
"... Militants, true to form, are wreaking havoc as they are pushed out of the city by Russian and Syrian Army forces. "Turkish-Saudi backed 'moderate rebels' showered the residential neighborhoods of Aleppo with unguided rockets and gas jars," one Aleppo resident wrote on social media. The Beirut-based analyst Marwa Osma asked, "The Syrian Arab Army, which is led by President Bashar Assad, is the only force on the ground, along with their allies, who are fighting ISIS - so you want to weaken the only system that is fighting ISIS?" ..."
"... This does not fit with Washington's narrative. As a result, much of the American press is reporting the opposite of what is actually happening. Many news reports suggest that Aleppo has been a "liberated zone" for three years but is now being pulled back into misery. ..."
"... Americans are being told that the virtuous course in Syria is to fight the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian partners. We are supposed to hope that a righteous coalition of Americans, Turks, Saudis, Kurds, and the "moderate opposition" will win. This is convoluted nonsense, but Americans cannot be blamed for believing it. We have almost no real information about the combatants, their goals, or their tactics. Much blame for this lies with our media. ..."
"... Astonishingly brave correspondents in the war zone, including Americans, seek to counteract Washington-based reporting. At great risk to their own safety, these reporters are pushing to find the truth about the Syrian war. Their reporting often illuminates the darkness of groupthink. Yet for many consumers of news, their voices are lost in the cacophony. Reporting from the ground is often overwhelmed by the Washington consensus. ..."
"... Inevitably, this kind of disinformation has bled into the American presidential campaign. At the recent debate in Milwaukee, Hillary Clinton claimed that United Nations peace efforts in Syria were based on "an agreement I negotiated in June of 2012 in Geneva." The precise opposite is true. In 2012 Secretary of State Clinton joined Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel in a successful effort to kill Kofi Annan's UN peace plan because it would have accommodated Iran and kept Assad in power, at least temporarily. No one on the Milwaukee stage knew enough to challenge her. ..."
"... The truth is that Kinzer is right. We have no idea what is going on in Syria. For the elites in Washington and their press lackeys to report that one side is moderate and the other is not is ludicrous. ..."
Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history
of the American press. Reporting about carnage in the ancient city of Aleppo is the latest reason
why.
For three years, violent militants have run Aleppo. Their rule began with a wave of repression.
They posted notices warning residents: "Don't send your children to school. If you do, we will get
the backpack and you will get the coffin." Then they destroyed factories, hoping that unemployed
workers would have no recourse other than to become fighters. They trucked looted machinery to Turkey
and sold it.
This month, people in Aleppo have finally seen glimmers of hope. The Syrian army and its allies
have been pushing militants out of the city. Last week they reclaimed the main power plant. Regular
electricity may soon be restored. The militants' hold on the city could be ending.
Militants, true to form, are wreaking havoc as they are pushed out of the city by Russian
and Syrian Army forces. "Turkish-Saudi backed 'moderate rebels' showered the residential neighborhoods
of Aleppo with unguided rockets and gas jars," one Aleppo resident wrote on social media. The Beirut-based
analyst Marwa Osma asked, "The Syrian Arab Army, which is led by President Bashar Assad, is the only
force on the ground, along with their allies, who are fighting ISIS - so you want to weaken the only
system that is fighting ISIS?"
This does not fit with Washington's narrative. As a result, much of the American press is
reporting the opposite of what is actually happening. Many news reports suggest that Aleppo has been
a "liberated zone" for three years but is now being pulled back into misery.
Americans are being told that the virtuous course in Syria is to
fight the Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian partners. We are supposed
to hope that a righteous coalition of Americans, Turks, Saudis, Kurds,
and the "moderate opposition" will win. This is convoluted nonsense, but
Americans cannot be blamed for believing it. We have almost no real information
about the combatants, their goals, or their tactics. Much blame for this
lies with our media.
Under intense financial pressure, most American newspapers, magazines, and broadcast networks
have drastically reduced their corps of foreign correspondents. Much important news about the world
now comes from reporters based in Washington. In that environment, access and credibility depend
on acceptance of official paradigms. Reporters who cover Syria check with the Pentagon, the State
Department, the White House, and think tank "experts." After a spin on that soiled carousel, they
feel they have covered all sides of the story. This form of stenography produces the pabulum that
passes for news about Syria.
Astonishingly brave correspondents in the war zone, including Americans,
seek to counteract Washington-based reporting. At great risk to their own safety, these reporters
are pushing to find the truth about the Syrian war. Their reporting often illuminates the darkness
of groupthink. Yet for many consumers of news, their voices are lost in the cacophony. Reporting
from the ground is often overwhelmed by the Washington consensus.
Washington-based reporters tell us that one potent force in Syria, al-Nusra,
is made up of "rebels" or "moderates," not that it is the local al-Qaeda franchise. Saudi Arabia
is portrayed as aiding freedom fighters when in fact it is a prime sponsor of ISIS. Turkey has for
years been running a "rat line" for foreign fighters wanting to join terror groups in Syria, but
because the United States wants to stay on Turkey's good side, we hear little about it. Nor are we
often reminded that although we want to support the secular and battle-hardened Kurds, Turkey wants
to kill them. Everything Russia and Iran do in Syria is described as negative and destabilizing,
simply because it is they who are doing it - and because that is the official line in Washington.
Inevitably, this kind of disinformation has bled into the American presidential campaign. At the
recent debate in Milwaukee, Hillary Clinton claimed that United Nations peace efforts in Syria were
based on "an agreement I negotiated in June of 2012 in Geneva." The precise opposite is true. In
2012 Secretary of State Clinton joined Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel in a successful effort to
kill Kofi Annan's UN peace plan because it would have accommodated Iran and kept Assad in power,
at least temporarily. No one on the Milwaukee stage knew enough to challenge her.
Politicians may be forgiven for distorting their past actions. Governments may also be excused
for promoting whatever narrative they believe best suits them. Journalism, however, is supposed to
remain apart from the power elite and its inbred mendacity. In this crisis it has failed miserably.
Americans are said to be ignorant of the world. We are, but so are people in other countries.
If people in Bhutan or Bolivia misunderstand Syria, however, that has no real effect. Our ignorance
is more dangerous, because we act on it. The United States has the power to decree the death of nations.
It can do so with popular support because many Americans - and many journalists - are content with
the official story. In Syria, it is: "Fight Assad, Russia, and Iran! Join with our Turkish, Saudi,
and Kurdish friends to support peace!" This is appallingly distant from reality. It is also likely
to prolong the war and condemn more Syrians to suffering and death.
Stephen Kinzer is a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown
University. Follow him on Twitter @stephenkinzer.
kaisy 02/18/16 03:38 PM
The truth is that Kinzer is right. We have no idea what is going on in Syria. For the
elites in Washington and their press lackeys to report that one side is moderate and the other
is not is ludicrous.
When the uprising against Assad began three years ago, initially we were on the side of the
angels, that is until we found out that they were mostly Al Queda. Fast forward and now we
have ISIS, the sworn enemy of the US and anybody else that disagrees with them. So now,
remarkably, some are looking at Assad as the voice of moderation. This is so akin to
Afghanistan and, decades ago, Vietnam. When you don't understand the players and their
ulterior motives, best to not get involved. Me, I'd leave this to the Saudis and Iran to fight
over. Cruz talks about carpet bombing Syria until the sand glows (btw, real Christianlike
there). I say defer to those over there. Eventually they'll run out of people to do the
fighting (happening already with ISIS), then, and only then, we can go in and pick up the
pieces.
jkupie02/19/16 07:16 AM
"Washington-based reporters tell us that one potent force in Syria, al-Nusra, is made
up of "rebels" or "moderates," not that it is the local al-Qaeda franchise."
I don't know enough about the area to confirm or disprove most of Mr. Kinzer's points but I
DO KNOW that this claim is false.
tyfox"n" 02/19/16 07:40 PM
jkupiue I absolutley agree. I have never read or heard al-Nusra described as anything but
an al-Qaeda group, and it is stated every time al-Nusra is mentioned.
pegnva 02/19/16 07:58 AM
Hard to know the truth...but it is interesting Kinzer was able to QUOTE former Sec'ty of
State, now presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at the recent Milwaukee debate for falsely
taking credit, some might say lying to the Am public.
kaisy 02/19/16 11:24 AM
Hillary is on the wrong side of this. She wants a no fly zone in Syria, just the Repubs.
She doesn't speak to the consequences of the policy. Unfortunately Bernie has not challenged
her on this. He really needs to.
NH-Repub 02/19/16 09:22 AM
Leftout is right and Hillary is the Queen of Doublespeak. Obama and his minions would like
nothing better than to mislead the masses and keep them in the dark about everything. That way
they control the media and by proxy - us!
The vice presidential debate was an irritating and boring event. One notable part was when Mike Pence
outlined his views of what the U.S. should do in Syria:
Asked how a Trump-Pence administration would stop the civil war carnage in Aleppo, Pence said
that he, at least, "truly believe(s) that what America ought to do right now is immediately establish
safe zones, so that families and children can work out of those areas," and "work with our partners [to]
make that happen. Provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength." If Russia "continues
to be involved" in airstrikes along with the Syrian government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
he said, "the United States of America should be prepared to use military force to strike the
military forces of the Assad regime" and "prevent this crisis in Aleppo."
Trump has said very little about Syria's civil warand advocated none of the measures Pence
outlined.
That last part is not really true. Trump has
endorsed creating safe zones in Syria on
more than one occasion . While I don't believe Trump has a clear idea of what establishing a
safe zone requires, he has had no problem voicing support for the idea several times. The fact that
Pence felt comfortable outlining a very aggressive Syria policy in tonight's debate suggests that
Trump doesn't really have a problem with what his running mate proposed. As I said when I was watching
the debate, Pence's answer on Syria was deranged. He more or less threatened to initiate hostilities
with Russia, and he seemed oblivious to the serious negative consequences this would have. He kept
invoking "American leadership" and "American strength," as if uttering these phrases was all that
mattered. Pence's advocacy for much more U.S. involvement in Syria could have been an easy target
for Kaine, but of course he and Clinton have no disagreements with the Republican ticket on this
issue. For all the quarreling between the two campaigns, both tickets apparently support U.S. escalation
in Syria. As bad as the moderator for the debate was, she did at least manage to get both candidates
to take positions on an issue that was completely ignored in the first presidential debate.
Overall, Kaine's performance was shaky and didn't seem all that impressive to anyone that didn't
know much about him. Despite arguably having better foreign policy experience than Pence, he did
a worse job of demonstrating his readiness to be president if needed. His constant interruptions
of Pence were jarring and off-putting, and created the impression of being an overly loyal terrier
trying to defend his master. Pence's repeated failure to come to Trump's defense in response to Kaine's
many jabs presumably hurt Trump, but it also made Pence seem much less agitated and rattled. Neither
VP nominee significantly harmed his running mate, but Pence did a better job of making the case for
his party's ticket.
" it also made Pence seem much less agitated and rattled"
I agree. Kaine's nervousness, grimacing, and non-stop interruptions were annoying and a bit
flaky. Pence seemed more composed and stable, even if some of what he said was a lot of nonsense
straight out of the Interventionist Handbook.
Temperamentally, Pence is the guy you'd want a heartbeat away from taking that 3:00AM call
Kaine looked like he'd still be awake, jabbering into a dictaphone while vacuuming the Oval
Office for the fifth time.
As far as Syria, and the middle east in general, this is sort of why I glossed over the statements
that Hillary is a hawk: because I don't see any doves (that don't have far too many other problems
to support). Trump started out sounding like he was but as time went on it sounded more and more
like the regular republican "more money to the military. World Police! WIN!" talk.
So at this point it sounds like both are going to keep us in the middle east. Though it seems
Trump may mess with the Iran deal (though it might be less attacking it as it is just poking at
the administration any chance you get).
As far as the debate, Pence wanted a debate about policy while Kaine wanted a debate about
Trump. if this was a presidential debate Pence probably would've been in a better standing.
But I think Kaine wasn't even fighting him. He wasn't after policy. Beyond stating his points
and a token defense his primary purpose was one thing, to say "remember, you aren't voting for
Pence, but for Trump." He's picturing the public saying "Oh, Pence seems pretty coo..oh yeah,
but he's with Trump..ewww."
It pretty much sums up the entire deal with the republican side of the campaign. Take Trump
out of it and you have a strong platform and an actual attempt at trying to extend somewhat past
the old GOP mindset while evoking that Need For Change that pushed democrats back in '08. It's
an actual strong case.
The issue is that it's all on the hopes of Trump. And THAT is the hard sell. I don't even see
many supporters defending him. It's like Pence: they bypass him and either focus on the dream
or the enemy.
Which leads to something interesting: If the roles were reversed: same platform, same general
message, but Pence as President and Trump as VP, would it be hard for folks not two-feet in the
Democratic ticket to vote R? Would there be a questioin as to who would win?
I have a feeling that many would say : " I don't know. But I would have liked that campaign I
would have liked that campaign very much.
If you'd told me that one of the two gentlemen debating last night was a Virginian and asked me
who it was, I would have said Pence, solely because of his demeanor.
Pence's thoughts on Syria were dumb (and dangerous), but I find it hard to hold that against
run-of-the-mill politicians these days because they're getting such rotten information and advice
from establishment "experts" and mainstream pundits. The country needs a changing of the guard
when it comes to "experts".
Kaine struck me as a third stringer trying to compensate for his own weaknesses by poking a
stick in the other fellow's spokes. And no better on Syria, that's certain.
The way the question was phrased, evoking endangered children and the classic what should America
'do' .doesn't really allow a candidate to say 'nothing we have no vital interests in Syria'.
If Pence is pushing that same "get tough with Russia and Assad" idea he's taking the opposite
tack than Trump. Either they aren't communicating, the campaign figured that they could get away
with completely altering their position from one debate to the next, or Pence doesn't really care
what Trump thinks and is an unreformed GOP hawk.
Isn't the joke here Pence had a great debate running for President? In reality, it is very likely
Pence does all the real work and all Donald really wants is the national audience to take the
credit. So it was a goo debate for Pence that has minimal effect on the polls because the headliners
personality are dominant this cycle.
Tim Kaine was overly-aggressive and appeared to be not ready for Prime time.
"The fact that Pence felt comfortable outlining a very aggressive Syria policy in tonight's debate
suggests that Trump doesn't really have a problem with what his running mate proposed. As I said
when I was watching the debate, Pence's answer on Syria was deranged. He more or less threatened
to initiate hostilities with Russia, and he seemed oblivious to the serious negative consequences
this would have. He kept invoking"
I didn't watch the debate. This morning, when I was asked about it - I didn't think it would
be a contest. Gov. Pence, should have no issues.
But if I had watched and heard the above comments. I might have had conniptions. I am not going
to say more at the moment. I would sound like I am abandoning my candidate. I like Gov. Pence,
but that response is rife with campaign and policy self inflicting damages - good grief.
Pence is a fine Christian man and I'm glad he did well last night. However, his hawkishness was
disturbing. Somebody who is pro life should be wary of policies that lead to wars and thousands
dying.
As somebody who wants our borders secured, I don't feel I have a choice on Nov. 8. I will be
praying, though, that Trump doesn't delegate the FP heavy lifting to his vice president as Bush
43 did to his.
"Safe Zones" sound all well and good, but the only way to guarantee a safe zone is to have US
troops on the ground in Syria. You cannot enforce a safe zone from the air.
So, it sounds like both parties are willing to commit US ground troops to Syria and risk a
possible confrontation with Russian troops who are already there.
This is more Neocon nonsense being foisted on the American people by politicians who do not
really understand the ramifications of their actions.
Jesus. Very disappointed in Pence's answer on Syria. War against russia would cost thousands of
american lives. We need to stay out of Syria plain and simple. Pence's statememt also goes completely
against "we need to beat ISIS" rant that trump goes on every two sentences. To beat ISIS we would
have to be on the same side as Syria/Russia. This whole election is cluster .How the heck did
we end up with these two choices?
LHM: exactly. I'd just add that war with Russia conventionally would probably costs hundreds of
thousands of us soldier lives and could cripple our military for subsequent actual DEFENSE against
the country that actually will have the means to threaten the very existence or freedom of the
USA:
China, with an economy vastly bigger and more diversified than Russia's, a population eight
times as numerous as Russia's, and for that matter a far, far larger diaspora to influence politics,
culture, and economics in the formerly white western countries (USA, Canada (especially "British"
Columbia), and Australia, in particular).
Also, as pointed out in columns on Unz and elsewhere, conventional war could escalate to nuclear
exchange more easily than many people think. God help us.
How many safe zones do we need in Syria, we already have 3. 1. Govt held areas (unless we bomb them).
2. Kurdish territory (unless Turkey bombs them). 3. The Turkish zone in N. Syria.
In fact weren't we begging Turkey to establish a zone just for this purpose?
Of course, what we really want is an Assad free zone that covers all of Syria and filled with
Al Qaeda groups that we pretend are moderates.
Trump needs to state clearly that he is not in agreement with Pence position on Russia & Syria.
To beat ISIS we need to be on the same side as Russia. If Pence is a fine Christian, how can he
be so carless to be on side of ISIS in Syria like Obama is, and have hand in destroying Syria
the cradle of Christianity.
"Jesus. Very disappointed in Pence's answer on Syria. War against russia would cost thousands
of american lives. We need to stay out of Syria plain and simple. Pence's statememt also goes
completely against "we need to beat ISIS" rant that trump goes on every two sentences. To beat
ISIS we would have to be on the same side as Syria/Russia."
it's the problem with being involved with the entire middle east without a firm desire of exactly
what we want from there. We started out fighting Sunni threats, then took out the big Sunni country
that we earlier set up to hold back the big Shi'a country we felt was a threat. So when said Shi'a
country gained power we stood against them. And..well, that sort of ended up with us fighting
both sides at the same time depending on the location.
It's much more complicated than that, which is why jumping in there without really understanding
the region was a bad idea.
" This whole election is cluster .How the heck did we end up with these two choices?"
My belief.
Democratic voters are used to 'playing it safe' instead of going for more Left choices since
"liberal" triggers a BIG backlash in this country. Thus why you get candidates like Clinton instead
of candidates like Sanders and why you keep getting things like Obamacare's quasi-private insurance
instead of single-payer.
Republican voters are sick of the GOP and wanted someone, anyone, who wasn't a democrat but
wasn't holding the GOP platform. Remember how, other than Trump, the other Republican candidates
were all trying to "Out Right" each other? Trump was the only one that did more than outright
ignore them.
So in a way, the GOP caused it all by putting so much hate against the Left that the Left always
plays it safe and caring so little about their base that they eloped to the first man that told
them they were pretty and deserved better.
Clinton was the 'safe pick'. Trump smiled. And here we are.
It actuslly sounds less stupid when you see it that way. It's less that we're all idiots and
more just a set of unfortunate events caused by a political scene that looked a lot like a youtube
comment section.
I tend to discount Pence's comments on Syria in the debate. If Trump manages to win, he rather
than Pence will be calling the shots on foreign policy. And to the extent that Trump has any coherent
ideas on foreign policy, how could he come down hard on the mistake of invading Iraq and support
getting deeply involved in Syria?
In fact, Trump may have welcomed Pence's statement on Syria, since it may have attracted the
votes of some establishment and neocon types without binding him to any particular policy if he
becomes president.
"In fact, Trump may have welcomed Pence's statement on Syria, since it may have attracted the
votes of some establishment and neocon types without binding him to any particular policy if he
becomes president."
Altogether too close to the Bush-Cheney parallel for comfort. The last thing we want is for
the neocons to come creeping back in through the Blair House back door.
Thought Pence was the superior of the two. Considering the options in Syria while running for
President/VP you have to show a position of strength. My thought is that Trump wants to play nice
with Putin for a while and eventually will pull out of Syria. You just can't say that during an
election or you look weak.
Pence is a fine Christian -- I admire his courage in bringing up abortion in such an important
debate. Unfortunately, most conservatives have a blind spot toward Christians in the Mideast.
Part of it might be biasOrthodox Christians aren't "true" Christians. Also many Evangelicals
have been brain washed into believing that support of Israel is the only thing that counts.
"My thought is that Trump wants to play nice with Putin for a while and eventually will pull out
of Syria."
One thing Trump has successfully done is to launch a campaign so free of any real policy that
anything you want to believe can be projected onto him. Play nice with Putin and then pull out?
Sure! He's never said that, and in fact he's said the exact opposite but why not?
"... In other news, the "save Aleppo" propaganda's gone into overdrive. BBC and their assorted media houses have all got their marching orders to spew the usual nonsense. Good thing is, nobody gives a sh*t about them anymore. Years of one-sided BS about "moderate rebels" blah blah blah is finally wearing thin. ..."
"... You know the rats are in real trouble when the msm starts talking about "humanitarian" intervention.. All I hear on the news are Russia this, Russia that, Assad this Assad that, backeries, last hospital here/there, white helmets etc etc. ..."
"... Quite interesting listening to the leaks. It shows a divided government with different factions working for the highest bidder. Also shows the US does not have much control over their Saudi/Turkish "allies".. ..."
"... There is one country on the Arabian peninsula that is somewhat hostile to Saudia Arabia and has reasonably good relations with Iran, so I suspect they're quite happy to see Saudi Arabia bogged down in a Yemeni quagmire as no doubt are the Russians. ..."
In other news, the "save Aleppo" propaganda's gone into overdrive. BBC and their assorted
media houses have all got their marching orders to spew the usual nonsense. Good thing is, nobody
gives a sh*t about them anymore. Years of one-sided BS about "moderate rebels" blah blah blah
is finally wearing thin.
You know the rats are in real trouble when the msm starts talking about "humanitarian"
intervention.. All I hear on the news are Russia this, Russia that, Assad this Assad that, backeries,
last hospital here/there, white helmets etc etc.
Bottom line: taking back Aleppo will be the end of the fake revolution and the architects of
this dirty war know it!!!
These Oil Sheikhs are way too retarded to know wtf they're doing in Yemen and the amount of
sh*t they've gotten themselves into.
You guys evidently haven't understood. This is a war of Sunnis, of Wahhabi style, against the
Shi'a, represented by the Houthis. In which the UAE participates, although not directly threatened.
There've been remarks by Saudi princes about how how they want Shi'a to disappear from the
world, a direct threat of genocide. That is why the war in Yemen.
Why this powerful sentiment? It's quite simple. The population of the Eastern Province of Saudi
Arabia is Shi'a mainly (not quite sure on the figures). It is also the only area of Saudi with
oil. If the Shi'a rebel, it's all over for the revenues of Saudi princes.
A second case is Bahrain. Majority Shi'a population suppressed by Sunni dynasty. Bahraini oil
in danger.
The GCC operates together, though no Shi'a in UAE. That's why Emiratis in Yemen.
' "Someone" gave the Houthis anti-ship missiles ...'
I've been seeing Internet news and rumours that hundreds of Saudi soldiers have been defecting
to the Yemeni side. At the very least they've been going AWOL but one assumes they must be going
somewhere to escape Saudi authorities. Defecting to the Yemenis seems the simplest explanation
and could also explain how the Houthis have been able to acquire sophisticated weapons.
Quite interesting listening to the leaks. It shows a divided government with different
factions working for the highest bidder. Also shows the US does not have much control over their
Saudi/Turkish "allies"..
The Syrian 5-star opposition had hoped the Americans will invade Syria and get rid of Assad
for them and parachute them into Damascus like the CIA did Hamid Karzai...It'll make for a lovely
comedy script if it wasn't so tragic!!!
Jen | Oct 1, 2016 5:18:33 PM | 16 There is one country on the Arabian peninsula that is somewhat hostile to Saudia Arabia and
has reasonably good relations with Iran, so I suspect they're quite happy to see Saudi Arabia
bogged down in a Yemeni quagmire as no doubt are the Russians.
It's one of two countries that have a land border with Yemen so, I'm guessing it wouldn't be
hard to smuggle weapons across their shared border, i.e., as about as difficult as it is for al
Nusrah or ISIS to smuggle weapons across Syria's border with Turkey.
A friend of a friend works as a nursing practitioner in a military hospital in that country
and all her patients have battlefield wounds even though that country is not at war internally
or externally.
My guess is that it was an Iranian knockoff of the C-802 that flies at 3-5 metres off the sea
during the attack phase at mach 0.9 (~690 mph), so you might not see it given its speed and altitude.
When the missile is launched, the solid rocket propellant booster accelerates the speed of
the missile to Mach 0.9 in a few seconds. After the booster burns out, it detaches from the
missile body and the missile's turbojet engine starts.
This missile is semi-armoured piercing while the boat has an aluminium (alloy) hull and superstructure
so the missile would punch through the skin like a hot knife through butter and explode inside
the ship.
The missile uses a 165 kg semi-armor-piercing anti-personnel blast warhead which relies on
the missile's kinetic energy to pierce the deck of a ship, penetrate into and explode in the
ship's interior. The YJ-82 might have a higher single hit probability than the YJ-8/YJ-81..
"... The potential threats both candidates pose are real. Those advocating Hillary as the better, safer choice cannot offer any reliable assurances that she will be able, or willing, to pursue policies that increase the well-being and security of any but the already affluent and secure. ..."
"... Hillary's long and unhappy history of war-mongering has not, imho, received anything like the media scrutiny it deserves, and won't until she's correctly identified in the minds of most as an advocate of 'liberal interventionism'/violent regime change and on an equal footing of imbecility and irresponsibility in the minds of the public as Bush, Cheney, and Blair. ..."
"... When the busts of Hillary, Bush, Blair, and Cheney form a Mt. Rushmore of savage stupidity for all to see and all school children studying the early 21st-century American-UK wars recognize the monument as such, that task of 'highlighting' her role in this enormously costly and damaging humanitarian and political disaster will be at least part way done. ..."
"... Obama, as Stevenjohnson notes, has not entirely surrendered his dream of forcing 'democracy' on Syria. There is abundant evidence, however, the US and a number of other nations have been arming Syrian rebels (ISIL and Al Quaida) since 2011, at least. ..."
"... The result of Obama and Hillary's love of violent regime change has been an increase in the suffering of millions in North Africa and the Middle East, the collapse of basic services such as fresh water and hospitals, and a new flood of refugees seeking to escape the beneficence of Hillary Clinton and her boss. ..."
"... If you are supporting Hillary you are supporting violent regime change in the Middle East and the love of violence of Bush and Cheney, not too mention drone strikes, the surveillance state. That's who you are. ..."
"... Dealing first with Libya and Syria, Hillary Clinton served as the US Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013, which makes her at least one of the prime architects of US foreign policy, and certainly the most important administration official after Obama responsible for foreign policy. Facts which place the burden of proof regarding her involvement in US foreign policy formation and execution squarely on you. ..."
"... HRC's involvement in Iraq is less well-understood, and that's likely no accident either, given the mileage democrats have generated out of pinning the entire bi-partisan debacle on Bush and Cheney. From the linked dialogue above featuring Robert Wright and Max Abrahms (Northeastern) http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/43967?in=01:10&out=12:21 ..."
"... The chaotic civil war in Syria and Iraq seems like another example where the U.S. is having a hard time "thinking" things thru realistically. ..."
"... One interpretation is she's stupid and vicious as a badge of class honor, blissfully consistent with the bloodthirsty record of Madeleine Albright and Henry Kissinger. Unfortunately, that might be true, though I think if it is true, it is more likely a product of being caught up in the amoral bubble of political and media process that has enveloped the whole foreign policy establishment than any personal psychopathy. ..."
@ 278 There's nothing quite so amusing as advocates of free speech 'commanding' the comments section
of somebody else's blog and then issuing permissions to comment, or instructions to how and what
to post. (fn, rich, colin, TM in one form, or another)
Merian is quite right that in the artificially and arbitrarily limited universe of a one-time
choice between just two options, everything written can be seen as pro/con against one or the
other if everything that is written has only one meaning and will be read and understood
by all as having the same meaning.
The fact is that a great many people inside the US and outside the US may well lack any/much
understanding of the decision-making processes that led up to Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria,
not to mention America's long history with Iran, and America's support of Evil Axis bad guy number
1 Saddam Hussein. The dynamics are complex even for those familiar with the basic topography.
The rhetorical parallels leading up to the Iraq invasions and the presidential elections are
striking and easy to identify. Facts don't matter, the urgency and severity of the threat demands
uniform action, and the enemy is a once in an eon threat of epic proportion to the physical and
moral existence of the known universe.
The potential threats both candidates pose are real. Those advocating Hillary as the better,
safer choice cannot offer any reliable assurances that she will be able, or willing, to pursue
policies that increase the well-being and security of any but the already affluent and secure.
Hillary's long and unhappy history of war-mongering has not, imho, received anything like
the media scrutiny it deserves, and won't until she's correctly identified in the minds of most
as an advocate of 'liberal interventionism'/violent regime change and on an equal footing of imbecility
and irresponsibility in the minds of the public as Bush, Cheney, and Blair.
When the busts of Hillary, Bush, Blair, and Cheney form a Mt. Rushmore of savage stupidity
for all to see and all school children studying the early 21st-century American-UK wars recognize
the monument as such, that task of 'highlighting' her role in this enormously costly and damaging
humanitarian and political disaster will be at least part way done.
For Merian and others: a timely post from Matt Welch at Reason on Gary Johnson via the o'l perfessor
who sees the coverage of Hillary and Trump as you.
28 September 2015 "Obama tells the UN Assad must go."
18 August 2011 "Assad Must Go Obama Says" (Wapo) (no links to follow to avoid moderation)
1 August 2012 "Obama Authorizes Secret US Support for Syrian Rebels" (Reuters)
Obama, as Stevenjohnson notes, has not entirely surrendered his dream of forcing 'democracy'
on Syria. There is abundant evidence, however, the US and a number of other nations have been
arming Syrian rebels (ISIL and Al Quaida) since 2011, at least.
The result of Obama and Hillary's love of violent regime change has been an increase
in the suffering of millions in North Africa and the Middle East, the collapse of basic services
such as fresh water and hospitals, and a new flood of refugees seeking to escape the beneficence
of Hillary Clinton and her boss.
All this after the 'lessons' of Iraq and Afghanistan.
If you are supporting Hillary you are supporting violent regime change in the Middle East
and the love of violence of Bush and Cheney, not too mention drone strikes, the surveillance state.
That's who you are.
kidneystones 10.02.16 at 3:58 am
ZM@ 303. The linked dialogue above explores the role Hillary and Obama, in particular, played
in providing the arms and support to a rebellion that Assad, like Gaddafi, could have ended years
ago.
Like Gaddafi, Assad is not being attacked by moderate democrats keen to legalize gay marriage,
but rather Sunni militias deeply sympathetic to ISIL and Al Quaida, or those forces operating
in Syria and western Iraq.
You're right to point out that the only result of US support of ISIL related Sunnis has been
the prolonging of the civil war and the promulgation of the delusion that violent-regime change
brings peace and security. Yes, five years of US arms, threats, and intimidation has destroyed
Syria, in much the same was as the Hillary promoted war in Libya destroyed that regime.
The pro-Hillary-Obama media is extremely reluctant in the run-up to the election to point out
explicitly what a spectacular FP failure the US has created for itself right now, with Russian
jets flying over Aleppo and Assad about to finally humiliate the insurgents and all those like
Hillary and Obama who encouraged the bloodshed.
The Obama-Hillary policy has been a five-year bloodbath and there's no sign Hillary wants to
do anything but press for a no-fly zone over Syria in order for the US to continue to funnel more
death and destruction into the already devastated moonscape.
It ain't like anyone she knows is dying over there. Syrians can't vote in November.
The attitude of her supporters seems be: fuck it Syria is on the other side of the world,
so what's the big deal?
Mitt Romney tied the family dog to the roof of his car. What about that ?
kidneystones 10.02.16 at 4:05 am
@ 305 Hi Merian.
Go tell your students that you're supporting the candidate who voted for the Iraq invasion
(biggest mistake in modern US history), persuaded plenty of other Democrats and ordinary Americans
to suspend their judgment and do the same. And who also played an instrumental role in destroying
Libya, promotes violent regime-change in Syria and enjoys the support of all the same neocon warmongers
who've made the US into a pariah state. Play the 'We came, we saw, he died ha-ha-ha" Hillary
CBS video for them.
Then explain to them that Hillary is the better candidate.
See what happens.
Omega Centauri 10.02.16 at 4:40 am 314
I don't see HRC as a prime mover in either Iraq or Libya. In the first case Iraq was a neocon/Bush
project, and they were threatening to extract a terrible price from anyone who used their position
to block their ambitions. Libya was primarily a Arab-league cum French-British project. Not supporting
it could have potentially damaged our relationship with key allies France and Britain. Of course
Libya was a slippery slope, once started it soon became obvious there was no solution where Qaddafi
survived and the Libyan people wouldn't end up paying dearly. Not that her acquiescence in either
case demonstrated either good long term judgement or courage, but it also doesn't demonstrate
that she was a principle architect of either project.
314@ "I don't see HRC as a prime mover in either Iraq, or Libya."
That's probably a great comfort to the grifters keen to see her elected. The facts, however,
suggest otherwise. Dealing first with Libya and Syria, Hillary Clinton served as the US Secretary
of State from 2009 to 2013, which makes her at least one of the prime architects of US foreign
policy, and certainly the most important administration official after Obama responsible for foreign
policy. Facts which place the burden of proof regarding her involvement in US foreign policy formation
and execution squarely on you.
HRC's involvement in Iraq is less well-understood, and that's likely no accident either,
given the mileage democrats have generated out of pinning the entire bi-partisan debacle on Bush
and Cheney. From the linked dialogue above featuring Robert Wright and Max Abrahms (Northeastern)
http://bloggingheads.tv/videos/43967?in=01:10&out=12:21
bruce wilder 10.02.16 at 7:49 pm
Anarcissie @ 239: We basically have a whole class of people, at the top of the social order,
who seem devoid of a moral sense - a problem which the upcoming election isn't going to touch,
much less solve. I don't blame Clinton for this . . .
JimV @ 317: I am sorry if I mischaracterized BW as implying that HRC is evil, . . .
Peter T @ 320: Whatever the merits of their individual stances, there is no reason to suppose
that either Obama or Hillary can exert more than loose control over this mess [the multi-sided
regional civil war engulfing Syria and northern Iraq]
stevenjohnson @ 324: The recent leak that Clinton is against nuclear armed cruise missiles
and isn't committed to Obama's trillion dollar nuclear weapons upgrade appears to suggest she's
not quite on board with plans for general war.
LFC @ 330: I disagree w the notion that the pt of nuclear 'modernization' is to make plausible
the threat of "imminent general nuclear war." If U.S. military planners took hallucinogenic drugs
and went nuts, they could "plausibly" threaten "imminent general nuclear war" right now with the
US nuclear arsenal as currently configured. They don't need to upgrade the weapons to do that.
The program is prob more the result of rigid, unimaginative thinking at top levels of Pentagon
and influence of outside companies (e.g. Boeing etc) that work on the upgrades.
I don't know if that seems like a somewhat random collection of precursors to assemble as preface
to a comment. I was thinking of picking out a few upthread references to climate change and the
response to it (or inadequacy thereof) as well.
I am a little disturbed by the idea of leaving the impression that I think Hillary Clinton
is "evil". What I think is that American politics in general is not generating realistic, adaptive
governance.
I am using that bloodless phrase, "realistic, adaptive governance", deliberately, to emphasize
wanting to step outside the passions of the Presidential election. I think the Manichean narrative
where Trump is The Most Horrible Candidate Evah and Everyone Must Line Up Behind Clinton as an
Ethical Imperative of a High Order is part of the process of propaganda and manipulation that
distorts popular discussion and understanding and helps to create a politics that cannot govern
realistically and adaptively. This is not about me thinking Trump is anything but a horrible mess
of a candidate who ought to be kept far from power.
I see Clinton as someone who is trapped inside the dynamics of this seriously deranged politics
qua political process. I don't see her as entirely blameless. Politicians like Obama and either
Clinton, at the top of the political order, are masters (keeping in mind that there are many masters
working to some extent in opposition to one another as rivals, allies, enemies and so on) of the
process and create the process by the exercise of their mastery, as much as they are mastered
by it. I see them as trapped by the process they have helped (more than a little opportunistically)
to create, but trapped as Dr Frankenstein is by his Creature.
Clinton must struggle with the ethical contradictions of governance at the highest levels of
leadership: she must, in the exercise of power in office and out, practice the political art of
the possible in relation to crafting policy that will be "good" in the sense of passably effective
and efficient - this may involve a high degree of foresightful wonkery or a lethally ruthless
statesmanship, depending upon circumstances. Beside this business of making the great machinery
of the state lumber forward, she must strive to appear "good", like Machiavelli's Prince, even
while playing an amoral game of real politick, gathering and shepherding a complex coalition of
allies, supporters, donors and cooperative enemies.
Machiavelli, when he was considering the Princely business of appearing "good", was contending
with the hypocrisies and impossible idealism of authoritarian Catholic morality. He barely connected
with anything that we would recognize as democratic Public Opinion and could scarcely conceive
of what Ivy Lee or Edward Bernays, let alone Fox News, Vox and the world wide web might do to
politics.
We are trapped, just as Clinton is trapped, in the vast communication nightmare of surrealistic
news and opinion washing in upon us in a tide that never ebbs. We are trapped by the politics
of media "gotchas" and Kinsley Gaffes (A Kinsley gaffe occurs when a political gaffe reveals some
truth that a politician did not intend to admit.)
I don't think Clinton lacks a moral sense. What I think is that Clinton's moral sense is exhausted
calculating what to say or do within the parameters of media-synthesized conventional wisdom policed
by people who are themselves exhausted trying to manage it. Matt Lauer's interview with Clinton
was notorious for the relentless and clueless questioning about the email server, although I,
personally, was shocked when he asked her a question that seemed premised on the idea that veterans
should be offended by admitting the Iraq War was a mistake.
I would think it is easy to see that the media circus is out of control, especially when a
clown like Trump graduates from The Apprentice to the Republican nomination. YMMV, but
I think this is a serious problem that goes beyond vividly imagined sepia-toned parodies of Trump's
candidacy as the second coming of Mussolini.
While we're getting ourselves agitated over Trump's racism or threats to bar Muslims from entry,
apparently the Military-Industrial Complex, left on autopilot, is re-designing the nation's nuclear
arsenal to make the outbreak of nuclear war far more likely. And, the closest Clinton gets to
a comment, campaign commitment or public discussion, let alone an exercise of power, is a PR "leak"!!!
The chaotic civil war in Syria and Iraq seems like another example where the U.S. is having
a hard time "thinking" things thru realistically. Clinton offered up a sound-bite last year,
saying that she favored imposing a "no-fly" zone, which was exposed as kind of crazy idea, given
that the Russians as well as Assad's government are the ones flying, not to mention the recent
experience with a no-fly zone in Libya. One interpretation is she's stupid and vicious as
a badge of class honor, blissfully consistent with the bloodthirsty record of Madeleine Albright
and Henry Kissinger. Unfortunately, that might be true, though I think if it is true, it is more
likely a product of being caught up in the amoral bubble of political and media process that has
enveloped the whole foreign policy establishment than any personal psychopathy. What's most
alarming to me is that we cannot count on personal character to put the brakes on that process,
which is now the process of governance. I am writing now of the process of governance by public
relations that was has been exposed a bit in profiles of the Deputy National Security Advisor
for Strategic Communications, Ben Rhodes.
In Syria, it has become almost comical, if you can overlook the bodies piling up, as the U.S.
has sought a the mythical unicorn of Syrian Moderate Democrats whom the Pentagon or the CIA can
advise, train and arm. This is foreign policy by PR narrative and it is insanely unrealistic.
But, our politics is trapped in it, and, worse, policy is trapped in it. Layer after layer of
b.s. have piled up obscuring U.S. interests and practical options. Recently, U.S. forces supporting
the Turks have come dangerously close to blowing up U.S. forces supporting the Kurds. When you
find yourself on opposing sides of a civil war like Charles I you may be in the process of losing
your head. Some of the worst elements opposing Assad have been engaged in a transparent re-branding
exercise aimed at garnering U.S. aid. And, U.S. diplomats and media face the high challenge of
explaining why the U.S. supports Saudi Arabia in Yemen.
But, hey, Clinton will get Robert Kagan's vote and a better tomorrow is only a Friedman unit
away, so it is all good.
kidneystones 10.02.16 at 9:24 pm
@328 stevenjohnson and Peter T cover the details. As an outsider supportive of negotiated settlements
in all cases, rather than unilateral military action and violent regime change, I'm interested
principally in ensuring that partisan political preferences do not obscure the historical record.
Bluntly put, dictators routinely abuse bomb their own civilians as the 'need' arises. Nor is the
US the only state actor keen to profit in the broadest sense of the term from political division.
The UN was formed, in large part, to provide a forum/mechanism for peaceful conflict resolution.
Each time state actors such as Russia, China, the US, France, and the UK either bypass the UN,
or use the UN to sanction attacks by larger states on smaller states, the entire edifice becomes
a little weaker.
Hillary is not the only individual with Libyan and Syrian blood on her hands. She's simply
the only individual directly involved in Iraq, Libya, and Syria running to the 45th president
of the US.
bruce wilder 10.02.16 at 9:54 pm
Rich Puchalsky @ 334
People are in information overload most of the time, and where politics are concerned, they
really just want to know who to root for. They ask, "who is the good guy? who is the bad guy?"
"Whose right?" "What should be done?" And, people like the opinions they have, whatever those
opinions may be; they use their political opinions to feed their sense of self-esteem and social
belonging, for better and for worse.
I have some friends, who are really into a particular sport as fans, not participants. One
guy knows everything about baseball. It is fun to watch a game with him, because he knows when
someone is about to try to steal a base and stuff like that and he can explain the manager's strategy
and has gossip about the players careers and personal lives. And, apparently, he has an encyclopedic
knowledge of baseball history - appears to, anyway: what dramatic thing happened in game 3 of
the 1967 World Series and so on and exactly why everyone hated Ty Cobb.
No one like that shows up at CT to talk politics. Maybe it is just as well. Sports guys can
wield that knowledge and remain affable, but political guys tend to be arrogant and off-putting.
But, I do think we could use more of that spirit sometimes.
I was thinking about what a brilliant innovation the Clinton Foundation is, how well it is
designed to solve the problems of Machiavelli's Prince. But, we would struggle to discuss it in
those terms; the partisan contest means that the CF is either horribly corrupt or prosaically
innocent. The pressure to evaluate it is so high, that seeing the functional details is hard.
I've seen some articles that attempt to understand the CF as a means to the political ambitions
of the Clintons, but they seldom grasp the awesome accomplishment it is in ways that also fully
understand why enemies of the Clintons are keen to attack it and why it so reliably produces the
neoliberal pablum that Thomas Franks despises. If we could imagine a Marx tackling the CF as a
vehicle of class interest, that would be pretty interesting.
"... I believe that the Russians are aware of the fact that the war in Syria is a war by proxy directed against them and against their ally China. It is part of a bigger plan by the US to block Eurasia from having access to the maritime trade roots. In addition, I believe there was a mentioning of the presence of the representatives of the NGOs operating in insurgent territories. And this proves also that the US was using these NGOs as a tool of soft power in order to topple the Syrian regime. ..."
Jamal Wakeem: I believe that this proves that the US was involved in the Syrian
crisis since its onset and that it was collaborating with the so-called insurgents in order to topple
the Syrian regime. In addition, it proves also that the Syrian crisis had its regional and international
dimension since the beginning and it wasn't a revolution against an illegitimate regime, as the West
claimed at one point.
In addition, I believe that it also proves that the Obama administration
didn't give priority to peaceful and political solution for the Syrian crisis. But it used this as
an alternative to its inability to use force when it was confronted by a steadfast position by Russia
who refused to be dragged into another trick by the US similar to what happened in Libya and topple
the Syrian regime.
I believe that the Russians are aware of the fact that the war in Syria is a war by proxy
directed against them and against their ally China. It is part of a bigger plan by the US to block
Eurasia from having access to the maritime trade roots. In addition, I believe there was a mentioning
of the presence of the representatives of the NGOs operating in insurgent territories. And this proves
also that the US was using these NGOs as a tool of soft power in order to topple the Syrian regime.
"... This is entirely wrong. Syria was governed secularly and what began as a secular protests against the government early on was taken control of by violent sectarians, increasingly violent sectarian insurgents. ..."
"... Syria has been beset by a wildly violent sectarian insurgency which has been supported by surrounding countries and even under the guise of helping moderates by the United States. ..."
What Is Russia Up To, and Is It Time
to Draw the Line? http://nyti.ms/2d05nut
NYT - DAVID E. SANGER - SEPT. 29, 2016
WASHINGTON - Escalating airstrikes in Syria. Sophisticated cyberattacks, apparently intended
to influence the American election. New evidence of complicity in shooting down a civilian airliner.
The behavior of Russia in the last few weeks has echoes of some of the uglier moments of the
Cold War, an era of proxy battles that ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. President
Obama, fresh from a meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin this month, wondered aloud whether
the Russian leader was content living with a "constant, low-grade conflict." His reference was
to Ukraine, but he could have been addressing any of the arenas where Mr. Putin has reveled in
his new role as the great disrupter of American plans around the globe.
"It seems to me we have Mr. Putin's answer," said Richard Haass, the president of the Council
on Foreign Relations and the author of a coming book, "A World in Disarray." "He's answered in
the affirmative. Low-grade conflict is his thing. And the question is how directly or indirectly
we introduce costs."
None of these conflicts have, in fact, cost Mr. Putin very much. Cyberpower in particular is
tailor-made for a country in Russia's circumstances - a declining economy with the gross domestic
product of Italy. It is dirt cheap, hard to trace to a specific aggressor and perfect for sowing
confusion, which may be the limits of Mr. Putin's goals.
The bigger question confronting American intelligence officials, though, is whether the Russian
president has a grander scheme at work. So far, their conclusion is probably not. Mr. Putin's
moves, they argue in background conversations, are largely tactical, intended to bolster his international
image at a moment he has plenty of troubles back home. ...
What Is Russia Up To, and Is It Time to Draw the Line?
[ Crazier and crazier and crazier, the new Cold Warriors that is. We could after all threaten
to go to war against Russia, which would surely be line drawing. ]
What Kerry Told Syrians Behind Closed Doors
By ANNE BARNARD
In audio clips from a private meeting, the secretary of state is heard expressing frustration
with Russia and the United States' failure to back diplomacy with force. ]
... Russia and Italy are very close to each other in terms of nominal gross domestic product,
which is the standard unit used to measure the size of a country's economy. Nominal GDP is the
total cost of all goods and services produced or sold in a country in within a certain time frame.
Russia's 2013 nominal GDP was $2.1 trillion, and Italy's was $2.07 trillion, according to the
World Bank.
That's not the only way to measure a country's economy, of course, and this is where the two
countries differ. Purchasing power parity takes nominal GDP a step further and shows the value
of this level of economic activity if it took place in America. (The Economist explains it by
showing how much a McDonald's Big Mac costs around the world.)
Russia's GDP calculated for purchasing power parity was $3.5 trillion, while Italy's was $2.1
trillion. So in 2013, Russia had a higher level of economic activity than Italy, but because goods
and services are more expensive in Italy, the overall value (nominal GDP) ended up the same.
Also, Italy has more wealth relative to the size of its population than Russia does. Italy's
2013 GDP per capita (per person) was $34,619, and Russia's was $14,612. ...
Russia "has an economy the size of Italy."
- Lindsey Graham on Sunday, July 27th, 2014 in comments on CNN's "State of the Union"
What Kerry Told Syrians Behind Closed Doors
By ANNE BARNARD
In audio clips from a private meeting, the secretary of state is heard expressing frustration
with Russia and the United States' failure to back diplomacy with force.
This is entirely wrong. Syria was governed secularly and what began as a secular protests
against the government early on was taken control of by violent sectarians, increasingly violent
sectarian insurgents.
Syria has been beset by a wildly violent sectarian insurgency which has been supported
by surrounding countries and even under the guise of helping moderates by the United States.
Hmmm. Iraq was unstable because a
Shia majority was ruled by a Sunni
tyrant (Saddam Hussein). Syria is
unstable because a Sunni majority
is ruled by a Alawi/Shia tyrant,
if ophthalmologists can be tyrants.
(Iraq was not *that* unstable,
til we came along, after they
invaded Kuwait. One Sunni country
invading another, over oil. Go figure.)
Good grief, the violence in Syria was a sectarian insurgency supported by surrounding governments
to destroy the government and take control of the country. Sectarianism in Syria was not an issue
before the violent insurgency. The Syrian government was not sectarian.
The reason the Syrian government survived for so long was that there was significant support
for the government against the insurgency.
[ Presidential name-calling, by the way, only detracts from trying to understand what has been
happening in Syria. ]
In Saudi Arabia: Can It Really Change?
By Nicolas Pelham
The Other Saudis: Shiism, Dissent and Sectarianism
by Toby Matthiesen
Joyriding in Riyadh: Oil, Urbanism, and Road Revolt
by Pascal Menoret
Saudi Arabia: A Kingdom in Peril
by Paul Aarts and Carolien Roelants
Force and Fanaticism: Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia and Beyond
by Simon Ross Valentine
Until the Wahhabi conquest of the Arabian peninsula at the turn of the last century, the mixture
of sects there was as diverse as it was anywhere in the old pluralist Middle East. In its towns
there lived, among others, Sufi mystics from the Sunni branch of Islam, members of the Zaidi sect,
which is linked with the Shia branch of Islam, Twelver Shia traders, and seasonal Jewish farmhands
from Yemen.
From the eighteenth century onward, successive waves of warriors from the Wahhabi revivalist
movement, formed from Sunni tribesmen in the hinterland, have struggled to enforce a puritanical
uniformity on the cosmopolitan coast. Toby Matthiesen recounts in The Other Saudis that, a few
years after taking the eastern shores of the peninsula from the reeling Ottomans in 1913, Wahhabi
clerics issued a fatwa obliging local Shias to convert to "true Islam." In Hijaz, the western
region that includes Mecca, Medina, and Jeddah, militant Wahhabi clerics and their followers ransacked
the treasuries of the holy places in Mecca, lopped the dome off the House of the Prophet in Medina,
and razed myriad shrines.
But their success was only partial. In 1930, when the Wahhabi Brethren began raiding Iraq and
Jordan and upsetting the region's British overlords, Abdulaziz al-Saud, the modern state's founder,
reined them in, slaughtering the zealots by the hundred.
Afterward, the peninsula regained much of its old tempo. Shia clerics applied their versions
of Islamic law in the east. Jeddah's newspapers continued to publish listings of Western as well
as Islamic New Year's Eve celebrations, cinema screenings, and concerts. Then, in 1979, apparently
inspired by the Iranian overthrow of the Shah and the establishment of an Islamic republic earlier
that year, Islamic militants stormed Mecca's Grand Mosque, the holiest place in Islam, and declared
a new order under a leader who proclaimed himself the Mahdi-the redeemer-and sought to replace
the Saudi monarchy. Wahhabi forces loyal to the monarchy counterattacked, saved the al-Sauds,
and retook the mosque. But a crucial deal was made: loyalist clerics approved the removal of the
militants by force; but in return demanded that Saudi royals cede them power to strictly control
personal behavior. The last cinemas and concert halls shut down. Women were obliged to shroud
themselves in black.
Thirty-five years later, foreign descriptions of Saudi Arabia remain for the most part remarkably
bleak....
For long periods in history,
Shia & Sunni have co-existed
with much grace, but not always.
It may be the influence of Sunni
Wahhabism that has led to violence.
How the US ensures that its weapons and equipment don't fall into Al-Qa`idah hands
"American and other Western intelligence officials have expressed concern that some of the
more than 100 rebel formations fighting inside Syria may have ties to Al Qaeda that they could
exploit as security worsens in the country or after the collapse of the government.... A small
number of CIA officers have been operating secretly in southern Turkey for several weeks, helping
allies decide which Syrian opposition fighters across the border will receive weapons to fight
the government." * I am assured that the US has a fool-proof system at hand. The CIA operatives
ask the person in question: are you with Al-Qa`idah? If the person says no, he is told: take the
weapons and money and run. If he says yes, he is told: not good. Take the money and weapons and
run but don't use them against us one day, OK?
"The groups demanded to raise the prophet's banner - solid black with 'There is no god but
God.' " * Somebody needs to tell the New York Times that what it calls the "prophet's banner"
is none other than the flag of Al-Qa`idah. What an informed paper.
This is from Raqqah in Syria. * The main square there has been renamed Prophet Muhammad Square,
and a giant flag of Al-Qa`idah is posted. And do you still need a fortune teller to tell you how
things are going in Syria?
What Kerry Told Syrians Behind Closed Doors
By ANNE BARNARD
In audio clips from a private meeting, the secretary of state is heard expressing frustration
with Russia and the United States' failure to back diplomacy with force.
RGC -> Fred C. Dobbs... , -1
The NY Times has now gone full neocon on us. It routinely prints lies and misinformation.
"... "Progress for USA Political Action Committee" ..."
"... "time bomb" ..."
"... "We lost to the losing party, a unique case in history," ..."
"... "tyrant." ..."
"... The arguments presented are as light-weight as the production is heavy-handed. The Clinton side claims that Trump made millions selling Russian rights for Miss Universe. That may be true, but Trump owned the organization for 19 years and sold entitlements in dozens of other countries, holding the actual event in Russia only once during that time. ..."
"... "Russian language promotional video (which) attracted people to buy Condos in Florida." ..."
"... Then Mike Morrell appears and declares that someone who doesn't want to pursue an aggressive military policy toward Russia is an "unwitting agent of the Russian Federation." ..."
Sometimes it is downright stunning to witness American election campaigners creating, and promoting,
websites like " PutinTrump.org ." Paid for by
the pro-Clinton "Progress for USA Political Action Committee" it collates media stories
which connect the Republican candidate and the Russian president. That could be dismissed as merely
slightly odd behavior, until you see the logo, which is drumroll a hammer and sickle!
Yes, that eternally recognizable communist symbol. Reds in the Bed
In case Team Clinton is reading this: it looks like it might be time for a bit of a world history
refresher. Any person even moderately informed about Russian affairs can tell you that Putin's government
is far from communist. Hell, most decently educated school children can tell you the same. The Russian
government has promoted a pro-business agenda for well over a decade and has long maintained a flat
income tax rate of 13 percent.
Indeed, only this year, the Russian president has
denounced socialist hero Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik government for their brutal repression
and accused him of having placed a "time bomb" under the state. He also admonished the Bolsheviks
for making Russia suffer defeat at the hands of Germany in the First World War. "We lost to the
losing party, a unique case in history," the President said. Furthermore, Putin is no big fan
of Stalin either. While recognizing his contribution to defeating the Nazis, he also
described him as a "tyrant."
It's just as doubtful that Trump a man who just boasted about not paying any federal taxes!
is a fan of Karl Marx's theories. The idea of distributing wealth to labor, from financiers, is
surely alien to a man who has essentially admitted to not paying people he has hired because he wasn't
happy with their work.
Put plainly, these commie associations are absurd. But of course, Team Clinton knows this. That's
the big reveal. The idea is to conflate the fading memory of the 'Red Menace' of Soviet communism
with modern Russia. The purpose of this is pretty obvious too: to instill fear of the 'Big Bad' Putin
in vulnerable American hearts and minds.
The Green Logo Menace
You need to go no further for proof than Clinton campaign's official messaging. Take a look at
this video, where Hillary's team flings Russia slanders like they going out of fashion.
Cue the foreboding music - you could ask why they didn't just license the tunes from 'Jaws' and
have done with it multiple RT logos and, no joke, Russian mafia references. You know the clichιs
that Bond films have dropped for being too crude.
The arguments presented are as light-weight as the production is heavy-handed. The Clinton
side claims that Trump made millions selling Russian rights for Miss Universe. That may be true,
but Trump owned the organization for 19 years and sold entitlements in dozens of other countries,
holding the actual event in Russia only once during that time.
The video also implies that Trump is bad because he produced a "Russian language promotional
video (which) attracted people to buy Condos in Florida." Hold on here, what is so unusual about
that? During the oil boom of the mid-to late 00's, Russians were well known for buying property all
over the world. Indeed, if you walk around hot spots like London, Nice or Dubai, you will still see
Russian language signs outside many high-end estate offices. Probably all homes for the sleeper agents,
huh.
Then Mike Morrell appears and declares that someone who doesn't want to pursue an aggressive
military policy toward Russia is an "unwitting agent of the Russian Federation." And at
this point, we probably reach peak preposterous. Essentially the message is that if you don't want
to saber rattle with Moscow, you are working for it.
"... "Rogue Mission: Did the Pentagon Bomb Syrian Army to Kill Ceasefire Deal? Counterpounch". IMO the wrong question keeps getting asked, except by the Russians: "Who's in charge the White House or the Pentagon?" Is the media too afraid to ask this and is Obama afraid and embarrassed to let it be known? Has POTUS lost control of the military? Will it never by discussed or mentioned by MSM? ..."
"... I think the Overton Window has been successfully shifted by the media since Obama came to power to ensure that any suggestion that he is not calling the shots in foreign policy can be filed under 'conspiracy theories'. Every success is his doing, every failure is due to Republican obstructionism or those dastardly Russians and Chinese. ..."
"... Having said all that, its pretty obvious that Obama has minimal control and quite likes it that way. I think he sees himself as a sort of bored patriarch of a big family, letting them do their own thing with occasional speeches about good behaviour and disciplining only when they have done something outrageously stupid. ..."
"... All those governmental fiefdoms established during the reign of Jr continue unhindered, in part because Obama had no interest in changing anything. So now after 16 years of running the store it probably feels like ownership. If they don't owe you anything then you are just in the way. In partial defense it's hard to see how it could be otherwise without bringing big changes from day one. ..."
"... Obama may be trusting the TPP is postponed during his lame duck session for the same reason. This way he can be viewed as still a loyal "Battle of TPP" foot soldier for "Team Elite", with his future rewards to follow. If the TPP subsequently passes under a President Hillary, the delayed harmful TPP effects could then be attributed to her, not Obama. ..."
"... "If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in Eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor) , and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran)." ..."
"Rogue Mission: Did the Pentagon Bomb Syrian Army to Kill Ceasefire Deal? Counterpounch". IMO the wrong question keeps getting asked, except by the Russians: "Who's in charge
the White House or the Pentagon?" Is the media too afraid to ask this and is Obama afraid
and embarrassed to let it be known? Has POTUS lost control of the military? Will it never by discussed
or mentioned by MSM?
I think the Overton Window has been successfully shifted by the media since Obama came to power
to ensure that any suggestion that he is not calling the shots in foreign policy can be filed
under 'conspiracy theories'. Every success is his doing, every failure is due to Republican obstructionism
or those dastardly Russians and Chinese.
Having said all that, its pretty obvious that Obama has minimal control and quite likes it
that way. I think he sees himself as a sort of bored patriarch of a big family, letting them do
their own thing with occasional speeches about good behaviour and disciplining only when they
have done something outrageously stupid.
All those governmental fiefdoms established during the reign of Jr continue unhindered, in
part because Obama had no interest in changing anything. So now after 16 years of running the
store it probably feels like ownership. If they don't owe you anything then you are just in the
way. In partial defense it's hard to see how it could be otherwise without bringing big changes
from day one.
Obama's lack of control extends far beyond having an independent military and military grade
spy network. He couldn't even protect his buds living in the house of Saud from mean ole lawsuits.
It was clear the veto wouldn't stand but that Obama Foundation isn't going to build itself. Taking
one for "Team Elite".
Obama may be trusting the TPP is postponed during his lame duck session for the same reason.
This way he can be viewed as still a loyal "Battle of TPP" foot soldier for "Team Elite", with
his future rewards to follow. If the TPP subsequently passes under a President Hillary, the delayed harmful TPP effects could
then be attributed to her, not Obama.
Perhaps he fight for the TPP in the lame duck session just well enough to avoid having it on
his record.
"If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared
Salafist principality in Eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor) , and this is exactly
what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which
is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran)."
The latter is the city in question. Here's the Daily Beast not disputing the text (though for far different reasons):
"... I can give you a list of things that I can't stand about Clinton a long one but given the likelihood that my state will be solidly in the tank for Clinton, I won't have to vote for her to save the world from President Trump. But where I am coming to is that, if that's what it came down to, I don't think I could participate in anything that aided his election. ..."
"... Funny, I can think of at few things that make Trump more attractive to me in comparison to Clinton. One being his lack of interest in war with Russia, and his ability to understand that 'regime change' has been a loser for American interests, and the other being that he gets that our current trade policy has been a 'loser'. ..."
"... That said, both are disastrous choices, it may be for different reasons, but both are despicable. Neither one of them should be allowed to enter the White House in a tour group, much less live there. And I for one do not want to participate in anything that elects Hillary Rodham Clinton or Donald Trump to dog catcher, much less President. I'm going to vote my conscience and let the chips fall where they may. I would be doing it no matter where I live. See, there is a point where you figure out that you are going to lose out no matter what. There are no softer landings available. ..."
"... One being his lack of interest in war with Russia ..."
"... In contrast with the (admittedly horrific) Trump, HRC has surrounded herself with anti-Russia, neocon advisors. ..."
"... I recognize that voting for him would be a knee jerk reaction. However, I do understand why I have that knee jerk reaction. For years now, average Americans, like myself, have seen the media collude with the DC insiders and watched as we've seen our standard of living decline. We've watched our children struggle with unaffordable college. We've watched our parents struggle with unaffordable health care. We've watched our neighbors struggle to afford housing. We've watched our work weeks increase to 60 hours to pay for basics and heard them tell us that we need to work from cradle to grave(and let's be clear for lower middle class and middle class 70 is until grave) with little to no respite(we don't even have a mandatory vacation or sick policy in this country.) With that in mind, why should I want their standard bearer of status quo to win? I DON'T. I want Hillary Clinton to lose, not because I like Trump, but because I hate what these people have done and will continue to do to this country if allowed to remain in power. That's his case. ..."
"... I can't think of a single thing that would make Clinton appear more attractive, compared to pretty much anyone. ..."
"... I find it ironic that the HRC supporters are now desperately pleading with third-party supporters to vote Hillary BECAUSE TRUMP. Let's not forget it was Hillary herself who tweeted to all "Vote your conscience". ..."
Yes, the media and the DC insiders are all begging us to drag HRC across the finish line in
an effort to defeat TRUMP. Normally, a candidate might inspire and give voters reasons to go the
polls, but we've been asked to do all the work and heavy lifting this year to prevent TRUMP.
The funny thing is because of WHO is asking, it makes Trump appear more attractive and almost
makes me want to vote for the guy out of spite.
After all, what exactly have the media or the DC insiders done for the American people? Ignored
issues and blatantly supported policies that have harmed Americans? It's rather audacious of them
to even bother asking most of us when most of us don't see the answer to the question of what
has been done for us as a net positive. Most from the left and the right might even go so far
as to say media and DC insiders have lined their pockets on the backs of average Americans' pain.
Beg us to do something for them? They deserve to be kicked in the teeth in the same manner they've
been doing it to average Americans for years.
Yes. As indicated by the telling finish of the quote above:
" We need to think about information policies - including media literacy programs - that can
offer urgently needed counterweights to the echo chambers and conspiracy factories of the internet."
Gutless, hackneyed drivel topped off with an urgent plea to the policy-making class to up their
propaganda game.
I can't think of a single thing that would make Trump appear more attractive, outside of seeing
the back of him slowly disappearing from view forever. Yes, I get that it's totally galling
to be inundated with begging pleas from the likes of Hillary Clinton and some of her cronies
I routinely mail back to her every last shred of paper she sends me, in the postage-paid envelope,
so I know that teeth-clenching, migraine-inducing rush of ire that she can induce.
I can give you a list of things that I can't stand about Clinton a long one but given
the likelihood that my state will be solidly in the tank for Clinton, I won't have to vote for
her to save the world from President Trump. But where I am coming to is that, if that's what it
came down to, I don't think I could participate in anything that aided his election.
I came away from that debate wanting to stick needles in my eyes. Trump is a thin-skinned,
prevaricating, floridly egotistical, vindictive, bigoted, misogynistic bully whose flaws will
only expand and possibly explode if he is elected.
There is nothing even remotely attractive about Trump I can't even contemplate just how bad
Clinton would need to be to make him look like the better choice.
Funny, I can think of at few things that make Trump more attractive to me in comparison
to Clinton. One being his lack of interest in war with Russia, and his ability to understand that
'regime change' has been a loser for American interests, and the other being that he gets that
our current trade policy has been a 'loser'.
That said, both are disastrous choices, it may be for different reasons, but both are despicable.
Neither one of them should be allowed to enter the White House in a tour group, much less live
there. And I for one do not want to participate in anything that elects Hillary Rodham Clinton
or Donald Trump to dog catcher, much less President. I'm going to vote my conscience and let the
chips fall where they may. I would be doing it no matter where I live. See, there is a point where
you figure out that you are going to lose out no matter what. There are no softer landings available.
In contrast with the (admittedly horrific) Trump, HRC has surrounded herself with anti-Russia,
neocon advisors.
Needless to say, Putin isn't perfect, but how does further upgrading the conflict and risking
WW3 and global destruction help matters? The NATO exercises on the Russian border and Syrian escalations
are truly scary.
Trump isn't attractive to me either. However, defeating the DC insiders and media that have
brought us to this point in history where my choices are bad and worse is attractive to me
I recognize that voting for him would be a knee jerk reaction. However, I do understand
why I have that knee jerk reaction. For years now, average Americans, like myself, have seen the
media collude with the DC insiders and watched as we've seen our standard of living decline. We've
watched our children struggle with unaffordable college. We've watched our parents struggle with
unaffordable health care. We've watched our neighbors struggle to afford housing. We've watched
our work weeks increase to 60 hours to pay for basics and heard them tell us that we need to work
from cradle to grave(and let's be clear for lower middle class and middle class 70 is until grave)
with little to no respite(we don't even have a mandatory vacation or sick policy in this country.)
With that in mind, why should I want their standard bearer of status quo to win? I DON'T. I want
Hillary Clinton to lose, not because I like Trump, but because I hate what these people have done
and will continue to do to this country if allowed to remain in power. That's his case.
I live in a swing state and I'll be voting for Stein. Screw the pundits and their *begging*.
They deserve this loss.
I can't think of a single thing that would make Clinton appear more attractive, compared
to pretty much anyone. I'll be voting Stein, the only remaining candidate who aligns with
my views and reflects my interests. If she hadn't made it onto the ballot here in Georgia, I would
not be voting in the presidential election for the first time since I became eligible to vote
in 1980. Neither of the two ruling-party sociopaths is at all palatable.
I find it ironic that the HRC supporters are now desperately pleading with third-party
supporters to vote Hillary BECAUSE TRUMP. Let's not forget it was Hillary herself who tweeted
to all "Vote your conscience".
Jill Stein is anti-war, anti-greed, pro-environment. Rather the opposite of HRC.
"... Of course the root cause is Baathists aligned with non Sunnis running a sector of land lusted after by the Saudis and GCC. ..."
"... That the US supported the Sunnis (since the Iranians ousted CIA puppets) against the Baathists did not start the civil war, it merely keeps it growing in lust for death and destruction. ..."
"... While that Sep 2012 skirmish in Benghazi included CIA ground troops otherwise there securing the sea lanes supporting Syrian Al Qaeda with Qaddafi's arms, less stingers. ..."
"... "Settle for the crooked, Wall St, war monger because real change is too hard and the other guy is insane, supported by racists and don't think Russia should praise American exceptionalism." ..."
"As for Syria, here too I'm not sure why you think this country caused its civil war, but it
did not."
Of course the root cause is Baathists aligned with non Sunnis running a sector of land lusted
after by the Saudis and GCC.
That the US supported the Sunnis (since the Iranians ousted CIA puppets) against the Baathists
did not start the civil war, it merely keeps it growing in lust for death and destruction.
While that Sep 2012 skirmish in Benghazi included CIA ground troops otherwise there securing
the sea lanes supporting Syrian Al Qaeda with Qaddafi's arms, less stingers.
ilsm August 31, 2016 9:44 pm
"Settle for the crooked, Wall St, war monger because real change is too hard and the other
guy is insane, supported by racists and don't think Russia should praise American exceptionalism."
Obama might as well have voted with Hillary for AUMF forever, he is running it.
"... As General Smedley Butler, twice awarded the Medal of Honor, said: War is a racket . Wars will persist as long as people see them as a "core product," as a business opportunity. In capitalism, the profit motive is often amoral; greed is good, even when it feeds war. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is willing to play along. It always sees "vulnerabilities" and always wants more money. ..."
"... Wars are always profitable for a few, but they are ruining democracy in America. Sure, it's a business opportunity: one that ends in national (and moral) bankruptcy. ..."
A good friend passed along an
article at Forbes from a month ago with the pregnant title, "U.S. Army Fears Major War Likely
Within Five Years - But Lacks The Money To Prepare." Basically, the article argues that war is possible
- even likely - within five years with Russia or North Korea or Iran, or maybe all three, but that
America's army is short of money to prepare for these wars. This despite the fact that America spends
roughly $700 billion each and every year on defense and overseas wars.
Now, the author's agenda is quite clear, as he states at the end of his article: "Several of the
Army's equipment suppliers are contributors to my think tank and/or consulting clients." He's writing
an alarmist article about the probability of future wars at the same time as he's profiting from
the sales of weaponry to the army.
As General Smedley Butler, twice awarded the Medal of Honor, said:
War is a racket
. Wars will persist as long as people see them as a "core product," as a business opportunity.
In capitalism, the profit motive is often amoral; greed is good, even when it feeds war. Meanwhile,
the Pentagon is willing to play along. It always sees "vulnerabilities" and always wants more money.
But back to the Forbes article with its concerns about war(s) in five years with Russia or North
Korea or Iran (or all three). For what vital national interest should America fight against Russia?
North Korea? Iran? A few quick reminders:
#1: Don't get involved in a land war in Asia or with Russia (Charles XII, Napoleon, and Hitler
all learned that lesson the hard way).
#2: North Korea? It's a puppet regime that can't feed its own people. It might prefer war to distract
the people from their parlous existence.
#3: Iran? A regional power, already contained, with a young population that's sympathetic to America,
at least to our culture of relative openness and tolerance. If the US Army thinks tackling Iran would
be relatively easy, just consider all those recent "easy" wars and military interventions in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Libya, Syria
Of course, the business aspect of this is selling the idea the US Army isn't prepared and therefore
needs yet another new generation of expensive high-tech weaponry. It's like convincing high-end consumers
their three-year-old Audi or Lexus is obsolete so they must buy the latest model else lose face.
We see this all the time in the US military. It's a version of planned or
artificial obsolescence . Consider the Air Force. It could easily defeat its enemies with updated
versions of A-10s, F-15s, and F-16s, but instead the Pentagon plans to spend as much as $1.4 trillion
on the shiny new and
under-performing F-35 . The Army has an enormous surplus of tanks and other armored fighting
vehicles, but the call goes forth for a "new generation." No other navy comes close to the US Navy,
yet the call goes out for a new generation of ships.
The Pentagon mantra is always for more and better, which often turns out to be for less and much
more expensive, e.g. the F-35 fighter.
Wars are always profitable for a few, but they are
ruining democracy in America. Sure, it's a business opportunity: one that ends in national (and
moral) bankruptcy.
William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years
at military and civilian schools and blogs at
Bracing Views . He can be reached at [email protected]. Reprinted
from Bracing Views with the author's permission.
"... Right there Clinton proves that she has absolutely no idea how basic diplomacy or negotiation (what the democrats like to call "compromise") works. You start from your best possible outcome (without treating your partner as a subhuman piece of trash or calling them by 3rd grade slanderous names) and work your way down to an agreement. You don't start from the worst possible outcome and work your way up like some crazy sadist. No wonder her judgement is so terrible. Her "success" measure is set just above " complete and utter failure, destruction". ..."
"... "Get Russia to the table"? Why would Putin want to "get to the table" when he knows very well the menu consists solely of a sh*t sandwich and the dinner host is calling you "Hitler"? ..."
"I'm trying to figure out what leverage we have to get Russia to the table. You know, diplomacy
is not about getting to the perfect solution. It's about how you balance the risks."
Right there Clinton proves that she has absolutely no idea how basic diplomacy or negotiation
(what the democrats like to call "compromise") works. You start from your best possible outcome
(without treating your partner as a subhuman piece of trash or calling them by 3rd grade slanderous
names) and work your way down to an agreement. You don't start from the worst possible outcome
and work your way up like some crazy sadist. No wonder her judgement is so terrible. Her "success"
measure is set just above " complete and utter failure, destruction".
"Get Russia to the table"? Why would Putin want to "get to the table" when he knows very
well the menu consists solely of a sh*t sandwich and the dinner host is calling you "Hitler"?
"... Notice that this interview fails to mention that the huge influx of refugees into Europe is the direct result of the US creating failed states in the Middle East. ..."
"... Yes. As many have said, critical thinking in DC went out the door with 9/11. Those in DC who shouldn't be in jail, probably should at most be mopping floors at McDonalds. ..."
"... Let's note that pre-9/11 the foreign policy wasn't exactly just/moral/sane. ..."
"... Who cares? Since when did we live in a democracy? How many people wanted the Syrian and Lybian conflicts? ..."
"... Do we all have to die in poverty because our leaders (in the case of these wars, Zionist) pushed war clandestinely? ..."
"... Funny how that logic is never applied to others who are attacked (victims of our foreign policy). They should act like saints and we should bomb more (or, rather, commit genocide). Maybe might makes right, but then say it and stop masquerading as some burdened savior. ..."
"... At this year's celebration a couple of people were badly injured by Ukrainian rightists who reportedly fled back to the Ukraine, escaping justice. And, as I recall, there was a recent report of a French rightist who had received bomb materials from Ukrainians. ..."
"... I recently read accounts of the rise of neo-nazi and right-wing extremist groups in the former DDR after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Apparently they were substantially infiltrated by US and German intelligence services and, as a result, enjoyed a certain level of impunity and de facto ..."
"... On the other hand, the link between US 'intelligence' and Ukrainian neo-nazis is reasonably well established and is unlikely to have sprung into existence moments before their Maidan mobilization. That they would now use their safe harbor in Ukraine as a base for operations across Europe should not be particularly shocking. ..."
"... Okay, I have some serious problems with this. One, Israel is not just Jewish in its composition. Two, not all Jewish people live in Israel. Three, Jewish people lived along side Muslims and Christians for hundreds of years in that region before Britain, the USA and some useful idiot Zionists decided to make a geopolitical springboard in 1948. You may be right that every nation pursues its own agenda, but I'm not concerned about that, I'm concerned about the nation or nations pursuing their agenda(s) that have the most wealth and the biggest bombs. I'm concerned about the ones running the empire, and Israel is a useful servant to that empire. ..."
"... Israel is a nation state. Identifying as Jewish is another matter altogether. Israel is a colony that was formed at the wrong place and the wrong time. They could have pulled it off in the 18th or 19th century (see USA, Canada, Australia, the entire Western Hemisphere), but doing so immediately after a global war that was largely the end result of nation's colonial ambitions was a big no-no. The window of opportunity for such shenanigans had passed and the British, US, and Zionist progenitors of Israel knew better. ..."
"... If AfD opponents simplistically think that the AfD are a rabble of angry closet Neo-Nazis ..boy their moral/intellectual smugness is going to be shattered at the ballot box in the upcoming years. The core of AfD are the German equivalent of ol' time bottom 90% FDR Democrats. ..."
"... FDR was probably the only American president who was not entirely the servant of the capitalist ruling class. His reforms were for the benefit of American workers and he dragged the Democratic party along with him in creating the American social welfare system. He truly favored cooperative competition with the Soviet Union. Believing his vision of liberalism to be superior to Soviet socialism he had none of the knee jerk fear and hatred of them that has always characterized the American ruling class' relationship with Russia even now 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was entirely confident the working class would choose his vision. ..."
"... "Notice that this interview fails to mention that the huge influx of refugees into Europe is the direct result of the US creating failed states in the Middle East." ..."
"... I've always assumed the costs of the Syria intervention - geopolitical insecurity, refugees, etc. were seen as a useful collateral dampener on the rise of a Germany-dominated Europe. Perhaps not sought after, but when those costs were put in the calculus and were seen to affect the European states the most, the cost-shifting became a net enabler. ..."
"... The definitive proof of the Empire of Chaos's real agenda in Syria may be found in a 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document declassified in May last year. ..."
"... "THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION THERE IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME, WHICH IS CONSIDERED THE STRATEGIC DEPTH OF THE SHIA EXPANSION (IRAQ AND IRAN)". ..."
"... It establishes that over four years ago US intel was already hedging its bets between established al-Qaeda in Syria, aka Jabhat al-Nusra, and the emergence of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh, aka the Islamic State. ..."
"... It's already in the public domain that by a willful decision, leaked by current Donald Trump adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Washington allowed the emergence of the Islamic State remember that gleaming white Toyota convoy crossing the open desert? as a most convenient US strategic asset, and not as the enemy in the remixed, never-ending GWOT (Global War on Terra). ..."
Yves: It's amazing how infrequently this point is made in any political debate or news coverage.
(Jeremy Corbyn being one rare example of someone who brings it up.):
Notice that this interview fails to mention that the huge influx of refugees into Europe
is the direct result of the US creating failed states in the Middle East.
If there were any justice, the refugees would be swamping the UK, US, and France in huge numbers,
as those are the countries that cooked up the Libya failed state and also most active in Syria.
Crazy or stupid (your choice) Hollande vowed to increase the French warfare in Syria after the
recent terror attacks in Paris and elsewhere. As though MORE BOMBS ever managed to decrease terrorism,
right?
Though Merkel made her own bed with her "let them all come to Germany!" invitation, and now
she is sleeping in it. Good riddance when and if she goes.
Yes. As many have said, critical thinking in DC went out the door with 9/11. Those in DC
who shouldn't be in jail, probably should at most be mopping floors at McDonalds.
Hey now. I mop floors. I know people who mop floors. Those perps, sir, are not fit to mop floors.
Unless it's in prison. And even then I'm sure they'd suck. Takes integrity to do a humble job
well.
Who cares? Since when did we live in a democracy? How many people wanted the Syrian and
Lybian conflicts? If I recall, war was averted in parliament and congress.
Do we all have to die in poverty because our leaders (in the case of these wars, Zionist)
pushed war clandestinely?
Funny how that logic is never applied to others who are attacked (victims of our foreign
policy). They should act like saints and we should bomb more (or, rather, commit genocide). Maybe
might makes right, but then say it and stop masquerading as some burdened savior.
as James Baldwin said: "aching, nobly, to wade through the blood of savages."
Thanks for posting this Grossman interview. One facet of the development of the far right that
Grossman hints at, and maybe can only do so because there isn't much data, is its transnational
quality. This summer we visited some lefty friends in Lund, Sweden where each year they hold a
large May Day rally.
At this year's celebration a couple of people were badly injured by Ukrainian rightists
who reportedly fled back to the Ukraine, escaping justice. And, as I recall, there was a recent
report of a French rightist who had received bomb materials from Ukrainians.
As I think about, there's an ugly resonance with Yves' noting the refugees are substantially
a result of US policies. The development of a rightist terrorist potential in the Ukraine has
the same general source.
I recently read accounts of the rise of neo-nazi and right-wing extremist groups in the
former DDR after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Apparently they were substantially infiltrated
by US and German intelligence services and, as a result, enjoyed a certain level of impunity and
de facto financial support from these governments. They were also linked to members
of the 'stay behind' organizations (see
Operation Gladio
), and were 'useful' in violently opposing left-wing groups as well as punk rockers. The modern
AfD is strongest in the states of the former DDR, and are the ideological if not logistical heirs
of these right-wing groups. But to conflate 15% of the electorate with semi-pro neo-nazis and
racists is a bit of a stretch. While they are surely motivated by a strong nativist impulse and
anti-immigrant fervor, their voters also represent the kind of disaffected and disenfranchised
populations that carried the Brexit vote to victory.
On the other hand, the link between US 'intelligence' and Ukrainian neo-nazis is reasonably
well established and is unlikely to have sprung into existence moments before their Maidan mobilization.
That they would now use their safe harbor in Ukraine as a base for operations across Europe should
not be particularly shocking.
No, the AfD is not linked to the CIA It is a pro-social welfare, anti-TPP group that also
wants fair migrant exchanges, that is not just to Europe. It is pestered and censored in Germany.
Just expressing support in ways a security agent deems 'offensive' gets you fined and ostracized.
The fight over private property rights continues. Liberal Democracy has failed around the world
due to the unholy alliance with corporate power. Unchecked corporate power has been unmasked as
the destructive force that it truly is.
The left needs to evolve into a political force that can shape the consciousness of the masses
away from individual greed toward the undeniable benefit of cooperative action. The right will
use fear to drive people into some sort of trembling mass and only by combating this fear can
movement be made.
The compromise the left needs to make is to use any means possible, not to seize the means
of production form existing owners, but to start building alternative ones. It is all too easy
for the right to bring out their tried and true methods to hold power. It is time to starve the
beast, and one way is to not participate and build in another direction.
Corporate power is what needs to be broken. From my limited view, the left has always been
a reactionary force. It needs to evolve into a proactive one, literally building something in
the real world. Another major mistake by the left is to reject and confuse the power of religion.
Neoliberalism is a new religion and gains much power by the use of unquestioning faith. The left
has failed to counteract this religious faith because they have not even tried to counter it with
their own. Just as finance has evolved into a military weapon, it can be argued that religion,
in essence, is a military force.
The political landscape is being reshuffled into defining what we are willing to fight and
die for. Until the left starts offering coherent answers to these questions, the status quo will
continue to pick from the low hanging fruit.
Okay, I have some serious problems with this. One, Israel is not just Jewish in its composition.
Two, not all Jewish people live in Israel. Three, Jewish people lived along side Muslims and Christians
for hundreds of years in that region before Britain, the USA and some useful idiot Zionists decided
to make a geopolitical springboard in 1948. You may be right that every nation pursues its own
agenda, but I'm not concerned about that, I'm concerned about the nation or nations pursuing their
agenda(s) that have the most wealth and the biggest bombs. I'm concerned about the ones running
the empire, and Israel is a useful servant to that empire.
Israel is a nation state. Identifying as Jewish is another matter altogether. Israel is
a colony that was formed at the wrong place and the wrong time. They could have pulled it off
in the 18th or 19th century (see USA, Canada, Australia, the entire Western Hemisphere), but doing
so immediately after a global war that was largely the end result of nation's colonial ambitions
was a big no-no. The window of opportunity for such shenanigans had passed and the British, US,
and Zionist progenitors of Israel knew better.
In addition, it is nonsense that we have normalized the formation of a nation state around
a single ethnic or religious identity. Particularly after the Holocaust (the irony of this never
ceases to amaze me). Would we have the same sympathies for the the countless indigenous ethnic
groups in the Americas who, per capita, had even worse genocides inflicted on them, all documented,
all accepted as inevitable or necessary in most histories of the Americas? Israel is a contorted
hypocrisy that has to either embrace heterogeneity of disappear. Ideally as an inclusive country
that is no longer a colony as it has been for hundreds of years. The fetish that is Israel has
been an unfair burden to all people living in the Middle East and Jewish people the world over
that are forced to (through the sheer force of political dogma) shackle their identities to a
racist, rogue state.
" AfD stands for Alternative for Germany. It's a young party, about 2 years old. It's
built basically on racism."
Got more important things to do than rant about the above statement .
Just will quote basic Sun Tzu via Star Trek-know your opponent, know yourself and victory will
be yours.
If AfD opponents simplistically think that the AfD are a rabble of angry closet Neo-Nazis ..boy
their moral/intellectual smugness is going to be shattered at the ballot box in the upcoming years.
The core of AfD are the German equivalent of ol' time bottom 90% FDR Democrats.
And on the other side Sarah Wagenknecht, a leader in the left, hit a lot of flak from many
in her party when she said there needs to be an "Obergrenze" or limit on the number of refugees.
It would hard to call her racist since she is half Persian. It really is a conflict between those
who cannot think realistically .those who are supported or secure enough not to have to take responsibility
for anyone, and those who will need to make the world function. As a Socialist she apparently
is aware that you cannot have a strong social net and combine that with open immigration from
places that have astronomical birthrates that are outgrowing their resources without destroying
that net. I recall Hillary and the open border people attacked Bernie on that as well. I thought
it was unfair and it is this pandering, among other issues, that will keep me from voting for
her. There is a lot of commonality between AfD and the Linke. Don`t forget that the notion of
German population replacement had some currency during and after WW2 in order to permanently solve
the German problem and we may just be actualizing it now.
In fairness, US immigration policy has slowly been getting tougher over the last 16 years.
Immigration policy in the US goes beyond dialect. I doubt Clinton would be overly "easy".
It's easier. Apart from the new Obama rule to issue visas to H1b holders, effectively tripling
the numbers issued but still under the cap, to a myriad of other programs, it's much easier.
Of the several foreign students I've dated, it gets easier every year. Back in 03, one had
to have an accountant degree with CPA certs, and even then, you often were slave labor in Chi-Town
until you hooked up with an American company. Now the black market foreign industry is so large,
that a mere B.A. is enough. The gov doesn't care. Everyone is approved, save the cap.
spooky quatsch comment from oho hard to tell what oho means with "90% bottom- line fdr dems".
The very diverse FDR / Dem majority coalesced during and in response to economic crisis. The AfD
has emerged during a German boom. It is successful in East Germany, which in the wake of economic
collapse immediately following reunification has been the beneficiary of massive inner-German
transfers. And it is successful in West Germany much of which is effectively at full-employment.
Its core supporters are the 10% of any populazion that is racist, nationalist, and ignorant. You
might try to argue that there is a uniquely irrational fear in Germany, something associated with
its position on the left edge of Eurasia maybe, a heterogenous cultural unit without convincing
access to the sea, trapped if you will and vulnerable to human flows. Sounds silly but it's hard
to account for German fear.
The AfD is using this irrational fear for political gain. FDR was supported largely by voters
with very real fears.
FDR was probably the only American president who was not entirely the servant of the capitalist
ruling class. His reforms were for the benefit of American workers and he dragged the Democratic
party along with him in creating the American social welfare system. He truly favored cooperative
competition with the Soviet Union. Believing his vision of liberalism to be superior to Soviet
socialism he had none of the knee jerk fear and hatred of them that has always characterized the
American ruling class' relationship with Russia even now 20 years after the collapse of the
Soviet Union. He was entirely confident the working class would choose his vision.
His reactionary political enemies, concentrated in finance capital, had no reason to be
so confident. Their fear and loathing of the working class was/is legitimately earned.
"Notice that this interview fails to mention that the huge influx of refugees into Europe
is the direct result of the US creating failed states in the Middle East."
That's typical of all MSM (not saying TRNN is mainstream) coverage of refugees. There's lots
of discussion and hand-wringing about accepting refugees, but exactly zero about why they're refugees
in the first place.
Yes the US has had a lot to do with destabilizing Asia and Africa but a lot of it has simply
been a continuation of British policy after WW2. As Britain shrank its foreign involvement the
US expanded. But the real cause is the inability of our politicians and leaders to face up to
the reality that population growth is hitting the limits of resource availability in Asia and
Africa and to institute realistic ways to control population. Absent the population explosion
in these regions in the last decades we would not be seeing the poverty and anger and constant
confllict because there would be enough for all. As much bad press as China has gotten for its
population policy it is one of the few bright spots in world economic development. Interestingly
China does not seem very interested in accepting millions of third world refugees.
I've always assumed the costs of the Syria intervention - geopolitical insecurity, refugees,
etc. were seen as a useful collateral dampener on the rise of a Germany-dominated Europe. Perhaps
not sought after, but when those costs were put in the calculus and were seen to affect the European
states the most, the cost-shifting became a net enabler.
In my naοve point of view it hit me last year that it was a brilliant stroke of Angela Merkel
to grab as many refugees as she could before any other country.
They are a tremendous natural resource. One that many modern countries are beginning to see a
coming shortage of. Many countries, like Germany, France, etc are looking at population shortages
in the working age groups. Merkel's grab of this mass of human resource was maybe an accidentally
brilliant idea.
can't tell if the above comment is satire or astroturfing or naivety?
Merkel's migrants have zero higher-level first-world skills. AfD is strong in ex-East Germany
because there is popular resentment as ex-East Germans get austerity shoved down their throats
while Merkel unfurls the red carpet for migrants.
in der Frage nach festen Arbeitsplδtzen fόr Flόchtlinge ruhen die Hoffnungen zunehmend auf
mittelstδndischen Unternehmen und Handwerksbetrieben. Denn wie eine Umfrage dieser Zeitung ergab,
hat die groίe Mehrzahl der im deutschen Aktienindex (Dax) notierten Konzerne noch keine Flόchtlinge
eingestellt. Einzig die Deutsche Post gab an, bis Anfang Juni 50 Flόchtlinge und damit eine nennenswerte
Grφίe fest angestellt zu haben.
Not true. Syrians are very highly educated. Very good public education and high average attainment.
But Merkel was an idiot if she actually did recognize that Syrians were high potential workers
yet did nothing re how to integrate them, most important, acquisition of German and jobs matching.
The fact capitalism is a ponzi scheme is a key here. When the Aristocracy bowed to the Sephardic
bankers, they created this mess. They were the same idiots that bowed to the Christians 1500+
years before.
Maybe it is time for a new aristocracy. If you want to build internally, you have to abolish
capitalism and its market based scam. That is why "right wingers" won't last without the Sephardic
banks via market expansion. They run the scheme and always have. From their immigration into the
Iberian trails during the 15th century, to their financing and eventual leadership into the protestant
reformation, to the first capitalists scheme at Amsterdam to bribing William the Orange into taking
it into old England.
1. Most of the refugees arriving in Europe are Syrian. The US did not act to topple the Syrian
dictator and did not create a new Syrian government. The United States is responsible for these
refugees.
2. A portion of the refugees are Libyan. At the urging of its European allies (not just the
UK), the US helped topple the Libyan government, but has not created a new government. The US
is responsible for these refugees.
3. A portion of the refugees are from Iraq or Afghanistan. The US toppled the old governments
and installed new ones. The US is responsible for these refugees.
4. A significant portion of the refugees are from African countries including Nigeria and Eritrea.
I assume that these aren't included in the statement above as they are not Middle Eastern.
So, in other words the US is responsible whether or not we intervene and whether or not we
then attempt to set up a government? I wonder under what circumstances you would not view the
US as responsible?
I would suggest, that given the situation in the Middle East and the fact that the results
are similar regardless of US actions something more basic is at work. Most of the nations of the
Middle East and Africa were artificial creations of primarily Britain and France; they are nations
derived neither from ethnic homogeneity nor the consent or shared history of the governed. Whatever,
the United States did or does, they would ultimately have shattered in one way or another and
refugees would have headed for Europe.
Nope, you don't. The US and its Gulf state "allies" are indeed trying to oust Assad and, if
not set up, at least allow the creation of a Salafist regime.
The US Road Map To Balkanize Syria
By Pepe Escobar
September 22, 2016 "Information Clearing House" "RT" Forget about those endless meetings
between Sergei Lavrov and John Kerry; forget about Russia's drive to prevent chaos from reigning
in Syria; forget about the possibility of a real ceasefire being implemented and respected
by US jihad proxies.
Forget about the Pentagon investigating what really happened around its bombing 'mistake'
in Deir Ezzor.
The definitive proof of the Empire of Chaos's real agenda in Syria may be found in a
2012 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document declassified in May last year.
As you scroll down the document, you will find page 291, section C, which reads (in caps,
originally):
"THE WEST, GULF COUNTRIES, AND TURKEY [WHO] SUPPORT THE [SYRIAN] OPPOSITION THERE
IS THE POSSIBILITY OF ESTABLISHING A DECLARED OR UNDECLARED SALAFIST PRINCIPALITY IN EASTERN
SYRIA (HASAKA AND DER ZOR), AND THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT THE SUPPORTING POWERS TO THE OPPOSITION
WANT, IN ORDER TO ISOLATE THE SYRIAN REGIME, WHICH IS CONSIDERED THE STRATEGIC DEPTH OF
THE SHIA EXPANSION (IRAQ AND IRAN)".
The DIA report is a formerly classified SECRET/NOFORN document, which made the rounds
of virtually the whole alphabet soup of US intel, from CENTCOM to CIA, FBI, DHS, NGA and the
State Department.
It establishes that over four years ago US intel was already hedging its bets between
established al-Qaeda in Syria, aka Jabhat al-Nusra, and the emergence of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh, aka
the Islamic State.
It's already in the public domain that by a willful decision, leaked by current Donald
Trump adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Washington allowed the emergence of the Islamic State
remember that gleaming white Toyota convoy crossing the open desert? as a most convenient
US strategic asset, and not as the enemy in the remixed, never-ending GWOT (Global War on Terra).
It's as clear as it gets; a "Salafist principality" is to be encouraged as a means
to Divide and Rule over a fragmented Syria in perpetual chaos. Whether it's established
by Jabhat al-Nusra aka "moderate rebels" in Beltway jargon or al-Baghdadi's "Califake"
is just a pesky detail.
It gets curioser and curioser as Hasaka and Deir Ezzor are named in the DIA report and
directly targeted by the 'mistaken' Pentagon bombing. No wonder Pentagon chief Ash 'Empire
of Whining' Carter took no prisoners to directly sabotage what Kerry had agreed on with Lavrov.
No one will ever see these connections established by US corporate media as in, for instance,
the neocon cabal ruling the Washington Post's editorial pages. But the best of the blogosphere
does not disappoint.
The rest is just blame-shifting that conveniently let's the US off the hook.
Have you not read any press in the last 5 years, or do you just make a habit of making shit
up? The US has been trying to topple Assad for God only knows how long. What, for instance, do
you think the desperate fig leaf of trying to claim that we are supporting non-existant "moderate
Syrian rebels" is about?
"the danger of this right wing group mostly in the form of parties which is by the way it gets
its votes by being anti-immigrant, anti-foreigner, and especially anti-Muslimism. That�'s their
big call."
Just watched Samantha Powers speak at the emergency UN security counsel meeting on Syria, how
she managed to keep a straight face is completely beyond me.
Basically Russia needs to take responsibility for its actions in Syria and the war would be
over if those damn Russians would GTFO and quit disrupting the US and GCC regime change operations.
It appears everything would be going swimmingly if Russia would just leave the "rebels" alone
and let the US turn Syria into Libya, I mean is that so much to ask for? /S
The people Obama has chosen to represent him are almost all fanatics. Samantha Power and Ash
Carter stand out as true psychopaths. Carter actually openly defied Obama on the Syria ceasefire.
Robert Parry has an excellent piece out today on the
rush to judgment about the attack on the humanitarian convoy.
It has been particularly infuriating to see the Chanel-suited Berkeley types be the ones to
embrace imperial fascist war-making with such glee.
I happened to recognize Susan Rice travelling sans bodyguard with her girlfriend at the airport
in Chiang Mai Thailand and had a delicious time giving her a full piece of my mind. Unedited truth
to power with nowhere to hide, she reacted with a glaze that said "you are just an idiot peon"
but I could see she was shaken.
"... Re the Oilprice link ( The Natural Gas War Burning Under Syria OilPrice (resilc)) , here's an article that contradicts the notion that US policy in Syria was about the Qatari pipeline as that claimput forth in a Politico article by Robert Kennedy Jrwas little more than a poorly sourced rumor. ..."
"... The US decision to support Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in their ill-conceived plan to overthrow the Assad regime was primarily a function of the primordial interest of the US permanent war state in its regional alliances. ..."
"... In other words the MIC strikes again and seems to be directly challenging Obama policies with "accidents" like the recent bombing of the Syrian army. Time for movie fans to dust off old copies of Seven Days in May? ..."
Re the Oilprice link (
The Natural Gas War Burning Under Syria OilPrice (resilc)) , here's an article that contradicts
the notion that US policy in Syria was about the Qatari pipeline as that claimput forth in a
Politico article by Robert Kennedy Jrwas little more than a poorly sourced rumor.
That claim has no credibility for a very simple reason: there was no Qatari proposal for
Syria to reject in 2009. It was not until October 2009 that Qatar and Turkey even agreed to
form a working group to develop such a gas pipeline project.
Gareth Porter says that instead
The US decision to support Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia in their ill-conceived plan to
overthrow the Assad regime was primarily a function of the primordial interest of the US permanent
war state in its regional alliances. The three Sunni allies control US access to the key US
military bases in the region, and the Pentagon, the CIA, the State Department and the Obama
White House were all concerned, above all, with protecting the existing arrangements for the
US military posture in the region[ .]
The massive, direct and immediate power interests of the US war state not the determination
to ensure that a pipeline would carry Qatar's natural gas to Europe drove the US policy of
participation in the war against the Syrian regime. Only if activists focus on that reality
will they be able to unite effectively to oppose not only the Syrian adventure but the war
system itself.
In other words the MIC strikes again and seems to be directly challenging Obama policies with
"accidents" like the recent bombing of the Syrian army. Time for movie fans to dust off old copies
of Seven Days in May?
Porter may well be right about the pipeline. However, a piece that purports to account for our
Syria operations and the obsession with the removal of Assad that does not mention Israel and the
Israel Lobby cannot be the complete story. Breaking the 'Shia Crescent' is a major strategic aim
of the friends of Israel.
Without a doubt the Lobby keeps the liberalsthe "progressives except for Palestine"supporting
the fever dreams of the generals, but arguably it's this internal, and traditionally rather Waspy
pressure group that is the real menace. As the following quite accurately points out, we have a WW2
military with nothing to do with itself unless they can invent a suitable enemy.
We live in a military world fundamentally different from that of the last century. All-out
wars between major powers, which is to say nuclear powers, are unlikely since they would last
about an hour after they became all-out, and everyone knows it. In WWII Germany could convince
itself, reasonably and almost correctly, that Russia would fall in a summer, or the Japanese that
a Depression-ridden, unarmed America might decide not to fight. Now, no. Threaten something that
a nuclear power regards as vital and you risk frying. So nobody does.
Or, to sum up
What is the relevance of the Pentagon? How do you bomb a trade agreement?
The generals and admirals need a Russian foe to justify their absurd budgets and their very existence.
It's ironic that our great victory in WW2triumph of industrial Americamay end up doing us more
long term harm than those European and Asian nations that were bombed into ashes. You can rebuild
cities but dismantling imperial hubris turns out to be harder.
Occam would probably just say that the Cold War never ended for our geniuses-in-chief, despite
dissolving away in 1989 our enemy is and always was and will be Russia uber alles. The simple fact
that they back Assad is all it took, yes add in a sprinkle of Tehran and Tel Aviv and goose with
a little juice from Riyadh but the overnight disappearance of our existential enemy was something
up with which we could not put.
"... "Syria conflict: UN chief 'appalled' by Aleppo escalation" Translation: "Oh no, our proxies are surrounded and being ground into dust. Human rights! Human rights! Please stop bombing!" ..."
"... You mean there are Kurds in their Way? ..."
"... Not sure what you're getting at. Kurds have little role in the battle for Aleppo. They have a small bit of territory in the north of the city and helped to secure the Castello road, but that's it. ..."
"Syria conflict: UN chief 'appalled' by Aleppo escalation" Translation: "Oh no, our proxies are surrounded and being ground into dust. Human rights!
Human rights! Please stop bombing!"
Not sure what you're getting at. Kurds have little role in the battle for Aleppo. They have
a small bit of territory in the north of the city and helped to secure the Castello road, but
that's it.
"From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across
the Continent."
The defeat and dismemberment of the Soviet Union is having all the appearance of the hand of
the Goddess Hubris. Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.
I do wonder in the NeoCon planning of "The Project New Century" if there was any consideration
given to the people of the region and their actions in fleeing from the conflicts ignited by the
policy. Open discussion of the suggestion would have raised all manner of this an similar issues,
embarrassing the authors by at least asking the questions.
Mother Agnes Mariam
, a nominee for the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize from Homs diocese, has some harsh
words
for the US war against Syria
: "Shame on a coalition who pretends fighting ISIS while in reality is helping ISIS killing innocent
soldiers whose mission is to protect civilians."
This is in response to the September 17 US airstrikes in Deir ez-Zor that massacred 62 Syrian
soldiers and injured 100 more who have been fighting ISIS.
[1] According to a June 2015
Time magazine
article, Deir ez-Zor with a population of 228,000 has been under
siege by ISIS
the past years, relying on the nightly arrival of a large Syrian air-force-operated cargo plane which
has a payload of more than 46 tons and transports munitions, food and medical supplies.
Starving babies in Deir ez-Zor
This much needed aid is flown out from the military air base southeast of the city, the target
of ISIS the past years and now bombed by US jet fighters. During the bombing, ISIS launched a simultaneous
attack and threatened to overrun the air base as well as slaughter the over 200,000 civilians. Deir
ez-Zor is also home to a large
Christian population protected by the Syrian government, similar to most other Christian inhabited
cities that are in government-controlled areas along the coast.
Map of Christian population in Syria
However, the Syrian army was able to repel the ISIS offensive and recover lost territory after
the US "mistaken" attacks, but the incident has again left many wondering whether US goal is really
to counter terrorism or to conduct
regime change
in Syria.
Meanwhile, the Syrian people continue to face prolonged agony and suffering as regional and great
powers use them as pawns for their geopolitical ambitions.
E
dward Dark , an activist in
Aleppo , noted back in 2013 that Syrians watched how their peaceful revolution was hijacked by
Turkey/Saudi and other Arab Gulf states, pouring in Salafists from over
100 countries
that morphed into ISIS, Al Nusra, and others that care nothing for the norms of human rights,
democracy, or justice for the Syrian nation. He admitted, "People here don't like the regime, but
they hate the rebels even more."
Now Dark sees Syria's only salvation is through reconciliation and a renunciation of violence,
but lamented "that is not a view shared by the warmongers and power brokers who still think that
more Syrian blood should be spilled to appease the insatiable appetites of their sordid aspirations."
A girl helping her dad with his shoe
Just as King Solomon determined the true mother of the baby is the one who refused to split her
son in half, the champion of the Syrian people and human rights is the power that would place the
Syrians' welfare above its own selfish ambitions.
Nonetheless, Dark lamented that "Whatever is left of Syria at the end will be carved out between
the wolves and vultures that fought over its bleeding and dying corpse, leaving us, the Syrian people
to pick up the shattered pieces of our nation and our futures."
Indeed, it seems US and its Salafist allies are bent on splitting the Syrian baby and cleansing
it of ethnic and religious minorities with a Taliban-like regime and Shaira Law, and Deir ez-Zor
is likely condemned to suffer the similar fate of Homs.
In Homs, the pre-conflict population was more than 1 million people of mostly Sunni Muslims with
substantial Christian and Alawite communities. Peter Crowley, senior foreign affairs correspondent
at Politico , in August 2015 tweeted an
extract from a 2008 Lonely Planet travel guide of Homs.
"These days, its Christian neighborhood is one of Syria's most welcoming and relaxed, and Homs'
citizens are some of the country's friendliest That, combined with the city's myriad leafy parks
and gardens, sprawling al fresco coffee shop, outdoor corn-on-the-cob stands and restored souq where
artisans still work, make Homs a wonderful place to kick back for a couple of days."
In eight years, Homs has changed from a "wonderful place" to a ruinous heap. With the ceasefire
likely to break down as Salafist rebels rearm and regroup, US and Saudi/Qatar/Turkey are well on
the march towards turning Syria into another Afghanistan in the Mediterranean.
[1] Nancy A. Youssef, "Did the U.S. Just Slaughter Syrian Troops?
The Daily Beast , September 18, 2016.
Dr. Christina Lin is a Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations
at SAIS-Johns Hopkins University where she specializes in China-Middle East/Mediterranean relations,
and a research consultant for Jane's Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Intelligence
Centre at IHS Jane's.
The intelligentsia (Latin: intellegentia, Polish: inteligencja, Russian: интеллигенция; IPA: [ɪntʲɪlʲɪˈɡʲentsɨjə])
is a social class of people engaged in complex mental labor aimed at guiding or critiquing, or
otherwise playing a leadership role in shaping a society's culture and politics.[1] This therefore
might include everyone from artists to school teachers, as well as academics, writers, journalists,
and other hommes de lettres (men of letters) more usually thought of as being the main constituents
of the intelligentsia.
Intelligentsia is the subject of active polemics concerning its own role in the development of
modern society not always positive historically, often contributing to higher degree of progress,
but also to its backward movement.[2]... In pre-revolutionary Russia the term was first used to
describe people possessing cultural and political initiative.[3] It was commonly used by
those individuals themselves to create an apparent distance from the masses, and generally retained
that narrow self-definition. [citation needed]
If intellectuals replace the current professional politicians as the leaders
of society the situation would become much worse. Because they have neither
the sense of reality, nor common sense. For them, the words and speeches are
more important than the actual social laws and the dominant trends, the dominant
social dynamics of the society. The psychological principle of the intellectuals
is that we could organize everything much better, but we are not allowed to
do it.
But the actual situation is as following: they could organize the life of
society as they wish and plan, in the way they view is the best only if under
conditions that are not present now are not feasible in the future. Therefore
they are not able to act even at the level of current leaders of the society,
which they despise. The actual leaders are influenced by social pressures, by
the current social situation, but at least they doing something. Intellectuals
are unhappy that the real stream of life they are living in. They consider it
wrong. that makes them very dangerous, because they look really smart, while
in reality being sophisticated professional idiots.
"... Moscow did indeed support secessionist pro-Russia rebels in East Ukraine. But did not the U.S. launch a 78-day bombing campaign on tiny Serbia to effect a secession of its cradle province of Kosovo? ..."
"... Russia is reportedly hacking into our political institutions. If so, it ought to stop. But have not our own CIA, National Endowment for Democracy, and NGOs meddled in Russia's internal affairs for years? ..."
"... Scores of the world's 190-odd nations are today ruled by autocrats. How does it advance our interests or diplomacy to have congressional leaders yapping "thug" at the ruler of a nation with hundreds of nuclear warheads? ..."
"... Very good article indeed. Knee-jerk reaction of american politicians and journalists looks extremely strange. As a matter of fact they look like idiots or puppets. ..."
"... Rubio and Graham are reflexively ready to push US influence everywhere, all the time, with military force always on the agenda, and McCain seems to be in a state of constant agitation ..."
"... Very sensible article. And as the EU falls further into disarray and possible disintegration, due to migration and other catastrophically mishandled problems, a working partnership with Russia will become even more important. Right now, we treat Russia as an enemy and Saudi Arabia as a friend. That makes no sense at all. ..."
"... As I've stated many times, Obama the narcissist hates Putin because Putin doesn't play the sycophantic lapdog yapping about how good it is to interact with the "smartest person in the room". ..."
"... I'm serious. Obama craves sources of narcissistic supply and has visceral contempt for sources of narcissistic injury. I.e., people who may reveal the mediocrity that he actually is. Obama considers Putin a threat in that context. ..."
"... The downside for the U.S. is that Obama has extended hating Putin to hating Russia. And yes, Washington is flooded with sources of sycophantic narcissistic supply for Obama including the MSM. And they are happy to massage his twisted ego by enthusiastically playing along with the Putin/Russia fear-monger bashing. ..."
"... P.S. too bad Hillary is saturated with her own psychopathology that portends more Global Cop wreckage. ..."
"... Anyway, what Buchanan is saying is, "We have to deal with him," not "favor him." The two terms should not be confused. ..."
"... There are a lot of "allies" of questionable usefulness that the US should stop "favoring," and a lot of competitors (and potential allies in the true sense) out there the US should begin "dealing" with. ..."
"... Everything the Western elite does is about dollar hegemony and control of energy. ..."
"... As long as Russia is not a puppet of the globalist banking cartel they will be presented as an "enemy". Standing in the way of energy imperialism was the last straw for the all out hybrid war being launched on Russia now. ..."
"... If the Western public wasn't so lazy and stupid we would remove the globalists controlling us. Instead people, especially liberals, get in bed with the globalists plans against Russia bc they can't stand Russia is Christian and supports the family. ..."
"... Every word about Russia allowed in the Western establishment are lies funded and molded by people like Soros and warmongers. This is the reality. Nobody who will speak honestly or positively about Russia is allowed any voice. And scumbag neoliberal globalists like Kasperov are presented as "Russians" while real Russian people are given zero voice. ..."
"... What the Western elite is doing right now in Ukraine and Syria is reprehensible and its all our fault for letting these people control us. ..."
...Arriving on Capitol Hill to repair ties between Trump and party elites,
Gov. Mike Pence was taken straight to the woodshed.
John McCain told Pence that Putin was a "thug and a butcher," and Trump's
embrace of him intolerable.
Said Lindsey Graham: "Vladimir Putin is a thug, a dictator who has
his opposition killed in the streets," and Trump's views bring to mind Munich.
Putin is an "authoritarian thug," added "Little Marco" Rubio.
What causes the Republican Party to lose it whenever the name of Vladimir
Putin is raised?
Putin is no Stalin, whom FDR and Harry Truman called "Good old Joe" and "Uncle
Joe." Unlike Nikita Khrushchev, he never drowned a Hungarian Revolution in blood.
He did crush the Chechen secession. But what did he do there that General Sherman
did not do to Atlanta when Georgia seceded from Mr. Lincoln's Union?
Putin supported the U.S. in Afghanistan, backed our nuclear deal with Iran,
and signed on to John Kerry's plan have us ensure a cease fire in Syria and
go hunting together for ISIS and al-Qaida terrorists.
Still, Putin committed "aggression" in Ukraine, we are told. But was that
really aggression, or reflexive strategic reaction? We helped dump over a pro-Putin
democratically elected regime in Kiev, and Putin acted to secure his Black Sea
naval base by re-annexing Crimea, a peninsula that has belonged to Russia from
Catherine the Great to Khrushchev. Great powers do such things.
When the Castros pulled Cuba out of America's orbit, we decided to keep Guantanamo,
and dismiss Havana's protests?
Moscow did indeed support secessionist pro-Russia rebels in East Ukraine.
But did not the U.S. launch a 78-day bombing campaign on tiny Serbia to effect
a secession of its cradle province of Kosovo?
... ... ...
Russia is reportedly hacking into our political institutions. If so,
it ought to stop. But have not our own CIA, National Endowment for Democracy,
and NGOs meddled in Russia's internal affairs for years?
... ... ...
Is Putin's Russia more repressive than Xi Jinping's China? Yet, Republicans
rarely use "thug" when speaking about Xi. During the Cold War, we partnered
with such autocrats as the Shah of Iran and General Pinochet of Chile, Ferdinand
Marcos in Manila, and Park Chung-Hee of South Korea. Cold War necessity required
it.
Scores of the world's 190-odd nations are today ruled by autocrats. How
does it advance our interests or diplomacy to have congressional leaders yapping
"thug" at the ruler of a nation with hundreds of nuclear warheads?
>>During the Cold War, we partnered with such autocrats as the Shah
of Iran and General Pinochet of Chile, Ferdinand Marcos in Manila, and Park
Chung-Hee of South Korea
buttressed could be even more pertinent)
Very good article indeed. Knee-jerk reaction of american politicians
and journalists looks extremely strange. As a matter of fact they look like
idiots or puppets.
Rubio
and Graham are reflexively ready to push US influence everywhere, all the
time, with military force always on the agenda, and McCain seems to be in
a state of constant agitation whenever US forces are not actively engaged
in combat somewhere. They are loud voices, yes, but irrational voices, too.
Very sensible article. And as the EU falls further into disarray
and possible disintegration, due to migration and other catastrophically
mishandled problems, a working partnership with Russia will become even
more important. Right now, we treat Russia as an enemy and Saudi Arabia
as a friend. That makes no sense at all.
"Just" states the starvation of the Ukraine is a western lie. The Harvest
of Sorrow by Robert Conquest refutes this dangerous falsehood. Perhaps "Just"
believes The Great Leap Forward did not lead to starvation of tens of millions
in China. After all, this could be another "western lie". So to could be
the Armenian genocide in Turkey or slaughter of Communists in Indonesia.
As I've stated many times, Obama the narcissist hates Putin because
Putin doesn't play the sycophantic lapdog yapping about how good it is to
interact with the "smartest person in the room".
I'm serious. Obama craves sources of narcissistic supply and has
visceral contempt for sources of narcissistic injury. I.e., people who may
reveal the mediocrity that he actually is. Obama considers Putin a threat
in that context.
The downside for the U.S. is that Obama has extended hating Putin
to hating Russia. And yes, Washington is flooded with sources of sycophantic
narcissistic supply for Obama including the MSM. And they are happy to massage
his twisted ego by enthusiastically playing along with the Putin/Russia
fear-monger bashing.
And so the U.S. Russia relationship is wrecked by the "smartest person
in the room".
P.S. too bad Hillary is saturated with her own psychopathology that
portends more Global Cop wreckage.
John asks, "We also have to deal with our current allies. Whom would
Mr. Buchanan like to favor?"
Well, we could redouble our commitment to our democracy and peace loving
friends in Saudi Arabia, we could deepen our ties to those gentle folk in
Egypt, and maybe for a change give some meaningful support to Israel. Oh,
and our defensive alliances will be becoming so much stronger with Montenegro
as a member, we will need to pour more resources into that country.
Anyway, what Buchanan is saying is, "We have to deal with him," not
"favor him." The two terms should not be confused.
There are a lot of "allies" of questionable usefulness that the US
should stop "favoring," and a lot of competitors (and potential allies in
the true sense) out there the US should begin "dealing" with.
"During the Cold War, we partnered with such autocrats as the Shah of
Iran and General Pinochet of Chile, Ferdinand Marcos in Manila, and Park
Chung-Hee of South Korea. Cold War necessity required it (funny, you failed
to mention Laos, South Vietnam, Nicaragua, Noriega/Panama, and everyone's
favorite 9/11 co-conspirator and WMD developer, Saddam Hussein). either
way how did these "alliances" work out for the US? really doesn't matter,
does it? it is early 21st century, not mid 20th century. there is a school
of thought in the worlds of counter-terrorism/intelligence operations, which
suggests if you want to be successful, you have to partner with some pretty
nasty folks. Trump is being "handled" by an experienced, ruthless (that's
a compliment), and focused "operator". unless, of course, Trump is actually
the superior operator, in which case, this would be the greatest black op
of all time.
"From Russia With Money - Hillary Clinton, the Russian Reset and Cronyism,"
"Of the 28 US, European and Russian companies that participated in Skolkovo,
17 of them were Clinton Foundation donors" or sponsored speeches by former
President Bill Clinton, Schweizer told The Post.
Everything the Western elite does is about dollar hegemony and control
of energy. Once you understand that then the (evil)actions of the Western
elite make sense. Anyone who stands in the way of those things is an "enemy".
This is how they determine an "enemy".
As long as Russia is not a puppet of the globalist banking cartel
they will be presented as an "enemy". Standing in the way of energy imperialism
was the last straw for the all out hybrid war being launched on Russia now.
If the Western public wasn't so lazy and stupid we would remove the
globalists controlling us. Instead people, especially liberals, get in bed
with the globalists plans against Russia bc they can't stand Russia is Christian
and supports the family.
Every word about Russia allowed in the Western establishment are
lies funded and molded by people like Soros and warmongers. This is the
reality. Nobody who will speak honestly or positively about Russia is allowed
any voice. And scumbag neoliberal globalists like Kasperov are presented
as "Russians" while real Russian people are given zero voice.
What the Western elite is doing right now in Ukraine and Syria is
reprehensible and its all our fault for letting these people control us.
A pretty devious scheme -- creating difficulty for the government neoliberal
wanted to depose by pushing neoliberal reforms via IMF and such. They channeling
the discontent into uprising against the legitimate government. Similar process
happened with Yanukovich in Ukraine.
Notable quotes:
"... the Syrian government put staying in power via adopting neoliberal strictures ahead of the welfare of Syrians ..."
"... it doesn't make President Assad virtuous of himself and neither does it reflect the reality that when push came to shove Assad put his position ahead of the people of Syria and kissed neoliberal butt. ..."
"... President Assad revealed his stupidity when he didn't pay attention to what happens to a leader who has previously been featured as a 'tyrant' in western media if he lets the neoliberals in: They fawn & scrape all the while developing connections to undermine him/her. If the undermining is ineffective there is no backing off. The next option is war. The instances are legion from President Noriega of Panama to President Hussein of Iraq to Colonel Ghaddaffi of Libya - that one really hurts as the Colonel was a genuinely committed and astute man. Assad is just another hack in comparison. ..."
"... Syrian leaders are politicians, they suffer the same flaws of politicians across the world. They are power seekers who inevitably come to regard the welfare of their population as a means to an end rather than an end in itself. ..."
"... No one denies that the opposition have been used and abused by FUKUSi, but that of itself does not invalidate the very real issues that persuaded them to resist an austerity imposed from above by assholes who weren't practicing what they preached. ..."
"... According to the European model of diplomacy imposed upon the globe, countries have interests not friends. ..."
"... A solution which reduces numbers of humans killed is worth attempting. ..."
"... Just because someone chooses an option that you disagree with does not make them evil or headchoppers or Islamofacist. ..."
"... On balance I would rather see Assad continue as leader of Syria but I'm not so naive as to believe he is capable of finding a long term resolution, or that there are not a good number of self interested murderous sadists in his crew. ..."
"... This war is about destroying real history, civilization, culture and replacing with fake. The war in Yemen is the same. Who in that region wants to replace real history with fake. Think about it. Most Islamic,Christian, Assyrian history is systematically being destroyed. ..."
"... you make some good points concerning Assad flirting with neoliberalism however, i don't know how you call an opposition 'moderate' when its toting firearms. ..."
"... The protests against Assad were moderate, and to his credit Assad was willing to meet them halfway. However, this situation was exploited by (((foreign powers))) ..."
"... This is not about "good or evil", this is about TOW missiles made in USA against T-55, Saudi money for mercenaries, Israeli regional ambitions and so on. Syria is another country that the US wants to destroy. Six years ago Syria was a peaceful country. ..."
"... Allegedly president Assad is a bad guy but Erdogan, Netanyhu and bin Saud are noble and good men. Who believes in such nonsense? The US has become similar to Israel and this is the reason why "Assad must go". Sick countries do sick things. ..."
"... no, because one side is so simplistically evi l(armed to the fucking teeth and resolved to violent insurrection!!!), if Assad didn't have the backing of the vast majority of his people and of his overreached army it would have ended a long time ago and Syria would be a failed state flailing away in the grip of anarchy. perhaps your Syrian 'friends' should meditate on this naked truth. ..."
"... when that shitty little country called Israel was squeezed onto the map in 1948, Syria welcomed Palestinian refugees with open arms by the hundreds of thousands. no, they didn't grant them citizenship, but prettty much all other rights. ..."
"... This whole nightmare was dreamed up from within the US Embassy in Damascus in 2006. Bashir al Assad was too popular in the country and the region for America's liking, so they plotted to get rid of him. Near all the organ eating, child killing, head chopping "moderate" opposition are from other countries, those that are Syrian, as was the case in Iraq, mostly live outside the country and are not in touch with main stream opinion, but very in touch with US, Saudi etc $$$s. ..."
"... I consider Bashar al-Assad the legitimate Syrian President and attempts to remove him by external interests as grounds for charges of crimes against humanity, crimes of war. ..."
"... As one of the bloggers rightly stated Wesley Clarke spilled the whole beans and revealed their true ilk. 7 countries in 5 years. How coincidental post 9/11. ..."
"... If you say "Assad was flirting with Neo Liberalism" then this is actually a compliment to Assad. Why? Because he wanted to win time. He wanted to prevent the same happening to Syria that has happened to Iraq. At that time there was no other protective power around. Russia was still busy recovering. ..."
"... As demeter said Posted by: Demeter @14, the flirrting with neoliberalism bought them time as neocons were slavering for a new target. It also made the inner circle a ridiculous amount of money. Drought made life terrible for many rural syrians. When the conflict started, if you read this website you'd notice people wondering what was going on and as facts unfolded. realizing that Assad was the lesser of two evils, and as the war has gone on, look like an angel in comparison to the opposition. ..."
"... Salafism is Racism. It de-egitimizes the entire anti Assad revolution. ..."
"... Wesley Clark's "seven countries in five years" transcript for anyone who has forgotten: http://genius.com/General-wesley-clark-seven-countries-in-five-years-annotated ..."
"... the armed conflict originated with scheming by foreign governments to use extremists as a weapon. ..."
"... Furthermore, Debsisdead sets up the same "binary division" that he says he opposes by tarnishing those who oppose using extremists as a weapon of state as Assad loving racists. The plot was described by Sy Hersh in 2007 in "The Redirection" . ..."
"... The fight IS "binary". You support Assad and his fighters, the true rebels, or you don't. Calling Assad a "hack" is a slander of a veritable hero. Watch his interviews. Assad presides over a multi-cultural, multi-confessional, diverse, secular state, PRECISELY what the Reptilians claim they cherish. ..."
"... "the Syrian government put staying in power via adopting neoliberal strictures ahead of the welfare of Syrians." - on that we can agree. ..."
"... It continues to annoy me that the primary trigger for the civil war in Syria has been totally censored from the press. The government deliberately ignited a population explosion, making the sale or possession of condoms or birth control pills illegal and propagandizing that it was every woman's patriotic duty to have six kids. The population doubled every 18 years, from 5 million to 10 million to 20 million and then at 22 the water ran out and things fells apart. Syria is a small country mostly arid plateau, in principle it could be developed to support even more people just not in that amount of time and with the resources that the Syrians actually had. ..."
"... It doesn't mean he's a saint that Assad is leading the very popular 'secular/multi-confessional Syria' resistance against an extremely well-funded army primarily of non-Syrians who are mainly 'headchoppers' who will stop at nothing to impose Saudi-style religious dictatorship on Syria. ..."
"... The 'moderate' opposition to Assad has largely disappeared (back into the loyal opposition that does NOT want a Saudi-style state imposed on Syria), but those who remain in armed rebellion surely must know that they are a powerless, very small portion of what is in fact mercenary army completely subservient to the needs and directives of its primary funders/enablers, the US and Saudi Arabia. So whatever their original noble intentions, they've become part of the Saudi/US imperial problem. ..."
"... All that land, all that resource...and a unifying language. Amazing. If only the Arab world could unite for the collective good of the region we might witness a rogue state in an abrupt and full decline. A sad tactic of colonial powers over the years, setting the native tribes upon each other. We've not evolved here. ..."
"... t in recent history the foreign policy of powerful nations is aimed at sponsoring social disintegration within the borders of targeted countries. ..."
"... Ethnic cleansing means destruction of culture, of historical memory, the forced disappearance of communities that were rooted in a place. ..."
"... Compare President Assad's leadership to that of the western, or Saudi, sponsors of terror; or measure his decisions against those of the hodgepodge of rebels and mercenaries, with their endless internal squabbles and infighting. Assad is so much more of a spokesman for the rights of sovereignty, and his words carry more weight and outshine the banalities that spring from the mouths of those who are paying the bills, and supplying weapons, and giving all kinds of diplomatic comfort to the enemies of the Syrian government. ..."
"... There is no need for sorting things into absolutes of good and evil. But there is a condition under which fewer, a lot fewer, humans would have died in Syria, Without foreign interference--money, weapons, and training--Assad's government would have won this war quite a while ago. ..."
"... And as for "Islamic Fundamentalism", it is this abnormal form of Islam that is purely based on racism and not the other way around. Islamic fundamentalists call everybody, and I mean everybody, who is not living according to their rule a non-believer, a Takfiri, who does not deserver to live. ..."
"... Fundamentalism is never satisfied until it can become a tyranny over the mind. Racism and fundamentalism are as American as apple pie. You have to take a close look at who is pouring oil on this fire! ..."
"... I disagree with you in that neoliberalism is seriously not difficult to define. It boils down to belief that public programs are bad/'inefficient' and that society would be better served by privatizing many things(or even everything) and opening services up to 'competition'. It's mainly just cover for parasites to come in and get rich off of the masses misery. The 'neoliberalism is just a snarl word' meme is incredibly stupid, since plenty of books and articles have been written explicitly defining it. ..."
"... American economic hegemony is inherently neoliberal, and has been for decades. The IMF is essentially an international loan shark that gives countries money on the condition that they dismantle their public spending apparatus and let the market run things. ..."
"... The situation is different now. One Syrian lady, who came to see me in April, who lives in California, told me that her father, who was a big pre-war oppositionist, now just wants to return to Syria to die. There's no question. if you want peace in Syria, Asad is the only choice. The jihadis, who dominate the opposition, don't offer an alternative. ..."
"... The lesson of Viet Nam was to keep the dead and wounded off the six o'clock news. ..."
"... The jackals are going in. Another coup. Syria was on the list. Remap the Middle East. Make it like Disney World. Israel as Mad King Ludwig's Neuschwanstein. ..."
"... I don't think anyone who comments here regularly ever assumed that Bashar al Assad was a knight in white shining armour. Most of us are aware of how he came to be President and that his father did rule the country from 1971 to 2000 with an iron fist. Some if not most also know that initially when Bashar al Assad succeeded to the Presidency, he did have a reformist agenda in mind. How well or not he succeeded in putting that across, what compromises he had to make, who or what opposed him, how he negotiated his way between and among various and opposed power structures in Syrian politics we do not know. ..."
"... Yes, I have trouble reconciling the fact that Bashar al Assad's government did allow CIA renditioning with his reformist agenda in my own head. That is something he will have to come to terms with in the future. I don't know if Assad was naive, under pressure or willing, even eager in agreeing to cooperate with the CIA, or trying to buy time to prepare for invasion once Iraq was down. Whether Assad also realises that he was duped by the IMF and World Bank in following their advice on economic "reforms" (such as privatising Syria's water) is another thing as well. ..."
"... I don't see why you call the problem "Islamic fundamentalism" when in fact it is Sunni fundamentalism. ..."
"... Manifest Destiny is fundamentalism. ..."
"... "Full Spectrum Dominance" and other US Military doctrines are fundamentalist in nature. ..."
"... I have no doubt that Assad was little more than a crude Arab strongman/dictator prince back in the 2011 when the uprising started. Since then, he has evolved into a committed, engaged defender of his country against multilateral foreign aggression, willingly leaving his balls in the vice and all. ..."
"... He could have fled the sinking ship many times so far. Instead, he decided to stay and fight the Takfiri river flowing in through the crack, and risk going down with the ship he inherited. The majority of the Syrians know this very well. ..."
"... Bashar of 2016 (not so much the one of 5 1/2 years ago) would not only win the next free elections, but destroy any opposition. The aggressors know that as a fact. ..."
"... if Syria had control over its borders with Turkey, Israel, Jordan and Iraq would the war have ended a long time ago ? Answer honestly. ..."
"... If yes, then the so-called "opposition" of the union of headchoppers does not represent a significant portion of the Syrian people. Were it otherwise Assad wouldnt be able to survive a single year, let alone 5. With or without foreign help. ..."
"... OK here is an interesting article from 2011 on Abdallah Dardari, the fellow who persuaded Bashar al Assad to adopt the disastrous neoliberal economic reforms that not only ruined Syria's economy and the country's agriculture in particular but also created an underclass who resented the reforms and who initially joined the "rebels". http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/2097 ..."
"... And where is Dardari now? He jumped ship in 2011 and went to Beirut to work for the UN's Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). He seems like someone to keep a watchful eye on. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_Dardari ..."
"... of COURSE assad flirted with the west. between housing cia rendition houses and the less-than-flattering aspects of the wikileaks "syria files", assad and/or his handlers (family and/or military) have tried a little too hard to "assimilate" to western ideals (or the lack thereof). ..."
"... i seriously doubt they will make that mistake again. they saw what happened to al-qaddafi after he tried to play nice and mistook western politicians for human beings. they've learned their lesson and become more ruthless but they were always machiavellians because they have to be. not an endorsement, just an acceptance of how the region is. ..."
"... also: israel, the saudis (along with qatar and the other GCC psychopaths in supporting capacity) and the US are the main actors and throwing european "powers" into the circle of actual power does them an undue favor by ignoring their status as pathetic vassal states. "FrUkDeUSZiowhatever" isn't necessary. ..."
"... Look I know the MSM is utterly controlled - but the extent of that control still shocks at times. It is simply not possible to be "informed" by any normal definition of the word anymore without the alternative media - and for that reason this site serves a valuable purpose and I once again thank the host and contributors. ..."
"... The irony is, Assad is 10x smarter and bigger person than Debs. Yes, he made some mistakes, but if not "flirting with neoliberalism", war against Syria would have started many years earlier, when Resistance wasnt ready one bit (neither Russia, nor Iran, while on the other hand US was more powerful). ..."
"... Support for rebel groups was misguided at best at the beginning of the war. One could conceivably not appreciate the capacity of the KSA/USA/Quatar/Israel to influence and control and create these groups. Jesus it's hard for me to think of a single local opposition group that isnt drenched in fanaticism besides the Kurds. ..."
"... There's no way to a solution for the Syrian people, the population not imported that is, if these groups win. I hate to be so binary but its so naive in my eyes to think anything good will come from the long arm of the gulf countries and the USA taking control. ..."
"... As I've said repeatedly, the GOAL of the Syria crisis for the Western elites, Israel and the ME dictatorships is to take Syria OUT by any means necessary in order to get to IRAN. Nothing else matters to these people. In the same vein, nothing else matters to ninety percent of the CURRENT insurgents than to establish some Salafist state, exterminate the Shia, etc., etc. ..."
"... So, yes, right NOW the whole story is about US elites, Zionist "evil", corrupt monarchs, and scumbag fanatics, etc., etc. Until THAT is resolved, nothing about how Syria is being run is going to matter. ..."
"... Copeland @60: No, I don't think the problem is fundamentalism. It's the warring crusade method of spreading a belief's 'empire' that is the problem. This is a problem uniquely of the Saudi 'do whatever it takes' crusade to convert the entire 'Arab and Muslim world' to their worst, most misogynist form of Islam. ..."
"... Just want to mention that from the beginning there were people who took up arms against the government. This is why the situation went out of control. People ambushed groups of young soldiers. Snipers of unknown origin fired on police and civilians. ..."
"... I rather like Assad. I won't lie. But, he is not the reason for the insurrection in Syria ~ well, except for his alliances with Russia and Iran and his pipeline decisions and his support for Palestinian and Iraqi refugees. What happened in Syria is happening all over the globe because the nation with the most resources in the world, the self-declared exceptionalist state thinks this is the way to rule the world. . . . because they want to rule and they don't care how much destruction it takes to do so. And lucky for us there is no one big enough and bad enough to do it to us - except for our own government. ..."
"... There were a lot of people posting how Bashar al Assad was doing full neoliberalism. And at was true. ..."
"... So Assad was hit by a Tri-horror: global warming, dwindling cash FF resources, and IMF-type pressure, leaving out the trad. enemies, KSA, pipelines , etc. MSM prefer to cover up serious issues with 'ethnic strife' (sunni, shia, black lives matter, etc.) ..."
It is sad to see so many are so locked into their particular views that they
see any offering of an alternative as 'neoliberal' or laughable or - if it weren't
so serious - Zionist.
1/ I do not see the Syrian civil war as racist or race based, I do believe
however that the rejection of all Islamic fundamentalism as being entirely comprised
of 'headchoppers' is racist down to its core. It is that same old same old whitefella
bullshit which refuses to consider other points of view on their own terms but
considers everything through the lens of 'western' culture which it then declares
wanting and discards.
2/ Noirette comes close to identifying one of the issues that kicked
off the conflict, that the Syrian government put staying in power via adopting
neoliberal strictures ahead of the welfare of Syrians. I realize many have
quite foolishly IMO, adopted President Assad as some sort of model of virtue
- mostly because he is seen to be standing up to American imperialism. That
is a virtuous position but it doesn't make President Assad virtuous of himself
and neither does it reflect the reality that when push came to shove Assad put
his position ahead of the people of Syria and kissed neoliberal butt.
3/ President Assad revealed his stupidity when he didn't pay attention
to what happens to a leader who has previously been featured as a 'tyrant' in
western media if he lets the neoliberals in: They fawn & scrape all the while
developing connections to undermine him/her. If the undermining is ineffective
there is no backing off. The next option is war. The instances are legion from
President Noriega of Panama to President Hussein of Iraq to Colonel Ghaddaffi
of Libya - that one really hurts as the Colonel was a genuinely committed and
astute man. Assad is just another hack in comparison.
4/ These Syrian leaders are politicians, they suffer the same flaws of
politicians across the world. They are power seekers who inevitably come to
regard the welfare of their population as a means to an end rather than an end
in itself.
5/ My Syrians friends are an interesting bunch drawn from a range of people
currently living inside and outside of Syria. Some longer term readers might
recall that I'm not American, don't live in America and nowadays don't visit
much at all. The first of the 'refugee' Syrians I got to know, although refugee
is a misnomer since my friend came here on a migrant's visa because his skills
are in demand, is the grandchild of Palestinian refugees - so maybe he is a
refugee but not in the usual sense. Without going into too many specifics as
this is his story not mine, he was born and lived in a refugee camp which was
essentially just another Damascus suburb. As he puts it, although a Palestinian
at heart, he was born in Syria and when he thinks of home it is/was Damascus.
All sides in the conflict claimed to support Palestinian liberation, yet he
and his family were starved out of their homes by both Syrian government militias
and the FSA.
When he left he was initially a stateless person because even though he was
born in Syria he wasn't entitled to Syrian citizenship. He bears no particular
grudge against the government there but he told me once he does wish they were
a lot smarter.
On the other hand he also understands why the people fighting the government
are doing so. I'm not talking about the leadership of course (see above - pols
are pols) but the Syrians who just couldn't take the fading future and the petty
oppression by assholes any longer.
6/ No one denies that the opposition have been used and abused by FUKUSi,
but that of itself does not invalidate the very real issues that persuaded them
to resist an austerity imposed from above by assholes who weren't practicing
what they preached.
I really despair at the mindset which reduces everything to a binary division
- if group A are the people I support they must all be wonderful humans and
group B those who are fighting Group A are all evil assholes.
If group A claim to support Palestinian self determination (even though they
have done sweet fuck all to actually advance that cause) then everyone in Group
B must be pro-Zionist even though I don't know what they say about it (the leadership
of the various resistance groups are ME politicians and therefore most claim
to also support Palestinian independence). Yes assholes in the opposition have
done sleazy deals with Israel over Golan but the Ba'ath administration has done
similar opportunist sell outs over the 40 years when the situation demanded
it.
I fucking hate that as much as anyone else who despises the ersatz state
of Israel, but the reality is that just about every ME leader has put expedience
ahead of principle with regard to Palestine. Colonel Ghadaffi would be the only
leader I'm aware of who didn't. Why do they? That is what all pols and diplomats
do not just Arab ones. According to the European model of diplomacy imposed
upon the globe, countries have interests not friends.
As yet no alternative to that model has succeeded since any attempt to do
so has been rejected with great violence. The use of hostages offered by each
party to guarantee a treaty was once an honorable solution, the hostages were
well treated and the security they afforded reduced conflict - if Oblamblam
had to put up one of his daughters to guarantee a deal does anyone think he
would break it as easily as he currently does? Yet the very notion of hostages
is considered 'terrorism' in the west. But I digress.
The only points I wanted to make was the same as those I have already made:
A solution which reduces numbers of humans killed is worth attempting.
Just because someone chooses an option that you disagree with does
not make them evil or headchoppers or Islamofacist.
On balance I would rather see Assad continue as leader of Syria
but I'm not so naive as to believe he is capable of finding a long term
resolution, or that there are not a good number of self interested murderous
sadists in his crew. By the same token I don't believe all of those
resisting the Ba'athist administration are headchopping jihadists or foreign
mercenaries. This war is about 5 years old. If either side were so simplistically
good or evil it would have ended a long time ago.
Plus one more - it is humorous and saddening to see people throw senseless
name-calling into the mix. It is the method preferred by those who are too
stupid and ill informed to develop a logical point of view.
If you want to call me a Zionist lackey of the imperialists or whatever it
was go right ahead - it is only yourself who you tarnish, I'm secure in the
knowledge of my own work against imperialism, corporate domination and Zionism
but perhaps you, who have a need to throw aspersions are not?
Posted by b on September 12, 2016 at 03:33 AM |
Permalink
Plus one more - it is humorous and saddening to see people throw senseless
name-calling into the mix. It is the method preferred by those who are
too stupid and ill informed to develop a logical point of view.
why you think your article is different from others senseless name-calling,
i see exactly the same.
This war is about destroying real history, civilization, culture
and replacing with fake. The war in Yemen is the same. Who in that region
wants to replace real history with fake. Think about it. Most Islamic,Christian,
Assyrian history is systematically being destroyed.
you make some good points concerning Assad flirting with neoliberalism
however, i don't know how you call an opposition 'moderate' when its toting
firearms.
The protests against Assad were moderate, and to his credit Assad
was willing to meet them halfway. However, this situation was exploited
by (((foreign powers)))
If either side were so simplistically good or evil it would have ended
a long time ago.
This is not about "good or evil", this is about TOW missiles made in
USA against T-55, Saudi money for mercenaries, Israeli regional ambitions
and so on. Syria is another country that the US wants to destroy. Six years
ago Syria was a peaceful country.
Allegedly president Assad is a bad guy but Erdogan, Netanyhu and
bin Saud are noble and good men. Who believes in such nonsense? The US has
become similar to Israel and this is the reason why "Assad must go". Sick
countries do sick things.
If either side were so simplistically good or evil it would have
ended a long time ago
no, because one side is so simplistically evi l(armed to the fucking
teeth and resolved to violent insurrection!!!), if Assad didn't have the
backing of the vast majority of his people and of his overreached army it
would have ended a long time ago and Syria would be a failed state flailing
away in the grip of anarchy. perhaps your Syrian 'friends' should meditate
on this naked truth.
If group A claim to support Palestinian self determination (even
though they have done sweet fuck all to actually advance that cause)...
when that shitty little country called Israel was squeezed onto the
map in 1948, Syria welcomed Palestinian refugees with open arms by the hundreds
of thousands. no, they didn't grant them citizenship, but prettty much all
other rights.
so thanks, b, for headlining this obfuscatory drivel. thus, for posterity.
This whole nightmare was dreamed up from within the US Embassy in Damascus
in 2006. Bashir al Assad was too popular in the country and the region for
America's liking, so they plotted to get rid of him. Near all the organ
eating, child killing, head chopping "moderate" opposition are from other
countries, those that are Syrian, as was the case in Iraq, mostly live outside
the country and are not in touch with main stream opinion, but very in touch
with US, Saudi etc $$$s.
Here again is the reality of where this all started, article from 2012
(below.). And never forget Wesley Clark's Pentagon informant after 9/11
of attacking "seven countries in five years." Those in chaos through US
attacks or attempted "liberation" were on the list, a few more to go and
they are a bit behind schedule. All responsible for this Armageddon should
be answering for their actions in shackles and yellow jump suits in The
Hague.
|~b~ Thank you for putting Debsisdead's comment @ 135 prior post into readable
form. Failing eyesight made the original in its extended format difficult
to read.
Reference Debsisdead comment:
Your definition of neoliberal would be nice to have. Usually it is used
as ephemerally as a mirage, to appear in uncountable numbers of meaning.
Having determined your definition of neoliberal, are you sure it WAS
neoliberal rather than a hegemonic entity? Neoliberal seems best used as
the reactionary faux historic liberalism as applied to economic agendas
(neocon is the political twin for neoliberal, libertarian had been previously
been co-opted).
Instead of FUKUSi, maybe a FUKUZoP would suffice (FranceUnited
KingdomUnited Zionist occupied Palestine) given the spheres of influence
involved.
Agree with your observations about the limited mentality of dualism;
manichaeism is a crutch for disabled minds unaware and blind to subtle distinctions
that comprise spectrums.
Though not paying close attention to Syrian history, it was Hafez al-Assad
who became master of the Syrian Ba'athist coup d'ιtat and politically stabilised
Syria under Ba'athist hegemony. In the midst of the 'Arab-spring' zeitgeist,
an incident involving a child with security forces led to a genuine public
outcry being suppressed by state security forces. This incident, quickly
settled became cause cιlθbre for a subsequent revolt, initially by SAA dissidents
but soon thereafter by external interests having the motive of regime overthrow
of Syrian Ba'athists and their leadership. Other narratives generally make
little sense though may contain some factors involved; the waters have been
sufficiently muddied as to obscure many original factors - possibly Bashar
al-Assad's awareness of his security forces involvement in US rendition
and torture as to compromise his immediately assuming command of his security
forces in the original public protest over the child. Those things are now
well concealed under the fogs of conflict and are future historians to sort.
I consider Bashar al-Assad the legitimate Syrian President and attempts
to remove him by external interests as grounds for charges of crimes against
humanity, crimes of war.
Classic western sheeple disconnect. As one of the bloggers rightly stated
Wesley Clarke spilled the whole beans and revealed their true ilk. 7 countries
in 5 years. How coincidental post 9/11. This total disconnect with global
realities is a massive problem in the west cause the 86000 elite /oligarchs
r pushing for a war with both the bears/ Russian and Chinese along with
Iran. These countries have blatantly stated they will not be extorted by
fascism. All western countries r all living a Corporate state. Just look
all around every facet of our society is financialised. Health ,education
, public services.
Wake up cause if we dont we will be extinct Nuclear winter
I am of syrian origin, born in Beirut Lebanon.
My family lived a happy life there, but shortly after I was born, Israel
invaded Lebanon, and my family fled and emigrated to Europe, I was 1 year
old.
I call major bullshit on your piece.
If you say "Assad was flirting with Neo Liberalism" then this is actually
a compliment to Assad.
Why? Because he wanted to win time. He wanted to prevent the same happening
to Syria that has happened to Iraq. At that time there was no other protective
power around. Russia was still busy recovering.
What do you think would
have happened had Assad not pretended he would go along? Syria would have
been bombed to pieces right then. Why did Assad change his mind later and
refused to cooperate with Qatar, Saudi and US? Because the balance of power
was about to change. Iran and Russia were rising powers (mainly in the military
field).
I could say so much more. I stopped reading your post when you mentioned
that your Palestinian friend ( I know the neighbourhood in Damascus, it
is called Yarmouk and it is indeed a very nice suburb) does not have Syrian
citizenship. Do you know why Palaestinians don't get Syrian citizenship?
Because they are supposed to return to their homeland Palestine.
And they can only do that as Palestinians and not as Syrians. That is
why.
And that so many (not all!) Palestinians chose to backstab the country
that has hosted them and fed them and gave them a life for so many years,
and fought side by side with islamist terrorists and so called Free Syrian
Army traitors is a human error, is based on false promises, is lack of character
and honour and understanding of the broader context and interests. How will
some of these fools and misguided young men feel when they realise that
they have played right into the hand of their biggest enemy, the Zionists.
I would like to remind some of you who might have forgotten that famous
incident described by Robert Fisk years ago, when a Syrian Officer told
him upon the capture of some of these "freedom fighters' on Syrian soil,
one of them said: "I did not know that Palestine was so beautiful", not
realising that he was not fighting in Palestine but in Syria.
And as for "Islamic Fundamentalism", it is this abnormal form of Islam
that is purely based on racism and not the other way around. Islamic fundamentalists
call everybody, and I mean everybody, who is not living according to their
rule a non-believer, a Takfiri, who does not deserver to live.
Though reluctant to get involved in what seems to be for some a personal
spat, I would like to point out one fundemental point that renders the above
published and counter arguments difficult to comprehend which is that they
lack a time frame.
The 'Syrian opposition' or what ever you wish to call it is not now what
it was 6 years ago. Thus, for me, at least, it is not possible to discuss
the make up of the opposition unless there are some time frames applied.
An example is a Syrian who was an officer in the FSA but fled to Canada
last year. He fled the Syrian conflict over 3 years ago to Turkey -which
is how I know him - where he did not continue ties with any group. He simply
put his head down and worked slavishly living at his place of work most
of the time to escape to Canada - he feared remaining in Istanbul. He claimed
that he and others had all been taken in by promises and that the conflict
had been usurped by extremists. He was not a headchopper, he was not the
beheader of 12 year old children. He was and is a devout Muslim. He was
a citizen of Aleppo city. I know him and of him through other local Syrians
in Istanbul and believe his testimony. I mention him only to highlight that
the conflict is not what it was, not what some intended it to be ... Nor
is it what some paint it to be. There are many who fight whomever attacks
their community be they pro / anti Government. - Arabs especially have extended
village communities/ tribes and pragmatically they 'agree' to be occupied
as long as they are allowed to continue their lives in peace. If conflict
breaks out they fight whomever is necessary.
DebIsDead makes some very excellent points in his/her comments. They
deserve appraisal and respectful response. It is also clear thar he/she
is writing defensively in some parts and those detract from what is actually
being said.
The piece suffers from several errors. As demeter said Posted by: Demeter
@14, the flirrting with neoliberalism bought them time as neocons were slavering
for a new target. It also made the inner circle a ridiculous amount of money.
Drought made life terrible for many rural syrians. When the conflict started,
if you read this website you'd notice people wondering what was going on
and as facts unfolded. realizing that Assad was the lesser of two evils,
and as the war has gone on, look like an angel in comparison to the opposition.
You can't change the fact that it took less than 2 years for the opposition
to be dominated by both foreign and domestic takfiris who wanted to impose
saudi style culture on an open relatively prosperous cosmopolitan country.
They've succeeded in smashing it to pieces. Snuff your balanced account
and your bold anti racism
Debsisdead sets up a strawman - racism against Islamic fundamentalists
and validity of opposition against Assad - and uses this to sidestep
that the armed conflict originated with scheming by foreign governments
to use extremists as a weapon.
"If you want to call me a Zionist lackey of the imperialists or whatever
it was go right ahead - it is only yourself who you tarnish, I'm secure
in the knowledge of my own work against imperialism, corporate domination
and Zionism but perhaps you, who have a need to throw aspersions are not?"
Passive-aggressive much?
The fight IS "binary". You support Assad and his fighters, the true rebels,
or you don't. Calling Assad a "hack" is a slander of a veritable hero. Watch
his interviews. Assad presides over a multi-cultural, multi-confessional,
diverse, secular state, PRECISELY what the Reptilians claim they cherish.
"the Syrian government put staying in power via adopting neoliberal strictures
ahead of the welfare of Syrians." - on that we can agree.
It continues to annoy me that the primary trigger for the civil war in
Syria has been totally censored from the press. The government deliberately
ignited a population explosion, making the sale or possession of condoms
or birth control pills illegal and propagandizing that it was every woman's
patriotic duty to have six kids. The population doubled every 18 years,
from 5 million to 10 million to 20 million and then at 22 the water ran
out and things fells apart. Syria is a small country mostly arid plateau,
in principle it could be developed to support even more people just not
in that amount of time and with the resources that the Syrians actually
had.
No the issue was not 'climate change'. The aquifers in Syria had been
falling for years, even when rainfall was above normal. Don't blame the
weather.
"The more the merrier" - tell me exactly how people having more children
than they can support creates wealth? It doesn't and it never has.
Whenever governments treat their people as if they were cattle, demanding
that they breed the 'correct' number of children rather than making the
decision based on their own desires and judgement of how many they can support,
the result is always bad.
Assad treated the people of Syria as if they were cattle. Surely this
deserves mention?
Cultural "left" bullshit at its best. Cultural "leftists" don't need to
know any hostory or have any understanding of a political issue: it's sufficient
to pull out a few details from the NATO press and apply their grad school
"oppression" analysis.
Thanks to b for posting the comment of Debs is Dead. The point I would take
issue with is where he states "I realize many have quite foolishly IMO,
adopted President Assad as some sort of model of virtue. . ."
I don't believe this is a correct realization. I think the many to whom
he refers know very well that any person in leadership of a country can
be found to have flaws, major and minor, and even to have more of such than
the average mortal. The crucial counterpoint, however, which used to be
raised fairly often, is that it is the acceptance of the majority of the
people governed by such leaders that ought to be the international norm
for diplomatic relations.
I respect the knowledge DiD has gained from his Syrian friends and contacts.
But I also remember a man called Chilabi and am very leery of destabilization
attempts this country has been engaged in lo these many generations, using
such displaced persons as surrogates. And rather than properly mourn the
9/11 victims and brave firemen and rescuers of that terrible day, I find
myself mourning the larger tragedy of unnecessary wars launched as a consequence
of our collective horror at that critical moment in our history.
After making sound point about black-and-white worldview being unrealistic,
the guy goes full retard. Position towards Palestinians as the one and only
criteria to judge ME developments... C'mon, it's not even funny.
And while started from a "My Syrian friends" then he goes on reasoning on
behalf of one single ex-Palestinian ex-Syrian guy...
Looks like self-revelation of a kind. Some guy, sitting in Israel, or whatever,
waging informational warfare for the Mossad/CIA/NGO who pays his rent.
"The government deliberately ignited a population explosion, making the
sale or possession of condoms or birth control pills illegal and propagandizing
that it was every woman's patriotic duty to have six kids."
DiD: "I realize many have quite foolishly IMO, adopted President Assad as
some sort of model of virtue. . ." The big reveal is that DiD can't name
a single contributor here who has written that Assad is "some sort of model
of virtue."
It doesn't mean he's a saint that Assad is leading the very popular 'secular/multi-confessional
Syria' resistance against an extremely well-funded army primarily of non-Syrians
who are mainly 'headchoppers' who will stop at nothing to impose Saudi-style
religious dictatorship on Syria.
The 'moderate' opposition to Assad has
largely disappeared (back into the loyal opposition that does NOT want a
Saudi-style state imposed on Syria), but those who remain in armed rebellion
surely must know that they are a powerless, very small portion of what is
in fact mercenary army completely subservient to the needs and directives
of its primary funders/enablers, the US and Saudi Arabia. So whatever their
original noble intentions, they've become part of the Saudi/US imperial
problem.
Thanks for addressing the problem of angry comments by some posters who
just want to throw verbal grenades is unacceptable. I hope this site continues
to be a great source for sharing information and ideas.
Why in God's name was this pointless comment by Debs is Dead promoted this
way?!!! The only point being made, that I can see, is that the war in Syria
does have some legitimate issues at its root. WELL OF COURSE IT DOES. The
Hegemon rarely to never makes up civil unrest in countries it wants to overthrow
out of whole cloth. They take some dispute that is already there and ramp
it up; this process escalates until it turns into some form of a proxy war
or coup. In other words, the domestic political process is DISTORTED until
it is no longer remotely recognizable as a domestic process.
So sure, if the US and its allies had not stoked political factionism
in Syria into a global proxy war, we could discuss the fine details of the
Syrian domestic process very usefully. At this point, though, IT IS IRRELEVANT.
I do agree on one point: Assad joins the horrendous list of overlords
who thought they could make a deal with the Hegemon on their own terms.
Assad will pay for that mistake with his life very soon I would guess and
I think that Putin will too, though that might take a little longer. If
they had chosen to stand on principle as Chavez did, maybe they would be
dead as Chavez is (possibly done in, who knows), but they'd be remembered
with honor as Chavez is.
It is a shame no one stood up for Libya, for a surviving Gaddafi would have
emerged considerably stronger - as Assad eventually will.
Whatever genuine opposition there was has long been hijacked by opportunistic
takfiris, wahabbists and there various paymasters. And so as ruralito says
@25: "The fight IS "binary...". The fight is indeed binary, the enemy is
plural. Assad versus the many appearances of both the first and fourth kind.
Appearances to the mind are of four kinds.
Things either are what they appear to be;
or they neither are, nor appear to be;
or they are, and do not appear to be;
or they are not, and yet appear to be.
Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man's task. ~Epictetus
Where there is obfuscation lay the enemy, hence Russia's long game of
identification.
Does anyone remember the essay posted on this site a while back titled "The
Feckless Left?" I don't believe B posted it, but if memory serves it's posted
front and centre on the navigation bar beside this piece?
It really hammers those people like Tariq Ali, who while surely having
legitimate grievances against the Assad govt, opened the door for legitimation
of foreign sponsored war. They thought that funneling millions of dollars
worth of training, weapons and mercs would open the door for another secular
govt, but this time much 'better.' Surely.
No one thinks Assad is great. I really have trouble understanding where
that notion comes from. It's just that the alternative is surely much worse.
Lots of people didn't like Ghaddafi but jesus, I'm sure most Libyans would
wish they could turn back the clock (at the risk of putting words in their
mouths). It's not binary, no one sees this as good vs evil, its just that
its become so painfully obvious at this point that if the opposition wins
Syria will be so fucked in every which way. Those with real, tangible grievances
are never going to have their voices heard. It will become the next Libya,
except the US and it's clients will actually have a say in what's left of
the political body in the country if you could even label it that at that
point (which is quite frightenening in my eyes. Libya is already a shit
show and they don't have much of a foothold there besides airstrikes and
that little coastal base for the GNA to have their photo ops).
I find it ironic that when criticisms are levelled at Assad from the
left they usually point out things that had he done more of, and worse of,
he probably would be free of this situation and still firmly in power. If
he had bowed down to Qatar and the KSA/USA I wonder if the 'armed opposition'
would still have their problems with him? That's the ultimate irony to me.
If he had accepted the pipelines, the privatization regimes, etc. would
they still be hollering his name? It's very sad that even with the balancing
act he did his country has been destroyed. Even if the SAA is able to come
out on top at this point, the country is wholly destroyed. What's even the
point of a having a 'legitimate' or 'illegitimate' opposition when they're
essentially fighting over scraps now. I'd be surprised if they could rebuild
the country in 120 years. Libya in my eyes will never be what it once was.
It'll never have the same standards of living after being hit with a sledgehammer.
I don't mean to be ironic or pessimistic, its just a sad state of affairs
all around and everyday it seems more and more unlikely that any halfway
decent solution for the POPULATION OF SYRIA, not Assad, will come out of
this.. It's like, I'm no nationalist, but in many countries I kind of would
rather that than the alternative. Ghaddafi wasn't great but his people could've
been a lot worse of - and ARE a lot worse of now. I'm no Assad fan, but
my god look what the alternative is here. If it wasnt 95% foreign sponsored
maybe id see your point.
Read the essay posted on the left there. "Syria, the Feckless Left" IIRC.
I thought that summed up my thoughts well enough.
And guys, even if you agree with me please refrain from the name calling.
It makes those of you with a legitimate rebuttal seem silly and wrong. I've
always thought MoA was so refreshing because it was (somewhat) free of that.
At least B is generating discussion. I kind of appreciate that. It's nice
to hear ither views, even if they are a little unrealistic and pro violent
and anti democratic.
An example of an armed opposition with legitimate grievances that is
far from perfect but still very sympathetic (in my eyes) is hizbollah. They
have real problems to deal with. While they recieve foreign sponsorship
they aren't a foreign group the way the Syrian opposition is. And they will
be all but destroyed when their supply lines from Syria are cut off. I wonder
how that fits in with OPs post.
What makes Debs is Dead's turgid comment so irrational is that it endorses
Regime Change in Syria as an ongoing, but necessary and inevitable, "good".
But in doing so it tip-toes around the fact that it doesn't matter how Evil
an elected President is, or is not, it's up to the the people who elected
him to decide when they've had enough. It most certainly is NOT Neoconned
AmeriKKKa's concern.
Debs also 'forgot' to justify totally wrecking yet another of many ME
countries because of perceived and imaginary character flaws in a single
individual.
It does not compute; but then neither does "Israel's" 70 year (and counting)
hate crime, The Perpetual Palestinian Holohoax.
Whatever happened to the age old expression that one has to walk in someone
else's shoes to understand their walk in life?
In an all too obvious fashion, another arm chair expert is blessing the
world with his/her drivel.
To make it as concise as possible:
What would you have done in Assad's position? The U.S. is trying to annex
Syria since 1948 and never gave up on the plan to convert it to what the
neo-fascists turned Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia and the Republic of
Yugoslavia - whereas Yemen is still in the making, together with Ukraine,
Turkey and Africa as a whole.
In the light of U.S. 'foreign policy', the piece reeks of the stench
of obfuscation.
Debs also 'forgot' to justify totally wrecking yet another of many ME
countries because of perceived and imaginary character flaws in a single
individual.
We shouldn't be surprised. Even a basic pragmatic approach to this conflict
has been lost by many in the one sided, over the top shower of faeces that
is the western MSM.
It does not compute; but then neither does "Israel's" 70 year (and
counting) hate crime, The Perpetual Palestinian Holohoax.
All that land, all that resource...and a unifying language. Amazing.
If only the Arab world could unite for the collective good of the region
we might witness a rogue state in an abrupt and full decline. A sad tactic of colonial powers over the years, setting the native tribes
upon each other. We've not evolved here.
It is impossible for any one of us to possess the whole picture, which is
why we pool our experience, and benefit from these discussions. The thing
I see at the root of the Syrian war is the process of ethnic cleansing.
In many cases that involve murderous prejudice, it erupts as civil war;
but in recent history the foreign policy of powerful nations is aimed at
sponsoring social disintegration within the borders of targeted countries.
Ethnic cleansing means destruction of culture, of historical memory,
the forced disappearance of communities that were rooted in a place.
The objectives of the perpetrators have nothing to do with the convictions
of the fundamentalists who do the dirty work; and the sectarian and mercenary
troops are merely the tools of those who are creating hell on earth.
I agree with what papa wrote at the top of this thread:
why you think your article is different from others senseless name-calling,[?]
i see exactly the same. This war is about destroying real history, civilization,
culture and replacing with fake. The war in Yemen is the same. Who in
that region wants to replace real history with fake. Think about it.
Most Islamic,Christian, Assyrian history is systematically being destroyed.
Compare President Assad's leadership to that of the western, or Saudi, sponsors
of terror; or measure his decisions against those of the hodgepodge of rebels
and mercenaries, with their endless internal squabbles and infighting. Assad
is so much more of a spokesman for the rights of sovereignty, and his words
carry more weight and outshine the banalities that spring from the mouths
of those who are paying the bills, and supplying weapons, and giving all
kinds of diplomatic comfort to the enemies of the Syrian government.
Debsisdead has always brought much food for thought to this watering
hole. I have always respected him, and I think he has a fine mind. Nonetheless,
despite the valuable contribution of this piece as a beginning place, in
which we might reevaluate some of our presumptions, I maintain there are
a few errors which stand out, and ought to be discussed.
I call into question these two points:
(1) Just because someone chooses an option that you disagree with does
not make them evil or headchoppers or Islamofacist.
Up thread @14, we were reminded of Robert Fisk's report about misdirected,
misinformed "freedom fighters" naively wandering around in Syria, while
thinking that they were fighting in Palestine. In this ruin of Syria, where
the well-intentioned are captured, or co-opted into evil acts against the
civilian population, --is it really incumbent upon us, --from where we sit,
to agonize over the motives of those who are committing the actual atrocities
against the defenseless? What is the point?
(2) On balance I would rather see Assad continue as leader of Syria
but I'm not so naive as to believe he is capable of finding a long term
resolution, or that there are not a good number of self interested murderous
sadists in his crew. By the same token I don't believe all of those
resisting the Ba'athist administration are headchopping jihadists or
foreign mercenaries. This war is about 5 years old. If either side were
so simplistically good or evil it would have ended a long time ago.
There is no need for sorting things into absolutes of good and evil.
But there is a condition under which fewer, a lot fewer, humans would have
died in Syria, Without foreign interference--money, weapons, and training--Assad's
government would have won this war quite a while ago.
And as for "Islamic Fundamentalism", it is this abnormal form of Islam
that is purely based on racism and not the other way around. Islamic
fundamentalists call everybody, and I mean everybody, who is not living
according to their rule a non-believer, a Takfiri, who does not deserver
to live.
Fundamentalism is never satisfied until it can become a tyranny over the
mind. Racism and fundamentalism are as American as apple pie. You have to
take a close look at who is pouring oil on this fire!
@9 I disagree with you in that neoliberalism is seriously not difficult to
define. It boils down to belief that public programs are bad/'inefficient'
and that society would be better served by privatizing many things(or even
everything) and opening services up to 'competition'. It's mainly just cover
for parasites to come in and get rich off of the masses misery. The 'neoliberalism
is just a snarl word' meme is incredibly stupid, since plenty of books and
articles have been written explicitly defining it.
"Having determined your definition of neoliberal, are you sure it WAS
neoliberal rather than a hegemonic entity?"
American economic hegemony is inherently neoliberal, and has been for
decades. The IMF is essentially an international loan shark that gives countries
money on the condition that they dismantle their public spending apparatus
and let the market run things.
I usually enjoy DiD's rants (rant in the nice sense), but in this case he
is wrong. His remarks are out of date.
No doubt he has Syrian friends in NZ, including the Syro-Palestinian
he mentions. They will have been living their past vision of Syria for some
time. Yes, back in 2011, there was a big vision of a future democratic Syria
among the intellectuals. However those who fight for the rebellion are not
middle class (who left) but rural Islamist Sunnis, who have a primitive
al-Qa'ida style view.
The Syrian civil war is quite like the Spanish civil war. It started
with noble republicans, including foreigners like Orwell, fighting against
nasty Franco, but finished with Stalin's communists fighting against Nazi-supported
fascists.
The situation is different now. One Syrian lady, who came to see me in
April, who lives in California, told me that her father, who was a big pre-war
oppositionist, now just wants to return to Syria to die. There's no question. if you want peace in Syria, Asad is the only choice.
The jihadis, who dominate the opposition, don't offer an alternative.
Noirette comes close to identifying one of the issues that kicked off
the conflict, that the Syrian government put staying in power via adopting
neoliberal strictures ahead of the welfare of Syrians.
The Ba'thist regime is a mafia of the family, not a dictatorship of Bashshar.
Evidently their own interest plays a premier role, but otherwise why not
in favour of the Syrian people? There's lot of evidence in favour of Syrian
peace.
The lesson of Viet Nam was to keep the dead and wounded off the six o'clock
news.
The jackals are going in. Another coup. Syria was on the list. Remap
the Middle East. Make it like Disney World. Israel as Mad King Ludwig's
Neuschwanstein.
Islam and its backward dictates, and Christianity with its backward dictates
and Manifest Destiny are problematic.
I may be white and I may be a fella but don't believe I'm in the fold as
described. Fundamentalists of any sort are free to believe as they will
but when they force it on others via gun, govt, societal pressures, violence
there's trouble. I've seen comparisons to the extremes from Christianity's
past with the excuse of Islam as being in its early years. No excuses. Fundies
out. But we don't see that in places like Saudi Arabia or Iran. Facts on
the ground rule. Iran had a bit more moderation but only under the tyrant
Shah. A majority may have voted for the Islamic Republic and all that entails
but what of the minority?
BTW, where are the stories (links) that show Bashar has embraced neoliberalism?
In the end, DiD reduced to pointing to two evils (with multi-facets) and
it looks like Assad is the lesser. But who can come up with a solution for
a country so divided and so infiltrated by outsiders? And here in the US,
look at the choice of future leaders that so many do not want. Where is
the one who will lead the US out of its BS? And who will vote for him/her?
Thanks to B for republishing the comment from Debsisdead. The comment raises
some issues about how people generally see the war in Syria, if they know
of it, as some sort of real-life video game substitute for bashing one side
or another.
I am not sure though that Debsisdead realises the full import of what
s/he has said and that much criticism s/he makes about comments in MoA comments
forums could apply equally to what s/he says and has said in the past.
I don't think anyone who comments here regularly ever assumed that Bashar
al Assad was a knight in white shining armour. Most of us are aware of how
he came to be President and that his father did rule the country from 1971
to 2000 with an iron fist. Some if not most also know that initially when
Bashar al Assad succeeded to the Presidency, he did have a reformist agenda
in mind. How well or not he succeeded in putting that across, what compromises
he had to make, who or what opposed him, how he negotiated his way between
and among various and opposed power structures in Syrian politics we do
not know.
Yes, I have trouble reconciling the fact that Bashar al Assad's government
did allow CIA renditioning with his reformist agenda in my own head. That
is something he will have to come to terms with in the future. I don't know
if Assad was naive, under pressure or willing, even eager in agreeing to
cooperate with the CIA, or trying to buy time to prepare for invasion once
Iraq was down. Whether Assad also realises that he was duped by the IMF
and World Bank in following their advice on economic "reforms" (such as
privatising Syria's water) is another thing as well.
But one thing that Debsisdead has overlooked is the fact that Bashar
al Assad is popular among the Syrian public, who returned him as President
in multi-candidate direct elections held in June 2014 with at least 88%
of the vote (with a turnout of 73%, better than some Western countries)
and who confirmed his popularity in parliamentary elections held in April
2016 with his Ba'ath Party-led coalition winning roughly two-thirds of seats.
The fact that Syrians themselves hold Assad in such high regard must
say something about his leadership that has endeared him to them. If as
Debsisdead suggests, Assad practises self-interested "realpolitik" like
so many other Middle Eastern politicians, even to the extent of offering
reconciliation to jihadis who lay down their weapons and surrender, how
has he managed to survive and how did Syria manage to hold off the jihadis
and US-Turkish intervention and supply before requesting Russian help?
Copeland @58: I don't see why you call the problem "Islamic fundamentalism"
when in fact it is Sunni fundamentalism. Admittedly it's tough to 'name'
the problem. I'm sure I speak for most here that the problem isn't fundamentalism
but 'warring imperialist fundamentalist and misogynist Sunni Islam' that
is the problem.
It'd be nice to have a brief and accurate way of saying
what this is: 'Saudi Arabia violently exporting its worst form of Islam'.
When people refer to Christian fundamentalism they use the broad term
as well. Nothing is otherwise wrong with denominational belief, if past
a certain point it is not fundamentalist. You say the problem is not fundamentalism,
but something else. Indeed, the problem is fundamentalism.
Manifest
Destiny is fundamentalism. There are even atheist fundamentalists. "Full
Spectrum Dominance" and other US Military doctrines are fundamentalist in
nature. We are awash in fundamentalism, consumerist fundamentalism, capitalist
fundamentalism. If we are unlucky and don't succeed in changing the path
we are on; then we will understand too late the inscription that appeared
in the Temple of Apollo: "Nothing too much".
They say that the first casualty of war is truth and from what I read in
comments such a mental state prevails among readers, they see Assad, quite
reasonably, as the only one who can end this horrible war and the only one
who is really interested in doing so while US and even seemingly Russia
seems to treat this conflict as a instrument of global geopolitical struggle
instigated by US imperial delusions.
But of course one cannot escape conclusion that although provoked by
the CIA operation Bashir Assad failed years befor 2011 exactly because,
living in London, did not see neoliberalism as an existential threat ad
his father did but a system that has its benefits and can be dealt with,
so for a short while Saddam, Gaddafi and Mubarak thought while they were
pampered by western elites.
Now Assad is the only choice I'd Syrians want to keep what would resemble
unified Syrian state since nobody else seems to care.
I have no doubt that Assad was little more than a crude Arab strongman/dictator
prince back in the 2011 when the uprising started.
Since then, he has evolved into a committed, engaged defender of his
country against multilateral foreign aggression, willingly leaving his balls
in the vice and all.
He could have fled the sinking ship many times so far. Instead, he decided
to stay and fight the Takfiri river flowing in through the crack, and risk
going down with the ship he inherited. The majority of the Syrians know
this very well.
Bashar of 2016 (not so much the one of 5 1/2 years ago) would not only
win the next free elections, but destroy any opposition. The aggressors
know that as a fact.
Which is precisely why he "must go" prior to any such elections. He would
be invincible.
"This war is about 5 years old. If either side were so simplistically
good or evil it would have ended a long time ago."
Question to you:
if Syria had control over its borders with Turkey, Israel, Jordan and
Iraq would the war have ended a long time ago ? Answer honestly.
If yes, then the so-called "opposition" of the union of headchoppers
does not represent a significant portion of the Syrian people. Were it otherwise
Assad wouldnt be able to survive a single year, let alone 5. With or without
foreign help.
And that, my friend, may be the biggest oft ignored cui bono of the entire
Syrian war.
If Assad goes:
Syria falls apart. Western Golan has no more debtor nation to be returned
to as far as the UN go. It immediately becomes fee simple property of the
occupying entity, for as long as the occupier shall exist (and, with Western
Golan included, that might be a bit longer perchance...).
Hizbullah loses both its best supply line and all the strategic depth
it might have as well as the only ally anywhere close enough to help. It
becomes a military non-entity. Who benefits?
I think this cui bono (and a double one at that!) is a $100 difficulty
level question, although it feels like a $64k one.
Best opinion post I've yet read on this site. "Binary division," also very
much affects the U.S. election. If you hate Hillary, you must just LOVE
Trump, even though many of the best reasons to hate her--her arrogance,
her incompetence, her phoniness, her lies, her and Bill's relentless acquisition
of great wealth, etc.--are also reasons to hate Trump. Assad is a bastard,
Putin is a bastard, Saddam was a bastard--but so are Obama, Netanyahu, Hollande,
etc. Is it REALLY that hard to figure out?
@ 62 john... we'll have to wait for debs to explain how all that (in your
link) adds up, so long as no one calls him any name/s.... i'd like to say
'the anticipation of debs commenting again is killing me', but regardless,
killing innocent people in faraway lands thanks usa foreign policy is ongoing..
OK here is an interesting article from 2011 on Abdallah Dardari, the fellow
who persuaded Bashar al Assad to adopt the disastrous neoliberal economic
reforms that not only ruined Syria's economy and the country's agriculture
in particular but also created an underclass who resented the reforms and
who initially joined the "rebels". http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/2097
And where is Dardari now? He jumped ship in 2011 and went to Beirut to
work for the UN's Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA).
He seems like someone to keep a watchful eye on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_Dardari
not even sure where to begin...this article is barely worthy of a random
facebook post and contains a roughly even mix of straw men and stuff most
people already know and don't need dictated to them by random internet folks.
of COURSE assad flirted with the west. between housing cia rendition
houses and the less-than-flattering aspects of the wikileaks "syria files",
assad and/or his handlers (family and/or military) have tried a little too
hard to "assimilate" to western ideals (or the lack thereof).
i seriously
doubt they will make that mistake again. they saw what happened to al-qaddafi
after he tried to play nice and mistook western politicians for human beings.
they've learned their lesson and become more ruthless but they were always
machiavellians because they have to be. not an endorsement, just an acceptance
of how the region is.
and then there's "just about every ME leader has put expedience ahead
of principle with regard to Palestine. Colonel Ghadaffi would be the only
leader I'm aware of who didn't". that might be a surprise to nasrallah and
a fair share of iran's power base. i'd also say "expedience" is an odd way
to describe the simple choice of avoiding israeli/saudi/US aggression in
the short term since the alternative would be what we're seeing in syria
and libya as we speak. again, not an endorsment of their relative cowardice.
just saying i understand the urge to avoid salfist proxy wars.
[also: israel, the saudis (along with qatar and the other GCC psychopaths
in supporting capacity) and the US are the main actors and throwing european
"powers" into the circle of actual power does them an undue favor by ignoring
their status as pathetic vassal states. "FrUkDeUSZiowhatever" isn't necessary.]
as for "calling all islamic fundamentalism" "headchopping" being "racist",
be sure not to smoke around all those straw men. never mind the inanity
of pretending that all islamic "fundamentalism" is the same. never mind
conflating religion with ethnicity. outside of typical western sites that
lean to the right and are open about it few people would say anything like
that. maybe you meant to post this on glenn beck's site?
whatever. hopefully there won't be more guest posts in the future.
I read this site regularly and give thanks to the numerous intelligent posters
who share their knowledge of the middle east and Syria in particular. Still,
I do try to read alternative views to understand opposition perspectives
no matter how biased or damaging these might they appear to the readers
of this blog. So in the wake of recent agreements, I try find out what the
mainstream media is saying about the Ahrar al-Sham refusal to recognize
the US/Russia sponsored peace plan....and type that into google.......and
crickets. All that comes up is a single Al-Masdar report.
Look I know the
MSM is utterly controlled - but the extent of that control still shocks
at times. It is simply not possible to be "informed" by any normal definition
of the word anymore without the alternative media - and for that reason
this site serves a valuable purpose and I once again thank the host and
contributors.
The irony is, Assad is 10x smarter and bigger person than Debs. Yes, he
made some mistakes, but if not "flirting with neoliberalism", war against
Syria would have started many years earlier, when Resistance wasnt ready
one bit (neither Russia, nor Iran, while on the other hand US was more powerful).
The other ironic point, Debs is guilty of many things he blames other
for, hence comments about his hypocrisy and lack of self-awareness.
The essay I refered to earlier at 45/46 from this site I'll post below.
I think it has a lot of bearing on what DiD is implying here. It's DEFINITELY
worth a read and is probably the reason why I started appreciating this
site in the first place.
Support for rebel groups was misguided at best at the beginning of the
war. One could conceivably not appreciate the capacity of the KSA/USA/Quatar/Israel
to influence and control and create these groups. Jesus it's hard for me
to think of a single local opposition group that isnt drenched in fanaticism
besides the Kurds. But now that we understand the makeup and texture of
these groups much more and to continue support, even just in the most minor
of ways, is really disheartening.
There's no way to a solution for the Syrian
people, the population not imported that is, if these groups win. I hate
to be so binary but its so naive in my eyes to think anything good will
come from the long arm of the gulf countries and the USA taking control.
WORTH A READ. ONE OF THE BEST THINGS EVER POSTED ON MoA.
Richard Steven Hack | Sep 13, 2016 3:38:32 AM |
79
The problem with this post is simple: all this might have been true back
when the insurgency STARTED. TODAY it is UTTERLY IRRELEVANT.
As I've said repeatedly, the GOAL of the Syria crisis for the Western
elites, Israel and the ME dictatorships is to take Syria OUT by any means
necessary in order to get to IRAN. Nothing else matters to these people.
In the same vein, nothing else matters to ninety percent of the CURRENT
insurgents than to establish some Salafist state, exterminate the Shia,
etc., etc.
So, yes, right NOW the whole story is about US elites, Zionist "evil",
corrupt monarchs, and scumbag fanatics, etc., etc. Until THAT is resolved,
nothing about how Syria is being run is going to matter.
I don't know and have never read ANYONE who is a serious commenter on
this issue - and by that I mean NOT the trolls that infest every comment
thread on every blog - who seriously thinks Assad is a "decent ruler". At
this point it does not matter. He personally does not matter. What matters
is that Syria is not destroyed, so that Hizballah is not destroyed, so that
Iran is not destroyed, so that Israel rules a fragmented Middle East and
eventually destroys the Palestinians and that the US gets all the oil for
free. This is what Russia is trying to defend, not Assad.
And if this leaves a certain percentage of Syrian citizens screwed over
by Assad, well, they should have figured that out as much as Assad should
have figured out that he never should have tried to get along with the US.
Frankly, this is a pointless post which is WAY out of date.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Sep 13, 2016 3:38:32 AM | 79
In the same vein, nothing else matters to ninety percent of the CURRENT
insurgents than to establish some Salafist state, exterminate the Shia,
etc., etc.
"We had to be fighters," he said, "because we didn't find any other
job. If you want to stay inside you need to be a part of the FSA [Free
Syrian Army, the group that has closest relations with the West]. Everything
is very expensive. They pay us $100 a month but it is not enough.
"All this war is a lie. We had good lives before the revolution.
Anyway this is not a revolution. They lied to us in the name of religion.
"I don't want to go on fighting but I need to find a job, a house.
Everything I have is here in Muadhamiya."
...
.. who seriously thinks Assad is a "decent ruler". At this point it does
not matter. He personally does not matter.
...
Frankly, this is a pointless post which is WAY out of date.
Posted by: Richard Steven Hack | Sep 13, 2016 3:38:32 AM | 79
Well, according to RSH, who specialises in being wrong...
Assad does matter because he is the ELECTED leader chosen by the People
of Syria in MORE THAN ONE election.
Did you forget?
Did you not know?
Or doesn't any of that "democracy" stuff matter either?
Israel said its aircraft attacked a Syrian army position on Tuesday after
a stray mortar bomb struck the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, and it
denied a Syrian statement that a warplane and drone were shot down.
The air strike was a now-routine Israeli response to the occasional spillover
from fighting in a five-year-old civil war, and across Syria a ceasefire
was holding at the start of its second day.
Syria's army command said in a statement that Israeli warplanes had attacked
an army position at 1 a.m. on Tuesday (2200 GMT, Monday) in the countryside
of Quneitra province.
The Israeli military said its aircraft attacked targets in Syria hours
after the mortar bomb from fighting among factions in Syria struck the Golan
Heights. Israel captured the plateau from Syria in a 1967 war.
The Syrian army said it had shot down an Israeli warplane and a drone
after the Israeli attack.
Denying any of its aircraft had been lost, the Israeli military said
in a statement: "Overnight two surface-to-air missiles were launched from
Syria after the mission to target Syrian artillery positions. At no point
was the safety of (Israeli) aircraft compromised."
The seven-day truce in Syria, brokered by Russia and the United States,
is their second attempt this year by to halt the bloodshed.
Copeland @60: No, I don't think the problem is fundamentalism. It's the
warring crusade method of spreading a belief's 'empire' that is the problem.
This is a problem uniquely of the Saudi 'do whatever it takes' crusade to
convert the entire 'Arab and Muslim world' to their worst, most misogynist
form of Islam. T
here are of course many fundamentalists (the Amish and some
Mennonites are examples from Christianity) that are not evangelical, or
put severe (no violence, no manipulation, no kidnapping, stop pushing if
the person says 'no') limits on their evangelism.
Only the Saudis, or pushers
of their version of Islam, seem to put no limits at all on their sect's
crusade.
Just want to mention that from the beginning there were people who took
up arms against the government. This is why the situation went out of control.
People ambushed groups of young soldiers. Snipers of unknown origin fired
on police and civilians.
There are plenty of people in the United States right now who are just
as oppressed - I would wager more so - than anyone in Syria. Immigrants
from the south are treated horribly here. There are still black enclaves
in large cities where young men are shot by the police on a daily basis
for suspicious behavior and minor driving infractions. And then there are
the disenfranchised white folks in the Teaparty who belong to the NRA and
insist on 'open carry' of their weapons on the street and train in the back
woods for a coming war. Tell me what would happen if there were a guarantor
these people found believable who promised them that if they took up arms
against the government (and anyone else in the country they felt threatened
by) they would be guaranteed to win and become the government of a 'New
America'. What if that foreign guarantor were to pay them and improve their
armaments while providing political cover.
I rather like Assad. I won't lie. But, he is not the reason for the insurrection
in Syria ~ well, except for his alliances with Russia and Iran and his pipeline
decisions and his support for Palestinian and Iraqi refugees. What happened
in Syria is happening all over the globe because the nation with the most
resources in the world, the self-declared exceptionalist state thinks this
is the way to rule the world. . . . because they want to rule and they don't
care how much destruction it takes to do so. And lucky for us there is no
one big enough and bad enough to do it to us - except for our own government.
"All of the petrodollars Saudi Arabia spends to advance this claim of
leadership and the monopolistic use of Islam's greatest holy sites to manufacture
a claim of entitlement to Muslim leadership were shattered by this collective
revolt from leading Sunni Muslim scholars and institutions who refused to
allow extremism, takfir, and terror ideology to be legitimized in their
name by a fringe they decided that it is even not part of their community.
This is the beginning of a new era of Muslim awakening the Wahhabis spared
no efforts and no precious resources to ensure it will never arrive."
Assad (=> group in power), whose stated aim was to pass from a 'socialist'
to a 'market' economy. Notes.
*decreased public sector employment.* -- was about 30%, went far
lower (1) - was a staple: one 'smart' graduate in the family guaranteed
a good Gvmt job, could support many.
*cut subsidies* (energy, water, housing, food, etc.) drought (2005>)
plus these moves threw millions into cities with no jobs.. pre-drought
about 20% agri empl. cuts to agri subsidies created the most disruption.
imho was spurred by the sharply declining oil revenues (peak oil..)
which accounted for ?, 15% GDP in 2002 for ex to a few slim points edging
to nil in 2012, consequences:
> a. unemployment rose 'n rose (to 35-40% youth? xyz overall?), and social
stability was affected by family/extended f/ district etc. organisation
being smashed. education health care in poor regions suffered (2)
> b. small biz of various types went under becos loss of subs, competition
from outsiders (free market policy), lack of bank loans it is said by some
but idk, and loss of clients as these became impoverished. Syria does not
have a national (afaik) unemployment scheme. Assad to his credit
set up a cash-transfer thingie to poor families, but that is not a subsitute
for 'growing employment..'
*opened up the country's banking system* (can't treat the details..)
So Assad was hit by a Tri-horror: global warming, dwindling cash
FF resources, and IMF-type pressure, leaving out the trad. enemies, KSA,
pipelines , etc. MSM prefer to cover up serious issues with 'ethnic strife'
(sunni, shia, black lives matter, etc.)
1. all nos off the top of my head.
2. Acceptance of a massive refugee pop. (Pals in the past, Kurds, but
numerically important now, Iraqis) plus the high birth rate
2011> 10 year plan syria in arabic (which i can't read) but look at images
and 'supporters' etc.
"... Nevertheless, the ludicrous Washington Post, beloved rag of the neocons who have now flocked to Clinton's campaign, have seen fit to run the story above, which has even less evidential backing than the typical Enquirer or Prison Planet piece. ..."
"... I don't care about Clinton's swoon and its various medical causes. ..."
"... What I do care about is that the Washington Post is publishing crackpot paranoid conspiracy theories with potentially dangerous foreign policy consequences. ..."
Yesterday, I sardonically commented here that I was surprised the Putin-paranoid Clintonites had
not tried blaming Putin for Hillary Clinton's pneumonia.
Little did I know that Putimonia theory
was already out there!
The sad, sad, sad continuing decline of the American mind.
Dan Kervick said in reply to pgl...
It was 80 degrees. There have been many far hotter days here in the northeast this summer.
Clinton didn't pass out because it was hot and humid. She passed out because she has pneumonia.
It happens; people get sick.
Nevertheless, the ludicrous Washington Post, beloved rag of the neocons who have now flocked
to Clinton's campaign, have seen fit to run the story above, which has even less evidential backing
than the typical Enquirer or Prison Planet piece.
America has jumped the shark. You fools will have to launch WW III on the strength of your
own votes, since you won't have mine.
Dan Kervick -> DeDude...
I don't care about Clinton's swoon and its various medical causes.
What I do care about is that the Washington Post is publishing crackpot paranoid conspiracy
theories with potentially dangerous foreign policy consequences.
Hmmmmm - are we a little overheated this morning? May I suggest sitting down and drinking some
gatorade.
Dan Kervick said in reply to DeDude...
It is indeed dangerous when one of the most prominent newspapers in America floats a cuckoo
conspiracy theory - without even a tiny shred of evidence - to the effect that a prominent foreign
leader might have poisoned a presidential candidate.
Democrats are now plunging en masse down these various rabbit holes because they see a short-term
political edge in them, and because their anxiety.
Partisanship is a terrible mental illness. It makes previously sane people lose their bearings.
DeDude said in reply to Dan Kervick...
Omalu was previously sane???? Must have been before my time. Seriously Dan - Gatorade!!!
Dan Kervick said in reply to DeDude...
I'm talking about you people. Also, the editors of the Washington Post.
If you think that Omalu is not sane then don't you agree it is irresponsible to publish his
ravings?
According to a front-page
story in the Washington Post , U.S. agencies are investigating what they perceive as
"a broad covert Russian operation in the United States to sow public distrust in the upcoming presidential
election and in U.S. political institutions". The story is vague and short on details.
... ... ...
One of several unfortunate truths regarding the weakening integrity of American democracy involves
the destruction of campaign finance laws and making electoral outcomes reflect the wallets of a few
at least as much as the minds of many. Another unattractive and undemocratic element is the extensive
gerrymandering in which both major parties indulge, thereby subordinating popular will to the crude
power of incumbency. Even more of an affront to democracy in the last few years has been the blatant
use of legislative power at the state level by members of one party to impede the ability of followers
of the other party to exercise their right to vote, with the rationale for this power play being
prevention of a form of voter fraud that has been so rare as to be almost nonexistent. American democracy
is looking less and less distinct from the rickety versions of democracy in much of the less developed
world, in which the bending of rules by incumbents to frustrate challenges to their rule is common.
Most recently we have the presidential nominee of one major party, Donald Trump, declaring preemptively
that if he loses it will be because the process was rigged. This also sounds a lot like many of those
unstable political systems that purport to be democracies, and in which non-acceptance of electoral
results is common. (See Gabon for
a recent example .)
American democracy is less of a shining, distinctive exemplar of political fairness and popular
sovereignty than it once was...
Meanwhile, Norman Birnbaum has good advice for Hillary Clinton in urging her "to shelve her devotion
to extending democracy to the rest of the world to concentrate on rescuing it for ourselves."
"... According to experts, by issuing this statement they seek to encourage Saudi, Gulf, and Muslim
youths to fight against Russian forces, similar to the recruitment of young fighters during the Afghan-Soviet
war ..."
"... The pretense, by Reuters , that Saudi Arabia is a religious-freedom country, is an insult to
their readership, but this falsehood helps to keep their readership thinking that somehow the West can
be allied with the Sauds and yet still call itself 'democratic' and allied only with 'democratic' governments,
not with some of the world's worst tyrannies. Realism in foreign affairs (such as to acknowledge that
some of the world's worst regimes are our government's allies) is fine, but it can't include lying to
one's own public, because that necessarily entails misinforming the voters on the basis of which any
actual democracy receives its very legitimacy as being a democracy, which seems less and less what countries
such as the US and UK are, at least after 9/11. ..."
"... A "democracy" and a "deceived public" cannot coexist in the same country and, at least in
the United States, a deceived public is what predominantly exists (as a consequence of a deceiving 'news'
media). ..."
"... Here is the operation that has been led by the Bush-Clinton-Obama-Saud-Thani alliance ..."
"... The leaders of Qatar are its owners, the Thani royal family, who are the main funders of the
Muslim Brotherhood, and who have long wanted to overthrow the secular Assad and to replace him with
a fundamentalist Sunni leader like themselves. ..."
"... The main subject of the conversation was to be the drought in the Arabic countries . That drought
was especially intense in Syria. ..."
Leaked emails are filling in the picture of a Bill-and-Hillary-Clinton plan to destroy Russia
a plan which had originated with US President George Herbert Walker Bush in 1990, and which has
been followed through both by his son George W Bush, and by both of the Clintons, but which has only
recently started to become documented by leaked publications of personal communications amongst the
key operatives who were the insiders running this operation behind the scenes, and who include Bill
Clinton, Hillary Clinton, George W Bush, Victoria Nuland, Jeffrey Feltman, Saudi Prince Bandar bin
Sultan al-Saud, Saudi Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman al-Saud, and the Emir of Qatar.
This operation came out into public view only briefly when the news site Zero Hedge
headlined on 6 October 2015 "Saudi Clerics Call For Jihad Against Russia, Iran" and linked to
a number of sources, including to a Wall Street Journal
report the day before, which simply ignored the Saudi involvement and headlined "US Sees Russian
Drive Against CIA-Backed Rebels in Syria", as if this matter were merely a US-vs-Russia issue, not
an issue involving the Saud family at all. By contrast, the Zero Hedge article closed with "'This
is a real war on Sunnis, their countries and their identities,' said the statement [by the International
Union of Muslim Scholars, which is based in Qatar, whose ruling family, the Thanis,
work closely with the Saud family]. It urged the rebels to join a 'jihad against the enemy
of God and your enemy, and Muslims will back you every way they can.'"
As a British news-site for jihadists
put the matter , "According to experts, by issuing this statement they seek to encourage
Saudi, Gulf, and Muslim youths to fight against Russian forces, similar to the recruitment of young
fighters during the Afghan-Soviet war". (That joint US-Saudi
operation , which was assisted by the Pakistani military and by Pakistan's heavily-Saudi-influenced
Islamic clergy, was the brainchild of Saudi Prince Bandar and of the born Polish aristocrat Zbigniew
Brzezinski, and its success at breaking up the Soviet Union is an enduring topic of pride for today's
jihadists.)
On 5 October 2015, the British mainstream 'news' site Reuters
had called these "Saudi opposition clerics", and alleged that they "are not affiliated
with the government", but Reuters' s statement (especially that these were "Saudi opposition
clerics" ) was simply false, and even ridiculously false, likely an outright lie, because Saudi
laws don't allow any "opposition clerics", especially not Islamic ones, since those would
be executed for publicly questioning the legitimacy of the country's rule by the royal Saud family,
which is what an "opposition cleric" in Saudi Arabia would, by definition, be doing, if any
of them existed there and hadn't been executed yet.
The pretense, by Reuters , that Saudi Arabia is a religious-freedom country, is an
insult to their readership, but this falsehood helps to keep their readership thinking that somehow
the West can be allied with the Sauds and yet still call itself 'democratic' and allied only with
'democratic' governments, not with some of the world's worst tyrannies. Realism in foreign affairs
(such as to acknowledge that some of the world's worst regimes are our government's allies) is fine,
but it can't include lying to one's own public, because that necessarily entails misinforming the
voters on the basis of which any actual democracy receives its very legitimacy as being a
democracy, which seems less and less what countries such as the US and UK are, at least after 9/11.
A "democracy" and a "deceived public" cannot coexist in the same country and, at least in
the United States, a deceived public is what predominantly exists (as a consequence of a deceiving
'news' media).
At http://www.whois.com/whois/clintonemail.com
, one learns that "Creation Date: 2009-01-13T05:00:00Z", meaning Hillary Clinton had set up her privatized
State Department email operation on January 13 th of 2009, six days prior to becoming
the US Secretary of State.
Here is the operation that has been led by the Bush-Clinton-Obama-Saud-Thani alliance:
From: Jeffrey Feltman To: Hillary Clinton Date: 2011-02-20 08:36 Subject: SAUD
UNCLASSIFIED US Department of State Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05778064 Date: 09/30/2015
RELEASE IN PART B1,B5,1.4(D) From: Feltman, Jeffrey D Sent: Sunday, February 20, 2011 3:36 PM H; Sullivan, JacobJ; HumaAbedin
To: Subject: RE:Saud Yes, I agree Bill should call. That's a good idea. He can brief on your
call with Saud. ■ B5 Original Message From: H [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, February
20, 2011 3:34 PM To: Feltman, Jeffrey 0; Sullivan, Jacob J; Huma Abedin Subject: Saud 1.4(D) B1
Also, Bill knows the CP [Crown Prince, now Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud] very well
and wants to call and offer support. Is that ok? Classified by DAS, A/GIS, DoS on 09/30/2015
Class: CONFIDENTIAL Reason: 1.4(D) Declassify on: 02/19/2036
Victoria Nuland: I think Yats is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing
experience. He's the What he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside. He needs to be talking
to them four times a week, you know. I just think Klitsch going in, he's going to be at that level
working for Yatseniuk, it's just not going to work.
Geoffrey Pyatt: Yeah, no, I think that's right. OK. Good. Do you want us to set up a call
with him as the next step?
Victoria Nuland: My understanding from that call but you tell me was that the big three
were going into their own meeting and that Yats was going to offer in that context a three-plus-one
conversation or three-plus-two with you. Is that not how you understood it?
Pyatt: No. I think I mean that's what he proposed but I think, just knowing the dynamic
that's been with them where Klitschko has been the top dog, he's going to take a while to show
up for whatever meeting they've got and he's probably talking to his guys at this point, so I
think you reaching out directly to him helps with the personality management among the three and
it gives you also a chance to move fast on all this stuff and put us behind it before they all
sit down and he explains why he doesn't like it.
Nuland: OK, good. I'm happy. Why don't you reach out to him and see if he wants to talk
before or after.
Pyatt: OK, will do. Thanks.
Nuland: OK, one more wrinkle for you Geoff. I can't remember if I told you this, or if I
only told Washington this, that when I talked to Jeff Feltman [who had, in 2011, been in Hillary's
State Department, but was now the U.N.'s Under Secretary-General immediately under Ban ki-Moon
for Political Affairs] this morning, he had a new name for the U.N. guy Robert Serry did I write
you that this morning?...
In other words, Feltman, who had been central in the operation to overthrow one leader who was
friendly toward Russia, Assad (to replace him there by jihadists); was now prominently involved also
in the operation to overthrow another leader friendly toward Russia, Yanukovych (to replace him there
by Nazis
) (and Russia, of course, cannot tolerate either jihadists or Nazis, so it tries to eliminate
both). (And, on 21 November 2014, the US was one of only 3 countries at the U.N.
voting against a resolution to condemn resurgent Nazism and holocaust-denial. The new, Nazi,
Americanized, Ukraine, was another of the three internationally pro-Nazi regimes.)
In exhibits 1 and 2, Feltman's counsel has been sought by Hillary regarding whether she should
receive Bill's assistance in setting up a discussion with "Saud", who might have been King Saud,
or else it was his #2, the Crown Prince, whom Bill personally knew.
It's important to note that Exhibits 1 and 2 are from 20 February 2011, which was right before
the demonstrations started against the Syrian secular regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Wikipedia's article "Syrian
Civil War" says "The protests began on 15 March 2011," and so those two exhibits, both dated
20 February 2011, predated the "protests" in Syria by exactly 23 days.
UNCLASSIFIED US Department of State Case No. F-2014-20439 Doc No. C05772230 Date: 11/30/2015
RELEASE IN PART B5 From: Feltman, Jeffrey D Sent: Thursday, September 9, 2010 8:06 PM To: Sullivan, Jacob J; H Subject:
Re: Qatar Topics covered: Jeffrey Feltman Original Message From: Sullivan, Jacob I To: 'H' ; Feltman, Jeffrey D Sent: Thu Sep 09 19:19:41 2010 Subject: RE: Qatar
Scheduled it and made it. I'll give you the readout in the morning. Original Message From: H Emailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2010 7:19 PM To: Feltman, Jeffrey D Cc: Sullivan, JacobJ Subject:
Qatar
The leaders of Qatar are its owners, the Thani royal family, who are
the main funders of the Muslim Brotherhood, and who have long wanted to overthrow the secular
Assad and to replace him with a fundamentalist Sunni leader like themselves.
Feltman here, on 9 September 2010, was informing Hillary (and her chief counselor, Jake
Sullivan), that a meeting had been set up, concerning Qatar, which is a key funder of the tens of
thousands of jihadists who have since entered Syria to overthrow and replace Assad. On 3 September
2010, Hillary had sent
an email to Jake Sullivan
, whose subject-line was "Emir of Qatar" (Qatar's king) and it said only "Let's discuss when
I get in". Then, on 14 September 2010, Hillary received
an email whose subject
line was "SHEIKHA MOSA OF QATAR" (that's the Emir's wife) and it was a note from Cheri Blair
(Tony Blair's wife, a friend of both Hillary and her) saying, "She is available to see you on
24 September either morning or afternoon? Alternatively, 28 th or 29 th September
Does that work for you?"The main subject of the conversation was to be
the drought in the Arabic
countries . That drought was especially intense in Syria.
The background behind those public demonstrations against the Assad regime is important. As
Grist reported, regarding the record drought in Syria, on 16 January 2010....
"... Yemen is another war the US is involved in thanks to the "peace" Pres. Obama. He has tried to keep this war hidden from the public. His few mentions of this war have been limited to shallow statements about his concern of the civilian casualty. ..."
"... Moreover, by selling the Saudis cluster bombs and other arms being used on civilians, Obama has enabled the Saudis in the last 8 moths to kill and destruct in Yemen more than WW2, as evidence shows. According to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the US is complicit in international war crimes in Yemen. ..."
"... After Obama's election, he went to Cairo to make a peace speech to the Arab world aiming to diffuse the deep hatred towards the US created during the Bush era. Yet since then, Obama's foolish alliances with despotic Arab rulers infesting ISIS and Al-Qaeda in the region, his drone warfare, and warped war policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, have only expanded and strengthened ISIS and Al-Qaeda, and increased Arab citizens anger and hatred towards the US. This is Obama's legacy! ..."
"... I always think there are similarities in Clinton and Obama s upbringing that created the anormic sociopathic shape shifting personalities they demonstrate. ..."
"... amiable even charismatic enough to sell it to a stupid audience. ..."
"... Why do we maintain the myth that the Obama brand is in anyway his personal contribution. Anymore than Bush or Clinton. The only difference is the republicans are ideologues where's as the puppets offered by the democrats are just psychotic shape shifters. In either way on a clear day you can see the strings hanging from their wrists like ribbons. ..."
"... The US is Allied with Saudi Arabia and Israel, that makes Saudi Arabia's and Israel's enemies US enemies. ..."
"... The notion that Obama makes his own decisions is laughable except it aint funny.. ..."
"... There is no 'Obama legacy' in the ME. It is a US legacy of blown attempts to control unwilling countries and populations by coercion, and by military and economic warfare. ..."
"... With all due respects to M. Obama, this is another clear indication that the US President is just a figure head. He is a front for the corporations that run the US behind the scene - the so-called US military-industrial complex. ..."
"... Perhaps you intentionally miss out the fact that it is the west that has Israel and the Saudis as their best allies, considering their actions ( one with the largest/longest time concentration camp in history, the other the exporter of the horror show of ISIL , both an abomination of their respective religions . The west attempt to seek the moral high ground is more than a farce ... all the world can see and know the game being played, but the mass media wishes to assume everyone has half a brain... they are allergic to the truth , like the vampires to the light. ..."
"... The stick I'm talking about is the total capacity of the US, military and economic, to have things its way or make the opposition very unhappy. ..."
"... What has it gotten us? Nothing good. What has it gotten the top 1 percent? All the money we don't have. ..."
"... Obama is being an absolute idiot in sending special forces to fight with rebels who are fighting the legitimate government of Syria. This is stupidity of the highest order. What will he do when any of these special forces operatives are captured by IS or killed by Russian or Syrian airstrikes? ..."
"... That is a valid point: Syria is a sovereign nation recognized by the U.N., and any foreign troops within without permission would be considered invaders. Of course, the U.S. ignores international law all the time. ..."
"... Anyway, foreign troops in Syria who are there without an invitation by Syrian government or authorisation by UNSC are there illegally and can be tried for war crimes if captured. Why is Obama putting his soldiers in this situation? ..."
"... The U.S. strategy in Syria is in tatters as Obama lamely tries to patch it up. The U.S. was determined to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria in service of the Saudis, Turkey, and Israel, while pretending to go after ISIS, who the Saudis and Turks were covertly funding. The U.S. were arming jihadists to oust Assad. That game is up, thanks to the Russians. Putin decided he wasn't going to stand by while the U.S. and its proxies created another Libya jihadist disaster in Syria. The forceful Russian intervention in going after ISIS showed the U.S. to be a faker, and caused a sea-change in U.S. policy. Now the U.S. can't pretend to go after ISIS while really trying to oust Assad. The Emporer has no clothes. ..."
"... Israel is an ally of KSA who is funding IS, Al Nusra, Al-Qaida and Al-Shabab. They are also partners with KSA in trying to prevent Iran's reintegration into global society following the nuclear deal, and the lifting of sanctions. ..."
"... I suspect that Israel wants to annex the Syrian Golan Heights permanently, and to extend their illegal settlements into the area. That can only happen if Assad is defeated. ..."
"... Wow, you make a lot of sense. I always thought the US military heavy foreign policy became insane because of Reagan. Maybe it was the loss of the USSR? ..."
"... Everyone here grew up being taught that the US is the champion of all that is good (sounds corny today). When the USSR dissolved, everyone imagined huge military cuts with the savings being invested in social benefits. If someone had predicted that, instead, we would grow our military, throw our civil rights away, embrace empire, assasinate US citizens without a trial, create total surveillance, create secret one sided star-chamber FISA courts that control a third of our economy, and choose a Dept. name heard previously only in Nazi movies (Homeland Security) --- we'd have laughed and dismissed the warning as delusion. ..."
"... You are correct. Obama is breaking UN international law, the US has no right to invade Syria. Russia, though, has been asked by the Syrian government for help, a government fully recognized by the UN. Russia has full UN sanctioned rights to help Syria. US news media will never explain this to the public, sadly. ..."
"... Obama's presidency lost its credibility a long time ago. He made so many rash promises and statements which one by one he has broken, that no free thinking person believes anything he says anymore. ..."
"... There's a world of difference between Russia taking steps to protect its immediate geographic and political interests (which were largely the wishes of the resident populations - something critics tend to overlook) and the USA invading Iraq (2003) in a blatant act of war, based on bullshit and then aiding and abetting mercenary terrorists in Syria in defiance of any declaration of war, UN resolution or invitation from the Syrian government to intervene. ..."
"... You might have also noticed that Syria is a long, long way from the USA. Rhetorically, WTF is the US doing in the Middle East? Propping up Saudi or Israel? Or both? ..."
"... ISIS == Mercenaries sponsored by the US, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Does a strategy against our own mercenaries make sense??? ..."
"... Think about, when's the last time Saudi Arabia did anything progressive or humane in its foreign policy? Now remember this very same country is on the same side as the Americans. This is the country that invaded Bahrain and Yemen and labelled the civil rights movements in those countries as 'Iranian interference.' The Saudis who have been seeking to turn civil rights movements with rather nationalistic demands into religious and sectarian conflicts by playing different groups against each other are allied with the U.S. and sitting at the table in Vienna talking about peace in Syria. Nonsense upon stilts! ..."
"... ISIS poses no threat to the Americans and vice versa. The Americans therefore do not have an interest in making sure that ISIS is wiped out. On the contrary they want regional foes to suffer. ..."
"... The American attempt at negotiating peace in Syria without Syrian representation is nothing short of ridiculous and best illustrates the convoluted state of American foreign policy. America lost any claim to 'leadership' by now. ..."
"... Unfortunately American policy and that eu have at time added fuel to the fire. ..."
"... Russian Iranian and hezbollah boots are invited boots by the legitimate government according to the UN Charter they are all acting legally and according to the Geneva Conventions etc. ..."
"... The US led coalition in bombing Syria were not, and the admitted introduction of troops into Syria is a an ACT OF WAR by the USA, and it is the AGRESSOR here, not doubt about it. It's a War Crime by every standard ..."
"... See the NATO creep into Eastern Europe against all agreements made with USSR. ..."
"... But their real agenda is to carve up Syria. In the deep recesses of their, the Corporate corrupt White House's, mind ISIS is not their immediate problem. ISIS is a means to an end - carve up Syria a sovereign country. ..."
"... Remember, only months ago, Kerry and Tory William Hague, was handing out cash to Syrian rebels who later turned out to be ISIS rebels. We must never forget, Syria, right or wrong, is a sovereign country. ..."
"... Look at the mess they made in, Ukraine, with their friends a bunch of, Kiev, murdering neo-Nazi's. ..."
"... Just out of curiosity...how will the US keep the DoD and CIA from duking it out at the opposite fronts on the Syrian soil? ..."
"... Washington has clearly chosen to break International Law. ..."
"... Westphalian sovereignty is the principle of international law that each nation state has sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers, on the principle of non-interference in another country's domestic affairs, and that each state (no matter how large or small) is equal in international law ..."
"... As the administration in Washington is firmly in the grasp of special interest groups such as Big Pharma, The Banksters, Big Agrobusiness, Big oil, the MIC and Israel there is no chance of getting good policy decisions out of there until there is a regime change. ..."
"... You might think that having criticized Assad for shooting demonstrators who demonstrated against the corruption and inefficiency of his regime, and having said that as a result his regime had lost its legitimacy, they would apply the same yardstick to President Poroshenko when he shot up two provinces of his country for asking for federation, killing thousands in the process, but on the contrary they sent "advisers" to train his military and his Fascist helpers to use their weapons better, to shoot them up more effectively. ..."
"... However, one cannot really expect people who are exceptional to behave like ordinary (unexceptional) human beings. ..."
"... What is the official US line on the legality of these deployments in terms of international law? ..."
NATO and its allies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria .... they make a desert and call
it peace.
ID7582903 1 Nov 2015 06:19
"Credibility"? Beware and be aware folks. This isn't a monopoly game being played here; it's
for real.
2015 Valdai conference is Societies Between War and Peace: Overcoming the Logic of Conflict
in Tomorrow's World. In the period between October 19 and 22, experts from 30 countries have been
considering various aspects of the perception of war and peace both in the public consciousness
and in international relations, religion and economic interaction between states. Videos w live
translations and english transcripts (a keeper imho)
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/50548
30 Oct, 2015 - The day US announces Ground troops into Syria, and the day before the downing/crash
of the Russian Airbus 321 in the Sinai, this happened:
Russia has conducted a major test of its strategic missile forces, firing numerous ballistic and
cruise missiles from various training areas across the country, videos
uploaded by the Ministry of Defense have shown.
A routine exercise, possibly the largest of its kind this year, was intended to test the command
system of transmitting orders among departments and involved launches
from military ranges on the ground, at sea and in the air, the ministry said Friday.
30.10.2015
Since the beginning of its operation in Syria on September 30, Russian Aerospace Forces have carried
out 1,391 sorties in Syria, destroying a total of 1,623 terrorist targets, the Russian General
Staff said Friday.
In particular, Russian warplanes destroyed 249 Islamic State command posts, 51 training camps,
and 131 depots, Andrey Kartapolov, head of the Russian General Staff Main Operations Directorate
said.
"In Hanshih, a suburb of Damascus, 17 militants of the Al-Ghuraba group were executed in public
after they tried to leave the combat area and flee to Jordan," he specified. "The whole scene
was filmed in order to disseminate the footage among the other groups operating in the vicinity
of Damascus and other areas", the General Staff spokesman said. In the central regions of the
country, the Syrian Army managed to liberate 12 cities in the Hama province, Kartapolov said.
"The Syrian armed forces continue their advance to the north," the general added.
Yemen is another war the US is involved in thanks to the "peace" Pres. Obama. He has tried
to keep this war hidden from the public. His few mentions of this war have been limited to shallow
statements about his concern of the civilian casualty. What an insult to our intelligence! We
are well aware that the US provides the logistical and technical support, and refuelling of warplanes
to the Saudi coalition illegal war in Yemen. Moreover, by selling the Saudis cluster bombs and
other arms being used on civilians, Obama has enabled the Saudis in the last 8 moths to kill and
destruct in Yemen more than WW2, as evidence shows. According to Amnesty International and Human
Rights Watch, the US is complicit in international war crimes in Yemen.
After Obama's election, he went to Cairo to make a peace speech to the Arab world aiming to
diffuse the deep hatred towards the US created during the Bush era. Yet since then, Obama's foolish
alliances with despotic Arab rulers infesting ISIS and Al-Qaeda in the region, his drone warfare,
and warped war policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, have only expanded and strengthened
ISIS and Al-Qaeda, and increased Arab citizens anger and hatred towards the US. This is Obama's
legacy!
Barmaidfromhell -> WSCrips 1 Nov 2015 03:52
Well said.
I always think there are similarities in Clinton and Obama s upbringing that created the
anormic sociopathic shape shifting personalities they demonstrate. Obviously carefully selected
to follow any line given them and amiable even charismatic enough to sell it to a stupid audience.
Why do we maintain the myth that the Obama brand is in anyway his personal contribution.
Anymore than Bush or Clinton. The only difference is the republicans are ideologues where's as
the puppets offered by the democrats are just psychotic shape shifters. In either way on a clear
day you can see the strings hanging from their wrists like ribbons.
Michael Imanual Christos -> Pete Piper 1 Nov 2015 00:28
Pete Piper
In brief;
The US is Allied with Saudi Arabia and Israel, that makes Saudi Arabia's and Israel's enemies
US enemies.
... ... ...
midnightschild10 31 Oct 2015 21:35
When Obama denounced Russia's actions in Syria, and blamed them for massive loss of civilian
lives, Russia responded by asking them to show their proof. The Administration spokesperson said
they got their information from social media. No one in the Administration seems to realize how
utterly stupid that sounds. Marie Harf is happily developing the Administration's foreign policy
via Twitter. As the CIA and NSA read Facebook for their daily planning, Obama reads the comments
section of newspapers to prepare for his speech to the American public in regard to putting boots
on the ground in Syria, and adding to the boots in Iraq. If it didn't result in putting soldiers
lives in jeopardy, it would be considered silly. Putin makes his move and watches as the Obama
Administration makes the only move they know, after minimal success in bombing, Obama does send
in the troops. Putin is the one running the game. Obama's response is so predictable. No wonder
the Russians are laughing. In his quest to outdo Cheyney, Obama has added to the number of wars
the US is currently involved in. His original claim to fame was to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
which then resulted in starting Iraq and Afghanistan Wars 2.0. Since helping to depose the existing
governments in the Middle East, leading not only to the resurgence of AlQuaeda, and giving birth
to ISIS, and leaving chaos and destruction in his wake, he decided to take down the last standing
ruler, hoping that if he does the same thing over and over, he will get a different result. Obama's
foreign policy legacy had been considered impotent at best, now its considered ridiculous.
SomersetApples 31 Oct 2015 20:03
We bombed them, we sent armies of terrorist in to kill them, we destroyed their hospitals and
power plants and cities, we put sanctions on them and we did everything in our power to cut off
their trading with the outside world, and yet they are still standing.
The only thing left to do, lets send in some special military operatives.
This is so out of character, or our perceived character of Obama. It must be that deranged
idiot John McCain pulling the strings.
Rafiqac01 31 Oct 2015 16:58
The notion that Obama makes his own decisions is laughable except it aint funny....having
just watched CNNs Long Road to Hell in Iraq....and the idiots advising Bush and Blair you have
to wonder the extent to which these are almighty balls ups or very sophisticated planning followed
up by post disaster rationalisation....
whatever the conclusion it proves that the intervention or non interventions prove their is
little the USA has done that has added any good value to the situation...indeed it is an unmitigated
disaster strewn around the world! Trump is the next generation frothing at the mouth ready to
show what a big John Wayne he is!!
DavidFCanada 31 Oct 2015 13:56
There is no 'Obama legacy' in the ME. It is a US legacy of blown attempts to control unwilling
countries and populations by coercion, and by military and economic warfare. That US legacy
will forever remain, burnt into skins and bodies of the living and dead, together with a virtually
unanimous recognition in the ME of the laughable US pretexts of supporting democracy, the rule
of law, religious freedom and, best of all, peace. Obama is merely the chief functionary of a
nation of lies.
Informed17 -> WSCrips 31 Oct 2015 13:47
Are you saying that there was no illegal invasion of Iraq? No vial of laundry detergent was
presented at the UN as "proof" that Iraq has WMDs? No hue and cry from "independent" media supported
that deception campaign? Were you in a deep coma at the time?
Informed17 -> somethingbrite 31 Oct 2015 13:36
No. But the US trampled on the international law for quite a while now, starting with totally
illegal interference in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
WSCrips 31 Oct 2015 13:18
Hey Guardian Editors.....and all those who worshipped Obama....In America, there were folks
from the older generation that warned us that this Community Organizer was not ready for the Job
of President of the United States....it had nothing to do with his color, he just was not ready.....he
was a young, inexperienced Senator, who never, ever had a real job, never had a street fight growing
up pampered in Hawaii, was given a pass to great universities because his parents had money, and
was the dream Affirmative Action poster boy for the liberal left. Obama has not disappointed anyone
who tried to warn us......and now we will reap what he has sowed:
1. 8 Trillion to our debt
2. Nightmare in the Middleast (how is that Arab Spring)
3. Polarized America....Dems and Republicans hate each other....hate each other like the Irish
and English...10 x over.
4. War on Cops
5. War with China
6. Invasion from Central America
I see a great depression and World War IV on the horizon....and I am being positive!
SaveRMiddle 31 Oct 2015 12:47
Nothing Obama says has any value. We've watched the man lie with a grin and a chuckle.
Forever Gone is all trust.
His continued abuse of Red Line threats spoke volumes about the lawyer who Reactively micromanages
that which required and deserved an expert Proactive plan.
Let History reflect the horrific death CIA meddling Regime Change/Divide and Conquer creates.
HeadInSand2013 31 Oct 2015 12:45
Liberal activists were in little doubt that Obama has failed to live up to his commitment
to avoid getting dragged directly into the war.
With all due respects to M. Obama, this is another clear indication that the US President
is just a figure head. He is a front for the corporations that run the US behind the scene - the
so-called US military-industrial complex.
Liberal activists are stupid enough to think that M. Obama is actually in charge of the US
military or the US foreign policy. Just go back and count how many times during the last 6 years
M. Obama has made a declaration and then - sometimes the next day - US military has over-ruled
him.
Mediaking 31 Oct 2015 10:00
Perhaps you intentionally miss out the fact that it is the west that has Israel and the
Saudis as their best allies, considering their actions ( one with the largest/longest time concentration
camp in history, the other the exporter of the horror show of ISIL , both an abomination of their
respective religions . The west attempt to seek the moral high ground is more than a farce ...
all the world can see and know the game being played, but the mass media wishes to assume everyone
has half a brain... they are allergic to the truth , like the vampires to the light.
USA forces coming to the aid of their 5 individuals... yes 1,2,3,4,5 ( stated by US command-
there are only that amount of FSA fighters left - the rest have gone over to ISIL with their equipment -- ) the local population all speak of ISIL/Daesh being American/Israeli ,they say if this is a
civil war how come all the opposition are foreigners -- I think perhaps it's like the Ukraine affair...
a bunch of CIA paid Nazi thugs instigating a coup ... or like Venezuela agents on roof tops shooting
at both sides in demonstrations to get things going. The usual business of CIA/Mossad stuff in
tune with the mass media with their engineered narratives -- Followed by the trolls on cyber space...
no doubt we shall see them here too.
All note that an Intervention in Syria would be "ILLEGAL" by Int. law and sooner than later
will be sued in billions for it...on top of the billions spent on having a 5 person strong force
of FSA...spent from the American tax payers money . Syria has a government and is considered a
state at the UN . Iran and Russia are there at the request and permission of Syria .
Russia and Iran have been methodically wiping out Washington's mercenaries on the ground while
recapturing large swathes of land that had been lost to the terrorists. Now that the terrorists
are getting wiped out the west and the Saudis are are screaming blue murder !
I for one would have Assad stay , as he himself suggests , till his country is completely free
of terrorists, then have free elections . I would add , to have the Saudis and the ones in the
west/Turkey/Jordan charged for crimes against humanity for supplying and creating Daesh/ISIS .
This element cannot be ignored . Also Kurdistan can form their new country in the regions they
occupy as of this moment and Mosul to come. Iran,Russia,Iraq, Syria and the new Kurdistan will
sign up to this deal . Millions of Syrian refugees can then come back home and rebuild their broken
lives with Iranian help and cash damages from the mentioned instigators $400 billion . The cash
must be paid into the Syrian central bank before any elections take place ... Solved...
My consultancy fee - 200ml pounds sterling... I know ... you wish I ruled the world (who knows
!) - no scams please or else -- ( the else would be an Apocalypse upon the western equity markets
via the Illuminati i.e a 49% crash )... a week to pay , no worries since better to pay for a just
solution than to have million descend upon EU as refugees . It is either this or God's revenge
with no mercy .
amacd2 31 Oct 2015 09:52
Obama, being more honest but also more dangerous than Flip Wilson says, "The Empire made me
do it",
Bernie, having "reservations" about what Obama has done, says nothing against Empire, but continues
to pretend, against all evidence, that this is a democracy.
Hillary, delighting in more war, says "We came, we bombed, they all died, but the Empire won."
Talk about 'The Issue' to debate for the candidates in 2016?
"What's your position on the Empire?"
"Oh, what Empire, you ask?"
"The friggin Empire that you are auditioning to pose as the president of --- you lying tools
of both the neocon 'R' Vichy party and you smoother lying neoliberal-cons of the 'D' Vichy party!"
lightstroke -> Pete Piper 31 Oct 2015 09:41
Nukes are not on the table. Mutually Assured Destruction.
The stick I'm talking about is the total capacity of the US, military and economic, to
have things its way or make the opposition very unhappy.
It's not necessary to win wars to exercise that power. All they have to do is start them and
keep them going until the arms industry makes as much dough from them as possible. That's the
only win they care about.
What has it gotten us? Nothing good. What has it gotten the top 1 percent? All the money
we don't have.
Taku2 31 Oct 2015 09:26
Obama is being an absolute idiot in sending special forces to fight with rebels who are
fighting the legitimate government of Syria. This is stupidity of the highest order. What will
he do when any of these special forces operatives are captured by IS or killed by Russian or Syrian
airstrikes?
How stupid can a President get?
Obama does need to pull back on this one, even though it will make his stupid and erroneous
policy towards the Syrian tragedy seem completely headless. If this stupid and brainless policy
is meant to be symbolic, its potential for future catastrophic consequences is immeasurable.
phillharmonic -> nishville 31 Oct 2015 08:56
That is a valid point: Syria is a sovereign nation recognized by the U.N., and any foreign
troops within without permission would be considered invaders. Of course, the U.S. ignores international
law all the time.
nishville 31 Oct 2015 08:35
Syrian rebels fighting the Islamic State
And who are those then? Do they exist, do we have any reliable source confirming they are really
simultaneously fighting IS and Syrian Army or is it yet another US fairy tale?
Anyway, foreign troops in Syria who are there without an invitation by Syrian government
or authorisation by UNSC are there illegally and can be tried for war crimes if captured. Why
is Obama putting his soldiers in this situation?
phillharmonic 31 Oct 2015 08:33
The U.S. strategy in Syria is in tatters as Obama lamely tries to patch it up. The U.S.
was determined to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria in service of the Saudis, Turkey, and Israel,
while pretending to go after ISIS, who the Saudis and Turks were covertly funding. The U.S. were
arming jihadists to oust Assad. That game is up, thanks to the Russians. Putin decided he wasn't
going to stand by while the U.S. and its proxies created another Libya jihadist disaster in Syria.
The forceful Russian intervention in going after ISIS showed the U.S. to be a faker, and caused
a sea-change in U.S. policy. Now the U.S. can't pretend to go after ISIS while really trying to
oust Assad. The Emporer has no clothes.
amacd2 -> Woody Treasure 31 Oct 2015 08:31
Woody, did you mean "Obama is a foil (for the Disguised Global Crony-Capitalist Empire--- which
he certainly is), or did you mean to say "fool" (which he certainly is not, both because he is
a well paid puppet/poodle for this Global Empire merely HQed in, and 'posing' as, America ---
as Blair and Camron are for the same singular Global Empire --- and because Obama didn't end his
role as Faux/Emperor-president like JFK), eh?
Nena Cassol -> TonyBlunt 31 Oct 2015 06:48
Assad's father seized power with a military coup and ruled the country for 30 years, before
dying he appointed his son, who immediately established marshal law, prompting discontent even
among his father's die-hard loyalists ...this is plain history, is this what you call a legitimate
leader?
Cycles 31 Oct 2015 06:41
Forced to go in otherwise the Russians and Iranians get full control. Welcome to the divided
Syria a la Germany after WW2.
TonyBlunt -> Nena Cassol 31 Oct 2015 06:36
"It does not take much research to find out that Assad is not legitimate at all"
Please share your source with us Nena. But remember Langley Publications don't count.
TonyBlunt -> oldholbornian 31 Oct 2015 06:29
The Americans do not recognise international law. They do not sign up to any of it and proclaim
the right to break it with their "exceptionalism".
Katrin3 -> herrmaya 31 Oct 2015 05:27
The Russians, US, Iran etc are all meeting right now in Vienna. The Russians and the US military
do communicate with each other, to avoid attacking each other by mistake.
The Russians are in the West and N.West of Syria. The US is going into the N. East, near IS
headquarters in Raqqa, to support the Kurdish YPG, who are only a few kilometers from the city.
Katrin3 -> ID6693806 31 Oct 2015 05:15
Israel is an ally of KSA who is funding IS, Al Nusra, Al-Qaida and Al-Shabab. They are
also partners with KSA in trying to prevent Iran's reintegration into global society following
the nuclear deal, and the lifting of sanctions.
I suspect that Israel wants to annex the Syrian Golan Heights permanently, and to extend
their illegal settlements into the area. That can only happen if Assad is defeated.
centerline ChristineH 31 Oct 2015 04:48
The Kurds are the fabled moderate opposition who are willing to negotiate, and who have also
fought with the Syrian government against US backed ISIS and al Nusra so called moderate opposition.
Pete Piper -> Verbum 31 Oct 2015 04:47
@Verbum Wow, you make a lot of sense. I always thought the US military heavy foreign policy became
insane because of Reagan. Maybe it was the loss of the USSR?
Everyone here grew up being taught that the US is the champion of all that is good (sounds
corny today). When the USSR dissolved, everyone imagined huge military cuts with the savings being
invested in social benefits. If someone had predicted that, instead, we would grow our military,
throw our civil rights away, embrace empire, assasinate US citizens without a trial, create total
surveillance, create secret one sided star-chamber FISA courts that control a third of our economy,
and choose a Dept. name heard previously only in Nazi movies (Homeland Security) --- we'd have
laughed and dismissed the warning as delusion.
gabriel90 -> confettifoot 31 Oct 2015 04:46
ISiS is destroying Syria thanks to the US and Saudi Arabia; its an instrument to spread chaos
in the Middle East and attack Iran and Russia...
ChristineH 31 Oct 2015 04:21
So, on the day peace talks open, the US unilaterally announces advice boots on the ground to
support one of the many sides in the Syrian War, who will undoubtedly want self determination,
right on Turkey's border, as they always have, and as has always been opposed by the majority
of the Syrian population. What part of that isn't completely mad?
Great sympathy for the situation of the Kurds in Syria under Assad, but their nationalism issue
and inability to work together with the Sunni rebels, was a major factor in the non formation
of a functioning opposition in Syria, and will be a block to peace, not its cause. It's also part
of a larger plan to have parts of Turkey and Iraq under Kurdish control to create a contingent
kingdom. Whatever the merits of that, the US deciding to support them at this stage is completely
irrational, and with Russia and Iran supporting Assad will lengthen the war, not shorten it.
MissSarajevo 31 Oct 2015 04:21
Just a couple of things here. How does the US know who the moderates are?!? Is this another
occasion that the US is going to use International law as toilet paper? The US will enter (as
if they weren't already there, illegally. They were not invited in by the legitimate leader of
Syria.
gabriel90 31 Oct 2015 04:19
Warbama is just trying to save his saudi/qatari/turk/emirati dogs of war... they will be wiped
out by Russia and the axis of resistance...
Pete Piper -> Michael Imanual Christos 31 Oct 2015 04:08
Does anyone see anything rational in US foreign policy? When I hear attempts to explain, they
vary around .. "it's about oil". But no one ever shows evidence continuous wars produced more
oil for anyone. So, are we deliberately creating chaos and misery? Why? To make new enemies we
can use to justify more war? We've now classified the number of countries we are bombing. Why?
The countries being bombed surely know.
Pete Piper -> oldholbornian 31 Oct 2015 03:50
You are correct. Obama is breaking UN international law, the US has no right to invade
Syria. Russia, though, has been asked by the Syrian government for help, a government fully recognized
by the UN. Russia has full UN sanctioned rights to help Syria. US news media will never explain
this to the public, sadly.
Only the US routinely violates other nations' sovergnity. Since Korea, the only nation that
has ever used military force against a nation not on its border is the US.
Can anyone find rationality in US foreign policy? We are supposed to be fighting ISIL, but
Saudi Arabia and Israel appear to be helping ISIL to force Syrian regime change. And the US is
supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia that are routed to ISIL. Supposedly because eliminating President
Asad is more important than fighting ISIL? The US public is being misled into thinking we are
NOW fighting ISIL. After Asad is killed, then we will genuinely fight ISIL? Russia, Iran, and
more(?) will fight to keep Asad in power and then fight ISIL? THIS IS OBVIOUS BS, AND ALSO FUBAR.
By all means, get everyone together for some diplomacy.
oldholbornian -> lesmandalasdeniki 31 Oct 2015 03:36
Well lets look at Germany the centre of christian culture and the EU
reminds me of emporer franz josef in europe about 100 years ago .. meant well but led to ruination
..i dont think that there has been an american president involved in more wars than obama
obama by his cairo speech kicked of the arab spring ..shows that words can kill
however.. the experience he now has gained may lead to an avoidance of a greater sunni shia
war in syria if the present vienna talks can offer something tangible and preserve honour to the
sunnis .. in the mid east honour and macho are key elements in negotiations
iran however is a shia caliphate based regime and unless it has learnt the lesson from yemen
on the limitations of force may push for further success via army and diplomacy and control in
syria and iraq
oldholbornian 31 Oct 2015 02:42
But Obama's latest broken promise to avoid an "open-ended action" in Syria could lead to a
full-blown war with Russia considering that Russian military has been operating in Syria for weeks.
" For the first time ever, the American strategists have developed an illusion that they
may defeat a nuclear power in a non-nuclear war," Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin
told AP. "It's nonsense, and it will never happen."
Any US / terrorist engagement with the Syrian security forces will include engaging with its
allies Russia
Once the firing starts Russia will include the US as terrorists with no rights to be in Syrian
and under the UN RULES have the right to defend themselves against the US
HollyOldDog -> foolisholdman 31 Oct 2015 02:32
Hmm Foreign snipers on rooftops ( not in the control of the government) how many times is this
scenario going to be played out before the 'press' twigs it than something is not making sense.
HollyOldDog -> foolisholdman 31 Oct 2015 02:29
Though in one demonstration there was snipers on rooftops shooting both deconstratirs and the
police - far more police were killed than demonstrators - what does this reming you of? Was these
actions seemingly out of the control of the government a preliminary to what happened in Kiev
during the maidan - practices get the technics right I suppose. - outside forces were obviously
at work ' stirring the pot.
Anna Eriksson 31 Oct 2015 02:24
Let's hope that the US will help out with taking in some refugees as well! In Germany, and
Sweden locals are becoming so frustrated and angry that they set refugee shelters on fire. This
is a trend in both Sweden and Germany, as shown in the maps in the links. There have almost been
90 arsons in Germany so far this year, almost 30 in Sweden.
Nobody tells the American people and nobody else really cares, but these 40-something guys
being sent to Syria are possibly there as:
cannon fodder: to deter the Russians from bombing and Iranians from attacking on the ground
the American friendly anti-Assad militant groups;
to collect and report more accurate intel from the front line (again about the Russian/Iranian
troops deployment/movement).
The Russian and Iranian troops on the ground will soon engage and sweep anti-Assad forces in
key regions in Western Syria. This will be slightly impeded if Americans are among them. But accidents
do happen, hence the term "cannon fodder".
The Russians and Iranians will likely take a step back militarily though for the duration of
talks, so the American plan to protect Saudi backed fighters is likely to work.
I never involved or mentioned ISIS because this is NOT about fighting ISIS. It's about counteracting
the Russian/Irania sweep in the area, and ultimately keeping the Americans in the game (sorry,
war).
petervietnam 31 Oct 2015 01:13
The world's policeman or the world's trouble maker?
Austin Young -> Will D 31 Oct 2015 00:34
But he's the "change we can believe in" guy! Oh right... Dem or republican, they spew anything
and everything their voters want to hear but when it comes time to walk the walk the only voice
in their head is Cash Money.
lesmandalasdeniki -> Bardhyl Cenolli 30 Oct 2015 23:34
It frustrates me, anyone who will be the problem-solver will be labeled as dangerous by the
Western political and business leaders if the said person or group of people can not be totally
controlled for their agenda.
This will be the first time I will be speaking about the Indonesian forest fires that started
from June this year until now. During the period I was not on-line, I watched the local news and
all channels were featuring the same problem every day during the last two-weeks.
US is also silent about it during Obama - Jokowi meeting, even praising Jokowi being on the
right track. After Jokowi came back, his PR spin is in the force again, he went directly to Palembang,
he held office and trying to put up an image of a President that cared for his people. He couldn't
solve the Indonesian forest fires from June - October, is it probably because Jusuf Kalla has
investment in it?
My point is, US and the Feds, World Bank and IMF are appointing their puppets on each country
they have put up an investment on terms of sovereign debt and corporate debt/bonds.
And Obama is their puppet.
Will D 30 Oct 2015 23:30
Obama's presidency lost its credibility a long time ago. He made so many rash promises
and statements which one by one he has broken, that no free thinking person believes anything
he says anymore.
He has turned out to be a massive disappointment to all those who had such high hopes that
he really would make the world a better place. His failure and his abysmal track record will cause
him to be remembered as the Nobel Peace prize wining president who did exactly the opposite of
what he promised, and failed to further the cause of peace.
Greg_Samsa -> Greenacres2002 30 Oct 2015 23:07
Consistency is at the heart of logic, all mathematics, and hard sciences.
Even the legal systems strive to be free of contradictions.
I'd rather live in world with consistency of thought and action as represented by the Russian
Federation, then be mired in shit created by the US who have shed all the hobgoblins pestering
the consistency of their thoughts and actions.
Never truly understood the value of this stupid quote really...
Phil Atkinson -> PaulF77 30 Oct 2015 22:28
There's a world of difference between Russia taking steps to protect its immediate geographic
and political interests (which were largely the wishes of the resident populations - something
critics tend to overlook) and the USA invading Iraq (2003) in a blatant act of war, based on bullshit
and then aiding and abetting mercenary terrorists in Syria in defiance of any declaration of war,
UN resolution or invitation from the Syrian government to intervene.
You might have also noticed that Syria is a long, long way from the USA. Rhetorically,
WTF is the US doing in the Middle East? Propping up Saudi or Israel? Or both?
MainstreamMedia Propaganda 30 Oct 2015 22:03
ISIS == Mercenaries sponsored by the US, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Does a strategy against
our own mercenaries make sense???
I think blatant policy changes like this show just how ineffectual the US president actually
is. The hand over between Bush and Obama has been seamless. Gitmo still going, patriot act renewed,
Libya a smoldering ruin (4 years down the line), no progress on gun control, troops in Afganistan
and Iraq... it goes on...
HowSicklySeemAll 30 Oct 2015 21:58
"It's really hard to see how this tiny number of troops embedded on the ground is going
to turn the tide in any way."
Or the U.S. could carry out air strikes against Hezbollah which has been fighting ISIS for
a while now. They could also supply weapons to ISIS (who are dubbed 'moderates') to counter Russian
airstrikes and Iranian man power.
Think about, when's the last time Saudi Arabia did anything progressive or humane in its
foreign policy? Now remember this very same country is on the same side as the Americans. This
is the country that invaded Bahrain and Yemen and labelled the civil rights movements in those
countries as 'Iranian interference.' The Saudis who have been seeking to turn civil rights movements
with rather nationalistic demands into religious and sectarian conflicts by playing different
groups against each other are allied with the U.S. and sitting at the table in Vienna talking
about peace in Syria. Nonsense upon stilts!
Phil Atkinson -> Harry Bhai 30 Oct 2015 21:57
Fuck the al-Sauds and their oil. If the US wants their oil (and there's plenty of other oil
sellers in the world) then just take it. Why not be consistent?
templeforjerusalem 30 Oct 2015 21:51
IS has shown itself to be deeply hateful of anything that conflicts with their narrow religious
interpretations. Destroying Palmyra, murdering indiscriminately, without any clear international
agenda other than the formation of a new Sunni Sharia State, makes them essentially enemies of
everybody. Although I do agree that belligerent secular Netanyahu's Israel sets a bad example
in the area, Israel does not tend to murder over the same primitive values that IS uses, although
there's not much difference in reality.
IS uses extermination tactics, Israel used forced land clearance and concentration camp bombing
(Gaza et al), while the US in Iraq used brutal force. None of this is good but nothing justifies
the shear barbarism of IS. Is there hope in any of this? No. Is Russian and US involvement a major
escalation? Yes.
Ultimately, this is about religious identities refusing to share and demand peace. Sunni vs
Shia, Judeo/Catholic/Protestant West vs Russian Orthodox, secular vs orthodox Israel. No wonder
people are saying Armageddon.
HowSicklySeemAll 30 Oct 2015 21:50
ISIS poses no threat to the Americans and vice versa. The Americans therefore do not have
an interest in making sure that ISIS is wiped out. On the contrary they want regional foes to
suffer. The only countries and groups that have been successfully fighting ISIS - Assad's
forces, Iranians, Hezbollah, Russians, and Kurds are in fact enemies of either the U.S., Saudis,
Israelis, or Turks. Isn't that strange? The countries and peoples that have suffered the most
and that have actually fought against ISIS effectively are seen as the enemy. Do the powers that
be really want to wipe out ISIS at all costs? No, especially if it involves the Iranians and Russians.
How are Russian boots on the ground - of which there have been many for some time - ok
and American boots bad?
The difference is that of a poison and the antidotum. The American/NATO meddling in Iraq, Libya
and Syria created a truly sick situation which needs to be fixed. That's what the Russians are
doing. Obviously, they have their own objectives and motives for that and are protecting their
own interests, but nevertheless this is the surest way to re-establish semblance of stability
in the Middle East, rebuilt Syria and Iraq, stop the exodus of the refugees, and mend relations
in the region.
The American attempt at negotiating peace in Syria without Syrian representation is nothing
short of ridiculous and best illustrates the convoluted state of American foreign policy. America
lost any claim to 'leadership' by now.
I feel sorry for Mr Obama, and indeed America, because he is a decent person, yet most of us
are unaware what forces he has to reckon with behind the scenes. It is clear by now that interests
of corporations and rich individuals, as well as a couple of seemingly insignificant foreign states,
beat the national interest of America all time, anytime. It is astonishing how a powerful, hard
working and talented nation can become beholden to such forces, to its own detriment.
In the end, I do not think the situation is uniquely American. Russia or China given a chance
of total hegemony would behave the same. That's why we need a field of powers/superpowers to keep
one another in check and negotiate rather than enforce solutions.
ID9309755 -> pegasusrose2011 30 Oct 2015 21:02
Unfortunately American policy and that eu have at time added fuel to the fire. Yes,
the me has its own problems, including rival versions of Islam and fundamentalism as well as truly
megalomaniac leaders. But in instances (Libya for example) they did truly contribute to the country's
destruction (and I am not excusing Gaddafi, but for the people there sometimes having these leaders
and waiting for generational transformations may be a better solution than instant democracy pills.)
ID7582903 -> pegasusrose2011 30 Oct 2015 21:00
Russian Iranian and hezbollah boots are invited boots by the legitimate government according
to the UN Charter they are all acting legally and according to the Geneva Conventions etc.
The US led coalition in bombing Syria were not, and the admitted introduction of troops
into Syria is a an ACT OF WAR by the USA, and it is the AGRESSOR here, not doubt about it. It's
a War Crime by every standard
Obama and the "regime" that rules the United Snakes of America have all gone over the edge
into insanity writ large.
ID9309755 -> pegasusrose2011 30 Oct 2015 20:55
To clarify, I meant that all these groups are funded by these Arabic sheikhdoms and it increasingly
appears that th us of a is not as serious in eradicating all of them in the illusion that the
so called softer ones will over through Assad and then it will be democracy, the much misused
and fetishised term. Meanwhile we can carve up the country, Turkey gets a bite and our naughty
bloated allies in Arabia will be happy with their influence. Only if it happened that way...
There is much more than this short and simplified scenario, and yes Russia played its hand
rather well taking the west off guard. And I am not trying to portray Putin as some liberation
prophet either. So perhaps you could say that yes, maybe I have looked into it deep...
BlooperMario -> RedEyedOverlord 30 Oct 2015 20:52
China and Russia are only responding to NY World Bank and IMF cheats and also standing up to
an evil empire that has ruined the middle east.
Time you had a rethink old chap and stopped worshipping Blair; Bush; Rumsfeld etc as your heros.
See the NATO creep into Eastern Europe against all agreements made with USSR.
Silly Sailors provoking Chinese Lighthouse keepers.
RoyRoger 30 Oct 2015 19:30
Their Plan B is fucked !!
But their real agenda is to carve up Syria. In the deep recesses of their, the Corporate
corrupt White House's, mind ISIS is not their immediate problem. ISIS is a means to an end - carve
up Syria a sovereign country.
Remember, only months ago, Kerry and Tory William Hague, was handing out cash to Syrian
rebels who later turned out to be ISIS rebels. We must never forget, Syria, right or wrong, is
a sovereign country.
The real battle/plan for the Corporate corrupt White House is to try and get a foothold in
Syria and establish a military dictator after a coup d'etat'. As we know it's what they, the West,
do best.
Look at the mess they made in, Ukraine, with their friends a bunch of, Kiev, murdering
neo-Nazi's.
In the interest of right is right; Good Luck Mr Putin !! I'm with you all the way.
weematt 30 Oct 2015 19:25
War (and poverty too) a consequence, concomitant, of competing for markets, raw materials and
trade routes or areas of geo-political dominance, come to be seen as 'natural' outcomes of society,
but are merely concomitants of a changeable social system.
... ... ...
Greg_Samsa 30 Oct 2015 19:21
Just out of curiosity...how will the US keep the DoD and CIA from duking it out at the
opposite fronts on the Syrian soil?
This gives a whole new dimension to the term 'blue-on-blue'.
Kevin Donegan 30 Oct 2015 18:59
Washington has clearly chosen to break International Law.
"Westphalian sovereignty is the principle of international law that each nation state has sovereignty
over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers, on the principle
of non-interference in another country's domestic affairs, and that each state (no matter how
large or small) is equal in international law. The doctrine is named after the Peace of Westphalia,
signed in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years' War, in which the major continental European states
the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, France, Sweden and the Dutch Republic agreed to respect one
another's territorial integrity. As European influence spread across the globe, the Westphalian
principles, especially the concept of sovereign states, became central to international law and
to the prevailing world order.[1]"
foolisholdman 30 Oct 2015 18:41
As the administration in Washington is firmly in the grasp of special interest groups such
as Big Pharma, The Banksters, Big Agrobusiness, Big oil, the MIC and Israel there is no chance
of getting good policy decisions out of there until there is a regime change.
If ever there was a government hat had lost its legitimacy the present US government is it.
foolisholdman -> Johnny Kent 30 Oct 2015 18:31
Johnny Kent
The slight question of legality in placing troops in a sovereign country without permission
or UN approval is obviously of no importance to the US...and yet they criticise Russia for
'annexing Crimea...
Yes, but you see: the two cases are not comparable because the USA is exceptional.
You might think that having criticized Assad for shooting
demonstrators who demonstrated
against the corruption and inefficiency of his regime, and having said that as a result his regime
had lost its legitimacy, they would apply the same yardstick to President Poroshenko when he shot
up two provinces of his country for asking for federation, killing thousands in the process, but
on the contrary they sent "advisers" to train his military and his Fascist helpers to use their
weapons better, to shoot them up more effectively.
However, one cannot really expect people who are exceptional to behave like ordinary (unexceptional)
human beings.
WalterCronkiteBot 30 Oct 2015 17:11
What is the official US line on the legality of these deployments in terms of international
law?
Noone seems to even raise it as an issue, its all about congressional approval. Just like the
UK drone strikes.
"... Yemen is another war the US is involved in thanks to the "peace" Pres. Obama. He has tried to keep this war hidden from the public. His few mentions of this war have been limited to shallow statements about his concern of the civilian casualty. ..."
"... Moreover, by selling the Saudis cluster bombs and other arms being used on civilians, Obama has enabled the Saudis in the last 8 moths to kill and destruct in Yemen more than WW2, as evidence shows. According to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, the US is complicit in international war crimes in Yemen. ..."
"... After Obama's election, he went to Cairo to make a peace speech to the Arab world aiming to diffuse the deep hatred towards the US created during the Bush era. Yet since then, Obama's foolish alliances with despotic Arab rulers infesting ISIS and Al-Qaeda in the region, his drone warfare, and warped war policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, have only expanded and strengthened ISIS and Al-Qaeda, and increased Arab citizens anger and hatred towards the US. This is Obama's legacy! ..."
"... I always think there are similarities in Clinton and Obama s upbringing that created the anormic sociopathic shape shifting personalities they demonstrate. ..."
"... amiable even charismatic enough to sell it to a stupid audience. ..."
"... Why do we maintain the myth that the Obama brand is in anyway his personal contribution. Anymore than Bush or Clinton. The only difference is the republicans are ideologues where's as the puppets offered by the democrats are just psychotic shape shifters. In either way on a clear day you can see the strings hanging from their wrists like ribbons. ..."
"... The US is Allied with Saudi Arabia and Israel, that makes Saudi Arabia's and Israel's enemies US enemies. ..."
"... The notion that Obama makes his own decisions is laughable except it aint funny.. ..."
"... There is no 'Obama legacy' in the ME. It is a US legacy of blown attempts to control unwilling countries and populations by coercion, and by military and economic warfare. ..."
"... With all due respects to M. Obama, this is another clear indication that the US President is just a figure head. He is a front for the corporations that run the US behind the scene - the so-called US military-industrial complex. ..."
"... Perhaps you intentionally miss out the fact that it is the west that has Israel and the Saudis as their best allies, considering their actions ( one with the largest/longest time concentration camp in history, the other the exporter of the horror show of ISIL , both an abomination of their respective religions . The west attempt to seek the moral high ground is more than a farce ... all the world can see and know the game being played, but the mass media wishes to assume everyone has half a brain... they are allergic to the truth , like the vampires to the light. ..."
"... The stick I'm talking about is the total capacity of the US, military and economic, to have things its way or make the opposition very unhappy. ..."
"... What has it gotten us? Nothing good. What has it gotten the top 1 percent? All the money we don't have. ..."
"... Obama is being an absolute idiot in sending special forces to fight with rebels who are fighting the legitimate government of Syria. This is stupidity of the highest order. What will he do when any of these special forces operatives are captured by IS or killed by Russian or Syrian airstrikes? ..."
"... That is a valid point: Syria is a sovereign nation recognized by the U.N., and any foreign troops within without permission would be considered invaders. Of course, the U.S. ignores international law all the time. ..."
"... Anyway, foreign troops in Syria who are there without an invitation by Syrian government or authorisation by UNSC are there illegally and can be tried for war crimes if captured. Why is Obama putting his soldiers in this situation? ..."
"... The U.S. strategy in Syria is in tatters as Obama lamely tries to patch it up. The U.S. was determined to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria in service of the Saudis, Turkey, and Israel, while pretending to go after ISIS, who the Saudis and Turks were covertly funding. The U.S. were arming jihadists to oust Assad. That game is up, thanks to the Russians. Putin decided he wasn't going to stand by while the U.S. and its proxies created another Libya jihadist disaster in Syria. The forceful Russian intervention in going after ISIS showed the U.S. to be a faker, and caused a sea-change in U.S. policy. Now the U.S. can't pretend to go after ISIS while really trying to oust Assad. The Emporer has no clothes. ..."
"... Israel is an ally of KSA who is funding IS, Al Nusra, Al-Qaida and Al-Shabab. They are also partners with KSA in trying to prevent Iran's reintegration into global society following the nuclear deal, and the lifting of sanctions. ..."
"... I suspect that Israel wants to annex the Syrian Golan Heights permanently, and to extend their illegal settlements into the area. That can only happen if Assad is defeated. ..."
"... Wow, you make a lot of sense. I always thought the US military heavy foreign policy became insane because of Reagan. Maybe it was the loss of the USSR? ..."
"... Everyone here grew up being taught that the US is the champion of all that is good (sounds corny today). When the USSR dissolved, everyone imagined huge military cuts with the savings being invested in social benefits. If someone had predicted that, instead, we would grow our military, throw our civil rights away, embrace empire, assasinate US citizens without a trial, create total surveillance, create secret one sided star-chamber FISA courts that control a third of our economy, and choose a Dept. name heard previously only in Nazi movies (Homeland Security) --- we'd have laughed and dismissed the warning as delusion. ..."
"... You are correct. Obama is breaking UN international law, the US has no right to invade Syria. Russia, though, has been asked by the Syrian government for help, a government fully recognized by the UN. Russia has full UN sanctioned rights to help Syria. US news media will never explain this to the public, sadly. ..."
"... Obama's presidency lost its credibility a long time ago. He made so many rash promises and statements which one by one he has broken, that no free thinking person believes anything he says anymore. ..."
"... There's a world of difference between Russia taking steps to protect its immediate geographic and political interests (which were largely the wishes of the resident populations - something critics tend to overlook) and the USA invading Iraq (2003) in a blatant act of war, based on bullshit and then aiding and abetting mercenary terrorists in Syria in defiance of any declaration of war, UN resolution or invitation from the Syrian government to intervene. ..."
"... You might have also noticed that Syria is a long, long way from the USA. Rhetorically, WTF is the US doing in the Middle East? Propping up Saudi or Israel? Or both? ..."
"... ISIS == Mercenaries sponsored by the US, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Does a strategy against our own mercenaries make sense??? ..."
"... Think about, when's the last time Saudi Arabia did anything progressive or humane in its foreign policy? Now remember this very same country is on the same side as the Americans. This is the country that invaded Bahrain and Yemen and labelled the civil rights movements in those countries as 'Iranian interference.' The Saudis who have been seeking to turn civil rights movements with rather nationalistic demands into religious and sectarian conflicts by playing different groups against each other are allied with the U.S. and sitting at the table in Vienna talking about peace in Syria. Nonsense upon stilts! ..."
"... ISIS poses no threat to the Americans and vice versa. The Americans therefore do not have an interest in making sure that ISIS is wiped out. On the contrary they want regional foes to suffer. ..."
"... The American attempt at negotiating peace in Syria without Syrian representation is nothing short of ridiculous and best illustrates the convoluted state of American foreign policy. America lost any claim to 'leadership' by now. ..."
"... Unfortunately American policy and that eu have at time added fuel to the fire. ..."
"... Russian Iranian and hezbollah boots are invited boots by the legitimate government according to the UN Charter they are all acting legally and according to the Geneva Conventions etc. ..."
"... The US led coalition in bombing Syria were not, and the admitted introduction of troops into Syria is a an ACT OF WAR by the USA, and it is the AGRESSOR here, not doubt about it. It's a War Crime by every standard ..."
"... See the NATO creep into Eastern Europe against all agreements made with USSR. ..."
"... But their real agenda is to carve up Syria. In the deep recesses of their, the Corporate corrupt White House's, mind ISIS is not their immediate problem. ISIS is a means to an end - carve up Syria a sovereign country. ..."
"... Remember, only months ago, Kerry and Tory William Hague, was handing out cash to Syrian rebels who later turned out to be ISIS rebels. We must never forget, Syria, right or wrong, is a sovereign country. ..."
"... Look at the mess they made in, Ukraine, with their friends a bunch of, Kiev, murdering neo-Nazi's. ..."
"... Just out of curiosity...how will the US keep the DoD and CIA from duking it out at the opposite fronts on the Syrian soil? ..."
"... Washington has clearly chosen to break International Law. ..."
"... Westphalian sovereignty is the principle of international law that each nation state has sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers, on the principle of non-interference in another country's domestic affairs, and that each state (no matter how large or small) is equal in international law ..."
"... As the administration in Washington is firmly in the grasp of special interest groups such as Big Pharma, The Banksters, Big Agrobusiness, Big oil, the MIC and Israel there is no chance of getting good policy decisions out of there until there is a regime change. ..."
"... You might think that having criticized Assad for shooting demonstrators who demonstrated against the corruption and inefficiency of his regime, and having said that as a result his regime had lost its legitimacy, they would apply the same yardstick to President Poroshenko when he shot up two provinces of his country for asking for federation, killing thousands in the process, but on the contrary they sent "advisers" to train his military and his Fascist helpers to use their weapons better, to shoot them up more effectively. ..."
"... However, one cannot really expect people who are exceptional to behave like ordinary (unexceptional) human beings. ..."
"... What is the official US line on the legality of these deployments in terms of international law? ..."
NATO and its allies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria .... they make a desert and call
it peace.
ID7582903 1 Nov 2015 06:19
"Credibility"? Beware and be aware folks. This isn't a monopoly game being played here; it's
for real.
2015 Valdai conference is Societies Between War and Peace: Overcoming the Logic of Conflict
in Tomorrow's World. In the period between October 19 and 22, experts from 30 countries have been
considering various aspects of the perception of war and peace both in the public consciousness
and in international relations, religion and economic interaction between states. Videos w live
translations and english transcripts (a keeper imho)
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/50548
30 Oct, 2015 - The day US announces Ground troops into Syria, and the day before the downing/crash
of the Russian Airbus 321 in the Sinai, this happened:
Russia has conducted a major test of its strategic missile forces, firing numerous ballistic and
cruise missiles from various training areas across the country, videos
uploaded by the Ministry of Defense have shown.
A routine exercise, possibly the largest of its kind this year, was intended to test the command
system of transmitting orders among departments and involved launches
from military ranges on the ground, at sea and in the air, the ministry said Friday.
30.10.2015
Since the beginning of its operation in Syria on September 30, Russian Aerospace Forces have carried
out 1,391 sorties in Syria, destroying a total of 1,623 terrorist targets, the Russian General
Staff said Friday.
In particular, Russian warplanes destroyed 249 Islamic State command posts, 51 training camps,
and 131 depots, Andrey Kartapolov, head of the Russian General Staff Main Operations Directorate
said.
"In Hanshih, a suburb of Damascus, 17 militants of the Al-Ghuraba group were executed in public
after they tried to leave the combat area and flee to Jordan," he specified. "The whole scene
was filmed in order to disseminate the footage among the other groups operating in the vicinity
of Damascus and other areas", the General Staff spokesman said. In the central regions of the
country, the Syrian Army managed to liberate 12 cities in the Hama province, Kartapolov said.
"The Syrian armed forces continue their advance to the north," the general added.
Yemen is another war the US is involved in thanks to the "peace" Pres. Obama. He has tried
to keep this war hidden from the public. His few mentions of this war have been limited to shallow
statements about his concern of the civilian casualty. What an insult to our intelligence! We
are well aware that the US provides the logistical and technical support, and refuelling of warplanes
to the Saudi coalition illegal war in Yemen. Moreover, by selling the Saudis cluster bombs and
other arms being used on civilians, Obama has enabled the Saudis in the last 8 moths to kill and
destruct in Yemen more than WW2, as evidence shows. According to Amnesty International and Human
Rights Watch, the US is complicit in international war crimes in Yemen.
After Obama's election, he went to Cairo to make a peace speech to the Arab world aiming to
diffuse the deep hatred towards the US created during the Bush era. Yet since then, Obama's foolish
alliances with despotic Arab rulers infesting ISIS and Al-Qaeda in the region, his drone warfare,
and warped war policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, have only expanded and strengthened
ISIS and Al-Qaeda, and increased Arab citizens anger and hatred towards the US. This is Obama's
legacy!
Barmaidfromhell -> WSCrips 1 Nov 2015 03:52
Well said.
I always think there are similarities in Clinton and Obama s upbringing that created the
anormic sociopathic shape shifting personalities they demonstrate. Obviously carefully selected
to follow any line given them and amiable even charismatic enough to sell it to a stupid audience.
Why do we maintain the myth that the Obama brand is in anyway his personal contribution.
Anymore than Bush or Clinton. The only difference is the republicans are ideologues where's as
the puppets offered by the democrats are just psychotic shape shifters. In either way on a clear
day you can see the strings hanging from their wrists like ribbons.
Michael Imanual Christos -> Pete Piper 1 Nov 2015 00:28
Pete Piper
In brief;
The US is Allied with Saudi Arabia and Israel, that makes Saudi Arabia's and Israel's enemies
US enemies.
... ... ...
midnightschild10 31 Oct 2015 21:35
When Obama denounced Russia's actions in Syria, and blamed them for massive loss of civilian
lives, Russia responded by asking them to show their proof. The Administration spokesperson said
they got their information from social media. No one in the Administration seems to realize how
utterly stupid that sounds. Marie Harf is happily developing the Administration's foreign policy
via Twitter. As the CIA and NSA read Facebook for their daily planning, Obama reads the comments
section of newspapers to prepare for his speech to the American public in regard to putting boots
on the ground in Syria, and adding to the boots in Iraq. If it didn't result in putting soldiers
lives in jeopardy, it would be considered silly. Putin makes his move and watches as the Obama
Administration makes the only move they know, after minimal success in bombing, Obama does send
in the troops. Putin is the one running the game. Obama's response is so predictable. No wonder
the Russians are laughing. In his quest to outdo Cheyney, Obama has added to the number of wars
the US is currently involved in. His original claim to fame was to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
which then resulted in starting Iraq and Afghanistan Wars 2.0. Since helping to depose the existing
governments in the Middle East, leading not only to the resurgence of AlQuaeda, and giving birth
to ISIS, and leaving chaos and destruction in his wake, he decided to take down the last standing
ruler, hoping that if he does the same thing over and over, he will get a different result. Obama's
foreign policy legacy had been considered impotent at best, now its considered ridiculous.
SomersetApples 31 Oct 2015 20:03
We bombed them, we sent armies of terrorist in to kill them, we destroyed their hospitals and
power plants and cities, we put sanctions on them and we did everything in our power to cut off
their trading with the outside world, and yet they are still standing.
The only thing left to do, lets send in some special military operatives.
This is so out of character, or our perceived character of Obama. It must be that deranged
idiot John McCain pulling the strings.
Rafiqac01 31 Oct 2015 16:58
The notion that Obama makes his own decisions is laughable except it aint funny....having
just watched CNNs Long Road to Hell in Iraq....and the idiots advising Bush and Blair you have
to wonder the extent to which these are almighty balls ups or very sophisticated planning followed
up by post disaster rationalisation....
whatever the conclusion it proves that the intervention or non interventions prove their is
little the USA has done that has added any good value to the situation...indeed it is an unmitigated
disaster strewn around the world! Trump is the next generation frothing at the mouth ready to
show what a big John Wayne he is!!
DavidFCanada 31 Oct 2015 13:56
There is no 'Obama legacy' in the ME. It is a US legacy of blown attempts to control unwilling
countries and populations by coercion, and by military and economic warfare. That US legacy
will forever remain, burnt into skins and bodies of the living and dead, together with a virtually
unanimous recognition in the ME of the laughable US pretexts of supporting democracy, the rule
of law, religious freedom and, best of all, peace. Obama is merely the chief functionary of a
nation of lies.
Informed17 -> WSCrips 31 Oct 2015 13:47
Are you saying that there was no illegal invasion of Iraq? No vial of laundry detergent was
presented at the UN as "proof" that Iraq has WMDs? No hue and cry from "independent" media supported
that deception campaign? Were you in a deep coma at the time?
Informed17 -> somethingbrite 31 Oct 2015 13:36
No. But the US trampled on the international law for quite a while now, starting with totally
illegal interference in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
WSCrips 31 Oct 2015 13:18
Hey Guardian Editors.....and all those who worshipped Obama....In America, there were folks
from the older generation that warned us that this Community Organizer was not ready for the Job
of President of the United States....it had nothing to do with his color, he just was not ready.....he
was a young, inexperienced Senator, who never, ever had a real job, never had a street fight growing
up pampered in Hawaii, was given a pass to great universities because his parents had money, and
was the dream Affirmative Action poster boy for the liberal left. Obama has not disappointed anyone
who tried to warn us......and now we will reap what he has sowed:
1. 8 Trillion to our debt
2. Nightmare in the Middleast (how is that Arab Spring)
3. Polarized America....Dems and Republicans hate each other....hate each other like the Irish
and English...10 x over.
4. War on Cops
5. War with China
6. Invasion from Central America
I see a great depression and World War IV on the horizon....and I am being positive!
SaveRMiddle 31 Oct 2015 12:47
Nothing Obama says has any value. We've watched the man lie with a grin and a chuckle.
Forever Gone is all trust.
His continued abuse of Red Line threats spoke volumes about the lawyer who Reactively micromanages
that which required and deserved an expert Proactive plan.
Let History reflect the horrific death CIA meddling Regime Change/Divide and Conquer creates.
HeadInSand2013 31 Oct 2015 12:45
Liberal activists were in little doubt that Obama has failed to live up to his commitment
to avoid getting dragged directly into the war.
With all due respects to M. Obama, this is another clear indication that the US President
is just a figure head. He is a front for the corporations that run the US behind the scene - the
so-called US military-industrial complex.
Liberal activists are stupid enough to think that M. Obama is actually in charge of the US
military or the US foreign policy. Just go back and count how many times during the last 6 years
M. Obama has made a declaration and then - sometimes the next day - US military has over-ruled
him.
Mediaking 31 Oct 2015 10:00
Perhaps you intentionally miss out the fact that it is the west that has Israel and the
Saudis as their best allies, considering their actions ( one with the largest/longest time concentration
camp in history, the other the exporter of the horror show of ISIL , both an abomination of their
respective religions . The west attempt to seek the moral high ground is more than a farce ...
all the world can see and know the game being played, but the mass media wishes to assume everyone
has half a brain... they are allergic to the truth , like the vampires to the light.
USA forces coming to the aid of their 5 individuals... yes 1,2,3,4,5 ( stated by US command-
there are only that amount of FSA fighters left - the rest have gone over to ISIL with their equipment -- ) the local population all speak of ISIL/Daesh being American/Israeli ,they say if this is a
civil war how come all the opposition are foreigners -- I think perhaps it's like the Ukraine affair...
a bunch of CIA paid Nazi thugs instigating a coup ... or like Venezuela agents on roof tops shooting
at both sides in demonstrations to get things going. The usual business of CIA/Mossad stuff in
tune with the mass media with their engineered narratives -- Followed by the trolls on cyber space...
no doubt we shall see them here too.
All note that an Intervention in Syria would be "ILLEGAL" by Int. law and sooner than later
will be sued in billions for it...on top of the billions spent on having a 5 person strong force
of FSA...spent from the American tax payers money . Syria has a government and is considered a
state at the UN . Iran and Russia are there at the request and permission of Syria .
Russia and Iran have been methodically wiping out Washington's mercenaries on the ground while
recapturing large swathes of land that had been lost to the terrorists. Now that the terrorists
are getting wiped out the west and the Saudis are are screaming blue murder !
I for one would have Assad stay , as he himself suggests , till his country is completely free
of terrorists, then have free elections . I would add , to have the Saudis and the ones in the
west/Turkey/Jordan charged for crimes against humanity for supplying and creating Daesh/ISIS .
This element cannot be ignored . Also Kurdistan can form their new country in the regions they
occupy as of this moment and Mosul to come. Iran,Russia,Iraq, Syria and the new Kurdistan will
sign up to this deal . Millions of Syrian refugees can then come back home and rebuild their broken
lives with Iranian help and cash damages from the mentioned instigators $400 billion . The cash
must be paid into the Syrian central bank before any elections take place ... Solved...
My consultancy fee - 200ml pounds sterling... I know ... you wish I ruled the world (who knows
!) - no scams please or else -- ( the else would be an Apocalypse upon the western equity markets
via the Illuminati i.e a 49% crash )... a week to pay , no worries since better to pay for a just
solution than to have million descend upon EU as refugees . It is either this or God's revenge
with no mercy .
amacd2 31 Oct 2015 09:52
Obama, being more honest but also more dangerous than Flip Wilson says, "The Empire made me
do it",
Bernie, having "reservations" about what Obama has done, says nothing against Empire, but continues
to pretend, against all evidence, that this is a democracy.
Hillary, delighting in more war, says "We came, we bombed, they all died, but the Empire won."
Talk about 'The Issue' to debate for the candidates in 2016?
"What's your position on the Empire?"
"Oh, what Empire, you ask?"
"The friggin Empire that you are auditioning to pose as the president of --- you lying tools
of both the neocon 'R' Vichy party and you smoother lying neoliberal-cons of the 'D' Vichy party!"
lightstroke -> Pete Piper 31 Oct 2015 09:41
Nukes are not on the table. Mutually Assured Destruction.
The stick I'm talking about is the total capacity of the US, military and economic, to
have things its way or make the opposition very unhappy.
It's not necessary to win wars to exercise that power. All they have to do is start them and
keep them going until the arms industry makes as much dough from them as possible. That's the
only win they care about.
What has it gotten us? Nothing good. What has it gotten the top 1 percent? All the money
we don't have.
Taku2 31 Oct 2015 09:26
Obama is being an absolute idiot in sending special forces to fight with rebels who are
fighting the legitimate government of Syria. This is stupidity of the highest order. What will
he do when any of these special forces operatives are captured by IS or killed by Russian or Syrian
airstrikes?
How stupid can a President get?
Obama does need to pull back on this one, even though it will make his stupid and erroneous
policy towards the Syrian tragedy seem completely headless. If this stupid and brainless policy
is meant to be symbolic, its potential for future catastrophic consequences is immeasurable.
phillharmonic -> nishville 31 Oct 2015 08:56
That is a valid point: Syria is a sovereign nation recognized by the U.N., and any foreign
troops within without permission would be considered invaders. Of course, the U.S. ignores international
law all the time.
nishville 31 Oct 2015 08:35
Syrian rebels fighting the Islamic State
And who are those then? Do they exist, do we have any reliable source confirming they are really
simultaneously fighting IS and Syrian Army or is it yet another US fairy tale?
Anyway, foreign troops in Syria who are there without an invitation by Syrian government
or authorisation by UNSC are there illegally and can be tried for war crimes if captured. Why
is Obama putting his soldiers in this situation?
phillharmonic 31 Oct 2015 08:33
The U.S. strategy in Syria is in tatters as Obama lamely tries to patch it up. The U.S.
was determined to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria in service of the Saudis, Turkey, and Israel,
while pretending to go after ISIS, who the Saudis and Turks were covertly funding. The U.S. were
arming jihadists to oust Assad. That game is up, thanks to the Russians. Putin decided he wasn't
going to stand by while the U.S. and its proxies created another Libya jihadist disaster in Syria.
The forceful Russian intervention in going after ISIS showed the U.S. to be a faker, and caused
a sea-change in U.S. policy. Now the U.S. can't pretend to go after ISIS while really trying to
oust Assad. The Emporer has no clothes.
amacd2 -> Woody Treasure 31 Oct 2015 08:31
Woody, did you mean "Obama is a foil (for the Disguised Global Crony-Capitalist Empire--- which
he certainly is), or did you mean to say "fool" (which he certainly is not, both because he is
a well paid puppet/poodle for this Global Empire merely HQed in, and 'posing' as, America ---
as Blair and Camron are for the same singular Global Empire --- and because Obama didn't end his
role as Faux/Emperor-president like JFK), eh?
Nena Cassol -> TonyBlunt 31 Oct 2015 06:48
Assad's father seized power with a military coup and ruled the country for 30 years, before
dying he appointed his son, who immediately established marshal law, prompting discontent even
among his father's die-hard loyalists ...this is plain history, is this what you call a legitimate
leader?
Cycles 31 Oct 2015 06:41
Forced to go in otherwise the Russians and Iranians get full control. Welcome to the divided
Syria a la Germany after WW2.
TonyBlunt -> Nena Cassol 31 Oct 2015 06:36
"It does not take much research to find out that Assad is not legitimate at all"
Please share your source with us Nena. But remember Langley Publications don't count.
TonyBlunt -> oldholbornian 31 Oct 2015 06:29
The Americans do not recognise international law. They do not sign up to any of it and proclaim
the right to break it with their "exceptionalism".
Katrin3 -> herrmaya 31 Oct 2015 05:27
The Russians, US, Iran etc are all meeting right now in Vienna. The Russians and the US military
do communicate with each other, to avoid attacking each other by mistake.
The Russians are in the West and N.West of Syria. The US is going into the N. East, near IS
headquarters in Raqqa, to support the Kurdish YPG, who are only a few kilometers from the city.
Katrin3 -> ID6693806 31 Oct 2015 05:15
Israel is an ally of KSA who is funding IS, Al Nusra, Al-Qaida and Al-Shabab. They are
also partners with KSA in trying to prevent Iran's reintegration into global society following
the nuclear deal, and the lifting of sanctions.
I suspect that Israel wants to annex the Syrian Golan Heights permanently, and to extend
their illegal settlements into the area. That can only happen if Assad is defeated.
centerline ChristineH 31 Oct 2015 04:48
The Kurds are the fabled moderate opposition who are willing to negotiate, and who have also
fought with the Syrian government against US backed ISIS and al Nusra so called moderate opposition.
Pete Piper -> Verbum 31 Oct 2015 04:47
@Verbum Wow, you make a lot of sense. I always thought the US military heavy foreign policy became
insane because of Reagan. Maybe it was the loss of the USSR?
Everyone here grew up being taught that the US is the champion of all that is good (sounds
corny today). When the USSR dissolved, everyone imagined huge military cuts with the savings being
invested in social benefits. If someone had predicted that, instead, we would grow our military,
throw our civil rights away, embrace empire, assasinate US citizens without a trial, create total
surveillance, create secret one sided star-chamber FISA courts that control a third of our economy,
and choose a Dept. name heard previously only in Nazi movies (Homeland Security) --- we'd have
laughed and dismissed the warning as delusion.
gabriel90 -> confettifoot 31 Oct 2015 04:46
ISiS is destroying Syria thanks to the US and Saudi Arabia; its an instrument to spread chaos
in the Middle East and attack Iran and Russia...
ChristineH 31 Oct 2015 04:21
So, on the day peace talks open, the US unilaterally announces advice boots on the ground to
support one of the many sides in the Syrian War, who will undoubtedly want self determination,
right on Turkey's border, as they always have, and as has always been opposed by the majority
of the Syrian population. What part of that isn't completely mad?
Great sympathy for the situation of the Kurds in Syria under Assad, but their nationalism issue
and inability to work together with the Sunni rebels, was a major factor in the non formation
of a functioning opposition in Syria, and will be a block to peace, not its cause. It's also part
of a larger plan to have parts of Turkey and Iraq under Kurdish control to create a contingent
kingdom. Whatever the merits of that, the US deciding to support them at this stage is completely
irrational, and with Russia and Iran supporting Assad will lengthen the war, not shorten it.
MissSarajevo 31 Oct 2015 04:21
Just a couple of things here. How does the US know who the moderates are?!? Is this another
occasion that the US is going to use International law as toilet paper? The US will enter (as
if they weren't already there, illegally. They were not invited in by the legitimate leader of
Syria.
gabriel90 31 Oct 2015 04:19
Warbama is just trying to save his saudi/qatari/turk/emirati dogs of war... they will be wiped
out by Russia and the axis of resistance...
Pete Piper -> Michael Imanual Christos 31 Oct 2015 04:08
Does anyone see anything rational in US foreign policy? When I hear attempts to explain, they
vary around .. "it's about oil". But no one ever shows evidence continuous wars produced more
oil for anyone. So, are we deliberately creating chaos and misery? Why? To make new enemies we
can use to justify more war? We've now classified the number of countries we are bombing. Why?
The countries being bombed surely know.
Pete Piper -> oldholbornian 31 Oct 2015 03:50
You are correct. Obama is breaking UN international law, the US has no right to invade
Syria. Russia, though, has been asked by the Syrian government for help, a government fully recognized
by the UN. Russia has full UN sanctioned rights to help Syria. US news media will never explain
this to the public, sadly.
Only the US routinely violates other nations' sovergnity. Since Korea, the only nation that
has ever used military force against a nation not on its border is the US.
Can anyone find rationality in US foreign policy? We are supposed to be fighting ISIL, but
Saudi Arabia and Israel appear to be helping ISIL to force Syrian regime change. And the US is
supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia that are routed to ISIL. Supposedly because eliminating President
Asad is more important than fighting ISIL? The US public is being misled into thinking we are
NOW fighting ISIL. After Asad is killed, then we will genuinely fight ISIL? Russia, Iran, and
more(?) will fight to keep Asad in power and then fight ISIL? THIS IS OBVIOUS BS, AND ALSO FUBAR.
By all means, get everyone together for some diplomacy.
oldholbornian -> lesmandalasdeniki 31 Oct 2015 03:36
Well lets look at Germany the centre of christian culture and the EU
reminds me of emporer franz josef in europe about 100 years ago .. meant well but led to ruination
..i dont think that there has been an american president involved in more wars than obama
obama by his cairo speech kicked of the arab spring ..shows that words can kill
however.. the experience he now has gained may lead to an avoidance of a greater sunni shia
war in syria if the present vienna talks can offer something tangible and preserve honour to the
sunnis .. in the mid east honour and macho are key elements in negotiations
iran however is a shia caliphate based regime and unless it has learnt the lesson from yemen
on the limitations of force may push for further success via army and diplomacy and control in
syria and iraq
oldholbornian 31 Oct 2015 02:42
But Obama's latest broken promise to avoid an "open-ended action" in Syria could lead to a
full-blown war with Russia considering that Russian military has been operating in Syria for weeks.
" For the first time ever, the American strategists have developed an illusion that they
may defeat a nuclear power in a non-nuclear war," Russian deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin
told AP. "It's nonsense, and it will never happen."
Any US / terrorist engagement with the Syrian security forces will include engaging with its
allies Russia
Once the firing starts Russia will include the US as terrorists with no rights to be in Syrian
and under the UN RULES have the right to defend themselves against the US
HollyOldDog -> foolisholdman 31 Oct 2015 02:32
Hmm Foreign snipers on rooftops ( not in the control of the government) how many times is this
scenario going to be played out before the 'press' twigs it than something is not making sense.
HollyOldDog -> foolisholdman 31 Oct 2015 02:29
Though in one demonstration there was snipers on rooftops shooting both deconstratirs and the
police - far more police were killed than demonstrators - what does this reming you of? Was these
actions seemingly out of the control of the government a preliminary to what happened in Kiev
during the maidan - practices get the technics right I suppose. - outside forces were obviously
at work ' stirring the pot.
Anna Eriksson 31 Oct 2015 02:24
Let's hope that the US will help out with taking in some refugees as well! In Germany, and
Sweden locals are becoming so frustrated and angry that they set refugee shelters on fire. This
is a trend in both Sweden and Germany, as shown in the maps in the links. There have almost been
90 arsons in Germany so far this year, almost 30 in Sweden.
Nobody tells the American people and nobody else really cares, but these 40-something guys
being sent to Syria are possibly there as:
cannon fodder: to deter the Russians from bombing and Iranians from attacking on the ground
the American friendly anti-Assad militant groups;
to collect and report more accurate intel from the front line (again about the Russian/Iranian
troops deployment/movement).
The Russian and Iranian troops on the ground will soon engage and sweep anti-Assad forces in
key regions in Western Syria. This will be slightly impeded if Americans are among them. But accidents
do happen, hence the term "cannon fodder".
The Russians and Iranians will likely take a step back militarily though for the duration of
talks, so the American plan to protect Saudi backed fighters is likely to work.
I never involved or mentioned ISIS because this is NOT about fighting ISIS. It's about counteracting
the Russian/Irania sweep in the area, and ultimately keeping the Americans in the game (sorry,
war).
petervietnam 31 Oct 2015 01:13
The world's policeman or the world's trouble maker?
Austin Young -> Will D 31 Oct 2015 00:34
But he's the "change we can believe in" guy! Oh right... Dem or republican, they spew anything
and everything their voters want to hear but when it comes time to walk the walk the only voice
in their head is Cash Money.
lesmandalasdeniki -> Bardhyl Cenolli 30 Oct 2015 23:34
It frustrates me, anyone who will be the problem-solver will be labeled as dangerous by the
Western political and business leaders if the said person or group of people can not be totally
controlled for their agenda.
This will be the first time I will be speaking about the Indonesian forest fires that started
from June this year until now. During the period I was not on-line, I watched the local news and
all channels were featuring the same problem every day during the last two-weeks.
US is also silent about it during Obama - Jokowi meeting, even praising Jokowi being on the
right track. After Jokowi came back, his PR spin is in the force again, he went directly to Palembang,
he held office and trying to put up an image of a President that cared for his people. He couldn't
solve the Indonesian forest fires from June - October, is it probably because Jusuf Kalla has
investment in it?
My point is, US and the Feds, World Bank and IMF are appointing their puppets on each country
they have put up an investment on terms of sovereign debt and corporate debt/bonds.
And Obama is their puppet.
Will D 30 Oct 2015 23:30
Obama's presidency lost its credibility a long time ago. He made so many rash promises
and statements which one by one he has broken, that no free thinking person believes anything
he says anymore.
He has turned out to be a massive disappointment to all those who had such high hopes that
he really would make the world a better place. His failure and his abysmal track record will cause
him to be remembered as the Nobel Peace prize wining president who did exactly the opposite of
what he promised, and failed to further the cause of peace.
Greg_Samsa -> Greenacres2002 30 Oct 2015 23:07
Consistency is at the heart of logic, all mathematics, and hard sciences.
Even the legal systems strive to be free of contradictions.
I'd rather live in world with consistency of thought and action as represented by the Russian
Federation, then be mired in shit created by the US who have shed all the hobgoblins pestering
the consistency of their thoughts and actions.
Never truly understood the value of this stupid quote really...
Phil Atkinson -> PaulF77 30 Oct 2015 22:28
There's a world of difference between Russia taking steps to protect its immediate geographic
and political interests (which were largely the wishes of the resident populations - something
critics tend to overlook) and the USA invading Iraq (2003) in a blatant act of war, based on bullshit
and then aiding and abetting mercenary terrorists in Syria in defiance of any declaration of war,
UN resolution or invitation from the Syrian government to intervene.
You might have also noticed that Syria is a long, long way from the USA. Rhetorically,
WTF is the US doing in the Middle East? Propping up Saudi or Israel? Or both?
MainstreamMedia Propaganda 30 Oct 2015 22:03
ISIS == Mercenaries sponsored by the US, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Does a strategy against
our own mercenaries make sense???
I think blatant policy changes like this show just how ineffectual the US president actually
is. The hand over between Bush and Obama has been seamless. Gitmo still going, patriot act renewed,
Libya a smoldering ruin (4 years down the line), no progress on gun control, troops in Afganistan
and Iraq... it goes on...
HowSicklySeemAll 30 Oct 2015 21:58
"It's really hard to see how this tiny number of troops embedded on the ground is going
to turn the tide in any way."
Or the U.S. could carry out air strikes against Hezbollah which has been fighting ISIS for
a while now. They could also supply weapons to ISIS (who are dubbed 'moderates') to counter Russian
airstrikes and Iranian man power.
Think about, when's the last time Saudi Arabia did anything progressive or humane in its
foreign policy? Now remember this very same country is on the same side as the Americans. This
is the country that invaded Bahrain and Yemen and labelled the civil rights movements in those
countries as 'Iranian interference.' The Saudis who have been seeking to turn civil rights movements
with rather nationalistic demands into religious and sectarian conflicts by playing different
groups against each other are allied with the U.S. and sitting at the table in Vienna talking
about peace in Syria. Nonsense upon stilts!
Phil Atkinson -> Harry Bhai 30 Oct 2015 21:57
Fuck the al-Sauds and their oil. If the US wants their oil (and there's plenty of other oil
sellers in the world) then just take it. Why not be consistent?
templeforjerusalem 30 Oct 2015 21:51
IS has shown itself to be deeply hateful of anything that conflicts with their narrow religious
interpretations. Destroying Palmyra, murdering indiscriminately, without any clear international
agenda other than the formation of a new Sunni Sharia State, makes them essentially enemies of
everybody. Although I do agree that belligerent secular Netanyahu's Israel sets a bad example
in the area, Israel does not tend to murder over the same primitive values that IS uses, although
there's not much difference in reality.
IS uses extermination tactics, Israel used forced land clearance and concentration camp bombing
(Gaza et al), while the US in Iraq used brutal force. None of this is good but nothing justifies
the shear barbarism of IS. Is there hope in any of this? No. Is Russian and US involvement a major
escalation? Yes.
Ultimately, this is about religious identities refusing to share and demand peace. Sunni vs
Shia, Judeo/Catholic/Protestant West vs Russian Orthodox, secular vs orthodox Israel. No wonder
people are saying Armageddon.
HowSicklySeemAll 30 Oct 2015 21:50
ISIS poses no threat to the Americans and vice versa. The Americans therefore do not have
an interest in making sure that ISIS is wiped out. On the contrary they want regional foes to
suffer. The only countries and groups that have been successfully fighting ISIS - Assad's
forces, Iranians, Hezbollah, Russians, and Kurds are in fact enemies of either the U.S., Saudis,
Israelis, or Turks. Isn't that strange? The countries and peoples that have suffered the most
and that have actually fought against ISIS effectively are seen as the enemy. Do the powers that
be really want to wipe out ISIS at all costs? No, especially if it involves the Iranians and Russians.
How are Russian boots on the ground - of which there have been many for some time - ok
and American boots bad?
The difference is that of a poison and the antidotum. The American/NATO meddling in Iraq, Libya
and Syria created a truly sick situation which needs to be fixed. That's what the Russians are
doing. Obviously, they have their own objectives and motives for that and are protecting their
own interests, but nevertheless this is the surest way to re-establish semblance of stability
in the Middle East, rebuilt Syria and Iraq, stop the exodus of the refugees, and mend relations
in the region.
The American attempt at negotiating peace in Syria without Syrian representation is nothing
short of ridiculous and best illustrates the convoluted state of American foreign policy. America
lost any claim to 'leadership' by now.
I feel sorry for Mr Obama, and indeed America, because he is a decent person, yet most of us
are unaware what forces he has to reckon with behind the scenes. It is clear by now that interests
of corporations and rich individuals, as well as a couple of seemingly insignificant foreign states,
beat the national interest of America all time, anytime. It is astonishing how a powerful, hard
working and talented nation can become beholden to such forces, to its own detriment.
In the end, I do not think the situation is uniquely American. Russia or China given a chance
of total hegemony would behave the same. That's why we need a field of powers/superpowers to keep
one another in check and negotiate rather than enforce solutions.
ID9309755 -> pegasusrose2011 30 Oct 2015 21:02
Unfortunately American policy and that eu have at time added fuel to the fire. Yes,
the me has its own problems, including rival versions of Islam and fundamentalism as well as truly
megalomaniac leaders. But in instances (Libya for example) they did truly contribute to the country's
destruction (and I am not excusing Gaddafi, but for the people there sometimes having these leaders
and waiting for generational transformations may be a better solution than instant democracy pills.)
ID7582903 -> pegasusrose2011 30 Oct 2015 21:00
Russian Iranian and hezbollah boots are invited boots by the legitimate government according
to the UN Charter they are all acting legally and according to the Geneva Conventions etc.
The US led coalition in bombing Syria were not, and the admitted introduction of troops
into Syria is a an ACT OF WAR by the USA, and it is the AGRESSOR here, not doubt about it. It's
a War Crime by every standard
Obama and the "regime" that rules the United Snakes of America have all gone over the edge
into insanity writ large.
ID9309755 -> pegasusrose2011 30 Oct 2015 20:55
To clarify, I meant that all these groups are funded by these Arabic sheikhdoms and it increasingly
appears that th us of a is not as serious in eradicating all of them in the illusion that the
so called softer ones will over through Assad and then it will be democracy, the much misused
and fetishised term. Meanwhile we can carve up the country, Turkey gets a bite and our naughty
bloated allies in Arabia will be happy with their influence. Only if it happened that way...
There is much more than this short and simplified scenario, and yes Russia played its hand
rather well taking the west off guard. And I am not trying to portray Putin as some liberation
prophet either. So perhaps you could say that yes, maybe I have looked into it deep...
BlooperMario -> RedEyedOverlord 30 Oct 2015 20:52
China and Russia are only responding to NY World Bank and IMF cheats and also standing up to
an evil empire that has ruined the middle east.
Time you had a rethink old chap and stopped worshipping Blair; Bush; Rumsfeld etc as your heros.
See the NATO creep into Eastern Europe against all agreements made with USSR.
Silly Sailors provoking Chinese Lighthouse keepers.
RoyRoger 30 Oct 2015 19:30
Their Plan B is fucked !!
But their real agenda is to carve up Syria. In the deep recesses of their, the Corporate
corrupt White House's, mind ISIS is not their immediate problem. ISIS is a means to an end - carve
up Syria a sovereign country.
Remember, only months ago, Kerry and Tory William Hague, was handing out cash to Syrian
rebels who later turned out to be ISIS rebels. We must never forget, Syria, right or wrong, is
a sovereign country.
The real battle/plan for the Corporate corrupt White House is to try and get a foothold in
Syria and establish a military dictator after a coup d'etat'. As we know it's what they, the West,
do best.
Look at the mess they made in, Ukraine, with their friends a bunch of, Kiev, murdering
neo-Nazi's.
In the interest of right is right; Good Luck Mr Putin !! I'm with you all the way.
weematt 30 Oct 2015 19:25
War (and poverty too) a consequence, concomitant, of competing for markets, raw materials and
trade routes or areas of geo-political dominance, come to be seen as 'natural' outcomes of society,
but are merely concomitants of a changeable social system.
... ... ...
Greg_Samsa 30 Oct 2015 19:21
Just out of curiosity...how will the US keep the DoD and CIA from duking it out at the
opposite fronts on the Syrian soil?
This gives a whole new dimension to the term 'blue-on-blue'.
Kevin Donegan 30 Oct 2015 18:59
Washington has clearly chosen to break International Law.
"Westphalian sovereignty is the principle of international law that each nation state has sovereignty
over its territory and domestic affairs, to the exclusion of all external powers, on the principle
of non-interference in another country's domestic affairs, and that each state (no matter how
large or small) is equal in international law. The doctrine is named after the Peace of Westphalia,
signed in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years' War, in which the major continental European states
the Holy Roman Empire, Spain, France, Sweden and the Dutch Republic agreed to respect one
another's territorial integrity. As European influence spread across the globe, the Westphalian
principles, especially the concept of sovereign states, became central to international law and
to the prevailing world order.[1]"
foolisholdman 30 Oct 2015 18:41
As the administration in Washington is firmly in the grasp of special interest groups such
as Big Pharma, The Banksters, Big Agrobusiness, Big oil, the MIC and Israel there is no chance
of getting good policy decisions out of there until there is a regime change.
If ever there was a government hat had lost its legitimacy the present US government is it.
foolisholdman -> Johnny Kent 30 Oct 2015 18:31
Johnny Kent
The slight question of legality in placing troops in a sovereign country without permission
or UN approval is obviously of no importance to the US...and yet they criticise Russia for
'annexing Crimea...
Yes, but you see: the two cases are not comparable because the USA is exceptional.
You might think that having criticized Assad for shooting
demonstrators who demonstrated
against the corruption and inefficiency of his regime, and having said that as a result his regime
had lost its legitimacy, they would apply the same yardstick to President Poroshenko when he shot
up two provinces of his country for asking for federation, killing thousands in the process, but
on the contrary they sent "advisers" to train his military and his Fascist helpers to use their
weapons better, to shoot them up more effectively.
However, one cannot really expect people who are exceptional to behave like ordinary (unexceptional)
human beings.
WalterCronkiteBot 30 Oct 2015 17:11
What is the official US line on the legality of these deployments in terms of international
law?
Noone seems to even raise it as an issue, its all about congressional approval. Just like the
UK drone strikes.
"... Rile the masses up against the Commie Threat, as it worked so well in the 50's - 60's. Save us the expense of rewriting the playbook. Sure. Duck and cover. ..."
"... But the first place I would look is inside the DNC, if I were in charge. Russian intel releasing to wikileaks? Not much profit in that. ..."
"... By the way, whatever became of dearest FBI frontman Comey? ..."
"It might have well been an insider who copied the material and handed them to Wikileaks for publication"
Why this idea gets no traction, obviously -- without an admission of authenticity from DNC,
they have it both ways, the ability to ascribe guilt to Russia, and plausible deniability vis
a vis Sanders. Let's not rule out a purposeful leak as a gloating advertisement for DNC sponsors/donors,
or just as likely as a forgery using wikileaks as conduit for disinformation by anti-DNC ops.
The Guccifer blip is just as believable valid as any of these theories, upo.
Rile the masses up against the Commie Threat, as it worked so well in the 50's - 60's.
Save us the expense of rewriting the playbook. Sure. Duck and cover.
But the first place I would look is inside the DNC, if I were in charge. Russian intel
releasing to wikileaks? Not much profit in that.
By the way, whatever became of dearest FBI frontman Comey?
"... Look over there! Putin is all over the place these days, he is doing Brexit, supporting Trump, and Corbyn I think, he is hacking Hillary, wow. ..."
Look over there! Putin is all over the place these days, he is doing Brexit, supporting Trump,
and Corbyn I think, he is hacking Hillary, wow. And he still has time to ride horses and
play with tigers and invade Europe. I see why he is popular.
But it's nice to be Russian, I like Russia, it's a beautiful country. Until now the Bernie
people were all sexists, racists, privileged homeless idiots who lived in basements, but now we
are Russians. Much better. See that's the Hillary outreach to the bros.
"... "President Putin has clearly realized that the neo-liberal "experiment" has failed. More likely, is that he was forced to let economic reality unfold under the domination of the liberals to the point it was clear to all internal factions that another road was urgently needed. Russia, like every country, has opposing vested interests and now clearly the neo-liberal vested interests are sufficiently discredited by the poor performance of the Kudrin group that the President is able to move decisively. In either case, the development around the Stolypin Group is very positive for Russia." ..."
I never knew about his existence. He was dead right about national economics
and free trade. The Smithian BS has been the root of much pain and suffering
over the last 200 years.
"President Putin has clearly realized that the neo-liberal "experiment"
has failed. More likely, is that he was forced to let economic reality
unfold under the domination of the liberals to the point it was clear
to all internal factions that another road was urgently needed. Russia,
like every country, has opposing vested interests and now clearly the
neo-liberal vested interests are sufficiently discredited by the poor
performance of the Kudrin group that the President is able to move decisively.
In either case, the development around the Stolypin Group is very positive
for Russia."
This is indeed big news, and the above paragraph is the money shot. Kudrin
is a tool, but Putin wisely did not make a martyr out of him by kicking
him to the curb until he had shown everyone that he was a tool. Now nobody
will dare intervene, "But what about Kudrin's plan?" And another western
voice stilled.
It is pretty interesting and educational to read such articles one year after
they are published.
Notable quotes:
"... Russia is already in dire straits. The economy has contracted by 4.9pc over the past year and the downturn is certain to drag on as oil prices crumble after a tentative rally. Half of Russia's tax income comes from oil and gas. ..."
"... Core inflation is running at 16.7pc and real incomes have fallen by 8.4pc over the past year, a far deeper cut to living standards than occurred following the Lehman crisis. ..."
"... This man "forecasted" Russia's demise last year. He has to show that that forecast is still liable to happen ..."
"... What Colby said is palpably true. That is why we don't hear real news and instead we are bombarded with news about their "celebs" ..."
"... He should know. And certainly, Western media coverage of the Ukraine crisis demonstrated to many millions of people in the West that major Western media is almost all controlled by the US neocons. Anyone with half a brain can see that - but clearly not you. ..."
"... Russia is not interested in invading anyone. The US has tried to force Russia to invade Ukraine in an iraq style trap but it didn't work. So they had to invent an invasion, the first in living memory without a single satellite, video or photo image of any air campaign, heavy armour, uniformed soldiers, testimony from friends & family of servicemen they could pay to get a statement, not even a mobile photo of a Russian sitting on a tank. ..."
"... As the merkins tell us a devalued dollar is your problem.. the devalued rouble is the EUs problem! ..."
"... So the political sanctions are bankrupting Russia because they dared to challenge EU expansion. Result millions of poor Russians will start to flow West and the UK will have another flood of Eastern Europeans. But at least we showed them our politicians are tough. ..."
"... Spelling it out for Russia (or Britain) that would mean giving up Byzantine based ambitions and prospering through alliances with the Muslim Nation or Countries, including Turkey. In the short term such a move would quell internal dissent of the 11m immigrants in Russia, reduce unsustainable security expenditure with its central Asian neighbours, open and expand market for Russian goods in the Middle East, Far East and North Africa, and eventually form and provide a military-commercial -political alliance (like NATO) for the Muslim nations with Russia (with partner strength based upon what is mostly commercial placed on the table (see the gist in the Vienna Agreement between P5+1 and Iran). ..."
"... The formation of such an alliance would trump Russia's (or Britain's) opponents ambitions and bring prosperity. ..."
"... Propaganda. Laughable coming from the UK hack when the UK has un-payable debt and Russia has little external debt plus we have no Gold and Russia has probably 20,000 tonnes. NATO surrounds Russia yet they are the aggressors. ..."
"... In the end, Ambrose is too ideological to be credible on the issue. Sure, Russia has couple lean years ahead, but it will come out of this ordeal stronger, not weaker. There are already reports of mini boomlets gathering steam under the surface. ..."
Russia is already in dire straits. The economy has contracted by 4.9pc
over the past year and the downturn is certain to drag on as oil prices crumble
after a tentative rally. Half of Russia's tax income comes from oil and gas.
Core inflation is running at 16.7pc and real incomes have fallen by 8.4pc
over the past year, a far deeper cut to living standards than occurred following
the Lehman crisis. This time there is no recovery in sight as Western sanctions
remain in place and US shale production limits any rebound in global oil prices.
"We've seen the full impact of the crisis in the second quarter. It is
now hitting light industry and manufacturing," said Dmitri Petrov from Nomura.
"Russia is going to be in a very difficult fiscal situation by 2017," said
Lubomir Mitov from Unicredit. "By the end of next year there won't be any money
left in the oil reserve fund and there is a humongous deficit in the pension
fund. They are running a budget deficit of 3.7pc of GDP but without developed
capital markets Russia can't really afford to run a deficit at all."
A report by the Higher School of Economics in Moscow warned that a quarter
of Russia's 83 regions are effectively in default as they struggle to cope with
salary increases and welfare costs dumped on them by President Vladimir Putin
before his election in 2012. "The regions in the far east are basically bankrupt,"
said Mr Mitov.
Russian companies have to refinance $86bn in foreign currency debt in the
second half of this year. They cannot easily roll this over since the country
is still cut off from global capital markets, so they must rely on swap funding
from the central bank.
Dave Hanson
For once, Flimflambrose paints a fairly accurate picture. His formula
is to take a few facts and stretch them to their illogical conclusion to
create a story that sells subscriptions to the Telegraph. Sort of like the
National Enquirer. He does that well. He only mentions the other side of
the story in a sentence or two, usually at the end of his column. The scary
headline at the top comes true perhaps one in a thousand times, just enough
to keep readers from totally dismissing him as a fruitcake. Not yellow journalism.
Clever journalism.
steph borne
jezzam steph borne a day ago
''Under Putin Russia has progressed from a respectable rank 60 on the
transparency international corruption index to an appalling rank 140. It
is now one of the most corrupt countries in the world, entirely due to Putin.''
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...
.
jezzam is using the Corruption Perceptions Index as fact?
but it is ''Perceptions''???
''The CPI measures perception of corruption due to the difficulty of measuring
absolute levels of corruption.[8]'' Wiki
Just more nonsense from Jezzam
soton
my wife is russian, she speak's to her mother on the phone every day,
from what she tell's me nothing has changed economically for the "average
joe" no doubt some of the abramovich types have seen the value of their
properties plunge
Rosbif2
So if Russia is financially sinking below the waves, how come AEP in
other articles claimed that Russia could buy themselves into Greece and
menace Europe?
It seems like Greece & Russia are two drowning men who would grab onto each
other & drown even faster
AEP seems to lack "joined up thinking" in his articles
giltedged
This man "forecasted" Russia's demise last year. He has to show that
that forecast is still liable to happen
What Colby said is palpably true. That is why we don't hear real
news and instead we are bombarded with news about their "celebs"
Real news to show that a new world economy is being built totally outside
the control of US Neocons and Globalists, that the world is now multi-polar,
that for example this journalist's capital city, London, now has officially
a majority of the population not merely non-British in origin, but non-European,
that his own country survives because of London property sales
Richard N
And isn't AEP rubbing his hands with glee at this supposedly desperate
situation of Russia!
Colby, the ex-boss of the CIA, said in retirement that there is no journalist
of consequence or influence in the Western media that the CIA 'does not
own'.
I often find myself remembering that, when I read Ambrose pumping out
the US neocon / CIA propaganda standard lines about 'Russian aggression'
in Ukraine, and so on - choosing to ignore the fact that Russia's action
in Crimea was in direct response and reaction to the US Neocons' coup in
Ukraine, which overthrew an elected government in a sovereign state, to
replace it with the current US puppet regime in Kiev.
Of course, this collapse of oil and gas prices are no accident at all
- but are part of America's full-scale economic war against Russia, aiming
to get Putin overthrown, and replaced by someone controlled by the US Globalists,
leaving then
China as the only major power centre in the world outside the Globalists'
control.
Richard N > jezzam a day ago
If you bothered to read what I wrote carefully, you would see that, with
reference to journalists, I was simply repeating what ex-head of the CIA
Mr. Colby said.
He should know. And certainly, Western media coverage of the Ukraine
crisis demonstrated to many millions of people in the West that major Western
media is almost all controlled by the US neocons. Anyone with half a brain
can see that - but clearly not you.
steph borne
''Russian bear will roar once more, says World Bank''
01 Jun 2015
''Russia economy forecast to grow by 0.7pc next year, reversing negative
growth
forecast''
Carried on to the absurd extreme at which all the dollars are held outside
of America, the US simply prints more money thus devaluing it's currency
and favoring exports (which are then cheaper to produce and cheaper buy)
people giving their currency to the US in return for goods and services
and restoring economic balance.
I can understand that Russia doesn't have much experience with the 'boom
and bust' cycles of market economies. They've had less than 20 years experience
at it.
Did you know that in the 19th century China's trade surplus with Europe
was so vast that Europe almost went bankrupt and ran out of precious metals
buying Chinese goods, surely by your thinking it was truly a golden age
of eastern supremacy, western failure. Ask any Chinese person what the 19th
century means to them, you might be surprised.
steph borne > Halou
Shame you can't provide a link or two to back up your thoughts on trade
surpluses.. altho I know amongst bankrupt countries they tell you that money/assets
leaving the country is a good thing....
Strange that the Germans don't agree --
''Germany recorded a trade surplus of 19600 EUR Million in May of 2015.
Balance ...reaching an all time high of 23468.80 EUR Million in July of
2014...'' http://www.tradingeconomics.co...
Obviously another country heading for financial self-destruction
steph borne
02 Oct 2014 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... 02 Oct 2014
Russias-economy-is-being-hit-hard-by-sanctions.html
01 Sept 2014 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... 01 Sept 2014 Cameron-we-will-permanently-damage-Russias-economy.html
cameron says.??? Aha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha
29 Dec 2014 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fin... 29 Dec 2014 /Recession-looms-for-Russia-as-economy-shrinks-for-first-time-since-2009.html
24 Nov 2014 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fin... 24 Nov 2014 Russia-faces-recession-as-oil-crash-and-sanctions-cost-economy-90bn.html
22 Dec 2014 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fin... 22 Dec 2014 Russia-starts-bailing-out-banks-as-economy-faces-full-blown-economic-crisis.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fin... 29 Apr 2015
Ukraines-conflict-with-Russia-leaves-economy-in-ruins.htm
.
Still going!!!
Graham Milne
Russia has physical assets (oil, minerals and so on); we don't. It is
the UK which is toast, not Russia.
billsimpson > Graham Milne
Russia is way too big & resource rich to ever be total toast. And the
people are educated, even if they do drink a lot. But they could get a bit
hungry in another economic collapse. All the nukes they have is the real
problem. Those need to be kept secure, should another revolution occur,
or the country break apart after an economic collapse.
The US & Canada would never sit back and watch the UK melt down. Witness
the Five Eyes communal global spying system.
Electrify all the rail system that you can, so people can still get around
on less oil. Some oil is essential for growing and transporting food.
Sal20111
Russia can't just blame it on sanctions, or price wars in oil and gas.
They have not reinvested the proceeds of their prodigous fossil fuel sales
smartly and neither have they diversified quickly enough - the gas sales
to China was an afterthought after Ukraine.
Putin cracked down on some of the oligarchs but not all - national wealth
has clearly been sucked out by a few. Nepotism and favouritism seem to be
rife. They should have learnt the lesson from their communist history not
to concentrate power in state contriolled organisations. Not sure whether
there is much of a small to medium business culture.
With the amount of natural resources it has, and a well educated public,
particularly in math and technical skills, Russia should be doing much better.
rob22
Russia is not interested in invading anyone. The US has tried to
force Russia to invade Ukraine in an iraq style trap but it didn't work.
So they had to invent an invasion, the first in living memory without a
single satellite, video or photo image of any air campaign, heavy armour,
uniformed soldiers, testimony from friends & family of servicemen they could
pay to get a statement, not even a mobile photo of a Russian sitting on
a tank.
Russia is too busy building up an independent agriculture and import
substitution, not to mention creating economic and trade links with its
Eurasian neighbours like China & India via the silk road, BRICS, Eurasian
Ecconomic Union and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
A total nightmare for the US which once hoped to divide & dominate the
region (see new American century doc)
Putin enjoys about 85% approval ratings (independent foreign stats) because
it knows to surrender to the US means a return to the 90`s where the nations
oil revenue went to wall st and everything else
If things get bad they`ll just devalue the ruble, get paid in dollars
and spend in rubles.
This is why most Russians are willing to dig in and play the long game.
Londonmaxwell
Over the top with Ambrose, as usual. Words like "depression", "crisis",
"plummet", and "shrivels"; and these only in the first two paragraphs! Moscow
looks absolutely normal to me: traffic jams, packed malls and restaurants,
crowded airports and train stations. Unemployment is low, inflation is tolerable.
Ambrose misses some key points.
First, if Gazprom's revenues fell from $146bn to $106bn, then this
implies (drumroll) a revenue increase from RUB 5.1 trillion to RUB 5.8
trillion. Since Gazprom/Lukoil/Rosneft et al have USD revenues but RUB
expenses, they are all doing quite nicely, as is the Russian treasury.
Second, while Russian companies do have foreign debt to pay back,
I suspect much of this "debt" is owed to (drumroll) Russian-controlled
companies in BVI, Cyprus, Luxie, Swissie, and the other usual suspects.
Third, if the oil price declines more in 2015, the Kremlin will simply
let the ruble slide, and the biggest losers will again be (drumroll)
European exporters.
Russia's present situation is not glorious, but it is not as precarious
as Ambrose portrays it to be. Be wary of writing off Russia. The great game
is just beginning.
energman58 > Londonmaxwell
Except that the slack has to be taken up by inflation and declining living
standards - Russia isn't unique; in Zimbabwe dollar terms almost every company
there did splendidly but the place is still bust. The problem is that most
of the debt is USD denominated and without the investment blocked by sanctions
they are looking at a declining production, low oil prices and an increasing
debt service burden. Presumably they could revert to the traditional model
of starving the peasants that has served them so well in the past but I
am not sure if the people with the real stroke will be quite so happy to
see their assets wither away...
Londonmaxwell > energman58
Comparing Russia with Mugabeland is a stretch, but I see your point.
If the sanctions stay and the oil price goes south permanently, then Moscow
has problems. But I question both assumptions. Merkel/Hollande/Renzi already
face huge pressure from their business leaders to resume normal relations
with Russia; i.e., drop the sanctions. As for oil prices, the USA's shale
sector is already in trouble. Russia's debt burden (both public and private)
is manageable and can scarcely worsen since it is cut off from the credit
markets. While the oil price slump certainly hurts Russia's economy, I don't
see the wheels falling off anytime soon.
AEP writes well and is always thought-provoking, but his view that Russia
is facing Armageddon because of oil prices and sanctions is way off the
mark.
steph borne
Here come the Ukrainian Nazis.. You lot must be very happy
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/e... 18 minutes in..
Maidan number 3 on the way as I predicted a year ago.
midnightrambler
Amazing how the narrative for military action is being fostered by articles
such as this one.
So many people eager for something they have no intention of getting
involved in themselves
snotcricket
It is rather odd the posts on this thread accusing any & all who question
the obvious US gov line in such articles.
Could it be that some have better memories ie the Ukrainian crisis was
in fact created by the support of the US & EU for but a few thousand sat
in Independence Sq just two years after the country had voted in the target
with a majority the likes of Cameron, Obama could only dream of.
Only an idiot could not have seen the Russki response to a situation
that could in but a very short timescale see NATO troops & kit but a literal
footstep from Russki soil....while the ports used by the Russki fleets would
be lost overnight usurped no doubt by a 'NATO' fleet of US proportions.....plainly
the US knew the likely outcome to the deposing of the elected leader & replaced
by the EU puppets....the Russki's had little option.....Putin or no Putin
this would have been the outcome.
With regard to the US led attack on the Russki economy with sanctions....well
those sanctions hurt the UK too...but of course not the US (they have lobbyist
for such matters) our farmers were hurting afore the sanctions....that became
a damn sight worse after the imposition.
The US attempts to turn off the oil/gas taps of Putin has done damage
to the Russkis, similarly its done damage to W. Europe thus ourselves as
oil prices are now held at a level by the sanctions reducing world supplies
(the US have lobbyists for such matters) thus the god of the US, the market
is skewed & forecourt prices too sighed Osborne as the overall taxation
gathers 67% of what goes through the retailers till.
This has been rumbling for over 3 years since the BRICS held their meeting
to create a currency that would challenge the $ in terms of the general
w.w economy but specifically oil. They did mistime the threat & should have
kept their powder dry as the US economy like our own lives on borrowed time
& money.....but they made the mistake the US was in such decline they couldn't
respond....of course the US have the biggest of all responses to any threat....its
armed forces & their technology that advances far more rapidly than any
economy.
Incidentally I write this sat at my laptop in the North of England in
between running my own business & contacting clients etc..........I suspect
my politics would make Putin wince.....however the chronology, actions/outcomes
& the general logic of the situation has now't to do with supporting one
or t'other.......& do remember the US grudgingly acknowledge without the
Russkis the er, er agreement with Iran & non-proliferation would still be
a can yet to be kicked down the road.
Personally I'd be more worried that Putin has made fools of the US/EU
leaders so many times thus wonder just what is the intent in assisting the
brokering of any deal? With the West & Iran.
steph borne
If Russia was worried about the oil price they would not have been so
helpful in getting the usa & Iran together on a deal which will put more
downward pressure on the oil price!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new... Barack Obama praises Putin for help
clinching Iran deal
oleteo
Reading this article I saw only one message to be sent to the Russians:"Russians,surrender!"
The rumours about the desease and the ongoing decease of the Russian economy
are greatly exaggerated.
steph borne
June 17, 2015 at 1:44 pm Boeing said it struck a $7.4 billion deal to
sell 20 of its 747-8 freighters to Russia's Volga-Dnepr Group, providing
a much-needed boost to the jumbo-jet program amid flagging demand for four-engine
aircraft. http://www.seattletimes.com/bu...
MOSCOW, Russia (May 26, 2015) Bell Helicopter,
a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company, announced today an agreement with
JSC Ural Works of Civil Aviation (UWCA) for the development of final
assembly capabilities by UWCA for the Bell 407GXP in order to support
UWCA in obtaining Russian registry to facilitate their operations. http://www.bellhelicopter.com/...
.
Oh business as normal at Bell looks like sanctions only to be paid heed
by the useful idiots in the EU
snotcricket > steph borne
Yes the sanctions do seem to TTIP more in the US favour than their Western,
er, er partners
Sonduh
Just like Brown Osborne is reducing borrowing but encouraging consumer
debt which is close to 120% GDP. By the end of next year household debt
will be 172% of earnings.Once household debt reaches saturation point and
they start defaulting on their debt as they did in 2008 -- Game over. I
hear the Black Sea is nice this time of year.
steph borne
A report by Sberbank warned that Gazprom's revenues are likely to drop
by almost a third to $106bn this year from $146bn in 2014, seriously eroding
Russia's economic base.''
Last year $146 billion bought 4672 billion pybs this year $106 billion
will buy 6148 Billion pybs
Gazprom alone generates a tenth of Russian GDP and a fifth of all budget
revenues. the Pyb devaluation vs. $ has led to a 31% increase in revenues..
Something Salmond should take notice of should the SNP want to go for
independence again. Inflation at 16% may well be but its the price of imported
stuff pushing up the prices.. mainly EU goods for sale .. that won't be
bought!
As the merkins tell us a devalued dollar is your problem.. the devalued
rouble is the EUs problem!
Nikki Santoro
What is happening is the Anglo-Muricuns are actively provoking the Chinese
and Russkies into a war. However once it is all said and done, they are
going to need a cover story. People are going to ask why the Russkies attacked.
And then the Anglo-Muricuns are going to say that Putin put all his eggs
in one basket. Yeah that is what happened but really if Putin does attack,
it will be because of the endless Anglo-Muricun provocations. Just as they
provoked Hilter to no end and Imperial Japan as well.
steph borne
Russian companies have to refinance $86bn....''
So what are you going to do if they default.. go in and repossess..You
and who's army? They are struggling trying to get Greece to comply..
Russia's trade surplus is still in the Billions of Dollars while the
usa's & UKs is mired in deficit.. Russia recorded a trade surplus of 17.142
USD Billion in May of 2015 http://www.tradingeconomics.co....
Debt public/ external debt ratios
U. K..................92%........317%
usa...................74%......... 98%
And
Russia...............8%..........40%
''And while UK growth could reach 3pc this year, our expansion is far
too reliant on rising personal and government debt. ''
''The UK, with an external deficit now equal to 6pc of GDP, the second-largest
in half a century,''
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fin...
As ever the west points to Russia and says Look over there (for God's sake
don't look here!)
Sonduh > steph borne
And don't forget all their gold reserves. And all their natural resources.
Skalla
Prosperous countries are usually benevolent (the US being the exception
to the rule). Hungry countries get to be greedy and aggressive. The US with
its economic and financial manipulations will turn a sleepy bear into a
very awake and ravenous one, and after hibernation, the first thing bears
do is FEED --
vandieman
A cynic could say that the US is driving the oil prices down to push
Russia into a war.
Anth2305 > vandieman
Wait until Iranian oil comes fully on stream, which I heard some pundit
on TV say could drive the cost down to < $30 a barrel, forcing the Saudis
into having to eat massively into their foreign reserves.
gardiner
When the old USSR 'collapsed', what we call the 'Oligarchs' ( a collection
of the most highly influential State officials who pocketed practically
all the old State assets) corruption was at the very highest level, and
society was at its weakest.
The economy became dependant on resource exports.
Because the country's capital was so concentrated, there was practically
no 'middle class' of entrepreneurs who could invest capital in job creating,
internationally competitive industry.
Although a lot further down this road than the UK - the warning is stark!
beatonthedonis > gardiner
Abramovich wasn't a state official, he was a rubber-duck salesman. Berezovsky
wasn't a state official, he was an academic. Khodorkovsky wasn't a state
official, he was a PC importer. Gusinsky wasn't a state official, he was
an unlicensed cab driver. Smolensky wasn't a state official, he was a blackmarketeer.
Fridman wasn't a state official, he was a ticket tout.
daddyseanicus
So the political sanctions are bankrupting Russia because they dared
to challenge EU expansion. Result millions of poor Russians will start to
flow West and the UK will have another flood of Eastern Europeans.
But at least we showed them our politicians are tough.
Busufi > Jonathan
In the East there is a saying: Why use poison when sugar delivers the
same result. Or say as Deng said, It doesn't matter whether the Cat is black
or white, so long it catches the mice.
Spelling it out for Russia (or Britain) that would mean giving up
Byzantine based ambitions and prospering through alliances with the Muslim
Nation or Countries, including Turkey. In the short term such a move would
quell internal dissent of the 11m immigrants in Russia, reduce unsustainable
security expenditure with its central Asian neighbours, open and expand
market for Russian goods in the Middle East, Far East and North Africa,
and eventually form and provide a military-commercial -political alliance
(like NATO) for the Muslim nations with Russia (with partner strength based
upon what is mostly commercial placed on the table (see the gist in the
Vienna Agreement between P5+1 and Iran).
The formation of such an alliance would trump Russia's (or Britain's)
opponents ambitions and bring prosperity.
Sonduh
" They are running a budget deficit of 3.7pc of GDP but without developed
capital markets Russia can't really afford to run a deficit at all."
We are able to have a budget deficit of 4.8% and 90% national debt, 115%
non financial corporate debt , 200% financial corporate debt and 120% household
debt due to voodoo economics ie. countries can print money to buy your debt.
PS we also have unfunded liabilities like pensions which amounts to many
hundred pc of GDP.
The results showed the extraordinary sums that Britain has committed to
pay its future retirees. In total, the UK is committed to paying £7.1 trillion
in pensions to people who are currently either already retired or still
in the workforce.
This is equivalent to nearly five times the UK's total economic output.
Such a figure may be hard to put into proportion, as a trillion a thousand
billion is obviously a huge number.
And we think Russia is in a bad state.
georgesilver
Propaganda. Laughable coming from the UK hack when the UK has un-payable
debt and Russia has little external debt plus we have no Gold and Russia
has probably 20,000 tonnes. NATO surrounds Russia yet they are the aggressors.
Laughable but idiots still believe the propaganda.
tarentius > georgesilver
The entire world combined has 32,000 tonnes of gold reserves. Russia
has 1,200 tonnes.
Russia has government debt of 18% to GDP, a contracting GDP. It is forced
to pay interest of 15% on any newly issued bonds, and that's rising. And
it has a refinancing crisis on existing debt on the horizon.
Russia's regions are heavily in debt and about 25% of them are already
bankrupt. The number is rising.
And we haven't even gotten into the problem with Russian business loans.
Turn out the lights, the party's over for Russia.
Bendu Be Praised > mrsgkhan
The issue is the medias portrayal of Putin .. If the UK media was straight
up with the people and just said .. "our friends in the US hate the Russians
.. The Russians are growing too big and scary therefore we are going to
join in destroying the Russian economy before they become uncatchable "
the people would back them ..
Lets be honest .. The Russians don't do anything that we don't .. Apart
from stand up to the US that is
Jim0341
Yesterday, AEP spread the gloom about China, today it is Russia. As ever,
he uses quotes from leading figures in banks and finance houses, which are
generally bemoaning low returns on investments, rather than the wellbeing,
or otherwise, of the national economy..
Whose turn is it tomorrow, AEP? My bet is Taiwan.
Bendu Be Praised > FreddieTCapitalist
I think you will find that the UK are just pretending the sanctions and
wars are not hurting us ..
Just look at the budget .. 40% cuts to public services .. America tried
to destroy the Russian economy by flooding the market with cheap oil but
it will come back to bite them ..
The UK should just back off .. lift sanctions against Russia and let
the US squabble with them by themselves ..
I sick of paying taxes for the US governments "War on the terror and
the rest of the world"
alec bell
This article makes no sense. First of all, there is no way that Gazprom
is responsible for 1/10th of Russia's GDP. That is mathematically impossible.
1/20th is more like it. Second, if push comes to shove, Russians are perfectly
capable of developing their own vitally-important technologies. Drilling
holes in the ground cannot be more complicated than conquering space.
Whatever problems Russia has, engineering impotence is not one of them.
And third, if Russians' reliance on resourses' exports has led to "the
atrophy of their industry" as AEP rightly points out, then it must logically
follow that disappearance of that revenue will inevitably result in their
industrial and agricultural renaissance.
In the end, Ambrose is too ideological to be credible on the issue.
Sure, Russia has couple lean years ahead, but it will come out of this ordeal
stronger, not weaker. There are already reports of mini boomlets gathering
steam under the surface.
alec bell > vlad
vlad, JFYI: According to research conducted by the World Economic Forum
(which excludes China and India due to lack of data), Russia leads the way,
producing an annual total of 454,000 graduates in engineering, manufacturing
and construction. The United States is in second position with 237,826 while
Iran rounds off the top three with 233,695. Developing economies including
Indonesia and Vietnam have also made it into the top 10, producing 140,000
and 100,000 engineering graduates each year respectively.
Nikki Santoro
Don't mess with the Anglo-Muricuns. They will jack you up bad. Unless
you are thousands of miles away and posting anonymously. But even still
they can lens you out and cleanse you out should you take it too far. However
their dominance is not some much because of their brilliance. They don't
have any despite their propaganda. But rather the depths they are willing
to stoop to in order to secure victory. Like blowing up an airliner and
then pinning it on you for instance. Or poisoning their own farmland.
steve_from_virginia
Futures' traders got burned earlier this year betting that oil prices
would rise right back to where they were a year previously. Now they have
'gotten smart'. They know now the problem isn't Saudi Arabia but billions
of bankrupt consumers the world around.
Customers are bankrupt b/c of QE and other easing which shifts purchasing
power claims from customers to drillers -- and to the banks. As the customers
go broke so do the banks: instead of gas lines there are ATM lines.
At the same time, ongoing 'success' at resource stripping is cannibalizing
the purchasing power faster than ever before. Soon enough, the claims will
be worthless! When the resource capital is inaccessible, so is the purchasing
power -- which is the ability to obtain that resource capital.
Business has caught itself in the net of its own propaganda; that there
is such a thing as material progress out of waste ... that a better future
will arrive the day after tomorrow.
Turns out tomorrow arrives and things get worse. Who could have thunk
it?
Brabantian
If AEP is as right about Russia as he was about the Yank shale gas 'boom'
- now collapsing into a pile of toxic bad debt -
Then our Russian friends have nothing to worry about
midnightrambler > Guest
The largest military spend - the US - bigger than the next 20 countries
combined
The most bases - the US with 800, including many in Germany
Nobody wants war - but the US needs it as their largest industry is defence
- apart from manipulative banking.
We are heading for a point of rupture between those who are peaceful and
those whose main aim is control and conflict.
Take your pick
A few leaders choose war - most people (who will fight those wars) choose
peace.
And of course all wars are bankers' wars - it is only they who profit
Timothy D. Naegele
Both Putin and Russia are in a spiral, from which they will not recover.
See https://naegeleblog.wordpress.... ("Putin Meets Economic Collapse
With Purges, Broken Promises")
Tony Cocks > Timothy D. Naegele
"Both Putin and Russia are in a spiral, from which they will not recover."
This from someone whose former President and gang of criminal henchmen
lied to the world on a monumental scale about WMD in Iraq , and waged an
illegal war on that country killing hundreds of thousands in the process
. Following that it was Libyas turn , then Syrias . Now its Russia the US
neo con warmongers are hounding, the difference being that Russia holds
the worlds biggest nuclear arsenal.
The US forces had their kicked out of Vietnam and were thoroughly beaten
despite throwing everything they had at the conflict save the nuclear option.
Imagine what will happen if it eventually comes to armed conflict with Russia.
midnightrambler > Timothy D. Naegele
A yank lawyer advocating killing.
From the land of citizen killers
What a surprise
Stay away
stephenmarchant
Instead of demonising Putin and banging on about the problems of the
Russian economy the MSM should be worried about indebted Western economies
including the UK and US. Russian Govt finances are not burdened with nearly
£2trn of debt that has funded unsustainable nominal growth. Here in the
UK the real GDP growth per capita is declining at over 3% per anum so as
a nation the UK is continuing its decline:-
Govt deficit at 5% per anum
Govt debt at about 80% GDP
Private debt and corporate debt each of a similar order
Record current account deficit of about 5% per anum
A deteriorating NIIP (Net International Investment Position)
Uncontrolled immigration
Our whole debt based fiat system is on the brink but few can see it whilst
they party with asset and property bubbles. A few of us foresaw the first
crash of 2007/8 but we now face a systemic collapse of our fiat system because
of the resulting 'extend and pretend' policy of Govts and central bankers.
In the final analysis the true prosperity of a nation will depend upon
its natural resources, infrastructure, skills of its workforce and social
cohesion.
Graham Milne > JabbaTheCat
The scale of Russian kleptocracy pales into vanishing insignificance
beside the criminality of western banks (and the government who 'regulate'
them). Europe and the USA are regimes run by criminals; worse than that,
they are run by traitors. At least Putin isn't a traitor to his country.
Busufi
The best way for Russia to beat the downturn in it's oil and gas is to
invest in down-stream strategic production of petroleum products that would
give Russia a competitive advantage on a global scale.
Selling raw natural resources is the Third World way of exports. Not
smart.
"... In January, the New York Times finally reported on a secret 2013 Presidential order to the CIA to arm Syrian rebels. As the account explained, Saudi Arabia provides substantial financing of the armaments, while the CIA, under Obama's orders, provides organizational support and training. ..."
"... What kinds of arms are the US, Saudis, Turks, Qataris, and others supplying to the Syrian rebels? Which groups are receiving the arms? What is the role of US troops, air cover, and other personnel in the war? The US government isn't answering these questions, and mainstream media aren't pursuing them, either. ..."
"... Through occasional leaks, investigative reports, statements by other governments, and rare statements by US officials, we know that America is engaged in an active, ongoing, CIA-coordinated war both to overthrow Assad and to fight ISIS. America's allies in the anti-Assad effort include Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and other countries in the region. The US has spent billions of dollars on arms, training, special operations forces, air strikes, and logistical support for the rebel forces, including international mercenaries. American allies have spent billions of dollars more. The precise sums are not reported. ..."
"... To those at the center of the US military-industrial complex, this secrecy is as it should be. Their position is that a vote by Congress 15 years ago authorizing the use of armed force against those culpable for the 9/11 attack gives the president and military carte blanche to fight secret wars in the Middle East and Africa. Why should the US explain publicly what it is doing? That would only jeopardize the operations and strengthen the enemy. The public does not need to know. ..."
"... I subscribe to a different view: wars should be a last resort and should be constrained by democratic scrutiny. This view holds that America's secret war in Syria is illegal both under the US Constitution (which gives Congress the sole power to declare war) and under the United Nations Charter, and that America's two-sided war in Syria is a cynical and reckless gamble. The US-led efforts to topple Assad are not aimed at protecting the Syrian people, as Obama and Clinton have suggested from time to time, but are a US proxy war against Iran and Russia, in which Syria happens to be the battleground. ..."
"... The stakes of this war are much higher and much more dangerous than America's proxy warriors imagine. As the US has prosecuted its war against Assad, Russia has stepped up its military support to his government. In the US mainstream media, Russia's behavior is an affront: how dare the Kremlin block the US from overthrowing the Syrian government? The result is a widening diplomatic clash with Russia, one that could escalate and lead perhaps inadvertently to the point of military conflict. ..."
"... This is the main reason why the US security state refuses to tell the truth. The American people would call for peace rather than perpetual war. Obama has a few months left in office to repair his broken legacy. He should start by leveling with the American people. ..."
Syria's civil war is the most dangerous and destructive crisis on the planet. Since early 2011,
hundreds of thousands have died; around ten million Syrians have been displaced; Europe has been
convulsed with Islamic State (ISIS) terror and the political fallout of refugees; and the United
States and its NATO allies have more than once come perilously close to direct confrontation with
Russia.
Unfortunately, President Barack Obama has greatly compounded the dangers by hiding the US role
in Syria from the American people and from world opinion. An end to the Syrian war requires an honest
accounting by the US of its ongoing, often secretive role in the Syrian conflict since 2011, including
who is funding, arming, training, and abetting the various sides. Such exposure would help bring
to an end many countries' reckless actions.
A widespread and false perception is that Obama has kept the US out of the Syrian war. Indeed,
the US right wing routinely criticizes him for having drawn a line in the sand for Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad over chemical weapons, and then backing off when Assad allegedly crossed it (the
issue remains murky and disputed, like so much else in Syria). A leading columnist for the Financial
Times, repeating the erroneous idea that the US has remained on the sidelines,
recently implied that Obama had rejected the advice of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
to arm the Syrian rebels fighting Assad.
Yet the curtain gets lifted from time to time. In January, the New York Times
finally reported on a secret 2013 Presidential order to the CIA to arm Syrian rebels. As the
account explained, Saudi Arabia provides substantial financing of the armaments, while the CIA, under
Obama's orders, provides organizational support and training.
Unfortunately, the story came and went without further elaboration by the US government or follow
up by the New York Times. The public was left in the dark: How big are the ongoing CIA-Saudi
operations? How much is the US spending on Syria per year? What kinds of arms are the US, Saudis,
Turks, Qataris, and others supplying to the Syrian rebels? Which groups are receiving the arms? What
is the role of US troops, air cover, and other personnel in the war? The US government isn't answering
these questions, and mainstream media aren't pursuing them, either.
On
more than a dozen occasions, Obama has told the American people that there would be "no US boots
on the ground." Yet every few months, the public is also notified in a brief government statement
that US special operations forces are being deployed to Syria. The Pentagon
routinely denies that they are in the front lines. But when Russia and the Assad government recently
carried out bombing runs and artillery fire against rebel strongholds in northern Syria, the US notified
the Kremlin that the attacks were threatening American troops on the ground. The public has been
given no explanation about their mission, its costs, or counterparties in Syria.
Through occasional leaks, investigative reports, statements by other governments, and rare
statements by US officials, we know that America is engaged in an active, ongoing, CIA-coordinated
war both to overthrow Assad and to fight ISIS. America's allies in the anti-Assad effort include
Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and other countries in the region. The US has spent billions of dollars
on arms, training, special operations forces, air strikes, and logistical support for the rebel forces,
including international mercenaries. American allies have spent billions of dollars more. The precise
sums are not reported.
The US public has had no say in these decisions. There has been no authorizing vote or budget
approval by the US Congress. The CIA's role has never been explained or justified. The domestic and
international legality of US actions has never been defended to the American people or the world.
To those at the center of the US military-industrial complex, this secrecy is as it should
be. Their position is that a vote by Congress 15 years ago authorizing the use of armed force against
those culpable for the 9/11 attack gives the president and military carte blanche to fight secret
wars in the Middle East and Africa. Why should the US explain publicly what it is doing? That would
only jeopardize the operations and strengthen the enemy. The public does not need to know.
I subscribe to a different view: wars should be a last resort and should be constrained by
democratic scrutiny. This view holds that America's secret war in Syria is illegal both under the
US Constitution (which gives Congress the sole power to declare war) and under the United Nations
Charter, and that America's two-sided war in Syria is a cynical and reckless gamble. The US-led efforts
to topple Assad are not aimed at protecting the Syrian people, as Obama and Clinton have suggested
from time to time, but are a US proxy war against Iran and Russia, in which Syria happens to be the
battleground.
The stakes of this war are much higher and much more dangerous than America's proxy warriors
imagine. As the US has prosecuted its war against Assad, Russia has stepped up its military support
to his government. In the US mainstream media, Russia's behavior is an affront: how dare the Kremlin
block the US from overthrowing the Syrian government? The result is a widening diplomatic clash with
Russia, one that could escalate and lead perhaps inadvertently to the point of military conflict.
These are issues that should be subject to legal scrutiny and democratic control. I am confident
that the American people would respond with a resounding "no" to the ongoing US-led war of regime
change in Syria. The American people want security including the defeat of ISIS but they also
recognize the long and disastrous history of US-led regime-change efforts, including in Afghanistan,
Iraq, Libya, Syria, Central America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.
This is the main reason why the US security state refuses to tell the truth. The American
people would call for peace rather than perpetual war. Obama has a few months left in office to repair
his broken legacy. He should start by leveling with the American people.
"... Cybersecurity company FireEye first discovered APT 29 in 2014 and was quick to point out a clear Kremlin connection. "We suspect the Russian government sponsors the group because of the organizations it targets and the data it steals. because of evidence from FireEye." ..."
"... FireEye is also interesting as it, along with the US Department of Defense, funds the CEPA (publishers of Ed Lucas's and Pomerantsev's screed on fighting Kremlin influence): ..."
"... I recall the FireEye story well they used the exact same logic; the code was written on Cyrillic-keyboard machines and during Moscow working hours. Their conclusion was "It just looks so much like something the Russians would do that it must be them". No allowance for the possibility that someone else did it who wanted the USA to arrive at exactly that conclusion. Someone who has done it before, lots of times, and who makes a science out of picking fights on Uncle Sam's behalf. ..."
"... Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear? Is there proof that they actually exist? I mean real proof, not WADA proof. ..."
"... They are just code names given by a particular security outfit. Different outfits will use different names for the same entities, much in the same way that a given virus/trojan/etc will be given different names by different AV corporations. The names reflect observable characteristics such as threat type, coding style, code structure, distribution network, similar earlier threats, etc rather than a specific single person. ..."
"On June 14, cybersecurity company CrowdStrike, under contract with the DNC, announced in a
blog post that two separate Russian intelligence groups had gained access to the DNC network.
One group, FANCY BEAR or APT 28, gained access in April. The other, COZY BEAR, (also called Cozy
Duke and APT 29) first breached the network in the summer of 2015. Cybersecurity company FireEye
first discovered APT 29 in 2014 and was quick to point out a clear Kremlin connection. "We suspect
the Russian government sponsors the group because of the organizations it targets and the data
it steals. because of evidence from FireEye."
Crowdstrike their Co-Founder, Alperovitch, is an Atlantic Council fellow. The other firm,
FireEye, has the CIA as a stakeholder:
Should give pause to thought that the intelligence services are interfering in US democracy?
No?
FireEye is also interesting as it, along with the US Department of Defense, funds the CEPA
(publishers of Ed Lucas's and Pomerantsev's screed on fighting Kremlin influence):
I recall the FireEye story well they used the exact same logic; the code was written on
Cyrillic-keyboard machines and during Moscow working hours. Their conclusion was "It just looks
so much like something the Russians would do that it must be them". No allowance for the possibility
that someone else did it who wanted the USA to arrive at exactly that conclusion. Someone who
has done it before, lots of times, and who makes a science out of picking fights on Uncle Sam's
behalf.
In the case of both FireEye and Crowdstrike, they would stop looking as soon as they arrived
upon a conclusion which suited them anyway.
They are just code names given by a particular security outfit. Different outfits will use
different names for the same entities, much in the same way that a given virus/trojan/etc will
be given different names by different AV corporations. The names reflect observable characteristics
such as threat type, coding style, code structure, distribution network, similar earlier threats,
etc rather than a specific single person.
"... In January, the New York Times finally reported on a secret 2013 Presidential order to the CIA to arm Syrian rebels. As the account explained, Saudi Arabia provides substantial financing of the armaments, while the CIA, under Obama's orders, provides organizational support and training. ..."
"... What kinds of arms are the US, Saudis, Turks, Qataris, and others supplying to the Syrian rebels? Which groups are receiving the arms? What is the role of US troops, air cover, and other personnel in the war? The US government isn't answering these questions, and mainstream media aren't pursuing them, either. ..."
"... Through occasional leaks, investigative reports, statements by other governments, and rare statements by US officials, we know that America is engaged in an active, ongoing, CIA-coordinated war both to overthrow Assad and to fight ISIS. America's allies in the anti-Assad effort include Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and other countries in the region. The US has spent billions of dollars on arms, training, special operations forces, air strikes, and logistical support for the rebel forces, including international mercenaries. American allies have spent billions of dollars more. The precise sums are not reported. ..."
"... To those at the center of the US military-industrial complex, this secrecy is as it should be. Their position is that a vote by Congress 15 years ago authorizing the use of armed force against those culpable for the 9/11 attack gives the president and military carte blanche to fight secret wars in the Middle East and Africa. Why should the US explain publicly what it is doing? That would only jeopardize the operations and strengthen the enemy. The public does not need to know. ..."
"... I subscribe to a different view: wars should be a last resort and should be constrained by democratic scrutiny. This view holds that America's secret war in Syria is illegal both under the US Constitution (which gives Congress the sole power to declare war) and under the United Nations Charter, and that America's two-sided war in Syria is a cynical and reckless gamble. The US-led efforts to topple Assad are not aimed at protecting the Syrian people, as Obama and Clinton have suggested from time to time, but are a US proxy war against Iran and Russia, in which Syria happens to be the battleground. ..."
"... The stakes of this war are much higher and much more dangerous than America's proxy warriors imagine. As the US has prosecuted its war against Assad, Russia has stepped up its military support to his government. In the US mainstream media, Russia's behavior is an affront: how dare the Kremlin block the US from overthrowing the Syrian government? The result is a widening diplomatic clash with Russia, one that could escalate and lead perhaps inadvertently to the point of military conflict. ..."
"... This is the main reason why the US security state refuses to tell the truth. The American people would call for peace rather than perpetual war. Obama has a few months left in office to repair his broken legacy. He should start by leveling with the American people. ..."
Syria's civil war is the most dangerous and destructive crisis on the planet. Since early 2011,
hundreds of thousands have died; around ten million Syrians have been displaced; Europe has been
convulsed with Islamic State (ISIS) terror and the political fallout of refugees; and the United
States and its NATO allies have more than once come perilously close to direct confrontation with
Russia.
Unfortunately, President Barack Obama has greatly compounded the dangers by hiding the US role
in Syria from the American people and from world opinion. An end to the Syrian war requires an honest
accounting by the US of its ongoing, often secretive role in the Syrian conflict since 2011, including
who is funding, arming, training, and abetting the various sides. Such exposure would help bring
to an end many countries' reckless actions.
A widespread and false perception is that Obama has kept the US out of the Syrian war. Indeed,
the US right wing routinely criticizes him for having drawn a line in the sand for Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad over chemical weapons, and then backing off when Assad allegedly crossed it (the
issue remains murky and disputed, like so much else in Syria). A leading columnist for the Financial
Times, repeating the erroneous idea that the US has remained on the sidelines,
recently implied that Obama had rejected the advice of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
to arm the Syrian rebels fighting Assad.
Yet the curtain gets lifted from time to time. In January, the New York Times
finally reported on a secret 2013 Presidential order to the CIA to arm Syrian rebels. As the
account explained, Saudi Arabia provides substantial financing of the armaments, while the CIA, under
Obama's orders, provides organizational support and training.
Unfortunately, the story came and went without further elaboration by the US government or follow
up by the New York Times. The public was left in the dark: How big are the ongoing CIA-Saudi
operations? How much is the US spending on Syria per year? What kinds of arms are the US, Saudis,
Turks, Qataris, and others supplying to the Syrian rebels? Which groups are receiving the arms? What
is the role of US troops, air cover, and other personnel in the war? The US government isn't answering
these questions, and mainstream media aren't pursuing them, either.
On
more than a dozen occasions, Obama has told the American people that there would be "no US boots
on the ground." Yet every few months, the public is also notified in a brief government statement
that US special operations forces are being deployed to Syria. The Pentagon
routinely denies that they are in the front lines. But when Russia and the Assad government recently
carried out bombing runs and artillery fire against rebel strongholds in northern Syria, the US notified
the Kremlin that the attacks were threatening American troops on the ground. The public has been
given no explanation about their mission, its costs, or counterparties in Syria.
Through occasional leaks, investigative reports, statements by other governments, and rare
statements by US officials, we know that America is engaged in an active, ongoing, CIA-coordinated
war both to overthrow Assad and to fight ISIS. America's allies in the anti-Assad effort include
Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, and other countries in the region. The US has spent billions of dollars
on arms, training, special operations forces, air strikes, and logistical support for the rebel forces,
including international mercenaries. American allies have spent billions of dollars more. The precise
sums are not reported.
The US public has had no say in these decisions. There has been no authorizing vote or budget
approval by the US Congress. The CIA's role has never been explained or justified. The domestic and
international legality of US actions has never been defended to the American people or the world.
To those at the center of the US military-industrial complex, this secrecy is as it should
be. Their position is that a vote by Congress 15 years ago authorizing the use of armed force against
those culpable for the 9/11 attack gives the president and military carte blanche to fight secret
wars in the Middle East and Africa. Why should the US explain publicly what it is doing? That would
only jeopardize the operations and strengthen the enemy. The public does not need to know.
I subscribe to a different view: wars should be a last resort and should be constrained by
democratic scrutiny. This view holds that America's secret war in Syria is illegal both under the
US Constitution (which gives Congress the sole power to declare war) and under the United Nations
Charter, and that America's two-sided war in Syria is a cynical and reckless gamble. The US-led efforts
to topple Assad are not aimed at protecting the Syrian people, as Obama and Clinton have suggested
from time to time, but are a US proxy war against Iran and Russia, in which Syria happens to be the
battleground.
The stakes of this war are much higher and much more dangerous than America's proxy warriors
imagine. As the US has prosecuted its war against Assad, Russia has stepped up its military support
to his government. In the US mainstream media, Russia's behavior is an affront: how dare the Kremlin
block the US from overthrowing the Syrian government? The result is a widening diplomatic clash with
Russia, one that could escalate and lead perhaps inadvertently to the point of military conflict.
These are issues that should be subject to legal scrutiny and democratic control. I am confident
that the American people would respond with a resounding "no" to the ongoing US-led war of regime
change in Syria. The American people want security including the defeat of ISIS but they also
recognize the long and disastrous history of US-led regime-change efforts, including in Afghanistan,
Iraq, Libya, Syria, Central America, Africa, and Southeast Asia.
This is the main reason why the US security state refuses to tell the truth. The American
people would call for peace rather than perpetual war. Obama has a few months left in office to repair
his broken legacy. He should start by leveling with the American people.
"... Michele Flournoy, formerly the third-ranking civilian in the Pentagon under President Barack Obama, called for "limited military coercion" to help remove Assad from power in Syria, including a "no bombing" zone over parts of Syria held by U.S.-backed rebels. ..."
"Information Clearing House" - "Defense One" - The woman expected to run
the Pentagon under Hillary Clinton said she would direct U.S. troops to push
President Bashar al-Assad's forces out of southern Syria and would send more
American boots to fight the Islamic State in the region.
Michele Flournoy, formerly the third-ranking civilian in the Pentagon under
President Barack Obama, called for "limited military coercion" to help remove
Assad from power in Syria, including a "no bombing" zone over parts of Syria
held by U.S.-backed rebels.
Bill Clinton was a regular neoliberal bottom feeder (in essence not that different from drunkard
Yeltsin) without any strategical vision or political courage, He destroyed the golden possibility of
rapprochement of the USA and Russia (which would require something like Marshall plan to help Russia).
Instead he decided to plunder the country. It's sad that now Hillary will continue his policies, only
in more jingoistic, dangerous fashion. She learn nothing.
Notable quotes:
"... However, according to Simes in the years immediately following the dissolution of the USSR, Washington has made perhaps the greatest error of a winner: sold for complacency. ..."
"... Russia simply ceased to be a U.S. geopolitical variable in the equation, Moscow was irrevocably excluded from the strategic horizon. ..."
"... The result was that the former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott called at the time the policy of "eat and shut up": the Russian economy was collapsing, the Red Army reduced the ghost of the past and Yeltsin's entourage welcomed with open arms of the IMF aid. In short, Russia is a power failure and as such was treated by administering liberal economic recipes and submitting its projection to a geopolitical drastic weight loss. Everything apart from the feeling of the Russian leadership. ..."
"... This approach found its full realization, between 1999 and 2004, the expansion of NATO eastward: they were including Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Together with the U.S. intervention in Serbia during the Kosovo war (1999), this move Russia convinced that the cost of the American loans -- a dramatic and permanent reduction of the area of security and its own geopolitical ambitions - was too high . ..."
America won the Cold War. But in addition to the USSR, has it defeated Russia? This question,
which is still in the nineties sounded absurd to most people, began to appear in the last decade,
thanks to the work of historians such as Dimitri Simes, John Lewis Gaddis, or in Italy, Adriano Roccucci.
In the United States is widely believed that the collapse of the Soviet Union was caused in large
part by strategic decisions of the Reagan administration. Surely the military and economic pressure
exerted by these contributed to the disintegration of the Warsaw Pact and then the final crisis of
the Soviet system. However, according to Simes in the years immediately following the dissolution
of the USSR, Washington has made perhaps the greatest error of a winner: sold for complacency.
This has resulted, in retrospect, in an overestimation of U.S. policy choices in the mid-eighties
onwards, and in a parallel underestimation of the role played by the Soviet leadership. Gorbachev
came to power in 1985 determined to solve the problems left behind by Brezhnev: overexposure military
in Afghanistan and subsequent explosion of spending on defense, imposed on an economy tremendously
inefficient. But if Reagan pushed the USSR on the edge of the precipice, Gorbachev was disposable,
albeit unwittingly, triggering reforms that escaped the hands of his own theorist.
That fact has been largely removed from public debate and U.S. historiography which has led America
in the second mistake: underestimating the enemy defeated, confusing the defunct Soviet Union with
what was left of his heart - Russia.
In fact, Reagan and Bush Sr. after him fully understand the dangers inherent in the collapse of
the superpower enemy, dealing with Gorbachev touch, even without discounts: the Soviet leader was
refused the pressing demands for economic aid, incompatible with the military escalation Reagan once
to crush the Soviet Union under the weight of war spending.
Even the first Gulf War (1990-91), who saw the massive American intervention in a country (Iraq)
at the time near the borders of the USSR, did not provoke a diplomatic rupture between the two superpowers.
This Soviet weakness undoubtedly was the result of an empire in decline, but remember that even in
1990 no one - least of all, the leadership in Moscow - the Soviet Union finally gave up on us yet.
Despite an election campaign played on the charge to GH Bush to focus too much on foreign policy,
ignoring the economics (It's the economy, stupid), newly installed in the White House Bill Clinton
was not spared aid to Russia, agreeing to this line of credit to be logged on to the International
Monetary Fund (IMF), from June 1992. Clinton's support was directed mainly toward the figure of Yeltsin
and his policies, with the exception of waging war against Chechen separatism, in 1994.
If Clinton with these moves proved to understand, like its two predecessors, the importance of
"accompany" the Russian transition, avoiding - or at least contain - the chaos following the collapse
of a continental empire, the other part of his administration demonstrated sinful paternalism and,
above all, acquired the illusion of omnipotence that he saw in the "unipolar moment" end not only
the U.S. opposed the US-USSR, but also of any power ambitions of Russia. Russia simply ceased
to be a U.S. geopolitical variable in the equation, Moscow was irrevocably excluded from the strategic
horizon.
The result was that the former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott called at the time
the policy of "eat and shut up": the Russian economy was collapsing, the Red Army reduced the ghost
of the past and Yeltsin's entourage welcomed with open arms of the IMF aid. In short, Russia is a
power failure and as such was treated by administering liberal economic recipes and submitting its
projection to a geopolitical drastic weight loss. Everything apart from the feeling of the Russian
leadership.
This went hand in hand with growing resentment for the permanent position of inferiority which
they were relegated by Washington. To the point that even the then Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev,
known by the nickname "Yes sir" for his acquiescence to the dictates of Americans, showed growing
impatience with the brutal Russian downgrading by America.
Indeed, the United States administration did not lack critics: former President Nixon, a number
of businessmen and experts of Russia expressed skepticism or opposition to the Clinton administration
attitude that did not seem to pay particular attention to wounded pride and the strategic interests
of a nation that continued to think of itself as empire. However, these positions does not affect
the dominant view in the administration of the establishment and much of the U.S., where consencus
was that Russia in no longer entitled to have an independent foreign policy.
This approach found its full realization, between 1999 and 2004, the expansion of NATO eastward:
they were including Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania, Estonia,
Latvia and Lithuania. Together with the U.S. intervention in Serbia during the Kosovo war (1999),
this move Russia convinced that the cost of the American loans -- a dramatic and permanent reduction
of the area of security and its own geopolitical ambitions - was too high .
"... So "Carthago delenda est" is the official policy. With heavy brainwashing from MSM to justify such a course as well as the demonization of Putin. ..."
"... The USA actions in Ukraine speak for themselves. Any reasonable researcher after this "color revolution" should print his/her anti-Russian comments, shred them and eat with borsch. Because the fingerprints of the USA neoliberal imperial policy were everywhere and can't be ignored. And Victoria Nuland was Hillary Clinton appointee. Not that Russia in this case was flawless, but just the fact that opposition decided not to wait till the elections was the direct result of the orders from Washington. ..."
All this anti-Russian warmongering from esteemed commenters here is suspect. And should be
taken with a grain of salt.
The USA neoliberal elite considers Russia to be an obstacle in the creation of the USA led
global neoliberal empire (with EU and Japan as major vassals),
So "Carthago delenda est" is the official policy. With heavy brainwashing from MSM to justify
such a course as well as the demonization of Putin.
The USA actions in Ukraine speak for themselves. Any reasonable researcher after this "color
revolution" should print his/her anti-Russian comments, shred them and eat with borsch. Because
the fingerprints of the USA neoliberal imperial policy were everywhere and can't be ignored. And
Victoria Nuland was Hillary Clinton appointee. Not that Russia in this case was flawless, but
just the fact that opposition decided not to wait till the elections was the direct result of
the orders from Washington.
That means that as bad as Trump is, he is a safer bet than Hillary, because the latter is a
neocon warmonger, which can get us in the hot war with Russia. And this is the most principal,
cardinal issue of the November elections.
All other issues like climate change record (although nuclear winter will definitely reverse
global warming), Supreme Court appointments, etc. are of secondary importance.
As John Kenneth Galbraith said, "Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and
the unpalatable."
It is amazing how partisan and brainwashed commenters are. Reminds me "letter of workers and peasants
to Pravda" type of mails.
Notable quotes:
"... "There's no need to distract the public's attention from the essence of the problem by raising some minor issues connected with the search for who did it," Putin said in an interview with Bloomberg . ..."
"... The DNC is desperate to put the focus on who hacked their email rather than on the email's content. The story is in what the Democrats really think and how it's different then their public persona. ..."
"... I hate to admit it but .... Putin Dropped The Truth Bomb! ..Look at the content ..."
"... Who cares where the TRUTH comes from? as long as it is the truth! The real SHAME is that our own press has been out to lunch on finding the truth. Putin , Assage, Snowden...I'll take truth from them over HRC lies any day! ..."
"... It doesn't matter either way. There's no law anyone's willing to prosecute and no law enforcement agency who will investigate. This is all for nothing more than archival purposes. But it won't change anything. Hillary could be caught trading Cartel drugs for sex slaves in order to generate cash to give to Iran to pay the US government secretly to procure an atomic weapon and it would make no difference. ..."
"... The US politicos always need a bogeyman to blame. Today, it's Russia. ..."
"... It was Russia yesterday too. ..."
"... Yea, we are familiar with using Russia. It's an old playbook. ..."
"... To quote the democratic nominee ... 'what difference, at this point, does it make?" ..."
Russian leader Vladimir Putin denied that his country had any involvement in the email hacks and
WikiLeaks releases that led to the resignations of several Democratic Party officials.
"There's no need to distract the public's attention from the essence of the problem by raising
some minor issues connected with the search for who did it," Putin said in an interview with
Bloomberg.
"But I want to tell you again, I don't know anything about it, and on a state level Russia has
never done this."
Addison Jacobs
The DNC is desperate to put the focus on who hacked their email rather than on the email's
content. The story is in what the Democrats really think and how it's different then their public
persona.
Hard Little Machine a day ago
Perfect retort to Hillary's Retards.
only1j > Hard Little Machine a day ago
I hate to admit it but .... Putin Dropped The Truth Bomb! ..Look at the content
lostinnm > Hard Little Machine a day ago
Who cares where the TRUTH comes from? as long as it is the truth! The real SHAME is that our
own press has been out to lunch on finding the truth. Putin , Assage, Snowden...I'll take truth
from them over HRC lies any day!
Hard Little Machine > lostinnm a day ago
It doesn't matter either way. There's no law anyone's willing to prosecute and no law enforcement
agency who will investigate. This is all for nothing more than archival purposes. But it won't
change anything. Hillary could be caught trading Cartel drugs for sex slaves in order to generate
cash to give to Iran to pay the US government secretly to procure an atomic weapon and it would
make no difference.
Depending on how old you are - this is not the country or A country
you're familiar with. That one was shot in the head and buried in a shallow grave.
KhadijahMuhammad a day ago
The US politicos always need a bogeyman to blame. Today, it's Russia.
BecauseReasons > KhadijahMuhammad a day ago
It was Russia yesterday too.
KhadijahMuhammad > BecauseReasons a day ago
Yea, we are familiar with using Russia. It's an old playbook.
Rich Dudley
To quote the democratic nominee ... 'what difference, at this point, does it make?"
President Vladimir Putin gave an interview to Bloomberg. The interview was recorded on
September 1, in Vladivostok.
SUBSCRIBE
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5kY...
"... "Vladimir Putin and Russian Statecraft," ..."
"... "In a bold decision Putin made Russia the most important U.S. ally in the war against the Taliban," ..."
"... "Among other things, he accelerated deliveries of weapons to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan so that when the Alliance marched into Kabul it did so with Russian, not American, weapons and vehicles. He encouraged the governments of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to allow American military bases on their territory." ..."
"... "He opened Russian airspace for American overflights to bases in Central Asia so that the US could conduct search and rescue operations for U.S. airmen ..."
"... "there is no such thing as gratitude in politics" ..."
"... According to Stephen Cohen, the US repaid Putin for his "extraordinary assistance" by "further expanding NATO to Russia's borders and by unilaterally withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which Moscow regarded as the linchpin of its nuclear security." ..."
"... With friends like this who needs enemies? ..."
"... "red line" ..."
"... "within one week". ..."
"... "It absolutely is a diplomatic win by Putin right now," ..."
"... "If we think about this as judo, which is of course Mr. Putin's favorite sport, this is just one set of moves," ..."
"... "And right now, he's managed to get Obama off the mat, at least, and get the terms set down that play to his advantage." ..."
"... "scrap" ..."
"... "neutralize Russia's nuclear potential" ..."
"... "The US is attempting to achieve strategic military superiority, with all the consequences that entails," ..."
Putin provides 'extraordinary assistance' to 'War on Terror'
It is no secret that following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 against the US, Putin was
the first global leader to telephone US President George W. Bush. And he didn't call collect. Moreover,
the Russian leader offered more than just words of condolence. He pushed through a raft of legislation
to assist the US in the fight against terrorism.
In his 2011 book, "Vladimir Putin and Russian Statecraft," Allen C. Lynch documented
Putin's contributions to America's endless 'War on Terror'.
"In a bold decision Putin made Russia the most important U.S. ally in the war against the
Taliban," Lynch wrote. "Among other things, he accelerated deliveries of weapons to the
Northern Alliance in Afghanistan so that when the Alliance marched into Kabul it did so with Russian,
not American, weapons and vehicles. He encouraged the governments of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to
allow American military bases on their territory."
And here is my personal favorite: "He opened Russian airspace for American overflights to
bases in Central Asia so that the US could conduct search and rescue operations for U.S. airmen
(Please imagine the howl of pain that would echo across Washington if any US president allowed
Russian military overflights across US territory into South America!).
Despite Putin's extreme generosity bestowed upon the US military and intelligence apparatus, Washington
proved Graham Greene's adage "there is no such thing as gratitude in politics" by ratcheting
up pressure against Russia for no good reason whatsoever.
According to Stephen Cohen, the US
repaid Putin for his "extraordinary assistance" by "further expanding NATO to Russia's
borders and by unilaterally withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which Moscow
regarded as the linchpin of its nuclear security."
With friends like this who needs enemies?
6. Putin gives Washington a chance to pass on war (for a change)
After spending prodigious amounts of money, material and manpower fighting fundamentalists in
the desert, some might be tempted to think the US would relish any opportunity to avoid another military
misadventure. If you believed that, you haven't been paying attention to what's been occurring in
the Middle East since 2002 with the US invasion of Afghanistan.
Future historians (that is, assuming there is a future where historians may ponder the past) may
one day mark August 29, 2013 as the day when the American Empire first started showing signs of wear
and tear. That was when UK Prime Minister David Cameron failed to secure approval in the House of
Commons to join yet another US-led serial killing, this time in Syria, after President Bashar Assad
purportedly crossed Obama's whimsical "red line" and used chemical weapons against the
Syrian opposition (an assertion that was never proven).
This placed the Obama administration in a bind, eventually leading to a 'slip of the tongue' by
US Secretary of State John Kerry, who remarked that Syria could avoid an American blitzkrieg if it
agreed to surrender its chemical weapons "within one week". Infuriatingly for the US neocons,
Putin successfully
convinced Damascus to remove its chemical weapons with all due haste.
Predictably, however, US media and thinktankdom portrayed Putin's eleventh-hour diplomacy, which
delayed the obliteration of yet another Middle East state, as some sort of geopolitical ploy.
"It absolutely is a diplomatic win by Putin right now," Fiona Hill, director of the Center
on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution,
told
CNN.
I was almost expecting Fiona to employ some sort of judo analogy next. Oh wait, she did.
"If we think about this as judo, which is of course Mr. Putin's favorite sport, this is just
one set of moves," she said. "And right now, he's managed to get Obama off the mat, at least,
and get the terms set down that play to his advantage."
Think about that. If that was the best press Putin could get when he helped America to avoid yet
another military smash-up, chances are negligible that he would ever get positive reviews under normal
circumstances. And therein, dear reader, lies the rub: America has come to the psychotic point in
its foreign policy when avoiding military conflict is actually viewed as a setback.
5. Putin offers cooperation on US missile defense system in Eastern Europe
In May, the US put the finishing touches on its Aegis Ashore Missile Defense System in
Romania , the culmination of a decades-worth of
disingenuous negotiations with Moscow.
Washington's determination to build this system, which Moscow naturally views as a major security
threat smoking on its doorstep, has completely upset the strategic balance in the region. Russia
is now forced to respond to this system with more powerful and elusive ballistic missiles. In other
words, our tiny, fragile planet, thanks to the surrogate mother of global upheaval and chaos, Lady
Liberty, is experiencing the birth pains of another arms race between the world's two nuclear superpowers.
This did not have to be.
Early in his presidency, Obama
announced he would "scrap" the Bush administration's defense system, slated for Poland
and the Czech Republic, after it was determined that Iran was not the existential threat to Eastern
Europe that his predecessor had touted it as.
This seemed to indicate an open window of opportunity for Russia-US cooperation (in fact, the
fate of the New START nuclear disarmament treaty, signed into force between Dmitry Medvedev and Barack
Obama on April 8, 2010, hinged on bilateral cooperation). Russia even proposed the two countries
share the Qabala Radar in Azerbaijan, which Russia leased at the time, but the US rejected the proposal
even though it made more tactical sense.
Eventually, it became maddeningly apparent that the US was bluffing, dangling the carrot of mutual
cooperation with Russia at the same time a new missile defense system was moving forward.
In November, Putin rightly
accused the
US of attempting to "neutralize Russia's nuclear potential" by camouflaging their real designs
behind Iran and North Korea.
"The US is attempting to achieve strategic military superiority, with all the consequences
that entails," he said.
Obama's failure to cooperate with Putin on this game-changing system has been the real source
of bad blood between the two nuclear superpowers.
"... The Triad is the United States, Western and Central Europe, and Japan. This group of countries has become a single imperialist power, the leader of which is the US. This has led to the deepening of the depth of the crisis. The crisis is in the shape of an "L". The normal crisis is in the shape of a "U", the economy rises up after the decline. But this crisis is different. There is no way out of the crisis; the only way to get out is to move out of capitalism. There is no other possible solution. Capitalism should be considered as a moribund system. In order to survive it is moving to destruction and to wars. ..."
"... Maybe Russia is moving in this direction, but not as much as China, because it has paid a very big price for the destruction of the shock therapy from Gorbachev and Yeltsin. Those leaders have led Russia to a private oligarchy, closely related to the international financial capitalism of the US, Germany and others. This has reduced Russian capacity of control. But now Russia is moving gradually towards reestablishing control of the state over its own economy. ..."
"... The world now is in serious danger. The collective imperialism of the US, Western Europe and Japan are run by US leadership. In order to keep their exclusive control over the whole planet, they do not accept independence of other countries. They do not respect the independence if China and Russia. That is why we are about to face continuous wars all over the world. The radical Islamists are the allies of imperialism, because they are supported by the US in order to carry out destabilization. This is permanent war. I do believe that the best response to it is the Eurasian project. Russia should unite with China, Central Asian countries, Iran and Syria. This alliance could be also very attractive for Africa and good parts of Latin America. In such a case, imperialism would be isolated. ..."
Samir Amin, world-known economist, explains the reason of decadent condition of the modern
economy and gives the recipe of the salvation from global imperialism. An exclusive
interview for Katehon
I can sum my point of view on the situation over the modern economy in the following way. We have
been in a long systemic crisis of capitalism, which has started in 1975 with the end of the convertibility
of the Dollar in gold. It is not a like the famous financial crisis in 2008. No, it is a long systematic
crisis of monopoly capitalism which started forty years ago and it continues. The capitalists reacted
to the crisis with the sets of measures. The first one was to strengthen centralization of control
over the economy by the monopolies. An oligarchy is ruling all capitalist countries the United
States, Germany, France, Great Britain and Russia as well. The second measure was to convert all
economic activity productions into subcontractors of monopoly capital. I mean, they have not even
a hint of freedom. Competition is just rhetoric, there is no competition. There is an oligarchy which
is controlling the whole economic system. Now, we are facing a united front of imperialist powers,
which are forming a Collective imperialism of the Triad.
The Triad is the United States, Western and Central Europe, and Japan. This group of countries
has become a single imperialist power, the leader of which is the US. This has led to the deepening
of the depth of the crisis. The crisis is in the shape of an "L". The normal crisis is in the shape
of a "U", the economy rises up after the decline. But this crisis is different. There is no way out
of the crisis; the only way to get out is to move out of capitalism. There is no other possible solution.
Capitalism should be considered as a moribund system. In order to survive it is moving to destruction
and to wars.
We have an alternative which is the socialism. I know that it is not very popular to say, but
the only solution is socialism. It is a long road which starts from reducing the power of the oligarchy,
reinforcing the state control and establish a state-capitalism, which should replace private capitalism.
It doesn't mean that private capitalism will not survive, but it should be subordinated to state
control. The state control should be used also in order to support a social progressive policy. This
should guarantee good full-employment, social services, education, transport, infrastructure, security
etc.
The role of China is very big, because it is, perhaps, the only country in the world today, which
has a sovereign project. That means that it is trying to establish a pattern of modern industry,
in which of course, private capital has a wide place, but it is under the strict control of the state.
Simultaneously it gives a view of the present to the culture. The other pattern of Chinese economy
culture is based on family producers. China is walking on two legs: following the traditions and
participating globalization. They accept foreign investments, but keep independence of their financial
system. The Chinese bank system is exclusively state-controlled. The Yuan is convertible only to
a certain extent, but under the control of the bank of China. That is the best model that we have
today to respond to the challenge of globalists imperialism.
Maybe Russia is moving in this direction, but not as much as China, because it has paid a
very big price for the destruction of the shock therapy from Gorbachev and Yeltsin. Those leaders
have led Russia to a private oligarchy, closely related to the international financial capitalism
of the US, Germany and others. This has reduced Russian capacity of control. But now Russia is moving
gradually towards reestablishing control of the state over its own economy.
The world now is in serious danger. The collective imperialism of the US, Western Europe and
Japan are run by US leadership. In order to keep their exclusive control over the whole planet, they
do not accept independence of other countries. They do not respect the independence if China and
Russia. That is why we are about to face continuous wars all over the world. The radical Islamists
are the allies of imperialism, because they are supported by the US in order to carry out destabilization.
This is permanent war. I do believe that the best response to it is the Eurasian project. Russia
should unite with China, Central Asian countries, Iran and Syria. This alliance could be also very
attractive for Africa and good parts of Latin America. In such a case, imperialism would be isolated.
"... The only way Russia can be acceptable to the West is to accept vassal status. ..."
"... Russia can end the Ukraine crisis by simply accepting the requests of the former Russian territories to reunite with Russia. Once the breakaway republics are again part of Russia, the crisis is over. Ukraine is not going to attack Russia. ..."
"... Russia doesn't end the crisis, because Russia thinks it would be provocative and upset Europe. Actually, that is what Russia needs to do-upset Europe. Russia needs to make Europe aware that being Washington's tool against Russia is risky and has costs for Europe. ..."
"... Instead, Russia shields Europe from the costs that Washington imposes on Europe and imposes little cost on Europe for acting against Russia in Washington's interest. Russia still supplies its declared enemies, whose air forces fly provocative flights along Russia's borders, with the energy to put their war planes into the air. ..."
"... Washington and only Washington determines "international norms." America is the "exceptional, indispensable" country. No other country has this rank ..."
"... A country with an independent foreign policy is a threat to Washington. The neoconservative Wolfowitz Doctrine makes this completely clear. The Wolfowitz Doctrine, the basis of US foreign and military policy, defines as a threat any country with sufficient power to act as a constraint on Washington's unilateral action. The Wolfowitz Doctrine states unambiguously that any country with sufficient power to block Washington's purposes in the world is a threat and that "our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of" any such country. ..."
"... If the Russian government thinks that Washington's word means anything, the Russian government is out to lunch. ..."
"... Iran is well led, and Vladimir Putin has rescued Russia from US and Israeli control, but both governments continue to act as if they are taking some drug that makes them think that Washington can be a partner. ..."
"... These delusions are dangerous, not only to Russia and Iran, but to the entire world. If Russia and Iran let their guard down, they will be nuked, and so will China. Washington stands for one thing and one thing only: World Hegemony. ..."
"... Just ask the Neoconservatives or read their documents. The neoconservatives control Washington. No one else in the government has a voice. For the neoconservatives, Armageddon is a tolerable risk to achieve the goal of American World Hegemony ..."
Russia so desperately desires to be part of the disreputable and collapsing West that Russia is
losing its grip on reality.
Despite hard lesson piled upon hard lesson, Russia cannot give up its hope of being acceptable
to the West. The only way Russia can be acceptable to the West is to accept vassal status.
Russia miscalculated that diplomacy could solve the crisis that Washington created in Ukraine and
placed its hopes on the Minsk Agreement, which has no Western support whatsoever, neither in Kiev
nor in Washington, London, and NATO.
Russia can end the Ukraine crisis by simply accepting the requests of the former Russian territories
to reunite with Russia. Once the breakaway republics are again part of Russia, the crisis is over.
Ukraine is not going to attack Russia.
Russia doesn't end the crisis, because Russia thinks it would be provocative and upset Europe.
Actually, that is what Russia needs to do-upset Europe. Russia needs to make Europe aware that being
Washington's tool against Russia is risky and has costs for Europe.
Instead, Russia shields Europe from the costs that Washington imposes on Europe and imposes little
cost on Europe for acting against Russia in Washington's interest. Russia still supplies its declared
enemies, whose air forces fly provocative flights along Russia's borders, with the energy to put
their war planes into the air.
This is the failure of diplomacy, not its success. Diplomacy cannot succeed when only one side
believes in diplomacy and the other side believes in force.
Russia needs to understand that diplomacy cannot work with Washington and its NATO vassals who
do not believe in diplomacy, but rely instead on force. Russia needs to understand that when Washington
declares that Russia is an outlaw state that "does not act in accordance with international norms,"
Washington means that Russia is not following Washington's orders. By "international norms," Washington
means Washington's will. Countries that are not in compliance with Washington's will are not acting
in accordance with "international norms."
Washington and only Washington determines "international norms." America is the "exceptional,
indispensable" country. No other country has this rank.
A country with an independent foreign policy is a threat to Washington. The neoconservative Wolfowitz
Doctrine makes this completely clear. The Wolfowitz Doctrine, the basis of US foreign and military
policy, defines as a threat any country with sufficient power to act as a constraint on Washington's
unilateral action. The Wolfowitz Doctrine states unambiguously that any country with sufficient power
to block Washington's purposes in the world is a threat and that "our first objective is to prevent
the re-emergence of" any such country.
Russia, China, and Iran are in Washington's crosshairs. Treaties and "cooperation" mean nothing.
Cooperation only causes Washington's targets to lose focus and to forget that they are targets. Russia's
foreign minister Lavrov seems to believe that now with the failure of Washington's policy of war
and destruction in the Middle East, Washington and Russia can work together to contain the ISIS jihadists
in Iraq and Syria. This is a pipe dream. Russia and Washington cannot work together in Syria and
Iraq, because the two governments have conflicting goals. Russia wants peace, respect for international
law, and the containment of radical jihadists elements. Washington wants war, no legal constraints,
and is funding radical jihadist elements in the interest of Middle East instability and overthrow
of Assad in Syria. Even if Washington desired the same goals as Russia, for Washington to work with
Russia would undermine the picture of Russia as a threat and enemy.
Russia, China, and Iran are the three countries that can constrain Washington's unilateral action.
Consequently, the three countries are in danger of a pre-emptive nuclear strike. If these countries
are so naive as to believe that they can now work with Washington, given the failure of Washington's
14-year old policy of coercion and violence in the Middle East, by rescuing Washington from the quagmire
it created that gave rise to the Islamic State, they are deluded sitting ducks for a pre-emptive
nuclear strike.
Washington created the Islamic State. Washington used these jihadists to overthrow Gaddafi in
Libya and then sent them to overthrow Assad in Syria. The American neoconservatives, everyone of
whom is allied with Zionist Israel, do not want any cohesive state in the Middle East capable of
interfering with a "Greater Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates."
The ISIS jihadists learned that Washington's policy of murdering and displacing millions of Muslims
in seven countries had created an anti-Western constituency for them among the peoples of the Middle
East and have begun acting independently of their Washington creators.
The consequence is more chaos in the Middle East and Washington's loss of control.
Instead of leaving Washington to suffer at the hands of its own works, Russia and Iran, the two
most hated and demonized countries in the West, have rushed to rescue Washington from its Middle
East follies. This is the failure of Russian and Iranian strategic thinking. Countries that cannot
think strategically do not survive.
The Iranians need to understand that their treaty with Washington means nothing. Washington has
never honored any treaty. Just ask the Plains Indians or the last Soviet President Gorbachev.
If the Russian government thinks that Washington's word means anything, the Russian government
is out to lunch.
Iran is well led, and Vladimir Putin has rescued Russia from US and Israeli control, but both
governments continue to act as if they are taking some drug that makes them think that Washington
can be a partner.
These delusions are dangerous, not only to Russia and Iran, but to the entire world. If Russia and Iran let their guard down, they will be nuked, and so will China. Washington stands for one thing and one thing only: World Hegemony.
Just ask the Neoconservatives or read their documents. The neoconservatives control Washington. No one else in the government has a voice. For the neoconservatives, Armageddon is a tolerable risk to achieve the goal of American World
Hegemony.
Only Russia and China can save the world from Armageddon, but are they too deluded and worshipful
of the West to save Planet Earth?
"... "Containment" of RC will continue to be the name of the exceptionalist game whatever happens
on November 8. As far as the industrial-military-security-surveillance-corporate media complex is concerned,
there will be no reset . Proxies will be used from failed state Ukraine to Japan in the East China
Sea, as well as any volunteering Southeast Asian faction in the South China Sea. ..."
"... The Grand Chessboard ..."
"... Hillary "Queen of War" Clinton of course does not subscribe to Brzezinski's "could be" school.
After all she's the official, Robert Kagan-endorsed, neocon presidential candidate. She's more in tune
with this sort of wacky "analysis" . ..."
"... "Our first objective is to prevent the reemergence of a new rival This requires that we endeavor
to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control,
be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory
of the former Soviet Union and southwest Asia." ..."
"... The question is whether she and virtually the whole Beltway establishment behind her will
be mad enough to provoke RC and buy a one-way ticket to post-MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) territory.
..."
Defend
Democracy Press 31/08/2016 The next BRICS summit, in Goa, is less than two months away.
Compared to only two years ago, the geopolitical tectonic plates have moved with astonishing
speed. Most BRICS nations are mired in deep crisis; Brazil's endless political/economic/institutional
debacle may yield the Kafkaesque impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff.
BRICS is in a coma. What's surviving is RC: the Russia/China strategic partnership.
Yet even the partnership seems to be in trouble with Russia still attacked by myriad metastases
of Hybrid War. The Exceptionalist Hegemon remains powerful, and the opposition is dazed
and confused.
Or is it?
Slowly but surely see for instance
the
possibility of an ATM (Ankara-Tehran-Moscow) coalition in the making global power continues
to insist on shifting East. That goes beyond Russia's pivoting to Asia; Germany's industrialists
are just waiting for the right political conjunction, before the end of the decade, to also pivot
to Asia, conforming a BMB (Berlin-Moscow-Beijing) coalition.
Germany already rules over Europe. The only way for a global trade power to solidify its reach
is to go East. NATO member Germany, with a GDP that outstrips the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand,
is not even allowed to share information with the "Five Eyes" secret cabal.
President Putin, years ago, was keen on a Lisbon-to-Vladivostok emporium. He may eventually be
rewarded delayed gratification? by BMB, a trade/economic union that, combined with the Chinese-driven
One Belt, One Road (OBOR), will eventually dwarf and effectively replace the dwindling post-WWII
Anglo-Saxon crafted/controlled international order.
This inexorable movement East underscores all the interconnections and evolving
connectivity related to the New Silk Roads, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the BRICS's
New Development Bank (NDB), the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Eurasia Economic
Union (EEU). The crux of RC, the Russia-China strategic partnership, is to make the multipolar, post-Atlantic
world happen. Or, updating Ezra Pound, to Make It New.
Containing RC
Russia's pivot to Asia is of course only part of the story. The core of Russia's
industries, infrastructure, population is in the west of the country, closer to Europe. BMB would
allow a double pivot simultaneously to Europe and Asia; or Russia exploiting to the max its Eurasian
character. Not accidently this is absolute anathema for Washington. Thus the predictable, ongoing
no holds barred exceptionalist strategy of preventing by all means necessary closer Russia-Germany
cooperation.
In parallel, pivoting to Asia is also essential because that's where the overwhelming majority
of Russia's future customers energy and otherwise are located. It will be a long, winding process
to educate Russian public opinion about the incalculable value for the nation of Siberia and the
Russian Far East. Yet that has already started. And it will be in full fruition by the middle of
the next decade, when all the interpolated New Silk Roads will be online.
"Containment" of RC will continue to be the name of the exceptionalist game whatever
happens on November 8. As far as the industrial-military-security-surveillance-corporate media complex
is concerned,
there will be no reset . Proxies will be used from failed state Ukraine to Japan in the East
China Sea, as well as any volunteering Southeast Asian faction in the South China Sea.
Still the Hegemon will be in trouble to contain both sides of RC simultaneously. NATO does not
help; its trade arm, TPP, may even collapse in the high seas before arriving on shore. No TPP a
certainty in case Donald Trump is elected in November means the end of US economic hegemony over
Asia. Hillary Clinton knows it; and it's no accident President Obama is desperate to have TPP approved
during a short window of opportunity, the lame-duck session of Congress from November 9 to January
3.
Against China, the Hegemon alliance in fact hinges on Australia, India and Japan.
Forget about instrumentalizing BRICS member India which will never fall into the trap
of a war against China (not to mention Russia, with which India traditionally enjoys very good relations.)
Japan's imperial instincts were reawakened by Shinzo Abe. Yet hopeless economic stagnation persists.
Moreover, Tokyo has been prohibited by the US Treasury Dept. to continue unleashing quantitative
easing. Moscow sees as a long-term objective to progressively draw Japan away from the US orbit and
into Eurasia integration.
Dr. Zbig does Desolation Row
The Pentagon is terrified that RC is now a military partnership as well.
Compared to Russia's superior high-tech weaponry, NATO is a kindergarten mess; not to mention
that soon Russian territory will be inviolable to any Star Wars-derived scheme. China will soon have
all the submarines and "carrier-killer" missiles necessary to make life for the US Navy hell in case
the Pentagon harbors funny ideas. And then there are the regional details from Russia's permanent
air base in Syria to military cooperation with Iran and, eventually, disgruntled NATO member Turkey.
No wonder such exceptionalist luminary ideologues as Dr. Zbig "Grand Chessboard" Brzezinski
foreign policy mentor to President Obama are
supremely dejected .
When Brzezinski looks at progressive Eurasia integration, he simply cannot fail to detect how
those "three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy" he outlined in The Grand Chessboard are simply dissolving; "to prevent collusion and maintain security
dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians
from coming together."
Those GCC vassals starting with the House of Saud are now terrified about their own security;
same with the hysteric Baltics. Tributaries are not pliant anymore and that includes an array of
Europeans. The "barbarians" coming together are in fact old civilizations China, Persia, Russia
fed up with upstart-controlled unipolarity.
Unsurprisingly, to "contain" RC, defined as "potentially threatening" (the Pentagon
considers the threats are existential) Brzezinski suggests what else Divide and Rule; as in "containing
the least predictable but potentially the most likely to overreach." Still he doesn't know which
is which; "Currently, the more likely to overreach is Russia, but in the longer run it could be China."
Hillary "Queen of War" Clinton of course does not subscribe to Brzezinski's "could
be" school. After all she's the official, Robert Kagan-endorsed, neocon presidential candidate.
She's more in tune with this sort of wacky "analysis" .
So one should definitely expect Hillary's "project" to be all-out hegemony expansion all across
Eurasia. Syria and Iran will be targets. Even another war on the Korean Peninsula could be on the
cards. But against North Korea, a nuclear power? Exceptionalistan only attacks those who can't defend
themselves. Besides, RC could easily prevent war by offering some strategic carrots to the Kim family.
In many aspects, not much has changed from 24 years ago when, only three months after the dissolution
of the USSR, the Pentagon's Defense Planning Guidance proclaimed:
"Our first objective is to prevent the reemergence of a new rival This requires that
we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated
control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia,
the territory of the former Soviet Union and southwest Asia."
Talk about a prescient road map of what's happening right now; the "rival", "hostile" power is
actually two powers involved in a strategic partnership: RC.
Compounding this Pentagon nightmare, the endgame keeps drawing near; the next manifestations and
reverberations of the never-ending 2008 financial crisis may eventually torpedo the fundamentals
of the global "order" as in the petrodollar racket/tributary scam.
There will be blood. Hillary Clinton smells it already from Syria to Iran to the South China
Sea. The question is whether she and virtually the whole Beltway establishment behind her
will be mad enough to provoke RC and buy a one-way ticket to post-MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction)
territory.
Looks like Israel count of IS to serve as a counterbalancing force able to weaken Hezbollah
Notable quotes:
"... A weak IS is, counterintuitively, preferable to a destroyed IS. IS is a magnet for radicalized Muslims in countries throughout the world. These volunteers are easier targets to identify, saving intelligence work. They acquire destructive skills in the fields of Syria and Iraq that are of undoubted concern if they return home, but some of them acquire shaheed ..."
"... Furthermore, Hizballah a radical Shiite anti-Western organization subservient to Iran is being seriously taxed by the fight against IS, a state of affairs that suits Western interests. A Hizballah no longer involved in the Syrian civil war might engage once again in the taking of western hostages and other terrorist acts in Europe. ..."
"... The West yearns for stability, and holds out a naive hope that the military defeat of IS will be instrumental in reaching that goal. But stability is not a value in and of itself. It is desirable only if it serves our interests. The defeat of IS would encourage Iranian hegemony in the region, buttress Russia's role, and prolong Assad's tyranny. Tehran, Moscow, and Damascus do not share our democratic values and have little inclination to help America and the West. ..."
"... Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, is professor emeritus of political studies at Bar-Ilan University and a fellow at the Middle East Forum. ..."
The Destruction of Islamic State is a Strategic Mistake
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The West should seek the further weakening of Islamic State, but not
its destruction. A weak but functioning IS can undermine the appeal of the caliphate among radical
Muslims; keep bad actors focused on one another rather than on Western targets; and hamper Iran's
quest for regional hegemony.
US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter recently gathered defense ministers from allied nations to
plan what officials hope will be the decisive stage in the campaign to eradicate the Islamic State
(IS) organization. This is a strategic mistake.
IS, a radical Islamist group, has killed thousands of people since it declared an Islamic caliphate
in June 2014, with the Syrian city of Raqqa as its de facto capital. It captured tremendous international
attention by swiftly conquering large swaths of land and by releasing gruesome pictures of beheadings
and other means of execution.
But IS is primarily successful where there is a political void. Although the offensives in Syria
and Iraq showed IS's tactical capabilities, they were directed against failed states with weakened
militaries. On occasions when the poorly trained IS troops have met well-organized opposition, even
that of non-state entities like the Kurdish militias, the group's performance has been less convincing.
When greater military pressure was applied and Turkish support dwindled, IS went into retreat.
It is true that IS has ignited immense passion among many young and frustrated Muslims all over
the world, and the caliphate idea holds great appeal among believers. But the relevant question is
what can IS do, particularly in its current situation? The terrorist activities for which it recently
took responsibility were perpetrated mostly by lone wolves who declared their allegiance to IS; they
were not directed from Raqqa. On its own, IS is capable of only limited damage.
A weak IS is, counterintuitively, preferable to a destroyed IS. IS is a magnet for radicalized
Muslims in countries throughout the world. These volunteers are easier targets to identify, saving
intelligence work. They acquire destructive skills in the fields of Syria and Iraq that are of undoubted
concern if they return home, but some of them acquire shaheed status while still away
a blessing for their home countries. If IS is fully defeated, more of these people are likely to
come home and cause trouble.
If IS loses control over its territory, the energies that went into protecting and governing a
state will be directed toward organizing more terrorist attacks beyond its borders. The collapse
of IS will produce a terrorist diaspora that might further radicalize Muslim immigrants in the West.
Most counter-terrorism agencies understand this danger. Prolonging the life of IS probably assures
the deaths of more Muslim extremists at the hands of other bad guys in the Middle East, and is likely
to spare the West several terrorist attacks.
Moreover, a weak and lingering IS could undermine the attraction of the caliphate idea. A dysfunctional
and embattled political entity is more conducive to the disillusionment of Muslim adherents of a
caliphate in our times than an IS destroyed by a mighty America-led coalition. The latter scenario
perfectly fits the narrative of continuous and perfidious efforts on the part of the West to destroy
Islam, which feeds radical Muslim hatred for everything the West stands for.
The continuing existence of IS serves a strategic purpose. Why help the brutal Assad regime win
the Syrian civil war? Many radical Islamists in the opposition forces, i.e., Al Nusra and its offshoots,
might find other arenas in which to operate closer to Paris and Berlin. Is it in the West's interests
to strengthen the Russian grip on Syria and bolster its influence in the Middle East? Is enhancing
Iranian control of Iraq congruent with American objectives in that country? Only the strategic folly
that currently prevails in Washington can consider it a positive to enhance the power of the Moscow-Tehran-Damascus
axis by cooperating with Russia against IS.
Furthermore, Hizballah a radical Shiite anti-Western organization subservient to Iran
is being seriously taxed by the fight against IS, a state of affairs that suits Western interests.
A Hizballah no longer involved in the Syrian civil war might engage once again in the taking of western
hostages and other terrorist acts in Europe.
The Western distaste for IS brutality and immorality should not obfuscate strategic clarity. IS
are truly bad guys, but few of their opponents are much better. Allowing bad guys to kill bad guys
sounds very cynical, but it is useful and even moral to do so if it keeps the bad guys busy and less
able to harm the good guys. The Hobbesian reality of the Middle East does not always present a neat
moral choice.
The West yearns for stability, and holds out a naive hope that the military defeat of IS will
be instrumental in reaching that goal. But stability is not a value in and of itself. It is desirable
only if it serves our interests. The defeat of IS would encourage Iranian hegemony in the region,
buttress Russia's role, and prolong Assad's tyranny. Tehran, Moscow, and Damascus do not share our
democratic values and have little inclination to help America and the West.
Moreover, instability and crises sometimes contain portents of positive change. Unfortunately,
the Obama administration fails to see that its main enemy is Iran. The Obama administration has inflated
the threat from IS in order to legitimize Iran as a "responsible" actor that will, supposedly, fight
IS in the Middle East. This was part of the Obama administration's rationale for its nuclear deal
with Iran and central to its "legacy," which is likely to be ill-remembered.
The American administration does not appear capable of recognizing the fact that IS can be a useful
tool in undermining Tehran's ambitious plan for domination of the Middle East.
Efraim Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, is professor emeritus
of political studies at Bar-Ilan University and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.
BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family
I prefer /dev/random and three passes, if I have any intention of using the drive later. If
I were involved in anything seriously malfeasant where using the drive later were not a consideration,
I'd be following the
established procedures of the masters of the art. (NSA)
The Senate minority leader,
Harry Reid of Nevada, asked the
F.B.I. on Monday to investigate evidence suggesting that Russia may try to manipulate voting
results in November.
In a letter to the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey Jr., Mr. Reid wrote that the threat of Russian
interference "is more extensive than is widely known and may include the intent to falsify official
election results." Recent classified briefings from senior intelligence officials, Mr. Reid said
in an interview, have left him fearful that President Vladimir V. Putin's "goal is tampering with
this election."
News reports on Monday said the F.B.I. warned state election officials several weeks ago that
foreign hackers had exported voter registration data from computer systems in at least one state,
and had pierced the systems of a second one.
The bureau did not name the states, but
Yahoo News , which first reported the confidential F.B.I. warning, said they were Arizona and
Illinois. Matt Roberts, a spokesman for Arizona's secretary of state, said the F.B.I. had told state
officials that Russians were behind the Arizona attack.
After the F.B.I. warning, Arizona took its voter registration database offline from June 28 to
July 8 to allow for a forensic exam of its systems, Mr. Roberts said.
The F.B.I., in its notice to states, said the voter information had been "exfiltrated," which
means that it was shipped out of the state systems to another computer. But it does not mean that
the data itself was tampered with.
It is unclear whether the hackers intended to affect the election or pursued the data for other
purposes, like gaining personal identifying information about voters. The F.B.I. warning referred
to "targeting activity" against state boards of elections, but did not discuss the intent of the
hackers.
"... people need to realize what they read is not the truth.. words can and are used to deceive... propaganda seems to be one of the central roles of all media at this point in time... folks need to beware of this.. ..."
"... Mark Twain said that if you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're misinformed. ..."
"... Do not pay attention to the fact the emperor has no clothes. Just look at this other guy!" ..."
"... Will we USAians ever wake up to 9/11 => Afghanistan => Iraq => Libya => Syria => Ukraine => Yemen ... ..."
"... How many innocents have 'our' emperors - Bush XLI, Clinton XLII, Bush XLIII, Obama XLIV, coming soon? Clinton XLV - killed in the runup to and execution of series of criminal aggressions post-9/11? Two million? If Clinton sets the world on fire the numbers will rise by two orders of magnitude. ..."
"... There have been rumours that the US government was helping to bankroll certain social media companies in return for access. I would say that the US government will step in and potentially rescue NYT and the like from being closed down. They serve an intrinsic and important service to the elite. They will not abandon it. ..."
"... The CIA has bankrolled many startups ... maybe they could take out ads for Raytheon and General Atomic products, run US military/CIA recruitment ads? Pay for placement of articles like Mark Sleboda 's, 'The Turkish Invasion Of Syria As Path To "Regime Change"'? ..."
"... The NYTimes going bellyup ... happened to the Washington Post and the WSJ. Maybe Eric Schmidt will buy it? Or Rupert Murdoch. ..."
"... I wonder if the CIA bankrolled Rupert Murdoch? The CIA took out a $500 million data storage contract with Amazon just before Bezos bought the WaPo. Come to think of it, having control of the WaPo, WSJ, and NYTimes archives would be just what Dr. Orwell ordered. Mark Sleboda could then work for the MiniTrue, revising the past as required. ..."
"... Like all psychopaths, they have a one-track mind that doesn't allow an effective strategy when it comes to bipedal meat units. Their answer to convincing you of their lies is to proffer more outrageous lies. It's kind of like the newspapers fighting declining advertising revenue by making the print smaller, stuffing the paper with more ads at higher rates and raising the price for a printed newspaper. Damn it, why won't you monkeys OBEY! ..."
"... That's an excellent point, b. I don't even remember the last time I've read anything truthful in any western MSM outlet. Almost everything is a spin of various degree. NYT is one of worst offenders, so another lying piece is not at all surprising. ..."
"... From the Wikipedia article Factoid : The term was coined in 1973 by American writer Norman Mailer to mean a "piece of information that becomes accepted as a fact even though it's not actually true, or an invented fact believed to be true because it appears in print." ..."
"... This is a basic tool of Western mainstream propaganda. Sprinkle every article full of "factoids" or small lies. These lies are not about the core topic of article, so they are unlikely to be challenged. Their only purpose is to enforce the narrative and demonize the enemy. When small lies or "lielets" are repeated often enough, they become factoids, meaning that they are no longer recognized as lies. ..."
The New York Times is desperate for new readers and therefore tries to branch into the
realm of The Onion and other satirical sites. It attempts to show that allegedly Russia
controlled media spread false stories for political purpose - by providing a false media story. The
purpose of the NYT doing such is yours to guess.
The sourcing of
that Page 1 story is as weak as its content. It starts with claiming that opponents of Sweden
joining NATO must be somehow Russia related and are spreading false stories:
As often happens in such cases, Swedish officials were never able to pin down the source of the
false reports.
Duh! But it must have been Russia. Because Swedish internal opposition to joining NATO would be
incapable of opining against it. Right? Likewise anti-EU reports and opposition to the EU within
the Czech Republic MUST be caused by Russian disinformation and can in now way be related to mismanagement
of the EU project itself.
The sourcing for the whole long pamphlet is extremely weak:
But they, numerous analysts and experts in American and European intelligence
point to Russia as the prime suspect, noting that preventing NATO expansion is a centerpiece of
the foreign policy of President Vladimir V. Putin, who invaded Georgia in 2008
largely to forestall that possibility.
Whoa! "Experts in American and European intelligence" can of course be trusted not to ever spread
false stories or rumors about Russia influencing "news". Such truth tellers they are and have always
been.
Then follows, in a claim about false stories(!) spread by Russia, that factually false claim that
Russia "invaded Georgia in 2008". It was obvious in the very first hours of the Georgia war,
as we then noted
, that Georgia started it. A European Union commission later
confirmed that it was
Georgia, incited by the Bush government, that started the war. The NYT itself
found
the same . All Russia did was to protect the areas of South Ossetia and Abchazia that it was
officially designated to protect by the United Nations! No invasion of Georgia took place.
And what was the alleged reason that Russia "invaded" Georgia for? "Largely to forestall".."NATO
expansion"? But it was NATO that
rejected Georgia's membership
in April 2008. Why then would Russia "invade" Georgia in August 2008 to prevent a membership
that was surely not gonna happen?
Utter a-historic nonsense.
The who tale, written by Neil MacFarquhar
, is a long list of hearsay where Russia is claimed to have influenced news but without
ever showing any evidence.
the extensive cooperation between the New York Times and the CIA with spying as well as with
manipulating foreign news
the acknowledged spreading of false stories about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq an behalf
of the Bush administration by the NY Times itself.
As Carl Bernstein
described in his
book about the CIA and the media:
Among the executives who lent their cooperation to the [Central Intelligence] Agency were
Williarn Paley of the Columbia Broadcasting System, Henry Luce of Tirne Inc., Arthur Hays Sulzberger of the New York Times
, Barry Bingham Sr. of the LouisviIle Courier‑Journal,
and James Copley of the Copley News Service. Other organizations which cooperated with the CIA
include the American Broadcasting Company, the National Broadcasting Company, the Associated Press,
United Press International, Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps‑Howard, Newsweek magazine, the
Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald and the old Saturday Evening Post and New York Herald‑Tribune.
By far the most valuable of these associations, according to CIA officials, have been
with the New York Times , CBS and Time Inc.
Bernstein shows that the NYT cooperation with the U.S. government and its intelligence agencies
was very extensive and continues uninterrupted up to today.
To lament about alleged Russian influence on some news outlets while writing a disinformation
filled piece, based on "experts in American and European intelligence", for an outlet with proven
CIA cooperation in faking news, is way beyond hypocrisy.
Through this piece the NYT becomes its own parody. Did the author and editors recognize that?
Or are they too self-unconscious for even such simple insight?
Posted by b on August 29, 2016 at 11:04 AM |
Permalink
thanks b... people need to realize what they read is not the truth.. words can and are used
to deceive... propaganda seems to be one of the central roles of all media at this point in time...
folks need to beware of this..
Although, NYT, is bleeding and is losing audience, I am amazed that it is still in print. The
Guardian is posting loss in millions of pounds, and that is what I expect NYT to be doing.
"Do not pay attention to the fact the emperor has no clothes. Just look at this other guy!" That
seems to be the official US opinion on Russia as expressed by the Clinton campaign, the NYT, and
the other usual suspects purveying official US propaganda.
An amusing thing about the NYT's is the most-emailed/read lists, which are almost always well
represented by articles such as "what to cook this weekend" and "48hrs in Tulsa." This is often
despite the steady stream of heady world events. My take is that most readers of the Times want
to be seen/known as Times readers, but would really prefer to be reading tabloids. The difference
is becoming less obvious by the day.
One small quibble with this: But it was NATO that rejected Georgia's membership in April 2008.
. That April meeting did not really reject Georgia's membership. The discussion was just postponed
to a later meeting. It wasn't until after Russia thrashed Georgia in August that the US took the
membership issue off the table.
@3 wbl, "Do not pay attention to the fact the emperor has no clothes. Just look at this other
guy!"
That's the answer isn't it?
Will we USAians ever wake up to 9/11 => Afghanistan => Iraq => Libya => Syria => Ukraine
=> Yemen ...
How many innocents have 'our' emperors - Bush XLI, Clinton XLII, Bush XLIII, Obama XLIV,
coming soon? Clinton XLV - killed in the runup to and execution of series of criminal aggressions
post-9/11? Two million? If Clinton sets the world on fire the numbers will rise by two orders
of magnitude.
Don't look at Trump! Don't look at Me! Look at Vladimir, behind the tree!
Ya gotta wanna believe. How many USAians still wanna believe?
There have been rumours that the US government was helping to bankroll certain social media
companies in return for access. I would say that the US government will step in and potentially
rescue NYT and the like from being closed down. They serve an intrinsic and important service
to the elite. They will not abandon it.
It's been amusing to watch this electoral season as the Times has dropped all pretense of objectivity.
While actual news accounts continue to lightly pepper the broadsheet, the headlines, article placement
and, most importantly, what falls before and after the fold is so transparently partisan one is
increasingly startled to find well reported and honest journalism.
I remember back in the first Intifada when Abe Rosenthal had Palestinian youth throwing soviet
made rocks while he glossed Sabra and Shatila massacres. The Times was pretty "Onion"y then, but
the political coverage this year makes me weep for my country as what little good left in it chokes
on growing torrents of BS, obfuscation, prevarication and bombast.
The CIA has bankrolled many startups ... maybe they could take out ads for Raytheon and
General Atomic products, run US military/CIA recruitment ads? Pay for placement of articles like
Mark Sleboda 's, 'The Turkish Invasion Of Syria As Path To "Regime Change"'?
The NYTimes going bellyup ... happened to the Washington Post and the WSJ. Maybe Eric Schmidt
will buy it? Or Rupert Murdoch.
I wonder if the CIA bankrolled Rupert Murdoch? The CIA took out a $500 million data storage
contract with Amazon just before Bezos bought the WaPo. Come to think of it, having control of
the WaPo, WSJ, and NYTimes archives would be just what Dr. Orwell ordered. Mark Sleboda could
then work for the MiniTrue, revising the past as required.
jsn@12: do you really think that objectivity of NYT exhibits seasonal variation? Like neutral
to positive stories about Russia between Easter and Passover, and a more usual dreck for the rest
of the year?
There is still difference between NYT and tabloids. This is the most recent article in NY Post
about Russia in NY Post:
Putin is gobbling up whatever he can while Obama does nothing
By Benny Avni August 17, 2016 | 8:22pm.
As Americans focus on who'll replace President Obama, Russian strongman Vladimir Putin marches
around the globe unabated, rushing to gobble up anything and everything he can before the new
president...
Are we already in the second of the four stages to victory?
I don't know much about the MSM, and even less about H. Clinton, but what was that all about
with the speech she made concerning the "alt-right"? Who in their right mind would bring to the
mainstream attention the existence of a body of contradictory writing?
Is it the same thing here with NYT? Is the sheer prevalence of opposing opinion from its readers
forcing the MSM - led by flagship NYT - to turn and address the phenomenon?
I could not have dared to hope we could already be at stage 2:
First they ignore you.
Then they ridicule you.
Then they fight you.
Then you win.
--Gandhi
Grieved@17 - I'm going to argue we're at stage 2.5, Grieved. DDOS attacks on RT and Sputnik, 'managed'
Google search rankings, censored tweets, NSA on your desktop/cellphone. The powers that be and
western MSM are having a conniption fit and they are very angry.
Like all psychopaths, they have a one-track mind that doesn't allow an effective strategy
when it comes to bipedal meat units. Their answer to convincing you of their lies is to proffer
more outrageous lies. It's kind of like the newspapers fighting declining advertising revenue
by making the print smaller, stuffing the paper with more ads at higher rates and raising the
price for a printed newspaper. Damn it, why won't you monkeys OBEY!
Piotr@14,
The season to which I refer is, as I said, the electoral one!
The Times blows (or is it sucks?) very much with the political weather, though regretfully
our elections now blow for long enough to constitute multiple seasons proper.
I've long suspected that light seasoning of truth they sprinkle beneath the fold or deep inside
is there so that when the bogosity of one of their major narratives periodically explodes they
can scrape thin truths from the back pages and later paragraphs to claim the've been reporting
the truth all along!
That's an excellent point, b. I don't even remember the last time I've read anything truthful
in any western MSM outlet. Almost everything is a spin of various degree. NYT is one of worst
offenders, so another lying piece is not at all surprising.
Russia invading Georgia in 2008 fits the definition of factoid , as defined by Norman Mailer
in 1973:
From the Wikipedia article
Factoid : The term was coined in 1973 by American writer Norman Mailer to mean a "piece
of information that becomes accepted as a fact even though it's not actually true, or an invented
fact believed to be true because it appears in print."
This is a basic tool of Western mainstream propaganda. Sprinkle every article full of "factoids"
or small lies. These lies are not about the core topic of article, so they are unlikely to be
challenged. Their only purpose is to enforce the narrative and demonize the enemy. When small
lies or "lielets" are repeated often enough, they become factoids, meaning that they are no longer
recognized as lies.
"... In a column mocking the political ignorance of the "dumbed-down" American people and lamenting the death of "objective fact," New York Times columnist Timothy Egan shows why so many Americans have lost faith in the supposedly just-the-facts-ma'am mainstream media. ..."
"... Egan states [lies] as flat fact, "If more than 16 percent of Americans could locate Ukraine on a map, it would have been a Really Big Deal when Trump said that Russia was not going to invade it - two years after they had, in fact, invaded it." ..."
"... But it is not a "fact" that Russia "invaded" Ukraine and it's especially not the case if you also don't state as flat fact that the United States has invaded Syria, Libya and many other countries where the U.S. government has launched bombing raids or dispatched "special forces." Yet, the Times doesn't describe those military operations as "invasions." ..."
"... The Times also played down the key role of neo-Nazis and extreme nationalists in killing police before the coup, seizing government building during the coup, and then spearheading the slaughter of ethnic Russian Ukrainians after the coup. If you wanted to detect the role of these SS-wannabes from the Times' coverage, you'd have to scour the last few paragraphs of a few stories that dealt with other aspects of the Ukraine crisis. ..."
"... A growing public recognition of that mainstream bias explains why so much of the American population has tuned out supposedly "objective" news (because it is anything but objective). ..."
"... Indeed, those Americans who are more sophisticated about Russia and Ukraine than Timothy Egan know that they're not getting the straight story from the Times and other MSM outlets. Those not-dumbed-down Americans can spot U.S. government propaganda when they see it. ..."
A New York Times columnist writes Americans are so "dumbed-down" that they don't know that Russia
"invaded" Ukraine two years ago, but that "invasion" was mostly in the minds of Times editors and
other propagandists, says Robert Parry.
In
a column mocking the political ignorance of the "dumbed-down" American people and lamenting the
death of "objective fact," New York Times columnist Timothy Egan shows why so many Americans have
lost faith in the supposedly just-the-facts-ma'am mainstream media.
Egan states [lies] as flat fact, "If more than
16 percent of Americans could locate Ukraine on a map, it would have been a Really Big Deal when
Trump said that Russia was not going to invade it - two years after they had, in fact, invaded it."
But it is not a "fact" that Russia "invaded" Ukraine and it's especially not the case if you
also don't state as flat fact that the United States has invaded Syria, Libya and many other countries
where the U.S. government has launched bombing raids or dispatched "special forces." Yet, the Times
doesn't describe those military operations as "invasions."
Nor does the newspaper of record condemn the U.S. government for violating international law,
although in every instance in which U.S. forces cross into another country's sovereign territory
without permission from that government or the United Nations Security Council, that is technically
an act of illegal aggression.
In other words, the Times applies a conscious double standard when reporting on the actions of
the United States or one of its allies (note how Turkey's recent invasion of Syria was just an "intervention")
as compared to how the Times deals with actions by U.S. adversaries, such as Russia.
Biased on Ukraine
The Times' reporting on Ukraine has been particularly dishonest and hypocritical. The Times ignores
the substantial evidence that the U.S. government encouraged and supported a violent coup that overthrew
elected President Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 22, 2014, including a pre-coup intercepted phone call
between Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt
discussing who should lead the new government and how to "midwife this thing."
The Times also played down the key role of neo-Nazis and extreme nationalists in killing police
before the coup, seizing government building during the coup, and then spearheading the slaughter
of ethnic Russian Ukrainians after the coup. If you wanted to detect the role of these SS-wannabes
from the Times' coverage, you'd have to scour the last few paragraphs of a few stories that dealt
with other aspects of the Ukraine crisis.
While leaving out the context, the Times has repeatedly claimed that Russia "invaded" Crimea,
although curiously without showing any photographs of an amphibious landing on Crimea's coast or
Russian tanks crashing across Ukraine's border en route to Crimea or troops parachuting from the
sky to seize strategic Crimean targets.
The reason such evidence of an "invasion" was lacking is that Russian troops were already stationed
in Crimea as part of a basing agreement for the port of Sevastopol. So, it was a very curious "invasion"
indeed, since the Russian troops were on scene before the "invasion" and their involvement after
the coup was peaceful in protecting the Crimean population from the depredations of the new regime's
neo-Nazis. The presence of a small number of Russian troops also allowed the Crimeans to vote on
whether to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia, which they did with a 96 percent majority.
In the eastern provinces, which represented Yanukovych's political base and where many Ukrainians
opposed the coup, you can fault, if you wish, the Russian decision to provide some military equipment
and possibly some special forces so ethnic Russian and other anti-coup Ukrainians could defend themselves
from the assaults by the neo-Nazi Azov brigade and from the tanks and artillery of the coup-controlled
Ukrainian army.
"... those Americans who are more sophisticated about Russia and Ukraine than Timothy Egan know
that they're not getting the straight story from the Times and other MSM outlets."
But an honest newspaper and honest columnists would insist on including this context. They also
would resist pejorative phrases such as "invasion" and "aggression" unless, of course, they applied
the same terminology objectively to actions by the U.S. government and its "allies."
That sort of nuance and balance is not what you get from The New York Times and its "group thinking"
writers, people like Timothy Egan. When it comes to reporting on Russia, it's Cold War-style propaganda,
day in and day out.
And this has not been a one-off problem. The unrelenting bias of the Times and, indeed, the rest
of the mainstream U.S. news media on the Ukraine crisis represents a lack of professionalism that
was also apparent in the pro-war coverage of the Iraq crisis in 2002-03 and other catastrophic U.S.
foreign policy decisions.
A growing public recognition of that mainstream bias explains why so much of the American population
has tuned out supposedly "objective" news (because it is anything but objective).
Indeed, those Americans who are more sophisticated about Russia and Ukraine than Timothy Egan
know that they're not getting the straight story from the Times and other MSM outlets. Those not-dumbed-down
Americans can spot U.S. government propaganda when they see it.
"... vote for Clinton is vote for globalization, while vote for Trump is vote for anti-globalization ..."
"... Recall that the Obomber passed the legislation that legalized propaganda (lying to the public) and permits no remedy other than the ability to protest in fenced in free speech zones until the cops show up as head knockers or agents provocateurs. ..."
"... You say that Trump's economic policies as U.S. president would be catastrophic for those most likely to vote for him. Anyone's economic policies will be catastrophic for those most likely to vote for Trump. That's baked into the political and economic structure of things. It is part of the natural order. ..."
"... The difference with Trump is that after the economic catastrophe that will happen--is now happening , it may be possible under a Trump administration to pick things up and rebuild. Under any other likely regime, the aftermath of economic catastrophe will be limitless debt peonage and unlimited oligarchy. ..."
"... The shooting down of an Israeli warplane by Syria has not been reported by Western and Israeli media sources. According to Sputnik, on August 21, "the Israeli Air Force resumed airstrikes on Western Syria, targeting a government army base at Khan Al-Sheih in Damascus province and another in the al-Quneitra province after a six-hour halt in attacks that followed their multiple air raids over the Golan Heights." ..."
Some real beauties in there alright. Kerry giving himself yet another uppercut.
"...U.S. officials say it is imperative that Russia use its influence with Syrian President
Bashar Assad to halt all attacks on moderate opposition forces, ..."
Not Assad must go. Not close. Yet, still blissfully ignorant of the fact their more extreme
moderates are getting their jollies out of hacking sick 12 year old kids heads off with fishing
knive. I wonder at what point does 'moderate' become a dirty word...?
@Noirette Pt1
Big crowds scare Hillary these days. Best not to shake her up too much. I wonder though,
how she expects to compete with Trumps fervour... must be pretty happy that they can do a nice
back door job on election day. When opening act Rudy G is getting pummelled with calls of 'does
Rudy have Alzheimer's...?' you know you're doing something right - really, just...awesome political
theatre.
The ZioMedia is in the tank for Hillary. Impossible for a candidate who cannot draw a crowd to
be "ahead in the polls". And a candidate who packs 10K ppl into any given space at will to be
"behind in the polls". Humiliatingly low turnout for the HBomb is stage-crafted by all ziomedia
outlets to hide this embarrassing fact.
Recall that Billy Blowjob ushered in Media Consolidation which gave 5 ziomedia corporations
carte blanche to bullshit the public.
Recall that the Obomber passed the legislation that legalized propaganda (lying to the
public) and permits no remedy other than the ability to protest in fenced in free speech zones
until the cops show up as head knockers or agents provocateurs.
I was reading articles on the Turkish attack into Syria and there is no mention of the Syrian
government nor whether/when/if Turkey will engage the Syrian Army. But then I found this chart
from CNN:
For one thing, they pretend ISIS has no support. We all know differently. Also, it looks like
every one is fighting ISIS except ..... Free Syrian Army and Saudi Arabia and Gulf Allies.
You say that Trump's economic policies as U.S. president would be catastrophic for those most
likely to vote for him. Anyone's economic policies will be catastrophic for those most likely
to vote for Trump. That's baked into the political and economic structure of things. It is part
of the natural order.
The difference with Trump is that after the economic catastrophe that will happen--is now
happening , it may be possible under a Trump administration to pick things up and rebuild. Under
any other likely regime, the aftermath of economic catastrophe will be limitless debt peonage
and unlimited oligarchy.
The shooting down of an Israeli warplane by Syria has not been reported by Western and Israeli
media sources. According to Sputnik, on August 21, "the Israeli Air Force resumed airstrikes on
Western Syria, targeting a government army base at Khan Al-Sheih in Damascus province and another
in the al-Quneitra province after a six-hour halt in attacks that followed their multiple air
raids over the Golan Heights."
It was struck. An SA-9 from the Iftiraas Air Defense Base and an SA-2 near the Khalkhaala AB
were fired. But, the technical wizardry was most on display when an S-300 (SA-10 "Grumble) super-air-defense
missile was fired from the Republican Guard base near the Mazza AB at the foot of Qaasiyoon Mountain
west of Damascus. This was done so that the F-16's electronic countermeasures would first fix
on the SA-2 and SA-9 while the S-300 plowed forward to exterminate the vermin inside the Israeli
aircraft. The S-300 vaporized the Israeli bomber. No evidence was seen of the pilot ejecting.
Instead, eyewitness accounts described a ball of fire over the Golan and the remains scattering
into the air over the Huleh Valley in Palestine.
Also, the Israelis lost 2 helicopters while flying missions over the Golan Heights in an effort
to bolster the sagging morale of the Takfiri rats of Nusra/Alqaeda and Al-Ittihaad Al-Islaami
li-Ajnaad Al-Shaam. The 2 helicopters went down over the area near Qunaytra City and were reportedly
shot down by shoulder fired, heat-seeking missiles deployed throughout the Syrian Army.
"... russia sees this bs crap about 'moderate' for what it is... just another shell game to play hide and seek, switch flags, etc, etc... until the 'moderate' opposition drop their military arms, it ain't 'moderate'... would 'moderate' opposition to the usa leadership be allowed to use weapons? that's the answer to that bs... ..."
OT GENEVA - The United States and Russia say they have resolved a number of issues standing in the
way of restoring a nationwide truce to Syria and opening up aid deliveries, but were unable once
again to forge a comprehensive agreement on stepping up cooperation to end the brutal war that
has killed hundreds of thousands.
After meeting off-and-on for nearly 10 hours in Geneva on Friday, U.S. Secretary of State John
Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov could point to only incremental progress in filling
in details of a broad understanding to boost joint efforts that was reached last month in Moscow.
Their failure to reach an overall deal highlighted the increasingly complex situation on the
ground in Syria - including new Russian-backed Syrian government attacks on opposition forces,
the intermingling of some of those opposition forces with an al-Qaida affiliate not covered by
the truce and the surrender of a rebel-held suburb of Damascus - as well as deep divisions and
mistrust dividing Washington and Moscow.
The complexities have also grown with the increasing internationalization of what has largely
become a proxy war between regional and world powers, highlighted by a move by Turkish troops
across the Syrian border against Islamic State fighters this week.
Kerry said he and Lavrov had agreed on the "vast majority" of technical discussions on steps
to reinstate a cease-fire and improve humanitarian access. But critical sticking points remain
unresolved and experts will remain in Geneva with an eye toward finalizing those in the coming
days, he said. ``` Lavrov echoed that, saying "we still need to finalize a few issues" and pointed to the need to
separate fighters from the al-Nusra Front, which has ties to al-Qaida, from U.S.-backed fighters
who hold parts of northwest Syria.
"We have continued our efforts to reduce the areas where we lack understanding and trust, which
is an achievement," Lavrov said. "The mutual trust is growing with every meeting."
Yet, it was clear that neither side believes an overall agreement is imminent or even achievable
after numerous previous disappointments shattered a brief period of relative calm earlier this
year.
The inability to wrest an agreement between Russia and the U.S. - as the major sponsors of
the opposing sides in the stalled Syria peace talks - all but spells another missed deadline for
the U.N. Syria envoy to get the Syrian government and "moderate" opposition back to the table.
``` In a nod to previous failed attempts to resurrect the cessation of hostilities, Kerry stressed
the importance of keeping the details secret. ``` And, underscoring deep differences over developments on the ground, Kerry noted that Russia disputes
the U.S. "narrative" of recent attacks on heavily populated areas being conducted by Syrian forces,
Russia itself and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia. Russia maintains the attacks it has been
involved in have targeted legitimate terrorist targets, while the U.S. says they have hit moderate
opposition forces. ~~~ At the same time, the Obama administration is not of one mind regarding the Russians. The Pentagon
has publicly complained about getting drawn into greater cooperation with Russia even though it
has been forced recently to expand communication with Moscow. Last week, the U.S. had to call
for Russian help when Syrian warplanes struck an area not far from where U.S. troops were operating.
U.S. officials say it is imperative that Russia use its influence with Syrian President Bashar
Assad to halt all attacks on moderate opposition forces, open humanitarian aid corridors, and
concentrate any offensive action on the Islamic State group and other extremists not covered by
what has become a largely ignored truce.
For their part, U.S. officials say they are willing to press rebels groups they support harder
on separating themselves from the Islamic State and al-Nusra, which despite a recent name change
is still viewed as al-Qaida's affiliate in Syria.
Those goals are not new, but recent developments have made achieving them even more urgent
and important, according to U.S. officials. Recent developments include military operations around
the city of Aleppo, the entry of Turkey into the ground war, Turkish hostility toward U.S.-backed
Kurdish rebel groups and the presence of American military advisers in widening conflict zones.
Meanwhile, in a blow to the opposition, rebel forces and civilians in the besieged Damascus
suburb of Daraya were to be evacuated on Friday after agreeing to surrender the town late Thursday
after four years of grueling bombardment and a crippling siege that left the sprawling area in
ruins.
The surrender of Daraya, which became an early symbol of the nascent uprising against Assad,
marks a success for his government, removing a persistent threat only a few miles from his seat
of power.
Posted by: okie farmer | Aug 27, 2016 8:23:27 AM | 80
Re: Geneva negotiations...
Love the goto clause:
"In a nod to previous failed attempts to resurrect the cessation of hostilities, Kerry stressed
the importance of keeping the details secret."
Yeah, keeping the details secret so that next time the Yankees backstab Russia, observers won't
immediately realise that they were, in fact, just shooting themselves in the foot. Again.
russia sees this bs crap about 'moderate' for what it is... just another shell game to play
hide and seek, switch flags, etc, etc... until the 'moderate' opposition drop their military arms,
it ain't 'moderate'... would 'moderate' opposition to the usa leadership be allowed to use weapons?
that's the answer to that bs...
as for turkey, clearly the apk has a 'get rid of the kurds' agenda.. works well in their alliance
with isis up to a point.. as for turkish/usa alliance and a no fly zone - if russia goes along
with this, they better get a hell of a trade off out of it.. i can't see it, although i see the
usa continuing on in their support of saudi arabia etc, using their mercenary isis army and saudi
arabia to continue to funnel arms sales and weaponry... it is what they do best, bullshite artists
that they are...
Wait a minute! They ID'd the hacker and it's a business in Israel? And it forced Apple to an
emergency software upgrade. But I thought all the evil hackers were Russians working for the government.
"... an article loaded with innuendo has appeared on the front page of a major U.S. newspaper, located in Washington, DC, stating that Russia is engaged in widespread subversion in Europe and is trying to do the same on behalf of Donald Trump in the United States. But the evidence presented in the story does not support what is being suggested, and spreading tales about foreign-government misbehavior can have unintended consequences. It is particularly shortsighted and even dangerous in this case, as a stable relationship with a nuclear-armed and militarily very capable Moscow should rightly be regarded as critical. ..."
"... It is almost as if some journalists believe that deliberately damaging relations with Russia is a price worth paying to embarrass and defeat Trump. If that is so, they are delusional. ..."
But there is a certain danger inherent in the media's slanting its coverage to such an extent
as to be making the news rather than just reporting it. And when it comes to Russia, the way the
stories are reported becomes critically important, as there is a real risk that
media hostility toward Putin, even if deployed as a way to get at Trump, could produce a conflict
no one actually wants-just as the Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers' yellow journalism,
rife with "melodrama,
romance, and hyperbole," more or less brought about the Spanish-American War.
... ... ...
So an article loaded with innuendo has appeared on the front page of a major U.S. newspaper, located
in Washington, DC, stating that Russia is engaged in widespread subversion in Europe and is trying
to do the same on behalf of Donald Trump in the United States. But the evidence presented in the
story does not support what is being suggested, and spreading tales about foreign-government misbehavior
can have unintended consequences. It is particularly shortsighted and even dangerous in this case,
as a stable relationship with a nuclear-armed and militarily very capable Moscow should rightly be
regarded as critical.
It is almost as if some journalists believe that deliberately damaging relations with Russia is
a price worth paying to embarrass and defeat Trump. If that is so, they are delusional.
Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, is executive director of the Council for the National
Interest.
"... links to Russia were one of the most consistent messages of the 'Remain' campaign's 'Project Fear' strategy to keep Britain in the European Union. Even the Prime Minister at the time, David Cameron, invoked the threat of Russia to try and convince Britons to stay in. ..."
"... The Clinton campaign's briefings on how Donald Trump is " Helping Putin Consolidate Control of Ukraine ", and how Russia is " meddling in U.S. election " (there's that word again) are Project Fear 101. The journalists willfully writing up these stories are ignoring critical points; such as how Secretary of State Clinton's connections with the Kremlin and Russian oligarchs helped Russia buy up U.S. uranium interests . The New York Times reported in April 2015: ..."
Aug 23, 2016 | www.breitbart.com
The Clinton campaign alongside the establishment media have begun blowing the Vladimir Putin
dog-whistle, just as their European counterparts did during the United Kingdom's referendum on its
membership of the European Union (EU).
Almost as if on cue, news outlets have begun parroting the same old lines used by Britain's political
establishment before June of this year, when they accused anti-establishment 'Leave' campaigners
of doing the bidding for, if not being directly linked to, the Russian president and the Kremlin.
From questioning
the marriage of one of the key donors to the Leave campaign , to using
Britain's public broadcaster
to float conspiracy theories about Russian influence, the Cold War-esque scare tactics of 'Reds
Under the Bed' not only reveals the lack of originality in the Clinton camp, it reveals hypocrisy,
foreign policy flippancy , and perhaps even a serious misestimation of where the
public stands on the issue.
In the run up to the Brexit referendum, U.S. outlets even went as far as to call Mr. Putin's (lack
of) interventions "
meddling ". The same charge was never levelled by the media at U.S. President Barack Obama when
he flew to the United Kingdom and lectured Britons on how they should vote. In fact,
he
threatened the country's economy and
trade position in the world if they refused to follow his advice. But this was deemed appropriate.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin and Mr. Putin were broadly absent from the debate, possibly because they
knew full well the 'Remain' camp would use any public pronouncements against the Leave camp, but
also because they are unlikely to have had a clear-cut position on the issue. Mr Putin is a grand
strategist and could have dealt with either outcome. The U.S. establishment, however, has all of
its eggs in the globalism basket.
In March a Kremlin spokesman
said
: "Russia is being dragged into the domestic debate on Brexit. Why is the wicked Russia thesis
used to explain a Government policy?"
"We'd like the British people to know that those pronouncements have nothing to do with Russia's
policy," the embassy said. "As a matter of fact, our Government doesn't have an opinion on Britain's
place in the EU."
Despite this far less "meddling" tactic, links to Russia were one of the most consistent messages
of the 'Remain' campaign's 'Project Fear' strategy to keep Britain in the European Union. Even the
Prime Minister at the time, David Cameron, invoked the threat of Russia to try and convince Britons
to stay in.
"At the heart of the tale are several men, leaders of the Canadian mining industry, who have
been major donors to the charitable endeavors of former President
Bill Clinton and his family. Members of that group built, financed and eventually sold off
to the Russians a company that would become known as Uranium One."
This is barely scratching the surface, as Clinton
Cash author Peter Schweizer
wrote in the Wall Street Journal in July:
"In May 2010, the State Department
facilitated a Moscow visit by 22 of the biggest names in U.S. venture capital-and weeks later
the first memorandums of understanding were signed by Skolkovo and American companies.
"By 2012 the vice president of the Skolkovo Foundation, Conor Lenihan-who had
previously partnered with the Clinton Foundation-recorded that Skolkovo had assembled 28 Russian,
American and European
"Key Partners." Of the 28 "partners," 17, or 60%, have made financial commitments to the Clinton
Foundation, totaling tens of millions of dollars, or sponsored speeches by Bill Clinton."
Nevertheless, you will likely find more references to Putin and Trump in the past week alone than
you will to these dubious affairs in their totality.
Indeed arch-establishment mouthpiece, Legatum Institute
leader, and all-round George Soros activist Anne Applebaum went so far as to declare Donald Trump
"a Russian oligarch" in the Washington Post
this week.
And perhaps far worse than her connections to the Kremlin a relationship which has evidently
soured in recent months are her connections to the fascist, authoritarian, pseudo-monarchical,
Islamist dictatorship in Saudi Arabia. In 2015 the WSJ
reported :
" the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has given between $10 million and $25 million since the foundation
was created in 1999. Part of that came in 2014, although the database doesn't specify how much."
But few column inches or broadcast air minutes are used to discuss these matters.
FOREIGN POLICY FLIPPANCY
In drafting in Russia as a talking point, Mrs. Clinton makes it very difficult for her to deal
with President Putin and the Kremlin should she find herself in the Oval Office in 2017.
Her campaign's claims that Mr. Trump is somehow untrustworthy because he wants to work with Mr.
Putin, not against him, is difficult to take seriously given her lauding of Russia as "an ally" in
2012:
She said, in an attempt to mock then-GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who called the country
America's greatest geopolitical foe:
"Russia has been an ally. They're in the P-5+1 talks with us, they have worked with us in Afghanistan
and have been very helpful in the Northern Distribution Network and in other ways. So I think
it's somewhat dated to be looking backwards instead of being realistic about where we agree, where
we don't agree, but looking for ways to bridge the disagreements and then to maximize the cooperation".
In March 2010 she said:
"One of the fears that I hear from Russia is that somehow the United States wants Russia to
be weak. That could not be farther from the truth. Our goal is to help strengthen Russia."
Even in Ukraine the picture is less clear than U.S. journalists would have you think. Pew (2015)
showed :
"Western Ukrainians are much more likely to say Russia is the sole culprit (56%), while those
in the east see the problem as more complicated. A third of Ukrainians in the east think Russia
is primarily to blame, but 36% fault more than one of the groups.
"Roughly half of Ukrainians (47%) believe Russia is a major military threat to other neighboring
countries. Another 34% say the former Cold War power is a minor threat. Western Ukrainians are
much more concerned about Russia's territorial ambitions (61% major threat) than those in the
east (30%)."
This is a drastically different scenario from the one portrayed in the U.S. media, which usually
comes down to "Russia bad. Everywhere else good". But even the American people are growing weary
of this slant.
Pew (2016)
demonstrated that while U.S. public opinion towards Russia slumped in 2014 around the time of
the Crimea annexation, those numbers have now halved. People don't view Russia as an outright adversary,
though they are perhaps rightly wary of its status as a geopolitical competitor.
Most of anti-russian hysteria is directed toward instilling fear and increasing solidarity, with
neoliberals trying to scare low-information dumb voters away from Trump
Notable quotes:
"... The FBI is investigating whether Russian hackers have carried out a series of cyber attacks on the New York Times, officials have told US media. ..."
"... New York Times was whinging that Chinese hackers had breached and infiltrated their servers a few years ago. NYT is always bitching about something. ..."
"... Isn't it cute, the way the Americans have lost their minds, and they don't even notice? Here's the Washington Post , blatting about how Putin's meddling in the American elections has backfired on him . Just as if that were actually happening. It's a good thing they have focused on another actual country which is part of this planet, I guess, rather than aliens from another world, because then we would have to lock them up. ..."
"... Some of it is just agitating for Hillary, trying to scare low-information dumb voters away from Trump. But there is a definite tendency to blame even routine American problems on Russia. They don't seem to get how crazy it makes them look, it's like actual national mental illness. The whole election process should be frozen right here until the country comes to its senses. ..."
Yes, the Chinese in chinked-out China would be very likely to want to tap into a newspaper that
doesn't report anything which is true except for the Catholic Bean Supper at St. Patrick's. China
can hear US government propaganda along with everyone else, while it is valuable to have advance
notice of news only if what is being reported is actually true.
Isn't it cute, the way the Americans have lost their minds, and they don't even notice? Here's
the Washington Post , blatting about how
Putin's meddling in the American elections has backfired on him . Just as if that were actually
happening. It's a good thing they have focused on another actual country which is part of this
planet, I guess, rather than aliens from another world, because then we would have to lock them
up.
Not even during the coldest depths of the Cold War did the United States so crazily blame all
of its problems on the Russians. If America can't have global war against Russia, it is going
to be so disappointed.
Some of it is just agitating for Hillary, trying to scare low-information dumb voters away
from Trump. But there is a definite tendency to blame even routine American problems on Russia.
They don't seem to get how crazy it makes them look, it's like actual national mental illness.
The whole election process should be frozen right here until the country comes to its senses.
"... The USA has no business at all in Syria, was not invited in, and if it is allowed to get its way in this it will progressively control more and more Syrian territory until it succeeds in its objective of unseating and replacing Assad. Once more, it has no right to be there, and I'm sure Russia will pursue that angle at the seat of international law. ..."
"... The USA also has no right to impose no-fly zones arbitrarily on its own recognition in another sovereign nation. That's a UN decision, and they will never get that through the Security Council. If they try the R2P approach, who are they exercising their right to protect? ISIL? ..."
"... The problem is that once the US sets a military foothold in Syria there is nothing outside of using military power that Russia can do to oust the US from Syria. The international law does not apply to the US because it can break the international law without sanctions being used against it. If there is no punishment there is no incentive for adhering the law either. ..."
"... American Special Forces have already been caught wearing parts of Kurdish uniforms and badges ..."
"... On second reading, it's beginning to sound more like American bluster to me. The press tried to pin him down to no-fly zones or not, and he didn't want to back down but he didn't want to go quite that far so he said "Call it what you want". The USA has no authority to unilaterally impose no-fly zones in a sovereign country. It has to go through the UN, and Russia and China will veto it. The USA is not in Syria with the Syrian government's permission, and it has had what must be called very questionable success so far with 'fighting ISIS'. If it wants to 'protect its forces', it can leave, and the Syrian government will not miss it a bit. ..."
This is all about securing that pipeline route that the West hopes that it can some day build
from Qatar through Syria to Turkey. The US now claims that part of Syrian territory is their own
and it will be used to build that pipeline.
There is one accurate statement in there. The last one in the article. It's endgame time.
The USA has no business at all in Syria, was not invited in, and if it is allowed to get
its way in this it will progressively control more and more Syrian territory until it succeeds
in its objective of unseating and replacing Assad. Once more, it has no right to be there, and
I'm sure Russia will pursue that angle at the seat of international law.
But at the same time, Russia is legally in Syria, and I am sure it is not going to allow the
USA to tell it where it can and cannot fly in Syria. If the USA is really ready to go to war in
Syria, it is going to get it. And I don't think I have to point out to you the kind of logistic
nightmare it would be, especially if it can no longer count on Turkey. And I find it hard to believe
Erdogan will come on board with the USA carving out a Kurdish homeland right next door. Washington
is getting desperate, and that's making it act crazy. Let's see what China says about it.
The USA also has no right to impose no-fly zones arbitrarily on its own recognition in
another sovereign nation. That's a UN decision, and they will never get that through the Security
Council. If they try the R2P approach, who are they exercising their right to protect? ISIL?
What's the USA got in Syria for anti-air systems? Russia has the S-400, and can cover most
of Syria without even putting one of its own planes in the air.
The problem is that once the US sets a military foothold in Syria there is nothing outside
of using military power that Russia can do to oust the US from Syria. The international law
does not apply to the US because it can break the international law without sanctions being used
against it. If there is no punishment there is no incentive for adhering the law either.
Well, I guess we'll just have to see how it shakes out, won't we? I can tell you that if Syrian
forces come knocking to drive out ISIS from other towns after Aleppo falls, and the USAF says
it is going to stop them because its forces are mixed with ISIS in the town (remember, American
Special Forces have already been caught wearing parts of Kurdish uniforms and badges) it
is going to cut no ice with the Syrians it's their country.
On second reading, it's beginning to sound more like American bluster to me. The press
tried to pin him down to no-fly zones or not, and he didn't want to back down but he didn't want
to go quite that far so he said "Call it what you want". The USA has no authority to unilaterally
impose no-fly zones in a sovereign country. It has to go through the UN, and Russia and China
will veto it. The USA is not in Syria with the Syrian government's permission, and it has had
what must be called very questionable success so far with 'fighting ISIS'. If it wants to 'protect
its forces', it can leave, and the Syrian government will not miss it a bit.
"... studies in animals show that steroid-induced aggression is not impulsive, nor uncontrolled. Steroid-treated rats remain attuned to the context of the fight: who their opponent is and where the fight takes place. This suggests that anabolic steroids can promote not only spur-of-the-moment aggression, but also premeditated violence. ..."
"... "Anabolic" refers to their muscle-building properties. (Not all steroids are anabolic; cortisol is a steroid widely prescribed as an anti-inflammatory agent.) Despite a variety of pharmaceutical names (e.g. nandrolone, boldenone, dianabol), all anabolic steroids are derivatives of testosterone, the major steroid produced by the testes in men. ..."
"... In 2011, testosterone was the most-common banned substance found in urine tests administered by the World Anti-Doping Agency. It remains a popular choice for doping by elite athletes because it is challenging to distinguish injected testosterone from naturally occurring sources. ..."
"... Rank-and-file users choose testosterone because of its low cost and easy availability. Despite being declared controlled substances in 1991, anabolic steroids are widely available through personal trainers in gyms and can be purchased online from international sources ..."
"... It is estimated that as many as 3 million Americans have availed themselves of these outlets - far more than most people realize. Anabolic steroids are in high schools, fitness centers and "rejuvenation" clinics. A typical user is a young man in his late teens or early 20s. Among U.S. high school students, 4% to 6% of boys have used anabolic steroids, comparable to the rates of crack cocaine or heroin use. Among men in their 20s, that rate is even higher. ..."
"... Many anabolic steroid users show signs of addiction: They take more than intended and are reluctant to quit because of withdrawal symptoms and loss of muscle mass. In addition, heightened testosterone levels give users a sense of invulnerability and increase their risk-taking. The resulting behavior can endanger themselves and others: fighting, unsafe sex, drinking and driving, carrying a weapon. A Swedish study of anabolic steroid users showed high rates of death from homicide, suicide and drug overdose. ..."
"... today there is real evidence of the risks from surveys of current users and clinical studies of volunteers, supplemented with research in animals. So instead of just worrying about doped athletes during each Olympic cycle, we should focus on how widespread the use of anabolic steroids is and how dangerous they are for any users - and even those around them. ..."
The popular image of "road-rage" is a sudden and exaggerated response to a minimal provocation, like
"The Incredible Hulk." But that's not how it works. Instead, studies in animals show that steroid-induced
aggression is not impulsive, nor uncontrolled. Steroid-treated rats remain attuned to the context
of the fight: who their opponent is and where the fight takes place. This suggests that anabolic
steroids can promote not only spur-of-the-moment aggression, but also premeditated violence.
Some background information on anabolic steroids may prove useful. Steroids are organic molecules
with rings that resemble chicken wire. "Anabolic" refers to their muscle-building properties.
(Not all steroids are anabolic; cortisol is a steroid widely prescribed as an anti-inflammatory agent.)
Despite a variety of pharmaceutical names (e.g. nandrolone, boldenone, dianabol), all anabolic steroids
are derivatives of testosterone, the major steroid produced by the testes in men.
At normal levels, testosterone builds muscle and contributes to characteristic "masculine" behavior.
Anabolic steroid users may boost their testosterone up to 100 times normal levels.
In 2011, testosterone was the most-common banned substance found in urine tests administered by
the World Anti-Doping Agency. It remains a popular choice for doping by elite athletes because it
is challenging to distinguish injected testosterone from naturally occurring sources.
Rank-and-file users choose testosterone because of its low cost and easy availability. Despite
being declared controlled substances in 1991, anabolic steroids are widely available through personal
trainers in gyms and can be purchased online from international sources.
It is estimated that as many as 3 million Americans have availed themselves of these outlets
- far more than most people realize. Anabolic steroids are in high schools, fitness centers and "rejuvenation"
clinics. A typical user is a young man in his late teens or early 20s. Among U.S. high school
students, 4% to 6% of boys have used anabolic steroids, comparable to the rates of crack cocaine
or heroin use. Among men in their 20s, that rate is even higher.
Anabolic steroid users may be loath to admit it, but for most the drugs are just a shortcut to
bigger muscles. Still, some people defend their use as a "healthy lifestyle choice" that allows them
to work out harder and recover faster.
My own research on the effects of anabolic steroids on brain and behavior show that there's nothing
healthy about it. Many anabolic steroid users show signs of addiction: They take more than intended
and are reluctant to quit because of withdrawal symptoms and loss of muscle mass. In addition, heightened
testosterone levels give users a sense of invulnerability and increase their risk-taking. The resulting
behavior can endanger themselves and others: fighting, unsafe sex, drinking and driving, carrying
a weapon. A Swedish study of anabolic steroid users showed high rates of death from homicide, suicide
and drug overdose.
Research into these behavioral changes was slow to accumulate because steroid use became prevalent
only in the late 1980s. Though anabolic steroid abuse remains understudied, today there is real evidence
of the risks from surveys of current users and clinical studies of volunteers, supplemented with
research in animals. So instead of just worrying about doped athletes during each Olympic cycle,
we should focus on how widespread the use of anabolic steroids is and how dangerous they are for
any users - and even those around them.
Ruth Wood, chair of the department of cell and neurobiology at USC's Keck School of Medicine,
studies the effects of anabolic steroids on brain and behavior.
"... Congrats! The author discovered the obvious: Hillary is a warmongering neocon willing to pursue totally suicidal policy with Russia. She is not called "Mrs. WWIII" for nothing. If we are to survive, this monster should be nowhere near the White House. ..."
"... Hillary just follows the money, preferring the consensus between AIPAC and Saudis. The buyers and the goods they buy are all disgusting. ..."
"... While Russia (and this author) may (correctly) believe that fighting terrorism is a common interest of Russia and the US, the fact is, the US has no interest in fighting terrorism. Long ago Bush openly declared that he is not concerned about Osama bin Laden, and Obama continues to arm the so-called moderates, who are really a faction of al Qaeda. These neocon regime change wars are not about terrorism -- except in the sense that the US uses terrorist factions to attempt to overthrow legitimate leaders like Assad and Gaddafi. Rather than fighting terrorism, the US uses it as a weapon. The Russians are playing by one set of rules, but the US is using another. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton was instrumental in pushing for the Invasion of Iraq, which turned what was essentially a functional state into an ISIS hellhole. As Secretary of State, she was THE personality behind the destruction of Libya, now another Islamist breeding machine with a ruined economy & brutalized population. She has done everything in her power to destabilize Syria & has succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. Now millions of economic migrants are flooding into Europe, which will likely become a Caliphate under Sharia law within 100 years. Clinton's hands are soaked in blood of tens of thousands of men, women, & children. Her thirst for more is unquenchable. She is as much of a war criminal as her hero & good friend Henry Kissinger. All the media can do is scream endless unfounded accusations of Trump being a racist, yet they never mention a whisper of what Clinton has done & intends to do. ..."
"... Trump has shown he is not a captive to the foreign policy consensus of the economic, social, and political elite of the New York-Wash DC beltway. He does not believe in intervention anywhere and everywhere. That I heartily endorse. ..."
One especially disturbing trend in global affairs is the marked deterioration in relations between
the United States and Russia. Much will depend on the outcome of the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
Donald Trump has staked out a reasonably conciliatory policy toward Moscow. And in the highly improbable
event that Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson emerged victorious, the United States would certainly
pursue a less interventionist, confrontational
foreign policy toward Russia as well as other countries.
But
Trump and a handful of
otherdissenters
have triggered the
wrath of the foreign-policy establishment by daring to suggest that Washington's Russia policy
may be unwise and that the two countries have important
mutual interests. Most anti-Russian hawks are backing Hillary Clinton, and the implications of
a Clinton victory are extremely ominous. When Russia annexed Crimea, Clinton
compared Russian president Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler-a comparison so extreme that it drew
dissents even from some usual
supporters. Yet there is no doubt that she would take a very hard line toward Moscow. Among other
things, Clinton recommended that the United States impose a
no-fly
zone in Syria despite the risk that it could mean shooting down Russian military aircraft that were
operating at the request of the Syrian government. Anyone who is that reckless is not likely to retreat
from confrontations in eastern Europe or other arenas. Indeed, she has already called for not only
more financial assistance but more
military aid to Ukraine.
... ... ...
Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato
Institute and a contributing editor at the National Interest, is the author of 10 books and more
than 600 articles on international affairs.
Informed 2 days ago
Congrats! The author discovered the obvious: Hillary is a warmongering neocon willing
to pursue totally suicidal policy with Russia. She is not called "Mrs. WWIII" for nothing. If
we are to survive, this monster should be nowhere near the White House.
Anthony Informed 2 days ago
It's not her it's George Soros he's funding her and Merkel two of the most pathetic
politicians I've seen especially dopey Merkel. Soros is also funding blm and a Arab version in
israel look at the leaked emails. If you don't know sata... I mean soros then you should just
type his name into Google he sold his own people out to Hitler and said it was the best thing
he ever did enough said
Informed Anthony 2 days ago
You might be right. Soros looks like he had died already, but he is as greedy as ever.
Looks like he plans to bribe God almighty: otherwise why would he need so much money so late
in his life? Soros or CIA must have something really damning on Merkel: she is consistently
working against her own country for more than two years now. Hillary just follows the
money, preferring the consensus between AIPAC and Saudis. The buyers and the goods they buy
are all disgusting.
donnasaggia 7 hours ago
We need to shift the analysis somewhat. While Russia (and this author) may (correctly)
believe that fighting terrorism is a common interest of Russia and the US, the fact is, the US
has no interest in fighting terrorism. Long ago Bush openly declared that he is not concerned
about Osama bin Laden, and Obama continues to arm the so-called moderates, who are really a
faction of al Qaeda. These neocon regime change wars are not about terrorism -- except in the
sense that the US uses terrorist factions to attempt to overthrow legitimate leaders like
Assad and Gaddafi. Rather than fighting terrorism, the US uses it as a weapon. The Russians
are playing by one set of rules, but the US is using another.
Frank Blangeard a day ago
There will be no 'second Cold War' because the United States never ended the first Cold War.
alan Frank Blangeard a day ago
Amen, brother!
alan a day ago
No other country on earth, save Israel, has legitimate interests or security concerns other than
the United States. No spheres other than the western hemispheric one under the control of the US
are ever to be considered acceptable. This arrogant hegemon is headed for a fall. Preferably,
since I am an American I hope it will be a long slow peaceful one. Athens was as arrogant as the
American empire. Athens was defeated by a coalition led by Sparta.
Joe Stevens alan a day ago
Pride always comes before the fall. In this case, it will be a big fall!
ApqIA 2 days ago
A needed countermeasure, a difficult one, even unlikely -- but it would stand a chance of
deterring the US' insane ambitions.
A full military alliance between Russia and China, with integrated conventional and nuclear
forces, that would consider an attack on one an attack on both, and a two-nation nuclear
retaliation for any nuclear attack. The alliance could also offer membership to other threatened
nations, such as Iran.
Would include technology transfers between the two partners, which among other things would
assure China of adequate engines for its aircraft. Perhaps joint business ventures would ease
Russian unease at losing business: they can sell armaments together.
The US points nuclear warheads at both nations, so the US constitutes a credible existential
threat to both nations.
Its depraved, aggressive idea of global "leadership" is a threat to all humanity, and any and all
measures to deter it are worth the effort.
Want evidence? Here's its OWN map of the world, divided into American military provinces.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/w...
This development would confront Washington with something like Hitchcock's "Birds" scenario --
how many "fronts" can the US fight in at once? scenario. The Eurasian land mass is a vast,
impregnable fortress and US military planners already despair at Russian mobile nukes.
Unfortunately, only even greater insanity can really hope to deter the American lunatics and
self-absordbed interventionists like Hillary.
ApqIA -> Duane a day ago
Georgia was a US-sponsored comic opera.
Syria was an attempt to use terrorists to get rid of Assad. Failing.
Ukraine was an attempt to get Ukraine in NATO, taking Crimea was a step to avoid a NATO
base in the Black Sea.
Since before Pearl Harbor, the US has employed the tactic of creating a situation where an
opponent has to choose an unacceptable outcome or use force.
What's the rate for a US-salaried troll?
Bilguun Khurelbaatar -> ApqIA 12 hours ago
Actually I believe that all those who call others as "Russian troll" are mostly Ukrainian
trolls. It's easy to find them, they call everyone, even neutral minded people as putin troll,
and all they demand is to arm Ukraine, nuke Russia etc...
Robert Willis 18 hours ago
Excellent article. Hillary Clinton was instrumental in pushing for the Invasion of
Iraq, which turned what was essentially a functional state into an ISIS hellhole. As Secretary
of State, she was THE personality behind the destruction of Libya, now another Islamist
breeding machine with a ruined economy & brutalized population. She has done everything in her
power to destabilize Syria & has succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. Now millions of economic
migrants are flooding into Europe, which will likely become a Caliphate under Sharia law
within 100 years. Clinton's hands are soaked in blood of tens of thousands of men, women, &
children. Her thirst for more is unquenchable. She is as much of a war criminal as her hero &
good friend Henry Kissinger. All the media can do is scream endless unfounded accusations of
Trump being a racist, yet they never mention a whisper of what Clinton has done & intends to
do.
deliaruhe 19 hours ago
"Unfortunately, given the growing probability of a Clinton victory in November,
U.S.-Russian relations, already in bad shape, are likely to deteriorate further."
Hillary isn't exactly known for her wisdom and judgement (especially in her choice of role
models and mentors--i.e., Albright and Kissinger), and she's very good at shooting herself in
the foot on a regular basis (e.g., her Putin-as-Hitler hyperbole). She will soon become the
imperial president of an empire in decline, and empires in decline are at their most
dangerous.
I think this will end up being the saddest American election ever.
(Excellent article, by the way.)
Dank Lastname 2 days ago
If Hillary dragged NATO into a war with Russia her incompetent leadership would see the
collapse of the US and the Russian occupation of Eastern Europe.
Mikhailovich 15 hours ago
When the money is your god and financial elite employs politicians to run the country, what
else we can expect? It looks the American militarism can be tamed by efficient nuclear
deterrent or other major power and there are no other way to avoid big war.
alan -> JPH a day ago
That's the tragedy of the situation. Trump has shown he is not a captive to the foreign
policy consensus of the economic, social, and political elite of the New York-Wash DC beltway.
He does not believe in intervention anywhere and everywhere. That I heartily endorse. On
all other points he is totally unqualified and unacceptable. We are left with a war-mongering
Neo-Con thug. When She takes office, begin the countdown---war is coming, a very big war
"... Former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul penned a scathing piece in the Washington Post accusing the Kremlin of intervening in the American election, based solely on the evidence of a harsh article regarding Clinton published by Sputnik News. Boy, was he wrong! ..."
"... On Wednesday night, Michael McFaul took to the Washington Post to opine that the article was part of a Kremlin-led conspiracy to subvert the American election, referring to the person running the Sputnik Twitter account (that particular day being me) as a "Russian official," before warning (threatening) that we "might want to think about what we plan to do" if Clinton becomes president. ..."
"... Pursuant to 18 US Code Chapter 115, I'd be writing this article to you from prison, if not awaiting a death sentence, if I were writing content ordered down to me by the Kremlin with a view towards subverting the American election. I am instead writing this piece from my favorite coffeeshop in downtown DC. I am not a Russian official. Our staff members are not Russian officials. We are not Kremlin controlled. We do not speak with Vladimir Putin over our morning coffee. ..."
"... In fact, the Atlantic Council's Ben Nimmo leveled a completely different view on Friday morning, calling our coverage "uncharacteristically balanced," but arguing that, because we report generally negative stories on both candidates, our real target is American democracy itself. ..."
"... It may surprise Mr. McFaul and Mr. Nimmo to learn that, in my previous work on political campaigns, I actually helped fundraise for Hillary Clinton - the candidate whose inner circle is now labelling my colleagues and I as foreign saboteurs. It is neither my fault nor Sputnik's fault that Secretary Clinton's campaign has devolved into one predicated upon fear and conspiracy, where the two primary lines are "the Russians did it" and that she is not Trump. ..."
"... The fact that more than 50% of the country dislikes both presidential candidates is not a Kremlin conspiracy. Would it be appropriate for us to present to our readers an alternate universe a la MSNBC, which defended Clinton's trustworthiness by saying she only perjured herself three times? ..."
"... Returning to the substance of the article to which Mr. McFaul took exception. This piece was written because it was newsworthy - it informed our readers and forced them to think. The provocative headline of the story was based on a statement by Trump that is a bit of a stretch (notice the air quotes on the title), but which highlights a major policy decision made by this administration that has not been properly scrutinized by the mainstream media. In the article, for those who actually read it, I refer to the 2012 DNI report that correctly calculated that Obama's policy in Syria would lead to the development of a Salafist entity controlling territory and that this outcome was "wanted." Hence, the title. ..."
"... Today, the Obama Administration grapples with a similar debate over whether to continue to support the "moderate rebels" in Syria, despite the fact that they have now melded with al-Nusra (an al-Qaeda affiliate until they rebranded), under the banner of the Army of Conquest in Syria. ..."
Former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul penned a scathing piece in the Washington Post
accusing the Kremlin of intervening in the American election, based solely on the evidence of a harsh
article regarding Clinton published by Sputnik News. Boy, was he wrong!
My name is Bill Moran. A native Arizonan, I have worked on dozens of Democratic Party campaigns,
and am more recently a proud writer for Sputnik's Washington, DC bureau.
It also seems, as of Thursday morning, that I am the source of controversy between the United
States and Russia - something I never quite could have imagined - for writing an article that was
critical of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with a stinging headline and a harsh hashtag.
So, what is this controversy all about? This weekend I published a piece with the headline, "Secret
File Confirms Trump Claim: Obama, Hillary 'Founded ISIS' to Oust Assad." I also tweeted out this
story from our platform with the hashtag #CrookedHillary. Guilty as charged.
On Wednesday night,
Michael McFaul took to the Washington Post to opine that the article was part of a Kremlin-led
conspiracy to subvert the American election, referring to the person running the Sputnik Twitter
account (that particular day being me) as a "Russian official," before warning (threatening) that
we "might want to think about what we plan to do" if Clinton becomes president.
I feel it is necessary to pause, here, before having a substantive argument about the article's
merits and purpose within the public discourse, to address the severity of the accusation leveled
against me and Sputnik's staff (not by name until now), and its disturbing implications on freedom
of speech, dissent, and American democracy - implications that I hope Mr. McFaul, other public proponents
of the Hillary campaign, and the cadre of Russian critics consider.
Pursuant to 18 US Code Chapter 115, I'd be writing this article to you from prison, if not
awaiting a death sentence, if I were writing content ordered down to me by the Kremlin with a view
towards subverting the American election. I am instead writing this piece from my favorite coffeeshop
in downtown DC. I am not a Russian official. Our staff members are not Russian officials. We are
not Kremlin controlled. We do not speak with Vladimir Putin over our morning coffee.
Mr. McFaul worked side-by-side with the former Secretary of State in the Obama Administration, and
his routine accusations that Trump supporters are siding with Putin leaves me to imagine that he
is a Clinton insider if not a direct campaign surrogate. That such a public official would suggest
reprisals against those with differing viewpoints in the event that she wins is disturbing.
Our
outlet does not endorse or support any particular US presidential candidate, but rather reports news
and views for the day in as diligent a manner as we possibly can. This is evident in our very harsh
headlines on Trump, which Mr. McFaul failed to review before making his attack.
In fact, the Atlantic Council's Ben Nimmo leveled a completely different view on Friday morning,
calling our coverage "uncharacteristically balanced," but arguing that, because we report generally
negative stories on both candidates, our real target is American democracy itself.
It may surprise Mr. McFaul and Mr. Nimmo to learn that, in my previous work on political campaigns,
I actually helped fundraise for Hillary Clinton - the candidate whose inner circle is now labelling
my colleagues and I as foreign saboteurs. It is neither my fault nor Sputnik's fault that Secretary
Clinton's campaign has devolved into one predicated upon fear and conspiracy, where the two primary
lines are "the Russians did it" and that she is not Trump.
Donald Trump has the lowest approval rating since presidential polling began. Until recently,
Clinton had the second lowest approval rating since presidential polling began. Their numbers are
worse than even Barry Goldwater and George Wallace, in fact.
The fact that more than 50% of the country dislikes both presidential candidates is not a
Kremlin conspiracy. Would it be appropriate for us to present to our readers an alternate universe
a la MSNBC, which defended Clinton's trustworthiness by saying she only perjured herself three times?
There is a reason why both presidential candidates have received less than fawning coverage from
our outlet: they have not done anything to warrant positive coverage. My colleagues, also Americans,
like so many others in this country, wish they would.
Returning to the substance of the article to which Mr. McFaul took exception. This piece was
written because it was newsworthy - it informed our readers and forced them to think.
The provocative headline of the story was based on a statement by Trump that is a bit of a stretch
(notice the air quotes on the title), but which highlights a major policy decision made by this administration
that has not been properly scrutinized by the mainstream media.
In the article, for those who actually read it, I refer to the 2012 DNI report that correctly calculated
that Obama's policy in Syria would lead to the development of a Salafist entity controlling territory
and that this outcome was "wanted." Hence, the title.
Today, the Obama Administration
grapples with a similar debate over whether to continue to support the "moderate rebels" in Syria,
despite the fact that they have now melded with al-Nusra (an al-Qaeda affiliate until they rebranded),
under the banner of the Army of Conquest in Syria.
We do not pretend that these decisions exist in a vacuum with a clear right and wrong answer upon
which no two intelligent people differ, but this is a matter worthy of public discourse.
And what about that hashtag? Why would I use #CrookedHillary? I mean, I could have put #Imwithher,
but I wasn't trying to be ironic. When a hashtag is featured at the end of a sentence, its purpose
is for cataloging. Some people, usually non-millennials, use hashtags as text to convey a particular
opinion. I was not doing that. I also used #NeverTrump in a separate article.
But Mr. McFaul lazily cherry-picked, and then labeled (maybe unwittingly) Sputnik's American writers
traitors to this country.
"... There is a mystery to the way Washington works-how an entire political class came to see as American policy that that Russia be humiliated at its own doorstep as logical, without ever reflecting upon whether this was a good idea in the larger scheme of global politics nor whether the West had the means and will to see it through ..."
"... Russia's leaders and diplomats have been telling America to butt out of Ukraine in unambiguous terms for a decade or more . Did American diplomats and CIA agents push for an anti-Russian coup d'etat in Kiev knowing that and pursue it anyway? The sheer recklessness of such an action would border on criminal-but oddly enough, no one who truly counts in Washington, Republican or Democrat, seems even to consider it even slightly misguided. ..."
On hawkish autopilot, America's leaders ignore the obvious off-ramp to the escalating
Ukraine crisis.
Consider an analogy to get a sense of how Russia might perceive America's Ukraine policy. It is
imperfect of course, because unlike Russia, America has no history of being invaded, unless you count
the War of 1812. But a comparison might be instructive nonetheless:
By 2034, China's power position has risen relative to America's. America has evacuated its
East Asian bases, under peaceful but pressured circumstances. The governments of Korea and Japan
and eventually the Philippines had, by 2026, concluded it was better off with a "less provocative"
more neutral arrangement. The huge naval base at Subic Bay became home to a multilateral UN contingent.
China's economy had been larger than America's for a while, though American per capita income
is still somewhat higher. American technological innovation edge has largely disappeared, America
still has a lot of soft power-people over the world prefer Hollywood movies to Chinese and America's
nuclear arsenal exceeds the Chinese. But the countries are far more equal than today, and throughout
much of the world it is assumed that China will be tomorrow's dominant "hyperpower."
A political crisis erupts in Mexico. Mexico has a freely elected but typically corrupt government,
whose leading figures are linked to Wall Street and Miami Beach by ties of marriage and money.
But many in Mexico-where anti-gringo nationalism remains a potent force-want to become the first
"North American partner" in the China led Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. Young Mexicans
proclaim defiantly they are "people of color" and laud the fact non-white China is rising while
America, country of aging white people, is in decline. Their sentiments, materialistic and infused
with personal ambitions are so permeated with anti-American, anti-imperialist "third worldist"
rhetoric that it is difficult for outsiders to sort out the true motivations. When the Mexican
government, under American pressure, rejects a Chinese invitation for candidate membership in
China's East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, long prepared protests erupt in Mexico City.
The core group of protest leaders and organizers have been on the Chinese payroll for some
time, as the heads of various civic action and popular democracy initiatives, many with an obvious
anti-gringo flavor. Soon Chinese politicians and movie stars begin flocking to Mexico City to
be photographed with the protesters. Thus encouraged, protester demands escalate, including not
only the resignation of the government, Mexico's adhesion to the Chinese economic bloc, but a
military alliance with China. The NSA captures a cell phone conversation of the Chinese ambassador
discussing who will hold what posts in the next Mexican cabinet. Three days later, sniper fire
of undetermined origin riddles the protestors and police, and any semblance of order breaks down.
Mexico's president flees to Miami.
The above scenario parallels pretty directly the run-up to the Ukraine crisis, before Russia began
to respond forcefully. One can of course see the ambiguities of right and wrong. Why should America
have anything to say about whether Mexico has a revolution and joins an anti-American military alliance,
some would ask. Mexico is sovereign, and should be able to join any international grouping it wants.
What is most striking about the Ukraine crisis is how much the Washington debate lacks any sense
of how the issue might look to other interested parties, particularly Russia. Putin is analysed of
course-is he, as Hillary Clinton suggested, following Hitler's playbook? Or is he merely an aggressive
autocrat? Or perhaps he is "in his own world" and not quite sane? But in open Washington conversation
at least, and perhaps even at the more reflective levels of government, all talk begins with the
premise that Russia's leader is somewhere on the continuum between aggressive and the irrational.
That he might be acting reactively and defensively, as any leader of a large power would be in response
to threatening events on its doorstep, is not even part of the American conversation. Thus in the
waning days of American unipolarism, America diplomacy sinks into a mode of semi-autism, able to
perceive and express its own interests, perceptions, and desires, while oblivious to the concerns
of others.
A rare and welcome exception to blindness was the publication in Foreign Affairs of John
Mearsheimer's
cogent essay on the Ukraine crisis, which with characteristic directness argues that Western
efforts to move Ukraine in the Nato/EE orbit were the "taproot" of the present crisis. Prior to Mearsheimer,
one could find analyses tracing how various neoliberal and neoconservative foundations had, with
their spending and sponsorship of various "pro-Western" groups, fomented a revolution in Ukraine,
but they were generally sequestered in left-liberal venues habitually critical of American and Western
policies. In the Beltway power loop, such voices were never heard. The policy of pushing NATO eastward,
first incorporating Poland and Bulgaria and then going right up to Russia's borders moved forward
as if on mysterious autopilot. That such a policy was wise and necessary was considered a given when
it was discussed at all, which was seldom. Was Obama even aware that
a leading neoconservative,
a figure from Dick Cheney's staff, was in charge formulating American policy towards Ukraine-with
designs on igniting revolutionary regional transformation? One has to assume not; confrontation with
Russia had not been part of Obama's presidential campaign or style, and since the crisis began his
comments have always been more measured than the actions of the government he purportedly leads.
As Mearsheimer points out, there remains still a fairly obvious and quite attractive off-ramp:
a negotiation with Russia which settles formally Ukraine's non-aligned status. There are useful precedents
for this: Eisenhower's negotiation with Krushchev that brought about the withdrawal of foreign troops
from Austria in 1955 is one, and so of course is Finland. No one who contemplates where the Ukraine
crisis might lead otherwise-with a war that devastates the country or perhaps brings in outside powers
to devastate all of Europe, or even explodes the entire northern hemisphere-could sanely consider
Austria or Finland-prosperous and free countries-to be bad outcomes. Nevertheless the entire conversation
in Washington revolves around measures to make Putin back down, and accept the integration of Ukraine
into the EU and eventually NATO. People act baffled that he won't.
There is a mystery to the way Washington works-how an entire political class came to see as American
policy that that Russia be humiliated at its own doorstep as logical, without ever reflecting upon
whether this was a good idea in the larger scheme of global politics nor whether the West had the
means and will to see it through. Because to see it through likely means war with Russia over Ukraine.
(The West-leaning Ukrainians of course, be they democratic or fascist, want nothing more than to
have American troops fighting beside them as they become NATO partners, a tail wagging the dog).
America's policy makes sense only if it is taken for granted that Russia is an eternal enemy, an
evil power which must be surrounded weakened and ultimately brought down. But very few in Washington
believe that either, and virtually no one in the American corporate establishment does. So it's a
mystery-a seemingly iron-clad Washington consensus formed behind a policy, the integration of Ukraine
in the West, to whose implications no one seems to have given any serious thought.
"... We here in CT comments lead a quiet, parochial life. In the larger world, the disclosure of the DNC emails required a preposterous story of Russian hacking, followed by a gotcha accusing Trump of asking Putin to become a latter day Watergate burglar. ..."
We here in CT comments lead a quiet, parochial life. In the larger world, the disclosure
of the DNC emails required a preposterous story of Russian hacking, followed by a gotcha accusing
Trump of asking Putin to become a latter day Watergate burglar.
I have no sympathy for Trump, who made his bones as birther-in-chief. Live by the sword, die
by the sword.
But, I do have some sympathy for the rest of us, who are the objects of these manipulations.
The email discussing whether they can push the atheist hot-button or the Jew hot-button and get
a predictable response from voters disturbs me because it seems that the propaganda has drowned
out everything else.
It is one thing when they're wearing out the gay hot-button or the xenophobia hot-button or
trying to get the anti-semite hot-button to work again, but I get the idea that there's only hot-buttons,
only manipulation. There's no considered, deliberate purpose behind any of it. Hillary Clinton
is so pre-occupied affirming support for Israel and condemning Iran or ISIS or Russia, that there's
no room left for formulating reality-based policy or explaining such a policy to the American
people.
"... This suggests a civil war between factions that are fighting on a roughly level playing field with civilians caught in the middle, sometimes deliberately killed and sometimes dying because of indiscriminate fire. American politicians including Clinton sometimes talk as though Assad's forces are doing all the killing. It also seems odd that we are told the rebels need outside help so they can stand to Assad. Obviously they have had plenty of outside help the death toll is what it is because the war keeps dragging on, but to hear Americans talk you'd think it was outgunned rebels along with civilians being massacred year after year, yet it seems 50,000 regular Syrian military along with tens of thousands of pro regime militia have been killed by the poorly armed rebels. ..."
I already answered your question RNB the mainstream press, HRW, Amnesty, and various blogs. But
if you look at the numbers released, they don't quite fit the narrative. For example
Note a couple of things from the Syrian Observatory figures. First, civilians are about a third
of the total. The number of Syrian military dead plus associated militia is comparable to the
number of civilian dead ( not counting the estimated group) and the rebel dead, adding up the
different categories including outside forces, are smaller than the dead on Theproud government
side.
This suggests a civil war between factions that are fighting on a roughly level playing field
with civilians caught in the middle, sometimes deliberately killed and sometimes dying because
of indiscriminate fire. American politicians including Clinton sometimes talk as though Assad's
forces are doing all the killing. It also seems odd that we are told the rebels need outside help
so they can stand to Assad. Obviously they have had plenty of outside help the death toll is
what it is because the war keeps dragging on, but to hear Americans talk you'd think it was outgunned
rebels along with civilians being massacred year after year, yet it seems 50,000 regular Syrian
military along with tens of thousands of pro regime militia have been killed by the poorly armed
rebels.
In the much smaller scale Gaza War the bulk of the deaths were Palestinian civilians maybe
1500. Hundreds of Hamas fighters were killed and dozens of Israeli soldiers. That's more the kind
of ratio I would expect if the Syrian civil war fit into the framework given by American politicians
and pundits.
In addition to shattering world records and breaking down barriers, the swimmers at the
Rio Olympics have managed another feat of sorts: reigniting international sport's Cold War. On
the self-proclaimed forces of good: swimmers from Western nations who broke unwritten Olympic
etiquette by speaking out against competitors they deemed "drug cheats."
The story mentions that in track and field, the US has an extensive history of doping and concluded:
Americans may stack up medals on the track in Rio, but they'll have to table their righteousness
on that podium.
In a newspaper interview on Tuesday, Bout's wife, Alla Bout, said her husband could have
gotten away with a considerably lighter sentence had he agreed to testify against a senior Russian
government official. Speaking to Moscow-based daily Izvestia, Alla Bout said her husband had been
approached by American authorities after being extradited to the United States from Thailand.
He was told that US authorities wanted him to testify against Igor Sechin, a powerful Russian
government official, whom American prosecutors believed was Bout's boss. In return for his testimony,
US prosecutors allegedly promised a jail sentence that would not exceed two years, as well as
political asylum for him and his family following his release from prison. Alla Bout added that
her husband's American lawyers were told by the prosecution that the 'merchant of death' "would
be able to live in the US comfortably, along with his wife and daughter", and that his family
could stay in America during his trial "under conditions". Alla Bout claimed she was told this
by Bout himself and by members of his American legal team
####
It goes to show how desperate Washington is, not to mention its extremely short term thinking.
No one in their right minds in Russia would trust anyone in Washington worth a damn, and that
has major implications for all sorts of state-to-state dealings running in to the future. If Washington
thinks saying "It's all water under the bridge" will return relations back to normal just like
that, then they are sorely retarded.
In addition to shattering world records and breaking down barriers, the swimmers at the
Rio Olympics have managed another feat of sorts: reigniting international sport's Cold War. On
the self-proclaimed forces of good: swimmers from Western nations who broke unwritten Olympic
etiquette by speaking out against competitors they deemed "drug cheats."
The story mentions that in track and field, the US has an extensive history of doping and concluded:
Americans may stack up medals on the track in Rio, but they'll have to table their righteousness
on that podium.
"... "US security experts however are blaming the leak on Russian hackers, according to Bloomberg, in a similar reaction seen in the wake of the DNC leaks." ..."
More than 2,500 files from the raft of organizations run by billionaire George Soros have been
leaked by hackers.
Saturday's leak, published by DC leaks, includes hundreds of internal
documents from multiple departments of Soros' groups, predominantly the Open Society Foundations.
Explosive. Early analysis says the leak shows his NGO's manipulating EU elections.
"US
security experts however are blaming the leak on Russian hackers, according to Bloomberg, in
a similar reaction seen in the wake of the DNC leaks."
Careful, boys; one day you'll go to the well and there won't be any more water. It's always
the Russians.
Interesting that Soros' Open Society Foundations funds the International Consortium of Investigative
Journalists which would explain why when the Panama Papers were released, there were no US
individuals or companies named as clients of Mossack Fonseca. So the Panama Papers were released
with intent to expose Vladimir Putin's supposed corruption, only for the release itself to
backfire when the only connection to Putin turned out to be a childhood friend violinist.
"... I suggested that if he possessed any private information regarding so astonishing a possibility-that the Kennedy Administration might have considered a nuclear first strike against the USSR-perhaps he had a duty to bring the facts to public awareness lest they be lost to history. ..."
"... Obviously no nuclear attack took place, so the plans must have been changed at some point or discarded, and there were various indications that President Kennedy had had important doubts from the very beginning. But the argument made was that at the time, the first strike proposal was taken very seriously by America's top political and military leadership. Once we accept that idea, other historical puzzles more easily fall into place. ..."
"... In a later footnote, Galbraith even mentioned that he subsequently had his interpretation personally confirmed by Kennedy's former National Security Advisor: "When once I asked the late Walt Rostow if he knew anything about the National Security Council meeting of July 20, 1961 (at which these plans were presented), he responded with no hesitation: `Do you mean the one where they wanted to blow up the world?'" ..."
"... And there is also a sequel on this same topic. In 2001 military affairs writer Fred Kaplan published a major article in The Atlantic with the explicit title " JFK's First-Strike Plan." Drawing on a wealth of newly declassified archival documents, he similarly described how the Kennedy Administration had prepared plans for a nuclear first strike against the Soviets. His analysis was somewhat different, suggesting that Kennedy himself had generally approved the proposal, but that the attack was intended as an option to be used during a hypothetical future military confrontation rather than being aimed for a particular scheduled date. ..."
"... Consider a particularly troubling thought-experiment. Suppose that the proposed nuclear attack on Russia had actually gone ahead, resulting in millions or tens of millions dead from the bombs and worldwide radioactive fallout, perhaps even including a million or more American casualties if the first strike had failed to entirely eliminate all retaliatory capability. Under such a dire scenario, is it not likely that every American media organ would have been immediately enlisted to sanitize and justify the terrible events, with virtually no dissent allowed? ..."
I suggested that if he possessed any private information regarding so astonishing a possibility-that
the Kennedy Administration might have considered a nuclear first strike against the USSR-perhaps
he had a duty to bring the facts to public awareness lest they be lost to history.
He replied that he'd indeed found persuasive evidence that the US military had carefully planned
a nuclear first strike against the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, and agreed about the historical
importance. But he'd already published an article laying out the case. Twenty years earlier. In
The American Prospect , a very respectable though liberal-leaning magazine. So I located a
copy on the Internet:
I quickly read the article and was stunned. The central document was a Top Secret/Eyes Only summary
memo of a July 1961 National Security Council meeting written by Howard Burris, the military aide
to then-Vice President Lyndon Johnson, which was afterward deposited in the Johnson Archives and
eventually declassified. The discussion focused on the effectiveness of a planned nuclear first strike,
suggesting that 1963 would be the optimal date since America's relative advantage in intercontinental
nuclear missiles would be greatest at that point. Galbraith's student, Heather A. Purcell, had discovered
the memo and co-authored the article with him, and as they pointed out, this meeting was held soon
after the US military had discovered that the Soviet missile forces were far weaker than previously
had been realized, leading to the plans for the proposed attack and also proving that the first strike
under discussion could only have been an American one.
This history was quite different from the deterrent-based framework of American nuclear-war strategy
that I had always absorbed from reading my textbooks and newspapers.
Obviously no nuclear attack took place, so the plans must have been changed at some point
or discarded, and there were various indications that President Kennedy had had important doubts
from the very beginning. But the argument made was that at the time, the first strike proposal was
taken very seriously by America's top political and military leadership. Once we accept that idea,
other historical puzzles more easily fall into place.
Consider, for example, the massive campaign of "civil defense" that America launched immediately
thereafter, leading to the construction of large numbers of fallout shelters throughout the country,
including the backyard suburban ones which generated some famous ironic images. Although I'm hardly
an expert on nuclear war, the motivation had never made much sense to me, since in most cases the
supplies would only have been sufficient to last a few weeks or so, while the deadly radioactive
fallout from numerous Soviet thermonuclear strikes on our urban centers would have been long-lasting.
But an American first strike changes this picture. A successful U.S. attack would have ensured that
few if any bombs fell on American soil, with the shelters intended merely to provide a couple of
weeks of useful protection until the global radioactive dust-clouds resulting from the nuclear destruction
of the Soviet Union had dissipated, and these anyway would have only reached America in highly attenuated
form.
Furthermore, we must reassess the background to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, certainly one of
the most important and dangerous events of that era. If Soviet military analysts had reached conclusions
similar to those of their American counterparts, it is hardly surprising that their political leaders
would have taken the considerable risk of deploying nuclear warheads on intermediate range missiles
close to American cities, thereby greatly multiplying their deterrent capability immediately prior
to their point of greatest strategic vulnerability. And there was also the real possibility that
their intelligence agents might have somehow gotten hints of the American plans for an actual nuclear
first strike. The traditional view presented in the American media has always been that an unprovoked
American attack was simply unimaginable, any Soviet paranoia notwithstanding, but if such an attack
was not only imagined but actually planned, then our Cold War narrative must be significantly modified.
Indeed, perhaps important aspects of the superpower confrontations of that era should be completely
inverted.
Could such a momentous historical discovery have been so totally ignored by our mainstream journalists
and historians that I'd never heard of it during the previous twenty years? Gossipy rumors of an
additional JFK infidelity might periodically make the headlines, but why was there no discussion
of serious plans to launch a non-defensive global thermonuclear war likely to kill many millions?
I have limited expertise in either analyzing nuclear warfare strategy or interpreting national
security documents, so I could easily be making an error in evaluating the strength of the case.
But in a later issue of TAP , William Burr and David Alan Rosenberg, scholars proficient in
exactly those areas, published
a lengthy rebuttal to the article , followed by a rejoinder from Galbraith and Purcell. And in
my own opinion, the Burr/Rosenberg critique was quite unpersuasive.
Correspondence: Nuclear Scare
William Burr, David Alan Rosenberg, James K. Galbraith, Heather A. Purcell, The American Prospect
, Spring 1995
In their arguments, they emphasized that the key document was found in the Vice Presidential archives,
while the National Archives and those of President Kennedy himself are usually a far better source
of important material. But perhaps that's exactly the point. The authenticity of the Burris document
was never disputed, and Burr/Rosenberg cite absolutely no contradictory archival material, implying
that the documentary evidence was not available to them. So the materials dealing with such an extraordinarily
explosive proposal had either elsewhere not been declassified or might even have been removed from
the main archives, with only the less direct Burris summary memo in a secondary location surviving
the purge and later being declassified, perhaps because its treatment of the subject was much less
explicit.
Meanwhile, a careful reading of the Burris memo seems to strongly support the Galbraith/Purcell
interpretation, namely that in July 1961 President Kennedy and his top national security officials
discussed cold-blooded plans for a full nuclear attack against the Soviet Union in roughly two years'
time, when the relative imbalance of strategic forces would be at its maximum. The proposal seemed
quite concrete, rather than merely being one of the numerous hypotheticals endlessly produced by
all military organizations.
In a later footnote, Galbraith even mentioned that he subsequently had his interpretation
personally confirmed by Kennedy's former National Security Advisor: "When once I asked the late Walt
Rostow if he knew anything about the National Security Council meeting of July 20, 1961 (at which
these plans were presented), he responded with no hesitation: `Do you mean the one where they wanted
to blow up the world?'"
Once I accepted the reasonable likelihood of the analysis, I was shocked at how little attention
the remarkable article had received. When I simply Googled the names of the authors "Galbraith Heather
Purcell" I mostly discovered very brief mentions scattered here and there, generally in specialized
books or in articles written by Galbraith himself, and found absolutely nothing in the major media.
Possibly one of the most important revisions to our entire history of the Cold War-with huge implications
for the Cuban Missile Crisis-seems to have never achieved any significant public awareness.
And there is also a sequel on this same topic. In 2001 military affairs writer Fred Kaplan
published a major article in The Atlantic with the explicit title "
JFK's First-Strike Plan." Drawing on a wealth of newly declassified archival documents, he similarly
described how the Kennedy Administration had prepared plans for a nuclear first strike against the
Soviets. His analysis was somewhat different, suggesting that Kennedy himself had generally approved
the proposal, but that the attack was intended as an option to be used during a hypothetical future
military confrontation rather than being aimed for a particular scheduled date.
The government plans unearthed by Kaplan are clearly referring to the same strategy discussed
in the Burris memo, but since Kaplan provides none of the documents themselves, it is difficult to
determine whether or not the evidence is consistent with the somewhat different Galbraith/Purcell
interpretation. It is also decidedly odd that Kaplan's long article gives no indication that he was
even aware of that previous theory or its differing conclusions, containing not a single sentence
mentioning or dismissing it. I find it very difficult to believe that a specialist such as Kaplan
remained totally unaware of the earlier TAP analysis, but perhaps this might possibly be explained
given the near-total media blackout. Prior to the establishment of the Internet or even in its early
days, important information ignored by the media might easily vanish almost without a trace.
Kaplan's long article seems to have suffered that similar fate. Aside from a few mentions in some
of Kaplan's own later pieces, I found virtually no references at all in the last 15 years when I
casually Googled it. Admittedly, the timing could not have been worse, with the article appearing
in the October 2001 edition of the magazine, released in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks,
but the silence is still troubling.
The unfortunate fact is that when a massively important story is reported only once, with virtually
no follow-up, the impact may be minimal. Only a small slice of the public encounters that initial
account, and the lack of any repetition would eventually lead even those individuals to forget it,
or perhaps even vaguely assume that the subsequent silence implied that the claims had been mistaken
or later debunked. Every standard historical narrative of the 1960s that continues to exclude mention
of serious plans for an American nuclear first strike constitutes a tacit denial of that important
reality, implicitly suggesting that the evidence does not exist or had been discredited. As a consequence,
I doubt whether more than a sliver of those seemingly informed Americans who carefully read the NYT
and WSJ each morning are aware of these important historical facts, and perhaps the same is even
true of the journalists who write for those esteemed publications. Only repetition and continuing
coverage gradually incorporates a story into our framework of the past.
It is easy to imagine how things might have gone differently. Suppose, for example, that similarly
solid evidence of plans for a devastating and unprovoked nuclear attack on the Soviet Union had been
found in the archival records of the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan.
Is there not a far greater likelihood that the story have been heavily covered and then endlessly
repeated in our media outlets, until it had become full embedded in our standard histories and was
known to every informed citizen?
In some respects, these discussions of events from over a half-century ago have little relevance
for us today: the individuals involved are now all merely names in our history books and the world
is a very different place. So although the sharp differences between the Galbraith/Purcell analysis
and that of Kaplan might engage academic specialists, the practical differences would today be minimal.
But what has enormous significance is the media silence itself. If our media failed to report
these shocking new facts about the early 1960s, how much can we rely upon it for coverage of present-day
events of enormous importance, given the vastly more immediate pressures and political interests
which are surely brought to bear? If our mainstream histories of what happened fifty years ago are
highly unreliable, what does that suggest about the stories we read each morning concerning the ongoing
conflicts in Ukraine or the South China Sea or the Middle East?
Consider a particularly troubling thought-experiment. Suppose that the proposed nuclear attack
on Russia had actually gone ahead, resulting in millions or tens of millions dead from the bombs
and worldwide radioactive fallout, perhaps even including a million or more American casualties if
the first strike had failed to entirely eliminate all retaliatory capability. Under such a dire scenario,
is it not likely that every American media organ would have been immediately enlisted to sanitize
and justify the terrible events, with virtually no dissent allowed?
Surely John F. Kennedy would have been enshrined as our most heroic wartime president-greater
than Lincoln and FDR combined-the leader who boldly saved the West from an imminent Soviet attack,
a catastrophic nuclear Pearl Harbor. How could our government ever admit the truth? Even decades
later, this patriotic historical narrative, uniformly endorsed by newspapers, books, films, and television,
would have become almost unassailable. Only the most marginal and anti-social individuals would dare
to suggest that
"... The CIA agents running the Deraa operation from their office in Jordan had already provided the weapons and cash needed to fuel the flames of revolution in Syria. With enough money and weapons, you can start a revolution anywhere in the world. ..."
"... In reality, the uprising in Deraa in March 2011 was not fueled by graffiti written by teenagers, and there were no disgruntled parents demanding their children to be freed. This was part of the Hollywood style script written by skilled CIA agents, who had been given a mission: to destroy Syria for the purpose of regime change. Deraa was only Act 1: Scene 1. ..."
"... The Libyans stockpiled weapons at the Omari Mosque well before any rumor spread about teenagers arrested for graffiti. The cleric, visually impaired and elderly, was unaware of the situation inside his Mosque, or of the foreign infiltrators in his midst. ..."
"... The weapons came into Deraa from the CIA office in Jordan. The US government has close ties to the King of Jordan. Jordan is 98% Palestinian, and yet has a long lasting peace treaty with Israel, despite the fact that 5 million of the Jordanian citizen's relatives next door in Occupied Palestine are denied any form of human rights. ..."
"... However, the US strategy was to create a "New Middle East", which would do away with safety in Syria; through the ensuing tornado, aka 'winds of change'. ..."
"... Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and then Syria were the stepping stones in the garden of the "Arab Spring". But, the scenario in the Syrian mission did not stay on script. It went over deadline and over budget. The final credits have yet to be rolled, and the curtain has yet to fall on the stage. ..."
"... Syrians were wondering how Western writers could take the side of the terrorists who were foreigners, following Radical Islam and attacking any unarmed civilian who tried to defend their home and family. The media was portraying the terrorists as freedom fighters and heroes of democracy, while they were raping, looting, maiming, kidnapping for ransom and murdering unarmed civilians who had not read the script before the shooting began in Deraa. ..."
"... Deraa was the opening act of tragic epic which has yet to conclude. The cleric who was a key character in the beginning scenes, Sheikh Sayasneh, was first put under house arrest, and then he was smuggled out to Amman, Jordan in January 2012. He now gives lectures in America near Washington, DC. Just like aspiring actors usually find their way to Hollywood, which is the Mecca of the film industry, Sheikh Sayasneh found his way to the Mecca of all regime change projects. ..."
The day before September 11, 2001 was like any normal day in New York City. September 10, 2001
was unaware of the earthshaking events which would happen the next day.
Similarly, one might think the day before the violence broke out in Deraa, Syria in March 2011
would have been an uneventful day, unaware of the uprising about to begin.
But, that was not the case. Deraa was teaming with activity and foreign visitors to Syria
well before the staged uprising began its opening act.
The Omari Mosque was the scene of backstage preparations, costume changes and rehearsals. The
Libyan terrorists, fresh from the battlefield of the US-NATO regime change attack on Libya, were
in Deraa well ahead of the March 2011 uprising violence. The cleric of the Omari Mosque was Sheikh
Ahmad al Sayasneh . He was an older man with a severe eye problem, which caused him to wear special
dark glasses, and severely hampered his vision. He was not only visually impaired, but light sensitive
as well, which caused him to be indoors as much as possible and often isolated. He was accustomed
to judging the people he talked with by their accent and voice. The Deraa accent is distinctive.
All of the men attending the Omari Mosque were local men, all with the common Deraa accent. However,
the visitors from Libya did not make themselves known to the cleric, as that would blow their cover.
Instead, they worked with local men; a few key players who they worked to make their partners and
confidants. The participation of local Muslim Brotherhood followers, who would assist the foreign
Libyan mercenaries/terrorists, was an essential part of the CIA plan, which was well scripted and
directed from Jordan.
Enlisting the aid and cooperation of local followers of Salafism allowed the Libyans to move in
Deraa without attracting any suspicion. The local men were the 'front' for the operation.
The CIA agents running the Deraa operation from their office in Jordan had already provided
the weapons and cash needed to fuel the flames of revolution in Syria. With enough money
and weapons, you can start a revolution anywhere in the world.
In reality, the uprising in Deraa in March 2011 was not fueled by graffiti written by
teenagers, and there were no disgruntled parents demanding their children to be freed. This
was part of the Hollywood style script written by skilled CIA agents, who had been given a mission:
to destroy Syria for the purpose of regime change. Deraa was only Act 1: Scene 1.
The fact that those so-called teenaged graffiti artists and their parents have never been found,
never named, and never pictured is the first clue that their identity is cloaked in darkness.
In any uprising there needs to be grassroots support. Usually, there is a situation
which arises, and protesters take to the streets. The security teams step in to keep the peace and
clear the streets and if there is a 'brutal crackdown' the otherwise 'peaceful protesters' will react
with indignation, and feeling oppressed and wronged, the numbers in the streets will swell.
This is the point where the street protests can take two directions: the protesters
will back down and go home, or the protesters can react with violence, which then will be met with
violence from the security teams, and this sets the stage for a full blown uprising.
The staged uprising in Deraa had some locals in the street who were unaware of their participation
in a CIA-Hollywood production. They were the unpaid extras in the scene about to be shot.
These unaware extras had grievances, perhaps lasting a generation or more, and perhaps rooted in
Wahhabism, which is a political ideology exported globally by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the
Royal family and their paid officials.
The Libyans stockpiled weapons at the Omari Mosque well before any rumor spread about
teenagers arrested for graffiti. The cleric, visually impaired and elderly, was unaware
of the situation inside his Mosque, or of the foreign infiltrators in his midst.
The weapons came into Deraa from the CIA office in Jordan. The US government
has close ties to the King of Jordan. Jordan is 98% Palestinian, and yet has a long lasting peace
treaty with Israel, despite the fact that 5 million of the Jordanian citizen's relatives next door
in Occupied Palestine are denied any form of human rights. The King of Jordan has to do a daily high-wire
balancing act between his citizens, the peace and safety in his country and America's interests and
projects in the Middle East. King Abdullah is not only a tight-rope walker, but a juggler at the
same time, and all of this pressure on him must be enormous for him, and Queen Rania, who is herself
Palestinian. These facts must be viewed in the forefront of the background painted scenery of The
Syrian Arab Republic, which has for the last 40 years had a cornerstone of domestic and foreign policy
carved and set in the principle of Palestinian human rights and Palestinian freedom and justice.
The US policy to attack Syria for the purpose of regime change was not just about the
gas lines, the oil wells, the strategic location and the gold: but it was about crushing that cornerstone
of Palestinian rights into dust. To get rid of President Bashar al Assad was to get rid of one of
the few Arab leaders who are an unwavering voice of Palestinian rights.
Deraa's location directly on the Jordanian border is the sole reason it was picked for the location-shoot
of the opening act of the Syrian uprising. If you were to ask most Syrians, if they had ever been
to Derra, or ever plan to go, they will answer, "No." It is a small and insignificant agricultural
town. It is a very unlikely place to begin a nationwide revolution. Deraa has a historical importance
because of archeological ruins, but that is lost on anyone other than history professors or archeologists.
The access to the weapons from Jordan made Deraa the perfect place to stage the uprising which has
turned into an international war. Any person with common sense would assume an uprising or revolution
in Syria would begin in Damascus or Aleppo, the two biggest cities. Even after 2 ½ years
of violence around the country, Aleppo's population never participated in the uprising, or call for
regime change.
Aleppo: the large industrial powerhouse of Syria wanted nothing to do with the CIA mission, and
felt that by staying clear of any participation they could be spared and eventually the violence
would die out, a natural death due to lack of participation of the civilians. However, this was not
to play out for Aleppo. Instead, the US supported Free Syrian Army, who were mainly from Idlib and
the surrounding areas, invited in their foreign partners, and they came pouring into Aleppo from
Turkey, where they had taken Turkish Airlines flights from Afghanistan, Europe, Australia and North
Africa landing in Istanbul, and then transported by buses owned by the Turkish government to the
Turkey-Aleppo border. The airline tickets, buses, paychecks, supplies, food, and medical
needs were all supplied in Turkey by an official from Saudi Arabia. The weapons were all
supplied by the United States of America, from their warehouse at the dock of Benghazi, Libya. The
US-NATO regime change mission had ended in success in Libya, with America having taken possession
of all the weapons and stockpiles formerly the property of the Libyan government, including tons
of gold bullion taken by the US government from the Central Bank of Libya.
Enter the Libyans stage right. Mehdi al Harati, the Libyan with an Irish passport, was put in
charge of a Brigade of terrorists working under the pay and direction of the CIA in Libya. Once his
fighting subsided there, he was moved to Northern Syria, in the Idlib area, which was the base of
operation for the American backed Free Syrian Army, who Republican Senator John McCain lobbied for
in the US Congress, and personally visited, illegally entering Syria without any passport or border
controls. In Arizona, Sen. McCain is in favor of deporting any illegal alien entering USA,
but he himself broke international law by entering Syria as an illegal and undocumented alien.
However, he was in the company of trusted friends and associates, the Free Syrian Army:
the same men who beheaded Christians and Muslims, raped females and children of both sexes, sold
girls as sex slaves in Turkey, and ate the raw liver of a man, which they proudly videoed and uploaded.
Previously, Syria did not have any Al Qaeda terrorists, and had passed through the war in neighboring
Iraq none the worse for wear, except having accepted 2 million Iraqis as refugee guests. Shortly
before the Deraa staged uprising began, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were in Damascus and being driven
around by the President and First Lady. Pitt and Jolie had come to visit and support the Iraqi war
refugees in Damascus. Brad Pitt was amazed that the Syrian President would drive him around personally,
and without any body guards or security detail. Pitt and Jolie were used to their own heavy security
team in USA. Pres. Assad explained that he and his wife were comfortable in Damascus, knowing that
it was a safe place. Indeed, the association of French travel agents had deemed Syria as the safest
tourist destination in the entire Mediterranean region, meaning even safer than France itself.
However, the US strategy was to create a "New Middle East", which would do away with safety
in Syria; through the ensuing tornado, aka 'winds of change'.
Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and then Syria were the stepping stones in the garden of the "Arab
Spring". But, the scenario in the Syrian mission did not stay on script. It went over deadline
and over budget. The final credits have yet to be rolled, and the curtain has yet to fall on the
stage.
We can't under estimate the role that mainstream media had to play in the destruction
of Syria. For example, Al Jazeera's Rula Amin was in Deraa and personally interviewed the
cleric Sayasneh at the Omari Mosque. Al Jazeera is the state owned and operated media for the Prince
of Qatar. The Prince of Qatar was one of the key funders of the terrorists attacking Syria. The USA
was sending the weapons, supplies and providing military satellite imagery, however the cash to make
payroll, to pay out bribes in Turkey, and all other expenses which needed cold cash in hand was being
paid out by the Prince of Qatar and the King of Saudi Arabia, who were playing their roles as closest
Middle East allies of the United States of America. This was a production team between USA, EU, NATO,
Turkey, Jordan, Israel and the Persian Gulf Arab monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Qatar primarily.
The CIA has no problem with covert operations in foreign countries, and even full scale attacks,
but the matter of funding needs to come from a foreign country, because the American voters don't
care about killing people in Syria, but they would never agree to pay for it. As long as
the Arabs were paying for the project, that was OK by Mr. John Q. Public, who probably was not able
to find Syria on a map anyway.
Rula Amin and others of the Al Jazeera staff, and including the American CNN, the British BBC
and the French France24 all began deliberate political propaganda campaign against the Syrian government
and the Syrian people who were suffering from the death and destruction brought on by the terrorists
who were pretending to be players in a local uprising. Some days, the scripts were so similar that
you would have guessed they were all written in the same hotel room in Beirut. Onto the stage stepped
the online media personalities of Robert Fisk, from his vantage point in Beirut and Joshua Landis
from his perch in Oklahoma. These 2 men, sitting so far removed from the actual events, pretended
to know everything going on in Syria. British and American readers were swayed by their deliberate
one-sided explanations, while the actual Syrians living inside Syria, who read in English online,
were baffled.
Syrians were wondering how Western writers could take the side of the terrorists
who were foreigners, following Radical Islam and attacking any unarmed civilian who tried to defend
their home and family. The media was portraying the terrorists as freedom fighters and heroes of
democracy, while they were raping, looting, maiming, kidnapping for ransom and murdering unarmed
civilians who had not read the script before the shooting began in Deraa.
There was one
global movie trailer, and it was a low budget cell phone video which went viral around the world,
and it sold the viewers on the idea of Syria being in the beginning of a dramatic fight for freedom,
justice and the American way. From the very beginning, Al Jazeera and all the rest of the media were
paying $100.00 to any amateur video shot in Syria. A whole new cottage industry sprang up in Syria,
with directors and actors all hungry for the spotlight and fame. Authenticity was not questioned;
the media just wanted content which supported their propaganda campaign in Syria.
Deraa was the opening act of tragic epic which has yet to conclude. The cleric
who was a key character in the beginning scenes, Sheikh Sayasneh, was first put under house arrest,
and then he was smuggled out to Amman, Jordan in January 2012. He now gives lectures in America near
Washington, DC. Just like aspiring actors usually find their way to Hollywood, which is the
Mecca of the film industry, Sheikh Sayasneh found his way to the Mecca of all regime change projects.
PERIES: Ok. And, John, give us a sense of what Russia's interests are in this meeting. I mean, although
it was downplayed, they did have the meeting with Erdogan, and they were the first to acknowledge
and provide some support to Erdogan after the coup. We know that
HELMER: No support. No, no, that's not quite right. Russian policy is for stability on its borders,
its neighbors. Russia does not consider its national interests, its security interests, its border
stability, to be advanced if there are coups and revolutions in countries around the neighborhood,
whether that's Ukraine, the US did sponsor a coup in Kiev in February 2014, whether it's in Iran,
whether it's in North Korea, whether it's in China, or whether it's in Turkey. So the Russian position
was, stability in the neighborhood. The Russian position was Mr. Erdogan is the elected, constitutional
leader of that country, and what was happening was an attempt to kill him, overthrow him, so Russia's
position was stability in the neighborhood. That was the Russian position. It was stated rather quicker
than Mr. Kerry was capable of stating it when he was trying to put some money on whoever was the
winner and wasn't sure who would be the winner.
But the Russian position is really simple. It's good neighbor policy if you like, but let me try
and make it quick and short for you. First, Turkey should stop supporting and fueling and providing
safe haven and supplies for groups that threaten Russia to the North, threaten Syria to the south.
Threaten Iraq to the east. That means and end to support for ISIS, an end to support for the Chechen
Rebellion in the Russian Caucasus. It means an end to support for Crimean Tatar opposition to Russia.
It means an end Turkish support for the war against Armenia. That's number one. Number two, Russia
has always for the last several hundred years, as long as there are ships, and as long as there's
the sea, Russia wants free passage through the so-called Turkish straits, between the Black Sea,
the Aegean Sea, and the Mediterranean. The Turks claim that it's a territorial war, they often claim
that they lost several wars over this. Russia wants to see no expansion of NATO or enemy operations,
naval operations, in the Black Sea, facilitated through the Bosphorus, through the Dardanelles, through
the Turkish straits, at the behest and at the permission and the encouragement of the Turkish government.
Those are security issues, right? No response from Erdogan. In fact, he said at the press conference,
we didn't even talk about Syria, we'll talk about that a bit later in the afternoon. But as for that
meeting, there is no record that anything was said, because as I said before the Russian Foreign
Ministry has yet to acknowledge there was such a meeting. More important, on the [crosstalk] morning
on the day Erdogan HELMER: Well, let me go back a minute. On the morning of Erdogan's arrival in
Saint Petersburg, there is a 30 minute interview that he gave to Russian state television, to the
Tass News Agency, which he made a number of statements which he didn't repeat in his press conference.
He called again for the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad. He again explicitly referred to support for
the Crimean Tatars and their opposition to Crimea's accession, to the Russian Federation.
Those are two very big no-no's, negatives. Aggressive remarks to make on the eve of your arrival
in Russia, so that there was nothing left to discuss when he got there. Instead there's a lot of
talk about talking.
A lot of talk about talking about the future economic relations between the two countries. The
revival of the two gas pipeline projects, the Turkish Stream and South Stream for Gazprom. The revival
of the nuclear reactor project, which is Russia's building at Akkuyu. Talk about reviving investment,
talk about improving visa conditions for Turkish workers in Russia.
On none of those things, none of those things was any agreement announced. All the sides did,
all the presidents said at their press conference was that they agreed to continue talking. And for
all Mr. Erdogan's dear friend Putin remark he kept making roughly, I timed him, every three to four
minutes of the time he's in front of the camera, nobody believes it. And he didn't offer anything
on which the Russian side could say we've reached a new stage.
He did, yes he apologized for the shoot down of the SU24, but he did not offer Turkish compensation
for the murdered pilot, Captain Peshkov. It was very clear Russian policy that Turkey should pay
compensation, just as it's been Turkish policy that Israel should pay compensation for the killing
of Turkish citizens in the famous vessel incident off the Gaza coast several years ago. Turkey insisted
on compensation from Israel. It took years, it's been achieved. Yet Turkey offers no compensation
when Russia has insisted, on little issues, on big issues, Erdogan offered nothing.
PERIES: And John, what now? In terms of moving forward with these two countries who are very pivotal
and very strategically located in terms of the Syrian conflict.
HELMER: Well, I wouldn't say that the direction is forward. From a Greek point of view, there
is increasing chaos. From a Greek and Cyprian point of view, there is increasing chaos in Turkey,
and around Turkey. And from one point of view, that's a small positive because it makes the Turkish
army less capable of expanding aggressively east, south, or west.
There is not improvement on Turkey's readiness to reach a solution for the withdrawal of troops
from Northern Cyprus, illegally there since the invasion of '74. There is no sign that Turkey will
relent in its support for the overthrow of Syria. There is no sign that Turkey will do anything to
remove the Chechen threat to Russia inside Turkey, so we're going to move sideways.
We're going to move, we will simply watch and see if Mr. Erdogan himself can survive. But the
way he describes his survival is that he's the democratic leader of Turkey, well that's true.
He produces these street displays of public support, and at the same time he distrusts his own
military forces so much that he not only purges the general, generals staff, he couldn't bring a
military officer in his delegation to Moscow yesterday. Not one military officer does Mr. Erdogan
trust enough to bring to the party in Moscow. Sorry, in St. Petersburg. The chief of the Russian
General Staff was there but no Turkish counterpart officer. Steve H. ,
August 14, 2016 at 10:27 am
Instability seems to be the best description. Erdogan has so many horses attached to his cart
it's hard to see what he wants. Beyond the billions stashed in the walls of his estates; I think
it was Russia that released the phone calls with his son talking about moving the cash.
We know he wants the cash, but is he an Islamic sultan first, or is his main horse the Turkic
language group, which pushes into the X-istans to the east? Or is he a Euro, or a Russian lackey?
Easier to see the view from Russia. No Islamic fundamentalism is a foundation stone. The Kurds
have been better friends to Russia on this, and Russia
reinforces success . That's close to a deal-killer for Erdogan. But he has to deal with the
strategic fact that Russia can control the Black Sea by closing the Bosphorus unilaterally. Assad
has managed to keep the same deal with Russia as the Kurds, so far. Erdogan has a lot of enemies
to keep close. Does he have any friends?
Funny, it's all speculation but I had the opposite thought.
Erdogan, allegedly in a position of weakness, runs to Mother Russia for help in his time of
need. But as Helmer notes, he brought bupkis to the table: no concessions on Syria, on Chechen
seperatist groups, on trade, or even bones of lesser contention like Nato troops in Cyprus or
fruit trade. The most obvious conclusion should be that his "failed" trip to Moscow was more signalling
than a desperate appeal for help. And at whom is Erdogan's signalling aimed? Well Helmer again
tells us: the only ones who think it was a salient rapprochment are the Western Press: yes the
same Western Press that are currently hyperventillating that the Russians Are Coming! To wit,
if you are Erdogan and you thought Victoria Nuland was going to be the next US Secretary of State,
what would be the best way to get the stuff you wanted? Especially when it comes to Cyprus, arms
to kill kurds, the overthrow of Assad, leverage with the EU, escalation vs. Iran .
And on top of this, Erdogan has priors: he used the European press paranoia about immigrants
to blackmail Merkl. He shot down a Russian fighter jet to ingratiate himself to Nato. And he's
actively re-courting Israel. None of this indicates a realignment toward Russia in fact his lack
of concessions indicates the opposite.
Like I said, at this point we can only speculate, and I personally lean more to the possibility
that Erdogan saw the possibility of the coup happening and realised it could be to his advantage.
But if you look at his position before the coup: weak domestically, not fully accepted by the
West and compare that to what he gets from the coup: elimination of enemies in a purge and the
ability to use the threat of a Putin-alignment to blackmail the US, I don't see how the self-coup
theory has been knocked on the head.
I think your theory is as likely as any. Its very hard to see what Erdogan is doing. I suspects
its a situation where he has been too clever by half and has wrapped himself up in knots in his
various schemes. But its also possible he is actively trying to create as much ambiguity and uncertainty
as possible in order to extract as much as possible from his 'allies'.
Seems Erdogan is playing hard ball negotiations. Hopes Russia needs him more than Turkey needs
Russia. And certainly he is doing the same with the EU. Undoubtedly he is playing both sides against
each other for the best deal he can get. Wonder if he is competent enough to play those sort of
games with someone like Putin.
Although an alternative possibility is that Erdogan is completely out of his depth and burning
bridges with everyone by making irrational demands on the EU, the US and Russia.
Putin seems to be the most rational statesman in all this.
One of the best things about Trump, I think, is that he realizes this and wants to work with
him rather than demonize him in support of imperialistic type goals.
If Erdogan can pretend to change his Syria policy while not doing so, he can also pretend to
not change this policy while doing so. When is he deceitful and when is he honest? We may need
more time for Turkey's new policies to become apparent. Does anyone know what policy Gulen or
the coup plotters wants toward Syria?
Does anyone know what policy Gulen or the coup plotters wants toward Syria?
Seems to be about as confused as Erdogan's.
This article on his website from 2011 is supportive of regime change, but this article from
2014 suggests that Gόlenists within the media and the miltary/police/security organizations are
against intervention in Syria.
Interestingly,
this article from 2014 says almost the exact same things as we're seeing today about a Turkish
rapprochement with Russia and Iran.
Erodgan wants to be the caliph of the new Ottoman Empire, with the support of the Salafis in
Turkey, ISIS (or whatever) and Saudi Arabia.
As a supplier to ISIS for these reasons, he has no common ground with Russia, who wants an
end to Muslim Unrest, because it fuels problems for the Russian like Chechnya, and the other Muslim
states along the silk road.
Russia wants to ensure the Black Sea is no blockaded, because Sevastopol is their warm water
port, and has been both very important and controlled by Russia for over 400 years.
Erdogan, one expects,is hoping for "approval" from the United States to invade Syria to "keep
the peace," which would be a great step towards a unified Salafi empire.
The Middle East was, is, and will be the cockpit of the world for the foreseeable future.
Before considering events in the Middle East:
1. Know you history
2. Know your geography look at the maps of borders for the last 1,000 years
3. Analyze ambitions in,and for, the Middle East
This opens the door for others, about a month ago the Russians, Iran's, Syrians meet in Russia.
They need to put aside their differences because Hillary coming back onto the world stage with
every bat-shit-crazy neo-conn at her command. Turkey sees that also. They are all stronger together
and throw in China in the back ground and who knows.
Erdogan awaits the results of America's election. He hopes that Clinton gets elected because
Clinton shares Ergogan's goal of toppling Assad in order to install a Jihadi Cannibal Terrorist
LiverEater government over all of Syria.
If Trump defeats Clinton ( unlikely I know), and if Trump then purges hundreds or thousands
of pieces of radioactive Clintonite Filth out of the relevant parts of the Administrative Branch
of Government ( even unlikelier) such that he can forcibly and semi-violently impose a "peace
with Russia" policy upon an unwilling DC FedRegime Government; then Erdogan may eventually give
up on getting Trump's support to topple Assad and install a Jihadi Terrorist government. What
would Ergogan do then? Where would he turn?
I think that some of the other commentators here are overly disparaging of Erdogan.
Erdogan is a skilful and gutsy politician, with a large body of support in his country.
I mean, for God's sake, we just saw that man totally punk the old-line Kemalists in
Turkish officer corps!
Late last year, despite the Syrian imbroglio and mounting tension with the Kurds, Erdogan won
a convincing electoral victory. His party formed an outright parliamentary majority.
When Erdogan meets Putin, that is a meeting of peers.
I'll repeat the prediction I have already made a couple of times on this site: Erdogan is stringing
Putin along until after the US election.
By the time Clinton is inaugurated in 2017, Erdogan will have finished purging the suspect
elements in the Turkish officer corps. Turkey will then be ready to play an important role in
the US-led escalation of the conflict against Syria and Russia.
But for the next 5-6 months, Erdogan wants to keep relations with Russia from going foul. That
way the Russians might not want to make a more intense effort to help the Syrians recapture all
of Aleppo.
It's a tough situation for Putin. If Russia steps up the offensive at Aleppo, it would be easy
for Erdogan and Clinton to use that as a pretext for their own escalation. If Putin waits for
2017, Erdogan and Clinton are likely to escalate anyhowthey'll make whatever pretext they need.ζ
A reasonable argument, but if Putin knows anything, it's that he can't trust Erdogan, no matter
what the truth vis a vis US involvement in the coup or who may have tipped off or otherwise saved
Erdogan's regime. Erdogan was an utter fool to become involved in Syria, and like the Saudis and
Saddam before him, allow his ego to be captured by dreams of wider regional power and influence
under US auspices in exchange, as always, for going to war against a US enemy. Anyone as encumbered
as Erdogan is an ally to be kept close enough to be useful, but not within striking distance.
I think the meeting was likely very serious, and I expect Erdogan and Putin both were looking
for something from the other indicating where there might be wiggle room vis a vis what everyone
expects is coming under Clinton, but which may already be underway a major influx of new rebels/ISIS
into the fray in Syria amidst escalating calls for direct US intervention as per Libyan version
of a 'no-fly zone'.
Too bad for Turkey. Had they not become involved in this disastrous regime-change operation,
Erdogan could've maintained his balancing act with relative ease. The focus of his Government
would've been the continued development of what has become a large, dynamic economy capable of
playing the role of Bridge from the West to an East that included Russia.
I don't know how many rabbits can be left in Putin's hat. The US really wants its 30 years
of war to transform all the regions attacked back into desert and I really don't expect Putin
to go all the way to the wall to stop them. But he does want the world to know what's happening.
That's a fair assessment. What I wonder is how much Erdogan's Islamic beliefs effect his judgement
and how much his wanting to revive the Ottoman Empire effects it. Seems to me that betraying ISIS
would have been an easy concession for him to make to Russia. Yet he's still determined to get
rid of Assad and anyone who says that supports ISIS because ISIS is the only means of achieving
that result. Does Erdogan continue as an ISIS ally because of: 1) ideologically they are two sides
of the same coin? 2) The Saudis are sending him money he doesn't want to give up? 3) he wants
continued chaos to have the opportunity to take advantage at Syria's or the Kurds expense? 4)
he fears the US more than Russia? After all, America destroys countries, Russia uses diplomacy,
which is less threatening.
Could go on endlessly with all these questions. I suspect the easiest conclusion to reach is
that Erdogan is biding his time until the US election results. After all, you couldn't have a
more starker choice: Clinton and full support for anything anti-Russian or Trump and a healing
of relations, in which case being Russia's would be a good thing. I guess the fly in the ointment
is a NeoCon Presidency producing another neocon disaster, meaning Russia kicks NATO's butt, including
Turkey.
I can't help but note that what Erodgan offers to each party Russia, the US and Europe
is negative. Doesn't that make it inevitable he ends up with no friends? For goodness sake, he
only runs Turkey and a divided Turkey! He's a few centuries too late for that to strike any
existential fear into his adversaries. Overplaying his hand perhaps?
likbez
> I guess the fly in the ointment is a NeoCon Presidency producing another neocon disaster,
meaning Russia kicks NATO's butt, including Turkey.
The next "neocon disaster" is the most probable outcome, but there one a countervailing factor
to "new American militarism" (Bacevich) type of adventurism. The idea that the establishing and
maintaining the global neoliberal empire by direct interventions is worth the price we pay as
it will take the USA into the period of unprecedented peace and prosperity is now discredited.
Prosperity is reserved to top one or ten percent and that factor can't be hidden any longer.
I think the US elite became split and a smaller part of Washington establishment started to
understand that the US neocons overextended the country in permanent wars for permanent peace.
In wars for extension of the global neoliberal empire. Much like Britain became exhausted from
British empire project before.
It well might be that soon the impoverishment of the population and, especially, lack of job
and shirking middle class, become an internal political instability factor that will force some
changes.
With the total surveillance in place the elite has probably pretty decent picture of the mood
of the population. And it is definitely not too encouraging for another reckless neocon experiment.
Also the power of MSM brainwashing started to wear down and neoliberalism as an ideology that
keeps the current Washington elite in power is in crisis.
The USSR crushed approximately in 20 years after the communist ideology became discredited
by the inability to raise the standard of living of the population. The same is happening with
neoliberalism. If we count from 2008, neoliberalism probably still has another 12 years or three
presidential terms. That means that if "this Trump" fails to be elected, the "next Trump" might
be much more dangerous for Washington neocons.
In a way, emergence of Trump is a sign that the elite can't govern the old way and population
does not want to live the old way. Degeneration of the US neoliberal elite is another factor.
Looks at quality of presidential candidates - Hillary and the bunch of narrow minded fanatics
they produced for Republican nomination as well as the level of Washington detachment from reality
- "let them eat cakes" stance , Those factors will only increase internal political tension that
already demonstrated itself in recent riots.
Situation with oil is also dangerous. Artificial suppression of oil prices destroys the US
oil producers. They probably will manage to keep the prices low in 2016. Then what?
Alastair Crooke, a former British diplomat and founder of the
Conflicts Forum, discusses how Washington's foreign
policy hawks are trying to
stall an
Obama-Putin agreement on Syria until Hillary Clinton is (presumably) elected so the new Cold
War with Russia can proceed unabated.
"For Michael Morell, as with many other CIA careerists, his strongest suit seemed to be pleasing
his boss and not antagonizing the White House" His loyalty is to qhoewver occupies White House, not
necessarily to the truth. "Morell [was] at the center of two key fiascoes: he "coordinated the
CIA review" of Secretary of State Colin Powell's infamous Feb. 5, 2003 address to the United Nations
and he served as the regular CIA briefer to President George W. Bush. Putting Access Before Honesty"
Rise of Another CIA Yes Man Consortiumnews
Notable quotes:
"... Let the bizarreness of that claim sink in, since it is professionally impossible to recruit an agent who is unwitting of being an agent, since an agent is someone who follows instructions from a control officer. ..."
"... However, since Morell apparently has no evidence that Trump was "recruited," which would make the Republican presidential nominee essentially a traitor, he throws in the caveat "unwitting." Such an ugly charge is on par with Trump's recent hyperbolic claim that President Obama was the "founder" of ISIS. ..."
"... Looking back at Morell's record, it was not hard to see all this coming, as Morell rose higher and higher in a system that rewards deserving sycophants. I addressed this five years ago in an article titled "Rise of Another CIA Yes Man." That piece elicited many interesting comments from senior intelligence officers who knew Morell personally; some of those comments are tucked into the end of the article. ..."
As for Morell's claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin is somehow controlling Donald Trump,
well, even Charlie Rose had stomach problems with that and with Morell's "explanation." In the Times
op-ed, Morell wrote: "In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr.
Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation."
Let the bizarreness of that claim sink in, since it is professionally impossible to recruit an
agent who is unwitting of being an agent, since an agent is someone who follows instructions from
a control officer.
However, since Morell apparently has no evidence that Trump was "recruited," which would make
the Republican presidential nominee essentially a traitor, he throws in the caveat "unwitting." Such
an ugly charge is on par with Trump's recent hyperbolic claim that President Obama was the "founder"
of ISIS.
Looking back at Morell's record, it was not hard to see all this coming, as Morell rose higher
and higher in a system that rewards deserving sycophants. I addressed this five years ago in
an article
titled "Rise of Another CIA Yes Man." That piece elicited many interesting comments from senior intelligence
officers who knew Morell personally; some of those comments are tucked into the end of the article.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour
in inner-city Washington. He is a 30-year veteran of the CIA and Army intelligence and co-founder
of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). McGovern served for considerable periods
in all four of CIA's main directorates.
"... Neo McCarthyism witch hunt against Trump instead of debate of a proper national policy is a sign of corrupted neoliberal media. They want the preservation and expantion of thier global empire at any cost for american people. ..."
"... Reckless branding of Trump as Russian agent is coming from Clinton campaign and it needs to stop ..."
Neo McCarthyism witch hunt against Trump instead of debate of a proper national policy is a sign
of corrupted neoliberal media. They want the preservation and expantion of thier global empire at
any cost for american people.
Reckless branding of Trump as Russian agent is coming from Clinton campaign and it needs to stop
"... What struck me in the article was a conflict between attributing the DNC hack and a possible Clinton hack that the authors didn't even attempt to address. They claim analysts are very confident that Russian hackers, working for the government, hacked the DNC. But as to the possibility that anyone hacked Clinton's private server; well, if they did, they would have been way to savvy to leave any traces that they'd done so. A DNC hack; those sloppy Russian government hackers did it. A personal server; a real pro job. ..."
What struck me in the article was a conflict between attributing the DNC hack and a possible
Clinton hack that the authors didn't even attempt to address. They claim analysts are very confident
that Russian hackers, working for the government, hacked the DNC. But as to the possibility that
anyone hacked Clinton's private server; well, if they did, they would have been way to savvy to
leave any traces that they'd done so. A DNC hack; those sloppy Russian government hackers did
it. A personal server; a real pro job.
IhaveLittleToAdd | Aug 11, 2016 12:00:03 PM | 2
I actually find it possible, namely that the firewall in DNC was sloppy, and paranoid Hillary
had best computer security consultants she could find. Moreover, hers was a small operation and
easier to keep secure, unlike DNC with many employees and many interactive activities. I speculate
here, but this is plausible.
========
More importantly, was there a public opprobrium, "How did they dare!" about the putative Russian
hack? This is actually an interesting angle. Sometimes public suspects that the government is
doing illegal stuff in other countries, it is thinly denied (or "our policy is no to comment"),
and most of the citizens are glad that our leaders are so resourceful. But the side effect is
that this type of activity becomes "normal", and detecting or convincingly suspecting it exits
yawning response.
For example, there were two assassination or "near assassination" attempts on Israeli diplomatic
personal and Iran was suspected. "Sure, didn't they have a string of assassination of nuclear
assassinations in Tehran? By the way, what is the weather this weekend?" If I recall, Tehran assassinations
stopped.
Similarly, after American cyber-successes, cyber attacks became a new normal.
This is what "New
American Militarism" the term coined by Bacevich is about. And it reflect dominance of jingoism
among Washington bureaucrats -- war is a source of money and career advancement.
Notable quotes:
"... At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, ..."
"... he also reveals that Morell "coordinated the CIA review" of Secretary of State Colin Powell's infamous Feb. 5, 2003 speech to the United Nations a dubious distinction if there ever was one. ..."
"... The Great War of Our Time ..."
"... It is sad to have to remind folks almost 14 years later that the "intelligence" was not "mistaken;" it was fraudulent from the get-go. Announcing on June 5, 2008, the bipartisan conclusions from a five-year study by the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Jay Rockefeller described the intelligence conjured up to "justify" war on Iraq as "uncorroborated, contradicted, or even non-existent." ..."
"... For services rendered, Tenet rescued Morell from the center of the storm, so to speak, sending him to a plum posting in London, leaving the hapless Stu Cohen holding the bag. Cohen had been acting director of the National Intelligence Council and nominal manager of the infamous Oct. 1, 2002 National Intelligence Estimate warning about Iraq's [nonexistent] WMD. ..."
"... The Great War of Our Time ..."
"... When the storm subsided, Morell came back from London to bigger and better things. He was appointed the CIA's first associate deputy director from 2006 to 2008, and then director for intelligence until moving up to become CIA's deputy director (and twice acting director) from 2010 until 2013. ..."
"... Reading his book and watching him respond to those softball pitches from Charlie Rose on Monday, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that glibness, vacuousness and ambition can get you to the very top of US intelligence in the Twenty-first Century and can also make you a devoted fan of whoever is likely to be the next President. ..."
"... Let the bizarreness of that claim sink in, since it is professionally impossible to recruit an agent who is unwitting of being an agent, since an agent is someone who follows instructions from a control officer. ..."
"... However, since Morell apparently has no evidence that Trump was "recruited," which would make the Republican presidential nominee essentially a traitor, he throws in the caveat "unwitting." Such an ugly charge is on par with Trump's recent hyperbolic claim that President Obama was the "founder" of ISIS. ..."
"... Looking back at Morell's record, it was not hard to see all this coming, as Morell rose higher and higher in a system that rewards deserving sycophants. I addressed this five years ago in an article titled "Rise of Another CIA Yes Man." That piece elicited many interesting comments from senior intelligence officers who knew Morell personally; some of those comments are tucked into the end of the article. ..."
Perhaps former CIA acting director Michael Morell's shamefully provocative rhetoric toward Russia
and Iran will prove too unhinged even for Hillary Clinton. It appears equally likely that it will
succeed in earning him a senior job in a possible Clinton administration, so it behooves us to have
a closer look at Morell's record.
My initial reaction of disbelief and anger was the same as that
of my VIPS colleague, Larry Johnson, and
the points Larry made about Morell's behavior in the Benghazi caper, Iran, Syria, needlessly
baiting nuclear-armed Russia, and how to put a "scare" into Bashar al-Assad give ample support to
Larry's characterization of Morell's comments as "reckless and vapid." What follows is an attempt
to round out the picture on the ambitious 57-year-old Morell.
I suppose we need to start with Morell telling PBS/CBS interviewer Charlie Rose on Aug. 8 that
he (Morell) wanted to "make the Iranians pay a price in Syria. make the Russians pay a price in
Syria."
Rose: "We make them pay the price by killing Russians?"
Morell: "Yeah."
Rose: "And killing Iranians?"
Morell: "Yes You don't tell the world about it. But you make sure they know it in Moscow
and Tehran."
You might ask what excellent adventure earned Morell his latest appearance with Charlie Rose?
It was a highly unusual Aug. 5 New York Times
op-ed titled "I ran the CIA Now I'm Endorsing Hillary Clinton."
Peabody award winner Rose having made no secret of how much he admires the glib, smooth-talking
Morell performed true to form. Indeed, he has interviewed him every other month, on average, over
the past two years, while Morell has been a national security analyst for CBS.
This interview,
though, is a must for those interested in gauging the caliber of bureaucrats who have bubbled to
the top of the CIA since the disastrous tenure of George Tenet (sorry, the interview goes on and
on for 46 minutes).
A Heavy Duty
Such interviews are a burden for unreconstructed, fact-based analysts of the old school. In a
word, they are required to watch them, just as they must plow through the turgid prose of "tell-it-all"
memoirs. But due diligence can sometimes harvest an occasional grain of wheat among the chaff.
For example, George W. Bush's memoir, Decision Points, included a passage the former
president seems to have written himself. Was Bush relieved to learn, just 15 months before he left
office, the "high-confidence," unanimous judgment of the U.S. intelligence community that Iran had
stopped working on a nuclear weapon in 2003 and had not resumed work on such weapons? No way!
In his memoir, he complains bitterly that this judgment in that key 2007 National Intelligence
Estimate "tied my hands on the military side. 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?" No, I am not making this up. He wrote that.
In another sometimes inadvertently revealing memoir, At the Center of the Storm: My Years
at the CIA, CIA Director George Tenet described Michael Morell, whom he picked to be CIA's briefer
of President George W. Bush, in these terms: "Wiry, youthful looking, and extremely bright, Mike
speaks in staccato-like bursts that get to the bottom line very quickly. He and George Bush hit it
off almost immediately. Mike was the perfect guy for us to have by the commander-in-chief's side."
Wonder what Morell was telling Bush about those "weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" and the
alleged ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. Was Morell winking at Bush the same way Tenet winked
at the head of British intelligence on July 20, 2002, telling him that "the intelligence and facts
were being fixed around the policy" of invading Iraq?
High on Morell
Not surprisingly, Tenet speaks well of his protιgι and former executive assistant Morell. But
he also reveals that Morell "coordinated the CIA review" of Secretary of State Colin Powell's
infamous Feb. 5, 2003 speech to the United Nations a dubious distinction if there ever was one.
So Morell reviewed the "intelligence" that went into Powell's thoroughly deceptive account of
the Iraqi threat! Powell later called that dramatic speech, which wowed Washington's media and foreign
policy elites and was used to browbeat the few remaining dissenters into silence, a "blot" on his
record.
In Morell's own memoir, The Great War of Our Time, Morell apologized to former Secretary
of State Powell for the bogus CIA intelligence that found its way into Powell's address. Morell
told CBS: "I thought it important to do so because he went out there and made this case, and
we were wrong."
It is sad to have to remind folks almost 14 years later that the "intelligence" was not "mistaken;"
it was fraudulent from the get-go. Announcing on June 5, 2008, the bipartisan conclusions from a
five-year study by the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Jay Rockefeller described the intelligence
conjured up to "justify" war on Iraq as "uncorroborated, contradicted, or even non-existent."
It strains credulity beyond the breaking point to think that Michael Morell was unaware of the
fraudulent nature of the WMD propaganda campaign. Yet, like all too many others, he kept quiet and
got promoted.
Out of Harm's Way
For services rendered, Tenet rescued Morell from the center of the storm, so to speak, sending
him to a plum posting in London, leaving the hapless Stu Cohen holding the bag. Cohen had been acting
director of the National Intelligence Council and nominal manager of the infamous Oct. 1, 2002 National
Intelligence Estimate warning about Iraq's [nonexistent] WMD.
Cohen made a valiant attempt to defend the indefensible in late November 2003, and was still
holding out some hope that WMD would be found. He noted, however, "If we eventually are proved
wrong that is, that there were no weapons of mass destruction and the WMD programs were dormant
or abandoned the American people will be told the truth " And then Stu disappeared into the woodwork.
In October 2003, the 1,200-member "Iraq Survey Group" commissioned by Tenet to find those elusive
WMD in Iraq had already reported that six months of intensive work had turned up no chemical, biological
or nuclear weapons. By then, the U.S.-sponsored search for WMD had already cost $300 million, with
the final bill expected to top $1 billion.
In Morell's The Great War of Our Time, he writes, "In the summer of 2003 I became CIA's
senior focal point for liaison with the analytic community in the United Kingdom." He notes that
one of the "dominant" issues, until he left the U.K. in early 2006, was "Iraq, namely our failure
to find weapons of mass destruction." (It was a PR problem; Prime Minister Tony Blair and Morell's
opposite numbers in British intelligence were fully complicit in the "dodgy-dossier" type of intelligence.)
When the storm subsided, Morell came back from London to bigger and better things. He was
appointed the CIA's first associate deputy director from 2006 to 2008, and then director for intelligence
until moving up to become CIA's deputy director (and twice acting director) from 2010 until 2013.
Reading his book and watching him respond to those softball pitches from Charlie Rose on Monday,
it is hard to avoid the conclusion that glibness, vacuousness and ambition can get you to the very
top of US intelligence in the Twenty-first Century and can also make you a devoted fan of whoever
is likely to be the next President.
... ... ...
As for Morell's claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin is somehow controlling Donald Trump,
well, even Charlie Rose had stomach problems with that and with Morell's "explanation." In the Times
op-ed, Morell wrote: "In the intelligence business, we would say that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr.
Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation."
Let the bizarreness of that claim sink in, since it is professionally impossible to recruit
an agent who is unwitting of being an agent, since an agent is someone who follows instructions from
a control officer.
However, since Morell apparently has no evidence that Trump was "recruited," which would make
the Republican presidential nominee essentially a traitor, he throws in the caveat "unwitting." Such
an ugly charge is on par with Trump's recent hyperbolic claim that President Obama was the "founder"
of ISIS.
Looking back at Morell's record, it was not hard to see all this coming, as Morell rose higher
and higher in a system that rewards deserving sycophants. I addressed this five years ago in
an article
titled "Rise of Another CIA Yes Man." That piece elicited many interesting comments from senior intelligence
officers who knew Morell personally; some of those comments are tucked into the end of the article.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Saviour in inner-city Washington. He is a 30-year veteran of the CIA and Army intelligence and co-founder
of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). McGovern served for considerable periods
in all four of CIA's main directorates.
Alastair Crooke, a former British diplomat and founder of the
Conflicts Forum, discusses how Washington's foreign
policy hawks are trying to
stall an
Obama-Putin agreement on Syria until Hillary Clinton is (presumably) elected so the new Cold
War with Russia can proceed unabated.
"... These are strong words and accusations, not against the athletes, but against the Russian government. It seems the Russian Paralympic athletes are being collectively punished as a means to punish the Russian government. ..."
"... Another fact is that this problem exists in many if not all countries, especially since professional athletics is big business. WADA data shows that many countries have significant numbers of doping violations. ..."
"... In contrast with the accusations, the scientific data prepared by WADA indicates that Russian athletes have a fairly low incidence of positive drug tests in international certified laboratories. The biggest question is whether the Russian government has been "sponsoring" or somehow supervising prohibited doping. This has been repeated many times and is now widely assumed to be true. ..."
"... But the evidence is far from compelling. The accusations are based primarily on the testimony of three people: the main culprit and mastermind Grigory Rodchenkov who was extorting athletes and "whistle-blowers" Vitaliy and Yuliya Stepanov. The Stepanovs were the star witnesses in the "60 Minutes" feature on this topic. ..."
"... The "60 Minutes" story also failed to include the important fact that Vitaliy was directly involved in his wife's doping. ..."
"... Vitaliy even helps his wife with doping, procures the drugs, leads a kind of double life. ..."
"... If the IPC final number is accurate, it means the committee confirmed 11 Paralympic athletes who tested positive between 2012 and 2015 but had their positive tests "disappeared" to allow these athletes to compete. If that's true, these athletes should be suspended or banned. Instead of doing that, the IPC banned the entire 267-member Russian Paralympic team. ..."
"... The McLaren Report looks like a rush to judgment. The report was launched after the sensational New York Times story based on Grigory Rodchenkov and the "60 Minutes" segment based on the Stepanovs. Before he was half way done his investigation, Richard McLaren was advising the IAAF to ban the entire Russian team. ..."
The West's anti-Russian bias is so strong that normal standards of fairness are cast aside whenever
a propaganda edge can be gained, a factor swirling around the treatment of Russian athletes at the
Rio Olympics, Rick Sterling says.
There is an ugly anti-Russian mood in various Rio Olympic venues. When the Russian swimmers entered
the pool for the 4Χ100-meter Freestyle team event, they were loudly booed. When the Russian team
barely lost third place, the announcer happily announced that Russian had been "kept off the medal
stand".
Last Sunday, it was announced that the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) had decided to
ban the entire Russian team from the upcoming Paralympics to be held in Rio in September. Next day,
The
Associated Press story opened as follows: "After escaping a blanket ban from the Olympics,
Russia was kicked out of the upcoming Paralympics on Sunday as the ultimate punishment for the state
running a doping operation that polluted sports by prioritizing 'medals over morals.'"
IPC President Sir Phillip Craven issued a
statement full of accusations and moral outrage. He said, "In my view, the McLaren Report
marked one of the darkest days in the history of all sport." However, the McLaren Report is deeply
biased. Here are some of the problems with the report:
It relied primarily on the testimony of one person, the former Director of Moscow Laboratory
Grigory Rodchenkov, who was implicated in extorting Russian athletes for money and was the chief
culprit with strong interest in casting blame somewhere else.
It accused Russian authorities without considering their defense and contrary information.
It excluded a written submission and documents provided by a Russian authority.
It failed to identify individual athletes who benefited but instead cast suspicion on the entire
team.
It ignored the statistical data compiled by WADA which show Russian violations to be NOT exceptional.
It did not provide the source for quantitative measurements.
It claimed to have evidence but failed to reveal it.
A detailed critique of the McLaren Report can be found at
Sports Integrity Initiative,
Consortiumnews, Counterpunch,
Dissident Voice, True Publica, Global Research, Telesur, and other sites.
Collective Punishment
The IPC explanation of why they banned the entire Paralympic team boils down to the accusation
that "the State-sponsored doping programme that exists within Russian sport regrettably
extends to Russian Para sport as well. The facts really do hurt; they are an unprecedented attack
on every clean athlete who competes in sport. The anti-doping system in Russia is broken, corrupted
and entirely compromised.
"The doping culture that is polluting Russian sport stems from the Russian government and has
now been uncovered in not one, but two independent reports commissioned by the World Anti-Doping
Agency. I believe the Russian government has catastrophically failed its Para athletes. Their medals
over morals mentality disgusts me. The complete corruption of the anti-doping system is contrary
to the rules and strikes at the very heart of the spirit of Paralympic sport."
These are strong words and accusations, not against the athletes, but against the Russian government.
It seems the Russian Paralympic athletes are being collectively punished as a means to punish the
Russian government.
But what are the facts? First, it's true some Russian athletes have used prohibited steroids or
other performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). The documentaries by
Hajo Seppelt expose examples of Russian athletes admitting to taking PEDs, a banned coach clandestinely continuing
to coach, and another banned coach dealing in prohibited drugs.
Another fact is that this problem exists in many if not all countries, especially since professional
athletics is big business.
WADA data shows that many countries have significant numbers of doping violations.
It is claimed that doping by elite athletes is pervasive in Russia but is this true? To answer
that accurately would require an objective examination, not a sensation seeking media report. In
the current controversy the accusations and assumptions rely substantially on individual anecdotes
and testimony which has been publicized through media reports (ARD documentaries, "60 Minutes" report
and New York Times stories) with very little scrutiny.
In contrast with the accusations, the scientific
data prepared by WADA indicates that Russian athletes have a fairly low incidence of positive
drug tests in international certified laboratories. The biggest question is whether the Russian government
has been "sponsoring" or somehow supervising prohibited doping. This has been repeated many times
and is now widely assumed to be true.
But the evidence is far from compelling. The accusations are based primarily on the testimony
of three people: the main culprit and mastermind Grigory Rodchenkov who was extorting athletes and
"whistle-blowers" Vitaliy and Yuliya Stepanov. The Stepanovs were the star witnesses in the "60 Minutes"
feature on this topic.
The report was factually flawed: it mistakenly reports that Vitaliy had a "low level job at the
Russian Anti Doping Agency RUSADA." Actually he was adviser to the Director General, close to the
Minister of Sports and a trainer of doping control officers.
The "60 Minutes" story also failed to include the important fact that Vitaliy was directly involved
in his wife's doping. According to Seppelt's documentary
"The Secrets of Doping,"
"First, Vitaliy even helps his wife with doping, procures the drugs, leads a kind of double life."(5:45)
Adding to the argument there may be a political bias in these accusations, all three witnesses (Rodchenkov
and the Stepanovs) are now living in the United States.
The "proof" of Russian state-sponsored doping rests on remarkably little solid evidence. The principal
assertion is that the Deputy Minister of Sports issued email directives to eliminate positive tests
of "protected" athletes. McLaren claims to have "electronic data" and emails proving this. But he
has not revealed the emails.
If the emails are authentic, that would be damning. How would the Ministry of Sports officials
explain it? Do they have any alternative explanation of the curious directives to "Quarantine" or
"Save" doping test samples? Astoundingly, McLaren decided not to ask them and he still has not shown
the evidence he says that he has.
Tampering with Bottles?
Another controversial issue is regarding the opening and replacement of "tamper proof" bottles.
The Rodchenkov account is that in the middle of the night, in cahoots with FSB (successor to KGB),
they would replace "dirty" urine with "clean" urine. Rodchenkov says they found a way to open the
tamper-proof urine sample bottles. But the
Swiss manufacturer Berlinger continues to stand by its product and has effectively challenged
the veracity of the Rodchenkov/McLaren story.
Since the release of the McLaren Report, Berlinger has issued a
statement saying:
To the statement in the McLaren investigation report that some such bottles proved possible to
open Berlinger Special AG cannot offer any authoritative response at the present time.
Berlinger Special AG has no knowledge at present of the specifications, the methods or the procedures
involved in the tests and experiments conducted by the McLaren Commission.
Berlinger Special AG conducts its own regular reappraisals of its doping kits, and also has its
products tested and verified by an independent institute that has been duly certificated by the Swiss
authorities.
In neither its own tests nor any tests conducted by the independent institute in Switzerland
has any sealed Berlinger Special AG urine sample bottle proved possible to open.
This also applies to the "Sochi 2014" sample bottle model.
The specialists at Berlinger Special AG are able at any time to determine whether one of the
company's sample bottles has been tampered with or unlawfully replicated.
McLaren says he does not know how the Russians were opening the bottles but he knows it can be
done because someone demonstrated it to him personally. In contrast with McLaren's assertions, Berlinger
states unequivocally: "In neither its own tests nor any tests conducted by the independent institute
in Switzerland has any sealed Berlinger Special AG urine sample bottle proved possible to open. This
also applies to the 'Sochi 2014' sample bottle model."
If McLaren's claims are true, why has he not discussed this with the manufacturer? If McLaren's
claims are true, isn't it of the highest importance to identify the weakness in the system so that
doping test samples cannot be swapped?
McLaren further claims to be able to forensically determine when a "tamper proof" bottle has been
opened by the "marks and scratches" on the inside of the bottle caps. His report does not include
photos to show what these "marks and scratches" look like, nor does it consider the possibility of
a mark or scratch resulting from some other event such as different force being applied, cross-threading
or backing off on the cap.
In this area also, McLaren has apparently not had his findings confirmed by the Swiss manufacturer
despite the fact that the company states: "The specialists at Berlinger Special AG are able at any
time to determine whether one of the company's sample bottles has been tampered with or unlawfully
replicated."
If the findings of McLaren's "marks and scratches expert" are accurate, why did they not get confirmation
from the specialists at Berlinger? Perhaps it is because Berlinger disputes McLaren's claims and
says "Our kits are secure."
The IPC decision substantially rests on the fact-challenged McLaren report. The IPC statement
falsely claims that the McLaren bottle top "scratches and marks" expert has "corroborated the claim
that the State directed scheme involved Russian Paralympic athletes."
Rush to Judgment
The IPC report includes data that purports to show widespread doping manipulation in Russia, saying:
"Professor McLaren provided the names of the athletes associated with the 35 samples and whether
the sample had been marked QUARANTINE or SAVE." These 35 samples are presumably the same Paralympic
35 which are identified on page 41 of the McLaren Report as being "Disappearing Positive Test Results
by Sport Russian Athletes."
There is no source for this data but supposedly it covers testing between 2012 and 2015. McLaren
provided another 10 samples thus making 45 samples relating to 44 athletes.
It is then explained that 17 of these samples are actually not from IPC administered sport. So
the actual number is 27 athletes (44-minus-17) implicated. However, in another inconsistency, the
IPC statement says not all these samples were marked "SAVE" by Moscow Laboratory. That was only done
for "at least" 11 of the samples and athletes.
If the IPC final number is accurate, it means the committee confirmed 11 Paralympic athletes who
tested positive between 2012 and 2015 but had their positive tests "disappeared" to allow these athletes
to compete. If that's true, these athletes should be suspended or banned. Instead of doing that,
the IPC banned the entire 267-member Russian Paralympic team.
The McLaren Report looks like a rush to judgment. The report was launched after the sensational
New York Times story based on Grigory Rodchenkov and the "60 Minutes" segment based on the Stepanovs.
Before he was half way done his investigation, Richard McLaren was advising the IAAF to ban the entire
Russian team.
The McLaren Report, with all its flaws and shortcomings, was published just a few weeks ago on
July 16. Then, on Aug. 7, the IPC issued its decision to ban the Russian Paralympic Team from the
September Rio Paralympics.
The IPC statement claims that the committee "provided sufficient time to allow the Russian Paralympic
Committee to present their case to the IPC" before they finalized the decision. While the Russian
Paralympic Committee appeared before the IPC, it's doubtful they had sufficient time to argue their
case or even to know the details of the accusations.
In summary, the accusation of Russian "state sponsored doping" by McLaren and Craven is based
on little solid evidence. Despite this, the accusations have resulted in the banning of many hundreds
of clean athletes from the Olympics and Paralympics and are contributing to the ugly "ant-Russian"
prejudice and discrimination happening at the Olympics right now.
This seems to violate the purpose of the
Olympics movement which is to promote international peace, not conflict and discrimination.
Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist. He can be contacted at [email protected]
Doping scandal is a larger problem the Russian athletes, who is this case are simply scapegoats.
It is an international problem of huge proportions, which essentially is a cancer of professional
sport in general, not only Olympics in particular.
Throughout the Soviet period, disabled people were largely banished. In Russian cities, even now,
you see the elderly amputees being wheeled to a begging pitch on a trolley
Mary Dejevsky
To my mind, such a blanket ban is an outrage. It is not just illogical, but unjust and
grievously short-sighted.
I personally considered even the partial IOC ban on Russia as too harsh on the grounds that
a higher standard of proof was effectively set for Russians compared with their non-Russian peers.
But the treatment of Russia's Paralympians takes the pillorying of Russian sport to a whole new
level
The team as a whole is being made to answer for the sins of the Russian state or, to
be more accurate, its still largely Soviet-era sports establishment .
####
OK, how long do you guys think it will be before we hear that "Mary Djevsky has left the Independent
by mutual agreement with the paper"? She's a bit all over the place herself, but in general I
like reading her pieces despite the casual generalizations she makes.
"... CBS can go shove itself in its own collective anus: http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/syria/120820162 Daesh retreats from Manbij with 2000 civilian hostages. Some humanitarians. ..."
"... Good catch. I hope Assad knows better than to give any legroom to these monkeys, because the SDF is just a rebranded Free Syrian Army. Most are not even Syrian, but Libyan and other mercenaries. Washington keeps changing their acronyms, but the aim remains unchanged the overthrow and replacement of Assad. ..."
Watching CBS news as I write :
Rebels rescuing women and children and taking to hospitals (looking staged for cameras)
Air strikes destroy only remaining hospitals (videos showing piles of medical equipment which
did not appear to have been damaged by fire or blast)
Syrian government would not respond to inquiries from CBS news about air strikes on hospitals
in Aleppo. The reporter inferred that since the government did not deny the air strikes, they
must be the perpetrators.
Amazing. Child beheaders are portrayed as rescuers of women and children and the forces trying
to defeat them are labeled as murderers.
Remarkable. But a time-tested technique frequently used in the past to portray Palestinian violence
against Israelis. And Hezbollah has been frequently accused as well of faking damage and deaths
in order to cultivate sympathy. I guess everybody does it. But it is in western interests to portray
'rebels', especially pet 'rebels' like the White Helmets, as closet humanitarians and the Syrian
government as the liver-eaters. I think a lot of observers just expect it now and automatically
discount about half of what is said.
Good catch. I hope Assad knows better than to give any legroom to these monkeys, because the
SDF is just a rebranded Free Syrian Army. Most are not even Syrian, but Libyan and other mercenaries.
Washington keeps changing their acronyms, but the aim remains unchanged the overthrow and replacement
of Assad. After that, things will go one of two ways; Assad will be replaced by a compliant
western toady who will let Washington have a free hand to dabble, or he will be replaced by someone
ineffective who will lead the country to collapse, at which time the west will have to step in
to save it.
"... These are strong words and accusations, not against the athletes, but against the Russian government. It seems the Russian Paralympic athletes are being collectively punished as a means to punish the Russian government. ..."
"... Another fact is that this problem exists in many if not all countries, especially since professional athletics is big business. WADA data shows that many countries have significant numbers of doping violations. ..."
"... In contrast with the accusations, the scientific data prepared by WADA indicates that Russian athletes have a fairly low incidence of positive drug tests in international certified laboratories. The biggest question is whether the Russian government has been "sponsoring" or somehow supervising prohibited doping. This has been repeated many times and is now widely assumed to be true. ..."
"... But the evidence is far from compelling. The accusations are based primarily on the testimony of three people: the main culprit and mastermind Grigory Rodchenkov who was extorting athletes and "whistle-blowers" Vitaliy and Yuliya Stepanov. The Stepanovs were the star witnesses in the "60 Minutes" feature on this topic. ..."
"... The "60 Minutes" story also failed to include the important fact that Vitaliy was directly involved in his wife's doping. ..."
"... Vitaliy even helps his wife with doping, procures the drugs, leads a kind of double life. ..."
"... If the IPC final number is accurate, it means the committee confirmed 11 Paralympic athletes who tested positive between 2012 and 2015 but had their positive tests "disappeared" to allow these athletes to compete. If that's true, these athletes should be suspended or banned. Instead of doing that, the IPC banned the entire 267-member Russian Paralympic team. ..."
"... The McLaren Report looks like a rush to judgment. The report was launched after the sensational New York Times story based on Grigory Rodchenkov and the "60 Minutes" segment based on the Stepanovs. Before he was half way done his investigation, Richard McLaren was advising the IAAF to ban the entire Russian team. ..."
The West's anti-Russian bias is so strong that normal standards of fairness are cast aside whenever
a propaganda edge can be gained, a factor swirling around the treatment of Russian athletes at the
Rio Olympics, Rick Sterling says.
There is an ugly anti-Russian mood in various Rio Olympic venues. When the Russian swimmers entered
the pool for the 4Χ100-meter Freestyle team event, they were loudly booed. When the Russian team
barely lost third place, the announcer happily announced that Russian had been "kept off the medal
stand".
Last Sunday, it was announced that the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) had decided to
ban the entire Russian team from the upcoming Paralympics to be held in Rio in September. Next day,
The
Associated Press story opened as follows: "After escaping a blanket ban from the Olympics,
Russia was kicked out of the upcoming Paralympics on Sunday as the ultimate punishment for the state
running a doping operation that polluted sports by prioritizing 'medals over morals.'"
IPC President Sir Phillip Craven issued a
statement full of accusations and moral outrage. He said, "In my view, the McLaren Report
marked one of the darkest days in the history of all sport." However, the McLaren Report is deeply
biased. Here are some of the problems with the report:
It relied primarily on the testimony of one person, the former Director of Moscow Laboratory
Grigory Rodchenkov, who was implicated in extorting Russian athletes for money and was the chief
culprit with strong interest in casting blame somewhere else.
It accused Russian authorities without considering their defense and contrary information.
It excluded a written submission and documents provided by a Russian authority.
It failed to identify individual athletes who benefited but instead cast suspicion on the entire
team.
It ignored the statistical data compiled by WADA which show Russian violations to be NOT exceptional.
It did not provide the source for quantitative measurements.
It claimed to have evidence but failed to reveal it.
A detailed critique of the McLaren Report can be found at
Sports Integrity Initiative,
Consortiumnews, Counterpunch,
Dissident Voice, True Publica, Global Research, Telesur, and other sites.
Collective Punishment
The IPC explanation of why they banned the entire Paralympic team boils down to the accusation
that "the State-sponsored doping programme that exists within Russian sport regrettably
extends to Russian Para sport as well. The facts really do hurt; they are an unprecedented attack
on every clean athlete who competes in sport. The anti-doping system in Russia is broken, corrupted
and entirely compromised.
"The doping culture that is polluting Russian sport stems from the Russian government and has
now been uncovered in not one, but two independent reports commissioned by the World Anti-Doping
Agency. I believe the Russian government has catastrophically failed its Para athletes. Their medals
over morals mentality disgusts me. The complete corruption of the anti-doping system is contrary
to the rules and strikes at the very heart of the spirit of Paralympic sport."
These are strong words and accusations, not against the athletes, but against the Russian government.
It seems the Russian Paralympic athletes are being collectively punished as a means to punish the
Russian government.
But what are the facts? First, it's true some Russian athletes have used prohibited steroids or
other performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). The documentaries by
Hajo Seppelt expose examples of Russian athletes admitting to taking PEDs, a banned coach clandestinely continuing
to coach, and another banned coach dealing in prohibited drugs.
Another fact is that this problem exists in many if not all countries, especially since professional
athletics is big business.
WADA data shows that many countries have significant numbers of doping violations.
It is claimed that doping by elite athletes is pervasive in Russia but is this true? To answer
that accurately would require an objective examination, not a sensation seeking media report. In
the current controversy the accusations and assumptions rely substantially on individual anecdotes
and testimony which has been publicized through media reports (ARD documentaries, "60 Minutes" report
and New York Times stories) with very little scrutiny.
In contrast with the accusations, the scientific
data prepared by WADA indicates that Russian athletes have a fairly low incidence of positive
drug tests in international certified laboratories. The biggest question is whether the Russian government
has been "sponsoring" or somehow supervising prohibited doping. This has been repeated many times
and is now widely assumed to be true.
But the evidence is far from compelling. The accusations are based primarily on the testimony
of three people: the main culprit and mastermind Grigory Rodchenkov who was extorting athletes and
"whistle-blowers" Vitaliy and Yuliya Stepanov. The Stepanovs were the star witnesses in the "60 Minutes"
feature on this topic.
The report was factually flawed: it mistakenly reports that Vitaliy had a "low level job at the
Russian Anti Doping Agency RUSADA." Actually he was adviser to the Director General, close to the
Minister of Sports and a trainer of doping control officers.
The "60 Minutes" story also failed to include the important fact that Vitaliy was directly involved
in his wife's doping. According to Seppelt's documentary
"The Secrets of Doping,"
"First, Vitaliy even helps his wife with doping, procures the drugs, leads a kind of double life."(5:45)
Adding to the argument there may be a political bias in these accusations, all three witnesses (Rodchenkov
and the Stepanovs) are now living in the United States.
The "proof" of Russian state-sponsored doping rests on remarkably little solid evidence. The principal
assertion is that the Deputy Minister of Sports issued email directives to eliminate positive tests
of "protected" athletes. McLaren claims to have "electronic data" and emails proving this. But he
has not revealed the emails.
If the emails are authentic, that would be damning. How would the Ministry of Sports officials
explain it? Do they have any alternative explanation of the curious directives to "Quarantine" or
"Save" doping test samples? Astoundingly, McLaren decided not to ask them and he still has not shown
the evidence he says that he has.
Tampering with Bottles?
Another controversial issue is regarding the opening and replacement of "tamper proof" bottles.
The Rodchenkov account is that in the middle of the night, in cahoots with FSB (successor to KGB),
they would replace "dirty" urine with "clean" urine. Rodchenkov says they found a way to open the
tamper-proof urine sample bottles. But the
Swiss manufacturer Berlinger continues to stand by its product and has effectively challenged
the veracity of the Rodchenkov/McLaren story.
Since the release of the McLaren Report, Berlinger has issued a
statement saying:
To the statement in the McLaren investigation report that some such bottles proved possible to
open Berlinger Special AG cannot offer any authoritative response at the present time.
Berlinger Special AG has no knowledge at present of the specifications, the methods or the procedures
involved in the tests and experiments conducted by the McLaren Commission.
Berlinger Special AG conducts its own regular reappraisals of its doping kits, and also has its
products tested and verified by an independent institute that has been duly certificated by the Swiss
authorities.
In neither its own tests nor any tests conducted by the independent institute in Switzerland
has any sealed Berlinger Special AG urine sample bottle proved possible to open.
This also applies to the "Sochi 2014" sample bottle model.
The specialists at Berlinger Special AG are able at any time to determine whether one of the
company's sample bottles has been tampered with or unlawfully replicated.
McLaren says he does not know how the Russians were opening the bottles but he knows it can be
done because someone demonstrated it to him personally. In contrast with McLaren's assertions, Berlinger
states unequivocally: "In neither its own tests nor any tests conducted by the independent institute
in Switzerland has any sealed Berlinger Special AG urine sample bottle proved possible to open. This
also applies to the 'Sochi 2014' sample bottle model."
If McLaren's claims are true, why has he not discussed this with the manufacturer? If McLaren's
claims are true, isn't it of the highest importance to identify the weakness in the system so that
doping test samples cannot be swapped?
McLaren further claims to be able to forensically determine when a "tamper proof" bottle has been
opened by the "marks and scratches" on the inside of the bottle caps. His report does not include
photos to show what these "marks and scratches" look like, nor does it consider the possibility of
a mark or scratch resulting from some other event such as different force being applied, cross-threading
or backing off on the cap.
In this area also, McLaren has apparently not had his findings confirmed by the Swiss manufacturer
despite the fact that the company states: "The specialists at Berlinger Special AG are able at any
time to determine whether one of the company's sample bottles has been tampered with or unlawfully
replicated."
If the findings of McLaren's "marks and scratches expert" are accurate, why did they not get confirmation
from the specialists at Berlinger? Perhaps it is because Berlinger disputes McLaren's claims and
says "Our kits are secure."
The IPC decision substantially rests on the fact-challenged McLaren report. The IPC statement
falsely claims that the McLaren bottle top "scratches and marks" expert has "corroborated the claim
that the State directed scheme involved Russian Paralympic athletes."
Rush to Judgment
The IPC report includes data that purports to show widespread doping manipulation in Russia, saying:
"Professor McLaren provided the names of the athletes associated with the 35 samples and whether
the sample had been marked QUARANTINE or SAVE." These 35 samples are presumably the same Paralympic
35 which are identified on page 41 of the McLaren Report as being "Disappearing Positive Test Results
by Sport Russian Athletes."
There is no source for this data but supposedly it covers testing between 2012 and 2015. McLaren
provided another 10 samples thus making 45 samples relating to 44 athletes.
It is then explained that 17 of these samples are actually not from IPC administered sport. So
the actual number is 27 athletes (44-minus-17) implicated. However, in another inconsistency, the
IPC statement says not all these samples were marked "SAVE" by Moscow Laboratory. That was only done
for "at least" 11 of the samples and athletes.
If the IPC final number is accurate, it means the committee confirmed 11 Paralympic athletes who
tested positive between 2012 and 2015 but had their positive tests "disappeared" to allow these athletes
to compete. If that's true, these athletes should be suspended or banned. Instead of doing that,
the IPC banned the entire 267-member Russian Paralympic team.
The McLaren Report looks like a rush to judgment. The report was launched after the sensational
New York Times story based on Grigory Rodchenkov and the "60 Minutes" segment based on the Stepanovs.
Before he was half way done his investigation, Richard McLaren was advising the IAAF to ban the entire
Russian team.
The McLaren Report, with all its flaws and shortcomings, was published just a few weeks ago on
July 16. Then, on Aug. 7, the IPC issued its decision to ban the Russian Paralympic Team from the
September Rio Paralympics.
The IPC statement claims that the committee "provided sufficient time to allow the Russian Paralympic
Committee to present their case to the IPC" before they finalized the decision. While the Russian
Paralympic Committee appeared before the IPC, it's doubtful they had sufficient time to argue their
case or even to know the details of the accusations.
In summary, the accusation of Russian "state sponsored doping" by McLaren and Craven is based
on little solid evidence. Despite this, the accusations have resulted in the banning of many hundreds
of clean athletes from the Olympics and Paralympics and are contributing to the ugly "ant-Russian"
prejudice and discrimination happening at the Olympics right now.
This seems to violate the purpose of the
Olympics movement which is to promote international peace, not conflict and discrimination.
Rick Sterling is an investigative journalist. He can be contacted at [email protected]
Downing Street-controlled BBC disapproves the thawing of relations between Russia and Turkey.
Russia and Turkey: An 'alliance of misfits'?
It was a gesture that ended a crisis. The leaders of Russia and Turkey met on Tuesday to
shake hands and declare a formal end to an eight-month long war of words and economic sanctions.
"... The only phrase that I've heard that sticks in my mind and think that is important was that before the talks, Russian official sources said there would be a "step-by-step" reduction of sanctions against Turkey. ..."
"... As others have pointed out, Erdogan from being the principle backer of Jihadis in Syria (save Saudi Arabia and the UAE), needs to somehow cover his own back as the Jihadis will come for him. Not that I am sympathetic, but not black and white. ..."
I don't know what to make of the InSultin' Erdogan and Pootie Poot meet. There's been BS called
from both sides, from swapping the West for Russia to Russia not gaining anything.
The only phrase that I've heard that sticks in my mind and think that is important was that
before the talks, Russian official sources said there would be a "step-by-step" reduction of sanctions
against Turkey. Now excuse me if I don't understand english properly, but such a phrase implies
that one side (in this case Russia), takes the first step and lifts in part or limited sanctions
against Turkey. Then it is for Turkey to reciprocate some way. Then Russia lifts another 'step'
etc. etc.
Some anal-ists have been crawing that " Russia done got no-thing *" and that Russia
was economically desperate to renew trade relations with Turkey, and you have to wonder what else
they have been smoking.
As others have pointed out, Erdogan from being the principle backer of Jihadis in Syria (save
Saudi Arabia and the UAE), needs to somehow cover his own back as the Jihadis will come for him.
Not that I am sympathetic, but not black and white.
Canada: The 'former' politeness capital of the world. Canadian politicians, making political mischief
in order to gain electoral capital with the Ukrainian diaspora (who made Canada what it is dontcha
know), have turned the country into a camp of morally offended Russophobes. I often wonder how
they got away with this as the 'average Canadian' has no real reason to adopt these sentiments,
let alone put them on display. It might be that they (our politicians) are using our sense of
'politeness', (referring to a generally believed Canadian pretense toward 'justice in social relations')
against us.
If you told Canadians they have to send their sons and daughters to Afghanistan to protect
Western (American) geopolitical dominance and business interests they would mostly tell you to
go to perdition. So just tell them it's so Afghan girls can go to school and they'll agree to
that, even happy to oblige.
And there is no choice in the matter. Where I live in Etobicoke I had to chose between two
candidates. The Tory came to my door telling me that V. Putin was the biggest evil facing us today."Of
course you believe that Ted", I told him, "you wouldn't last longer than a spit bubble in your
caucus if you didn't, but I know you are spouting warmongering drivel."
The liberal came talking junk ( like liberals do) about our mutual respect for sentiments of
goodwill and after he's elected I see him grinning like a hamster on Demerol standing with Andriy
Parubiy and Nadiya Savchenko as his new best friends.
Nice one Boris. You couldn't resist your 'inner Pole' from getting the better of you. I guess
even Neo-Nazis can have a 'goodwill ambassador'.
So Canadians have been lured into believing that their frontier forged community ethics, (it
was a northern frontier by the way, not a western one) compels them to call out the no-so-nice
actors (Russians in this case) that are doing the wrong things. Except in our case we're behaving
in the wrong way because we willingly believe the wrong things.
The problems is with Olympic sport as whole. It became too politicized to be of value. The achievements
displayed by athletes now are such that you suspect systematic doping program to be mainstream and revelations
about individual athletes doping are just the tip of the iceberg. It might be a time to replace Olympic
games with something else.
Notable quotes:
"... "It's something not usually heard at the Olympic Games. Booing. Loud, sustained booing. The rain of fury is directed at a common enemy: Russian athletes. The contingent, clouded and shrouded by drug scandal, has quickly emerged as the villains of these Rio 2016 Games. Like Cold War days of old, the Russians are once again the global bad guys. ..."
"... After avoiding a full Olympic ban, some wondered how fans and fellow athletes would treat Russian athletes. That answer came quickly. At the opening ceremony, even athletes from pariah nations were given polite applause. But fans interrupted the global Kumbya moment to let the Russians know their presence wasn't welcome." ..."
"... " It's kind of sad that today in sports in general, not just in swimming, there are people who are testing positive and are allowed back in the sport, and multiple times. I think it just breaks what sport is meant to be and that pisses me off." ..."
"... "We in Australia have been less than impressed with the efforts in America, and if you were to do a survey of the athletes, they'll tell you the country that's the major problem." ..."
"... "They came to me and asked me to participate in a project in which they wanted to give athletes what they called ATP injections that's aginicent triphosphate. That's the fuel that muscle cells actually operate on and I refused on the basis that i thought it was unethical to give people things in a non-medical fashion for non-treatment, but just to see if it would help performance. I also thought that even if that substance wasn't directly named or on the IOC list, that it was at least aimed in the direction of doping." ..."
"... "They've got the facilities, they've got the research, they've got the motivation to be using drugs across the board in many different sports." ..."
"... Sports Illustrated ..."
"... The Orange County Register ..."
"... "The World Anti-Doping Agency steered the Stepanovs to a reporter at the German television network ARD. Their tapes became the centerpiece of this documentary which aired in December 2014 and sent shockwaves through the world of sports." ..."
"... "The report released Monday was the result of a 10-month investigation by an independent commission of WADA. Its inquiry stemmed from a December 2014 documentary by the German public broadcaster ARD , which drew on accounts from Russian athletes, coaches and antidoping officials, who said that the Russian government had helped procure drugs for athletes and cover up positive test results." ..."
"... "Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the director of the Moscow lab whom Monday's report accused of having solicited and accepted bribes, dismissed the suggestions. "This is an independent commission which only issues recommendations," he said. "There are three fools sitting there who don't understand the laboratory." ..."
"... "Conte, who spent four months in prison for his role in the affair, said he has offered to provide expert insights to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), only to be turned down. "I've made myself available, put forward names, addresses, websites, protocols but you know what they told me? That we can't trust someone who's been sentenced ," he added." ..."
"... Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian president Vladimir Putin, said Tuesday that "as long as there is no evidence [of state-sponsored doping in Russia], it is difficult to consider the accusations, which appear rather unfounded." How do you respond to that? ..."
"... That doesn't surprise me. He and others have said that before. But I would expect that won't be the same refrain by the end of the week once they have a chance to study the report. When you draw the connections across the board about what's going on, you can't just say this is just a few isolated people or some of the old coaches dictating out of the Soviet era and nobody else. ..."
"... Dmitry's correct. We don't have any evidence of a systematic, state-wide doping mechanism. If we did, we would have published it and so we have to go on the inference. But across a vast country [with] all sorts of different training camps, it has to be somehow state supported but we can't actually describe for you how that operates. We can only draw the inference. We've given them a chance to reform, so why don't you reform and join the rest of the world instead of fighting it. ..."
"... " The IP did not seek to interview persons living in the Russian Federation . I did not seek to meet with Russian government officials and did not think it necessary " ..."
"... on no grounds but their nationality ..."
"... "Additionally, no reliance can be made on the McLaren Report as evidence, as it is not complete, it has secret parts that were not shared with or available to the Athlete and there was no date of the sample taking in the information provided by Mr. McLaren." ..."
"... "FISA applied the criterion and was satisfied that the Athlete was 'clearly implicated' by the McLaren Report and was therefore excluded from the Rio Games." ..."
"... "Additionally, Mr. McLaren, in his amicus curiae, while not providing the emails on grounds of confidentiality, revealed to the Panel the exact date and times of the message from the Moscow laboratory that the screen of the Athlete's A sample revealed positive for the prohibited substance GW 1516 and the response from the Deputy Minister to change the positive into a negative, following the DPM. While these additional details were not before FISA (primarily due to the lack of time) they have been considered by the Panel in this de novo procedure". ..."
"... "I have to respect (the track authorities') decision even if it is something I don't necessarily agree with," King said. "No, do I think people who have been caught doping should be on the team? They shouldn't. It is unfortunate we have to see that. ..."
"... "In the United States, it is a matter of law. If you are not under a ban, regardless of what you may have served in the past, you are fully eligible to be on the team." ..."
"... "For one, a blanket ban on Russian athletes would likely have been derailed by numerous legal hurdles. The Court of Arbitration for Sport, among others, would likely overturn a universal ban that included athletes who haven't been implicated in doping. ..."
"... "We were mindful of the need for justice for clean athletes," IOC vice-president John Coates told reporters. "We did not want to penalize athletes who are clean with a collective ban and, therefore, keeping them out of the Games." ..."
According to the CBC the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a Crown corporation and the official
voice of the nation Russian athletes are "emerging
as the villains of the Rio Olympics". And maybe it's just me, but the tone seems approving, self-righteous judgy.
As if the official mouthpiece of Canada is delighted to sign on to the Get Russia program offered
by its southern neighbour and business partner to all its toadies and would-be chambermaids.
In a word, this is disappointing. I used that word because I didn't want to start swearing so
early, although I'm sure we'll get to it.
Just so we're clear whose interests does it serve for Canada to enthusiastically sign on to
booing and hooting like howler monkeys whenever Russian athletes step up to compete, like we were
English football hooligans? Canada's? How?
In fact, as everyone who is not thick as a BC pine knows, it serves Washington's interests, because
the USA wants Russia isolated and alone and friendless because it is pissed off at it for other things,
and the more disrespect and ignorance and rudeness it gets from the former politeness capital of
the world, the better Uncle Sam likes it. WADA is going after every medal Russia ever won, and it
is not even looking at anyone else. And that entire effort rests on the credibility of two people;
one who was convicted of doping herself and barred from competition for two years for it, and her
husband who knew and did nothing about it while he worked for the national anti-doping agency.
We'll get to that.
"It's something not usually heard at the Olympic Games. Booing. Loud, sustained booing. The
rain of fury is directed at a common enemy: Russian athletes. The contingent, clouded and shrouded
by drug scandal, has quickly emerged as the villains of these Rio 2016 Games. Like Cold War days
of old, the Russians are once again the global bad guys.
After avoiding a full Olympic ban, some wondered how fans and fellow athletes would treat
Russian athletes. That answer came quickly. At the opening ceremony, even athletes from pariah nations
were given polite applause. But fans interrupted the global Kumbya moment to let the Russians know
their presence wasn't welcome."
Disappointing. Disappointing to see how easy it is to get people who probably are reasonably nice
under ordinary circumstances to get on board with the mob mentality, because it's kind of fun. Why
is the western audience (because that's who it is, mostly the North Americans, the Australians
and the English) booing the Russians? Because the whole nation is implicated in a doping scandal.
Is that all it takes to make otherwise-sensible people make one-syllable sounds of disapproval
simultaneously, in a deliberately-insulting fashion? Good. Let's hear a long, sustained 'boooooo .."
for the cheatingest nation on the planet the United States of America.
Worldly-wise 19-year-old American 100-meter backstroke champion Lilly
King unloaded on silver-medalist Russian Yulia Efimova,
calling her a drug cheat and sounding off to reporters that the 'twice-banned' Russian athlete
should not be allowed at the games; Efimova was booed by the crowd every time she appeared on the
pool deck. World-class jackass Michael Phelps, American team leader, went further as he applauded
King's rudeness; " It's kind of sad that today in sports in general, not just in swimming, there
are people who are testing positive and are allowed back in the sport, and multiple times. I think
it just breaks what sport is meant to be and that pisses me off."
That so, Michael? All about self-discipline, are you? Did you learn
that
in rehab? "I honestly didn't care about my training" leading up to the 2012 London Olympics;
wasn't that you? Is that what sport is meant to be? Isn't this you, with
a bong in your face? What's up with that, voice of clean sports?
While we're having this heart-to-heart, Michael, let me tell you what
pisses me off. Hypocrisy.
Before the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney even started, Dr. Wade Exum
former director of the US Olympic Committee's (USCOC) drug-testing program announced that
more than half of all US
athletes caught doping prior to the Atlanta games (1996) suffered no penalty whatever and were
permitted to compete at those games, where some of them won medals. At the time, ally Australia's
opinion of America's drug-testing efforts was decidedly negative.
"We in Australia have been less than impressed with the efforts
in America, and if you were to do a survey of the athletes, they'll tell you the country that's the
major problem."
And let me tell you this that same country is still the
major problem. It has hit upon the novel approach that rather than control the athletes and what
they are taking, you control the testing process and develop performance enhancements which are ever
harder to detect. Within months of Exum's joining USOC in 1991, the organization came to him with
a proposal to trial a new injection 'just to see if it enhances performance'.
"They came to me and asked me to participate in a project in which
they wanted to give athletes what they called ATP injections that's aginicent triphosphate. That's
the fuel that muscle cells actually operate on and I refused on the basis that i thought it was unethical
to give people things in a non-medical fashion for non-treatment, but just to see if it would help
performance. I also thought that even if that substance wasn't directly named or on the IOC list,
that it was at least aimed in the direction of doping."
Other Australians were less circumspect in their criticism. Sean Murphy,
chair of the Australian Olympic Committee at the time, said, "They've got the facilities, they've
got the research, they've got the motivation to be using drugs across the board in many different
sports."
There was no World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) then; it was founded by
Dick Pound in 1999 and he served as president until 2007. But WADA and Dick Pound were certainly
around in 2003, when Exum
released more than 30,000 pages of documents to Sports Illustrated and The Orange
County Register, documents which proved beyond doubt that American athletes and champions such
as Carl Lewis and Mary Jo Fernandez tested positive for banned substances in American screening but
were allowed to compete anyway. USOC called Exum's accusations 'baseless'. Were they? Evidently not
here's Carl Lewis's reaction:
So
I was doping, who cares?
That's the accused, ladies and gentleman. It sounds awfully like a
confession to me. What does that mean? That the United States Olympic Committee was comprised of
and headed by liars, whose word on anything to do with the clean performance of American athletes
was not and is not to be trusted. It also screams "State-sponsored doping program" in chrome letters
18 feet high; USOC is the national authority for Olympic sport, and of the top ten doping scandals
of all time in Track and Field,
six are Americans.
Can anybody tell me the last time the United States did not send a
team to the Olympics because it was awarded a blanket ban for doping? That's right never. Nor has
any identifiable component of its team, such as Track and Field, been banned from competition, despite
ample evidence of doping which was covered up by American sports organizations and its Olympic Commission.
But Mr. Clean, Dick Pound, was adamant that Russia be banned completely from competition at Rio,
and was vocal in his disappointment that only the Track and Field team was denied the opportunity
to compete, including world champion gold medalist Yelena Isinbayeva, who has never, ever failed
a drug test conducted by any authority. What a disgrace. But Dick Pound was one of the three members
of the 'Independent Commission' appointed to investigate Russia's alleged state-sponsored doping
program.
Let's go back to the Sydney Games, 2000. That event was dogged by allegations
that American athletes had used performance-enhancing drugs to win medals. Rubbish, said USOC. An
investigation was ordered. Enter Professor Richard McLaren, who headed the probe
Boom.
The BALCO Scandal hit,
three years later. The Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative, headed by Victor Conte, whipped up performance
cocktails for American athletes. He admitted to it, and implicated dozens of athletes. Perhaps the
most well-known was Marion Jones, who won 5 medals at the Sydney Olympics, 3 of them gold. Marion
Jones vehemently denied any involvement with drugs, and sued Conte for defamation. Not until 2007
did she finally admit tearfully that it was all true, and was awarded 6 months in jail for lying
to federal investigators, as well as being stripped of her medals. Regina Jacobs was also netted,
and awarded a 4-year suspension from competition; the same year the BALCO scandal broke, she set
a world record in the indoor 1500 meter. Alvin Harrison, who won a gold and a silver for the USA
at the Sydney Olympics; he was not stripped of any medals until 2008, when a teammate admitted he
had used performance-enhancing drugs. Michelle Collins, the 2003 world-record holder for the 200-meter
indoor sprint. She was banned from competition for 8 years, threatened to take the United States
Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) to court, and they backed down and cut her suspension to 4 years. The
current head of USADA is the alliteratively-named Travis T. Tygart, who bayed like a hound for a
Russian national ban at Rio. 'Cause, you know, enough is enough.
Kevin Toth, a US shot-putter who was United States Track and Field
(USATF)
Athlete of the Week in April that same year; he got a 2-year suspension. John McEwen, 2-year
suspension. Dwain Chambers, a British sprinter think word got around about the USA's new line of
undetectable performance enhancers? He was the top European performer at his Olympic debut at you
guessed it the Sydney Olympics; 2-year suspension. Calvin Harrison, identical twin brother of the
previously-named Alvin Harrison, gold medalist at Sydney in the 4oo-meter relay 2-year suspension.
We could go on with this for quite a while, but I think you get the point.
Here's what I bet you didn't get, though. Professor McLaren's investigation
did not catch any of those people. They were all exposed by the BALCO scandal and press releases
like those generated by Exum. McLaren's investigation wrapped up in 2001, and a year after that USATF
was still
suppressing the case files and refusing to reveal the name of an American athlete who had been
cleared to compete at the Sydney Olympics and had won a medal for the USA. USATF defied an order
and threats of de-registration from IOC president Dr. Jacques Rogge. What was done about it? Fuck
all, as you probably knew.
Professor McLaren was the public voice of the 'Independent Commission'
that recommended a complete national ban for Russia at Rio. The third member was Gunter Younger,
a former head of a Bavarian cybercrime division, who was just appointed as
WADA's new head of Intelligence and Investigations this past June. Younger headed the actual
investigation into Russian doping, and was 'given a free hand' by Dick Pound to use the covert recordings
from the German television ARD documentary which initially broke the story of Russian doping.
Well, sort of. Actually ARD was steered onto the story by WADA, who
had acquired the services of the whistle-blowing Stepaonovs, Yulia (nee Rusanova), a doper athlete
and her urine-testing husband with the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA). WADA told Valery Stepanov
that it did not have the power to investigate inside Russia. So WADA
steered the Stepanovs to ARD with their story, which was released as a documentary and which
WADA then pounced on as evidence of 'a culture of cheating'.
"The World Anti-Doping Agency steered the Stepanovs to a reporter
at the German television network ARD. Their tapes became the centerpiece of this documentary which
aired in December 2014 and sent shockwaves through the world of sports."
"The report released Monday was the result of a 10-month investigation
by an independent commission of WADA. Its inquiry stemmed from a December 2014 documentary
by the German public broadcaster ARD, which drew on accounts from Russian athletes, coaches
and antidoping officials, who said that the Russian government had helped procure drugs for athletes
and cover up positive test results."
But WADA considers the Stepanovs 100% credible. It has to that's
the only evidence it has. Grigory Rodchenkov, the former director of the Moscow laboratory, was not
always on board, and as recently as November 2015 described the Independent Commission as 'three
fools'.
"Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, the director of the Moscow lab whom Monday's
report accused of having solicited and accepted bribes, dismissed the suggestions. "This is an independent
commission which only issues recommendations," he said. "There are three fools sitting there who
don't understand the laboratory."
Yet only months later he was in the WADA camp and singing like a canary.
Perhaps the revelation that Vitaly Stepanov recorded 15 hours of their conversations without his
knowledge inspired a conversion. Oddly enough, that is generally illegal in Canada, and cannot be
used as evidence except in exceptional circumstances. There is a blanket exemption, though, for consent,
and this is implied if the person making the recording is a party to the conversation. Still, it
kind of makes Rodchenkov sound like the kind of guy who will say anything. Just to give you an idea
how ridiculous that is, Victor Conte the executive in charge of BALCO offered after the scandal
broke to act as an expert assistant to WADA (probably as an effort to plea-bargain; he served four
months in prison).
"Conte, who spent four months in prison for his role in the affair, said he has offered to
provide expert insights to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), only to be turned down. "I've made
myself available, put forward names, addresses, websites, protocols but you know what they told
me? That we can't trust someone who's been sentenced," he added."
But they can trust someone who just got through saying the Investigative Commissioners were three
fools who don't have any power to do anything and don't know what the fuck they're talking about,
when he suddenly says, Yesiree, boss, it was exactly like you said. I'm a crook. And you know who
else is a crook? The whole Russian government. Uh huh.
Which brings me to my favourite part the legal implications. The McLaren Report is careful not
to name names for public consumption, because WADA fears getting sued by individuals. As well it
might. So McLaren prefers to leave the oomph of his report to a statement that it proves there is
a state sponsored doping program in Russia which is known and countenanced by the highest levels
of government. And he's said that, on a number of occasions, and the press has dutifully repeated
it. It's basically the most damaging finding of the McLaren Report.
Which is why it would be odd for him to say that WADA has no evidence of a state-sponsored doping
program.
Like he did here, after the report came out.
CBCSports.ca: Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian president Vladimir Putin,
said Tuesday that "as long as there is no evidence [of state-sponsored doping in Russia], it is difficult
to consider the accusations, which appear rather unfounded." How do you respond to that?
McLaren:That doesn't surprise me. He and others have said that before. But
I would expect that won't be the same refrain by the end of the week once they have a chance to study
the report. When you draw the connections across the board about what's going on, you can't just
say this is just a few isolated people or some of the old coaches dictating out of the Soviet era
and nobody else.
Dmitry's correct. We don't have any evidence of a systematic, state-wide doping mechanism.
If we did, we would have published it and so we have to go on the inference. But across
a vast country [with] all sorts of different training camps, it has to be somehow state supported
but we can't actually describe for you how that operates. We can only draw the inference. We've given
them a chance to reform, so why don't you reform and join the rest of the world instead of fighting
it.
The 'Independent Commission'
did
not question or interview any Russian athletes or officials except for the Stepanovs and Grigory
Rodchenkov. " The IP did not seek to interview persons living in the Russian Federation . I
did not seek to meet with Russian government officials and did not think it necessary "
And, you see, that's a problem. Because athletes on the Track and Field team who have never failed
a drug test were banned, by association, from competing, on no grounds but their nationality.
Others were banned in highly ambiguous circumstances, just because their names appeared in McLaren's
testimony. Like Russian rower Ivan Balandin, whose appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS)
is featured
here.
The whole case is worth reading, as there are many juicy bits, but the upshot was his appeal was
rejected on the grounds that he had made out he was unfairly denied the chance to compete because
the McLaren Report fingered him for doping, which was not the case he was fingered as 'ineligible'
because one of his samples had allegedly tested positive, except McLaren did not even know when the
test was allegedly administered, that information helpfully being provided by the UK, the second-most-Russophobic
of the western countries. I'm damned if I can see the difference, but I'm not a lawyer. Anyway, I'd
just like to draw your attention to page 7, where we read,
"Additionally, no reliance can be made on the McLaren Report as evidence, as it is not complete,
it has secret parts that were not shared with or available to the Athlete and there was no date of
the sample taking in the information provided by Mr. McLaren."
But on the same page, it reports, "FISA applied the criterion and was satisfied that the Athlete
was 'clearly implicated' by the McLaren Report and was therefore excluded from the Rio Games."
Wha wha what??? The reference which did not meet evidentiary standards was relied upon in the decision?
Oh, dear; on Page 11 "Additionally, Mr. McLaren, in his amicus curiae, while not providing
the emails on grounds of confidentiality, revealed to the Panel the exact date and times of the message
from the Moscow laboratory that the screen of the Athlete's A sample revealed positive for the prohibited
substance GW 1516 and the response from the Deputy Minister to change the positive into a negative,
following the DPM. While these additional details were not before FISA (primarily due to the lack
of time) they have been considered by the Panel in this de novo procedure".
FISA and the Panel both made decisions based on evidence furnished by McLaren that they never
examined or even saw. There just wasn't time. McLaren's report provides the evidence of a state-run
doping program, except he doesn't have any evidence of that and says so, although he does and it's
secret and he hasn't shown it to anyone.
Bullshit. From start to finish. No western athlete would have to put up with a ban on competition
just because he or she was American or Canadian or Dutch, and he or she would damned sure not be
told to accept a ban where he or she had not even seen the evidence against him or her because it
was secret.
Which brings us back to the hooting and booing like the audience at a taping of the Arsenio Hall
Show. On the occasion of Ms. King flipping out on Ms. Efimova, some reports of the incident recount
the rest of the conversation in which the reporter asked Ms. King if she thought American doper
athletes like Justin Gatlin and Tyson Gay should be allowed to compete. To her credit, she didn't
flinch, and said
absolutely not.
"I have to respect (the track authorities') decision even if it is something I don't necessarily
agree with," King said. "No, do I think people who have been caught doping should be on the team?
They shouldn't. It is unfortunate we have to see that.
"In the United States, it is a matter of law. If you are not under a ban, regardless of what
you may have served in the past, you are fully eligible to be on the team."
Which describes Ms. Efimova's circumstances to a 'T'. What would be the American response to an
Olympics audience which booed loudly every time Gay or Gatlin took the field? Low-class? You bet.
"For one, a blanket ban on Russian athletes would likely have been derailed by numerous legal
hurdles. The Court of Arbitration for Sport, among others, would likely overturn a universal ban
that included athletes who haven't been implicated in doping.
"We were mindful of the need for justice for clean athletes," IOC vice-president John Coates
told reporters. "We did not want to penalize athletes who are clean with a collective ban and, therefore,
keeping them out of the Games."
Totally oblivious to fairness, apparently, are the Olympic crowds booing like a bunch of fourth-graders,
and getting across the message so helpful to Washington that 'you Russian cheaters are not welcome
here', fattened on non-stop propaganda from the world's biggest cheater and seasoned by the McLaren
Report which proves Russia has a state culture of cheating, except it doesn't.
WADA argued for a total ban. Travis Tygart of USADA argued for a total ban, because it would likely
mean more medals for Americans. Neither of them gives a tin weasel whether it would be legal or not.
Because that's the way things are done now you just smash ahead by brute force and momentum, and
hope that everyone mistakes action for justification.
And that's what you're cheering for when you boo the Russians. I'm ashamed of you.
There will be a price exacted for this later. I will be surprised if Russia does not take WADA
to court, and even if it does not, the angry split between WADA and the IOC is evident. The McLaren
Report does not prove anything it purports to prove, and it will not stand up to a challenge. At
a minimum, WADA should be moved out of Canada to the USA, whose policies and interests it serves,
depriving that country of an opportunity to internationalize its own initiatives.
"... "The larger conclusion from the data is that the Trump campaign - both through the support Trump generates among working-class whites and the opposition he generates among better educated, more affluent voters - has accelerated the ongoing transformation of the Democratic Party. ..."
"... Once a class-based coalition, the party has become an alliance between upscale well-educated whites and, importantly, ethnic and racial minorities, many of them low income" ..."
"Democrats' Tactic of Accusing Critics of Kremlin Allegiance Has Long, Ugly History in U.S." [The
Intercept].
The party left me
"The larger conclusion from the data is that the Trump campaign - both through the support
Trump generates among working-class whites and the opposition he generates among better educated,
more affluent voters - has accelerated the ongoing transformation of the Democratic Party.
Once a
class-based coalition, the party has become an alliance between upscale well-educated whites and,
importantly, ethnic and racial minorities, many of them low income"
High level military commanders are more politicians then commanders. And if they belong to
neocons this is a dangerous and potentially explosive combination. Especially if State
Department is fully aligned with Pentagon, like happened under Secretary Clinton tenure.
Notable quotes:
"... He had exaggerated Russian activities in eastern Ukraine with the overt goal of delivering weapons to Kiev. ..."
"... "I think POTUS sees us as a threat that must be minimized,... ie do not get me into a war????" Breedlove wrote in one email, using the acronym for the president of the United States. How could Obama be persuaded to be more "engaged" in the conflict in Ukraine -- read: deliver weapons -- Breedlove had asked former Secretary of State Colin Powell. ..."
"... Breedlove sought counsel from some very prominent people, his emails show. Among them were Wesley Clark, Breedlove's predecessor at NATO, Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs at the State Department, and Geoffrey Pyatt, the US ambassador to Kiev. ..."
"... One name that kept popping up was Phillip Karber, an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University in Washington DC and president of the Potomac Foundation, a conservative think tank founded by the former defense contractor BDM. By its own account, the foundation has helped eastern European countries prepare their accession into NATO. Now the Ukrainian parliament and the government in Kiev were asking Karber for help. ..."
"... According to the email, Pakistan had offered, "under the table," to sell Ukraine 500 portable TOW-II launchers and 8,000 TOW-II missiles. The deliveries could begin within two weeks. Even the Poles were willing to start sending "well maintained T-72 tanks, plus several hundred SP 122mm guns, and SP-122 howitzers (along with copious amounts of artillery ammunition for both)" that they had leftover from the Soviet era. The sales would likely go unnoticed, Karber said, because Poland's old weapons were "virtually undistinguishable from those of Ukraine." ..."
"... Karber noted, however, that Pakistan and Poland would not make any deliveries without informal US approval. Furthermore, Warsaw would only be willing to help if its deliveries to Kiev were replaced with new, state-of-the-art weapons from NATO. Karber concluded his letter with a warning: "Time has run out." Without immediate assistance, the Ukrainian army "could face prospect of collapse within 30 days." ..."
"... In March, Karber traveled again to Warsaw in order to, as he told Breedlove, consult with leading members of the ruling party, on the need to "quietly supply arty ( eds: artillery ) and antitank munitions to Ukraine." ..."
"... In an email to Breedlove, Clark described defense expert Karber as "brilliant." After a first visit, Breedlove indicated he had also been impressed. "GREAT visit," he wrote. Karber, an extremely enterprising man, appeared at first glance to be a valuable informant because he often -- at least a dozen times by his own account -- traveled to the front and spoke with Ukrainian commanders. The US embassy in Kiev also relied on Karber for information because it lacked its own sources. "We're largely blind," the embassy's defense attachι wrote in an email. ..."
"... At times, Karber's missives read like prose. In one, he wrote about the 2014 Christmas celebrations he had spent together with Dnipro-1, the ultranationalist volunteer battalion. "The toasts and vodka flow, the women sing the Ukrainian national anthem -- no one has a dry eye." ..."
"... Karber had only good things to report about the unit, which had already been discredited as a private oligarch army. He wrote that the staff and volunteers were dominated by middle class people and that there was a large professional staff that was even "working on the holiday." Breedlove responded that these insights were "quietly finding their way into the right places." ..."
"... In fact, Karber is a highly controversial figure. During the 1980s, the longtime BDM employee, was counted among the fiercest Cold War hawks. Back in 1985, he warned of an impending Soviet attack on the basis of documents he had translated incorrectly. ..."
"... He also blundered during the Ukraine crisis after sending photos to US Senator James Inhofe, claiming to show Russian units in Ukraine. Inhofe released the photos publicly, but it quickly emerged that one had originated from the 2008 war in Georgia. ..."
"... The reasons that Breedlove continued to rely on Karber despite such false reports remain unclear. Was he willing to pay any price for weapons deliveries? Or did he have other motives? The emails illustrate the degree to which Breedlove and his fellow campaigners feared that Congress might reduce the number of US troops in Europe. ..."
"... General Breedlove's departure from his NATO post in May has done little to placate anyone in the German government. After all, the man Breedlove regarded as an obstacle, President Obama, is nearing the end of his second term. His possible successor, the Democrat Hillary Clinton, is considered a hardliner vis-a-vis Russia. ..."
"... What's more: Nuland, a diplomat who shares many of the same views as Breedlove, could move into an even more important role after the November election -- she's considered a potential candidate for secretary of state. ..."
"... The now famous and appropriate quote from President Eisenhower: ..."
"... In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. ..."
"... The idea of NATO as a defence organisation, following the 2nd World War was quite rational. The history of this organisation however, has shown, how a well meant intention can be misused to force through policies, which have nothing to do with the original purpose. Currently it would appear to have no other role, than to provide high ranking army officers with well paid employment, which can only be justified by way of international conflicts. In the absence of conflict, NATO would have no other cause for existence. ..."
"... The Cold War continues, only the enemy is not the Soviet Union but Russia. Ever since the war against Napoleon Russia has emerged as a threat to certain European interests, at first liberal and nationalist interests. After the Bolshevik Revolution the enemy was still Russia, now revitalized with extreme Bolshevik ideology. Hitler used this effectively to target liberals, leftists and especially Jews. ..."
"... After the fall of Communism nothing has really changed. The West is still urged to resist the Russian threat, a threat invented by Polish, Baltic, and Ukrainian nationalists and perhaps Fascists. Donald Trump alone seems impervious to this propaganda. Let's at least give him credit in this case, if not in many others. NATO has become a permanent anti-Russian phony alliance, financed by America. ..."
"... These people are hell-bent to bring the world to the brink of war, with lies and excuses about fear of Russian attacks. So Poland was willing to step into the conflict with Ukraine and deliver lethal armament? All the while afraid of Russia invading it? ..."
"... Philip Breedlove is a war monger and should be fired from his position. The efforts of the group around him seeking to secure weapons for the Ukraine to intensify the conflict must have happened with Breedlove's knowledge and support. If not, then he is not capable to meet the demands of his job and should be dismissed for incompetence. Either way, this guy is unacceptable. ..."
"... Ms. Nuland is the same us official recorded by Russian intelligence trying to manipulate events in Ukraine before the overthrow of the president and all the tragic events that followed. That she is still working for US state dept. is puzzling to say the least. ..."
"... Very simple, he is attempting to INVENT a NEW ROLE for NATO, as it is well known in the domain of sociology: any organization strives for survival, especially when it becomes OBSOLETE. ..."
"... nato Breedhate? ..."
"... SPON was always parotting him. And SPON member Benjamin Bidder and many other SPON guys were foaming at the mouth with war rhetoric all the time in 2014-15. Shame on those fools. Finally, with this contribution you are approaching your real job. And this is to distribute information instead of propaganda. ..."
The newly leaked emails reveal a clandestine network of Western agitators around the NATO military
chief, whose presence fueled the conflict in Ukraine. Many allies found in Breedlove's alarmist public
statements about alleged large Russian troop movements cause for concern early on. Earlier this year,
the general was assuring the world that US European Command was "deterring Russia now and preparing
to fight and win if necessary."
The emails document for the first time the questionable sources from whom Breedlove was getting
his information. He had exaggerated Russian activities in eastern Ukraine with the overt goal of
delivering weapons to Kiev.
The general and his likeminded colleagues perceived US President Barack Obama, the commander-in-chief
of all American forces, as well as German Chancellor Angela Merkel as obstacles. Obama and Merkel
were being "politically naive & counter-productive" in their calls for de-escalation, according to
Phillip Karber, a central figure in Breedlove's network who was feeding information from Ukraine
to the general.
"I think POTUS sees us as a threat that must be minimized,... ie do not get me into a war????"
Breedlove wrote in one email, using the acronym for the president of the United States. How could
Obama be persuaded to be more "engaged" in the conflict in Ukraine -- read: deliver weapons -- Breedlove
had asked former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Breedlove sought counsel from some very prominent people, his emails show. Among them were Wesley
Clark, Breedlove's predecessor at NATO, Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European
and Eurasian affairs at the State Department, and Geoffrey Pyatt, the US ambassador to Kiev.
One name that kept popping up was Phillip Karber, an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown
University in Washington DC and president of the Potomac Foundation, a conservative think tank founded
by the former defense contractor BDM. By its own account, the foundation has helped eastern European
countries prepare their accession into NATO. Now the Ukrainian parliament and the government in Kiev
were asking Karber for help.
Surreptitious Channels
On February 16, 2015, when the Ukraine crisis had reached its climax, Karber wrote an email to
Breedlove, Clark, Pyatt and Rose Gottemoeller, the under secretary for arms control and international
security at the State Department, who will be moving to Brussels this fall to take up the post of
deputy secretary general of NATO. Karber was in Warsaw, and he said he had found surreptitious channels
to get weapons to Ukraine -- without the US being directly involved.
According to the email, Pakistan had offered, "under the table," to sell Ukraine 500 portable
TOW-II launchers and 8,000 TOW-II missiles. The deliveries could begin within two weeks. Even the
Poles were willing to start sending "well maintained T-72 tanks, plus several hundred SP 122mm guns,
and SP-122 howitzers (along with copious amounts of artillery ammunition for both)" that they had
leftover from the Soviet era. The sales would likely go unnoticed, Karber said, because Poland's
old weapons were "virtually undistinguishable from those of Ukraine."
AFP
A destroyed airport building in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk : Thousands were killed
in fighting during the Ukraine conflict.
Karber noted, however, that Pakistan and Poland would not make any deliveries without informal
US approval. Furthermore, Warsaw would only be willing to help if its deliveries to Kiev were replaced
with new, state-of-the-art weapons from NATO. Karber concluded his letter with a warning: "Time has run out." Without immediate assistance,
the Ukrainian army "could face prospect of collapse within 30 days."
"Stark," Breedlove replied. "I may share some of this but will thoroughly wipe the fingerprints
off."
In March, Karber traveled again to Warsaw in order to, as he told Breedlove, consult with leading
members of the ruling party, on the need to "quietly supply arty ( eds: artillery ) and antitank
munitions to Ukraine."
Much to the irritation of Breedlove, Clark and Karber, nothing happened. Those responsible were
quickly identified. The National Security Council, Obama's circle of advisors, were "slowing things
down," Karber complained. Clark pointed his finger directly at the White House, writing, "Our problem
is higher than State," a reference to the State Department.
... ... ...
'The Front Is Now Everywhere'
Karber's emails constantly made it sound as though the apocalypse was only a few weeks away. "The
front is now everywhere," he told Breedlove in an email at the beginning of 2015, adding that Russian
agents and their proxies "have begun launching a series of terrorist attacks, assassinations, kidnappings
and infrastructure bombings," in an effort to destabilize Kiev and other Ukrainian cities.
In an email to Breedlove, Clark described defense expert Karber as "brilliant." After a first
visit, Breedlove indicated he had also been impressed. "GREAT visit," he wrote. Karber, an extremely
enterprising man, appeared at first glance to be a valuable informant because he often -- at least
a dozen times by his own account -- traveled to the front and spoke with Ukrainian commanders. The
US embassy in Kiev also relied on Karber for information because it lacked its own sources. "We're
largely blind," the embassy's defense attachι wrote in an email.
At times, Karber's missives read like prose. In one, he wrote about the 2014 Christmas celebrations
he had spent together with Dnipro-1, the ultranationalist volunteer battalion. "The toasts and vodka
flow, the women sing the Ukrainian national anthem -- no one has a dry eye."
Karber had only good things to report about the unit, which had already been discredited as a
private oligarch army. He wrote that the staff and volunteers were dominated by middle class people
and that there was a large professional staff that was even "working on the holiday." Breedlove responded
that these insights were "quietly finding their way into the right places."
Highly Controversial Figure
In fact, Karber is a highly controversial figure. During the 1980s, the longtime BDM employee,
was counted among the fiercest Cold War hawks. Back in 1985, he warned of an impending Soviet attack
on the basis of documents he had translated incorrectly.
He also blundered during the Ukraine crisis after sending photos to US Senator James Inhofe, claiming
to show Russian units in Ukraine. Inhofe released the photos publicly, but it quickly emerged that
one had originated from the 2008 war in Georgia.
By November 10, 2014, at the latest, Breedlove must have recognized that his informant was on
thin ice. That's when Karber reported that the separatists were boasting they had a tactical nuclear
warhead for the 2S4 mortar. Karber himself described the news as "weird," but also added that "there
is a lot of 'crazy' things going on" in Ukraine.
The reasons that Breedlove continued to rely on Karber despite such false reports remain unclear.
Was he willing to pay any price for weapons deliveries? Or did he have other motives? The emails
illustrate the degree to which Breedlove and his fellow campaigners feared that Congress might reduce
the number of US troops in Europe.
Karber confirmed the authenticity of the leaked email correspondence. Regarding the questions
about the accuracy of his reports, he told SPIEGEL that, "like any information derived from direct
observation at the front during the 'fog of war,' it is partial, time sensitive, and perceived through
a personal perspective." Looking back with the advantage of hindsight and a more comprehensive perspective,
"I believe that I was right more than wrong," Karber writes, "but certainly not perfect." He adds
that, "in 170 days at the front, I never once met a German military or official directly observing
the conflict."
Great Interest in Berlin
Breedlove's leaked email correspondences were read in Berlin with great interest. A year ago,
word of the NATO commander's "dangerous propaganda" was circulating around Merkel's Chancellery.
In light of the new information, officials felt vindicated in their assessment. Germany's Federal
Foreign Office has expressed similar sentiment, saying that fortunately "influential voices had continuously
advocated against the delivery of 'lethal weapons.'"
Karber says he finds it "obscene that the most effective sanction of this war is not the economic
limits placed on Russia, but the virtual complete embargo of all lethal aid to the victim. I find
this to be the height of sophistry -- if a woman is being attacked by a group of hooligans and yells
out to the crowd or passersby, 'Give me a can of mace,' is it better to not supply it because the
attackers could have a knife and passively watch her get raped?"
General Breedlove's departure from his NATO post in May has done little to placate anyone in the
German government. After all, the man Breedlove regarded as an obstacle, President Obama, is nearing
the end of his second term. His possible successor, the Democrat Hillary Clinton, is considered a
hardliner vis-a-vis Russia.
What's more: Nuland, a diplomat who shares many of the same views as Breedlove, could move into
an even more important role after the November election -- she's considered a potential candidate
for secretary of state.
bubasan 07/28/2016
Upon reading this article, I am reminded of Dwight D Eisenhowers Farewell speech to the American
Public on January 17, 1961. So long as we continue the PC mentality of NOT Teaching History, as
it really was, we are going to repeat past mistake's. The now famous and appropriate quote
from President Eisenhower:
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted
influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.
Inglenda2 07/28/2016
The idea of NATO as a defence organisation, following the 2nd World War was quite rational.
The history of this organisation however, has shown, how a well meant intention can be misused
to force through policies, which have nothing to do with the original purpose. Currently it would
appear to have no other role, than to provide high ranking army officers with well paid employment,
which can only be justified by way of international conflicts. In the absence of conflict, NATO
would have no other cause for existence.
PeterCT 07/28/2016
Why is Breedlove so fat? He is setting a bad example to his troops. Show all comments
turnipseed 07/29/2016
The Cold War continues, only the enemy is not the Soviet Union but Russia. Ever since the
war against Napoleon Russia has emerged as a threat to certain European interests, at first liberal
and nationalist interests. After the Bolshevik Revolution the enemy was still Russia, now revitalized
with extreme Bolshevik ideology. Hitler used this effectively to target liberals, leftists and
especially Jews.
After the fall of Communism nothing has really changed. The West is still urged to resist
the Russian threat, a threat invented by Polish, Baltic, and Ukrainian nationalists and perhaps
Fascists. Donald Trump alone seems impervious to this propaganda. Let's at least give him credit
in this case, if not in many others. NATO has become a permanent anti-Russian phony alliance,
financed by America.
90-grad 07/31/2016
Quite detailed article. Not being published in the german website. How to describe these people,
basically just trying to ignite bigger conflicts, or even war. Hardliner, hawks, to me not strong
enough. These are criminals of war, and they should be named accordingly. These are exactly the
kind of persons, who helped Bush to invade Irak, basing on false informations to the public. And
their peace endangering activities help politicians like H.Clinton to keep the peoble in fear,
solely to their own benefit. Disgusting!
huguenot1566 07/31/2016
Extremely disturbing
I don't even know here to begin. Breedlove, Karber, Clark all Americans, seemingly on their
own without Obama's permission, trying to exaggerate or fabricate evidence in order to start a
war with Russia and the danger to the world is profoundly terrifying (Iraq 2003). The US Embassy
in Ukraine saying they were in the dark and therefore relying on information from a college professor,
Karber, who still thinks we're in the Cold War along with Clark who was retired & meddling in
an unofficial capacity as far as the story implies tells me they should be brought up on charges.
And Breedlove is supposed to follow orders not make up his own policy & then try & manufacture
evidence supporting that policy to start war. If the US Embassy in Ukraine says they were in the
dark then clearly they were fishing for info to proactively involve themselves in another nation
& region's personal business. Congress & the U.S. military should investigate as these actions
violate the U.S. Constitution. Thankfully, Germany and NATO is able to say no. It tells Americans
that something isn't right on their end of this.
verbatim128 07/31/2016
Look who was crying wolf!
These people are hell-bent to bring the world to the brink of war, with lies and excuses about
fear of Russian attacks. So Poland was willing to step into the conflict with Ukraine and deliver
lethal armament? All the while afraid of Russia invading it? We, public opinion and most Western
peace-loving folk, are played like a fiddle to step into the fray to "protect" and further some
age-old ethnic and nationalistic rivalries. Time to put an end to this.
gerhard38 08/01/2016
Fucking war monger
Philip Breedlove is a war monger and should be fired from his position. The efforts of the
group around him seeking to secure weapons for the Ukraine to intensify the conflict must have
happened with Breedlove's knowledge and support. If not, then he is not capable to meet the demands
of his job and should be dismissed for incompetence. Either way, this guy is unacceptable.
aegiov 08/01/2016
Ms. Nuland is the same us official recorded by Russian intelligence trying to manipulate events
in Ukraine before the overthrow of the president and all the tragic events that followed. That
she is still working for US state dept. is puzzling to say the least. good reporting. thank you.
titus_norberto 08/02/2016
The Front Is Now Everywhere, indeed...
Quote: 'The Front Is Now Everywhere', yes indeed, we can go back to the Wilson administration,
he invented the League of Nations and his nation did not even joined.
There is a folly in American presidents, they believe they can solve worlds problems, especially
in the Middle East, with two invariable results:
1- utter failure plus CHAOS; and
2- utter disregard for DOMESTIC GOVERNANCE.
Now, the fact that the front is NOW 2016 everywhere is the result of failure one. Donald Trump
is the result of failure two. There is another aspect to consider, what is General Breedlove doing
? Very simple, he is attempting to INVENT a NEW ROLE for NATO, as it is well known in the domain
of sociology: any organization strives for survival, especially when it becomes OBSOLETE.
vsepr1975 08/03/2016
nato
Breedhate?
w.schuler 08/09/2016
Fat Bredlove is a war monger
This is true and it was obvious from the very beginning. But SPON was always parotting him.
And SPON member Benjamin Bidder and many other SPON guys were foaming at the mouth with war rhetoric
all the time in 2014-15. Shame on those fools. Finally, with this contribution you are approaching
your real job. And this is to distribute information instead of propaganda.
"... It is no coincidence that the doping scandals have started around Russian sportsmen. After all, professional athletes from other countries also use steroids. The West needs to strike at Russia's image since sanctions didn't bring about the planned affect and Moscow is not giving in to political and economic pressure. ..."
"... As in politics, sports is filled with a variety of scandals which have taken place quite often in the history of the Olympic Games and other major events. However, in the case of violations by athletes, things should be handled fairly and objective. Otherwise, having achieved their goal (and all Western law is based on precedent), certain lobbies will begin to repeat the practice of discrediting athletes from other countries, thus not serving the interests of sports at all. ..."
International sporting events have a clear political nature: nation-states enter the stadium under
their national anthem, represent their countries, and, in the case of victory, their rank increases.
In other words, sports is an instrument of "soft power" if we use Joseph Nye's term. Moreover, the
country hosting a sporting event can improve its image, as was the case with the Sochi Winter Olympic
Games.
Thus, athletes, just like politicians, are paid careful attention by their "partners" and
detractors. It is no coincidence that the doping scandals have started around Russian sportsmen.
After all, professional athletes from other countries also use steroids. The West needs to strike
at Russia's image since sanctions didn't bring about the planned affect and Moscow is not giving
in to political and economic pressure.
We should recall that the first article about such was published in the New York Times in May.
The media has statutes for tribute for ordered articles, so it is very easy to identify the initiators.
Russia has the right to maintain sovereign positions on many other issues, but it is also necessary
to reach consensus through skillful diplomatic work in international organizations. This is not always
effective (for example, in recent years the United Nations has supported sodomites in Russia at the
expense of traditional family values), but it is individual persons who often have the last word.
The doping scandal was put to an end by the head of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas
Bach, who is in office since 2013. The Russian Olympic team will not be banned from the competition
in Rio de Janeiro. The federation will pass decisions on individual athletes. Bach called this approach
distinguishing between "clean" and doping athletes who have the chance to prove their case.
Although the number of Russian athletes will in fact still be smaller, there still exists the
space for a political message: the anthem, the flag, and the possibility to win in different sports.
Perhaps some can see a pro-Russian position in Bach's activities, since he is against the US'
political order on this occasion. He is in fact trying to protect the traditions and mechanisms of
big sports.
As in politics, sports is filled with a variety of scandals which have taken place quite often
in the history of the Olympic Games and other major events. However, in the case of violations by
athletes, things should be handled fairly and objective. Otherwise, having achieved their goal (and
all Western law is based on precedent), certain lobbies will begin to repeat the practice of discrediting
athletes from other countries, thus not serving the interests of sports at all.
Reports that US General John F. Campbell was the organizer of a coup d'etat in Turkey surprised
no one. Recall that the July 25th edition of the Turkish Yeni Safak, close to President Recep Erdogan's
AKP party,
reported
that General John F. Campbell, former U.S. commander of the International Security Assistance
Force (ISAF), a NATO-led security mission in Afghanistan, was the organizer of the July 15th military
coup attempt in Turkey. The sources stated that he was also involved in the financing of the coup
participants and the reshuffling of air base personnel while visiting the base on the eve of the
coup attempt. After an unsuccessful coup attempt the Turkish generals
Cahit Bakır and Şener Topηu were detained in Dubai airport. Both worked with Campbell in Afghanistan,
where they commanded the Turkish contingent within the NATO forces.
However, these are not the only clues in the Turkish coup plot which directly points to NATO as
the mastermind of the coup. There are some other information regarding this issue:
1. The same coup participants stationed at the Turkish Air Force, were the most NATO-integrated
structures of the Turkish Military, and this gave to the observers the first evidence of NATO involvement
in the military putsch. The Incirlik Air Base, where the US military was based was used by the putschists
to launch air strikes on the Turkish parliament. The base is jointly used by the US and Turkish Air
Forces. After the coup attempt, it was suppressed by the Turkish commander of the base. General Bekir
Ercan Van was arrested by the troops loyal to Erdogan. General Van sought asylum from the United
States but was denied. In the aftermath of the coup, external electrical power from Turkey was cut
to the base and a Turkish no fly order had been put into effect for US military aircraft in the area.
On July 30th the base was blocked by Turkish troops on information about a second coup attempt.
2. From the very beginning Western media spread disinformation, that President Erdogan flee the
country. American NBS mentioned high ranking US military, proving the information. Thus the US military
was directly involved in the disinformation during the most critical early hours of the failed coup
operation.
The US alternative media Newsbud
has identified Former NATO Commander-Retired US Army General John F. Campbell as the 'likely'
NBC News' source.
3. The majority of those arrested after the coup attempt were people related to the NATO structure.
The the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, speaking at a forum on security organized
by the Aspen Institute in Colorado last week, declared that after the coup "many of our interlocutors
have been purged or arrested".
Curtis Scaparrotti, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe confirmed this information,
stating that:
"Some of the officers that we have our relationships with in Turkey are now either detained, in
some cases retired as a result of the coup"
Thus, NATO de-facto recognized, that their people were in the ranks on the presumptive putschists
4. It was revealed that NATO aggressively promoted their agents, who then actively participated
in the coup:
According to Erdogan's supporters, thousands of Turkish officers recruited to Gulen's network
went up the ladder in their military career on "on high speed" , reaching ranks of generals and
colonels in key positions. In sharp contrast, in the Kemalist army base, their former fellows remained
captains or majors.
5. The three most important regiments which participated in the coup were part of Turkey's 'NATO
Rapid Deployable Corps'. The registration plates on military vehicles of the putschists, show that
they belonged to the 2nd Armoured Brigade, stationed in the Istanbul district of Kartal, and the
66th Mechanised Infantry Brigade, which is based in Hasdal together with the 6th Regiment. The transcript
of WhatsApp messagess of the plotters,
provided by Bellingcat showed that the group in communications also used the emblem and slogan
used by NATO's Rapid Deployable Corps (a quote of Ataturk) : "Peace at home, peace in the world.".
6. And finally, once again the news from Yeni Safak. It revealed information that the Guvercinlik
First Army Aviation Regiment's Maintenance Battalion Commander Lieutenant Colonel Murat Bolat told
prosecutors that the US was ready to help them to assassinate Erdogan during the coup.
"Americans were to provide the exact coordinates of Erdoğan, if the team was unable to find him
in the hotel. They also said that up to four persons with civil dress have been tracking Erdoğan
", the Turkish newspaper quotes the rebel.
The same fact, that Erdogan's newspaper attacks the US and NATO so fiercely corroborates that
Turkish authorities are preparing for harsh anti-US moves, including leaving NATO. And they have
a lot of the evidence of NATO's involvement in the coup.
"... German parliamentarians are preparing to ask for sanctions against the USA, Britain and France also. According to those parliamentarians, by implementing the Chaos Strategy in the Middle East, in order to "promote democracy", as they kept saying, Washington, London and Paris are directly responsible for the refugee crisis, the terror attacks and the whole pattern of instability which has now engulfed Turkey as well. ..."
"... Mr. Erdogan, President of one of the most important NATO countries, did not meet any of his Western counterparts, but he is going to Russia to meet President Putin, and his closest advisors are proposing that he should institute an alliance with Russia, like Kemal, and wage war against "the Crusaders". ..."
"... The perspective of a strategic alliance between Ankara and Moscow is the definition of a nightmare for US and Israeli planners. They certainly did not start all those wars just to see a bloc of Russia, Turkey, Iran and Syria being formed in the Middle East, not to mention, potentially, a huge crisis in NATO. ..."
According to our information this is only the first step. German parliamentarians are preparing
to ask for sanctions against the USA, Britain and France also. According to those parliamentarians,
by implementing the Chaos Strategy in the Middle East, in order to "promote democracy", as they kept
saying, Washington, London and Paris are directly responsible for the refugee crisis, the terror
attacks and the whole pattern of instability which has now engulfed Turkey as well.
According also to our information, top US and Israeli officials are outraged at what is happening.
They now have to cancel all family vacation planning and concentrate on how to handle an unbelievable
new situation. Mr. Erdogan, President of one of the most important NATO countries, did not meet
any of his Western counterparts, but he is going to Russia to meet President Putin, and his closest
advisors are proposing that he should institute an alliance with Russia, like Kemal, and wage war
against "the Crusaders".
The perspective of a strategic alliance between Ankara and Moscow is the definition of a nightmare
for US and Israeli planners. They certainly did not start all those wars just to see a bloc of Russia,
Turkey, Iran and Syria being formed in the Middle East, not to mention, potentially, a huge crisis
in NATO.
We are still not there and nobody knows if we will reach that point. Russia and Turkey, as history
proves, have seriously conflicting interests. As for Erdogan himself, he cannot win over the Kurds
by military means and neither can the Kurds win what they want by war. All that is certain is that
we are heading straight for very serious conflicts.
Fortunately for them, and probably for us also, European politicians do not consider any alteration
of their vacation programs. They are continuing their enjoyment of their holidays, waiting for Washington
to take its decisions.
"... It is no coincidence that the doping scandals have started around Russian sportsmen. After all, professional athletes from other countries also use steroids. The West needs to strike at Russia's image since sanctions didn't bring about the planned affect and Moscow is not giving in to political and economic pressure. ..."
"... As in politics, sports is filled with a variety of scandals which have taken place quite often in the history of the Olympic Games and other major events. However, in the case of violations by athletes, things should be handled fairly and objective. Otherwise, having achieved their goal (and all Western law is based on precedent), certain lobbies will begin to repeat the practice of discrediting athletes from other countries, thus not serving the interests of sports at all. ..."
International sporting events have a clear political nature: nation-states enter the stadium under
their national anthem, represent their countries, and, in the case of victory, their rank increases.
In other words, sports is an instrument of "soft power" if we use Joseph Nye's term. Moreover, the
country hosting a sporting event can improve its image, as was the case with the Sochi Winter Olympic
Games.
Thus, athletes, just like politicians, are paid careful attention by their "partners" and
detractors. It is no coincidence that the doping scandals have started around Russian sportsmen.
After all, professional athletes from other countries also use steroids. The West needs to strike
at Russia's image since sanctions didn't bring about the planned affect and Moscow is not giving
in to political and economic pressure.
We should recall that the first article about such was published in the New York Times in May.
The media has statutes for tribute for ordered articles, so it is very easy to identify the initiators.
Russia has the right to maintain sovereign positions on many other issues, but it is also necessary
to reach consensus through skillful diplomatic work in international organizations. This is not always
effective (for example, in recent years the United Nations has supported sodomites in Russia at the
expense of traditional family values), but it is individual persons who often have the last word.
The doping scandal was put to an end by the head of the International Olympic Committee, Thomas
Bach, who is in office since 2013. The Russian Olympic team will not be banned from the competition
in Rio de Janeiro. The federation will pass decisions on individual athletes. Bach called this approach
distinguishing between "clean" and doping athletes who have the chance to prove their case.
Although the number of Russian athletes will in fact still be smaller, there still exists the
space for a political message: the anthem, the flag, and the possibility to win in different sports.
Perhaps some can see a pro-Russian position in Bach's activities, since he is against the US'
political order on this occasion. He is in fact trying to protect the traditions and mechanisms of
big sports.
As in politics, sports is filled with a variety of scandals which have taken place quite often
in the history of the Olympic Games and other major events. However, in the case of violations by
athletes, things should be handled fairly and objective. Otherwise, having achieved their goal (and
all Western law is based on precedent), certain lobbies will begin to repeat the practice of discrediting
athletes from other countries, thus not serving the interests of sports at all.
"... Putin is a monster to feed the imagination of the masses, systematically depicted as a psychopathic
tyrant, responsible for massacres, cynical weaver of imperialistic plots. ..."
"... Things are changing. The resolute intervention of Russia against the Daesh terrorists unmasked
ambiguities in Turkish and Saudi Arabian policy The West as a whole was stunned. Russophobic propaganda
went into panic mode Slowly and steadily another truth is coming out and being glimpsed. The winners
of the Cold War were already convinced that Russia was defeated and colonized. ..."
By now it is clear: the crisis in which the West is struggling does not resemble anything known.
It is a crisis of values, democracy, economic, financial, environmental, an unprecedented political
crisis. All paradigms are collapsing, the US leadership is no longer invincible: clearly it is in
serious danger. And when power feels weak, it looks for an enemy to target: somebody to blame, somebody
to frighten people with. All is grist for the mill. Instead of an admission of the truth, namely
that the crisis is inside the west, is a by-product of the West, instead of an admission that resources
are running out and the system is marching toward collapse, Russia is made the enemy. So it was in
the past, so it is today. The obsession returns in updated form. Russia with its strongman Vladimir
Putin is the new "enemy number one". Reviving Cold War slogans, they (the West, the USA), are reproducing
the idea of the Evil Empire, and Putin is a monster to feed the imagination of the masses, systematically
depicted as a psychopathic tyrant, responsible for massacres, cynical weaver of imperialistic plots.
The war in Ukraine, the economic sanctions, even the denial of the Russian role in the defeat
of Nazism: everything is pushing in that direction. But is it really so, or is the "Putinophobia"
that is being touted by the bulk of the media just a big mirror in which the West sees its own shortcomings
and troubles reflected?
Things are changing. The resolute intervention of Russia against the Daesh terrorists unmasked
ambiguities in Turkish and Saudi Arabian policy The West as a whole was stunned. Russophobic propaganda
went into panic mode Slowly and steadily another truth is coming out and being glimpsed. The winners
of the Cold War were already convinced that Russia was defeated and colonized.
They were looking to China as the next enemy to be destroyed or reduced to submission. They have
been taken by surprise. Putin's Russia, the phoenix reborn from its ashes, is the only superpower
that can derail the train that is hurtling towards catastrophe. But it may be also the last hope
for the West too. If, obviously, the West can bring itself to understand that it is not, in any case,
going to be able to rule over seven billion people.
"... the whole way the campaign was conducted, and the timing of the publication of the various WADA reports, shows that the agenda all along was to get the whole of Team Russia expelled from the Olympic Games. ..."
"... The president of the Australian Olympic Committee, John Coates, who is also an IOC vice president, reportedly wrote to Australia's Health Minister Susan Ley, saying that the IOC had a "lack of confidence in WADA." ..."
"... We encourage a full report by Professor McLaren before we make any full and frank decisions ..."
More evidence of deep divisions between the IOC and WADA over the Russian doping scandal have
emerged in two articles in The Australian. One article, which is
behind a paywall, derives from off-the-record conversations with IOC officials. The
other article, which is open access, gives Professor McLaren's side of the story. It alludes
to the article behind the paywall and reproduces some of its material.
For an open source account of what is in the article behind the paywall, one is obliged to turn
to RT.
It claims that the article says
" .that there are members within the International Olympic Committee (IOC) who believe the
release of the McLaren report on the eve of the Olympics was designed to set off the "nuclear
option" of issuing a blanket ban on Russia competing at the games."
This is very similar to what I said in an
article I wrote a few
days ago. I said that the whole way the campaign was conducted, and the timing of the publication
of the various WADA reports, shows that the agenda all along was to get the whole of Team Russia
expelled from the Olympic Games. Here is what I said:
"That this was indeed the agenda is clear enough from the way the whole anti-doping campaign
against Russia has been conducted. It seems that a decision to expel Russia from the Olympic
movement was taken probably around the time of the failure of the campaign to boycott the Winter
Olympics in Sochi in 2014. All the various allegations of doping in Russia that have circulated
since 2010 and even before were then sifted through to construct a case. Someone then put
them all together in a dossier, spicing them up with witness testimony from people like Stepanova
and Rodchenkov. A series of lurid articles and documentaries then appeared in the Western
media, reviving all the allegations and putting the worst possible spin on them. A series
of reports from WADA then followed in quick succession starting in the autumn of last year, timed
to make the maximum possible impact and to leave the least possible time for proper independent
fact checking or for any other steps to be taken before the start of the Rio Games. That
way the allegations could not be properly and independently assessed and no fully fair arrangements
could be made to allow for the admission of all indisputably clean Russian athletes. That
opened the way, just as the Rio Games were about to start, for the IOC to be presented with a
demand for a blanket ban."
In my article I also said on the basis of certain comments by IOC President Thomas Bach that all
the facts pointed to the IOC being furious with WADA for its conduct of the whole affair. Again
RT's summary of the article behind the paywall confirms as much.
"Once it was clear that the IOC was not going to support a full ban, the author of the report,
the Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, handed over the names of Russian athletes who had been cited
in his document to the 28 federations. These names had initially not been published when the report
was first made public on July 18. However, The paper's sources reportedly said that WADA now has
a problem as it "had been caught short not having enough detail to justify some of the claims
against athletes."
"They sexed it up which is crazy because now the entire report is under scrutiny and I am sure
most of the report is absolutely accurate. It just puts question marks where question marks should
not be," a sports official told the publication.
The president of the Australian Olympic Committee, John Coates, who is also an IOC vice
president, reportedly wrote to Australia's Health Minister Susan Ley, saying that the IOC had
a "lack of confidence in WADA."
"McLaren said there was evidence that 170 Russian athletes, the majority of whom were set to
compete in Rio, had previously had positive doping tests destroyed by the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory.
Following further analysis of the samples carried out at the Moscow laboratory, it was found that
Russian samples were split into four separate categories of seriousness. However, one of these
categories was for samples which were not considered serious at all.
"We were asked to make a judgment about Russian competitors based on McLaren's report but without
having any of the detail to understand the significance of them being named," a senior sports
official said, as cited by The Australian. "Now to be told that there were four different categories
why weren't we told this at the very beginning? It's a mess and it's WADA's fault.''"
That RT is reproducing the article accurately is confirmed by the
open access article. It corroborates RT's account of the article behind the paywall:
"Sports officials have accused WADA of "sexing up" the case against Russian athletes by handing
over to sporting federations the names of competitors who had no evidence against them in order
to invoke the "nuclear option" of expelling Russia from the Games. IOC spokesman Mark Adams
said yesterday the confusion showed the dangers of working with an unfinished report: "To have
someone who didn't (commit) a competition doping offence but was counted as such is a very dangerous
thing. We encourage a full report by Professor McLaren before we make any full and
frank decisions.''"
"In any rational world what ought to have happened is that when Stepanova's and Rochenkov's
allegations became public a full and proper investigation ought to have been set up, with all
the witnesses examined and represented by legal counsel, and with the forensic evidence examined
by a variety of scientific experts, who could have been cross-examined and whose reports would
have been made public. Since this would have taken time a year at least arrangements
of the sort now set up by the IOC should have been made in the meantime to ensure that there was
no cheating by Russian athletes at Rio. Given the scale of the allegations and the suspicion
of state involvement in the doping, this would inevitably have involved barring Russian athletes
already found to have cheated from competing in Rio, harsh though that is. At the end of
this process the investigation would have delivered a proper report not like the deeply flawed
report provided by McLaren either confirming or refuting the allegations, and making specific
recommendations to prevent the problem arising again."
The IOC is obviously right to complain that it should not have been asked to make a decision on
the basis of an incomplete report provided just 2 weeks before the Games in Rio were due to begin.
However, given his actions in preparing his report and the way he presented it, Professor McLaren
is obviously the wrong person to prepare the full report IOC spokesman Mark Adams is referring to.
The open access article in The Australian shows the extent to which McLaren and WADA have been
thrown onto the defensive. It reports McLaren complaining that
"The focus has been completely lost and the discussion is not about the Russian labs and Sochi
Olympic Games, which was under the direction of the IOC. But what is going on is a hunt for people
supposed to be doping but that was never part of my work, although it is starting to (become)
so. My reporting on the state-based system has turned into a pursuit of individual athletes.''
I am at a total loss to understand how Professor McLaren thinks that a report supposedly about
an alleged state-sponsored system of doping should not look into the evidence of doping on the part
of individual athletes, when it is precisely those individual cases of doping which are the evidence
that there was a state-sponsored system of doping in the first place.
Obviously there was insufficient time to look into each and every allegation of doping properly
in the 57 days in which Professor McLaren's investigation was conducted. However that merely
points to the fact that conducting a proper investigation within a timeframe of just 57 days was
impossible. Professor McLaren should have admitted as much and asked for more time to conduct
his investigation properly, leaving it to WADA and the IOC to put in place proper arrangements to
prevent possible cheating by Russian athletes at the Olympic Games in Rio in the meantime. However
that is not what he did. Instead he delivered an incomplete and defective report and
demanded a blanket ban on the strength of it.
Frankly I cannot see in Professor McLaren's words anything other than confirmation that that was
his objective all along. Judging from what IOC officials are reported to have told The Australian,
it seems that is their opinion too.
Further confirmation that this was the objective is provided by the way WADA is now desperately
trying to retreat from the way McLaren "implicated" individual athletes in his report. In order
to explain this away WADA's chief executive Olivier Niggli is quoted by The Australian as providing
what can only be called a twisted explanation of what happened.
"WADA chief executive Olivier Niggli said the confusion arose because sports officials had
not understood what the word ''implicated'' meant. ''Professor McLaren gave each sport the
list of the athletes who were implicated. That was the word used by the IOC; which athletes were
appearing there in the report. Then we get to the confusing part. He gave the international federations
everything he had, every name.'' There was no further information about some names, yet the sports
federations believed listing meant they were ''implicated'' and they should withdraw the athletes
and, following IOC guidelines, they should withdraw them from Olympics competition."
That Professor McLaren (who is a lawyer) "implicated" athletes in a way that was not intended
to cast suspicion on them strikes me as frankly absurd. On the contrary it is now starting
to look as if he presented his findings in such a way as to create the impression that there was
more evidence of Russian athletes being involved in doping than was actually the case.
All this is of course grist to the mill for the lawyers in the court cases which the Russian athletes
are now bringing. Some of the comments on the thread to the
article
in which I discussed these court cases doubted that they would have much effect. On the contrary
it is precisely because these court cases are being brought that the IOC and WADA are now so publicly
at odds with each other. What one can see in these angry exchanges and recriminations are the
frantic steps of the two sporting bodies as they try desperately to cover their positions in anticipation
of the court cases that are now coming. Moreover in any court case there is a legal duty of
full disclosure which the Russian athletes can use to demand sight of all the correspondence (including
telephone records and emails) which led to the decision to exclude them being made. I expect
their lawyers to advise them to use this right to the hilt. This is beginning to look like
a debacle. As I have said before this affair is only at its start.
"... At the end of June the Investigative Committee filed a request with US authorities to help with carrying out the questioning of Rodchenkov, as part of the criminal case against him. ..."
"... This guy should be dealt with harshly for he has used, other wise, athletes that would have used better judgment. Temptation in the eyes of rising stars with the promises. Tragic now that they are sideline. Gods speed with this calamity. ..."
The former head of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory set up a doping scheme in which he sold illegal
substances to athletes while also promising to help them obtain a clean doping record, a Russian
investigation has revealed.
Investigators cited witnesses implicating Grigory Rodchenkov in a doping scheme.
"According to preliminary information, he [Rodchenkov] purchased these substances in the US and
when selling them to clients, promised to cover the fact that banned substances had been detected
in their samples," Vladimir Markin, spokesman for the Russian Investigative Committee said in a statement
published on Monday.
The committee has reason to think that Rodchenkov was the mastermind behind the illegal trade,
the statement continued to say. There is as of yet no information about his possible accomplices.
"He could have destroyed the samples to conceal the selling of prohibited substances and avoid
criminal responsibility that would bring him a much stricter punishment, than that [which exists]
for violating WADA [World Anti-Doping Agency] standards," Markin also wrote.
Another detail revealed by the Investigative Committee is that Rodchenkov's sister had been convicted
in 2012 for the illegal trafficking of substances that could have been used for doping. It is yet
to be established where she bought the drugs.
The case against Rodchenkov was launched in the middle of June. He faces charges in Russia of
abuse of authority based on World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) reports and media reports which suggested
Rodchenkov and Russian athletes violated anti-doping regulations.
Rodchenkov deliberately decided to destroy 1,437 blood samples in December 2014, despite receiving
a letter from WADA requesting that he keep the samples, the investigation stated.
The former head of the Moscow anti-doping lab is currently in the US where he fled, stating that
he has been fearing for his safety.
In May, Rodchenkov said in an interview with NYT that he substituted more than 100 samples given
by Russian athletes during the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics which was all part of a state-run "decade-long
effort to perfect" Russia's performance at international competitions.
Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko subsequently rejected the claims, stressing that no doping
program had ever existed in Russian sports.
At the end of June the Investigative Committee filed a request with US authorities to help with
carrying out the questioning of Rodchenkov, as part of the criminal case against him.
Blue Sushi -> Red Fish
"Is anybody stupid enough to think Russia would have admitted its drugs problem on its own?"
Does any nation?
ethan hunt
Grigory Rodchenkov made an allegation and its only right that he provides proof/evidence to
backed his allegations.
Russia does not want to shut him up but it does wanted Rodchenkov to present evidence to claim
so that the necessary steps can be taken.
MeBituman
Simple question who destroyed the samples that were expressly requested by WADA to be preserved?
This is your guilty party. No?
ethan hunt
An allegation was made and no evidence was presented. Did the IAAF and WADA actually
presented evidence? They did not, their decision was based on the "allegations" made.
James Hickey
This guy should be dealt with harshly for he has used, other wise, athletes that would
have used better judgment. Temptation in the eyes of rising stars with the promises. Tragic
now that they are sideline. Gods speed with this calamity.
"... From the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Fιdιration Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) to the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Washington has been playing a dangerous game of intrigue and deception with regard to steering these organizations in a pro-American direction. The Obama administration has decided that the halls, offices, and conference rooms of international organizations are acceptable battlefields to wage propaganda and sanctions wars. ..."
From the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Fιdιration Internationale de
Football Association (FIFA) to the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) and the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Washington has been playing a dangerous game of intrigue and
deception with regard to steering these organizations in a pro-American direction. The Obama
administration has decided that the halls, offices, and conference rooms of international
organizations are acceptable battlefields to wage propaganda and sanctions wars.
The first American target of note was the international football association, FIFA. Not content
with trying to sully the reputation of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics with issues of gay rights
and doping of athletes, the US disinformation boiler rooms began a full-scale attack on FIFA. The
major reason is Russia's hosting of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The US Justice Department, in a
major move toward the internationalization of domestic US law, began unsealing indictment after
indictment of FIFA officials for financial crimes. The actual target of these indictments was
Russia.
... ... ...
Resisting pressure from Washington, IOC president Thomas Bach wisely decided to avoid a
blanket ban of Russian athletes. Bach called such a unilateral ban on Russia participating in the
Rio games as a "nuclear option". He also said that such a "nuclear option" would have resulted in
"collateral damage" among innocent athletes. Bach's use of two geopolitical military terms was no
mistake and it bore the mark of someone responding to familiar American "shock and awe" pressure.
The United States used its compliant stooges, Germany and Canada, as well as the dubious World
Anti-Doping Agency, run by a Scottish lawyer, to call for a total ban on Russian athletes in Rio.
Fish rots from the head: doping is the most rampant in the USA...
Notable quotes:
"... Federal officials said earlier Tuesday that Bosch would agree to plead guilty to a charge of distributing steroids in a conspiracy that stretched from big league club houses to South Florida high schools and youth baseball leagues to sandlots in the Caribbean. ..."
"... "These defendants were motivated by one thing: money," United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Wifredo Ferrer, said. "They did this by lining their pockets, by exploiting the pressures of athletes and others to be bigger, to be stronger and to play better." ..."
"... Bosch told investigators that he provided the illegal substances to at least 18 minors, Ferrer said. ..."
"... Bosch and his associates distributed the drugs to minors who attended a number of public and private high schools in South Florida. He would charge the teenagers and their parents between $250 and $600 a month, promising that the concoctions -- which included black market steroids -- would improve their game. ..."
Tony Bosch, the founder of the now-defunct Biogenesis anti-aging clinic in Miami, is not a
licensed doctor, but portrayed himself as one, federal officials said Tuesday.
Officials said he dispensed
performance-enhancing drugs to professional baseball players such as suspended New York
Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez and to impressionable high school athletes in South Florida and
teenagers in the Dominican Republic.
Bosch, 50, surrendered to the Drug Enforcement Administration in Florida on Tuesday. At a court
appearance, he pleaded not guilty and a judge set bail at $100,000.
Federal officials said
earlier Tuesday that Bosch would agree to plead guilty to a charge of distributing steroids in a
conspiracy that stretched from big league club houses to South Florida high schools and youth
baseball leagues to sandlots in the Caribbean.
One of his attorneys, Susy Ribero-Ayala, said there is a plea agreement in place and Bosch will
change his plea later.
"Mr. Bosch has never had and does not have a DEA registration," said Mark Trouville, special
agent in charge of the DEA Miami. "He is not a licensed medical professional. He is not a doctor.
He is a drug dealer."
Also charged in the scandal were Yuri Sucart, a cousin of Rodriguez, and Juan Carlos Nunez, who
was named in a scheme to clear All-Star Melky Cabrera after a positive 2012 testosterone test,
authorities said.
Other defendants include Carlos Acevedo, a longtime associate of Bosch's, former University of
Miami coach Lazaro "Lazer" Collazo, Jorge Velasquez, and Christopher Engroba.
Acevedo and three other men, including CarlosLuis Ruiz, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper, also
were charged in a separate conspiracy involving the sale of the drug MDMA, or molly.
Eight of
the 10 men charged appeared in court. Acevedo and Engroba also entered not guilty pleas. The
other men didn't enter a plea.
Lengthy investigation
The drug conspiracy charges against the men stemmed from
from a 21-month DEA investigation.
"These defendants were motivated by one thing: money," United States Attorney for the Southern
District of Florida, Wifredo Ferrer, said. "They did this by lining their pockets, by exploiting
the pressures of athletes and others to be bigger, to be stronger and to play better."
Bosch
could face a 10-year prison term in the case.
Bosch told investigators that he provided the illegal substances to at least 18 minors, Ferrer
said.
Bosch and his associates distributed the drugs to minors who attended a number of public and
private high schools in South Florida. He would charge the teenagers and their parents between
$250 and $600 a month, promising that the concoctions -- which included black market steroids --
would improve their game.
In addition, investigators said, Bosch and
the others operated in the Dominican Republic, where boys as young as 12 were given new baseball
equipment and treated with testosterone-loaded syringes in an effort to get them signed with big
league teams. Talents scouts working with the children would keep as much as 50 % of their
signing bonuses.
"These defendants provided easy access to dangerous concoctions of steroids and human growth
hormones to impressionable high school kids," Ferrer said. "Simply put: Doping children is
unacceptable. It is wrong. It is illegal and it is dangerous and Bosch and his reckless
recruiters and his black market suppliers ignored the serious health risks posed to their so
called patients, all to make a profit."
Using lollipops
The drugs were administered in a number of ways, through injections, pills, creams and even
lollipops, according to a source with direct knowledge of the investigation.
Masking agents
were used to hide the drugs. "It was so good. The key was being able to fool testers with the
league (Major League Baseball), the source said. "The masking agents in the creams would hide the
actual drug, and (Bosch) would know the timing involved. He knew if the athlete took the drug
right before a game, they'd be tested 12 hours later and the drug would no longer be detectable."
Earlier this year, Major League Baseball dropped its lawsuit against Bosch and the company the
league claims provided performance-enhancing drugs to a number of players, including
Rodriguez. The league had agreed to drop the suit if Bosch cooperated in the investigation,
according to published reports.
In a statement Tuesday, Rodriguez's lawyer, Joe Tacopina, said:
"This obviously is the beginning of the end of this sordid chapter in baseball."
Authorities said professional athletes recruited by the clinic paid between $2,000 and $12,000
per month for the drugs.
The investigation led to the suspension of 14 players for violating the league's drug policy.
Besides Rodriguez, suspended players included
Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun, the 2011 National League MVP, who served part of his
suspension last season.
Bosch's Biogenesis clinic became part of the story in late January 2013, when the Miami New Times
reported that more than a dozen professional baseball players and other athletes had been named
in records kept over several years by the clinic.
Two months later, MLB filed its lawsuit
against the clinic in Florida's Miami-Dade County.
Its 14-page complaint named Biogenesis, its predecessor company and six individuals -- among them
program director Bosch, others at the company, someone who worked at a sports agency, a former
University of Miami baseball player and a "self-proclaimed chemist" who supplied substances.
"... That's a excellent article; good catch. I wrote to the Canadian Minister for Sport about it and urged her to revisit Canada's position on this, which is to essentially act as a spear carrier for Washington. ..."
"... The 'Independent Commission' was McLaren, Dick Pound (who has already made his feelings on banning Russia from the Olympics quite clear), and Gunter Younger, who was just appointed WADA's Chief of Intelligence and Investigations this past June. A reward? I wonder. Whatever the case, you could hardly imagine a more ideological and biased team of 'investigators'. ..."
I came across this guy, Rick Sterling, being interviewed on RT about the ban on Russia's paralympic
team where he mentioned that he'd produced a critique of the McLaren report. It's a substantial
analysis and worth reading:-
"The report concludes that Rodchenkov is credible and truthful with little demonstrated
proof. In contrast, the November 2015 Independent Commission report concluded that Dr. Rodchenkov
was not credible. The fact that Rodchenkov knew techniques of manipulating test results is not
evidence of "state controlled doping program," especially since he was the main culprit. The information
spread in previous reports on Russian doping that Rodchenkov was involved in extorting money from
athletes this information suggests opportunism on his part rather than integrity. The former
director of Moscow Laboratory has admitted his involvement in urine sample swapping, design of
a steroid cocktail not easily traced, and more. He was instrumental in helping some athletes cheat
the system. He is also the person with most motivation to implicate others, even if unjustly.
His testimony obviously needs careful scrutiny and cross-checking."
That's a excellent article; good catch. I wrote to the Canadian Minister for Sport about it and
urged her to revisit Canada's position on this, which is to essentially act as a spear carrier
for Washington. I am sure there is going to be an independent legal review of the McLaren Report
after the Olympics is over, and that it will find it a shambles.
The 'Independent Commission'
was McLaren, Dick Pound (who has already made his feelings on banning Russia from the Olympics
quite clear), and Gunter Younger, who was
just appointed WADA's Chief of Intelligence and Investigations this past June. A reward? I
wonder. Whatever the case, you could hardly imagine a more ideological and biased team of 'investigators'.
The International Olympic Committee has decided Russian athletes can attend the Rio Olympic Games
participation to be individually decided by federations. This is the right decision, but a dangerous
precedent has been established entire teams can be targeted for political reasons.
The IOC probably realized it was playing with fire. The U.S. and some of allies have gone to great
lengths to "isolate" Russia for Washington's blunders in Ukraine and elsewhere. The strategy to "isolate"
means no stone will be left unturned to damage Russia, including the areas of sports and other prestige
events. By banning the Russian team the IOC probably drew the conclusion that itself would face isolation
from hundreds of million of sports enthusiasts.
Also, the IOC probably reflected on what any Olympics would be like without Russia one of the
pillars of international sports. Without the Russians, all medals would have been deemed less worthy.
... ... ...
Washington's neocons and their fellow travelers have been dealt a blow there are surely feeling
they lost an important PR coup. They will certainly regroup and continue their vengeful assault on
Russia and international legal norms. The Rio Games have been saved, but the reputation of the IOC
has been damaged. Doping must not be tolerated, but neither should the politicizing of sport.
Peter Lavelle is host of RT's political debate program CrossTalk. His views may or
may not reflect those of his employer.
"... Yulia Stepanova's husband is Vitaly Stepanov a former staffer at RUSADA. He had lived and studied in the US since he was 15, but later decided to return to Russia. In 2008, Vitaly Stepanov began working for RUSADA as a doping-control officer. Vitaly met Yulia Rusanova in 2009 at the Russian national championships in Cheboksary. Stepanov now claims that he sent a letter to WADA detailing his revelations back in 2010, but never received an answer. ..."
"... One fact that deserves attention is that Vitaly has confessed that he was fully aware that his wife was taking banned substances, both while he worked for RUSADA as well as after he left that organization. ..."
"... In early June he admitted that WADA had not only helped his family move to America, but had also provided them with $30,000 in financial assistance. ..."
"... Threatened with prosecution, Gregory Rodchenkov began to behave oddly and was repeatedly hospitalized and "subjected to a forensic psychiatric examination." A finding was later submitted to the court, claiming that Rodchenkov suffered from "schizotypal personality disorder," exacerbated by stress. As a result, all the charges against Rodchenkov were dropped. But the most surprising thing was that someone with a "schizotypal personality disorder" and a sister convicted of trafficking in performance-enhancing drugs continued as the director of Russia's only WADA-accredited anti-doping laboratory ..."
"... All the evidence to be used by the prosecution is subject to challenge, and if some fact included in those charges can be interpreted to the defendant's advantage, then the court is obliged to exclude that fact from the materials at the disposal of the prosecution. ..."
"... As a lawyer, McLaren understands all this very well. Hundreds of lawsuits filed by Russian athletes resulting in an unambiguous outcome would not only destroy his reputation and ruin him professionally they could form the basis of a criminal investigation with obvious grounds for accusing him of intentionally distorting a few facts, which in his eyes can be summarized as follows. ..."
The 6thFundamental
Principle of Olympism (non-discrimination of any kind, including nationality and political opinion)
seems to be forgotten long ago. In ancient Greece the competition of best athletes was able
to halt a war and serve as a bridge of understanding between two recent foes. But in the twentieth
century the Olympics have become a political weapon. Back in 1980 the US and its allies boycotted
the games in Moscow as a protest against the Soviet troops that entered Afghanistan at the request
of that country's legitimate government (in contrast, the
1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany were
held as usual, to the applause of the "civilized" world).
On May 8, 2016 the CBS program 60 Minutes aired a
broadcast about doping in Russia. The interviews featured recorded conversations between
a former staffer with the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), Vitaly Stepanov, and the ex-director
of Russia's anti-doping laboratory in Moscow, Grigory Rodchenkov. That program was just the
fourth installment in a lengthy
series about the alleged existence of a system to support doping in Russian sports.
A few days later the New York Times
published an interview with Rodchenkov. There that former official claims that a state-supported
doping program was active at the Sochi Olympics, and that the orders for that program had come almost
directly from the Russian president.
One important fact that escaped most international observers was that a media campaign, which
had begun shortly after the 2014 deep freeze in Russian-Western relations, was constructed around
the "testimonies" of three Russian citizens who were all interconnected and complicit in a string
of doping scandals, and who later left Russia and are trying to make new lives in the West.
A 29-year-old middle-distance runner, Yulia Stepanova, can be seen as the instigator of this scandal.
This young athlete's personal best in global competition was a bronze medal at the European Athletics
Indoor Championship in 2011. At the World Championships that same year she placed eighth.
Stepanova's career went off the rails in 2013, when the Russian Athletic Federation's Anti-Doping
Commission disqualified her for two years based on "blood fluctuations in her Athlete Biological
Passport." Such fluctuations are considered evidence of doping. All of Stepanova's results
since 2011 have been invalidated. In addition, she had to return the prize money she had won
running in professional races in 2011-2012. Stepanova, who had been suspended for doping, acted
as the primary informant for ARD journalist
Hajo Seppelt, who had begun filming a documentary about misconduct in Russian sports. After
the release of ARD's first documentary in December 2014, Stepanova left Russia along with her husband
and son. In 2015 she requested political asylum in Canada. Even after her suspension
ended in 2015, Stepanova told the WADA Commission (p.142 of the
Nov. 2015 WADA Report) that she had tested positive for doping during the Russian Track and Field
Championships in Saransk in July 2010 and paid 30,000 rubles (approximately $1,000 USD at that time)
to the director of the Russian anti-doping laboratory in Moscow, Gregory Rodchenkov, in exchange
for concealing those test results.
Yulia Stepanova's husband is Vitaly Stepanov a former staffer at RUSADA. He had lived
and studied in the US since he was 15, but later decided to return to Russia. In 2008, Vitaly
Stepanov began working for RUSADA as a doping-control officer. Vitaly met Yulia Rusanova in
2009 at the Russian national championships in Cheboksary. Stepanov now claims that he sent
a letter to WADA detailing his revelations back in 2010, but never received an answer.
In 2011 Stepanov left RUSADA. One fact that deserves attention is that Vitaly has confessed
that he was fully aware that his wife was taking banned substances, both while he worked for RUSADA
as well as after he left that organization. Take note that Stepanova's blood tests went positive
starting in 2011 i.e., from the time that her husband, an anti-doping officer, left RUSADA. With
a clear conscience, the Stepanovs, now married, accepted prize money from professional races until
Yulia was disqualified. Then they no longer had a source of income and the prize money suddenly
had to be returned, at which point Vitaly Stepanov sought recourse in foreign journalists, offering
to tell them the "truth about Russian sports." In early June he
admitted that WADA had not only helped his family move to America, but had also provided them
with $30,000 in financial assistance.
And finally, the third figure in the campaign to expose doping in Russian sports the former
head of the Russian anti-doping laboratory in Moscow,Gregory Rodchenkov. According to Vitaly
Stepanov, he was the man who sold performance-enhancing drugs while helping to hide their traces,
and had also come up with the idea of "doped
Chivas mouth swishing" (pg. 50), a technique that transforms men into Olympic champions.
This 57-year-old native of Moscow is acknowledged to be the best at what he does. He graduated
from Moscow State University with a Ph.D. in chemistry and began working at the Moscow anti-doping
lab as early as 1985. He later worked in Canada and for Russian petrochemical companies, and
in 2005 he became the director of Russia's national anti-doping laboratory in Moscow. In 2013
Marina Rodchenkova Gregory Rodchenkov's sister was found guilty and received a sentence for selling
anabolic steroids to athletes. Her brother was also the subject of a criminal investigation
into charges that he supplied banned drugs.
Threatened with prosecution, Gregory Rodchenkov began to behave oddly and was repeatedly hospitalized
and "subjected to a forensic psychiatric examination." A finding was later submitted to the
court, claiming that Rodchenkov suffered from "schizotypal personality disorder," exacerbated by
stress. As a result, all the charges against Rodchenkov were dropped. But the most surprising
thing was that someone with a "schizotypal personality disorder" and a sister convicted of trafficking
in performance-enhancing drugs continued as the director of Russia's only WADA-accredited anti-doping
laboratory.
In fact, he held this job during the 2014 Olympics. Rodchenkov was not dismissed until the
fall of 2015, after the eruption of the scandal that had been instigated by the broadcaster ARD and
the Stepanovs. In September 2015 the WADA Commission accused Rodchenkov of intentionally destroying
over a thousand samples in order to conceal doping by Russian athletes. He personally denied
all the charges, but then resigned and left for the US where he was warmly embraced by filmmaker
Bryan Fogel, who was shooting yet anothermade-to-order
documentary about doping in Russia.
As this article is being written, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is studying a
report
from an "Independent Person," the Canadian professor Richard H. McLaren, who has accused the entire
Russian Federation, not just individual athletes, of complicity in the use of performance-enhancing
drugs. McLaren was quickly summoned to speak with WADA shortly after
the
NYT published interview with Rodchenkov. The goal was clear: to concoct a "scientific report"
by mid-July that would provide the IOC with grounds to ban the Russian team from the Rio Olympics.
At a press conference on July 18 McLaren himself
acknowledged that with a timeline of only
57 days he was unable "to identify any athlete that might have benefited from such manipulation to
conceal positive doping tests." WADA's logic here is clear they need to avoid any accusations
of bias, unprofessionalism, embellishment of facts, or political partisanship. No matter what
duplicity and lies are found in the report it was drafted by an "independent person," period.
However, he does not try to hide that the entire report is based on the testimony of a single person
Rodchenkov himself, who is repeatedly presented as a "credible and truthful" source. Of course
that man is accused by WADA itself of destroying 1,417 doping tests and faces deportation to Russia
for doping-linked crimes, but he saw an opportunity become a "valuable witness" and "prisoner of
conscience" who is being persecuted by the "totalitarian regime" in Russia.
The advantage enjoyed by this "independent commission" on the basis of whose report the IOC
is deciding the fate of Russia's Olympic hopefuls is that its accusations will not be examined
in court, nor can the body of evidence be challenged by the lawyers for the accused. Nor is
the customary legal presumption of innocence anywhere in evidence.
It appears from Professor McLaren's statement that no charges will be brought against any specific
Russian athletes. Moreover, they can all compete if they refuse to represent Russia at the
Olympics. There are obvious reasons for this selectivity. A law professor and longstanding
member of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Professor McClaren knows very well that any charges
against specific individuals that are made publicly and result in "legally significant acts" (such
as a ban on Olympic participation) can and will be challenged in court, in accordance with international
law and on the basis of the presumption of innocence. All the evidence to be used by the
prosecution is subject to challenge, and if some fact included in those charges can be interpreted
to the defendant's advantage, then the court is obliged to exclude that fact from the materials at
the disposal of the prosecution.
As a lawyer, McLaren understands all this very well. Hundreds of lawsuits filed by Russian
athletes resulting in an unambiguous outcome would not only destroy his reputation and ruin him professionally
they could form the basis of a criminal investigation with obvious grounds for accusing him of
intentionally distorting a few facts, which in his eyes can be summarized as follows.
During the Sochi Olympics, an FSB officer named Evgeny Blokhin switched the doping tests taken
from Russian athletes, exchanging them for "clean" urine samples. This agent is said to have
possessed a plumbing contractor's security clearance, allowing him to enter the laboratory.
In addition, there are reports that Evgeny Kurdyatsev, the head of the Registration and Biological
Sample Accounting Department switched the doping tests at night, through a "mouse hole" in the
wall (!). Awaiting them in the adjascent building was the man who is now providing "credible
evidence" Gregory Rodchenkov and some other unnamed individuals, who passed Blokhin the athletes'
clean doping tests to be used to replace the original samples. If the specific gravity of the
clean urine did not match the original profile, it was "adapted" using table salt or distilled water.
But of course the DNA was incompatible. And all of this was going on in the only official,
WADA-accredited anti-doping laboratory in Russia!
How would something like that sound in any court? We have witnesses, but the defense team
cannot subject them to cross-examination. We cannot prove that Blokhin is an FSB agent, but
we believe it. We do not possess any of the original documents not a single photograph or
affidavit from the official examination but we have sufficient evidence from a single criminal
who has already confessed to his crime. We did not submit the emails provided by Rodchenkov
to any experts to be examined, but we assert that the emails are genuine, that all the facts they
contain are accurate, and that the names of the senders are correct. We cannot accuse the athletes,
so we will accuse and punish the state!
To be honest, we still do not believe that the Olympic movement has sunk so low as to deprive
billions of people of the pleasure of watching the competitions, forgetting about politics and politicians.
That would mean waving goodbye to the reputations of the WADA and the IOC and to the global system
of sports as a whole. Perhaps a solution to the colossal problem of doping is long overdue,
but is that answer to be found within the boundaries of only one country, even a great country like
Russia? Should we take a moment here and now to dwell upon the
multi-volume history of
doping scandals in every single country in the world? And in view of these facts that have
come to light, is not WADA itself the cornerstone of the existing and far-reaching system to support
and cover up athletic doping all over the world?
In conclusion, we cite below the complete translation of the Russian Olympic Committee'sstatement
in response to the WADA report:
"The accusations against Russian sports found in the report by Richard McLaren are so serious
that a full investigation is needed, with input from all parties. The Russian Olympic Committee
has a policy of zero tolerance and supports the fight against doping. It is ready to provide
its full assistance and work together, as needed, with any international organization.
We wholeheartedly disagree with Mr. McLaren's view that the possible banning of hundreds of
clean Russian athletes from competition in the Olympic Games is an acceptable 'unpleasant consequence'
of the charges contained in his report.
The charges being made are primarily based on statements by Grigory Rodchenkov. This
is solely based on testimony from someone who is at the epicenter of this criminal scheme, which
is a blow not only to the careers and fates of a great many clean athletes, but also to the integrity
of the entire international Olympic movement.
Russia has fought against doping and will continue to fight at the state level, steadily stiffening
the penalties for any illegal activity of this type and enforcing a precept of inevitable punishment.
The Russian Olympic Committee fully supports the harshest possible penalties against anyone
who either uses banned drugs or encourages their use.
At the same time, the ROC acting in full compliance with the Olympic Charter will always
protect the rights of clean athletes. Those who throughout their careers thanks to relentless
training, talent, and willpower strive to realize their Olympic dreams should not have their
futures determined by the unfounded, unsubstantiated accusations and criminal acts of certain
individuals. For us this is a matter of principle."
"... I know a bit about Russian people and one thing I know is this; the U.S. is ignorant of their culture, values and intelligence; a gross miscalculation of an adversary. ..."
"... The neo-cons are crazy (like rabid dogs) but not overtly suicidal, I think (not sure actually). ..."
Stephen Cohen got it. He got shut down. And the talking head at CNN made a note never to have
this guy on again. CNN's just had all the conversation - and then some - that they ever want to
have with this guy. We'll never see Stephen Cohen on TNC TV again.
Yes, both. I'm well aware of the long and somewhat "bumpy" history going back decades (many)
and see this as a mutual joust against a common enemy/hegemon. Russia is well aware of it's vast
area and consequent resources making it a prize like no other on the planet.
It's Russia's curse and wealth at the same time. It's there's to lose if they play badly.
I know a bit about Russian people and one thing I know is this; the U.S. is ignorant of their
culture, values and intelligence; a gross miscalculation of an adversary.
Together they (PRC and Russia) are the perfect foil to the U.S. aggression.
The neo-cons are crazy (like rabid dogs) but not overtly suicidal, I think (not sure actually).
American Special Forces within Nusra? If true that's rich...
Notable quotes:
"... Has al Nusra proven to be a capable fighting force on its own? Or has it proven capable at using the weapons gifted it by its regime-change uncle and with the support of the USAF and American Special Forces? ..."
"... Natalya Nougayrθde hits all the familiar high points in this typical hagiography Putin is in Syria because he wants to show everyone his penis, and avenge the catastrophic defeat of Soviet forces in Afghanistan while restoring Russia's image as a serious military power. ..."
"... But despite her love-letter to western imperialism, Nougayrθde seems quite clear that Assad is not losing ..."
Has al Nusra proven to be a capable fighting force on its own? Or has it proven capable at
using the weapons gifted it by its regime-change uncle and with the support of the USAF and American
Special Forces?
Natalya Nougayrθde hits all the familiar high points in
this typical hagiography Putin is in Syria because he wants to show everyone his penis,
and avenge the catastrophic defeat of Soviet forces in Afghanistan while restoring Russia's image
as a serious military power. Putin was in the KGB. It has absolutely fuck-all to do with
the article, but Putin was in the KGB, just to be sure you know. It was terribly embarrassing
for the Soviet Union to be defeated by a ragtag army of Afghan Mujaheddin, but apparently it is
not embarrassing at all for America to experience the
profound failure of its military policy in Afghanistan . Or perhaps it is embarrassing,
since it dares not leave.
But despite her love-letter to western imperialism, Nougayrθde seems quite clear that Assad
is not losing, although she plainly would be delighted if that were the case. She also points
out that Aleppo is the last remaining significant opposition stronghold. If al Nusra is such an
awesome fighting force, why are they surrounded in the last significant objective they hold? Why
are they not spreading out and taking more territory?
"... Curiously, when a country 'can't make anything', the west rolls about and mocks and ridicules it for its perceived inadequacy. When it makes a quality product that western companies want to buy at a price with which western producers cannot compete, western governments erase that advantage so as to force their consumers to buy domestic product. I guess that's democracy and freedom and progress. Gee; it smells funny. ..."
"In the wake of the global steel overcapacity crisis, the Commission is
applying the trade defense instruments to re-establish a level-playing field
between EU and foreign producers," a statement read.
The duties range from 18.7% to 36.1% for Russian companies and between
19.7% and 22.1% on Chinese firms Angang Group and Shougang Group . ####
For whys? There's barely a word about Russia. Just another excuse to
impose yet more sanctions?
From an extremely brief look at above (YAWN!), it looks like the
Commission made its calculations and when the exporters complained, the
Commission said "
GIve us more information to change our mind " but
didn't find such information 'convincing' enough to do so.
Curiously, when a country 'can't make anything', the west rolls about and
mocks and ridicules it for its perceived inadequacy. When it makes a
quality product that western companies want to buy at a price with which
western producers cannot compete, western governments erase that
advantage so as to force their consumers to buy domestic product. I guess
that's democracy and freedom and progress. Gee; it smells funny.
Isn't it interesting that the communists of China are seeking a long-term partnership with Russia
a nominally capitalist country? Of course, Russia is seeking the same with China.
July 1, China marked an important date on July 1. It was the 95th anniversary of the founding
of the Chinese Communist Party. Chairman Xi Jinping addressed the solemn meeting devoted to this
event. In addition to the praises of "Long live!" (And deservedly so, since the CCP has much to
be proud of) there was Chairman Xi's speech which was short, but very important.
"The world is on the verge of radical change. We see how the European Union is gradually
collapsing, as is the US economy - it is all over for the new world order. So, it will never again
be as it was before, in 10 years we will have a new world order in which the key will be the union
of China and Russia. "
If the above translation is accurate I wonder what is meant by key will be the union of
China and Russia . In any event, it appears that ideology is not at the core of the unity;
its something much deeper and more resilient. I offer that it is a shared view that embraces a
realization that the world can no longer accept global hegemony from the West otherwise catastrophe
is virtually certain in the form of (pick one or two): nuclear war, financial or ecological collapse.
Their mission is basically to save the world from Western insanity which handily trumps anything
that may separate them.
And, I think that the Chinese and Russians are far too wise to seek global hegemony for themselves.
The trick for them will be taking down the Western house of cards without triggering a catastrophic
miscalculation by the West. Whew, now time for an hot fudge sundae.
I think it's mutual disgust with the USA's blatant and shameless rigging of the playing field
in every contest. If America can't win, then it's a loss for all of mankind. And it blabbers constantly
and loudly about its values, and then does things which completely contradict those supposed values,
and never appears to notice anything unusual or untoward about it.
"... Yulia Stepanova's husband is Vitaly Stepanov a former staffer at RUSADA. He had lived and studied in the US since he was 15, but later decided to return to Russia. In 2008, Vitaly Stepanov began working for RUSADA as a doping-control officer. Vitaly met Yulia Rusanova in 2009 at the Russian national championships in Cheboksary. Stepanov now claims that he sent a letter to WADA detailing his revelations back in 2010, but never received an answer. ..."
"... One fact that deserves attention is that Vitaly has confessed that he was fully aware that his wife was taking banned substances, both while he worked for RUSADA as well as after he left that organization. ..."
"... In early June he admitted that WADA had not only helped his family move to America, but had also provided them with $30,000 in financial assistance. ..."
"... Threatened with prosecution, Gregory Rodchenkov began to behave oddly and was repeatedly hospitalized and "subjected to a forensic psychiatric examination." A finding was later submitted to the court, claiming that Rodchenkov suffered from "schizotypal personality disorder," exacerbated by stress. As a result, all the charges against Rodchenkov were dropped. But the most surprising thing was that someone with a "schizotypal personality disorder" and a sister convicted of trafficking in performance-enhancing drugs continued as the director of Russia's only WADA-accredited anti-doping laboratory ..."
"... All the evidence to be used by the prosecution is subject to challenge, and if some fact included in those charges can be interpreted to the defendant's advantage, then the court is obliged to exclude that fact from the materials at the disposal of the prosecution. ..."
"... As a lawyer, McLaren understands all this very well. Hundreds of lawsuits filed by Russian athletes resulting in an unambiguous outcome would not only destroy his reputation and ruin him professionally they could form the basis of a criminal investigation with obvious grounds for accusing him of intentionally distorting a few facts, which in his eyes can be summarized as follows. ..."
The 6thFundamental
Principle of Olympism (non-discrimination of any kind, including nationality and political opinion)
seems to be forgotten long ago. In ancient Greece the competition of best athletes was able
to halt a war and serve as a bridge of understanding between two recent foes. But in the twentieth
century the Olympics have become a political weapon. Back in 1980 the US and its allies boycotted
the games in Moscow as a protest against the Soviet troops that entered Afghanistan at the request
of that country's legitimate government (in contrast, the
1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany were
held as usual, to the applause of the "civilized" world).
On May 8, 2016 the CBS program 60 Minutes aired a
broadcast about doping in Russia. The interviews featured recorded conversations between
a former staffer with the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), Vitaly Stepanov, and the ex-director
of Russia's anti-doping laboratory in Moscow, Grigory Rodchenkov. That program was just the
fourth installment in a lengthy
series about the alleged existence of a system to support doping in Russian sports.
A few days later the New York Times
published an interview with Rodchenkov. There that former official claims that a state-supported
doping program was active at the Sochi Olympics, and that the orders for that program had come almost
directly from the Russian president.
One important fact that escaped most international observers was that a media campaign, which
had begun shortly after the 2014 deep freeze in Russian-Western relations, was constructed around
the "testimonies" of three Russian citizens who were all interconnected and complicit in a string
of doping scandals, and who later left Russia and are trying to make new lives in the West.
A 29-year-old middle-distance runner, Yulia Stepanova, can be seen as the instigator of this scandal.
This young athlete's personal best in global competition was a bronze medal at the European Athletics
Indoor Championship in 2011. At the World Championships that same year she placed eighth.
Stepanova's career went off the rails in 2013, when the Russian Athletic Federation's Anti-Doping
Commission disqualified her for two years based on "blood fluctuations in her Athlete Biological
Passport." Such fluctuations are considered evidence of doping. All of Stepanova's results
since 2011 have been invalidated. In addition, she had to return the prize money she had won
running in professional races in 2011-2012. Stepanova, who had been suspended for doping, acted
as the primary informant for ARD journalist
Hajo Seppelt, who had begun filming a documentary about misconduct in Russian sports. After
the release of ARD's first documentary in December 2014, Stepanova left Russia along with her husband
and son. In 2015 she requested political asylum in Canada. Even after her suspension
ended in 2015, Stepanova told the WADA Commission (p.142 of the
Nov. 2015 WADA Report) that she had tested positive for doping during the Russian Track and Field
Championships in Saransk in July 2010 and paid 30,000 rubles (approximately $1,000 USD at that time)
to the director of the Russian anti-doping laboratory in Moscow, Gregory Rodchenkov, in exchange
for concealing those test results.
Yulia Stepanova's husband is Vitaly Stepanov a former staffer at RUSADA. He had lived
and studied in the US since he was 15, but later decided to return to Russia. In 2008, Vitaly
Stepanov began working for RUSADA as a doping-control officer. Vitaly met Yulia Rusanova in
2009 at the Russian national championships in Cheboksary. Stepanov now claims that he sent
a letter to WADA detailing his revelations back in 2010, but never received an answer.
In 2011 Stepanov left RUSADA. One fact that deserves attention is that Vitaly has confessed
that he was fully aware that his wife was taking banned substances, both while he worked for RUSADA
as well as after he left that organization. Take note that Stepanova's blood tests went positive
starting in 2011 i.e., from the time that her husband, an anti-doping officer, left RUSADA. With
a clear conscience, the Stepanovs, now married, accepted prize money from professional races until
Yulia was disqualified. Then they no longer had a source of income and the prize money suddenly
had to be returned, at which point Vitaly Stepanov sought recourse in foreign journalists, offering
to tell them the "truth about Russian sports." In early June he
admitted that WADA had not only helped his family move to America, but had also provided them
with $30,000 in financial assistance.
And finally, the third figure in the campaign to expose doping in Russian sports the former
head of the Russian anti-doping laboratory in Moscow,Gregory Rodchenkov. According to Vitaly
Stepanov, he was the man who sold performance-enhancing drugs while helping to hide their traces,
and had also come up with the idea of "doped
Chivas mouth swishing" (pg. 50), a technique that transforms men into Olympic champions.
This 57-year-old native of Moscow is acknowledged to be the best at what he does. He graduated
from Moscow State University with a Ph.D. in chemistry and began working at the Moscow anti-doping
lab as early as 1985. He later worked in Canada and for Russian petrochemical companies, and
in 2005 he became the director of Russia's national anti-doping laboratory in Moscow. In 2013
Marina Rodchenkova Gregory Rodchenkov's sister was found guilty and received a sentence for selling
anabolic steroids to athletes. Her brother was also the subject of a criminal investigation
into charges that he supplied banned drugs.
Threatened with prosecution, Gregory Rodchenkov began to behave oddly and was repeatedly hospitalized
and "subjected to a forensic psychiatric examination." A finding was later submitted to the
court, claiming that Rodchenkov suffered from "schizotypal personality disorder," exacerbated by
stress. As a result, all the charges against Rodchenkov were dropped. But the most surprising
thing was that someone with a "schizotypal personality disorder" and a sister convicted of trafficking
in performance-enhancing drugs continued as the director of Russia's only WADA-accredited anti-doping
laboratory.
In fact, he held this job during the 2014 Olympics. Rodchenkov was not dismissed until the
fall of 2015, after the eruption of the scandal that had been instigated by the broadcaster ARD and
the Stepanovs. In September 2015 the WADA Commission accused Rodchenkov of intentionally destroying
over a thousand samples in order to conceal doping by Russian athletes. He personally denied
all the charges, but then resigned and left for the US where he was warmly embraced by filmmaker
Bryan Fogel, who was shooting yet anothermade-to-order
documentary about doping in Russia.
As this article is being written, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is studying a
report
from an "Independent Person," the Canadian professor Richard H. McLaren, who has accused the entire
Russian Federation, not just individual athletes, of complicity in the use of performance-enhancing
drugs. McLaren was quickly summoned to speak with WADA shortly after
the
NYT published interview with Rodchenkov. The goal was clear: to concoct a "scientific report"
by mid-July that would provide the IOC with grounds to ban the Russian team from the Rio Olympics.
At a press conference on July 18 McLaren himself
acknowledged that with a timeline of only
57 days he was unable "to identify any athlete that might have benefited from such manipulation to
conceal positive doping tests." WADA's logic here is clear they need to avoid any accusations
of bias, unprofessionalism, embellishment of facts, or political partisanship. No matter what
duplicity and lies are found in the report it was drafted by an "independent person," period.
However, he does not try to hide that the entire report is based on the testimony of a single person
Rodchenkov himself, who is repeatedly presented as a "credible and truthful" source. Of course
that man is accused by WADA itself of destroying 1,417 doping tests and faces deportation to Russia
for doping-linked crimes, but he saw an opportunity become a "valuable witness" and "prisoner of
conscience" who is being persecuted by the "totalitarian regime" in Russia.
The advantage enjoyed by this "independent commission" on the basis of whose report the IOC
is deciding the fate of Russia's Olympic hopefuls is that its accusations will not be examined
in court, nor can the body of evidence be challenged by the lawyers for the accused. Nor is
the customary legal presumption of innocence anywhere in evidence.
It appears from Professor McLaren's statement that no charges will be brought against any specific
Russian athletes. Moreover, they can all compete if they refuse to represent Russia at the
Olympics. There are obvious reasons for this selectivity. A law professor and longstanding
member of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Professor McClaren knows very well that any charges
against specific individuals that are made publicly and result in "legally significant acts" (such
as a ban on Olympic participation) can and will be challenged in court, in accordance with international
law and on the basis of the presumption of innocence. All the evidence to be used by the
prosecution is subject to challenge, and if some fact included in those charges can be interpreted
to the defendant's advantage, then the court is obliged to exclude that fact from the materials at
the disposal of the prosecution.
As a lawyer, McLaren understands all this very well. Hundreds of lawsuits filed by Russian
athletes resulting in an unambiguous outcome would not only destroy his reputation and ruin him professionally
they could form the basis of a criminal investigation with obvious grounds for accusing him of
intentionally distorting a few facts, which in his eyes can be summarized as follows.
During the Sochi Olympics, an FSB officer named Evgeny Blokhin switched the doping tests taken
from Russian athletes, exchanging them for "clean" urine samples. This agent is said to have
possessed a plumbing contractor's security clearance, allowing him to enter the laboratory.
In addition, there are reports that Evgeny Kurdyatsev, the head of the Registration and Biological
Sample Accounting Department switched the doping tests at night, through a "mouse hole" in the
wall (!). Awaiting them in the adjascent building was the man who is now providing "credible
evidence" Gregory Rodchenkov and some other unnamed individuals, who passed Blokhin the athletes'
clean doping tests to be used to replace the original samples. If the specific gravity of the
clean urine did not match the original profile, it was "adapted" using table salt or distilled water.
But of course the DNA was incompatible. And all of this was going on in the only official,
WADA-accredited anti-doping laboratory in Russia!
How would something like that sound in any court? We have witnesses, but the defense team
cannot subject them to cross-examination. We cannot prove that Blokhin is an FSB agent, but
we believe it. We do not possess any of the original documents not a single photograph or
affidavit from the official examination but we have sufficient evidence from a single criminal
who has already confessed to his crime. We did not submit the emails provided by Rodchenkov
to any experts to be examined, but we assert that the emails are genuine, that all the facts they
contain are accurate, and that the names of the senders are correct. We cannot accuse the athletes,
so we will accuse and punish the state!
To be honest, we still do not believe that the Olympic movement has sunk so low as to deprive
billions of people of the pleasure of watching the competitions, forgetting about politics and politicians.
That would mean waving goodbye to the reputations of the WADA and the IOC and to the global system
of sports as a whole. Perhaps a solution to the colossal problem of doping is long overdue,
but is that answer to be found within the boundaries of only one country, even a great country like
Russia? Should we take a moment here and now to dwell upon the
multi-volume history of
doping scandals in every single country in the world? And in view of these facts that have
come to light, is not WADA itself the cornerstone of the existing and far-reaching system to support
and cover up athletic doping all over the world?
In conclusion, we cite below the complete translation of the Russian Olympic Committee'sstatement
in response to the WADA report:
"The accusations against Russian sports found in the report by Richard McLaren are so serious
that a full investigation is needed, with input from all parties. The Russian Olympic Committee
has a policy of zero tolerance and supports the fight against doping. It is ready to provide
its full assistance and work together, as needed, with any international organization.
We wholeheartedly disagree with Mr. McLaren's view that the possible banning of hundreds of
clean Russian athletes from competition in the Olympic Games is an acceptable 'unpleasant consequence'
of the charges contained in his report.
The charges being made are primarily based on statements by Grigory Rodchenkov. This
is solely based on testimony from someone who is at the epicenter of this criminal scheme, which
is a blow not only to the careers and fates of a great many clean athletes, but also to the integrity
of the entire international Olympic movement.
Russia has fought against doping and will continue to fight at the state level, steadily stiffening
the penalties for any illegal activity of this type and enforcing a precept of inevitable punishment.
The Russian Olympic Committee fully supports the harshest possible penalties against anyone
who either uses banned drugs or encourages their use.
At the same time, the ROC acting in full compliance with the Olympic Charter will always
protect the rights of clean athletes. Those who throughout their careers thanks to relentless
training, talent, and willpower strive to realize their Olympic dreams should not have their
futures determined by the unfounded, unsubstantiated accusations and criminal acts of certain
individuals. For us this is a matter of principle."
"... From the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Fιdιration Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) to the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Washington has been playing a dangerous game of intrigue and deception with regard to steering these organizations in a pro-American direction. The Obama administration has decided that the halls, offices, and conference rooms of international organizations are acceptable battlefields to wage propaganda and sanctions wars. ..."
From the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Fιdιration Internationale de
Football Association (FIFA) to the Southern Common Market (Mercosur) and the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Washington has been playing a dangerous game of intrigue and
deception with regard to steering these organizations in a pro-American direction. The Obama
administration has decided that the halls, offices, and conference rooms of international
organizations are acceptable battlefields to wage propaganda and sanctions wars.
The first American target of note was the international football association, FIFA. Not content
with trying to sully the reputation of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics with issues of gay rights
and doping of athletes, the US disinformation boiler rooms began a full-scale attack on FIFA. The
major reason is Russia's hosting of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The US Justice Department, in a
major move toward the internationalization of domestic US law, began unsealing indictment after
indictment of FIFA officials for financial crimes. The actual target of these indictments was
Russia.
... ... ...
Resisting pressure from Washington, IOC president Thomas Bach wisely decided to avoid a
blanket ban of Russian athletes. Bach called such a unilateral ban on Russia participating in the
Rio games as a "nuclear option". He also said that such a "nuclear option" would have resulted in
"collateral damage" among innocent athletes. Bach's use of two geopolitical military terms was no
mistake and it bore the mark of someone responding to familiar American "shock and awe" pressure.
The United States used its compliant stooges, Germany and Canada, as well as the dubious World
Anti-Doping Agency, run by a Scottish lawyer, to call for a total ban on Russian athletes in Rio.
The neoliberal empire requires wars for resources and ruthless psychopaths at top position to
impose the will on transactionals on other nations.
Paul Craig Roberts:
Washington has raised the cost of being a member of its Empire too high. Vassals such as France and
Germany are beginning to exercise independent policies toward Russia. Observing the cracks in its
Empire, Washington has decided to bind its vassals to Washington with terror. Most likely what we
are witnessing in the French and German attacks is Operation Gladio. Washington's policy toward
Russia, which has been imposed by Washington on all of Europe, benefits no one but the handful of
American ideologues known as neoconservatives. Neoconservatives are crazed psychopaths willing to
destroy Earth in behalf of American hegemony.
Notable quotes:
"... Hilarious part is, it was West that fomented nationalism in the USSR in order to break it up, and it included Russian Republic - Yeltsin suppressed Commies with a cry "Russia for the Russians", Communists failed to gain support, and USSR collapsed. West at the time applauded this, and Russian nationalism was treated as good as Polish nationalism and Latvian nationalism etc. ..."
"... However, whereas Poland, Latvia etc were happy to become Western vassal states (and there's nothing wrong with that, those countries are too small to amount to anything geopolitically by themselves), Russian nationalism took Russia on a bit of a collision course with the West. Now West lost control of the process, and is blaming Russia for it. How predictable. ..."
"... On another note, Putin is on some level the Angry Older White Guy who progressives have thought were killed off in the 70s in our cultural sphere, and that's why they vehemently loathe him in a way they don't the Soviet Union. It's also why some of the hardest hawks on the Soviet Union are some of the most friendly people in the USA to Putin. We are again in a Cold War, but this time, our government is the revolutionary one pushing for changing society around the globe. ..."
"... Russian liberals while more competent on international trade and economics will sell the country for an iPhone. You need somebody who can continue to develop market economy yet at the same time pursue Russian interests on international stage and not be a doormat. ..."
"... US has OK relationship with current Atlanticist European elite, and even that is rocky at times (see NSA spying on Merkel). European right populist forces are not happy about this arrangement, and they are steadily gaining ground. Ask Marine Le Pen what she thinks about NATO and US some time. ..."
"... Russian population has stabilized a few years ago, and life expectancy has been increasing a lot under Putin. Excluding currency game that are mostly political, Russian economy on PPP basis is about the same as Germany. ..."
...Partly through interviews with the Russian president himself, it also offers a window on
Putin's own realpolitik perspective, one that I've found to be widely shared throughout Russia
over many years of living in the country-a worldview according to which international relations
consist of competing blocs of nations pursuing their interests, and the violation of sovereignty
is a recipe for instability. This stands in contrast to Obama's own position, which he stated at
the UN two years ago, that "sovereignty cannot be a shield for tyrants to commit wanton murder,
or an excuse for the international community to turn a blind eye to slaughter."
"I believe," Putin tells Solovyov, "that no one should ever impose any sort of values he
considers correct on anyone. We have our own values, our own conceptions of justice." Putin
doesn't name names here, but the implication is clear throughout: World Order endeavors to
incriminate American foreign policy and place the blame for the current chaos in the Middle East
on the United States.
... some of its criticisms of wrongheaded U.S. policies and blundering
interventions in the Middle East since September 11, 2001, would give American liberals,
centrists, and even a few conservatives little cause for dispute. Yet the documentary goes
further, leaving the strong impression that greedy, bungling, incorrigibly myopic conspirators
"from across the ocean" (a phrase Putin uses repeatedly in the film to describe the U.S.
leadership) bent on world domination are to blame; Russia comes off as unjustly demonized and
Russians themselves forced to suffer economically as a result.
... the root of all international evils is the American penchant for
democracy-spreading, both subtle (via U.S. support for "color revolutions" in the post-Soviet
sphere) and overt (as in overthrowing Saddam Hussein). Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
declares that the Arab Spring was fomented from abroad, disregarding the Middle Eastern region's
widespread popular discontent with official corruption, political stasis, and lack of job
opportunities. The United States intervenes despite bitter experience within living memory; the
American director Oliver Stone appears onscreen to tell viewers that "America didn't learn the
lesson of Vietnam, which is you shouldn't go around invading other countries."
But Putin denies chiding Obama directly at the UN for the consequences of the Arab Spring. "I
wasn't saying this [to President Obama]" Putin tells Solovyov, but to the constellation of
leaders, both American and European, who have been meddling in Muslim lands since 2001. "I have
always been telling [these leaders] that they have to act carefully. It's wrong to impose one's
scheme ... of ideas concerning good and evil, or in this case, good and democracy," on countries
"with differing cultures, a different religion, with other traditions. But frankly, no one
listens, because they apparently consider themselves infallible and great." No one, he adds,
holds those leaders accountable, whatever the outcome. When an "operation" produces the wrong
results, Putin says, the (again, unnamed) leaders in question just say, "Oh well. Next!" After
all, "They're great and sitting across the ocean, the dollar is the world's currency, they have
the biggest economy in the world."
The "operations" to which Putin refers include, of course, the 2003 Iraq war,
which Russia, France, and Germany opposed. Then-French President Jacques Chiraq, Putin claims,
even foresaw that terrorist attacks in Europe, resembling those that occurred in Paris this year,
could grow out of the anarchy that would result from Saddam's overthrow. Another is the
imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya in 2011 (to prevent the regime from using its air force to
stage a massacre-a fact that goes unmentioned). The film replays video of then-Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton's
remark, delivered with a callous laugh, about Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi's subsequent
death-"We came, we saw, he died!"-followed by footage of the tyrant's brutal murder, which drives
home the real-life consequences of the intervention and its bloody aftermath. (Eerily, the film
also shows Qaddafi addressing Arab leaders at a 2011 Arab League summit, and asking, after Saddam
Hussein's execution, "Who among you is next?").
The Wikileaks founder Julian Assange also makes an appearance, citing cables revealing U.S.
efforts to undermine the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad-though American officials
continue to maintain that Assad must go eventually, the cables in question most likely concern
Wikileaks revelations made in 2006. The film shows Syrians lamenting the chaos the presumably
American-backed terrorists have unleashed.
But the message of World Order, as the title
implies, extends geographically wider and historically further back than America's
post-September 11 policies in the Middle East. As the film, and presumably Putin, have it,
the real problem today is not the rise of ISIS but the breakdown in relations between
Russia and the West. A key cause of this conflict has been the eastward expansion of NATO
since the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, which has brought with it the stationing of troops on
Russia's border with the Baltics, plans to one day
admit Ukraine (and Georgia), and, as an eventual result, Russia's intervention in
Ukraine.
"Why did [the West] support the coup?" Putin asks...
Few would dispute Putin's damning description of
Ukraine's post-Maidan
straits: "The standard of living has fallen catastrophically. ... What have they gotten in
return? Possibly [Ukrainians] will be allowed to travel to Europe without a visa. And possibly
not."
But Putin emphasizes that he does not blame Europeans for the policies of the
United States, since, in his view, they are nothing more than "vassals" taking orders "from
across the ocean," at least as far as foreign policy goes. He surely understands the relationship
to be more complicated than that, but such an approach places the blame for the standoff between
Russia and the West on America, and lets him make a direct overture to Europe. "We don't expect
our European partners to give up their Euro-Atlantic orientation" but they would do well to
"unite with Russia" to resolve "economic, political, security, and economic problems. ... We are
ready to work with them and aren't about to pout about the sanctions," he says.
... ... ...
The upshot, according to World Order: Putin considers possible a renewed relationship with
Europe, but sees no such likelihood with the United States. This is one area where the views from
Washington and Moscow aren't so different-and that is bad news.
Antonov
>to prevent the regime from using its air force to stage a massacre-a fact that goes
unmentioned
Unmentioned because it was, in fact, bullsh!t. Qaddafi took lots of towns before Benghazi: no
massacres. Those breathless claims of thousands dead (UNHRC estimated 15,000 dead by June)?
Yeah, also bullsh!t. Estimates for total casualties for the whole war even from the post-war
government (which was probably slightly more credible than Baghdad Bob) were under 10,000. As
for civilians massacred, when the dust cleared and you could actually make a decent accounting
- and, crucially, after everybody had stopped paying attention - know how many you find
pre-intervention? Couple hundred tops, and no evidence of deliberate massacres.
You know where civilians were *actually* massacred? Tawergha. By our proxies. Who were only
capable of doing it because of our support. And who targeted Tawergha because it was inhabited
by blacks. Somehow Rice and Powers and Clinton and the rest of the imbecilic R2P crowd didn't
care about THAT, no more than they cared about Rabaa or Pearl Roundabout.
But no, only the Russians engage in comically obvious propaganda. Keep telling yourselves
that; maybe if you wish hard enough it'll come true.
nebulafox > chemicalbank
"Freedom" as heralded by American elites in the 1990s, in the Russian POV, brought economic
misery, near starvation, social decay, massive levels of disorder and crime, an incompetent
alien overtoned government, and national humiliation. Putin brought an end to all of that. If
I were Russian, I'd support him, and I'd imagine that most people here would be doing that
rather than being some dissident, whatever they think or say. Tone deaf denial of this
strengthens Putin's hand in the propaganda war. Russians have entirely rational reasons for
trusting him on the issue.
You aren't going to convince Russians to give democracy another try-if ever-if what comes to
mind is the 1990s or blithely ignore the fact that Russia is a very different-not better or
worse, but different-culture from the US and that any system of government must take this into
account. And this goes beyond Russia. The CCP is doing their damnedest to make sure that when
Chinese people hear American leaders talk about democracy, they think of Iraq or 90s Russia.
Our foreign and domestic policies have subverted rather than strengthened the democratic cause
there: in the 90s in China, the USA was what people looked to for the future, but now that's
not the case.
agorabum > nebulafox
Americans think of revolutions, and they think of George Washington. Russians think of
revolution, they think of the Red and White terrors of 1918-1922 and the collapse of the
economy in the 90s (although that collapse came more from the underlying, decades long
failures of the Soviet system in the 70s and 80s). It is natural that they would prefer
caution and order over revolution.
nebulafox > agorabum
Exactly.
As another example, Americans think of student protests, they think of the 60s, flower power,
liberation, anti-war sentiments, etc. No matter how caricatured or idealized that view can be
for certain people, it pretty much dominates our media due to the Boomers, and it is indelibly
part of the national fabric.
Chinese think of that, they also think of the 60s, but that brings the Cultural Revolution to
mind. Not exactly peace and love, more in the direction of terror, chaos, and lives being
ruined. It elicits a very powerful reaction to this day among older generations of Chinese,
and the CCP always makes sure to invoke it when pointing out the need for law and order.
Edward Olson > nebulafox
And we Americans are always going on and on about Tiananmen Square, which was a garden
party compared to the Cultural Revolution.
mal > chemicalbank
What will to power? Russia does have a pretty big prison colony, but it is still only about
half that of the US (in per capita terms). In Russia, i can tell you it will be United
Russia/Putin who will win the elections, in US, i can tell you it will be Hillary
Clinton/Democratic Party with almost the same certainty - they are both establishment
candidates.
I lived in Russia in the 90's, and it wasn't pretty, so your typical Russian doesn't want to
go back to that, which is understandable.
Hilarious part is, it was West that fomented nationalism in the USSR in order to break it
up, and it included Russian Republic - Yeltsin suppressed Commies with a cry "Russia for the
Russians", Communists failed to gain support, and USSR collapsed. West at the time applauded
this, and Russian nationalism was treated as good as Polish nationalism and Latvian
nationalism etc.
However, whereas Poland, Latvia etc were happy to become Western vassal states (and
there's nothing wrong with that, those countries are too small to amount to anything
geopolitically by themselves), Russian nationalism took Russia on a bit of a collision course
with the West. Now West lost control of the process, and is blaming Russia for it. How
predictable.
nebulafox > mal
Putin's position is secure, it's the levels below him jockeying for power you have to worry
about should some disaster ever happen. Remove Putin, and all hell breaks loose. Russia is the
last country you want that happening in. He's not Josef Stalin: he has had to court of lot
people and hammer out a delicate balance.
I've said it multiple times that the best chance for a good Russo-US relationship is to stop
thinking in terms of friendship and affection. It's not happening now for the same reasons
that Nixon and Brezhnev said in 1973-we are both just too big. We will have interests that
inevitably collide. We also yet again have ideologies that collide, at least in terms of the
Beltway ruling class. (This time around, however, they are alienating swathes of the American
people that are a little more important than spoiled college brats.) What we can do is put
parameters on conflicts that come up so we don't blow up the world, and cooperate where it is
useful. We will probably always be rivals to some extent. Being enemies is unnecessary. And we
do have interests that coincide. Or we should. I'd rather that Moscow not be the one in charge
of the Middle East, as a hardened American nationalist. But far, far worse is letting Islamism
spread
The brand of Salafi jihadism that faces the West must be exterminated. The danger with
Putin is very different from that, however conflicting his ideology is with DC-it's not an
existential threat by itself. It is if he thinks the West is so feeble and weak that he ends
up doing something that causes a chain reaction beyond everybody's control.
Herein lies the rub: At a very deep, if unstated subconscious level, Muslims or Chinese
acting "uncivilized" (as defined by the "WEIRD" demographic that dominates our media and
cultural life) and not obeying Western norms is part of the script and isn't as surprising.
Russians are white. They are Europeans of a sort. Yet they act completely differently. That's
probably part of it, no matter how futile it is to get anybody to think about it. On
another note, Putin is on some level the Angry Older White Guy who progressives have thought
were killed off in the 70s in our cultural sphere, and that's why they vehemently loathe him
in a way they don't the Soviet Union. It's also why some of the hardest hawks on the Soviet
Union are some of the most friendly people in the USA to Putin. We are again in a Cold War,
but this time, our government is the revolutionary one pushing for changing society around the
globe.
mal > nebulafox
It's not too bad - United Russia has Medvedev, Rogozin and Shoigu at least to continue once
Putin retires. As far as Beltway goes, as long as nobody directly shoots down Russian jets
(Turkey is finding out this the hard way in Syria right now) in a no fly zone, i don't think
there anything that can't be resolved diplomatically.
And yeah, Russia and US will always be rivals to a degree. But it will most often be a
friendly competition. This has to do with technological power - Russia is the only power in
the planet that is smart and tech advanced enough to hurt US (Europe is smart but US keeps
Europe weak), so there will always be parity of sorts between Russians and US, and Beltway
doesn't like situations where it can't bomb if it pleases. And Russians are easily seduced but
are impossible to bully, this is a problem for anyone trying to look tough at Russian expense.
nebulafox > mal
Putin's inner circle is very small and consists exclusively of siloviki-can the delicate
dance go on forever? Then again, the dice will roll again: what comes will come.
No. Russia gets all the news, but China exists as well and has been just as active in their
intelligence offensive against the US. And the world is getting more fragmented, not less. I
fully expect China by the end of the century, should current political trends go to their
logical conclusion, to be more powerful than either the US or Russia. India, Brazil, other
regional powers will make the balance even more predictable.
Bomb... or socially engineer, depending on who is in power. Or both, if you look at the
neoconservatives. We haven't had anybody who has understood how the world worked ever since
1992. I occasionally wonder if the fall of the Soviet Union had something to do with that.
Hah! Let me tell you something-the Eurocrats don't need us to be weak. No, sir! They do that
all by their damn selves and affect our elite culturally these days, not the other way around.
They won't fight for anything, not even their lives, their nations, and thus will become
increasingly easy prey for the Kremlin backed far-right if the situation with the Muslims gets
worse. And it will, particularly since Russian intelligence will look to make it worse.
Looking at it from that angle, it's no wonder that our bien-pensants love the personalities of
Brussels.
Sanctions are stupid. Russians will just endure as they always have, and will probably find a
wry, ironic pleasure in doing so. The thing I've noticed about Russia is that if you want to
defeat it, you never, ever go for the direct approach and hit it with a hammer. Everybody who
has tried that has failed. But that nation is very vulnerable to internal bleeding, to
viruses-the great strength of its size and endless territory is also an Achilles heel.
Everybody who has tried that has succeeded. I'm sure Volodya is more aware of this than
anybody.
mal > nebulafox
"The thing I've noticed about Russia is that if you want to defeat it, you never, ever go
for the direct approach and hit it with a hammer. Everybody who has tried that has failed. But
that nation is very vulnerable to internal bleeding. Everybody who has tried that has
succeeded."
This is exactly what i mean by 'Russians are easily seduced, but impossible to bully'.
Putin is super popular for a good reason, but United Russia party is at about 50% approval
rating which in parliamentary system is not too bad. So i think after Putin retires, Russia
will be in good hands.
Yeah about sanctions. In 1998, before i came to US, i weighed 140 lbs, and i'm 6" tall. We
couldn't buy food. But that's fine, we get over that. When Americans complain about trigger
warnings i get confused. Anyway, please sanctions Russians if you think it is best for Western
domestic policy - Russians won't notice, and if it will make diplomacy better, great.
As far as Europe goes, i have no clue what Putin has in mind there, but i personally think
strong Europe is in Russia's best interest - not a vassal of US anymore, but a true
representative of multipolar world.
veerkg_23 > mal
Europe has never been a vassal. Confusing allies and vassals is a very discredited (and
Russian) thing.
mal > veerkg_23
Lol that's why US has giant military base occupying Germany and NSA spies on Merkel's
private phone calls. Some allies.
Winston Smith > mal
You sound like you really hate the United States.
mal > Winston Smith
I don't. I hate neocons and their idiotic policies. I am and have always been
anti-communist, now, and back in USSR, and I consider Putin's United Russia a pretty good
alternative to Communist Party. Russian nationalist conservatives are viable for modern time,
I think.
Winston Smith > mal
I like your adding , " I think." Shows open mindedness!
mal > Winston Smith
Well, consider the alternatives - Communism is a dead end, nobody wants to stand in line
for toilet paper anymore, and Russian liberals while more competent on international trade
and economics will sell the country for an iPhone. You need somebody who can continue to
develop market economy yet at the same time pursue Russian interests on international stage
and not be a doormat.
It's a tricky balance.
Jazzy_C > mal
Outside of military technology Russia is not as technologically advanced as the U.S.,
Japan, or even China.
Name one Russian brand, or manufactured cellphone, laptop, or other consumer electronic device
that has been commercially successful?
mal > Jazzy_C
"Name one Russian brand, or manufactured cellphone, laptop, or other consumer electronic
device that has been commercially successful?"
yotaphone? Yandex? Mail.ru?
At any rate, your exclusion of military technology is hilarious - in geopolitics, this is the
only tech that matters really. IPhones would not have protected Qadaffi. Russian ballistic
missiles would.
Jazzy_C > mal
"IPhones would not have protected Qadaffi. Russian ballistic missiles would."
Saddam's Russian weaponry really helped when the U.S. raided Iraq in 2003.
mal > Jazzy_C
You are absolutely right - Russia was weak and worthless still in 2003, with Yelstin's
horrible decade just a few years behind, and struggling to contain Chechnya. Russia did
protest at the time, and so did most of the rest of the world, including Germany and France,
but it was pointless. Protestations mean nothing against hard power, Russia learned its lesson
well in 2003, and 2011. With that, North Vietnam did fine with Russian weapons when applied
judiciously, and surprisingly, so did Afghanistan - pro-Soviet Afghan government did't
collapse well until after USSR's collapse. Russian tech works for a long time.
Anyway, decade of the 90's must not be repeated in Russia. I think Russians understand it
well, and yes, i think Iraqis think so too, with them setting up intel centers with the
Russians and such.
mal > Dr. Preobrazhensky
In a strategic sense, nothing lasts forever, especially stability. Putin is very popular,
but he is also old and is about to retire eventually, so stability is something that needs
hard work.
mal > Winston Smith
Current balance of power between US and EU is so lopsided, vassals is a charitable
definition. I mean US military base in Germany is probably stronger than the entire German
military.
Winston Smith > mal
I'm sorry but I didn't think we were in an adversarial relationship with Europe. I thought
after WWII we were their friends!?!
mal > Winston Smith
US has OK relationship with current Atlanticist European elite, and even that is rocky
at times (see NSA spying on Merkel). European right populist forces are not happy about this
arrangement, and they are steadily gaining ground. Ask Marine Le Pen what she thinks about
NATO and US some time.
Arcite > mal
Russia now has less than a third of the US population and continues to shrink. They have
the lowest life expectancy in EU and an economy smaller than Italy.
mal > Arcite
Russian population has stabilized a few years ago, and life expectancy has been
increasing a lot under Putin. Excluding currency game that are mostly political, Russian
economy on PPP basis is about the same as Germany.
Your information is outdated and is correct for Yeltsin era, not modern Russia.
Dr. Preobrazhensky > mal
"However, whereas Poland, Latvia etc were happy to become Western vassal states
Not a correct interpretation.
mal > Dr. Preobrazhensky
Really? Care to tell me why Poland invaded Iraq in 2003? What pressing national interest
did it serve?
Dr. Preobrazhensky > mal
They actually hoped to get a share of Iraq's oil, plus wanted military experience, plus
expected compensation from the USA in exchange.
mal > Dr. Preobrazhensky
There are easier ways to get oil - just sign a deal with Saudi Arabia. Invading countries
is a bit drastic. You are on a firmer ground with earning browny points from US. Indeed,
Poland invaded Iraq to provide Public Relations support to US. As far as Polish national
interest goes though, this decision is highly questionable.
"... "These three instances are representative of a broader trend in the Western media to offer sensationalistic and misleading coverage that exacerbates poor relations with Russia. The most recent example of the media, including the New York Times and the Washington Post , moving from reporting on events to becoming outright propagandists came during the run-up to the Iraq War. Today, coverage of Russia is starting to resemble the unanimity of opinion that prevailed over a decade ago on Iraq and it is seeping into a variety of outlets." Russia, Trump and Manafort: A Test of the News ..."
A surprisingly reasonable article in the Atlantic (or perhaps 'surprisingly' is a wrong adverb
considering the article was written by
a Moscow-based author):
By the way, do you perhaps remember that journalist, Rachel Bauman, who has written an acidic
response to William Browder a couple months ago? That's what she writes now:
"These three instances are representative of a broader trend in the Western media to offer
sensationalistic and misleading coverage that exacerbates poor relations with Russia. The most
recent example of the media, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, moving
from reporting on events to becoming outright propagandists came during the run-up to the Iraq
War. Today, coverage of Russia is starting to resemble the unanimity of opinion that prevailed
over a decade ago on Iraq and it is seeping into a variety of outlets."
Fish rots from the head: doping is the most rampant in the USA...
Notable quotes:
"... Federal officials said earlier Tuesday that Bosch would agree to plead guilty to a charge of distributing steroids in a conspiracy that stretched from big league club houses to South Florida high schools and youth baseball leagues to sandlots in the Caribbean. ..."
"... "These defendants were motivated by one thing: money," United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Wifredo Ferrer, said. "They did this by lining their pockets, by exploiting the pressures of athletes and others to be bigger, to be stronger and to play better." ..."
"... Bosch told investigators that he provided the illegal substances to at least 18 minors, Ferrer said. ..."
"... Bosch and his associates distributed the drugs to minors who attended a number of public and private high schools in South Florida. He would charge the teenagers and their parents between $250 and $600 a month, promising that the concoctions -- which included black market steroids -- would improve their game. ..."
Tony Bosch, the founder of the now-defunct Biogenesis anti-aging clinic in Miami, is not a
licensed doctor, but portrayed himself as one, federal officials said Tuesday.
Officials said he dispensed
performance-enhancing drugs to professional baseball players such as suspended New York
Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez and to impressionable high school athletes in South Florida and
teenagers in the Dominican Republic.
Bosch, 50, surrendered to the Drug Enforcement Administration in Florida on Tuesday. At a court
appearance, he pleaded not guilty and a judge set bail at $100,000.
Federal officials said
earlier Tuesday that Bosch would agree to plead guilty to a charge of distributing steroids in a
conspiracy that stretched from big league club houses to South Florida high schools and youth
baseball leagues to sandlots in the Caribbean.
One of his attorneys, Susy Ribero-Ayala, said there is a plea agreement in place and Bosch will
change his plea later.
"Mr. Bosch has never had and does not have a DEA registration," said Mark Trouville, special
agent in charge of the DEA Miami. "He is not a licensed medical professional. He is not a doctor.
He is a drug dealer."
Also charged in the scandal were Yuri Sucart, a cousin of Rodriguez, and Juan Carlos Nunez, who
was named in a scheme to clear All-Star Melky Cabrera after a positive 2012 testosterone test,
authorities said.
Other defendants include Carlos Acevedo, a longtime associate of Bosch's, former University of
Miami coach Lazaro "Lazer" Collazo, Jorge Velasquez, and Christopher Engroba.
Acevedo and three other men, including CarlosLuis Ruiz, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper, also
were charged in a separate conspiracy involving the sale of the drug MDMA, or molly.
Eight of
the 10 men charged appeared in court. Acevedo and Engroba also entered not guilty pleas. The
other men didn't enter a plea.
Lengthy investigation
The drug conspiracy charges against the men stemmed from
from a 21-month DEA investigation.
"These defendants were motivated by one thing: money," United States Attorney for the Southern
District of Florida, Wifredo Ferrer, said. "They did this by lining their pockets, by exploiting
the pressures of athletes and others to be bigger, to be stronger and to play better."
Bosch
could face a 10-year prison term in the case.
Bosch told investigators that he provided the illegal substances to at least 18 minors, Ferrer
said.
Bosch and his associates distributed the drugs to minors who attended a number of public and
private high schools in South Florida. He would charge the teenagers and their parents between
$250 and $600 a month, promising that the concoctions -- which included black market steroids --
would improve their game.
In addition, investigators said, Bosch and
the others operated in the Dominican Republic, where boys as young as 12 were given new baseball
equipment and treated with testosterone-loaded syringes in an effort to get them signed with big
league teams. Talents scouts working with the children would keep as much as 50 % of their
signing bonuses.
"These defendants provided easy access to dangerous concoctions of steroids and human growth
hormones to impressionable high school kids," Ferrer said. "Simply put: Doping children is
unacceptable. It is wrong. It is illegal and it is dangerous and Bosch and his reckless
recruiters and his black market suppliers ignored the serious health risks posed to their so
called patients, all to make a profit."
Using lollipops
The drugs were administered in a number of ways, through injections, pills, creams and even
lollipops, according to a source with direct knowledge of the investigation.
Masking agents
were used to hide the drugs. "It was so good. The key was being able to fool testers with the
league (Major League Baseball), the source said. "The masking agents in the creams would hide the
actual drug, and (Bosch) would know the timing involved. He knew if the athlete took the drug
right before a game, they'd be tested 12 hours later and the drug would no longer be detectable."
Earlier this year, Major League Baseball dropped its lawsuit against Bosch and the company the
league claims provided performance-enhancing drugs to a number of players, including
Rodriguez. The league had agreed to drop the suit if Bosch cooperated in the investigation,
according to published reports.
In a statement Tuesday, Rodriguez's lawyer, Joe Tacopina, said:
"This obviously is the beginning of the end of this sordid chapter in baseball."
Authorities said professional athletes recruited by the clinic paid between $2,000 and $12,000
per month for the drugs.
The investigation led to the suspension of 14 players for violating the league's drug policy.
Besides Rodriguez, suspended players included
Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Ryan Braun, the 2011 National League MVP, who served part of his
suspension last season.
Bosch's Biogenesis clinic became part of the story in late January 2013, when the Miami New Times
reported that more than a dozen professional baseball players and other athletes had been named
in records kept over several years by the clinic.
Two months later, MLB filed its lawsuit
against the clinic in Florida's Miami-Dade County.
Its 14-page complaint named Biogenesis, its predecessor company and six individuals -- among them
program director Bosch, others at the company, someone who worked at a sports agency, a former
University of Miami baseball player and a "self-proclaimed chemist" who supplied substances.
"... any knee jerk withdrawal, boycott, etc., would "prove" Russia is covering up its "misbehaviour" and is a "sore loser". Right now, the Russian athletes in Rio cannot be smeared with the same brush. ..."
"... I am really hoping that multiple legal actions are launched against WADA and any enablers of its libel ..."
"... Challenging it in the public political space is doomed to failure since the average sheep does not have enough IQ or desire to evaluate such reports on their merits and simply defers to the "authorities" and their "evidence". ..."
Regarding Russia, WADA and the Rio Olympics. The current Russian approach seems optimal. Russian
athletes have managed to clear the hurdles set up before them and will participate. That is a
major fail for Uncle Scam and his WADA cronies. They were hoping for Russia to knee jerk with
indignation. It is something I would have done. But any knee jerk withdrawal, boycott, etc.,
would "prove" Russia is covering up its "misbehaviour" and is a "sore loser". Right now, the Russian
athletes in Rio cannot be smeared with the same brush.
I am really hoping that multiple legal actions are launched against WADA and any enablers
of its libel. This is the right medicine for this scum. They have no legal case and use some
two bit propaganda report to smear all Russian athletes. This report will not stand up in court
and that is where it should be challenged.
Challenging it in the public political space is doomed to failure since the average
sheep does not have enough IQ or desire to evaluate such reports on their merits and simply defers
to the "authorities" and their "evidence".
I was watching the Games' opening ceremony from Rio on the BBC and when the Russian team appeared
in the parade, we had a quick re-hash of the doping 'scandal'. Then one of the commentators did
something surprising she said, of course, many of these athletes are probably clean and we wish
them well. I suspect someone has raised the issues of defamation, slander and libel and possible
future legal action and commentators have been warned to take care in what they say.
Here's another interesting point I learned from last night's BBC coverage Thomas Bach, newly-labelled
as a Putin-stooge for not enforcing a ban on the whole Russian team, was in competition for his
post against a Ukrainian. I wonder whether the plan to ruin Russia's Olympics was hatched a while
back with the West hoping it would have a Ukrainian in the key job?
I had the same initial reaction as you and now agree with your conclusions. Russia has also consistently
used a similar "high road" approach in its foreign policy decisions with great results.
Of course, it takes a savvy (and moral) domestic population to understand the strategy. It
would seem that a majority of Western populations would not be able to comprehend, much less support,
such actions. They have grown to expect if not demand bellicose, insulting and vindictive actions
by their governments over the slightest real or imagined challenge to US hegemony.
[Aug 07, 2016] Does WADA has facts to prove allegations ? If they are lying or cannot furnish any real evidence, the case is in serious trouble
Professional sport is now almost pure politics and not only athletes destroy their health by taking
drugs, the corrupt politicians play their dirty games with impunity. As perforce enhancing drags are
not a real menace, singling out Russia as the most egregious abuser based on testimony of the corrupt
turncoat (who destroyed the evidence and is under criminal investigation in Russia) looks like a dirty
game.
Notable quotes:
"... That is a slippery slope in which WADA is putting all its eggs in the Rodchenkov/Stepanov basket. If they are lying or cannot furnish any real evidence, the case is in serious trouble, and it looks like it is only going to heat up after Rio rather than dying down. ..."
"... If I remember correctly, Dick Pound is not part of WADA any more, or any Olympic organization he's retired, just (allegedly) 'well-respected' and a former WADA official. He's a co-founder of WADA and a former president, and he had several jobs in both the Canadian and international Olympic committees. but now he's just an international busybody without portfolio, and obviously possessed of the belief that the Russians are what is wrong with clean sport and everything they ever won, they cheated to get. conversely, North America represents everything that's right with clean sport, and has an international obligation to squeeze out those Russian state-sponsored dopers and everyone else who shames their nation. The United States is happy to use him and McLaren because they like to internationalize their Russophobia. ..."
"... I'm sure there are good reasons for Russia to just bow its head and accept it for now, and probably that's the best thing in the long run, especially if WADA ends up discredited. And hopefully Russia will press it hard once the Olympics is over. But I would be hurt and angry if I were in charge, and I would withdraw from the Olympics, do everything I could to damage it as an institution and it would never see another dime out of me. ..."
"... I would be exactly the kind of reactionary leader Washington wishes was in charge in Russia. Because the USA would be delighted to see Russia as isolated as it is trying to make it. Here's a very interesting Canadian policy document on the drive for medals in international sport, and how much it means politically. It specifically cites how much Russia spends on sport, and I am sure I'm not speaking out of turn when I say screwing Russia out of medals is a western objective, and one that would not be necessary if they could be easily beaten just by superior athletes. ..."
"... "International sporting success has many outcomes, which I would argue are beneficial and far reaching. Governments seem to agree with what appears to be a continuing and increasing "arms race" with the hopes of further medals . As but one example on October 11, 2014, Russia announced a new federal funding program worth RUB70 billion ($1.8 billion) to further develop physical education and sports. Understanding how to best invest these funds in any country is difficult, however, as creating world champions is a complicated algorithm. In part, it was this recognition that led to the creation of the Canadian Sport for Life Long-Term Athlete Development (CS4LLTAD) pathway. ..."
"... Another way to help answer the question of how to best invest in sport is SPLISS (Sport Policies Leading to International Sporting Success), a theoretical model for understanding (as the name suggests) what policies administrators can influence that will lead to medals in Summer Olympic Games ..."
"... Forget that 'just do your best; you can do no more' shit. It's about international prestige and winning lots of gold medals gives you a bigger dick to swing around on the world stage. And that's what it's all about. ..."
"... We've spoken before about the limitations of the human body set against the expectations that new world records will be set at every Olympics. The body can only do so much, and there are thresholds for human performance. These are young people in the prime of health who train every day, and it is not unrealistic to imagine at some point a person is going to lift the greatest weight of which a human is capable of lifting without taking some sort of drug to boost his strength or dull the pain that warns him he is destroying something. ..."
"... the IOC smackdown is a double kick in the sack. ..."
"... For all the slurry WADA, the US and its allies have spread in the direction of Russia, two thirds of (now angry) Russian athletes are going to the Olympics. ..."
"... I'm not for keeping Russian athletes at home. This is about history. It will be another chapter in a series of attempts by the West to pawn Putin that he handles with his usual Judo throw/chess move, at his timing and choice. ..."
"... I think WADA is going to end up getting its peepee slapped. I certainly hope so, anyway, and I hope Reedie comes through on naming athletes fingered by WADA's 'whistleblowers' because that will leave both the 'whistleblowers' and WADA open to lawsuits. ..."
"... Let's hope Russia goes after WADA and McClaren once the Games are over let's see how well his 'evidence' stands up in an actual court rather than the fictious one he seems to have created in his mind. ..."
"... He looks to be sweating in the picture. I'd say he should get used to that. He just admitted to convicting an entire country on secret evidence that he has shared with nobody else. ..."
"... Did he actually go to Russia to obtain the samples he alludes to having? If not, I hope he has a chain of custody for them, because they could have come from anywhere and he probably got every bit of it from Rodchenkov. ..."
Moscow knows very well that McLaren has no real evidence, and is pinning everything on Rodchenkov's
and the Stepanovs' testimony he has said as much. Will their wild tales hold up? We'll see.
But the public rift between the IOC and WADA, and increasing talk about reform at the latter does
not spell confidence in WADA's allegations to me. It would be pretty sweet if their whole case
fell through and Russia took WADA to court. They've been strutting around throwing bans and cutting
a wide swath as Washington uses them as yet one more of its political tools, but just maybe they
have overstepped this time.
I notice WADA was
not able to reward its star nightingale , Yulia Stepanova, with an Olympic slot. The IOC put
paid to that proposition, as their quarrel gets more public.
Speaking of WADA, Russia appears to have goaded its president, Craig Reedie, into announcing
that WADA was ready to reveal the names
of the Russian athletes who allegedly took performance-enhancing drugs during the Sochi Olympics.
That is a slippery slope in which WADA is putting all its eggs in the Rodchenkov/Stepanov
basket. If they are lying or cannot furnish any real evidence, the case is in serious trouble,
and it looks like it is only going to heat up after Rio rather than dying down.
I think the legal route will be pretty well inevitable unless WADA rows back. It doesn't actually
have to go to court, as you have pointed out their rather whimiscal 'evidence', that I highly
doubt would pass the legal smell test to even get beyond a hearing. I would expect that WADA &
the IOC may simply be happy to drop the ban with little or no fanfare and 'no comment', after
Rio if possible.
Those re-tested samples would need to be tested even again
I suppose the question is what happens to those officials in WADA who backed & demanded the
ban. I don't see how anyone could have further confidence in WADA if they remain in place. They
may pretend not to be responsible or take any blame but I don't see how they could stay (apart
from their government's insistence) without all credibility being lost.
If I remember correctly, Dick Pound is not part of WADA any more, or any Olympic organization
he's retired, just (allegedly) 'well-respected' and a former WADA official. He's a co-founder
of WADA and a former president, and he had several jobs in both the Canadian and international
Olympic committees. but now he's just an international busybody without portfolio, and obviously
possessed of the belief that the Russians are what is wrong with clean sport and everything they
ever won, they cheated to get. conversely, North America represents everything that's right with
clean sport, and has an international obligation to squeeze out those Russian state-sponsored
dopers and everyone else who shames their nation. The United States is happy to use him and McLaren
because they like to internationalize their Russophobia.
I'm sure there are good reasons for Russia to just bow its head and accept it for now,
and probably that's the best thing in the long run, especially if WADA ends up discredited. And
hopefully Russia will press it hard once the Olympics is over. But I would be hurt and angry if
I were in charge, and I would withdraw from the Olympics, do everything I could to damage it as
an institution and it would never see another dime out of me.
I would be exactly the kind of reactionary leader Washington wishes was in charge in Russia.
Because the USA would be delighted to see Russia as isolated as it is trying to make it. Here's
a very interesting Canadian
policy document on the drive for medals in international sport, and how much it means politically.
It specifically cites how much Russia spends on sport, and I am sure I'm not speaking out of turn
when I say screwing Russia out of medals is a western objective, and one that would not be necessary
if they could be easily beaten just by superior athletes.
Here's a teaser:
"International sporting success has many outcomes, which I would argue are beneficial
and far reaching. Governments seem to agree with what appears to be a continuing and
increasing "arms race" with the hopes of further medals . As but one example on October
11, 2014, Russia announced a new federal funding program worth RUB70 billion ($1.8 billion)
to further develop physical education and sports. Understanding how to best invest these funds
in any country is difficult, however, as creating world champions is a complicated algorithm.
In part, it was this recognition that led to the creation of the Canadian Sport for Life Long-Term
Athlete Development (CS4LLTAD) pathway.
Another way to help answer the question of how to best invest in sport is SPLISS (Sport
Policies Leading to International Sporting Success), a theoretical model for understanding
(as the name suggests) what policies administrators can influence that will lead to medals
in Summer Olympic Games . This model has evolved following rigorous study that began in
the early 2000s. At that time, researchers from Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom
recognized that other models were too anecdotal or descriptive in their attempts to understand
how to better invest for medal success ."
Forget that 'just do your best; you can do no more' shit. It's about international prestige
and winning lots of gold medals gives you a bigger dick to swing around on the world stage. And
that's what it's all about.
We've spoken before about the limitations of the human body set against the expectations
that new world records will be set at every Olympics. The body can only do so much, and there
are thresholds for human performance. These are young people in the prime of health who train
every day, and it is not unrealistic to imagine at some point a person is going to lift the greatest
weight of which a human is capable of lifting without taking some sort of drug to boost his strength
or dull the pain that warns him he is destroying something. At the next Olympics, somebody
will still win a gold medal in that event, but they will not be able to break the record, and
that will be disappointing because it will force everyone to acknowledge that humans have limits.
Interestingly, Craig Reedie is not only President of WADA, but Vice-President of the IOC. He
is British, unsurprisingly he had to be either that or an American because nobody hates the
Russians like the British and the Americans do. So the IOC smackdown is a double kick in the
sack. I guess we know who the "1" was in the 84-1 vote, or whatever it was.
I think you've just failed your job interview with Vladimir Putin! Never mind.
Let's look at this dispassionately. For all the slurry WADA, the US and its allies have
spread in the direction of Russia, two thirds of (now angry) Russian athletes are going to the
Olympics. By not winning a ban, they have already lost. It was the best they could do and
there was no way for them to square the circle short of declaring that Russia does not exist and
thus cannot be present a the Olympics.
Then there's the longburn that we've all discussed and heavily speculated upon. Who knows how
it is going to shake out, but what we do know is that Putler takes his time and likes to serve
his revenge cold, and usually indirectly with little fanfare. It may not garner headlines, but
it will be an obvious slap in the face with a large fish a la Asterix to Russia's opponents.
I'm not for keeping Russian athletes at home. This is about history. It will be another
chapter in a series of attempts by the West to pawn Putin that he handles with his usual Judo
throw/chess move, at his timing and choice. This will be stuff taught to new cadres of diplomats
as textbook 'handling dat shit and then some'. No one is perfect and certainly not Putin (disbanding
the firewarning/volunteer service for example), but it is a master class of playing whatever cards
you've got their best advantage.
"For me was that after this decision you have to be able to look into the eyes of all the
athletes and during my many visits to the village here in Rio I have been looking into eyes of
many athletes."
McLaren has accused the IOC of misrepresenting his findings, with several Russian athletes
challenging bans based on their inclusion within the report. But Bach defended the process, which
left those Russian athletes who did travel in limbo until the eve of the Olympics.
"I think this is a very thorough, strict and clear procedure and you will see the results of
the individual analyses and on the application of justice in order to ensure a level playing field
here at the Olympic Games," he said.
As he has since the beginning of the saga, he said that while the presumption of innocence
had been reversed, "natural justice does not allow us to deprive human beings of the right to
prove their innocence".
Bach pointed to the near unanimous support he received from members at the IOC decision,
with only Britain's Adam Pengilly voting against. ..
Still a lot of mouth from the western press against the IOC, and although I think Bach's position
is secure, you can bet that an effort to muscle him out and a compliant toady into his position
will depend on how further investigations into the McLaren report go after the Olympics are over.
For the moment McLaren seems pretty cocky, saying the IOC misrepresented his findings, but he
got all of his testimonial evidence from WADA and its president is vice-president of the IOC!
What's the chances of that being true, do you think?
I think WADA is going to end up getting its peepee slapped. I certainly hope so, anyway,
and I hope Reedie comes through on naming athletes fingered by WADA's 'whistleblowers' because
that will leave both the 'whistleblowers' and WADA open to lawsuits.
Looks like the wheels are coming off the WADA wagon and McClaren is getting a tad worried hence
the somewhat hysterical tone of this:
"I have the evidence, I have it secured. I have the evidence backed up by forensic analysis
of databases, sample bottles, I have laboratory evidence of some of those samples. It's true
I haven't revealed," he said.
"But if you conduct a proper investigation, you don't put the evidence out there to create
misinformation. I was at the stage where I could say what I knew beyond reasonable doubt. I
wouldn't put anything in the report that I didn't have evidence of and wouldn't meet the criminal
standard in any court around the world," he added.
I don't know what standard of jurisprudence he's used to but it's a mighty odd one. How can
he really have established the provenance of any samples his 'whistleblower' presented him with?
Other than the word of his informant, what actual evidence has he got of the involvement of the
Russian state? Why did McClaren make no effort to discuss his 'evidence' with Russian officials?
Let's hope Russia goes after WADA and McClaren once the Games are over let's see how
well his 'evidence' stands up in an actual court rather than the fictious one he seems to have
created in his mind.
He looks to be sweating in the picture. I'd say he should get used to that. He just admitted
to convicting an entire country on secret evidence that he has shared with nobody else.
Yeah, but he said that it appeared that way to him beyond reasonable doubt .
If that's good enough for this one-man judge-jury-executioner, then it should be good enough for
the rest of us.
He said he had secret evidence that nobody had seen but him, and that the purpose of his report
was never to establish individual guilt, but to demonstrate that there was a state-sponsored doping
program. He admitted publicly before he commenced his research that he had no such evidence, so
he must have obtained it between the time he announced he had none and the time his report was
released. Did he actually go to Russia to obtain the samples he alludes to having? If not,
I hope he has a chain of custody for them, because they could have come from anywhere and he probably
got every bit of it from Rodchenkov.
He's just saying nobody else has seen it to avoid saying where he got it, and a conviction
in which the accused was not permitted to challenge the veracity of the evidence would not stand
up anywhere else in the world except for America, where they are just so exceptional that they
can do things that any other country would be condemned for doing. And rightly so.
"... Russia is aware of the United States' plans for nuclear hegemony ..."
"... The Russian president also highlighted the fact that although the United States missile system is referred to as an "anti-missile defense system," the systems are just as offensive as they are defensive: ..."
"... Putin further explained the implications of this missile defense system's implementation without any response from Russia. The ability of the missile defense system to render Russia's nuclear capabilities useless would cause an upset in what Putin refers to as the "strategic balance" of the world. Without this balance of power, the U.S. would be free to pursue their policies throughout the world without any tangible threat from Russia. Therefore, this "strategic balance," according to Putin, is what has kept the world safe from large-scale wars and military conflicts. ..."
(ANTIMEDIA)
As the United States continues to
develop and upgrade their nuclear weapons capabilities at an alarming rate,
America's ruling class refuses to heed warnings from President Vladimir Putin
that Russia will respond as necessary.
In his most
recent
attempt to warn his Western counterparts about the impending danger of a
new nuclear arms race, Putin told the heads of large foreign companies and business
associations that Russia is aware of the United States' plans for nuclear
hegemony. He was speaking at the 20th St. Petersburg International Economic
Forum.
"We know year by year what will happen, and they know that we know,"
he said.
Putin argued that the rationale the U.S. previously gave for maintaining
and developing its nuclear weapons system is directed at the so-called "Iranian
threat." But that threat has been drastically reduced since the U.S. proved
instrumental in reaching an
agreement with Iran that should
put to rest any possible Iranian nuclear potential.
The Russian president also highlighted the fact that although the United
States missile system is referred to as an "anti-missile defense system," the
systems are just as offensive as they are defensive:
"They say [the missile systems] are part of their defense capability,
and are not offensive, that these systems are aimed at protecting them from
aggression. It's not true the strategic ballistic missile defense is part
of an offensive strategic capability, [and] functions in conjunction with
an aggressive missile strike system."
This missile system has been launched throughout Europe, and despite
American promises at the end of the Cold War that NATO's expansion would
not move "as much as a thumb's width further to the East," the missile system
has been implemented in many of Russia's neighboring countries, most recently
in Romania.
Russia views this as a direct attack on their security.
"How do we know what's inside those launchers? All one needs to do
is reprogram [the system], which is an absolutely inconspicuous task,"
Putin stated.
Putin further explained the implications of this missile defense system's
implementation without any response from Russia. The ability of the missile
defense system to render Russia's nuclear capabilities useless would cause an
upset in what Putin refers to as the "strategic balance" of the world. Without
this balance of power, the U.S. would be free to pursue their policies throughout
the world without any tangible threat from Russia. Therefore, this "strategic
balance," according to Putin, is what has kept the world safe from large-scale
wars and military conflicts.
Following
George W. Bush's 2001 decision to unilaterally withdraw the U.S. from the
1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, Russia was, according to Putin, left with
no choice but to upgrade their capabilities in response.
Putin warned:
"Today Russia has reached significant achievements in this field.
We have modernized our missile systems and successfully developed new generations.
Not to mention missile defense systems We must provide security not only
for ourselves. It's important to provide strategic balance in the world,
which guarantees peace on the planet.
Neutralizing Russia's nuclear potential will undo, according to Putin,
"the mutual threat that has provided [mankind] with global security for decades."
It should, therefore, come as no surprise that NASA scientists want to
colonize the moon by 2022 - we may have to if we don't drastically alter
the path we are on. As Albert Einstein
famously stated:
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World
War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
"... Whatever the character of America's involvement in the Middle East before 1980, when Bacevich's account begins, it was not a war, at least not in terms of American casualties. "From the end of World War II to 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in that region," he notes. "Within a decade," however, "a great shift occurred. Since 1990, virtually no American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere except in the Greater Middle East." ..."
"... The sequence of events, lucidly related by Bacevich, would be a dark absurdist comedy if it weren't tragically real. To check Iran, the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War of 198088, whose final phase, the so-called "Tanker War," involved direct U.S. military engagement with Iranian naval forces. (Bacevich calls this the real first Persian Gulf War.) ..."
"... Finally, George W. Bush decided to risk what his father had dared not: invading Iraq with the objective of "regime change," he launched a third Gulf War in 2003. The notion his neoconservative advisers put into Bush's head was that, with only a little help from American occupation and reconstruction, the void left by Saddam Hussein's removal would be filled by a model democracy. ..."
"... Yet the first Bush had been right: Iran, as well as ISIS, reaped the rewards of regime change in Baghdad. And so America is now being drawn into a fourth Gulf War, reintroducing troops-styled as advisors-into Iraq to counter the effects of the previous Gulf War, which was itself an answer to the unfinished business of the wars of 1991 and the late 1980s. Our military interventions in the Persian Gulf have been a self-perpetuating chain reaction for over three decades. ..."
"... "Wolfowitz adhered to an expansive definition of the Persian Gulf," notes Bacevich, which in that young defense intellectual's words extended from "the region between Pakistan and Iran in the northeast to the Yemens in the southwest." Wolfowitz identified two prospective menaces to U.S. interests in the region: the Soviet Union-this was still the Cold War era, after all-and "the emerging Iraqi threat"; to counter these Wolfowitz called for "advisors and counterinsurgency specialists, token combat forces, or a major commitment" of U.S. forces to the Middle East. ..."
"... The military bureaucracy took advantage of the removal of one enemy from the map-Soviet Communism-to redirect resources toward a new region and new threats. As Bacevich observes, "What some at the time were calling a 'peace dividend' offered CENTCOM a way of expanding its portfolio of assets." Operation Desert Storm, and all that came afterward, became possible. ..."
"... The final lesson of this one is simple: "Perpetuating the War for the Greater Middle East is not enhancing American freedom, abundance, and security. If anything, it is having the opposite effect." ..."
Bacevich's latest book, America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History,
is a bookend of sorts to American Empire. The earlier work was heavy on theory and institutional
development, the groundwork for the wars of the early 21st century. The new book covers the history
itself-and argues persuasively that the Afghanistan, Iraq, and other, smaller wars since 9/11 are
parts of a larger conflict that began much earlier, back in the Carter administration.
Whatever the character of America's involvement in the Middle East before 1980, when Bacevich's
account begins, it was not a war, at least not in terms of American casualties. "From the end of
World War II to 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in that
region," he notes. "Within a decade," however, "a great shift occurred. Since 1990, virtually no
American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere except in the Greater Middle East."
Operation Eagle Claw, Carter's ill-fated mission to rescue Americans held hostage in Iran, was
the first combat engagement in the war. Iran would continue to tempt Washington to military action
throughout the next 36 years-though paradoxically, attempts to contain Iran more often brought the
U.S. into war with the Islamic Republic's hostile neighbor, Iraq.
The sequence of events, lucidly related by Bacevich, would be a dark absurdist comedy if it
weren't tragically real. To check Iran, the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the Iran-Iraq
War of 198088, whose final phase, the so-called "Tanker War," involved direct U.S. military engagement
with Iranian naval forces. (Bacevich calls this the real first Persian Gulf War.)
Weakened and indebted by that war, and thinking the U.S. tolerant of his ambitions, Saddam then
invaded Kuwait, leading to full-scale U.S. military intervention against him: Operation Desert Storm
in 1991. (By Bacevich's count, the second Gulf War.) President George H.W. Bush stopped American
forces from pushing on to Baghdad after liberating Kuwait, however, because-among other things-toppling
Saddam would have created a dangerous vacuum that Iran might fill.
A decade of sanctions, no-fly zones, and intermittent bombing then ensued, as Washington, under
Bush and Clinton, would neither depose Saddam Hussein nor permit him to reassert himself. Finally,
George W. Bush decided to risk what his father had dared not: invading Iraq with the objective of
"regime change," he launched a third Gulf War in 2003. The notion his neoconservative advisers put
into Bush's head was that, with only a little help from American occupation and reconstruction, the
void left by Saddam Hussein's removal would be filled by a model democracy. This would set a
precedent for America to democratize every trouble-making state in the region, including Iran.
Yet the first Bush had been right: Iran, as well as ISIS, reaped the rewards of regime change
in Baghdad. And so America is now being drawn into a fourth Gulf War, reintroducing troops-styled
as advisors-into Iraq to counter the effects of the previous Gulf War, which was itself an answer
to the unfinished business of the wars of 1991 and the late 1980s. Our military interventions in
the Persian Gulf have been a self-perpetuating chain reaction for over three decades.
Iran released its American hostages the day Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president: January 20,
1981. So what accounts for another 35 years of conflict with Iran and Iraq? The answer begins with
oil.
Bacevich takes us back to the Carter years. "By June 1979, a just-completed study by a then-obscure
Defense Department official named Paul Wolfowitz was attracting notice throughout the national security
bureaucracy." This "Limited Contingency Study" described America's "vital and growing stake in the
Persian Gulf," arising from "our need for Persian-Gulf oil and because events in the Persian Gulf
affect the Arab-Israeli conflict."
"Wolfowitz adhered to an expansive definition of the Persian Gulf," notes Bacevich, which
in that young defense intellectual's words extended from "the region between Pakistan and Iran in
the northeast to the Yemens in the southwest." Wolfowitz identified two prospective menaces to U.S.
interests in the region: the Soviet Union-this was still the Cold War era, after all-and "the emerging
Iraqi threat"; to counter these Wolfowitz called for "advisors and counterinsurgency specialists,
token combat forces, or a major commitment" of U.S. forces to the Middle East.
(Bacevich is fair to Wolfowitz, acknowledging that Saddam Hussein was indeed an expansionist,
as the Iraqi dictator would demonstrate by invading Iran in 1980 and seizing Kuwait a decade later.
Whether this meant that Iraq was ever a threat to U.S. interests is, of course, a different question-as
is whether the Soviet Union could really have cut America off from Gulf oil.)
Wolfowitz was not alone in calling for the U.S. to become the guarantor of Middle East security-and
Saudi Arabia's security in particular-and President Carter heeded the advice. In March 1980 he created
the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF), predecessor to what we now know as the U.S. Central
Command (CENTCOM), which has military oversight for the region. The RDJTF's second head, Lt. Gen.
Robert Kingston, described its mission, in admirably frank language, as simply "to ensure the unimpeded
flow of oil from the Arabian Gulf."
Iraq and Iran both posed dangers to the flow of oil and its control by Saudi Arabia and other
Arab allies-to use the term loosely-of the United States. And just as the U.S. was drawn into wars
with Iran and Iraq when it tried to play one against the other, America's defense of Saudi Arabia
would have grave unintended consequences-such as the creation of al-Qaeda. Osama bin Laden was outraged
when, in 1990, Saudi Arabia's King Fahd declined his offer to wage holy war against Saddam Hussein
and instead turned to American protection, even permitting the stationing of American military personnel
in Islam's sacred lands. "To liberate Kuwait," writes Bacevich, bin Laden had "offered to raise an
army of mujahedin. Rejecting his offer and his protest, Saudi authorities sought to silence the impertinent
bin Laden. Not long thereafter, he fled into exile, determined to lead a holy war that would overthrow
the corrupt Saudi royals." The instrument bin Laden forged to accomplish that task, al-Qaeda, would
target Americans as well, seeking to push the U.S. out of Muslim lands.
Bin Laden had reason to hope for success: in the 1980s he had helped mujahedin defeat another
superpower, the Soviet Union, in Afghanistan. That struggle, of course, was supported by the U.S.,
through the CIA's "Operation Cyclone," which funneled arms and money to the Soviets' Muslim opponents.
Bacevich offers a verdict on this program:
Operation Cyclone illustrates one of the central ironies of America's War for the Greater Middle
East-the unwitting tendency, while intently focusing on solving one problem, to exacerbate a second
and plant the seeds of a third. In Afghanistan, this meant fostering the rise of Islamic radicalism
and underwriting Pakistan's transformation into a nuclear-armed quasi-rogue state while attempting
to subvert the Soviet Union.
America's support for the mujahedin succeeded in inflicting defeat on the USSR-but left Afghanistan
a haven and magnet for Islamist radicals, including bin Laden.
Another irony of Bacevich's tale is the way in which the end of the Cold War made escalation of
the War for the Greater Middle East possible. The Carter and Reagan administrations never considered
the Middle East the centerpiece of their foreign policy: Western Europe and the Cold War took precedence.
Carter and Reagan were unsystematic about their engagement with the Middle East and, even as they
expanded America's military presence, remained wary of strategic overcommitment. Operation Eagle
Claw, Reagan's deployment of troops to Lebanon in 1983 and bombing of Libya in 1986, and even the
meddling in Iran and Iraq were all small-scale projects compared to what would be unleashed after
the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The military bureaucracy took advantage of the removal of one enemy from the map-Soviet Communism-to
redirect resources toward a new region and new threats. As Bacevich observes, "What some at the time
were calling a 'peace dividend' offered CENTCOM a way of expanding its portfolio of assets." Operation
Desert Storm, and all that came afterward, became possible.
The
Greater Middle East of Bacevich's title centers strategically, if not geographically, upon Saudi
Arabia, Iraq, and Iran. But its strategic implications and cultural reach are wide, encompassing
Libya, Somalia, and other African states with significant Muslim populations; Afghanistan and Pakistan
(or "AfPak," in the Obama administration's parlance); and even, on the periphery, the Balkans, where
the U.S. intervened militarily in support of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. That Clinton-era
intervention is examined in detail by Bacevich: "Today, years after NATO came to their rescue," he
writes, "a steady stream of Bosnians and Kosovars leave their homeland and head off toward Syria
and Iraq, where they enlist as fighters in the ongoing anti-American, anti-Western jihad."
Much as George W. Bush believed that liberal democracy would spring up in Saddam Hussein's wake,
the humanitarian interventionists who demanded that Bill Clinton send peacekeepers to Bosnia and
bomb Serbia on behalf of the Kosovars thought that they were making the world safe for their own
liberal, multicultural values. But as Bacevich notes, the Balkan Muslims joining ISIS today are "waging
war on behalf of an entirely different set of universal values."
Bacevich's many books confront readers with painful but necessary truths. The final lesson
of this one is simple: "Perpetuating the War for the Greater Middle East is not enhancing American
freedom, abundance, and security. If anything, it is having the opposite effect."
Daniel McCarthy is the editor of The American Conservative.
"... Whatever the character of America's involvement in the Middle East before 1980, when Bacevich's account begins, it was not a war, at least not in terms of American casualties. "From the end of World War II to 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in that region," he notes. "Within a decade," however, "a great shift occurred. Since 1990, virtually no American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere except in the Greater Middle East." ..."
"... The sequence of events, lucidly related by Bacevich, would be a dark absurdist comedy if it weren't tragically real. To check Iran, the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War of 198088, whose final phase, the so-called "Tanker War," involved direct U.S. military engagement with Iranian naval forces. (Bacevich calls this the real first Persian Gulf War.) ..."
"... Finally, George W. Bush decided to risk what his father had dared not: invading Iraq with the objective of "regime change," he launched a third Gulf War in 2003. The notion his neoconservative advisers put into Bush's head was that, with only a little help from American occupation and reconstruction, the void left by Saddam Hussein's removal would be filled by a model democracy. ..."
"... Yet the first Bush had been right: Iran, as well as ISIS, reaped the rewards of regime change in Baghdad. And so America is now being drawn into a fourth Gulf War, reintroducing troops-styled as advisors-into Iraq to counter the effects of the previous Gulf War, which was itself an answer to the unfinished business of the wars of 1991 and the late 1980s. Our military interventions in the Persian Gulf have been a self-perpetuating chain reaction for over three decades. ..."
"... "Wolfowitz adhered to an expansive definition of the Persian Gulf," notes Bacevich, which in that young defense intellectual's words extended from "the region between Pakistan and Iran in the northeast to the Yemens in the southwest." Wolfowitz identified two prospective menaces to U.S. interests in the region: the Soviet Union-this was still the Cold War era, after all-and "the emerging Iraqi threat"; to counter these Wolfowitz called for "advisors and counterinsurgency specialists, token combat forces, or a major commitment" of U.S. forces to the Middle East. ..."
"... The military bureaucracy took advantage of the removal of one enemy from the map-Soviet Communism-to redirect resources toward a new region and new threats. As Bacevich observes, "What some at the time were calling a 'peace dividend' offered CENTCOM a way of expanding its portfolio of assets." Operation Desert Storm, and all that came afterward, became possible. ..."
"... The final lesson of this one is simple: "Perpetuating the War for the Greater Middle East is not enhancing American freedom, abundance, and security. If anything, it is having the opposite effect." ..."
Bacevich's latest book, America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History,
is a bookend of sorts to American Empire. The earlier work was heavy on theory and institutional
development, the groundwork for the wars of the early 21st century. The new book covers the history
itself-and argues persuasively that the Afghanistan, Iraq, and other, smaller wars since 9/11 are
parts of a larger conflict that began much earlier, back in the Carter administration.
Whatever the character of America's involvement in the Middle East before 1980, when Bacevich's
account begins, it was not a war, at least not in terms of American casualties. "From the end of
World War II to 1980, virtually no American soldiers were killed in action while serving in that
region," he notes. "Within a decade," however, "a great shift occurred. Since 1990, virtually no
American soldiers have been killed in action anywhere except in the Greater Middle East."
Operation Eagle Claw, Carter's ill-fated mission to rescue Americans held hostage in Iran, was
the first combat engagement in the war. Iran would continue to tempt Washington to military action
throughout the next 36 years-though paradoxically, attempts to contain Iran more often brought the
U.S. into war with the Islamic Republic's hostile neighbor, Iraq.
The sequence of events, lucidly related by Bacevich, would be a dark absurdist comedy if it
weren't tragically real. To check Iran, the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the Iran-Iraq
War of 198088, whose final phase, the so-called "Tanker War," involved direct U.S. military engagement
with Iranian naval forces. (Bacevich calls this the real first Persian Gulf War.)
Weakened and indebted by that war, and thinking the U.S. tolerant of his ambitions, Saddam then
invaded Kuwait, leading to full-scale U.S. military intervention against him: Operation Desert Storm
in 1991. (By Bacevich's count, the second Gulf War.) President George H.W. Bush stopped American
forces from pushing on to Baghdad after liberating Kuwait, however, because-among other things-toppling
Saddam would have created a dangerous vacuum that Iran might fill.
A decade of sanctions, no-fly zones, and intermittent bombing then ensued, as Washington, under
Bush and Clinton, would neither depose Saddam Hussein nor permit him to reassert himself. Finally,
George W. Bush decided to risk what his father had dared not: invading Iraq with the objective of
"regime change," he launched a third Gulf War in 2003. The notion his neoconservative advisers put
into Bush's head was that, with only a little help from American occupation and reconstruction, the
void left by Saddam Hussein's removal would be filled by a model democracy. This would set a
precedent for America to democratize every trouble-making state in the region, including Iran.
Yet the first Bush had been right: Iran, as well as ISIS, reaped the rewards of regime change
in Baghdad. And so America is now being drawn into a fourth Gulf War, reintroducing troops-styled
as advisors-into Iraq to counter the effects of the previous Gulf War, which was itself an answer
to the unfinished business of the wars of 1991 and the late 1980s. Our military interventions in
the Persian Gulf have been a self-perpetuating chain reaction for over three decades.
Iran released its American hostages the day Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president: January 20,
1981. So what accounts for another 35 years of conflict with Iran and Iraq? The answer begins with
oil.
Bacevich takes us back to the Carter years. "By June 1979, a just-completed study by a then-obscure
Defense Department official named Paul Wolfowitz was attracting notice throughout the national security
bureaucracy." This "Limited Contingency Study" described America's "vital and growing stake in the
Persian Gulf," arising from "our need for Persian-Gulf oil and because events in the Persian Gulf
affect the Arab-Israeli conflict."
"Wolfowitz adhered to an expansive definition of the Persian Gulf," notes Bacevich, which
in that young defense intellectual's words extended from "the region between Pakistan and Iran in
the northeast to the Yemens in the southwest." Wolfowitz identified two prospective menaces to U.S.
interests in the region: the Soviet Union-this was still the Cold War era, after all-and "the emerging
Iraqi threat"; to counter these Wolfowitz called for "advisors and counterinsurgency specialists,
token combat forces, or a major commitment" of U.S. forces to the Middle East.
(Bacevich is fair to Wolfowitz, acknowledging that Saddam Hussein was indeed an expansionist,
as the Iraqi dictator would demonstrate by invading Iran in 1980 and seizing Kuwait a decade later.
Whether this meant that Iraq was ever a threat to U.S. interests is, of course, a different question-as
is whether the Soviet Union could really have cut America off from Gulf oil.)
Wolfowitz was not alone in calling for the U.S. to become the guarantor of Middle East security-and
Saudi Arabia's security in particular-and President Carter heeded the advice. In March 1980 he created
the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF), predecessor to what we now know as the U.S. Central
Command (CENTCOM), which has military oversight for the region. The RDJTF's second head, Lt. Gen.
Robert Kingston, described its mission, in admirably frank language, as simply "to ensure the unimpeded
flow of oil from the Arabian Gulf."
Iraq and Iran both posed dangers to the flow of oil and its control by Saudi Arabia and other
Arab allies-to use the term loosely-of the United States. And just as the U.S. was drawn into wars
with Iran and Iraq when it tried to play one against the other, America's defense of Saudi Arabia
would have grave unintended consequences-such as the creation of al-Qaeda. Osama bin Laden was outraged
when, in 1990, Saudi Arabia's King Fahd declined his offer to wage holy war against Saddam Hussein
and instead turned to American protection, even permitting the stationing of American military personnel
in Islam's sacred lands. "To liberate Kuwait," writes Bacevich, bin Laden had "offered to raise an
army of mujahedin. Rejecting his offer and his protest, Saudi authorities sought to silence the impertinent
bin Laden. Not long thereafter, he fled into exile, determined to lead a holy war that would overthrow
the corrupt Saudi royals." The instrument bin Laden forged to accomplish that task, al-Qaeda, would
target Americans as well, seeking to push the U.S. out of Muslim lands.
Bin Laden had reason to hope for success: in the 1980s he had helped mujahedin defeat another
superpower, the Soviet Union, in Afghanistan. That struggle, of course, was supported by the U.S.,
through the CIA's "Operation Cyclone," which funneled arms and money to the Soviets' Muslim opponents.
Bacevich offers a verdict on this program:
Operation Cyclone illustrates one of the central ironies of America's War for the Greater Middle
East-the unwitting tendency, while intently focusing on solving one problem, to exacerbate a second
and plant the seeds of a third. In Afghanistan, this meant fostering the rise of Islamic radicalism
and underwriting Pakistan's transformation into a nuclear-armed quasi-rogue state while attempting
to subvert the Soviet Union.
America's support for the mujahedin succeeded in inflicting defeat on the USSR-but left Afghanistan
a haven and magnet for Islamist radicals, including bin Laden.
Another irony of Bacevich's tale is the way in which the end of the Cold War made escalation of
the War for the Greater Middle East possible. The Carter and Reagan administrations never considered
the Middle East the centerpiece of their foreign policy: Western Europe and the Cold War took precedence.
Carter and Reagan were unsystematic about their engagement with the Middle East and, even as they
expanded America's military presence, remained wary of strategic overcommitment. Operation Eagle
Claw, Reagan's deployment of troops to Lebanon in 1983 and bombing of Libya in 1986, and even the
meddling in Iran and Iraq were all small-scale projects compared to what would be unleashed after
the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The military bureaucracy took advantage of the removal of one enemy from the map-Soviet Communism-to
redirect resources toward a new region and new threats. As Bacevich observes, "What some at the time
were calling a 'peace dividend' offered CENTCOM a way of expanding its portfolio of assets." Operation
Desert Storm, and all that came afterward, became possible.
The
Greater Middle East of Bacevich's title centers strategically, if not geographically, upon Saudi
Arabia, Iraq, and Iran. But its strategic implications and cultural reach are wide, encompassing
Libya, Somalia, and other African states with significant Muslim populations; Afghanistan and Pakistan
(or "AfPak," in the Obama administration's parlance); and even, on the periphery, the Balkans, where
the U.S. intervened militarily in support of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. That Clinton-era
intervention is examined in detail by Bacevich: "Today, years after NATO came to their rescue," he
writes, "a steady stream of Bosnians and Kosovars leave their homeland and head off toward Syria
and Iraq, where they enlist as fighters in the ongoing anti-American, anti-Western jihad."
Much as George W. Bush believed that liberal democracy would spring up in Saddam Hussein's wake,
the humanitarian interventionists who demanded that Bill Clinton send peacekeepers to Bosnia and
bomb Serbia on behalf of the Kosovars thought that they were making the world safe for their own
liberal, multicultural values. But as Bacevich notes, the Balkan Muslims joining ISIS today are "waging
war on behalf of an entirely different set of universal values."
Bacevich's many books confront readers with painful but necessary truths. The final lesson
of this one is simple: "Perpetuating the War for the Greater Middle East is not enhancing American
freedom, abundance, and security. If anything, it is having the opposite effect."
Daniel McCarthy is the editor of The American Conservative.
"... Anti-Russian hysteria in America reached its apogee this week as Democrats tried to divert attention from embarrassing revelations about how the Democratic Party apparatus had rigged the primaries against Bernie Sanders by claiming Vlad Putin and his KGB had hacked and exposed the Dem's emails. ..."
"... Unnamed US 'intelligence officials' claimed they had 'high confidence' that the Russian KGB or GRU (military intelligence) had hacked the Dem's emails. These were likely the same officials who had 'high confidence' that Iraq had nuclear weapons. ..."
"... And what a joy for the war party that those dastardly Ruskis are now back as Enemy Number One. Much more fun than scruffy Arabs. The word is out: more stealth bombers, more warships, more missiles, more troops for Europe. The wicked Red Chinese will have to wait their turn until Uncle Sam can deal with them. ..."
"... I always find conventions depressing affairs. Rather than the cradle of democracy, they remind me of clownish Shriners Conventions. Or as the witty Democratic advisor Paul Begala said, `Hollywood for ugly people.' What, I kept wondering, is the rest of the world thinking as it watching this tawdry spectacle? ..."
"... One thing that that amazed me was the Convention's lack of attention to America's longest ever war that still rages in the mountains of Afghanistan. For the past thirteen years, America, the world's greatest military and economic power, has been trying to crush the life out of Afghan Pashtun mountain tribesmen whose primary sin is fiercely opposing occupation by the US and its local Afghan opium-growing stooges. ..."
"... But the war was far from being 'almost won.' The US-installed puppet regime in Kabul of President Ashraf Ghani, a former banker, holds on only thanks to the bayonets of US troops and the US Air Force. Without constant air strikes, the US-installed Ghani regime and its drug-dealing would have been swept away by Taliban and its tribal allies. ..."
"... So the US remains stuck in Afghanistan. Obama lacked the courage to pull US troops out. Always weak in military affairs, Obama bent to demands of the Pentagon and CIA to dig in lest the Red Chinese or Pakistan take over this strategic nation. The US oil industry was determined to assure trans-Afghan pipeline routes south from Central Asia. India has its eye on Afghanistan. Muslims could not be allowed to defeat the US military. ..."
"... This longest of wars has cost nearly $1 trillion to date all of its borrowed money and caused the deaths of 3,518 US and coalition troops, including 158 Canadians who blundered into a war none of them understood. ..."
"... No one has the courage to end this pointless war. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Afghans are being killed. Too bad no one at the Democratic or Republican Conventions had time to think about the endless war in forgotten Afghanistan. ..."
Anti-Russian hysteria in America reached its apogee this week as Democrats tried to divert
attention from embarrassing revelations about how the Democratic Party apparatus had rigged the primaries
against Bernie Sanders by claiming Vlad Putin and his KGB had hacked and exposed the Dem's emails.
This was rich coming from the US that snoops into everyone's emails and phones across the globe.
Remember German chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone being bugged by the US National Security Agency?
Unnamed US 'intelligence officials' claimed they had 'high confidence' that the Russian KGB
or GRU (military intelligence) had hacked the Dem's emails. These were likely the same officials
who had 'high confidence' that Iraq had nuclear weapons.
Blaming Putin was a master-stroke of deflection. No more talk of Hillary's slush fund foundation
or her status as a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs and the rest of Wall Street. All attention was focused
on President Putin who has been outrageously demonized by the US media and politicians.
Except for a small faux pas a montage of warships shown at the end of the Democratic Convention
is a blaze of jingoistic effusion embarrassingly turned out to be Russian warships!
Probably another trick by the awful Putin who has come to replace Satan in the minds of many Americans.
And what a joy for the war party that those dastardly Ruskis are now back as Enemy Number
One. Much more fun than scruffy Arabs. The word is out: more stealth bombers, more warships, more
missiles, more troops for Europe. The wicked Red Chinese will have to wait their turn until Uncle
Sam can deal with them.
I always find conventions depressing affairs. Rather than the cradle of democracy, they remind
me of clownish Shriners Conventions. Or as the witty Democratic advisor Paul Begala said, `Hollywood
for ugly people.' What, I kept wondering, is the rest of the world thinking as it watching this tawdry
spectacle?
One thing that that amazed me was the Convention's lack of attention to America's longest
ever war that still rages in the mountains of Afghanistan. For the past thirteen years, America,
the world's greatest military and economic power, has been trying to crush the life out of Afghan
Pashtun mountain tribesmen whose primary sin is fiercely opposing occupation by the US and its local
Afghan opium-growing stooges.
The saintly President Barack Obama repeatedly proclaimed the Afghan War over and staged phony
troops withdrawals. He must have believed his generals who kept claiming they had just about defeated
the resistance alliance, known as Taliban.
But the war was far from being 'almost won.' The US-installed puppet regime in Kabul of President
Ashraf Ghani, a former banker, holds on only thanks to the bayonets of US troops and the US Air Force.
Without constant air strikes, the US-installed Ghani regime and its drug-dealing would have been
swept away by Taliban and its tribal allies.
So the US remains stuck in Afghanistan. Obama lacked the courage to pull US troops out. Always
weak in military affairs, Obama bent to demands of the Pentagon and CIA to dig in lest the Red Chinese
or Pakistan take over this strategic nation. The US oil industry was determined to assure trans-Afghan
pipeline routes south from Central Asia. India has its eye on Afghanistan. Muslims could not be allowed
to defeat the US military.
Look what happened to the Soviets after they admitted defeat in Afghanistan and pulled out. Why
expose the US Empire to a similar geopolitical risk?
With al-Qaida down to less than 50 members in Afghanistan, according to former US defense chief
Leon Panetta, what was the ostensible reason for Washington to keep garrisoning Afghanistan? The
shadowy ISIS is now being dredged up as the excuse to stay.
This longest of wars has cost nearly $1 trillion to date all of its borrowed money and
caused the deaths of 3,518 US and coalition troops, including 158 Canadians who blundered into a
war none of them understood.
No one has the courage to end this pointless war. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Afghans
are being killed. Too bad no one at the Democratic or Republican Conventions had time to think about
the endless war in forgotten Afghanistan.
"... Anti-Russian hysteria in America reached its apogee this week as Democrats tried to divert attention from embarrassing revelations about how the Democratic Party apparatus had rigged the primaries against Bernie Sanders by claiming Vlad Putin and his KGB had hacked and exposed the Dem's emails. ..."
"... Unnamed US 'intelligence officials' claimed they had 'high confidence' that the Russian KGB or GRU (military intelligence) had hacked the Dem's emails. These were likely the same officials who had 'high confidence' that Iraq had nuclear weapons. ..."
"... And what a joy for the war party that those dastardly Ruskis are now back as Enemy Number One. Much more fun than scruffy Arabs. The word is out: more stealth bombers, more warships, more missiles, more troops for Europe. The wicked Red Chinese will have to wait their turn until Uncle Sam can deal with them. ..."
"... I always find conventions depressing affairs. Rather than the cradle of democracy, they remind me of clownish Shriners Conventions. Or as the witty Democratic advisor Paul Begala said, `Hollywood for ugly people.' What, I kept wondering, is the rest of the world thinking as it watching this tawdry spectacle? ..."
"... One thing that that amazed me was the Convention's lack of attention to America's longest ever war that still rages in the mountains of Afghanistan. For the past thirteen years, America, the world's greatest military and economic power, has been trying to crush the life out of Afghan Pashtun mountain tribesmen whose primary sin is fiercely opposing occupation by the US and its local Afghan opium-growing stooges. ..."
"... But the war was far from being 'almost won.' The US-installed puppet regime in Kabul of President Ashraf Ghani, a former banker, holds on only thanks to the bayonets of US troops and the US Air Force. Without constant air strikes, the US-installed Ghani regime and its drug-dealing would have been swept away by Taliban and its tribal allies. ..."
"... So the US remains stuck in Afghanistan. Obama lacked the courage to pull US troops out. Always weak in military affairs, Obama bent to demands of the Pentagon and CIA to dig in lest the Red Chinese or Pakistan take over this strategic nation. The US oil industry was determined to assure trans-Afghan pipeline routes south from Central Asia. India has its eye on Afghanistan. Muslims could not be allowed to defeat the US military. ..."
"... This longest of wars has cost nearly $1 trillion to date all of its borrowed money and caused the deaths of 3,518 US and coalition troops, including 158 Canadians who blundered into a war none of them understood. ..."
"... No one has the courage to end this pointless war. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Afghans are being killed. Too bad no one at the Democratic or Republican Conventions had time to think about the endless war in forgotten Afghanistan. ..."
Anti-Russian hysteria in America reached its apogee this week as Democrats tried to divert
attention from embarrassing revelations about how the Democratic Party apparatus had rigged the primaries
against Bernie Sanders by claiming Vlad Putin and his KGB had hacked and exposed the Dem's emails.
This was rich coming from the US that snoops into everyone's emails and phones across the globe.
Remember German chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone being bugged by the US National Security Agency?
Unnamed US 'intelligence officials' claimed they had 'high confidence' that the Russian KGB
or GRU (military intelligence) had hacked the Dem's emails. These were likely the same officials
who had 'high confidence' that Iraq had nuclear weapons.
Blaming Putin was a master-stroke of deflection. No more talk of Hillary's slush fund foundation
or her status as a subsidiary of Goldman Sachs and the rest of Wall Street. All attention was focused
on President Putin who has been outrageously demonized by the US media and politicians.
Except for a small faux pas a montage of warships shown at the end of the Democratic Convention
is a blaze of jingoistic effusion embarrassingly turned out to be Russian warships!
Probably another trick by the awful Putin who has come to replace Satan in the minds of many Americans.
And what a joy for the war party that those dastardly Ruskis are now back as Enemy Number
One. Much more fun than scruffy Arabs. The word is out: more stealth bombers, more warships, more
missiles, more troops for Europe. The wicked Red Chinese will have to wait their turn until Uncle
Sam can deal with them.
I always find conventions depressing affairs. Rather than the cradle of democracy, they remind
me of clownish Shriners Conventions. Or as the witty Democratic advisor Paul Begala said, `Hollywood
for ugly people.' What, I kept wondering, is the rest of the world thinking as it watching this tawdry
spectacle?
One thing that that amazed me was the Convention's lack of attention to America's longest
ever war that still rages in the mountains of Afghanistan. For the past thirteen years, America,
the world's greatest military and economic power, has been trying to crush the life out of Afghan
Pashtun mountain tribesmen whose primary sin is fiercely opposing occupation by the US and its local
Afghan opium-growing stooges.
The saintly President Barack Obama repeatedly proclaimed the Afghan War over and staged phony
troops withdrawals. He must have believed his generals who kept claiming they had just about defeated
the resistance alliance, known as Taliban.
But the war was far from being 'almost won.' The US-installed puppet regime in Kabul of President
Ashraf Ghani, a former banker, holds on only thanks to the bayonets of US troops and the US Air Force.
Without constant air strikes, the US-installed Ghani regime and its drug-dealing would have been
swept away by Taliban and its tribal allies.
So the US remains stuck in Afghanistan. Obama lacked the courage to pull US troops out. Always
weak in military affairs, Obama bent to demands of the Pentagon and CIA to dig in lest the Red Chinese
or Pakistan take over this strategic nation. The US oil industry was determined to assure trans-Afghan
pipeline routes south from Central Asia. India has its eye on Afghanistan. Muslims could not be allowed
to defeat the US military.
Look what happened to the Soviets after they admitted defeat in Afghanistan and pulled out. Why
expose the US Empire to a similar geopolitical risk?
With al-Qaida down to less than 50 members in Afghanistan, according to former US defense chief
Leon Panetta, what was the ostensible reason for Washington to keep garrisoning Afghanistan? The
shadowy ISIS is now being dredged up as the excuse to stay.
This longest of wars has cost nearly $1 trillion to date all of its borrowed money and
caused the deaths of 3,518 US and coalition troops, including 158 Canadians who blundered into a
war none of them understood.
No one has the courage to end this pointless war. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Afghans
are being killed. Too bad no one at the Democratic or Republican Conventions had time to think about
the endless war in forgotten Afghanistan.
Something very strange is happening. The great majority of the mainstream western media are "under-reporting"
the quite monumental events affecting one of the most important NATO allies.
In the same time more and more accusations and more concrete ones are coming out of Turkey about
the West supporting the failed coup! Still western media and capitals behave like it is just normal
for leaders and officials of a NATO country to accuse the United States of supporting a coup in their
country!
It is true that Erdogan is not a popular politician in the West and he is considered rather authoritarian.
He made a lot of things to justify this accusation. But the question is they don't like because he
is authoritarian or because he became too "uncontrollable"?
Anyway there is a distance between criticizing a leader (elected by the way) for his authoritarianism
and supporting military coups against him. To impose a military dictatorship in Turkey is hardly
a way to promote "democracy", as it was hardly the repeated wars in the Middle East (USA and France
have just begun a new one against Libya!)
President Erdogan has again accused the West for its attitude towards his country, just one day
after the visit to Turkey of the chief of the US Armed Forces
"... Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the conclusion of the Cold War (" the end of history ," as Francis Fukuyama, called it), there was no global enemy for America to face down. No big nasty to spur weapons procurement, to justify a huge standing military with hundreds of bases around the world or to pick fights with to allow a president down in the polls to morph into a superhero. ..."
"... Americans are already well-prepared by the old Cold War to see Russia again as an evil empire, and Putin does look the part. The Russians are involved in Syria's civil war, so there is some sense of continuity. A new Cold War with Russia would require America to buy more expensive military hardware, plus discover new areas of Europe, like the Baltic states, to garrison. It might even breathe new life into a North Atlantic Treaty Organization that is confused about its role vis-a-vis terrorism. For politicians, ceaselessly shouting about the Muslim threat has proved to have downsides: It has inflamed many Muslims, perhaps pushing them toward radicalization. In addition, it turns out there are Muslim voters in the United States, and people who respect Muslims. The Kahn family's moving speech to the Democratic National Convention about the death of their soldier son was proof of that. ..."
"... On the other hand, Putin doesn't vote, only a handful of far leftists think he's a good guy, and he can be slapped around in sound bites without risk that he will actually launch a war against the United States. Why, he can even be accused, without penalty, of meddling in our democratic processes. ..."
"... Putin the Thug is a political-military-industrial-complex dream candidate. Expect him to feature heavily in the next administration's foreign policy. ..."
There is a near-certainty in American political speech, going back to the 1980s: When a senior
United States official labels you a thug, trouble follows. "Thug" is the safest go-to word in the
lexicon of
American Exceptionalism.
So, it is with concern that folks are lining up at the mic to call Russian President Vladimir
Putin just that. President Obama called him a "thug,"
as did presidential hopeful Marco Rubio, who added "gangster" for good measure. Republican House
Speaker Paul Ryan's spokesperson found fault with Putin and his whole nation, even adding an adjective:
"Russia is a global menace led by a
DEVIOUS thug." One rarely hears ruffian, hooligan, vandal, hoodlum or villain, but watch out
for thug.
While throwing the term at Putin is tied to the
weak public evidence supposedly linking Russian government hacker(s) to the Democratic National
Committee
computer
breach, there may be larger issues in the background.
It seems the word "thug" is a sort of dog whistle that when blown signals Americans and their
media to psyche up for a new fight. For example:
Secretary of State John Kerry on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad: "A
thug and murderer." Kerry also said, "Daesh [Islamic State] is in fact nothing more than a mixture
of killers, of kidnappers, of criminals, of thugs ..."
Then-President George W. Bush on al Qaeda: "If we let down our guard against this group of thugs,
they will hurt us again." Bush also thought Saddam Hussein was
a thug.
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders
on Muammar Gaddafi: "Look, everybody understands Gaddafi is a thug and murderer."
Madeleine Albright found thugs in Somalia and the Balkans for the wars of her era as secretary
of state.
But why Putin, and why now? Perhaps what we're seeing is preparation for the next iteration of
America's perpetual state of war.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the conclusion of the Cold War ("the
end of history," as Francis Fukuyama, called it), there was no global enemy for America to face
down. No big nasty to spur weapons procurement, to justify a huge standing military with hundreds
of bases around the world or to pick fights with to allow a president down in the polls to morph
into a superhero.
A lot of people had a lot of power and money in play that demanded some real bad guys. An attempt
was made in the 1980s to make drug lords the new major threat, but they were too few in number to
sustain the media campaign. Following 9/11, the bad guys were "the terrorists." The George W. Bush
administration riffed off that theme in appointing Saddam Hussein as a weapons-of-mass-destruction
threat and in tagging Iran and North Korea as members of an "axis of evil."
Saddam Hussein turned out to be a bust, and the war in Iraq was ultimately very unpopular. Osama
bin Laden never launched a second attack on the United States, and the Taliban were dragged down
by a war that seemed to lose its focus after 15 years. Iran and North Korea make a lot of noise but
never seemed able to do real harm to America. The United States made a good-faith effort trying to
label all sorts of others Gaddafi, Assad, Islamic State as global enemies worthy of perpetual
war, but the Middle East in general has turned into a quagmire. America likes a winner, or at least
the appearance of winning.
Ahead of the next administration, Washington really needs an arch enemy, a poster-child kind of
guy who looks like a James Bond villain. And preferably one with nuclear weapons he'll brandish but
never use.
Enter Putin the Thug.
Americans are already well-prepared by the old Cold War to see Russia again as an evil empire,
and Putin does look the part. The Russians are involved in Syria's civil war, so there is some sense
of continuity. A new Cold War with Russia would require America to buy more expensive military hardware,
plus discover new areas of Europe, like the Baltic states, to garrison. It might even breathe new
life into a North Atlantic Treaty Organization that is confused about its role vis-a-vis terrorism.
For politicians, ceaselessly shouting about the Muslim threat has proved to have downsides: It
has inflamed many Muslims, perhaps pushing them toward radicalization. In addition, it turns out
there are Muslim voters in the United States, and people who respect Muslims. The Kahn family's moving
speech to the Democratic National Convention about the death of their soldier son was proof of that.
On the other hand, Putin doesn't vote, only a handful of far leftists think he's a good guy,
and he can be slapped around in sound bites without risk that he will actually launch a war against
the United States. Why, he can even be accused, without penalty, of meddling in our democratic processes.
Putin the Thug is a political-military-industrial-complex dream candidate. Expect him to feature
heavily in the next administration's foreign policy.
Peter Van Buren, who served in the State Department for 24 years, is the author of "We Meant
Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People," a look at the waste
and mismanagement of the Iraqi reconstruction. His latest book is "Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of
the #99 Percent." He is on Twitter @WeMeantWell
"... If the rabidly pro-Israel Hillary Clinton takes the White House, you can expect that this concession will be re-negotiated: in any case, the Israel lobby will wield its considerable resources to get Congress to pressure the White House. ..."
"... As Glenn Greenwald points out in The Intercept , the Israelis have cradle-to-grave health care. Their life-expectancy is nearly a decade longer than ours. Their infant mortality rate is lower. By any meaningful measure, their standard of living is higher. They should be sending us aid: instead, the opposite is occurring. ..."
"... We made possible the Israeli Sparta : a state armed to the teeth which thrives on the misery and enslavement of its dispossessed Palestinian helots. Furthermore, our policy of unconditional support for Israel has encouraged the growth and development of a polity that is rapidly going fascist. And I don't use the "f"-word lightly. I've been chronicling Israel's slide toward a repulsive ethno-nationalism for years , and today with the rise of ultra-rightist parties that openly call for the expulsio n of Arabs and the expansion of the Israeli state to its Biblically-ordained borders my predictions are coming true. ..."
"... The "special relationship" is a parasitic relationship: the Israelis have been feeding off US taxpayers since the Reagan era. This in spite of the numerous insults , slights, and outright sabotage they have directed our way. It's high time to put an end to it. To borrow a phrase from You Know Who: it's time to put America first. ..."
"... What this means in practice is: 1) End aid to Israel, 2) Call out the Israelis for their shameful apartheid policies, and 3) end the power of the Israel lobby by enforcing the Foreign Agents Registration Act and compelling AIPAC and its allied organizations to register as foreign agents. Because that's just what they are. ..."
Washington is preparing to
increase US aid to Israel by billions of dollars, with a ten-year ironclad agreement that couldn't
be altered by President Obama's successor. But that isn't good enough for Bibi Netanyahu. He wants
more. Much more.
Unlike the case with other countries, the US engages in protracted and often difficult negotiations
with Israel over how much free stuff they're going to get come budget time. This year, the talks
are taking on a particularly urgent tone because of you guessed it, Donald Trump. While Trump is
fervently pro-Israel, he has said that the Israelis, like our NATO allies, are going to have to
start paying for their
own defense (although with him,
you never know what his position is from
one day to the next ). This uncertainty has the two parties racing to sign an agreement before
President Obama's term is up in January. And it also has inspired the inclusion of a novel clause:
a ten-year guarantee that aid will remain at the agreed level, with no possibility that the new President
whoever that may be will lower it.
The Israelis
currently receive over half the foreign aid doled out by Uncle Sam annually, most of it in military
assistance with an extra added dollop for "refugee resettlement." That combined with loan guarantees
comes to roughly $3.5 billion per year with all the money handed to them up front, in the first
weeks of the fiscal year, instead of being released over time like other countries.
So how much is this increase going to amount to? With negotiations still ongoing, the US isn't
releasing any solid figures, although Bibi, we are told, is demanding $5 billion annually. The
New York Times is
reporting the final sum could "top $40 billion." What we do know is that the administration told
Congress in a letter that they are prepared to offer Tel Aviv an aid package "that would constitute
the largest pledge of military assistance to any country in US history." In addition, it would guarantee
US aid for Israel's missile defense, taking it out of the annual appropriations song-and-dance, and
immunizing it from any cuts.
Aside from the "haggling" as the Times put it over the amount, there is another issue:
the Israeli exception to a rule that applies to all other recipients of American aid. Other countries
must spend their welfare check in dollars that is, they must buy American. Not the Israelis. They're
allowed to spend up to 25% of their aid package at home: which means that US taxpayers have been
subsidizing the Israeli military-industrial complex to the tune of multi-billions since the 1980s,
when this special arrangement was legislated. However, in an era where "America First" is now a popular
political slogan popularized by You Know Who the Obama administration is trying to end this exception
to the rules. Naturally, the Israelis are resisting, but,
according to Ha'aretz
:
"The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said the White House was prepared to let Israel keep
the arrangement for the first five years of the new MOU but it would be gradually phased out in the
second five years, except for joint U.S.-Israeli military projects."
If the rabidly pro-Israel Hillary Clinton takes the White House, you can expect that this
concession will be re-negotiated: in any case, the Israel lobby will wield its considerable resources
to get Congress to pressure the White House.
In their letter to Congress, national security honcho Susan Rice and OMB chief Shaun Donovan evoke
the Iran deal as justification for this new and sweeter aid package. Yet this argument undermines
the administration's contention that the agreement with Iran doesn't endanger Israel because if
it doesn't, then why do the Israelis need billions more in aid in the first place?
What the letter tiptoes around is the fact that this aid package is extortion, pure and simple.
It's a purely political attempt by the Obama White House to appease the Israelis, and mobilize the
Israel lobby behind the Democrats in a crucial election year. It's important to keep
Haim Saban happy.
As Glenn Greenwald
points out in The Intercept , the Israelis have cradle-to-grave health care. Their life-expectancy
is nearly a decade longer than ours. Their infant mortality rate is lower. By any meaningful measure,
their standard of living is higher. They should be sending us aid: instead, the opposite is
occurring.
What in the heck is going on here?
We made possible the
Israeli Sparta : a state armed to the teeth which thrives on the misery and enslavement of its
dispossessed Palestinian helots. Furthermore, our policy of unconditional support for Israel has
encouraged the growth and development of a polity that is rapidly going fascist. And I don't use
the "f"-word lightly. I've been
chronicling Israel's slide
toward a
repulsive ethno-nationalism
for years , and today
with the rise of ultra-rightist parties that openly call for the
expulsio n of Arabs and the expansion of the Israeli state to its Biblically-ordained borders
my predictions are coming true.
The "special relationship" is a parasitic relationship: the Israelis have been feeding off
US taxpayers since the Reagan era. This in spite of the numerous
insults
, slights, and outright
sabotage they have directed our way. It's high time to put an end to it. To borrow a phrase from
You Know Who: it's time to put America first.
What this means in practice is: 1) End aid to Israel, 2) Call out the Israelis for their shameful
apartheid policies, and 3) end the power of the Israel lobby by enforcing the Foreign Agents Registration
Act and compelling AIPAC and its allied organizations to register as foreign agents. Because that's
just what they are.
"... The mass migration of apparently hundreds of nominally GOP neocon apparatchiks to the Hillary Clinton camp has moved Democratic Party foreign policy farther to the right, not that the presidential nominee herself needed much persuading. The Democratic convention platform is a template of the hardline foreign policy positions espoused by Clinton and the convention itself concluded with a prolonged bout of Russian bashing that could have been orchestrated by Hillary protιgι Victoria Nuland. ..."
"... The inside the beltway crowd has realized that when in doubt it is always a safe bet to blame Vladimir Putin based on the assumption that Russia is and always will be an enemy of the United States. Wikileaks recently published some thousands of emails that painted the Democratic National Committee, then headed by Hillary loyalist Debbie Wasserman Schultz, in a very bad light. Needing a scapegoat, Russia was blamed for the original hack that obtained the information, even though there is no hard evidence that Moscow had anything to do with it. ..."
"... Another interesting aspect of the Russian scandal is the widespread assertion that Moscow is attempting to interfere in U.S. politics and is both clandestinely and openly supporting Donald Trump. This is presumably a bad thing, if true, because Putin would, according to the pundits, be able to steamroll "Manchurian Candidate" President Trump and subvert U.S. foreign policy in Russia's favor. Alternatively, as the narrative continues, the stalwart Hillary would presumably defend American values and the right to intervene militarily anywhere in the world at any time against all comers including Putin and those rascals in China and North Korea. Professor Inboden might no doubt be able to provide a reference to the part of the Constitution that grants Washington that right as he and his former boss George W. Bush were also partial to that interpretation. ..."
"... And the alleged Russian involvement leads inevitably to some thoughts about interference by other governments in our electoral system. Israel and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did so in a rather heavy handed fashion in 2012 on behalf of candidate Mitt Romney but I don't recall even a squeak coming out of Hillary and her friends when that took place. That just might be due to the fact that Netanyahu owns Bill and Hillary, which leads inevitably to consideration of the other big winner now that the two conventions are concluded. The team that one sees doing the victory lap is the state of Israel, which dodged a bigtime bullet when it managed to exploit its bought and paid for friends to eliminate any criticism of its military occupation and settlements policies. Indeed, Israel emerged from the two party platforms as America's best friend and number one ally, a position it has occupied since its Lobby took control of the Congress, White House and the mainstream media around thirty years ago. ..."
"... Donald Trump, who has perversely promised to be an honest broker in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, has also described himself as the best friend in the White House that Tel Aviv is ever likely to have. In addition to Trump speaking for himself, Israel was mentioned fourteen times in GOP convention speeches, always being described as the greatest ally and friend to the U.S., never as the pain in the ass and drain on the treasury that it actually represents. ..."
"... Team Hillary also ignored chants from the convention floor demanding "No More War" and there are separate reports suggesting that one of her first priorities as president will be to initiate a "full review" of the "murderous" al-Assad regime in Syria with the intention of taking care of him once and for all. "No More War" coming from the Democratic base somehow became "More War Please" for the elites that run the party. ..."
"... If you read through the two party platforms on foreign policy, admittedly a brutal and thankless task, you will rarely find any explanation of actual American interests at play in terms of the involvement of the U.S. in what are essentially other people's quarrels. That is as it should be as our political class has almost nothing to do with reality but instead is consumed with delusions linked solely to acquisition of power and money. That realization on the part of the public has driven both the Trump and Sanders movements and, even if they predictably flame out, there is always the hope that the dissidents will grow stronger with rejection and something might actually happen in 2020. ..."
The mass migration of apparently hundreds of nominally GOP neocon apparatchiks to the Hillary
Clinton camp has moved Democratic Party foreign policy farther to the right, not that the presidential
nominee herself needed much persuading. The Democratic convention platform is a template of the hardline
foreign policy positions espoused by Clinton and the convention itself concluded with a prolonged
bout of Russian bashing that could have been orchestrated by Hillary protιgι Victoria Nuland.
The inside the beltway crowd has realized that when in doubt it is always a safe bet to blame
Vladimir Putin based on the assumption that Russia is and always will be an enemy of the United States.
Wikileaks recently published some thousands of emails that painted the Democratic National Committee,
then headed by Hillary loyalist Debbie Wasserman Schultz, in a very bad light. Needing a scapegoat,
Russia was blamed for the original hack that obtained the information, even though there is
no hard evidence that Moscow had anything to do with it.
Those in the media and around Hillary who were baying the loudest about how outraged they were
over the hack curiously appear to have no knowledge of the existence of the National Security Agency,
located at Fort Meade Maryland, which routinely breaks into the government computers of friends and
foes alike worldwide. Apparently what is fair game for American codebreakers is no longer seen so
positively when there is any suggestion that the tables might have been turned.
Republican nominee Donald Trump noted that if the Russians were in truth behind the hack he would
like them to search for the 30,000 emails that Hillary Clinton reportedly deleted from her home server.
The comment, which to my mind was sarcastically making a point about Clinton's mendacity, brought
down the wrath of the media, with the New York Times
reporting that "foreign policy experts," also sometimes known as "carefully selected 'Trump haters,'"
were shocked by The Donald. The paper quoted one William Inboden, allegedly a University of Texas
professor who served on President George W. Bush's National Security Council. Inboden complained
that the comments were "an assault on the Constitution" and "tantamount to treason." Now I have never
heard of Inboden, which might be sheer ignorance on my part, but he really should refresh himself
on what the Constitution
actually says about
treason, tantamount or otherwise. According to Article III of the Constitution of the United States
one can only commit treason if there is a declared war going on and one is actively aiding an enemy,
which as far as I know is not currently the case as applied to the U.S. relationship with Russia.
Another interesting aspect of the Russian scandal is the widespread assertion that Moscow
is attempting to interfere in U.S. politics and is both clandestinely and openly supporting Donald
Trump. This is presumably a bad thing, if true, because Putin would, according to the pundits, be
able to steamroll "Manchurian Candidate" President Trump and subvert U.S. foreign policy in Russia's
favor. Alternatively, as the narrative continues, the stalwart Hillary would presumably defend American
values and the right to intervene militarily anywhere in the world at any time against all comers
including Putin and those rascals in China and North Korea. Professor Inboden might no doubt be able
to provide a reference to the part of the Constitution that grants Washington that right as he and
his former boss George W. Bush were also partial to that interpretation.
And the alleged Russian involvement leads inevitably to some thoughts about interference by
other governments in our electoral system. Israel and its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did so
in a rather heavy handed fashion in 2012 on behalf of candidate Mitt Romney but I don't recall even
a squeak coming out of Hillary and her friends when that took place. That just might be due to the
fact that Netanyahu owns Bill and Hillary, which leads inevitably to consideration of the other big
winner now that the two conventions are concluded. The team that one sees doing the victory lap is
the state of Israel, which dodged a bigtime bullet when it managed to exploit its bought and paid
for friends to eliminate any criticism of its military occupation and settlements policies. Indeed,
Israel emerged from the two party platforms as America's best friend and number one ally, a position
it has occupied since its Lobby took control of the Congress, White House and the mainstream media
around thirty years ago.
Donald Trump, who has perversely promised to be an honest broker in negotiations between Israel
and the Palestinians, has also described himself as the best friend in the White House that Tel Aviv
is ever likely to have. In addition to Trump speaking for himself, Israel was mentioned fourteen
times in GOP convention speeches, always being described as the greatest ally and friend to the U.S.,
never as the pain in the ass and drain on the treasury that it actually represents.
No other foreign country was mentioned as often as Israel apart from Iran, which was regularly
cited as an enemy of both the U.S. and you guessed it Israel. Indeed, the constant thumping of
Iran is a reflection of the overweening affection for Netanyahu and his right wing government. Regarding
Iran, the GOP foreign policy
platform states "We consider the Administration's deal with Iran, to lift international sanctions
and make hundreds of billions of dollars available to the Mullahs, a personal agreement between the
President and his negotiating partners and non-binding on the next president. Without a two-thirds
endorsement by the Senate, it does not have treaty status. Because of it, the defiant and emboldened
regime in Tehran continues to sponsor terrorism across the region, develop a nuclear weapon, test-fire
ballistic missiles inscribed with 'Death to Israel,' and abuse the basic human rights of its citizens."
The final written
Republican platform for 2016 as relating to the Middle East, drawn up
with the input
of two Trump advisors Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman, rather supports the suggestion that Trump
would be pro-Israel rather than the claim of impartiality. The plank entitled "Our Unequivocal Support
of Israel and Jerusalem," promises to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, praises Israel in five
different sections, eulogizing it as a "beacon of democracy and humanity" brimming over with freedom
of speech and religion while concluding that "support for Israel is an expression of Americanism."
It pledges "no daylight" between the two countries, denies that Israel is an "occupier," and slams
the peaceful Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), which it describes as anti-Semitic
and seeking to destroy Israel. It calls for legal action to "thwart" BDS. There is no mention of
a Palestinian state or of any Palestinian rights to anything at all.
The
Democratic plank on the Middle East gives lip service to a two state solution for Israel-Palestine
but is mostly notable for what it chose to address. Two Bernie Sanders supporters on the platform
drafting committee James Zogby and Cornel West wanted to remove any illegal under international
law affirmation that Jerusalem is the undivided capital of Israel and also sought to eliminated any
condemnation of BDS. They failed on both issues and then tried to have included mild language criticizing
Israel's occupation of the West Bank and its settlement building. They were outvoted by Hillary supporters
on all the issues they considered important. Indeed, there is no language at all critical in any
way of Israel, instead asserting that "a strong and secure Israel is vital to the United States because
we share overarching strategic interests and the common values of democracy, equality, tolerance,
and pluralism." That none of that was or is true apparently bothered no one in the Hillary camp.
The Democratic platform document explicitly condemns any support for BDS. Hillary Clinton, who
has promised to take the relationship with Israel to a whole new level, has reportedly
agreed to an anti-BDS
pledge to appease her principal financial supporter Haim Saban, an Israeli-American film producer.
Clinton also directly and personally intervened through her surrogate on the committee Wendy Sherman
to make sure that the party platform would remain pro-Israel.
But many Democrats on the floor of the convention hall have, to their credit, promoted a somewhat
different perspective, displaying signs and stickers while calling for support of Palestinian
rights. One demonstrator outside the convention center burned an Israeli flag, producing a
sharp response from Hillary's spokeswoman for Jewish outreach Sarah Bard, "Hillary Clinton has
always stood against efforts to marginalize Israel and incitement, and she strongly condemns this
kind of hatred. Burning the Israeli flag is a reckless act that undermines peace and our values."
Bill meanwhile was
seen in the hall wearing a Hillary button written in Hebrew. It was a full court press pander
and one has to wonder how Hillary would have felt about someone burning a Russian flag or seeing
Bill sport a button in Cyrillic.
Team Hillary also ignored chants from the convention floor demanding "No More War" and there
are separate reports suggesting that one of her
first priorities as president will be to initiate a "full review" of the "murderous" al-Assad
regime in Syria with the intention of taking care of him once and for all. "No More War" coming from
the Democratic base somehow became "More War Please" for the elites that run the party.
The Democratic platform also
beats down on Iran, declaring only tepid support for the nuclear deal while focusing more on
draconian enforcement, asserting that they would "not hesitate to take military action if Iran violates
the agreement." It also cited Iran as "the leading state sponsor of terrorism" and claimed that Tehran
"has its fingerprints on almost every conflict in the Middle East." For what it's worth, neither
assertion about Iran's regional role is true and Tehran reportedly has complied completely with the
multilateral nuclear agreement. It is the U.S. government that is failing to live up to its commitments
by refusing to allow Iranian access to financial markets while the Congress has even blocked an Iranian
bid to buy Made-in-the-U.S.A. civilian jetliners.
So those of us who had hoped for at least a partial abandonment of the hitherto dominant foreign
policy consensus have to be disappointed as they in the pro-war crowd in their various guises as
liberal interventionists or global supremacy warriors continue to control much of the discourse from
left to right. Russia continues to be a popular target to vent Administration frustration over its
inept posturing overseas, though there is some hope that Donald Trump might actually reverse that
tendency. Iran serves as a useful punchline whenever a politician on the make runs out of other things
to vilify. And then there is always Israel, ever the victim, perpetually the greatest ally and friend.
And invariably needing some extra cash, a warplane or two or a little political protection in venues
like the United Nations.
If you read through the two party platforms on foreign policy, admittedly a brutal and thankless
task, you will rarely find any explanation of actual American interests at play in terms of the involvement
of the U.S. in what are essentially other people's quarrels. That is as it should be as our political
class has almost nothing to do with reality but instead is consumed with delusions linked solely
to acquisition of power and money. That realization on the part of the public has driven both the
Trump and Sanders movements and, even if they predictably flame out, there is always the hope that
the dissidents will grow stronger with rejection and something might actually happen in 2020.
A very important, informative interview. Outlines complexity of challenges of modern society and
the real power of "alphabet agencies" in the modern societies (not only in the USA) pretty
vividly. You need to listen to it several times to understand better the current environment.
Very sloppy security was the immanent feature both of Hillary "bathroom" server and DNC emails hacks.
So there probably were multiple parties that has access to those data not a single one (anti Russian
hysteria presumes that the only party are Russian and that's silly; what about China, Iran and
Israel?).
Russian government would not use a "known attack" as they would immediately be traced back.
Anything, any communications that goes over the network are totally. 100% exposed to NSA data
collection infrastructure. Clinton email messages are not exception. NSA does have
information on them, including all envelopes (the body of the message might be encrypted and that's
slightly complicate the matter, but there is no signs that Clinton of DNC used encryption of them)
NSA has the technical capabilities to trace the data back and they most probably have most if not
all of deleted mail. The "total surveillance", the total data mailing used by NSA definitely includes
the mail envelopes which makes possible to enumerate all the missing mails.
Notable quotes:
"... The National Security Agency (NSA) has "all" of Hillary Clinton's deleted emails and the FBI could gain access to them if they so desired, William Binney, a former highly placed NSA official, declared in a radio interview broadcast on Sunday. ..."
"... Binney referenced testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March 2011 by then-FBI Director Robert S. Mueller in which Meuller spoke of the FBI's ability to access various secretive databases "to track down known and suspected terrorists." ..."
"... "Now what he (Mueller) is talking about is going into the NSA database, which is shown of course in the (Edward) Snowden material released, which shows a direct access into the NSA database by the FBI and the CIA Which there is no oversight of by the way. So that means that NSA and a number of agencies in the U.S. government also have those emails." ..."
"... Listen to the full interview here: ... ..."
"... And the other point is that Hillary, according to an article published by the Observer ..."
The National Security Agency (NSA) has "all" of Hillary Clinton's deleted emails and the FBI
could gain access to them if they so desired, William Binney, a former highly placed NSA official,
declared in a radio interview broadcast on Sunday.
Speaking as an analyst, Binney raised the possibility that the hack of the Democratic National
Committee's server was done not by Russia but by a disgruntled U.S. intelligence worker concerned
about Clinton's compromise of national security secrets via her personal email use.
Binney was an architect of the NSA's surveillance program. He became a famed whistleblower when
he resigned on October 31, 2001, after spending more than 30 years with the agency.
He was speaking on this reporter's Sunday radio program, "Aaron
Klein Investigative Radio," broadcast on New York's AM 970 The Answer and Philadelphia's NewsTalk
990 AM.
Binney referenced
testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March 2011 by then-FBI Director Robert S.
Mueller in which Meuller spoke of the FBI's ability to access various secretive databases "to track
down known and suspected terrorists."
Stated Binney:
"Now what he (Mueller) is talking about is going into the NSA database, which is shown
of course in the (Edward) Snowden material released, which shows a direct access into the NSA
database by the FBI and the CIA Which there is no oversight of by the way. So that means that
NSA and a number of agencies in the U.S. government also have those emails."
"So if the FBI really wanted them they can go into that database and get them right now," he stated
of Clinton's emails as well as DNC emails.
Asked point blank if he believed the NSA has copies of "all" of Clinton's emails, including the
deleted correspondence, Binney replied in the affirmative.
"Yes," he responded. "That would be my point. They have them all and the FBI can get them right
there."
Listen to the full interview here: ...
Binney surmised that the hack of the DNC could have been coordinated by someone inside the U.S.
intelligence community angry over Clinton's compromise of national security data with her email use.
And the other point is that Hillary, according to an
article published
by the Observer in March of this year, has a problem with NSA because she compromised Gamma
material. Now that is the most sensitive material at NSA. And so there were a number of NSA
officials complaining to the press or to the people who wrote the article that she did that. She
lifted the material that was in her emails directly out of Gamma reporting. That is a direct compromise
of the most sensitive material at the NSA. So she's got a real problem there. So there are many
people who have problems with what she has done in the past. So I don't necessarily look at the Russians
as the only one(s) who got into those emails.
The Observer defined the GAMMA classification:
GAMMA compartment, which is an NSA handling caveat that is applied to extraordinarily sensitive
information (for instance, decrypted conversations between top foreign leadership, as this was).
Aaron Klein is Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He
is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, "Aaron
Klein Investigative Radio." Follow him on
Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow
him on Facebook.
"... "Instances of planting of malicious software designed for cyber espionage in computer networks of some 20 organizations located on the territory of Russia have been exposed Information resources of public authorities, scientific and military institutions, enterprises of the military - industrial complex and other objects of country's critical infrastructure were contaminated," the statement read. ..."
Instances of planting of malicious software designed for cyber espionage in computer networks
of some 20 organizations located on the territory of Russia have been exposed, according to FSB press
service.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) exposed planting of malicious software
designed for cyber espionage in computer networks of about 20 Russian institutions, including government
and military bodies, FSB press service said Saturday.
"Instances of planting of malicious software designed for cyber espionage in computer networks
of some 20 organizations located on the territory of Russia have been exposed Information resources
of public authorities, scientific and military institutions, enterprises of the military - industrial
complex and other objects of country's critical infrastructure were contaminated," the statement
read.
The press service stressed that the attack was professionally planned, has similar traits with the
previously exposed attacks from all over the world.
"The latest sets of software are made for each 'victim' individually, based on the unique characteristics
of the targeted PC. The spread of the virus is carried out by the means of targeted attacks on
PC by sending an e-mail containing a malicious attachment," the statement continued adding that
the software made it possible to do screenshots, turn on web-camera and microphones, collect data
from the keyboard use.
FSB in cooperation with the ministries and agencies took a number of measures to identify all
the "victims" of the malicious program on the Russian territory, as well as to localize the threats
and minimize the consequences caused by its spread.
"... Why do we see such an orchestrated attempt to preemptively accuse Russia of potentially manipulating U.S. voting? This without ANY evidence that Russia ever has or would attempt to do so? Are there already plans for such manipulations that need a plausible foreign culprit as cover up story? Or is there a color revolution in preparation to eventually disenfranchise the election winner? ..."
"... "hacking", or rather, snooping and leaking, is business as usual... remember when the Sanders and Clinton campaigns were fighting over DNC server data? ..."
"... The source of the DNC email leak is irrelevant. The Orwellian chant "Putin bad; US good!" is the point of the whole thing, and the media is just a bullhorn for the party/parties. ..."
"... But I do look forward to the show when the emails Trump referred to are released. What is Hillary afraid of? it's not like nobody knows what she's done... and wants to do next. ..."
"... the United States has been a failed state from the perspective of voting integrity from at least 2000. The lunatics are running the asylum here and we voters are only allowed to participate as a hollow form of placation. ..."
"... Our famous "free press," so totally controlled by Big Corporations. Always looking for a way to try to persuade the public that any political and social actions is bad and of no importance. ACK! ..."
"... My immediate thought was of the White House managed meetings with mayors of cities where Occupy was very much not "crushed," and how they coordinated their attacks by knocking down tents, dumped books into dupsters, which were part of the free lending library in some cities, and forcing people out of sites long occupied with the persuasion of threatened force and physical harm. ..."
"... we know the neocons intend to cheat to get Hillary elected. Sounds like a warning to Russia to keep out of the way or else. ..."
"... This video below shows that the pressure of the Russian hacking lies worked on Trump. What kind of genius is that b ? Trump: Putin has no respect for the US. Starts at 1min 20 sec : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=riuduXz5Y2I Trump on Russia finding Hillays emails : https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gNa2B5zHfbQ ..."
"... If Trump is such a genius then why would he make so many idiotic and contradictory statements, and then cave it so easily into pressure of lies like this against Russia ? Immediately antagonizing Russia. ..."
"... The problem with the 'Trump as Manchurian Candidate' narrative is that most people (even Democrats) deep down, probably don't really believe it. It runs right into his 'America First' that the same people have been complaining about. In the absence of hard evidence, actually shared with the public, the Putin connection will eventually fall apart. ..."
"... Bruce Schneier has been having a neolibcon bias for years with a blind spot for NSA activities. I stopped reading his stupid blog, with little to no added value regarding security news, when it became too obvious. ..."
"... 'The only reason not to have paper copies is to allow fraud.' ..."
"... Very well and concisely put. Except for the 'copies' bit. The only reason not to have paper ballots ..."
"... To me the answer seems obvious: voters registered and elections administered, ballots tallied and stored at the precinct level. There are about 175,000 precincts in the USA, each composed of 1,000 to 2,000 people. A workable size for real, participatory democracy, the basis for all constituencies - municipal, county, state, federal - erected upon them. First come the people , then come our governments. ..."
"... Russia told the United States on Thursday to get to the bottom of of its own hacking scandal. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said accusations of a Russian hand in hacking Democratic Party emails bordered on "total stupidity" and were motivated by anti-Russian sentiment. ..."
"... Michael Connell - who died at age 45, leaving a wife and four kids - was a computer networking expert who lived near Akron. Last July 17, an attorney who's filed a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging a conspiracy to rig elections in Ohio held a press conference at which he identified Connell as a principal witness. ..."
"... the missing deleted emails would most likely also reveal the innards of the Clinton family Foundation. Not really missing. It would be a great disappointment if copies are not in a few 3 letter agencies. ..."
"... Great George Carlin probably did not know many actual names of the "big owners" when he wrote ..."
"... ...The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice you don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own, and control the corporations. They've long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. ..."
"... They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying lobbying, to get what they want Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll tell you what they don't want they don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking... ..."
"... The perfidy of Manly is that he does not say how to _prevent_ possible breaches, but creates perception of "Russians having access to everything" instead. So he does not really care about solving the problem, but about maintaining the notion that the problem magically persist. ..."
"... "As regards these (email) batches, that is not our headache. We never poke our noses into others' affairs and we really don't like it when people try to poke their nose into ours," he said. "The Americans needs to get to the bottom of what these emails are themselves and find out what it's all about." ..."
"... The DNC was "hacked "by some of Killary's Israeli chums/clients... Lets look at the proffered "evidence" for a Russian Hack.. The hackers "seem to have been following a schedule of "Russian" holdiays... Half (or more) of the people in Israel follow that same schedule of holdiays... ..."
"... Article on Gen. Breedlove: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/breedlove-network-sought-weapons-deliveries-for-ukraine-a-1104837.html Defense contractors, think tanks, and Breedlove feared Congress would cut U.S. troop levels in Europe. ..."
"... desperate ..."
"... The Americans are beginning to tell themselves another 'real' war will solve their problems ... look at the DNC convention ... and it'll be OK because it will be another war 'over there'. It won't be over there, it'll be right here no matter where that is. ..."
"... Bruce Schneier used to charge the Chinese in every hacking incident, I guess there is now a "pivot" in the propaganda world. ..."
"... It is obvious that our elections are hacked: Florida in 2000, Ohio 2004, and now Brooklyn, Nevada, Arizona, California and other locations this year. They were hacked by our own crooks who would never allow Rooskies to muscle in on the action. Few polling stations in crowded districts, removing names from voter lists, private companies contracted to "count", voter suppression ID laws, jailing of voting populations, gerrymandering, etc. The Rooskies can only bring a rubber chicken to a gun fight. ..."
"... I have said many times: "We must abolish election machines, such as voting computers. If they make casting and tallying 10 times faster, they make organized cheating 10 times easier as well. Which can we truly afford?" ..."
"... I can't for the life of me understand why so many hawks in the State Dept and elsewhere are sooooo afraid of Putin. They still mad he nationalized oil companies? ..."
"... Just suppose the emails of the DNC were released by the Clinton Machine, what a creative tactic, and certainly there is no reason to doubt that...a great media firestorm ensues, DWS had to fall on her sword but quickly gets hoisted on the Clinton petard..as a campaign manager ..."
"... The evil that we face is an alternate philosophical position which rejects all the moral tenets of the world's 7 great religions. The goal is the rule of a tiny sect which imagines itself a godhead over humanity. ..."
The Clinton campaign and some pseudo experts assert that Russia is somehow guilty of hacking the
Democratic National Committee and of revealing DNC emails via Wikileaks. There is
zero hard evidence for that. The Clinton campaign also
claims that Trump asked Russia to hack Clinton's emails. That is also not the case.
But two "liberal" computer experts, who are taken serious in the security scene, now build on
those false assertions to say that Russia might manipulate voting machines in the November 9 elections.
It would do so, presumably, to change the vote count in favor of Trump.
That headline alone is already dumb. ANY hacker could target and manipulate the easy to deceive
voting machines - should those be connected to the Internet. Local administrators of such machines
can manipulate them any time.
Schneier is, untypically for him, in war mongering mode.
If the intelligence community has indeed ascertained that Russia is to blame, our government needs
to decide what to do in response. This is difficult because the attacks are politically partisan,
but it is essential. If foreign governments learn that they can influence our elections with impunity,
this opens the door for future manipulations, both document thefts and dumps like this one that
we see and more subtle manipulations that we don't see.
The U.S. manipulates foreign elections all the time,
according to Bush administration
lawyer Jack Goldsmith. It may not feel nice to suddenly be the target of manipulation attempts instead
of the perpetrator, but manipulation attempts in elections are normal everywhere and no reason to
start a war or other "response" measures.
Schneier:
[W]e need to secure our election systems before autumn. If Putin's government has already used
a cyberattack to attempt to help Trump win, there's no reason to believe he won't do it again
- especially now that Trump is inviting the "help."
What a joke. Trump has not invited Russian "help" to manipulate voting computers. Trump also did
not ask Russia to "hack" the Clinton email sever. That server no longer exists. If the Clinton email-server
was secure, as Clinton asserts, and if the emails in question have been deleted, as Clinton also
asserts, how could Russia "hack" for them?
Trump made a FOIA request for emails that, Hillary Clinton claims, have been deleted. What does
she fear about that? Trump asked Russia to give the deleted Clinton emails to the FBI, should it
by chance have a copy of them. Such a Freedom of Information Act request usually goes to a part of
the U.S. administration. But the Obama administration says it does not have those emails. Trump then
made a joke in directing the request to Russia.
Trump did get the furious media "outrage" response he intended to get. He thereby ruined the PR
effect of the last night of the Democratic Convention. That was likely the sole intention of his
stunt and
again shows his marketing genius.
But back to the Schneier op-ed. That one is now joined
by
a piece at Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow. Doctorow is like Schneier a famous person in the computer
scene. He quotes the Schneier piece and adds:
Voting machines are so notoriously terrible that they'd be a very tempting target for
Russia or other states that want to influence the outcome in 2016 (or merely
destabilize the US by calling into question the outcome in an election).
The Doctorow sentence neglects, like Schneier, that the entities with the most obvious interest
and capabilities to manipulate U.S. voting machines are not foreign countries. U.S. presidential
candidates and their parties have much more at stake. The candidates and the money and interests
behind them have stronger motives as well as more potential to change the voting results.
Why do we see such an orchestrated attempt to preemptively accuse Russia
of potentially manipulating U.S. voting? This without ANY evidence that Russia ever has or would
attempt to do so? Are there already plans for such manipulations that need a plausible foreign culprit
as cover up story? Or is there a color revolution in preparation to eventually disenfranchise the
election winner?
Cory Doctorow also sees destabilization as a possible motive and outcome of voting manipulations.
Already back in March John Robb
warned of a scenario this fall in which election results come into serious doubt and where a
conflict over voting results escalates into a civil war.
I do not foresee such a scenario (yet). But should large scale voting manipulations take place,
and be blamed on Russia, more than a civil war enters the realm of possibilities.
The source of the DNC email leak is irrelevant. The Orwellian chant "Putin bad; US good!"
is the point of the whole thing, and the media is just a bullhorn for the party/parties.
The voting machine rumor is probably aimed at the actual corruption in some places that was designed
to favor republicans in swing states. (ironic!) watch them call for more honest verification this
time around.
But I do look forward to the show when the emails Trump referred to are released. What
is Hillary afraid of? it's not like nobody knows what she's done... and wants to do next.
For all intents and purposes, the United States has been a failed state from the perspective
of voting integrity from at least 2000. The lunatics are running the asylum here and we voters
are only allowed to participate as a hollow form of placation.
Our famous "free press," so totally controlled by Big Corporations. Always looking for a way
to try to persuade the public that any political and social actions is bad and of no importance.
ACK!
On Tuesday night, iirc, but could have been Wednesday, the discussion mentioned Occupy as a
failed political/social movement. PBS's Gwen Ifill said that it was "crushed by its own weight."
It was part of the MCM (Mainstream Corporate Media) declaring the Sanders' promoted political
revolution dead and nearly buried.
My immediate thought was of the White House managed meetings with mayors of cities where
Occupy was very much not "crushed," and how they coordinated their attacks by knocking down tents,
dumped books into dupsters, which were part of the free lending library in some cities, and forcing
people out of sites long occupied with the persuasion of threatened force and physical harm.
But her statement was part and parcel of how the actual left of any type is dismissed and disrespected
by the Corporatist Dems and their Repub allies.
The neo-cons realized how easy it was to rig the election in 2000 after which both sides do it.
Now it's down to who who rigs it best. It's a one-party state anyway, two cheeks on the same ass,
but every politician wants to be the one who does the telling not the told.
I think the neo-cons impeached Clinton to ruin the Democrat run because 9/11 was ready to go,
and they needed to be in power or they risked being uncovered by the security services of a Gore
White House. When the impeachment failed they had no choice but to go in and steal it, because
they'd have gone down for their treason. Look what it did to the world.
US Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said that the US intelligence authorities
are not ready to say who is responsible for hacking the Democratic National Committee emails.
I do not think we are quite ready yet to make a call on attribution," Clapper stated
at the Aspen Security Forum.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Why not and when will he be ready? Oh never mind. If Schneier is so concerned the election
voting machines can be hacked -(Notice no mention of pre-programmed votes) - let's return to paper
ballots and pencils. And who counts the votes?
Oh wait... the Supreme Court may issue a decree to stop the count as they did on December 12,
2000.
In a desperate attempt for bs stupid assertion of Trumps genius, b refuses to give a link for
what Trump actually said. B also refuses to give us a sentenced quote from Trump. How weak.
This video below shows that the pressure of the Russian hacking lies worked on Trump. What
kind of genius is that b ?
Trump: Putin has no respect for the US. Starts at 1min 20 sec :
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=riuduXz5Y2I
If Trump is such a genius then why would he make so many idiotic and contradictory statements,
and then cave it so easily into pressure of lies like this against Russia ? Immediately antagonizing
Russia.
Also if trump really understands how corrupt the US voting system is, then what kind of genius
would not hedge himself against that voting corruption surely to be done against Trump and for
Hitlery - by saying insanely incessant stupid moronic things that expose him to attacks.
Wouldn't you hedge yourself by keeping on core message and not dragging yourself back into
the pack with stupidity.
Trump said that Putin called Trump a genius, and pathetically that's all b needs to know.
The problem with the 'Trump as Manchurian Candidate' narrative is that most people (even Democrats)
deep down, probably don't really believe it. It runs right into his 'America First' that the same
people have been complaining about. In the absence of hard evidence, actually shared with the
public, the Putin connection will eventually fall apart.
Trumps MO is to say something that generates a lot of outrage that dominates the news cycle
at opportune moments. He does this when there is something else he doesn't want you to pay attention
to. Remember when Trump University was in the news? He comes back with those statements about
the judge. Last night, you had the president, the vice-president among the heavy hitters - what
better time to pull a stunt like that? For a party that prides themselves as being the 'smart'
one, the Democrats have been remarkably slow in figuring this out.
Trump probably won't pull anything like this with Hillary - the thing with her is that the
more people see her, the less they like her - so let her have her hour of shouting a speech at
us.
For voting machine issues, watch the Stephen Spoonamore series on YouTube. Each segment is about
3-4 minutes. Think there are eight segments. The series is 10 years old but extremely timely.
Velvet Revolution Interviews Stephen Spoonamore (segment 1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAyEfovA404
THEN watch his 2008 series, search YouTube. Warning: Annoying white noise in background. His
solution to vote fraud specified in the later segments is ingenious. Spoonamore was the guy American
Express and major banks called when they are hacked.
A cyber attack has been given the status of a conventional military attack by NATO on
14th June in a major policy change that increases the likelihood of a world war against Russia.
Bruce Schneier has been having a neolibcon bias for years with a blind spot for NSA activities.
I stopped reading his stupid blog, with little to no added value regarding security news, when
it became too obvious.
PS: when will you remove the embedded links to google, yahoo, ...?
The democrats are warning loud and clear that Russia may hack the voting machines in favor of
Trump. In fact, they are preparing the terrain to use this argument in case Trump is elected.
To make such stupid statements, it shows that the dems are seriously worried that Hillary is quickly
loosing ground.
@27 cresty, 'The only reason not to have paper copies is to allow fraud.'
Very well and concisely put. Except for the 'copies' bit. The only reason not to have paper
ballots is to allow fraud.
To me the answer seems obvious: voters registered and elections administered, ballots tallied
and stored at the precinct level.
There are about
175,000 precincts in the USA, each composed of 1,000 to 2,000 people. A workable size for
real, participatory democracy, the basis for all constituencies - municipal, county, state, federal
- erected upon them. First come
the people , then
come our governments.
2004, not 2008. Obama and Dems won Ohio in 2008. The Republicans' computer expert in Ohio died
afterwards in a fishy small plane accident just as he was about to testify.
from Russia (with Love). Russia To US: "Sort Out Your Own Hacking Scandal; It Is Not Our Headache"
As the silly farce over whether Russia hacked the DNC continues, earlier today the Kremlin had
some harsh words for the US.
Russia told the United States on Thursday to get to the bottom of of its own hacking scandal.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said accusations of a Russian hand in hacking Democratic Party
emails bordered on "total stupidity" and were motivated by anti-Russian sentiment. Suggestions
of Russian involvement riled the Kremlin, which has categorically denied this and accused U.S.
politicians of seeking to play on Cold War-style U.S. fears of Moscow by fabricating stories for
electoral purposes.
"As regards these (email) batches, that is not our headache. We never poke our noses into
others' affairs and we really don't like it when people try to poke their nose into ours,"
he said.
"The Americans needs to get to the bottom of what these emails are themselves and find out
what it's all about."
"... Trump made a FOIA request for emails that, Hillary Clinton claims, have been deleted. What
does she fear about that? Trump asked Russia to give the deleted Clinton emails to the FBI, should
it by chance have a copy of them. Such a Freedom of Information Act request usually goes to a
part of the U.S. administration. But the Obama administration says it does not have those emails.
Trump then made a joke in directing the request to Russia ..."
What Clinton fears is that the deleted emails are emails related to the work she did (or supposedly
did) while she was US Secretary of State and therefore they would be proof that she violated federal
US laws on recordkeeping. Some of these emails might cast light on the 2012 Benghazi consulate
attack and whether she can be held partly responsible for the deaths of four Americans during
that attack.
Jessia @3. Schneier is an insider - Harvard and the US DoD. It is also ironic that he wrote a
book titled: Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive.
If voter fraud is the criterion of a failed state (and why not), the US failed in 1960 when
John Kennedy not only stole the Democratic nomination through voter fraud in West Virginia but
also stole the general election through voter fraud in Illinois.
Tricky Dick Nixon was urged to contest the Illinois vote and contest the outcome of the election.
He pointedly refused to do so saying that a contested election would do more harm to the country
than allowing a fraudulent victory for JFK.
Well, it does appear the U.S. is in full Loon mode (my apologies to the bird). The Clinton campaign
is doing a fantastic job of deflection and distraction and the idiots are falling for it. It would
seem Russia's Pres. Putin is indeed omnipotent.
The missing Hitlary Killton's deleted emails would reveal most probably that the current war against
Libya, Syria, Iraq has been mostly her private endeavor (plus Petreaus, CIA, Raytheon) at the
request of her Bilderberg/City of London Crown Corporation masters, outside Obama's control.
@23 Thank you Noirette for that missing piece of the puzzle.
I forgot abut that in my reply on earlier thread.
The scenario deep state/global criminal cabal has been preparing against the US people and
the world would go like this:
Hitlary looses to Trump
Russia is blamed with fabricated evidence for rigging the election
civil unrest in incited (Israeli snipers shooting civilians at random + police trained
by the Israeli advisors brutalizes protesters)
hot spots in conflict zones (Turkey, Ukraine, Pribaltica) are set on fire - blamed on Russia
(Phillipines blamed on China)
nukes going off in Chicago
NATO considers "Russian cyber attack" as an act of war and responds
In order to avoid this at this point anybody who supports the Hell Bitch should be boycotted
and ostracized, including all the celebrities (who obviously pay their dues for their dark, secret
deals) not only that filth
Sarah Silverman and alike, who lower themselves to such a sewer level, also companies, local
politicians and so on...
Web guru was potential witness in Ohio voting fraud case
Shannon Connell of Madison says her brother Michael rarely talked about work. She knew he
ran an Ohio company called New Media Communications that set up websites for Republicans including
former President George H.W. Bush and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush. But it wasn't until after he died
last December, when the small plane he was piloting crashed, that she learned via the Internet
of his tie to a voter fraud case and to allegations that presidential adviser Karl Rove had
made threats against him.
"At first, it was really hard for me to believe Mike was dead because somebody wanted him
dead," says Shannon, a buyer for a local children's resale shop. "But as time goes on, it's
hard for me not to believe there was something deliberate about it."
A native of Illinois, Shannon moved to Madison in 2002, the same year as her sister, Mary
Jo Walker. Walker, a former Dane County Humane Society employee, has similar concerns about
their brother's death: "It doesn't seem right to me at all."
Michael Connell - who died at age 45, leaving a wife and four kids - was a computer
networking expert who lived near Akron. Last July 17, an attorney who's filed a federal civil
rights lawsuit alleging a conspiracy to rig elections in Ohio held a press conference at which
he identified Connell as a principal witness.
The attorney, Cliff Arnebeck of Columbus, Ohio, tells Isthmus he doesn't believe Connell
was engaged in criminal activity but may have been a "data-processing implementer" for those
who were. "I was told he was at the table when some criminal things were discussed."
A week after the press conference, on July 24, Arnebeck wrote U.S. Attorney General Michael
Mukasey seeking protection for Connell, whom he said had been "threatened" by Rove, a key player
in the campaigns of George W. Bush. Arenebeck says Connell was told through an intermediary
that unless he agreed to "take the fall" for election fraud in Ohio, his wife [and New Media
partner] faced prosecution for lobby law violations. There was no claim of a threat on Connell's
person.
Arnebeck was permitted to depose Connell last Nov. 3. The portion of this deposition that
dealt with the alleged threats was sealed, but Arnebeck is preparing a motion to make it all
public. He affirms that Connell denied any involvement in voter fraud, but thinks Rove still
had reason to regard him as a threat.
"The problem that Mike Connell represented is [he was] a guy of conscience," says Arnebeck.
"If it came right down to it, he would not commit perjury." Arnebeck "absolutely" would have
called Connell as a witness in his lawsuit.
Shannon and Mary Jo both say their brother, a devout Catholic, seemed upset in the weeks
before his death. Mary Jo feels he was "stressed out and depressed" on his birthday last November;
Shannon says he atypically did not respond to an email she'd sent.
On Dec. 19, Connell flew alone in his single-engine Piper Supercub from a small airport
near Washington, D.C. The plane crashed on its final approach to his hometown Akron-Canton
Airport, between two houses. The cause is still under investigation but is presumed accidental.
The blogosphere refuses to accept this. "Mike was getting ready to talk," writes one online
journalist who labels Connell a source. "He was frightened."
Going viral and encouraging disgruntled Democrats to leave the party in all states without
upcoming primaries. This does not mean that a percentage of these people won't still vote Democrat
in the general election but there is also an active effort coming from the Green Party to recruit
these people. Sanders very publicly leaving the Democrat Party to return to Independent was
very significant and a signal to his supporters to give the Demexit go sign. Many states have
a deadline of August 1st for pre-election party switches, so that leaves only a couple days
for many.
The interactive map and Demexit instruction page being circulated is here. As is customary
with the left, alot of work and coordination went into putting this together.
Sanders is an Independent in the Senate but also a member of the Democratic Party, according
to his spokesman, Michael Briggs.
Notice Biggs said member?
= = = =
the missing deleted emails would most likely also reveal the innards of the Clinton family
Foundation. Not really missing. It would be a great disappointment if copies are not in a few
3 letter agencies.
FBI investigates hacking of Democratic congressional group sources
[.] Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist who once worked for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid,
said the possibility of the DCCC being hacked was cause for great concern.
"Until proven otherwise, I would suggest that everyone involved with the campaign committee
operate under the assumption Russians have access to everything in their computer systems," Manley
said.
[. ] The disclosure of the DCCC breach is likely to further stoke concerns among Democratic
Party operatives, many of whom have acknowledged they fear further dumps of hacked files that
could harm their candidates. WikiLeaks has said it has more material related to the U.S. election
that it intends to release.[.]
= = = =
"They fear" Wikileaks intends to release the big one?
Great George Carlin probably did not know many actual names of the "big owners" when he wrote
...The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice
you don't.
You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the
important land. They own, and control the corporations. They've long since bought, and paid
for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their
back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the
news and information you get to hear.
They got you by the balls.
They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying lobbying, to get what they want Well,
we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I'll
tell you what they don't want they don't want a population of citizens capable of critical
thinking...
Blackstone is one of them, others being Fidelity, PIMCO, StateStreet...
Blackstone, the giant Wall Street private equity firm, will hold an invitation-only reception
before the final night of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. The event, at
the swanky Barnes Foundation art museum, includes the usual perks for attendees: free food,
drink, and complimentary shuttle buses to the final night of the convention.
What's unusual is that the host is precisely the kind of "shadow banker" that Hillary Clinton
has singled out as needing more regulation in her rhetoric about getting tough on Wall Street.
But Blackstone President and Chief Operating Officer Hamilton "Tony" James doesn't seem
the least bit intimidated...
... The head-scratcher here is that James runs a private equity firm, exactly the kind of
"shadow bank" that Clinton has derided as a scourge to the financial system. Shadow banks are
financial institutions that do bank-like activities (such as lending or investing for clients)
but aren't chartered as banks, existing outside of the traditional regulatory perimeter.
Clinton argued during the primaries with Bernie Sanders that they were more dangerous than
the big banks, because of the lack of scrutiny on their risk-taking. That was the linchpin
of her argument that Sanders's plan was too myopic, and thather plan, which sought to crack
down on shadow banking and deny it sources of funds, was more comprehensive.
James has not only actively engaged in defending the whole concept of shadow banking, he
created the original private equity trade group, formerly known as the Private Equity Council.
The group later quietly changed its name to the more innocuous-sounding American Investment
Council.
In 2014, James penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed where he called shadow banking an "Orwellian
term that can undermine critical thought." It was the regulated entities, not shadow banks,
that were "the source of almost all the systemic risk in the financial crisis," he wrote. James
explicitly sought to steer policymakers away from "regulations that undermine the many thousands
of companies and jobs that need market-based financing to survive and grow."
That term, "market-based financing," is a Tony James original. He prefers it because it
removes the more sinister connotations associated with the shadows. "Private equity sounds
bad, but shadow banking is worse," he told NPR.
Blackstone operates in leveraged buyouts, asset management, and real estate transactions.
It is the largest real estate private equity firm in the world, holding over $103 billion in
assets. After the housing bubble collapsed, Blackstone bought 43,000 single-family homes over
a two-year period, at one point buying more than $100 million worth of homes per week. They
converted most of these into rentals, becoming one of the largest landlords in the world.
Renters have sued Blackstone's real estate unit, Invitation Homes, for renting out homes
in shoddy condition. They've also been accused of jacking up rents to satisfy investors, charging
as high as 180 percent of the market rent value. Nevertheless, Blackstone plans to spin off
Invitation Homes with an initial public offering next year.
James's company also benefits from taking business lines from regulated banks, such as one
of the trading businesses of global firm Credit Suisse. Blackstone then runs that company without
government interference; assets in the Credit Suisse group have doubled since 2013.
So Clapper did not call it, but Manley has already "suggestion" blaming Russia... LOL.
The perfidy of Manly is that he does not say how to _prevent_ possible breaches, but creates perception
of "Russians having access to everything" instead. So he does not really care about solving the
problem, but about maintaining the notion that the problem magically persist.
Obviously to use that notion/perception later for some sinister goals.
This is just agitprop disinformation. Since the 'hanging chad' soft coup, all US voting machines
have backdoors to allow thevotes to be flipped, and since the Patriot Act, an Israeli subcontractor
and AT&T have had an NSA contract to 'hack' all US cell phone and internet traffic, but now there
is no need...GOOG and FB have apps on your tablet, your phone, and your sports band that record
and database all your thoughts and actions.
If you following computing, significant breakthroughs have been made in database manipulation,
to where terabytes of information can now be ground down to streaming focus group metrics on the
entire herd of so-called Little People. They can literally 'read your mind'.
'Russia' is just a Zionist mind-meld 'shiney object' whatever cognitive dissociation memes
they need to blunt-force eye-socket rape we and our children have to endure ... FOREVER
And to further make my point about the emails there is this quote from a Kremlin spokesman
Dmitry Peskov:
"As regards these (email) batches, that is not our headache. We never poke our noses
into others' affairs and we really don't like it when people try to poke their nose into ours,"
he said. "The Americans needs to get to the bottom of what these emails are themselves and
find out what it's all about."
The toxicity of this (2016) election has only been equalled by the election of 1860. Republicans
and Democrats were involved then also though the rτles have substantially changed, the results
are yet to be seen. What will 156 years of experience bring?
The DNC was "hacked "by some of Killary's Israeli chums/clients... Lets look at the proffered
"evidence" for a Russian Hack.. The hackers "seem to have been following a schedule of "Russian"
holdiays... Half (or more) of the people in Israel follow that same schedule of holdiays...
There are "clues" 'suggesting connections" with known Russian hacker groups..right..again,
any Russian hacker group "known" this well and this long, is not an active hacker group any more...
Except when Israelis, or whoever, are gaslighting them....The rest of the evidence, where any
one has even bothered to offer it, is just as weak, or even weaker.
"Nowhere on the intertubes that I frequent are stories about implications of the CONTENT of
the DNC emails. The only angle of the story that is allowed to be covered in excruciating detail
is who done it."
That is the whole point of the 'Putin did it' exercise. It is to distract the people from the
content. Contrast with the Panama Papers release where the target, Putin, was immediately targeted
indirectly in carefully selected releases. There was very little interest in who was behind the
hack. The info was publicly released via a US-government funded entity.
It should also be seen in context of the earlier public declaration that such hacking would
constitute an act of war. Trump has played into USG hands creating a 'reality' that 'Putin did
it' - after saying that "Russia should release the emails, if it has them". Was this done wittingly
or unwittingly?
ian @ 20: The problem with the 'Trump as Manchurian Candidate' narrative is that most people
(even Democrats) deep down, probably don't really believe it.
I agree! .. hogwash. Trump is the Donald and not more. Yet, after thinking about ian's post,
there is an oblique argument to be made: that this election is in fact IS all about Putin. Not
Putin as Vladimir, but Putin as a stand-in for Russia. The central issue, the ginormous elephant
in the room that is not being discussed is foreign policy - it only shows up in some remarks and
many are oblivious to it.
camps
Killary and escalation - the continuation of Bush-Obama foreign policy on speed
+ steroids, which involves destroying places and going for one 'enemy' after another and flailing
about (e.g. Iraq) - now aimed at the higher-stake ones (e.g. weakening Europe, dividing it
from Russia, and attacking Russia with all means at hand.) The backers are neo-cons, neo-libs,
the MIC, Wall Street (gingerly), and others, long list, some/many are criminal enterprises.
Going on strong is the meme.
Trump, with a nationalistic bent (partly calculated and not the most important)
shows at the same time an isolationist stance (as opposed to conquering position)
e.g. walls, anti-globalization on trade (ostensibly), America first of a certain flavor, and
going so far! as to question the existence of NATO and to have a neutral or positive attitude
towards the latest green-clawed fire-breathing devil. Reversing decline is the meme.
Arguably, foreign policy in terms of life/death of its citizens is the most crucial point,
but it is sub rosa. That is partly why all the talk/analysis in terms of ethnicity-race-religious
identities / values in this election (black / brown voters, abortion..), class (economic), tribal
political belonging, has become utterly confused, as these archaic divisions become meaningless,
while upheld in political discourse (with endless switcheroos) by all, to confuse and gather votes
here 'n there.
The US public is left adrift with two despised candidates, who do or might represent
two very different paths forward if one can even contemplate 'the forward' at present.
Your summary is excellent. Reading it, the choice between the two (excluding 3rd choices) is
clear. There exists a chance for peace or the guarantee of perpetual war.
@64 noirette, 'two despised candidates, who do or might represent two very different
paths forward if one can even contemplate 'the forward' at present.'
Yeah. Absolutely. My italics on the might. Hillary has a record. She can lie, but not to me.
Trump has ... a mouth. When he says reasonable things - given Hillary - people are desperate
to believe him. I can't.
I don't think we can, or should. Trump seems far more likely to be another Obama than
not. I think we have wasted far too many of these quadrennial exercises and that the time to do
something different is now. Look what happened in Libya. That could happen in Russia ... and a
lot more people than a US Ambassador will die. The Europeans are mad not to abrogate the US at
this point. The Americans are beginning to tell themselves another 'real' war will solve their
problems ... look at the DNC convention ... and it'll be OK because it will be another war 'over
there'. It won't be over there, it'll be right here no matter where that is.
Concerted action by our atomized selves is the only option left open to us. Let us Americans
envision a different future and simply effect it.
No
to Clinton, not to Trump . Let's
emulate a higher life form
. We can make it we try.
Bruce Schneier used to charge the Chinese in every hacking incident, I guess there is now
a "pivot" in the propaganda world.
It is obvious that our elections are hacked: Florida in 2000, Ohio 2004, and now Brooklyn,
Nevada, Arizona, California and other locations this year. They were hacked by our own crooks
who would never allow Rooskies to muscle in on the action. Few polling stations in crowded districts,
removing names from voter lists, private companies contracted to "count", voter suppression ID
laws, jailing of voting populations, gerrymandering, etc. The Rooskies can only bring a rubber
chicken to a gun fight.
I keep dreaming of a "dream" (or a "nightmare") scenario in which a) Trump wins on the election
night, just, maybe by 10-20 electoral votes; and b) on the day the Electoral College actually
meets, 10-20 electors from "Trump" states, quote, "vote their conscience", end quote, and Hillary
becomes president. Which, legally, they can do - remember the electors aren't formally bound by
anything other than "tradition" (read: what their local party officials would do to them were
they to change their vote).
I know, I know, slim chance. But it would be a thing of beauty to behold were it to actually
happen. For those of us who revel in chaos and anarchy, of course, the types who wished for a
Sarah Palin presidency just for the sheer amount of comedy material involved; the rest of the
population might well differ. In any event, the "Russian voting machine fraud" story would fit
in very well with this particular sequence of events - the electors "voting their conscience"
could then be portrayed as patriotic anti-communists (or whatever), for example.
For those 10-20 electors to vote for Hillary would be regarded as a betrayal of the system and
make her an illegitimate, crippled president.
What those 10-20 electors could do instead is to vote for some third candidate. Say, Gary Johnson
or John Kasich. When no candidate wins a majority of electors, the election is thrown into the
House of Representatives, in which each state's delegation has one vote and the vote must be among
the three candidates who got the greatest number of electoral votes.
He makes a good point: " From inception, America proved itself the cruelest, most ruthless
nation in world history, harming more people over a longer duration than any other. Tens of millions
of corpses attest to its barbarity."
"If elected, Hillary risks committing greater high crimes of state than her predecessors, including
possible nuclear war - why it's crucial to defeat her in November. Humanity's fate hangs in the
balance."
All the rest is just rhetoric ... and the primary reason AmeriKKKans have Clinton as President
in the first place. AmeriKKKans know that their best interests, even when jobless, are with continued
murder, rape and theft!
Proof? You want proof? Each of you AmeriKKKans who post to this site. Not that other are blameless,
they just don't vote.
I have stated here and "everywhere" that automated elections are not really elections at all.
While the USA buys more and more election computers, most of the rest of the (ostensibly democratic)
world has tossed out election computers, and moved to using had counted paper ballots.
I have said many times: "We must abolish election machines, such as voting computers. If
they make casting and tallying 10 times faster, they make organized cheating 10 times easier as
well. Which can we truly afford?"
I read several computer programmer's blogs, and comments almost every day, and I am sure most
of these professionals are aware of the fact that their machines can never be made safe for use
in elections. Yet, they virtually never come out and say that. Job security trumps having democracy
for nearly all of them. Most of these programmers are depressing examples of self-centeredness.
@58 "It is worth to mention that Bruce Schneier is part of the "Tor Project" board of directors
since July 2016."
That's indeed worth mentioning since one of the TOR founders, Jacob Appelbaum, was ejected
from the board in June by a phony sex scandal identical to the one of Julian Assange. There was
also the recent departure in July of one of the major TOR contributors, Lucky Green, who didn't
disclose a lot about his reasons ("I feel that I have no reasonable choice left within the bounds
of ethics")
http://thehackernews.com/2016/07/tor-anonymity-node.html . The departures of Jacob Appelbaum
and Lucky Green and the welcoming of sellout Bruce Schneier who's opinions were always in line
with US foreign policy spell doom and gloom for TOR's security reliability.
A lot of people outside the US are probably unaware of some very important features of federal
elections here. Many of these people may assume that the US has a single presidential election,
run by the federal government, as is the case in their own countries (Australia, for example).
But in reality, there are 51 presidential elections, and only one of them (the one in the District
of Columbia) is run by the federal government.
Each state has its own way of collecting and counting ballots, and its own laws about voter
eligibility, absentee voting, ballot access for third parties, voting procedures, etc. Because
the counties within each state actually run the polling places, these state election laws are
mainly instructions for county election officials. So there are ample opportunities for election
fraud at the county and state levels, but not at the federal level (except for mass media mind
control).
In unusual situations, state election laws can be challenged in federal courts. In my home
state of Tennessee, Republicans and Democrats many years ago passed a law that essentially makes
it impossible for third parties to appear on the ballot. And for all those many years, the Tennessee
Green Party has routinely gone to federal court, claiming that the state law unreasonably restricts
Tennesseans' voting rights, and the court routinely rules in their favor. Thus my ability to vote
for Jill Stein exists only because a federal court has intervened in Tennessee's election system.
But judicial intervention like this is essentially the only power the federal government can exercise
over voting.
I can't for the life of me understand why so many hawks in the State Dept and elsewhere are
sooooo afraid of Putin. They still mad he nationalized oil companies?
Just suppose the emails of the DNC were released by the Clinton Machine, what a creative
tactic, and certainly there is no reason to doubt that...a great media firestorm ensues, DWS had
to fall on her sword but quickly gets hoisted on the Clinton petard..as a campaign manager
It is possible that Schneier and Doctorow may not have an anti-Russia agenda but are using the
Russia angle because then the U.S. press will report on the security problems with electronic
voting. Russia should just tell the U.S. to switch to mechanical voting if they are worried. How
is Russia responsible for our insecure voting?
Thanks for so much intelligent commentary this thread.
Your comment, "As I have often mentioned on these pages previously, I do believe pedophiles
and various other perverts are actively recruited into positions of power so that they can be
compromised and controlled by the criminal cabal." I don't think that the pedophiles are recruited
into power so that they can be controlled by fear of disclosure. In fact nothing happens to them
when they're found out: the records are "lost", evidence is "insufficient", etc. Rather, the explanation
I think is that the secret societies and higher levels of Masonry all use sexual deviancy as a
means of bonding their initiates into a criminal cabal outside of the norms of society. There
is a philosophical embracing of the destruction of innocence just as there is a glorification
of the chaos produced by war.
The evil that we face is an alternate philosophical position which rejects all the moral
tenets of the world's 7 great religions. The goal is the rule of a tiny sect which imagines itself
a godhead over humanity. Their main tools against us are informational and moral. Many of
the novels of the 20s, the 30s and especially the late 19th century reveal by contrast how greatly
they've degraded the very idea of living one's life informed by a moral ideal.
The examined life has been swept away, replaced by the exclusively material and physical. Did
you know that one of the early objectives was to control the appointment of divinity school teachers?
The Rockefellers personally championed Unitarianism, which helped to trivialize religion. Without
religion or an organized system of moral limits and the complete absence of the idealization of
the moral and the possession of moral purpose, that great generational sink of morality once so
vibrant among the American people has long-since sprung a leak now become a torrent. One looks
in vain for that which would nourish the soul of the very young. The moral ideal has vanished
from our culture. How could it not? The Rockefellers alone control over 2,000 domestic NGOs, foundations
and think tanks. Even the culturally trivial is now being replaced by the overtly destructive.
The human eclipsed by the bestial.
Enough people, armed simply with knowledge and the resolution to look for the truth wherever
it leads, can still stop it.
"... The EU has been jerking Turkey around forever about joining the EU. They clearly intend not to let a Muslim country join but keep pretending they might as a key NATO ally. ..."
"... Merely assuming an official posture of neutrality, as Nasser famously did, would be a big setback for the US and a big gain for Russia ..."
"... The fact that the heads of NATO and the US government, along with their "brain trusts" get so panicky about a possible warming of relations between Russia and Turkey is ridiculous. These asshats have been behaving all along as if the Soviet Union never fell and that Russia is the same thing it was while the heart of the USSR. ..."
"... NATO gets aggressive and spreads itself all over Eastern Europe with the intention of kicking the Bear and then gets its panties in a twist when the Bear, quite reasonably, reacts to their aggressive actions. ..."
"... I literally cannot think of a single thing that Russia has done since the end of the Soviet Union that in any way, shape, or form alarms me or makes me think, "These guys are planning to invade or start a war!" ..."
"... US aggression in Syria HAD to be responded to by Russia. Russia has LONG time major military bases in Syria. How would the US respond if Russia turned the UAE into a chaotic shithole in order to try and kick the US out of its HUGE military bases there? The initiating of chaos would be the aggressive act, NOT the US response to the chaos. The generating of massive chaos in Syria (by the US and its allies) was the aggressive act, NOT Russia's quite reasonable and understandable reaction. Same goes for Ukraine. ..."
"... The US is bound and determined to FORCE Russia to be a major foe for Cold War 2.0 whether Russia wants to be or not. The US cannot see any other way to drive its shitty economic system than to fire up the defense industries to full throttle again, ala Cold War 1.0. Instead of dumping the military economic basis to the US and Western economies to focus on truly beneficial development, they are going with the boogieman both for the economic shot it will provide, but also in an attempt to quell unrest due to income inequality and the rape/pillage economic system of the West. Make the people afraid of being invaded or nuked into oblivion and they wont complain about no more retirement, inability to buy a decent home, or send their kids to college. ..."
"... If the first Presidents Bush and Clinton had attempted conversion and used some crumbs to mitigate the Soviet collapse, instead of unleashing the worst pack of intellectual sophists, strategists, and black market dregs, then Russia today would probably be neatly colonized into an international system, but after the violent class conflict of decolonization during the Cold War a new world order that appeared like Gore Vidal's semi-sarcastic paradigm-shattering essay in the Nation would prematurely speed up de-colonization with "white privilege" too uncamouflaged: ..."
"... Thank you. I have been wondering about the relationship between the Gulen movement and the CIA that relationship might shed light about whether the US was involved in or pushed or green lighted the coup. Of course, CIA assets have been known to go rogue as well. ..."
"... While exploring this subject, there's a good article and talk given by a career CIA case officer (undercover) who now works for a think tank of some sort. (So I assume she's still with the CIA, even if supposedly she's not.) Her book describes the extent of the Gulen network, including the criminal investigations underway for Gulen's charter schools network. (Did you know Gulen has the largest network of charter schools in the USA?!) This presentation implicitly acknowledged the dangerous / illegal aspects to the Gulen movement. ..."
"... But at a higher, strategic level, CIA seems to be obviously harboring and supporting Gulen, as Edmonds says. ..."
"... Edmonds has also done some amazing work regarding Hastert's pedophile connectionsreported this formally to US law agencies in multiple years, and was interviewed for a triple-fact-checked Vanity Fair article. The FBI agents who were doing the investigating (knowing about Hastert's pedophilia 10-20 years ago) thought they were preparing for a criminal investigation. They became disillusioned when they realized after a couple of years that their FBI higher-ups had no intention of prosecuting. Apparently the issue is so widespread, and everyone knowsEdmonds describes a certain palace in Turkey where US Congress members get taken on VIP trips, where the VIP suites were being monitored / videotapes simultaneously by FBI, DIA, DoJ, criminal gangs, and foreign governments. Yet when most recently Hastert comes to public attention, all the known pedophile activities are not mentioned, just the financial money-laundering aspects. Because so many of our officials & media & prominent people have been compromised by pedophilia that no one is willing to speak out about it. ..."
"... Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has a number of insightful video interviews and papers about Turkey. She predicted the coup about 18 months agopointing out that the CIA was preparing to replace Erdogan, and showing the pattern with other regime changes with USA involvement. Both the recent and past interviews give a lot of insighte.g., into Gulen's CIA-backed financial, cultural and political empire spanning Turkey, Turkik-friendly caucasus countries and deeply embedded within the USA and Congress. ..."
"... For background on Sibel Edmonds, a short 2006 documentary "Kill the Messenger" about her whistleblowing while an FBI translator is a good starting point. ..."
"... Ever wondered why Russia hasn't attempted to internally overthrow any of the Gulf States or Saudi Arabia since the Iraqi invasion? They are definitely fragile, internally vulnerable states and closely aligned with the west. Two can definitely play these color revolution games. I suspect it is due to the vulnerability of their own, Russian, populations and increased Middle east instability could produce blowback in Russia proper. However the US and allies have been playing hard this game of disrupting Middle East stability for the last 13 years. At what point, would the Russians decide, well, Middle East stability is already gone and it is time to strike back at US allies using our own tactics? Personally, I think Putin is too smart for that but what about after Putin? ..."
"... Russia's historical ties were with the Byzantine Empire, with which it shared after the 9th century A.D. a crucial common feature, viz. Orthodoxy. The center of Orthodoxy was of course Constantinople, with which the Russian Archbishopric and later, Patriarchate, experienced complicated relations. Upon the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, and the loss of Constantinople to Orthodoxy, Russia envisioned its own capital, Moscow, as taking up the mantle and succeeding Constantinople (the "Second Rome") as Christendom's "Third Rome". The title conflates the relationship between the two countries/empires in the Byzantine period with that during the Ottoman period (i.e., the [Sublime] "Porte"). ..."
"... But for non-U.S. citizens and U.S. citizens who live near the world's hottest geopolitical hotspot, the prospect of Victoria Nuland (of Ukraine regime change fame) as SoS is not at all a happy one. ..."
It's rather improbable to see a Russo-Turkish alliance against US and NATO. The US and the
Russians have probably already agreed on the new Middle East map which includes Kurdish state.
This explains to a great extent why Erdogan is so nervous, making sloppy and dangerous moves.
Um, given reports that the Turks
briefly closed the airbase that the US uses to conduct operations in Syria over the weekend,
Erdogan seems plenty pissed with the US for not turning over Gulen, as he has repeatedly requested.
Europe has agreed to give him only 3 billion euros to halt the refugee flow into Europe, which
is hardly adequate, and a vague promise that maybe the EU will give Turks the freedom of movement
too. The EU has been jerking Turkey around forever about joining the EU. They clearly intend
not to let a Muslim country join but keep pretending they might as a key NATO ally.
Merely assuming an official posture of neutrality, as Nasser famously did, would be a big
setback for the US and a big gain for Russia
Thanks for mentioning the Real News Network fundraiser, Yves. They have a dollar-for-dollar
matching grant going on as well, doubling the impact of every donation.
The fact that the heads of NATO and the US government, along with their "brain trusts"
get so panicky about a possible warming of relations between Russia and Turkey is ridiculous.
These asshats have been behaving all along as if the Soviet Union never fell and that Russia is
the same thing it was while the heart of the USSR.
They take it on faith that the US/West and Russia MUST be at odds, no matter what, to the point
that they create out of whole cloth conflicts where none existed before. NATO gets aggressive
and spreads itself all over Eastern Europe with the intention of kicking the Bear and then gets
its panties in a twist when the Bear, quite reasonably, reacts to their aggressive actions.
Personally, I couldn't care less if Turkey and Russia get kissy-faced with each other. Big
wup. Russia is NOT preparing to invade Western Europe (as much as NATO WISHES it were). Russia
is NOT invading countries and overthrowing their governments to install puppet regimes, that's
the USA and NATO ONLY. The West transgresses, grossly, again and again and when Russia coughs
or clears its throat in opposition, it is "RUSSIAN AGGRESSION! Yaaaa! The Russians are coming!
The Russians are coming!!!!"
I literally cannot think of a single thing that Russia has done since the end of the Soviet
Union that in any way, shape, or form alarms me or makes me think, "These guys are planning to
invade or start a war!" On the other hand, I've seen nothing BUT war starting by the West.
First NATO takes something that wasn't, in all actuality, THAT bad a situation (the breakup of
Yugoslavia) and turns it into a complete hell in Europe.
US aggression in Syria HAD to be responded to by Russia. Russia has LONG time major military
bases in Syria. How would the US respond if Russia turned the UAE into a chaotic shithole in order
to try and kick the US out of its HUGE military bases there? The initiating of chaos would be
the aggressive act, NOT the US response to the chaos. The generating of massive chaos in Syria
(by the US and its allies) was the aggressive act, NOT Russia's quite reasonable and understandable
reaction. Same goes for Ukraine.
The US is bound and determined to FORCE Russia to be a major foe for Cold War 2.0 whether
Russia wants to be or not. The US cannot see any other way to drive its shitty economic system
than to fire up the defense industries to full throttle again, ala Cold War 1.0. Instead of dumping
the military economic basis to the US and Western economies to focus on truly beneficial development,
they are going with the boogieman both for the economic shot it will provide, but also in an attempt
to quell unrest due to income inequality and the rape/pillage economic system of the West. Make
the people afraid of being invaded or nuked into oblivion and they wont complain about no more
retirement, inability to buy a decent home, or send their kids to college.
If the first Presidents Bush and Clinton had attempted conversion and used some crumbs
to mitigate the Soviet collapse, instead of unleashing the worst pack of intellectual sophists,
strategists, and black market dregs, then Russia today would probably be neatly colonized into
an international system, but after the violent class conflict of decolonization during the Cold
War a new world order that appeared like Gore Vidal's semi-sarcastic paradigm-shattering essay
in the Nation would prematurely speed up de-colonization with "white privilege" too uncamouflaged:
There is now only one way out. The time has come for the United States to make
common cause with the Soviet Union. The bringing together of the Soviet landmass (with all
its natural resources) and our island empire (with all its technological resources) would be
of great benefit to each society, not to mention the world. Also, to recall the wisdom of the
Four Horsemen who gave us our empire, the Soviet Union and our section of North America combined
would be a match, industrially and technologically, for the Sino-Japanese axis that will dominate
the future just as Japan dominates world trade today. But where the horsemen thought of war
as the supreme solvent, we now know that war is worse than useless. Therefore, the alliance
of the two great powers of the Northern Hemisphere will double the strength of each and give
us, working together, an opportunity to survive, economically, in a highly centralized Asiatic
world.
Rereading this it sacrifices coherence to venting. The premise is that historical contiguity
with the racial residues of empire could be confronted or not if they were more simply transparent.
The bigger point I wanted to make is the current demographic disaster may be intentional if
one looks at the recent Russian experience as an experiment. Broken Force? Then social pressure
through thwarting the traditional modes of reproduction of labor leading to a reinvigorated military
economy in 15 years.
Yeah the whole "soviet threat" issue vanished the day Stalin passed. But i fear that the US,
and thus NATO, needed it to maintain compliance within their own nations.
And thus the threat was stoked until the 90s, then it was eased back as they thought they had
the old bear chained down while Yeltsin was in office, only for their antics to cause a blowback
that is still ongoing once Putin took over.
Last week I got curious to have a better understanding of the Turkey situation than what I
was getting from MSM. I decided to see if Sibel Edmonds had spoken upand discovered that she
predicted this coup 18 months ago.
The "BellingTheCat" website with WhatsApp translated messages of Turkish military during the
coup, which Helmers also mentions,
are here . Helmers says this website is a NATO-sponsored website and that it is not always
trustworthy, but isn't sure in this case. Edmonds doesn't mention this website being linked to
NATO.
For background on Edmonds see "
Kill the Messenger ",
a 2006 documentary about her whistleblowing within the FBI.
Thank you. I have been wondering about the relationship between the Gulen movement and
the CIA that relationship might shed light about whether the US was involved in or pushed or
green lighted the coup. Of course, CIA assets have been known to go rogue as well.
While exploring this subject, there's a good article and talk given by a career CIA case
officer (undercover) who now works for a think tank of some sort. (So I assume she's still with
the CIA, even if supposedly she's not.) Her book describes the extent of the Gulen network, including
the criminal investigations underway for Gulen's charter schools network. (Did you know Gulen
has the largest network of charter schools in the USA?!) This presentation implicitly acknowledged
the dangerous / illegal aspects to the Gulen movement.
But at a higher, strategic level, CIA seems to be obviously harboring and supporting Gulen,
as Edmonds says.
Within the CIA there are therefore different angles / understandings / strategies. The upper
echelon strategy seems to be about supporting Gulen (including helping clandestinely Gulenor
his puppet-master(s)to effect regime change). LIHOP is too weak an argument, given the kind of
support Gulen receives from his USA base. Probably he's just a figurehead and the real power is
out of view. (USA? Off-world?)
Edmonds has also done some amazing work regarding Hastert's pedophile connectionsreported
this formally to US law agencies in multiple years, and was interviewed for a triple-fact-checked
Vanity Fair article. The FBI agents who were doing the investigating (knowing about Hastert's
pedophilia 10-20 years ago) thought they were preparing for a criminal investigation. They became
disillusioned when they realized after a couple of years that their FBI higher-ups had no intention
of prosecuting. Apparently the issue is so widespread, and everyone knowsEdmonds describes a
certain palace in Turkey where US Congress members get taken on VIP trips, where the VIP suites
were being monitored / videotapes simultaneously by FBI, DIA, DoJ, criminal gangs, and foreign
governments. Yet when most recently Hastert comes to public attention, all the known pedophile
activities are not mentioned, just the financial money-laundering aspects. Because so many of
our officials & media & prominent people have been compromised by pedophilia that no one is willing
to speak out about it.
Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has a number of insightful video interviews and papers about
Turkey. She predicted the coup about 18 months agopointing out that the CIA was preparing to
replace Erdogan, and showing the pattern with other regime changes with USA involvement. Both
the recent and past interviews give a lot of insighte.g., into Gulen's CIA-backed financial,
cultural and political empire spanning Turkey, Turkik-friendly caucasus countries and deeply embedded
within the USA and Congress.
A longer post with a number of links has been sidetracked to moderation. In case it disappears
I'm posting this short comment.
For background on Sibel Edmonds, a short 2006 documentary "Kill the Messenger" about her
whistleblowing while an FBI translator is a good starting point.
How would the US respond if Russia turned the UAE into a chaotic shithole in order to
try and kick the US out of its HUGE military bases there?
Ever wondered why Russia hasn't attempted to internally overthrow any of the Gulf States
or Saudi Arabia since the Iraqi invasion? They are definitely fragile, internally vulnerable states
and closely aligned with the west. Two can definitely play these color revolution games. I suspect
it is due to the vulnerability of their own, Russian, populations and increased Middle east instability
could produce blowback in Russia proper. However the US and allies have been playing hard this
game of disrupting Middle East stability for the last 13 years. At what point, would the Russians
decide, well, Middle East stability is already gone and it is time to strike back at US allies
using our own tactics? Personally, I think Putin is too smart for that but what about after Putin?
This thread seems to have petered out rather early on, not sure how much to add.
For those (if anyone is still out there) interested, Pat Lang's site SST has been posting regularly
on Turkey, and he has commenters from the region and who are knowledgeable about ME/NE military
and political affairs.
I had read the John Helmer piece on his blog when it was first posted, and forwarded it to
a friend who's similar in many respects to Lang (career military officer, now retired; author
of historical studies and books; keen student of the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey, Cyprus, the
Balkans) except that he's Greek.
In return he sent me a link to his own latest two pieces on a Greek blog. One discusses the
"coup" in considerable detail. Some random factoids I picked up on, in no particular order or
hierarchy:
-Russia is not interested in regime change in Turkey at the moment;
-Russia is very interested in maintaining its buffer zone (called "The Rimland" by the
late Nicholas Spykman, a geopolitics theoretician), of which Turkey forms perhaps the key part
(historically, and now);
-Russia turned the shooting down of that SU 24 into an opportunity to install S400s or
possibly, S500s, in Syria;
-The current situation in Syria is more or less a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia;
-Russia has recently become very active in the so-called "Northern Corridor" (aka, the
Arctic Circle), something most analysts forget;
-By 2020, Russia will be 100% self-sufficient in food production;
-It is likely that Russian surveillance technology picked up the news of the impending
coup and informed Erdogan of it;
-The presence of nuclear weapons at Incirlik is in violation of Article 2 of the 1975 Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
-Russia wants/needs a "southern corridor" to move LNG to the Med. Turkey is in the right
geographic location to serve this purpose.
The historical relationship between Turkey and Russia comes out a bit garbled in Helmer's (original
post) title, i.e. "The New Byzantine Alliance: The Kremlin and the Porte," etc.
Russia's historical ties were with the Byzantine Empire, with which it shared after the
9th century A.D. a crucial common feature, viz. Orthodoxy. The center of Orthodoxy was of course
Constantinople, with which the Russian Archbishopric and later, Patriarchate, experienced complicated
relations. Upon the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, and the loss of Constantinople
to Orthodoxy, Russia envisioned its own capital, Moscow, as taking up the mantle and succeeding
Constantinople (the "Second Rome") as Christendom's "Third Rome". The title conflates the relationship
between the two countries/empires in the Byzantine period with that during the Ottoman period
(i.e., the [Sublime] "Porte").
Short version: when you start messing around in somebody else's backyard, trouble ensues.
The 2016 election offers voters two rather stark choices. Another blog I read, LGM, recently
had a comment on a thread about Trump-Clinton (there are so many, one loses count) that laid out
why voters are choosing one or the other candidate very neatly. If one is in the U.S. and is relatively
or very well-off, the Democrats' championing (qualified, I would say) of identity politics looks
pretty good, or at least, not as bad as the Republicans' (I'm still aghast at how black voters
are so staunchly supportive of someone whose husband shoved TANF through in place of AFDC, but
hey). But for non-U.S. citizens and U.S. citizens who live near the world's hottest geopolitical
hotspot, the prospect of Victoria Nuland (of Ukraine regime change fame) as SoS is not at all
a happy one.
"... However, to ease tensions with the Clinton wing of the party, Obama selected Clinton to be his Secretary of State, one of the first and most fateful decisions of his presidency. He also kept on George W. Bush's Defense Secretary Robert Gates and neocon members of the military high command, such as Gen. David Petraeus. ..."
"... Inside Obama's foreign policy councils, Clinton routinely took the most neoconservative positions, such as defending a 2009 coup in Honduras that ousted a progressive president. ..."
"... Clinton also sabotaged early efforts to work out an agreement in which Iran surrendered much of its low-enriched uranium, including an initiative in 2010 organized at Obama's request by the leaders of Brazil and Turkey. Clinton sank that deal and escalated tensions with Iran along the lines favored by Israel's right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a Clinton favorite. ..."
"... But no one should be gullible enough to believe that Clinton's invasion of Syria would stop at a "safe zone." As with Libya, once the camel's nose was into the tent, pretty soon the animal would be filling up the whole tent. ..."
"... Perhaps even scarier is what a President Clinton would do regarding Iran and Ukraine, two countries where belligerent U.S. behavior could start much bigger wars. ..."
"... In Ukraine, would Clinton escalate U.S. military support for the post-coup anti-Russian Ukrainian government, encouraging its forces to annihilate the ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine and to "liberate" the people of Crimea from "Russian aggression" (though they voted by 96 percent to leave the failed Ukrainian state and rejoin Russia)? ..."
"... Robert Kagan, a co-founder of the neocon Project for the new American Century, has endorsed Clinton, saying "I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy. If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue it's something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else." [See Consortiumnews.com's " Yes, Hillary Clinton Is a Neocon. "] ..."
"... So, by selecting Clinton, the Democrats have made a full 360-degree swing back to the pre-1968 days of the Vietnam War. After nearly a half century of favoring a more peaceful foreign policy and somewhat less weapons spending than the Republicans, the Democrats are America's new aggressive war party. ..."
... But former Secretary of State Clinton has made it clear that she is eager to use military
force to achieve "regime change" in countries that get in the way of U.S. desires. She abides by
neoconservative strategies of violent interventions especially in the Middle East and she strikes
a belligerent posture as well toward nuclear-armed Russia and, to a lesser extent, China.
Amid the celebrations about picking the first woman as a major party's presumptive nominee, Democrats
appear to have given little thought to the fact that they have abandoned a near half-century standing
as the party more skeptical about the use of military force. Clinton is an unabashed war hawk who
has shown no inclination to rethink her pro-war attitudes.
As a U.S. senator from New York, Clinton voted for and avidly supported the Iraq War, only cooling
her enthusiasm in 2006 when it became clear that the Democratic base had turned decisively against
the war and her hawkish position endangered her chances for the 2008 presidential nomination, which
she lost to Barack Obama, an Iraq War opponent.
However, to ease tensions with the Clinton wing of the party, Obama selected Clinton to be
his Secretary of State, one of the first and most fateful decisions of his presidency. He also kept
on George W. Bush's Defense Secretary Robert Gates and neocon members of the military high command,
such as Gen. David Petraeus.
This "Team of Rivals" named after Abraham Lincoln's initial Civil War cabinet ensured a powerful
bloc of pro-war sentiment, which pushed Obama toward more militaristic solutions than he otherwise
favored, notably the wasteful counterinsurgency "surge" in Afghanistan in 2009 which did little beyond
get another 1,000 U.S. soldiers killed and many more Afghans.
Clinton was a strong supporter of that "surge" and Gates
reported in his memoir that she acknowledged only opposing the Iraq War "surge" in 2007
for political reasons. Inside Obama's foreign policy councils, Clinton routinely took the most
neoconservative positions, such as defending a 2009 coup in Honduras that ousted a progressive president.
Clinton also sabotaged early efforts to work out an agreement in which Iran surrendered much
of its low-enriched uranium, including an initiative in 2010 organized at Obama's request by the
leaders of Brazil and Turkey. Clinton
sank that deal and escalated
tensions with Iran along the lines favored by Israel's right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
a Clinton favorite.
Pumping for War in Libya
In 2011, Clinton successfully lobbied Obama to go to war against Libya to achieve another "regime
change," albeit cloaked in the more modest goal of establishing only a "no-fly zone" to "protect
civilians."
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi had claimed he was battling jihadists and terrorists who were building
strongholds around Benghazi, but Clinton and her State Department underlings accused him of slaughtering
civilians and (in one of the more colorful lies used to justify the war) distributing Viagra to his
troops so they could rape more women.
Despite resistance from Russia and China, the United Nations Security Council fell for the deception
about protecting civilians. Russia and China agreed to abstain from the vote, giving Clinton her
"no-fly zone." Once that was secured, however, the Obama administration and several European allies
unveiled their real plan, to destroy the Libyan army and pave the way for the violent overthrow of
Gaddafi.
Privately, Clinton's senior aides viewed the Libyan "regime change" as a chance to establish what
they called the "Clinton Doctrine" on using "smart power" with plans for Clinton to rush
to the fore and claim credit once Gaddafi was ousted. But that scheme failed when President Obama
grabbed the limelight after Gaddafi's government collapsed.
But Clinton would not be denied her second opportunity to claim the glory when jihadist rebels
captured Gaddafi on Oct. 20, 2011, sodomized him with a knife and then murdered him. Hearing of Gaddafi's
demise, Clinton went into a network interview and
declared , "we came,
we saw, he died" and clapped her hands in glee.
Clinton's glee was short-lived, however. Libya soon descended into chaos with Islamic extremists
gaining control of large swaths of the country. On Sept. 11, 2012, jihadists attacked the U.S. consulate
in Benghazi killing Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other American personnel. It turned
out Gaddafi had been right about the nature of his enemies.
Undaunted by the mess in Libya, Clinton made similar plans for Syria where again she marched in
lock-step with the neocons and their "liberal interventionist" sidekicks in support of another violent
"regime change," ousting the Assad dynasty,
a top neocon/Israeli goal since the 1990s.
Clinton pressed Obama to escalate weapons shipments and training for anti-government rebels who
were deemed "moderate" but in reality
collaborated closely with radical Islamic forces, including Al Nusra Front (Al Qaeda's Syrian
franchise) and some even more extreme jihadists (who coalesced into the Islamic State).
Again, Clinton's war plans were cloaked in humanitarian language, such as the need to create a
"safe zone" inside Syria to save civilians. But her plans would have required a major U.S. invasion
of a sovereign country, the destruction of its air force and much of its military, and the creation
of conditions for another "regime change."
In the case of Syria, however, Obama resisted the pressure from Clinton and other hawks inside
his own administration. The President did approve some covert assistance to the rebels and allowed
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the Gulf states to do much more, but he did not agree to an outright U.S.-led
invasion to Clinton's disappointment.
Parting Ways
Clinton finally left the Obama administration at the start of his second term in 2013, some say
voluntarily and others say in line with Obama's desire to finally move ahead with serious negotiations
with Iran over its nuclear program and to apply more pressure on Israel to reach a long-delayed peace
settlement with the Palestinians. Secretary of State John Kerry was willing to do some of the politically
risky work that Clinton was not.
Many on the Left deride Obama as "Obomber" and mock his hypocritical acceptance of the Nobel Peace
Prize in 2009. And there is no doubt that Obama has waged war his entire presidency, bombing at least
seven countries by his own count. But the truth is that he has generally been among the most dovish
members of his administration, advocating a "realistic" (or restrained) application of American power.
By contrast, Clinton was among the most hawkish senior officials.
A major testing moment for Obama came in August 2013 after a sarin gas attack outside Damascus,
Syria, that killed hundreds of Syrians and that the State Department and the mainstream U.S. media
immediately blamed on the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
There was almost universal pressure inside Official Washington to militarily enforce Obama's "red
line" against Assad using chemical weapons. Amid this intense momentum toward war, it was widely
assumed that Obama would order a harsh retaliatory strike against the Syrian military. But U.S. intelligence
and key figures in the U.S. military smelled a rat, a provocation carried out by Islamic extremists
to draw the United States into the Syrian war on their side.
At the last minute and at great political cost to himself, Obama listened to the doubts of his
intelligence advisers and called off the attack, referring the issue to the U.S. Congress and then
accepting a Russian-brokered deal in which Assad surrendered all his chemical weapons though continuing
to deny a role in the sarin attack.
Eventually, the sarin
case against Assad would collapse. Only one rocket was found to have carried sarin and
it had a very limited range placing its firing position likely within rebel-controlled territory.
But Official Washington's conventional wisdom never budged. To this day, politicians and pundits
denounce Obama for not enforcing his "red line."
There's little doubt, however, what Hillary Clinton would have done. She has been eager for a
much more aggressive U.S. military role in Syria since the civil war began in 2011. Much as she used
propaganda and deception to achieve "regime change" in Libya, she surely would have done the same
in Syria, embracing the pretext of the sarin attack "killing innocent children" to destroy the
Syrian military even if the rebels were the guilty parties.
Still Lusting for War
Indeed, during the 2016 campaign in those few moments that have touched on foreign policy
Clinton declared that as President she would order the U.S. military to invade Syria. "Yes, I do
still support a no-fly zone," she said during the April 14 debate. She also wants a "safe zone" that
would require seizing territory inside Syria.
But no one should be gullible enough to believe that Clinton's invasion of Syria would stop
at a "safe zone." As with Libya, once the camel's nose was into the tent, pretty soon the animal
would be filling up the whole tent.
Perhaps even scarier is what a President Clinton would do regarding Iran and Ukraine, two
countries where belligerent U.S. behavior could start much bigger wars.
For instance, would President Hillary Clinton push the Iranians so hard in line with what Netanyahu
favors that they would renounce the nuclear deal and give Clinton an excuse to bomb-bomb-bomb Iran?
In Ukraine, would Clinton escalate U.S. military support for the post-coup anti-Russian Ukrainian
government, encouraging its forces to annihilate the ethnic Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine and
to "liberate" the people of Crimea from "Russian aggression" (though they voted by 96 percent to
leave the failed Ukrainian state and rejoin Russia)?
Would President Clinton expect the Russians to stand down and accept these massacres? Would she
take matters to the next level to demonstrate how tough she can be against Russian President Vladimir
Putin whom she has compared to Hitler? Might she buy into the latest neocon dream of achieving "regime
change" in Moscow? Would she be wise enough to recognize how dangerous such instability could be?
Of course, one would expect that all of Clinton's actions would be clothed in the crocodile tears
of "humanitarian" warfare, starting wars to "save the children" or to stop the evil enemy from "raping
defenseless girls." The truth of such emotional allegations would be left for the post-war historians
to try to sort out. In the meantime, President Clinton would have her wars.
Having covered Washington for nearly four decades, I always marvel at how selective concerns for
human rights can be. When "friendly" civilians are dying, we are told that we have a "responsibility
to protect," but when pro-U.S. forces are slaughtering civilians of an adversary country or movement,
reports of those atrocities are dismissed as "enemy propaganda" or ignored altogether. Clinton is
among the most cynical in this regard.
Trading Places
But the larger picture for the Democrats is that they have just adopted an extraordinary historical
reversal whether they understand it or not. They have replaced the Republicans as the party of aggressive
war, though clearly many Republicans still dance to the neocon drummer just as Clinton and "liberal
interventionists" do. Still, Donald Trump, for all his faults, has adopted a relatively peaceful
point of view, especially in the Mideast and with Russia.
While today many Democrats are congratulating themselves for becoming the first major party to
make a woman the presumptive nominee, they may soon have to decide whether that distinction justifies
putting an aggressive war hawk in the White House. In a way, the issue is an old one for Democrats,
whether "identity politics" or anti-war policies are more important.
At least since 1968 and the chaotic Democratic convention in Chicago, the party has advanced,
sometimes haltingly, those two agendas, pushing for broader rights for all and seeking to restrain
the nation's militaristic impulses.
In the 1970s, Democrats largely repudiated the Vietnam War while the Republicans waved the flag
and equated anti-war positions with treason. By the 1980s and early 1990s, Ronald Reagan and George
H.W. Bush were making war fun again Grenada, Afghanistan, Panama and the Persian Gulf, all relatively
low-cost conflicts with victorious conclusions.
By the 1990s, Bill Clinton (along with Hillary Clinton) saw militarism as just another issue to
be triangulated. With the Soviet Union's collapse, the Clinton-42 administration saw the opportunity
for more low-cost tough-guy/gal-ism continuing a harsh embargo and periodic air strikes against
Iraq (causing the deaths of a U.N.-estimated half million children); blasting Serbia into submission
over Kosovo; and expanding NATO to the east toward Russia's borders.
But Bill Clinton did balk at the more extreme neocon ideas, such as the one from the Project for
the New American Century for a militarily enforced "regime change" in Iraq. That had to wait for
George W. Bush in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. As a New York senator, Hillary Clinton made sure
she was onboard for war on Iraq just as she sided with Israel's pummeling of Lebanon and the Palestinians
in Gaza.
Hillary Clinton was taking triangulation to an even more acute angle as she sided with virtually
every position of the Netanyahu government in Israel and moved in tandem with the neocons as they
cemented their control of Washington's foreign policy establishment. Her only brief flirtation with
an anti-war position came in 2006 when her political advisers informed her that her continued support
for Bush's Iraq War would doom her in the Democratic presidential race.
But she let her hawkish plumage show again as Obama's Secretary of State from 2009 to 2013 and
once she felt she had the 2016 Democratic race in hand (after her success in the southern primaries)
she pivoted back to her hard-line positions in full support of Israel and in a full-throated defense
of her war on Libya, which she still won't view as a failure.
The smarter neocons are already lining up to endorse Clinton, especially given Donald Trump's
hostile takeover of the Republican Party and his disdain for neocon strategies that he views as simply
spreading chaos around the globe. As The New York Times has
reported, Clinton is "the vessel into which many interventionists are pouring their hopes."
Robert Kagan, a co-founder of the neocon Project for the new American Century, has endorsed
Clinton, saying "I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy. If she pursues a policy which we
think she will pursue it's something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters
are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else." [See Consortiumnews.com's
"Yes,
Hillary Clinton Is a Neocon."]
So, by selecting Clinton, the Democrats have made a full 360-degree swing back to the pre-1968
days of the Vietnam War. After nearly a half century of favoring a more peaceful foreign policy
and somewhat less weapons spending than the Republicans, the Democrats are America's new aggressive
war party.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated
Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen
Narrative, either in
print here or as an e-book (from
Amazon and
barnesandnoble.com).
How about WAPO does some real reporting and compares the two candidate on the issues at hand and
leaves out all the speculation"
Judging from comments the level of brainwashing of WaPo readship is just staggering... Far above
that existed in soviet Russia (were most people were supciously about Soviet nomeklatura and did not
trust them).
Notable quotes:
"... In their zeal to portray Donald Trump as a dangerous threat to national security, the Clinton campaign has taken a starkly anti-Russian stance, one that completes a total role reversal for the two major American parties on U.S.-Russian relations that Hillary Clinton will now be committed to, if she becomes president. ..."
"... And now, for mostly political reasons, the Clinton campaign has decided to escalate its rhetoric on Russia. ..."
"... This year, the Clinton team is accusing Putin of waging information warfare against the Democratic candidate in order to help elect the Republican candidate. Clinton is also running ads claiming she stood up to Putin. Meanwhile, Trump is called for a weakening of NATO and his staff worked to remove an anti-Russia stance on Ukraine from the GOP platform. ..."
"... Now that the Democrats are the tough-on-Russia party, they should explain exactly what that means. What would Clinton do about Russia's increasingly aggressive cyber-espionage and information warfare in Europe and around the world? Would she expand sanctions on Russia in response to the hacks? Would she use U.S. cyber forces to retaliate? Would she abandon President Obama's plan to deepen U.S.-Russian military and intelligence cooperation in Syria? ..."
"... if Clinton wins, she will be committed to implementing the anti-Putin, tough-on-Russia policy she is running on and Democrats will need to fall in line ..."
"... I am not a national security expert but it does not look intelligent to antagonize Russia and China at the same time. But I think it is unfair to blame Hillary for this, Obama has been antagonizing Russia and China for some time now. He has being very successful at that, for the first time in many years now Russia and China are BFF doing naval exercises together. ..."
"... In other words, her use of a homebrew email server constituted a threat to national security? ..."
"... The Dems and their Washington Post surrogates are apoplectic over Donald Trump's supposed affinity for the Russians. Russia is now America's mortal enemy in the current Dem narrative. ..."
"... Mook's claim of Russian involvement would be more convincing if he had offered any proof. Otherwise it just looks like pure deflection and distraction and disinformation. ..."
In their zeal to portray Donald Trump as a dangerous threat to national security, the Clinton
campaign has taken a starkly anti-Russian stance, one that completes a total role reversal for the
two major American parties on U.S.-Russian relations that Hillary Clinton will now be committed to,
if she becomes president.
The side switching between the parties on Russia is the result of two converging trends. U.S.-Russian
relations have gone downhill since Russian President Vladimir Putin came back to power in 2012, torpedoing
the Obama administration's first term outreach to Moscow, which Clinton led. Then, in the past year,
Trump's Russia-friendly policy has filled the pro-engagement space that Democrats once occupied.
And now, for mostly political reasons, the Clinton campaign has decided to escalate its rhetoric
on Russia. After Trump
suggested Wednesday that if Russia had indeed hacked Clinton's private email server it should
release the emails, the Clinton campaign sent out its Democratic surrogates to bash Russia and Trump
in a manner traditionally reserved for Republicans.
"This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national
security issue," Clinton senior foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan said.
Set to one side that Trump was probably joking. Russia clearly does not need Trump's permission
to hack U.S. political organizations or government institutions. And there's no consensus that Russia
released the Democratic National Committee emails in order to disrupt the presidential election.
In fact, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has his own personal vendetta against Clinton, claimed
that he alone chose the timing of the release of the DNC emails.
Regardless, the idea that a GOP presidential nominee would endorse Russian cyber-espionage was
too tempting for the Clinton campaign to resist, especially on the day their convention was dedicated
to painting Trump as dangerous on national security.
At an event on the sidelines of the convention Wednesday, several top Clinton national security
surrogates focused on Trump's latest comments to argue that they embolden Russia in its plan to destabilize
and dominate the West. Former national security adviser Tom Donilon said that Russia is interfering
with elections all over Europe and said Trump is helping Russia directly.
"The Russians have engaged in cyberattacks in a number of places that we know about, in Georgia,
in Estonia and in Ukraine. . . . In the Russian takeover of Crimea, information warfare was a
central part of their operations," Donilon said. "To dangerously embrace a set of strategies by
the Russian Federation that are intent on undermining key Western institutions . . . is playing
into the hands of Russian strategy."
Former defense secretary and CIA director Leon Panetta said that if Donilon was still in the White
House, he would have tasked the CIA to retaliate against Moscow. Panetta then doubled down on Sullivan's
argument that Trump's comments by themselves are making the United States less safe.
"This is crazy stuff, and yet somehow you get the sense that people think it's a joke. It has
already represented a threat to our national security," Panetta said. "Because if you go abroad
and talk to people, they are very worried that someone like this could become president of the
United States."
In 2008, the Russian government was definitely not rooting for the Republican candidate for president.
Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) had made a feature of his campaign a pledge to stand up to Russian aggression
and dispatched two top surrogates to Georgia after the Russian invasion.
In 2012, Mitt Romney warned that Russia was the United States' "number one geopolitical foe."
Then-Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John F. Kerry mocked Romney at the Democratic National
Convention in Charlotte, saying that Romney got his information about Russia from the movie "Rocky
IV."
This year, the Clinton team is accusing Putin of waging information warfare against the Democratic
candidate in order to help elect the Republican candidate. Clinton is also running ads claiming she
stood up to Putin. Meanwhile, Trump is called for a weakening of NATO and his staff worked to remove
an anti-Russia stance on Ukraine from the GOP platform.
Now that the Democrats are the tough-on-Russia party, they should explain exactly what that
means. What would Clinton do about Russia's increasingly aggressive cyber-espionage and information
warfare in Europe and around the world? Would she expand sanctions on Russia in response to the hacks?
Would she use U.S. cyber forces to retaliate? Would she abandon President Obama's plan to deepen
U.S.-Russian military and intelligence cooperation in Syria?
The Clinton team hasn't said. For now, they are content to use Trump's statements about Russia
to make the argument that he's not commander-in-chief material. But if Clinton wins, she will
be committed to implementing the anti-Putin, tough-on-Russia policy she is running on and Democrats
will need to fall in line . If Putin wasn't rooting for Trump before, he is now.
NotaClinton , 7/28/2016 6:25 PM EDT
So TRUMP is threat to NATIONAL SECURITY for asking RUSSIA for the emails she destroyed? Because
they would be the one likely to have them since she completely ignored Security protocol while
in Russia? WOW they get better every day. They have already explain Russia could have been in
and out of her accounts all along because of her complete lack of security of her devises. She
had less security than a commercial account using the private server the way she did. And she
did cause a breach in national security. She fwd classified email to an intern and it did get
hacked. Whether or not Russia got any info from her we will never know. Because the lack of security
on her server Russia could have got her password and and the info leaving no tracks.
NotaClinton , 7/28/2016 5:22 PM EDT
People agree with PUTIN you know like the ones in CRIMEA and SYRIA. I'd rather see a PUTIN
TRUMP ticket. I like what I see in PUTIN doing in the world. He seems to be the one SAVING people
around the world. Assad let the people have freedom of religion. These Sunni the USA is arming
want to force Sharia law. I don't approve of my tax dollars being spent arming those terrorists
nor do I consider Saudi Arabia an ally!!! I would rather see a TRUMP PUTIN ticket and add 75 more
stars to our flag. Than what the current government is. Although I would more so like to see the
USA government take a much more democratic stance. Change our government to be more like Switzerland
Norway and the Netherlands. Who were inspired by the USA constitution. Our constitution and democracy
has been lost to corruption!!!!
George1955, 7/28/2016 5:08 PM EDT
I am not a national security expert but it does not look intelligent to antagonize Russia
and China at the same time. But I think it is unfair to blame Hillary for this, Obama has been
antagonizing Russia and China for some time now. He has being very successful at that, for the
first time in many years now Russia and China are BFF doing naval exercises together. Maybe
there is a very profound strategy in that (everybody says that Obama is a genius) but I cannot
see what is the logic of provoking at the same time the two biggest military powers apart of the
United States while weakening our military forces with budget cuts.
It is the worst foreign policy since the Arab Spring brought us ISIS. They are incapable of
intelligent policy. Their whole idea was to "not do stupid stuff" and here they are. They just
can't help themselves.
chayapartiya, 7/28/2016 5:01 PM EDT
The only thing standing between a highly productive US/Russian relationship are the other relationships
the United States has, both institutional and personal among our elites.
Russia is the sworn enemy of many US allies and has barred our richest citizens from taking
charge of large sectors of the Russian economy. That is the source of our new Cold War.
Lacking Communist ideology Russia will never be an existential threat to the United States
or our way of life. On the other hand, Islam is. On the other hand, Red China is.
You have to be willing to abandon the entire US foreign policy establishment to turn our relationship
with Russia around, and if we did maintaining our relationships with Poland, the Baltics, Georgia,
Turkey, Saudi Arabia and more would become vastly more difficult.
But the idea is too good of one to abandon, Russia is far too influential to ignore. I'm glad
one major party is going to recognize that now.
invention13, 7/28/2016 5:01 PM EDT
"This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national
security issue," Clinton senior foreign policy adviser Jake Sullivan said.
In other words, her use of a homebrew email server constituted a threat to national security?
I'm finding this whole flap just too funny. The whole point was probably to step on the news
coverage of the convention on the night that the president and vice president were to speak. Trump
is happy to fan the flames a bit. This is what he does when there is something he doesn't want
people to pay attention to (whether it is unfavorable coverage of Trump University, or a convention).
He throws out something outrageous that sucks the oxygen out of the news cycle. This whole thing
will die down, simply because in the absence of hard evidence, most people don't believe it is
true that Trump is Putin's agent. He may admire him, but work for him? I doubt it.
NotaClinton, 7/28/2016 5:44 PM EDT
Her actions DID once agains threaten NATIONAL SECURITY there was no doubt about that. She fwd
classified email to her interns who got hacked. That is definitely a threat to national security.
She carried her Blackberry and laptop into countries while acting as head of state. Which was
not recommended for anyone to do even if there devices were secured by the state. She took hers
to countries with her personal server that had zero security less than a commercial account. Then
there was the fact she deleted and kept her business out of reach of FOIA. Zero respect for those
laws. All federal employees are allowed to have a personal email for there person life. But Hilary
decides she is above the law. Those federal laws don't apply to her and got away with it. When
Comey was asked about that. He said he wasn't asked to investigate whether she broke those federal
laws. He wasn't investigating whether she broke the law. But only if he should charge her for
violating security. His conclusion was yes she violated the law. But he sees the law meant nothing
so why file a criminal charge.
Trump only requested information that they very well may have. Because Hilary handed it to
them. it's hard to believe the Russians hacked the DNC. They most likely had the passwords from
Hilary's accounts. Which would leave no footprints.
OswegoTex , 7/28/2016 2:54 PM EDT
The Dems and their Washington Post surrogates are apoplectic over Donald Trump's supposed
affinity for the Russians. Russia is now America's mortal enemy in the current Dem narrative.
Wasn't Romney ridiculed by a snarky and arrogant Obama and his press sycophants for identifying
Russia as a major geopolitical threat in the 2012 election cycle. What happened? Oh-- I know---
the Clinton/Obama "reset".
stella blue, 7/28/2016 2:45 PM EDT
Very interesting article. Hillary is a neocon. She never saw a war she didn't like. I don't
know what would be so wrong with having good relations with Russia. Wasn't that what Hillary's
stupid reset button was all about?
NotaClinton, 7/28/2016 6:11 PM EDT [Edited]
I admire PUTIN and so do a lot of people. If you are a Citizens and believe in our values and
the constitution. He held a democratic Legal election in Crimea. Where the people voted unanimously
in favor of Belonging to Russia, A Vote that would be exactly the same today. The USA invades
Syria with terrorists from countries whose own people wouldn't vote them in.
All I have seen Putin do is save people. He saved Syria finally. i don't know what took him
so long. Maybe WMDs he knew the opposition would use and some more dirty filthy rotten tricks
that have been happening there. He turned the war around on less money than a shipment of weapons
and training to the rebels forces costed the USA. those shipments and training was going on since
before the conflict broke out. What was the point?
Why has the USA spent a dime in that country other than they should have immediately neutralized,
destroyed or recovered all the military equipment that was stolen from Iraq. I you like Russian
your anti american? If you don't like illegal Immigrants your a racist. That is to be expected
from those educated Hilary Voters...
Nikdo, 7/28/2016 4:26 PM EDT
Mook's claim of Russian involvement would be more convincing if he had offered any proof.
Otherwise it just looks like pure deflection and distraction and disinformation.
The video accompanying the article is actually better the the text. John Bolton made some interesting
remarks. For example he said that it is stunning that Hillary Clinton said something about damage from
hack of DNC server. What she though by engaging in her reckless behaviors with bathroom server four
years while she were in office. He also suggested that points to Russia might be just attempt if disinformation
from a real perpetuator.
Notable quotes:
"... In her acceptance speech, Clinton reaffirmed a commitment to NATO, saying she was "proud to stand by our allies in NATO against any threat they face, including from Russia." ..."
"... As U.S. secretary of state, Clinton in 2009 presented her Russian counterpart with a red button intended to symbolize a "reset" in relations between the two countries, one of U.S. President Barack Obama's initiatives. In Russia, the gesture is best remembered for the misspelling of the word in Russian, while the reset itself failed in the face of Putin's return as Russian president in 2012 and Russia's seizure of Crimea from Ukraine two years later. ..."
"... Clinton once compared the annexation of Crimea to Adolf Hitler's moves into Eastern Europe at the start of World War II, a comparison that was deeply offensive in Russia, where the country's victory over Nazi Germany remains a prime source of national pride. ..."
"... "And as far as the Ukraine is concerned, it's a mess. And that's under the Obama's administration with his strong ties to NATO. So with all of these strong ties to NATO, Ukraine is a mess," Trump said. "Crimea has been taken. Don't blame Donald Trump for that." ..."
"... Putin was outraged by U.S. support for Ukraine and by U.S. military intervention around the world, particularly in Libya, on Clinton's watch. But it was what he saw as interference in Russia that really rankled. ..."
"... When Clinton described Russia's 2011 parliamentary elections as rigged, Putin said she was "sending a signal" to his critics. He then accused the U.S. State Department of financially supporting the protests that drew tens of thousands of people to the streets of Moscow to demand free elections and an end to Putin's rule. ..."
"... Channel One began its report by introducing Clinton as "a politician who puts herself above the law, who is ready to win at any cost and who is ready to change her principles depending on the political situation." The anchorwoman couched the description by saying that was how Clinton is seen by Trump's supporters - but it was a nuance viewers could easily miss. ..."
MOSCOW To understand what the Kremlin thinks about the prospect of Hillary Clinton becoming
the U.S. president, it was enough to watch Russian state television coverage of her accepting the
Democratic nomination.
Viewers were told that Clinton sees Russia as an enemy and cannot be trusted, while the Democratic
Party convention was portrayed as further proof that American democracy is a sham.
In her acceptance speech, Clinton reaffirmed a commitment to NATO, saying she was "proud to
stand by our allies in NATO against any threat they face, including from Russia."
In doing so, she was implicitly rebuking her rival, Republican nominee Donald Trump, who has questioned
the need for the Western alliance and suggested that if he is elected president, the United States
might not honor its NATO military commitments, in particular regarding former Soviet republics in
the Baltics.
While Trump's position on NATO has delighted the Kremlin, Clinton's statement clearly stung.
"She mentioned Russia only once, but it was enough to see that the era of the reset is over,"
Channel One said in its report.
As U.S. secretary of state, Clinton in 2009 presented her Russian counterpart with a red button
intended to symbolize a "reset" in relations between the two countries, one of U.S. President Barack
Obama's initiatives. In Russia, the gesture is best remembered for the misspelling of the word in
Russian, while the reset itself failed in the face of Putin's return as Russian president in 2012
and Russia's seizure of Crimea from Ukraine two years later.
Clinton once compared the annexation of Crimea to Adolf Hitler's moves into Eastern Europe
at the start of World War II, a comparison that was deeply offensive in Russia, where the country's
victory over Nazi Germany remains a prime source of national pride.
Trump, on the other hand, told ABC's "This Week" in a broadcast Sunday that he wants to take a
look at whether the U.S. should recognize Crimea as part of Russia. "You know, the people of Crimea,
from what I've heard, would rather be with Russia than where they were," Trump said.
This runs counter to the position of the Obama administration and the European Union, which have
imposed punishing sanctions on Russia in response to the annexation.
"And as far as the Ukraine is concerned, it's a mess. And that's under the Obama's administration
with his strong ties to NATO. So with all of these strong ties to NATO, Ukraine is a mess," Trump
said. "Crimea has been taken. Don't blame Donald Trump for that."
Putin was outraged by U.S. support for Ukraine and by U.S. military intervention around the
world, particularly in Libya, on Clinton's watch. But it was what he saw as interference in Russia
that really rankled.
When Clinton described Russia's 2011 parliamentary elections as rigged, Putin said she was
"sending a signal" to his critics. He then accused the U.S. State Department of financially supporting
the protests that drew tens of thousands of people to the streets of Moscow to demand free elections
and an end to Putin's rule.
In the years since, the Kremlin has defended Russian elections in part by implying they are no
different than in the United States, a country it says promotes democracy around the world while
allowing its business and political elite to determine who wins at home.
The Democratic Convention, which ended Friday morning Moscow time, was given wide coverage throughout
the day on the nearly hourly news reports on state television, the Kremlin's most powerful tool for
shaping public opinion.
Channel One began its report by introducing Clinton as "a politician who puts herself above the
law, who is ready to win at any cost and who is ready to change her principles depending on the political
situation." The anchorwoman couched the description by saying that was how Clinton is seen by Trump's
supporters - but it was a nuance viewers could easily miss.
The reports ran excerpts of Clinton's speech, but the camera swung repeatedly to a sullen Sen.
Bernie Sanders of Vermont, her Democratic challenger, and his disappointed supporters. The Rossiya
channel also showed anti-Clinton protesters outside the convention hall who it said "felt they have
been betrayed after the email leak that showed Bernie Sanders was pushed out of the race."
Russia is a prime suspect in the hacking of Democratic National Committee computers, which led
to the release of emails showing that party officials favored Clinton over Sanders for the presidential
nomination.
The Kremlin has denied interfering in the U.S. election. A columnist at Russia's best-selling
newspaper, however, said it would have been a smart move.
"I would welcome the Kremlin helping those forces in the United States that stand for peace with
Russia and democracy in America," Israel Shamir wrote in Komsomolskaya Pravda.
Trump, meanwhile, has encouraged Russia to seek and release more than 30,000 other missing emails
deleted by Clinton. Democrats accused him of trying to get a foreign adversary to conduct espionage
that could affect this November's election, but Trump later said he was merely being sarcastic.
whollop
Putin has tried to remind the world what a mistake break up of Yugoslavia was and corruption
involved and lies, no one listens. Next leader of Russia might not be so restrained and patient.
Sad we are letting such bad minds lead US now. What is it about Clinton's that make ppl so gullible?
whollop
Read "how the srebrenica massacre redefined US policy," by US professor. Media distorts truth
everywhere, all the time. Bought and paid for.
Russians didn't start last 2 WW's either. You can bet if ISIS attacks Russia, Pres O won't
go to their aid.
This constant demonizing of Russia has pushed them closer to China. Obama and Clinton and Bill
Clinton (from earlier and beyond) have made a mess of the world because their values are built
on wrong philosophy. German rationalism does not mesh with American freedom and love of law.
Trump17
Her and Obama interfered in their affairs and now without any proof they are blaming Russia
for a hacking of the DNC. Back in March the FBI told the DNC it was hacked and wanted information
to conduct an investigation which Hillary of course blocked. Now they are crying the blues..
HmmIsee
Dems have hated Russia ever since Reagan disbanded their beloved USSR
teabone
Russia and the U.S. used to have a common enemy, radical/extremist Islamism.
Not anymore since Obama and Clinton loves Muslims more than they like American citizens.
Looks like this is a new part of Hillary strategy to take Trump down
Notable quotes:
"... "We know that Russian intelligence services hacked into the DNC," Clinton said, in her first interview with Fox in more than five years. "And we know that they arranged for a lot of those emails to be released and we know that Donald Trump has shown a very troubling willingness to back up Putin, to support Putin." ..."
Clinton answered tough questions on Benghazi, her emails and her campaign and policies, and focused
her own attack on her opponent's alleged links to Russia and Putin.
"We know that Russian intelligence services hacked into the DNC," Clinton said, in her first interview
with Fox in more than five years. "And we know that they arranged for a lot of those emails to be
released and we know that
Donald Trump has shown
a very troubling willingness to back up Putin, to support Putin."
Asked if she believed Putin wanted Trump to win the presidency, Clinton said she would not make
that conclusion. "But I think laying out the facts raises serious issues about Russian interference
in our elections, in our democracy," she said.
The US would not tolerate that from any other country, Clinton said, adding: "For Trump to both
encourage that and to praise Putin despite what appears to be a deliberate effort to try to affect
the election, I think, raises national security issues."
The Russian theme has expectedly become one of the most important in the US presidential election.
Democrats are unsurprisingly engaged in anti-Russian hysteria. Donald Trump says that he will establish
good relations with Russia and is ready to discuss the issue of recognition of the referendum in
the Crimea.
Noise and hysteria
Mass hysteria on the part of the Democrats, neocons, ultra-liberals and plain and simple Russophobes,
was provoked by the recent statements of Donald Trump. Speaking at a press conference in Florida,
Trump called on Russia to hand over the 30,000 emails "missing" from the Hillary Clinton's email
server in the US. Their absence is a clear sign that Clinton destroyed evidence proving that she
used her personal e-mail server to send sensitive information. Democrats immediately accused Trump
of pandering to Russian hackers, although in reality the multi-billionaire rhetorically hinted that
the data that Clinton hid from the American investigation is in the hands of foreign intelligence
services. So, Clinton is a possible target for blackmail.
Trump's statement that he is ready to
discuss the status of Crimea and the removal of anti-Russian sanctions caused even more noise. This
view is not accepted either in the Democrat or in the Republican mainstream. Trump also said that
Vladimir Putin does not respect Clinton and Obama, while Trump himself hopes to find a common language
with him. Trump appreciates Putin's leadership and believes that the US must work together with Russia
to deal with common threats, particularly against Islamic extremism.
The establishment's tantrum
Both Democrats and Republicans are taking aim at Trump. The vice-presidential candidate, Mike Pence,
made threats to Russia. The head of the Republican majority in Congress, Paul Ryan, became somewhat
hysterical. He said that Putin is "a thug and should stay out of these elections."
It is Putin
personally, and the Russian security services, who are accused of leaking correspondences of top
employees of the National Committee of the Democratic Party. This unverified story united part of
the Republicans and all of the Democrats, including the Clinton and Barack Obama themselves. Trump
supporters note that the Russian threat is used to divert attention from the content of these letters.
And these show the fraud carried out during the primaries which favored Hillary Clinton.
The pro-American candidate
The "Russian scandal" demonstrates that on the one hand the thesis of the normalization of relations
with Russia, despite the propaganda, is becoming popular in US society. It is unlikely that Donald
Trump has made campaign statements that are not designed to gain the support of the public in this
election. On the other hand - Trump - a hard realist, like Putin, is not pro-Russian, but a pro-American
politician, and therefore the improvement of relations with Russia in his eyes corresponds to the
US's national interests. Trump has never to date done anything that would not be to his advantage.
Sometimes he even said he would order US fighter jets to engage with Russian ones, and declared he
would have a hard stance in relations with Russia.
Another thing is that his understanding of US
national interests is fundamentally different from the dominant American globalist elite consensus.
For Trump, the US should not be the source of a global liberal remaking of the world, but a national
power, which optimizes its position just as efficiently as any commercial project. And in terms of
optimizing the position of the United States, he says there should be a normal American interaction
with Putin and Russia in the field of combating terrorism and preventing the sliding of the two countries
into a global war. He claims this is to be the priority instead of issues relating to the promotion
of democracy and the so-called fight against "authoritarian regimes".
"... This integrated relationship between State and Defense was confirmed by US Special Operations chief Admiral William McRaven shortly after Hillary's speech. When asked about the "unlikely partnership," McRaven assured DefenseNews that SOCOM has "an absolutely magnificent relationship with the State Department" and that SOCOM doesn't "do anything that isn't absolutely fully coordinated and approved by the US ambassador and the geographic combatant commander." ..."
"... As David Axe aptly described it in Wired , "Together, Special Operations Forces and State's new Conflict Bureau are the twin arms of an expanding institution for waging small, low-intensity shadow wars all over the world." ..."
"... Ultimately, it became a hand-in-pocket relationship when Clinton and Defense Secretary Gates developed the Global Security Contingency Fund (GSCF) to "incentivize joint planning and to pool the resources of the Departments of State and Defense, along with the expertise of other departments, to provide security sector assistance for partner countries so they can address emergent challenges and opportunities important to US national security." ..."
"... Although he's been criticized as feckless and deemed less hawkish than Secretary Clinton, President Obama's newly-proposed Counterterrorism Partnership Fund (CTPF) is the logical extension of the Clinton-Gates Global Security Contingency Fund and epitomizes the Whole-of-Government shift. ..."
"... That "flexibility" is exactly what Hillary Clinton instituted at State and touted at the SOFIC conference in 2012. It also portends a long-term shift to less invasive forms of regime change like those in Yemen , Libya , Syria and Ukraine , and an increased mission flexibility that will make the Authorization for the Use of Military Force functionally irrelevant . ..."
"... And because terrorism is a tactic not a political system or a regime the shadowy, State Department-assisted Special Ops industry that fights them will, unlike the sullen enthusiasts of the Cold War , never be bereft of an enemy. ..."
On May 23, 2012, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to the Special Operations Forces
Industry Conference (SOFIC) trade show in Tampa, Florida to share her vision of "smart
power" and to explain the State Department's crucial role in extending the reach and efficacy
of America's growing "international counterterrorism network."
First, there is such a thing as a "Special Operations Forces Industry Conference trade show."
Without some keen reporting by
David Axe of Wired,
that peculiar get-together might've flown completely under the radar much like the shadowy "industry"
it both supports and feeds off of like a sleek, camouflaged lamprey attached to
a taxpayer-fattened
shark.
According to the
SOFIC website, this year's conference afforded attendees "the opportunity to engage with USSOCOM
Program Executive Officers, Science and Technology Managers, Office of Small Business Programs and
Technology & Industry Liaison Office representatives, and other acquisition experts who will identify
top priorities, business opportunities, and interests as they relate to USSOCOM acquisition programs."
Third, Hillary's
widely-ignored
speech marked a radical departure from the widely-held perception that the State Department's
diplomatic mission endures as an institutional alternative to the Pentagon's military planning. Instead,
Secretary Clinton celebrated the transformation of Foggy Bottom into
a full partner with the
Pentagon's ever-widening efforts around the globe, touting both the role of diplomats in paving
the way for shadowy special ops in so-called "hot spots" and the State Department's "hand-in-glove"
coordination with Special Forces in places like
Pakistan and
Yemen.
Finally, with little fanfare or coverage, America's lead diplomat stood before the shadow war
industry and itemized the integration of the State Department's planning and personnel with the Pentagon's
global counter-terrorism campaign which,
she
told the special operations industry, happen "in one form or another in more than 100 countries
around the world."
If this isn't entirely unexpected, consider the fact that under then-Secretaries of State Colin
Powell and Condoleezza Rice, the State Department fought attempts by the Pentagon to trump its authority
around the globe and,
as
reported by Washington Post, "repeatedly blocked Pentagon efforts to send Special Operations
forces into countries surreptitiously and without ambassadors' formal approval."
According to a Congressional
Research Service analysis, the initial intent of the Conflict Bureau was to replace the ineffectual
Office of the Coordinator of Reconstruction and Stabilization, which was created in 2004 to help
manage "stabilization" efforts in two nations the US was actively destabilizing Afghanistan and
Iraq.
But the new, improved bureau does more than just react to messes made by unlawful invasions or
direct costly remediation efforts in war zones it also collaborates with "relevant partners" in
the Department of Defense and NATO "to harmonize civilian and military plans and operations pertaining
to conflict prevention, crisis response, and stabilization."
This integrated relationship between State and Defense was confirmed by US Special Operations
chief Admiral William
McRaven shortly after Hillary's speech. When asked about the "unlikely partnership,"
McRaven assured DefenseNews that SOCOM has "an absolutely magnificent relationship with the State
Department" and that SOCOM doesn't "do anything that isn't absolutely fully coordinated and approved
by the US ambassador and the geographic combatant commander."
As David Axe
aptly described it in Wired, "Together, Special Operations Forces and State's new Conflict Bureau
are the twin arms of an expanding institution for waging small, low-intensity shadow wars all over
the world."
In fact, during Hillary's time as America's chief diplomat, the State Department embraced the
shadowy edge of US foreign policy where decision-makers engage in activities that look like war,
sound like war and, if you were to ask civilians in places like
Yemen and Pakistan,
feel a lot like war, but never quite have to meet the Constitutional requirement of being officially
declared as war.
The Whole-of-Government Shift
Once upon a time, "low-intensity shadow wars" were the
Congressionally-regulated
bailiwick of the Central Intelligence Agency. But 9/11 changed everything. However, the excesses
of the Bush Administration led many to hope that Obama could and would change everything back or,
at least, relax America's tense embrace of "the dark side."
Although the new administration did
officially re-brand "The War on Terror" as "Overseas Contingency Operations," Team Obama employed
an increasingly elastic interpretation of the 9/11-inspired
Authorization for Use of Military Force and expanded covert ops, special ops, drone strikes and
regime change to peoples and places
well-beyond the law's original intent, and certainly beyond the limited scope of CIA covert action.
Obama's growing counter-terrorism campaign involving, as Secretary Clinton said, "more
than 100 countries" took flight with a new, ecumenical approach called the "Whole-of-Government"
strategy.
Advanced by then-Secretary of Defense Bill Gates and quickly adopted by the new administration
in early 2009, this strategy catalyzed an institutional shift toward
interagency cooperation,
particularly in the case of "state-building" (a.k.a. "nation building").
During remarks
to the Brookings Institution in 2010, Secretary Clinton explained the shift: "One of our goals
coming into the administration was to begin to make the case that defense, diplomacy and development
were not separate entities, either in substance or process, but that indeed they had to be viewed
as part of an integrated whole and that the whole of government then had to be enlisted in their
pursuit."
Essentially, the Whole-of-Government approach is a re-branded and expanded version of Pentagon's
doctrine of "Full-Spectrum
Dominance." Coincidentally, that strategy was featured in the Clinton Administration's final
Annual Report to the
President and Congress in 2001. It defined "Full-Spectrum Dominance" as "an ability to conduct
prompt, sustained, and synchronized operations with forces tailored to specific situations and possessing
freedom to operate in all domains space, sea, land, air, and information."
In 2001, Full-Spectrum Dominance referred specifically to 20th Century notions of battlefield-style
conflicts. But the "dark side" of the War on Terror stretched the idea of the battlefield well-beyond
symmetrical military engagements. "Irregular
warfare" became the catchphrase du jour, particularly as grinding campaigns in Afghanistan
and Iraq exposed the reality that the full spectrum still wasn't enough.
An assessment by the Congressional
Research Service identified the primary impetus for the Whole-of-Government "reforms" embraced
by Team Obama as the "perceived deficiencies of previous interagency missions" during the military
campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. Those missions failed to address a myriad of problems created
culturally, economically and politically by the wholesale bombing and occupation of those countries.
The Full-Spectrum was half-baked. Lesson learned.
But the lesson wasn't that the US should avoid intervention, regime change or unleashing nascent
civil, ethnic or religious conflicts. Instead, the lesson was that the "Whole-of-Government" must
be marshaled to fight a worldwide array of Overseas Contingency Operations in "more than 100 countries."
This Whole-of-Government shift signaled a renewed willingness to engage on variety of new fronts
particularly in Africa but in a "fast
and flexible" way. With other agencies like the State Department integrated and, in effect,
fronting the counter-terrorism campaign, the
military footprint becomes smaller and, therefore, easier to manage locally, domestically and
internationally.
In some ways, the Whole-of-Government national security strategy is plausible deniability writ-large
through the cover of interagency integration. By merging harder-to-justify military and covert actions
into a larger, civilian-themed command structure, the impact of the national security policy overseas
is hidden or at least obfuscated by the diplomatic "stabilization" efforts run through the State
Department whether it's the Conflict Bureau working against Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army
in Central Africa, "stabilizing" post-Gaddafi Libya or spending $27 million to organize the opposition
to Bashar al-Assad's Syrian regime.
The Pass Key
The cover of diplomacy has traditionally been an effective way to
slip covert operators into
countries and the State Department's vast network of embassies and consulates still offers an
unparalleled "pass-key" into sovereign nations, emerging hot spots and potential targets for regime
change. In 2001, the
Annual Report to the
President and Congress foresaw the need for more access: "Given the global nature of our interests
and obligations, the United States must maintain the ability to rapidly project power worldwide in
order to achieve full-spectrum dominance."
Having the way "pre-paved" is, based on Hillary's doctrinal shift at State, a key part of the
new, fuller-spectrum, Whole-of-Government, mission-integrated version of diplomacy.
At
the SOFIC's Special Operations Gala Dinner in 2012, Hillary celebrated the integration of diplomatic
personnel and Special Operations military units at the State Department's recently created Center
for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications a "nerve center in Washington" that coordinates "military
and civilian teams around the world" and serves "as a force multiplier for our embassies' communications
efforts."
As with most doors in Washington, that relationship swings both ways and mission-integrated embassies
have served as an effective force multiplier for the Pentagon's full spectrum of activities, particularly
around Africa.
In his 2011 testimony
before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Subcommittee on Africa, Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State for African Affairs Don Yamamoto noted the "significantly expanded the number of DoD personnel
who are integrated into embassies across the continent over the past three years," and read a surprisingly
long laundry list of collaborative efforts between State and the
United States Africa Command (AFRICOM), including:
"reduction of excess and poorly secured man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS); Defense Sector
Reform in Liberia, DRC, and South Sudan; counterpiracy activities off the Somali coast; maritime
safety and security capacity building; and civil-military cooperation."
It seems that "civil-military cooperation" is a primary focus of the State Department in Africa.
Most notably, Yamamoto told Congress that "embassies implement Department of State-funded Foreign
Military Financing (FMF) and International Military Education and Training (IMET) programs, which
further US interests in Africa by helping to professionalize African militaries, while also assisting
our African partners to be more equipped and trained to work toward common security goals."
As the ever-vigilant Nick Turse
recently reported, US presence on the continent
has only grown since that testimony was given in 2011. On TomDispatch.com, Turse identified the
infamous attack on Benghazi on September 11, 2012 as the catalyst for "Operation New Normal" the
continent-wide response to, quite ironically, the political potboiler still simmering around Secretary
Clinton. Whether or not Congressional Republicans
find anything
more than incompetence at the root of Benghazi, the US military certainly finds itself in a "new
normal" of increased activity in response to the forces and the weaponry unleashed by U.S.-led
regime change in Libya.
According to Turse, the US is "now
conducting operations alongside almost every African military in almost every African country
and
averaging more than a mission a day."
Those missions are, of course, integrated with and augmented by the State Department's Conflict
Bureau which has used a variety of state-building programs and its diplomatic "pass key" in places
like Libya,
Nigeria,
Kenya,
South Sudan,
Somalia,
Democratic Republic of the
Congo and six other African nations, all to develop a growing roster of "host
country partners."
Establishing "host country partners" is the nexus where the State Department, its Conflict Bureau
and the AFRICOM meet implementing the Whole-of-Government strategy in emerging or current conflict
zones to fuse a
mounting counter-terrorism campaign with stabilization, modernization and state-building initiatives,
particularly in oil and resource-rich areas like the Niger River Delta, Central Africa and around
AFRICOM's military foothold on the Horn of Africa.
And this is exactly the type of "hand-in-glove" relationship
Secretary
Clinton fostered throughout her tenure at State, leveraging the resources of the department in
a growing list of conflict areas where insurgents, terrorists, al-Qaeda affiliates, suspected militants
or uncooperative regimes threaten to run afoul of so-called "US interests".
Ultimately, it became a hand-in-pocket relationship when Clinton and Defense Secretary Gates
developed the Global Security Contingency
Fund (GSCF) to "incentivize joint planning and to pool the resources of the Departments of State
and Defense, along with the expertise of other departments, to provide security sector assistance
for partner countries so they can address emergent challenges and opportunities important to US national
security."
The
$5 billion Obama wants will dwarf the $250 million pooled into the GSCF and will, the
President said at West Point, "give us flexibility to fulfill different missions including training
security forces in Yemen who have gone on the offensive against al Qaeda; supporting a multinational
force to keep the peace in Somalia; working with European allies to train a functioning security
force and border patrol in Libya; and facilitating French operations in Mali."
That "flexibility" is exactly what Hillary Clinton instituted at State and touted at the SOFIC
conference in 2012. It also portends a long-term shift to less invasive forms of regime change like
those in
Yemen,
Libya,
Syria and
Ukraine, and an increased mission flexibility that will make the Authorization for the Use of
Military Force
functionally irrelevant.
Normalizing the War on Terror
The ultimate outcome of this shift is, to borrow from Nick Turse, yet another "new normal" the
new normalization of the War on Terror. What the adoption of the Whole-of-Government/mission integration
approach has done is to normalize the implementation of the re-branded War on Terror (a.k.a.
Overseas Contingency Operations) across key agencies of the government and masked it, for lack
of the better term, under the rubric of stabilization, development and democracy building.
It is, in effect, the return of a key Cold War policy of "regime support" for clients and "regime
change" for non-client states, particularly in strategically-located areas and resource-rich regions.
Regimes whether or not they actually "reflect
American values" can count on US financial, military and mission-integrated diplomatic support
so long as they can claim to be endangered not by communists, but by terrorists.
And because terrorism is a tactic not a political system or a regime the shadowy, State
Department-assisted Special Ops industry that fights them will, unlike
the sullen enthusiasts of the
Cold War, never be bereft of an enemy.
JP Sottile is a freelance journalist, radio co-host, documentary filmmaker and former broadcast
news producer in Washington, D.C. His weekly show, Inside the Headlines w/ The Newsvandal, co-hosted
by James Moore, airs every Friday on KRUU-FM in Fairfield, Iowa and is
available online.
Visit his website.
"... "In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them. And if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us." ..."
"... Plus there's the psychological advantage of having some country/countries to blame for the lack of US success, or to distract attention away from US problems that need it. ..."
"... I've always thought the US inherited the hatred of Russia from the Brits and the Brits hated Russia at least back as far as the Crimean War in 1853. Not saying this as fact and am happy to get updated. ..."
"... Official Brit hatred of Russia got started right after the Napoleonic Wars. About 4 centuries of Brit hatred of France got transferred, lock, stock, and barrel, to Russia, since Russia then became the most powerful land power in the world. ..."
"... Russia's primary offense is that it has dared to have its own national interests. ..."
"... Today, all those "freedom-loving" people of former USSR, even including all those scores of West Ukrainians who hate Russian guts and Middle Asian "nationalists" flock to Russia "in pursuit of happiness". ..."
"... I am not saying that all those people are bad, but the question I do ask sometimes is this: you hated us, you evicted (sometimes with bloodshed) us, Russians, from your places. You got what you asked for, why then, do you come to Russia in millions (I am not exaggerating, in fact, most likely underestimating)? What happened? Of course, we all know what happened. ..."
"... I read before that Obama was pushing back against this lunacy. Now the HRC-NEOCON camp are in full attack mode. I honestly think I'll be voting for Trump because I feel he can't do all of the things that I would hate for him to do. I KNOW that Hillary would get away with murder. I'm quite serious. ..."
"... "I KNOW that Hillary would get away with murder. I'm quite serious." It has already happened on this watch, see the case of MH-17. ..."
"... The American talking point about the Crimea is a laughable piece of High School Debating Team rhetoric. The people in charge know full well the truth about Ukraine's claim to the Crimea. The thing that hurts is that the whole point of the "Nuland Putsch",and the rise of a western aligned govt., was to provide the crown jewel in Nato's (read America) crown: Eliminating Russia's naval base at Sevastopol completing the encirclement of Russia in the west (except for the always vulnerable Kaliningrad). ..."
"... Once the FreeMarketDemocratic Reformers were removed from power, Russia began to recover. The birth rate started to improve immediately, and Russia's death rate started to decline in 2006. By 2009, the gap between Russia's births and deaths closed sufficiently that immigration could fill it, and so the Russian population was growing. By 2012, births in the Russian Federation exceeded deaths, for the first time since 1991. ..."
"... In the mid-2000s, Putin proposed measures to support families having children. Western politicians and demographers poured scorn on the very idea that Russian demographics might improve. In fact, the U.S. Census Bureau's population projections had Russia's population declining by 500,000/year as recently as 2015. Now Western politicians and demographers are reduced to claiming that "Putin had nuthin' to do with it!" ..."
"... Putin inherited a helpless, bankrupt, dying Russia. ..."
"... Russia, for all the Borg media grandstanding, seems to only be concerned with Russian related interests. There is no indication of greater plan for global domination. They are upgrading and preparing for a future war, sure. Any country would be smart to prepare accordingly to defend itself (and their interests). ..."
"... Russia became the enemy of United States in early 2000's after Putin started cracking down on the oligarchs that had taken over Russia's economy during Yeltsin's privatization efforts. It is estimated that seven individuals were controlling as much as 50% of Russia's economy at its peak during the late 90's: ..."
"... The ruling ideology of the West is the free movement of capital and people together with the dismantling of sovereign states and replacing them with global institutions and corporate trade pacts. Donald Trump's "America First" threatens this so he is subject to full throated attacks by the media and the connected. Vladimir Putin stands in the way of the global hegemony and the return of Russia to the 1990s. Thus, the western hybrid war for a Kremlin regime change. ..."
"... If Clinton takes over for Obama it will only mean continued escalation by the US against any country resisting a unipolar world. There are a lot more than Russia and China resisting US hegemony and that attacks, subtle as they are, continue unabated. If Trump dials that back this can only be a good thing for world peace. The neocons apparently are betting the farm on Hillary. Good, I pray they lose and are cleansed permanently from the US political landscape. Personally, I see a win by Clinton as the end of mankind. ..."
"... I remember the end of Cold War extremely well, when the relations warmed up and the danger of nuclear exchange faded. In Russia, at that time, this was precisely the idea what you described but, as Pat Buchanan wrote several days ago "The inability to adapt was seen when our Cold War adversary extended a hand in friendship, and the War Party slapped it away." ..."
"... In the early 1880s the U.S. government decided to become a global seapower. Hostility towards the world's largest landpower followed, as night follows day. ..."
The Democratic Party convention and the media are full of the assumption that Russia is the enemy
of the United States. What is the basis for that assumption?
Russian support for the Russian ethnic minority in eastern Ukraine? How does that threaten
the United States?
Russian annexation of the Crimea? Khrushchev arbitrarily transferred that part of Russia to
Ukraine during his time as head of the USSR. Khrushchev was a Ukrainian. Russia never accepted
the arbitrary transfer of a territory that had been theirs since the 18th Century. How does this
annexation threaten the United States?
Russia does not want to see Syria crushed by the jihadis and acts accordingly? How does that
threaten the United States?
Russia threatens the NATO states in eastern Europe? Tell me how they actually do that. Is
it by stationing their forces on their side of the border with these countries? Have the Russians
made threatening statements about the NATO states?
Russia has made threatening and hostile statements directed at the United States? When and
where was that?
Russia does not accept the principle of state sovereignty? Really? The United States is on
shaky ground citing that principle. Remember Iraq?
Russian intelligence may have intercepted and collected the DNC's communications (hacked)
as well as HC's stash of illegal e-mails? Possibly true but every country on earth that has the
capability does the same kind of thing every single day. That would include the United States.
The Obama Administration is apparently committed to a pre-emptive assertion that Russia is a world
class committed enemy of the United States. The Borgist media fully support that.
We should all sober up. pl
Valissa
"In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate,
so we will rally behind them. And if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order
to mobilize us."
-- Thich Nhat Hanh
Not to mention the financial advantages to the Military-Industrial-Thinktank complex (I'm including
NATO in this) and all the politicians that benefit from the lobbying monies from that complex.
Plus there's the psychological advantage of having some country/countries to blame for
the lack of US success, or to distract attention away from US problems that need it.
Grizziz -> Ghostship...
I've always thought the US inherited the hatred of Russia from the Brits and the Brits
hated Russia at least back as far as the Crimean War in 1853. Not saying this as fact and am happy
to get updated.
rkka said in reply to Grizziz...
Official Brit hatred of Russia got started right after the Napoleonic Wars. About 4 centuries
of Brit hatred of France got transferred, lock, stock, and barrel, to Russia, since Russia then
became the most powerful land power in the world.
Maritime empires hate, with undying passion, the most powerful land power in the world.
And its a funny thing, the U.S. hatred of Russia dates from the early 1880s, right when the
U.S. began laying down a new steel navy to replace the rotting wooden navy built for the Civil
War, started with the explicit intention of making the U.S. a global power.
Tel said in reply to Valissa...
Quote: "Plus there's the psychological advantage of having some country/countries to blame
for the lack of US success, or to distract attention away from US problems that need it."
Clinton and Obama are busy campaigning that the USA has been completely successful, nothing
is going wrong, everyone has jobs, etc.
I dunno who would believe this, but that's their story and for the time being they are sticking
to it. You have never had it so good.
Dave Schuler
Russia's primary offense is that it has dared to have its own national interests.
SmoothieX12 -> kooshy ...
Today, all those "freedom-loving" people of former USSR, even including all those scores
of West Ukrainians who hate Russian guts and Middle Asian "nationalists" flock to Russia "in pursuit
of happiness".
I am not saying that all those people are bad, but the question I do ask sometimes is this:
you hated us, you evicted (sometimes with bloodshed) us, Russians, from your places. You got what
you asked for, why then, do you come to Russia in millions (I am not exaggerating, in fact, most
likely underestimating)? What happened? Of course, we all know what happened.
NotTimothyGeithner said...
Moscow is large enough to be a mommy figure for a small country with an interest in dealing
with China which doesn't want to be swamped by Beijing's sheer size. Moscow is a threat to U.S.
financial and military domination without firing a shot, engaging in a trade war, or leading a
diplomatic revolt.
The average American doesn't care about a loss of hegemony. We naturally want cooperation and
hippie peace, love, dope. The Western industries with effective monopolies abroad would see immense
profits under threat because the Chinese and Russian competitors would drive prices down in finance,
defense, pharmaceuticals, tech, and so forth. So they are turning to the Goering play book to
keep the Russians out of the world stage. The professional Risk players in the neoconservatives
would see their plans fall apart if the Erdogan-Putin meeting is a positive one.
Also, Putin embarrassed Obama over Syria in 2013 and then was magnanimous. Obama hasn't forgotten
that perceived slight.
SmoothieX12 -> NotTimothyGeithner...
Moscow is large enough to be
A medium-size European country herself. It is also a very peculiar economic entity. I do, however,
have a question on what do you mean by a "mommy for a small country"? No matter how small the
country is, in my understanding, it still will have a fair degree of freedom when building trade
relations with any entity, even of such mammoth size as China.
Cee:
Col. Lang,
I read before that Obama was pushing back against this lunacy. Now the HRC-NEOCON camp
are in full attack mode. I honestly think I'll be voting for Trump because I feel he can't do
all of the things that I would hate for him to do. I KNOW that Hillary would get away with murder.
I'm quite serious.
"I KNOW that Hillary would get away with murder. I'm quite serious." It has already happened
on this watch, see the case of MH-17.
Erik
The American talking point about the Crimea is a laughable piece of High School Debating
Team rhetoric. The people in charge know full well the truth about Ukraine's claim to the Crimea.
The thing that hurts is that the whole point of the "Nuland Putsch",and the rise of a western
aligned govt., was to provide the crown jewel in Nato's (read America) crown: Eliminating Russia's
naval base at Sevastopol completing the encirclement of Russia in the west (except for the always
vulnerable Kaliningrad).
All the rest about Russia's alleged expansionism is similar debating team poppycock.
Looking at the history of empire building and aggressive wars, one is well served to think
in terms of the 3 legged stool of criminology (for aggressive wars are simply, as Jackson said
at Nurnberg, the supreme international crime) and consider means, opportunity, and motive.
We have motive, the Russians do not. The motive in this case is theft, plain and simple. Russia
with its small population and vast real estate holdings is already provided with more resources
than she knows what to do with. We, on the other hand are not, and have not been since at least
the seventies. Russia has its work cut out for it to develop what it owns already and why would
they want to conquer populous resource poor neighbor states?
Not only has Putin snatched away the score of the century by re-asserting Russian control over
Crimea, but he had since 2000 or so been forestalling the western feeding frenzy on the carcass
of the Soviet Union that had Americans creaming their jeans. Re assertion of Russian true sovereignty
was his real offense.
What's so poignant is the long standing western ambition to be able to steal what Russia has.
2 centuries of western aggression against Russia, and all dedicated to theft. Same now, and the
drumbeat of warmongering rhetoric now directed at Russia is hilarious in a dangerous way. We really
are using the Goering argument to drag our unwilling population towards war.
James said...
If I might be permitted to express some thoughts about why Russians feel the way they do about
Putin ...
Median income in Russia increased 260% (in inflation adjusted terms) during the first 10 years
that Putin was in power. That is a staggering increase in people's financial well being. The Economist
and its brethren like to dismiss this achievement as being "solely due to the increased price
of oil" - but if you look at Canada, its oil production per capita was and is equal to that of
Russia yet Canada's median income only increased 9% during the same time period.
I think a good way to get a better sense of how the Russian's feel about Putin is to watch
the Russian film "Bimmer" (if you can get access to a copy with English subtitles):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bimmer_(film)
I took a trip in Africa where our white South African guides favorite catch phrase was "In
Africa, anything is possible." Dystopias are terribly messed up and most people living in them
suffer greatly - but there is something really sexy about them, about the feeling that anything
is possible.
Russia was dystopic like this before Putin came to power - utter anarchy, crime, poverty, worse
corruption than now despite what you hear from the Borg ... but at the same time, anything was
possible. Bimmer depicts the transition from the anarchy of the Yeltsin years to the greater prosperity
and rule of law that Russia now enjoys - while at the same time communicating the fact that many
Russians can't help but feel some nostalgia for the time when anything was possible.
(I visited Russia before, during, and after this transition. I have friends who live there.)
kao_hsien_chih said in reply to James...
The 260% increase in the Russian median income (an important point--the middle Russian became
financial secure under Putin) under Putin's watch underscores the other point: before Putin, Russia
was a total and complete economic wreck. People who saw economic ruin firsthand don't cavalierly
dismiss hard won economic security.
rkka -> Ulenspiegel...
While Russia was being run by FreeMarketDemocratic Reformers, Russians were dying off at the
rate of nearly a million/year.
Once the FreeMarketDemocratic Reformers were removed from power, Russia began to recover.
The birth rate started to improve immediately, and Russia's death rate started to decline in 2006.
By 2009, the gap between Russia's births and deaths closed sufficiently that immigration could
fill it, and so the Russian population was growing. By 2012, births in the Russian Federation
exceeded deaths, for the first time since 1991.
In the mid-2000s, Putin proposed measures to support families having children. Western
politicians and demographers poured scorn on the very idea that Russian demographics might improve.
In fact, the U.S. Census Bureau's population projections had Russia's population declining by
500,000/year as recently as 2015. Now Western politicians and demographers are reduced to claiming
that "Putin had nuthin' to do with it!"
Putin inherited a helpless, bankrupt, dying Russia.
Russia now has a future. That's what Putin did, and he is rightly popular with Russians, Russians
who pine for the days of the drunken incompetent comprador buffoon Yeltsin excepted.
SmoothieX12 -> Ulenspiegel...
Putin is judged by his ability to transform the Russian economy from an exporter of oil, gas
and academics to something more sustainable.
It seems like you are one of those thinkers who thinks that repeating popular BS will create
new reality. FYI, Russia now is #1 exporter of grain in the world. If you didn't catch real news
from Russia, Rosatom's portfolio of contracts exceeds 100 billion USD. Evidently you also missed
the fact that Russia is #2 exporter of many #1 weapon systems in the world, some of which are
beyond the expertise (industrial and scientific) of Europe (I assume you are from that part of
the world). Do you know what it takes and what host of real hi-tech goes into production of a
top fighter jet or modern SSK? Russia is an active and a dominant player at the commercial space
launch business, in fact whole US Atlas program flies on Russian-made RD-180 rocket engines. I
will repeat again, learn facts on the ground, which is relatively easy to do in the world of global
IT. And finally, Russia will never live as well as US or Canada, for starters--there is a colossal
difference in consumer patterns between Russians and North Americans (albeit there are many similarities
too) but there is very little doubt that standard of living in Russia grew tremendously and a
lot of it has very little to do with gas or oil prices. It has, however, a lot to do with retooling
and re-industrialization of the country, which was ongoing since circa 2008. It is a very significant
year. Last, but not least--Russia is huge own consumer market (and then some due to markets of
former USSR) and that is a key. German MTU followed sanctions, well, guess what--it will never
appear again on Russian markets. Thales loved to sell IR matrices to Russia, well, guess what.....you
may fill in the blanks.
SmoothieX12 said in reply to different clue...
In terms of pork and poultry Russia produces 100% of that and, which did surprise me, even
exports turkey. Beef--about 80% covered. Most of what Russia consumes in food stuff is home grown
or made. Exceptions are some luxury food items and things like well-aged cheeses. Russian food
stores can give any best US or European grocery chain a run for their money. Variety is excellent
and most of it affordable. Per salmon, as far as I know it is both farm-raised and wild. What
are the proportions, I don't know. I can, however, testify to the fact that, say, in Troitsky
supermarket you can buy alive strelyad' (sturgeon). ...
SmoothieX12,
This is good to hear. When the "sanction Russia" crowd began embargoing various food-items
being sold to Russia, they unintentionally began without realizing it an economic experiment in
Protectionism. The food embargo against food going into Russia amounts to a kind of Protectionism
for Russian food production within a protectionized and defended Russian market.
If it ends up allowing more monetizable food-as-wealth to be produced withIN Russia, that will
allow all sorts of sectors and people to buy and sell more monetizable non-food goods and non-food
services FROM withIN Russia TO withIN Russia as well. If that allows Russia to become more all-sectors-in-balance
wealthier, that fact would be hard to hide eventually. And various farm-sector advocates in America
could seize upon it and point to it as evidence that Protectionism WORKS to allow a country to
increase its own net production and enjoyment of overall wealth withIN its own borders. And it
might inspire more people to suggest we try it here within America as well. And through the abolition
of NAFTA, allow Mexico to revive Protectionism for its agricultural sector as well. It might allow
for enough broad-based ground-up revival of economic activity withIN Mexico that some of the millions
of NAFTAstinian exiles in America might decide they have a Mexican economy to go back to again.
And some of them might go back.
IF! NAFTA can be abolished and Mexico set free to re-protectionize its own agricultural economy.
Perhaps if enough Mexican political-economic analysts look at events in Russia and see the ongoing
success there, they too might agitate for the abolition of NAFTA and the re-protectionization
of farm-country Mexico.
SmoothieX12 -> different clue...
Protectionism WORKS to allow a country to increase its own net production and enjoyment of
overall wealth withIN its own borders
Free Trade fundamentalism (which is a first derivative of liberalism) is what killing USA and,
I assume, Mexico. Most "academic" so called economists and bankers (monetarists) are clueless
but it is them who set the framework of discussion on economy. It is a long discussion but let
me put it this way--all their "theories" are crap. As for Russia--she is largely self-sustainable
for years now.
kao_hsien_chih -> Ulenspiegel...
That Russia before Putin provides for better explanation of his support than even the 260%.
Yes, Russia is still a relatively poor country, but only a decade before, it was a total and complete
basketcase and people remember that Putin is responsible for putting things back to a semblance
of normalcy.
Daniel Nicolas
In another thread, it was mentioned that countries have no friends, only interests.
Russia, for all the Borg media grandstanding, seems to only be concerned with Russian related
interests. There is no indication of greater plan for global domination. They are upgrading and
preparing for a future war, sure. Any country would be smart to prepare accordingly to defend
itself (and their interests).
Obama's USA has been far too hostile to Russia without apparent cause. A Clinton administration
would likely swing even further. While Russia has openly declared that it not want a new hot war,
they are preparing accordingly because they have no choice but to prepare for the possible future
USA being even more hostile.
The Germans are obviously still sore about it all.
EricB
Russia became the enemy of United States in early 2000's after Putin started cracking down
on the oligarchs that had taken over Russia's economy during Yeltsin's privatization efforts.
It is estimated that seven individuals were controlling as much as 50% of Russia's economy at
its peak during the late 90's:
The ruling ideology of the West is the free movement of capital and people together with
the dismantling of sovereign states and replacing them with global institutions and corporate
trade pacts. Donald Trump's "America First" threatens this so he is subject to full throated attacks
by the media and the connected. Vladimir Putin stands in the way of the global hegemony and the
return of Russia to the 1990s. Thus, the western hybrid war for a Kremlin regime change.
Hillary Clinton is supremely qualified to maintain the status quo. If Donald Trump wins, it
has to be due to the perfidious Russians hacking the election; not Globalism's Losers voting against
their exploitation by the insanely wealthy and the enabling technocrats. Meanwhile, the "War of
Russian Aggression" heats up, Turkey turns Islamist and the EU splinters due to the war refugees
and austerity.
Old Microbiologist -> Bill Herschel...
Bill,
I am with you all the way. It, of course, goes much further. There are ongoing US-manufactured
destabilization events unfolding all around Russia. Then you have the economic attacks via sanctions
and trade which have arguably crippled Russia. On top of that you have these insipid attacks via
things like SWIFT bank transfers, IMF, World Bank and idiocy such as attempting to ban the entire
Russian Olympic team from the Olympics. Russia senses these attacks on all fronts and was unfortunately
caught early being unprepared. During the Soviet Union Russia was 100% self sufficient but as
mentioned in other comments under Yeltsin's "privatization" programs an awful lot of that industry
was sold or closed. Now Russia has had to start from scratch replacements for things not available
in Russia and yet still has a budget surplus (unlike the US with a near $20 trillion deficit).
They have created alternates to SWIFT, VISA/Mastercard, the IMF and even the G8.
The Crimea debacle was a clear attempt to kick Russia out of their base in Sevastopol which
was brilliantly countered. However, the cost has been enormous. Little commented on is that Ukraine
under US leadership has cut off water, gas, and electricity to the peninsula and blocked all traffic
to the mainland. Russia is nearing the completion of the bridge to Crimea from Russia and water/power
are already being delivered. This is a huge effort which shows the dedication to their control
of Crimea.
Then they have undertaken to directly thwart the anti-Assad US-led coalition in Syria and have
hoisted the US on its own petard. It hasn't been easy nor cheap and all of this has been happening
simultaneously. On top of all of this we have buildups on the Russian borders so Putin also has
to upgrade his military to counter any potential EU/NATO/US invasion of Russia. The aggression
has all been one sided but delusional citizens in the US see our aggression as defensive as bizarre
as that is. Outside the US people see US aggression for what it is and are not fooled into believing
that we are trying to help anyone except the rich plutocrats. The immigrant invasion of Europe
is seen as a US caused problem for these continuous insane wars that never end nor apparently
have any actual purpose.
If Clinton takes over for Obama it will only mean continued escalation by the US against
any country resisting a unipolar world. There are a lot more than Russia and China resisting US
hegemony and that attacks, subtle as they are, continue unabated. If Trump dials that back this
can only be a good thing for world peace. The neocons apparently are betting the farm on Hillary.
Good, I pray they lose and are cleansed permanently from the US political landscape. Personally,
I see a win by Clinton as the end of mankind.
Peter Reichard said...
Have always thought Russians and Americans were more like each other than either of us were
like Europeans. Both a little crude, crazy, traditionally religious and musical with big countries
created from an expanding frontier and thinking big in terms of infrastructure and vehicles. We
ought to be natural allies as we were in the nineteenth century in opposition to the British Empire
and again in World War 2. Russia, a land power in the heart of the world island in balance with
the US, an ocean power on the other side of the planet with mutual respect could create a stable
multi-polar world.
SmoothieX12 -> Peter Reichard...
That is generally true. There are a lot of similarities. And I remember the end of Cold
War extremely well, when the relations warmed up and the danger of nuclear exchange faded. In
Russia, at that time, this was precisely the idea what you described but, as Pat Buchanan wrote
several days ago "The inability to adapt was seen when our Cold War adversary extended a hand
in friendship, and the War Party slapped it away."
kao_hsien_chih -> SmoothieX12...
In mid-19th century, Russia was extremely friendly to United States, where many remained deeply
suspicious of the British Empire. Somehow, by the end of 19th century, United States became peculiarly
fond of the British Empire and inexplicably hostile to Russia--Mahan was both an Anglophile and
Russophobe, as I understand, and his sentiments shows up in his ideas, or so I've heard. (I imagine
SmoothieX12, as an ex Soviet navy man, is far more familiar with this than I ever could). How
did that happen?
rkka -> kao_hsien_chih...
"How did that happen?"
In the early 1880s the U.S. government decided to become a global seapower. Hostility towards
the world's largest landpower followed, as night follows day.
"... Westen is a Democrat and he basically wrote this book to try and help Democrats win more presidential election, though the research portion in the beginning of the book shows how people in both parties are biased in their interpretation of political events based on their political party allegiance. ..."
"... Then a year or two later he wrote some follow up articles whining and complaining about how disappointed he was in Obama not being much different from Bush, etc, etc ..."
"... The fact that Mr. Western could wake up to Obama's basic Bushness in only one or two years means that Mr. Western had a freer mind than most Obama supporters. ..."
"... Good find. Yes and yes. They never stop manipulating. Now the MSM will finally have to admit that the machines are compromised ONLY when it serves the interests of th few. ..."
Two "liberal" IT luminaries today pick up the (totally unproven) assertion that Russia hacked
and published via wikileaks the DNC shennigens of preferring Clinton.
The used this to (preemptively) accuse Russia of manipulating the U.S. election via voting
computers on November 9.
I think this is a sign that both Schneier and Doctorow are democrats who fear Trump. Tribal allegiance
exerts a very powerful, and irrational, force on the so-called rational mind.
Warning, Westen is a Democrat and he basically wrote this book to try and help Democrats
win more presidential election, though the research portion in the beginning of the book shows
how people in both parties are biased in their interpretation of political events based on their
political party allegiance.
When Obama first ran in 2007-2008, Westen had clearly been drinking the glorious pro-Obama
koolaid as was evident in some HuffPo articles he wrote at the time.
Then a year or two later he wrote some follow up articles whining and complaining about
how disappointed he was in Obama not being much different from Bush, etc, etc.
Clearly this man was so caught up in his tribal allegiance he couldn't recognize the very biases
his research showed. Btw, he is still a consultant to the Democrats... attempting to be the Frank
Luntz of the left.
The fact that Mr. Western could wake up to Obama's basic Bushness in only one or two years
means that Mr. Western had a freer mind than most Obama supporters.
Good find. Yes and yes. They never stop manipulating. Now the MSM will finally have to
admit that the machines are compromised ONLY when it serves the interests of th few.
"... This is how these fucks build their cases, it's just like the massive disinformation about everything Ukraine. If you pick it apart and study each case of a "fake" or whatever, most (if not all) of it suddenly seems less insidious and more sensible, in the light of medias being medias, people being people, bad translations being bad translations and what not. Heck, a lot of the "fakes" are actually fakes by the alleged fake-spottters. Anyway, that's why the tsunami approach is being used, just a torrent of stuff that nobody will bother picking apart as you have no choice but to submit to the sheer volume of it. ..."
"... Or take the Sochi Olympics. Total tsunami there as well, by the time false assertion #1 had been debunked by some brave soul there were 300 other assertions stacked on top. Or anything Russia in general, it doesn't matter, it's the same crap all over. ..."
"... Oh, and one last observation. The Russia disinformation tsunami approach reminds me of something very similar, namely tin foil hats peddling alien conspiracies and so on. They typically set out with their minds made up and then present "evidence" A, B, C. Once these have been debunked, they go "fine, but what about D, E, F" all the way to Z. Once that's been exhausted they jump all the way back to A, B, C as if nothing's happened at all, though this way around they typically attempt to overwhelm by referencing D-Z from the get go. Good god, it's depressing. ..."
I've been finding a lot of these things being forwarded on Twitter etc:
I find it rather amazing, actually. Russian media is being accused of "fakes" and "lies" when
the reality is that they're almost always quoting Western media in verbatim on all these things.
In this particular case, Swedish media reported a "powerful explosion, possibly several",
and "a man holding a gun-like object" and "police has been called to the scene" and so on. Yep, that
they did. Since it was in the central parts of the capital and all these things gave the impression
something big could be brewing, international media quickly went nuts with it as well:
The Russians followed suit, naturally. Now, soon thereafter it turned out to be a case of overblown
hysteria and the story quickly died out following that, with all media issuing retractions, including
Russian dito.
But, quelle surprise it's obviously yet another "Russia fake".
This is how these fucks build their cases, it's just like the massive disinformation about everything
Ukraine. If you pick it apart and study each case of a "fake" or whatever, most (if not all) of it
suddenly seems less insidious and more sensible, in the light of medias being medias, people being
people, bad translations being bad translations and what not. Heck, a lot of the "fakes" are actually
fakes by the alleged fake-spottters. Anyway, that's why the tsunami approach is being used,
just a torrent of stuff that nobody will bother picking apart as you have no choice but to submit
to the sheer volume of it.
Or take the Sochi Olympics. Total tsunami there as well, by the time false assertion #1 had been
debunked by some brave soul there were 300 other assertions stacked on top. Or anything Russia
in general, it doesn't matter, it's the same crap all over.
Also, regarding the above "Russia fake" just to further prove what bullshit this is, this is
what Sweden's most-read news site wrote at the time it had just occurred: http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article21715154.ab
" A powerful detonation was heard on Sφdermalm in Stockholm at lunch time.
Police arrived on site with several patrols and the street was cordoned off.
We don't know what has happened , says Albin Nδverberg of the Stockholm police.
The blast, that witnesses describe as being powerful , was heard at 11:40 AM near
Brδnnkyrkagatan on Sφdermalm. The street was cordoned off. A large police force was called to
the site. Rescue services were there as well."
"Rescue services" meaning firefighters and/or paramedics. Clearly everybody thought some shit
had gone down and there were multiple emergency vehicles, cordons and so on.
Oh, and one last observation. The Russia disinformation tsunami approach reminds me of something
very similar, namely tin foil hats peddling alien conspiracies and so on. They typically set out
with their minds made up and then present "evidence" A, B, C. Once these have been debunked, they
go "fine, but what about D, E, F" all the way to Z. Once that's been exhausted they jump all the
way back to A, B, C as if nothing's happened at all, though this way around they typically attempt
to overwhelm by referencing D-Z from the get go. Good god, it's depressing.
(Washington, DC 7/25) As I was idly wondering what Vladimir Putin would say about the DNC
email scandals, I received a call from Vladimir Putin himself. He said he wanted to talk about
the Wikileaks release of DNC emails. When I asked why he picked me to contact, he said "I
probably strarted at the wrong end of the list" and laughed heartily.
MC:
President Putin, did the Russian government hack the DNC email server and then publically
release those emails through Wikileaks the day before the Democratic convention?
Putin:
Yes.
MC:
Yes! Are you serious?
Putin
: I'm quite serious.
MC:
How can you justify this open meddling in United States politics?
Putin:
Your question should be what took Russia so long. The US oligarchs and their minions
surround us with military bases and nuclear missiles, damage our trade to Europe, and seek to
destabilize our domestic politics. These emails are nothing in the big picture. But they're sort
of funny, don't you agree?
MC:
I'm not sure that funny is the right word. What do you mean by that?
Putin:
You've got Hillary Clinton running as a strong and independent woman. Of course,
nobody would know who she is had she not married Bill Clinton. She's not independent. Quite the
contrary. She had to marry a philandering redneck to get to where she is. When it comes to
strength, I can say only this. How strong can you be if you have to cheat and create a rigged
game to win the nomination?
MC:
Anything else about your leak to cheer us up?
Putin:
This situation is the epitome of ironic humor. After the emails were released, the
focus was all on DNC Chair and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. That's fine for now but
what happens when people start asking why Wasserman-Schultz had the DNC screw Sanders and boost
Hillary? Did she just wake up one day and decide this on her own?. Not likely. She was and
remains Hillary's agent. It will take people a while to arrive that answer. When enough people
hear about Wasserman-Schultz's key role in the Clinton campaign, everything will be clear. It's
adios Hillary. That inevitable conclusion, by the way, is the reason the DNC made such a big deal
about Russia hacking the DNC. That was diversion one right out of the gate.
MC:
Is Russia an equal opportunity hacker? What about the Trump campaign?
Putin:
Why not? I hear there are some very rather graphic home movies and videos of Mr. Trump
with some interesting playmates. But that can wait. Enjoy Hillary's hypocrisy to the fullest.
When it comes to either candidate, my only advice is
let the buyer beware
.
That was it for my time with the man. I'd like to think it was Putin. Even if it wasn't, this
is what I suspect Putin would say.
Why those unknown forces (probably a disgruntled insider) leaked this bombshell so late. At this
point it does not affect Sanders chances to beat Hillary.
Notable quotes:
"... "The same people on the Clinton team who made enormous efforts to claim her private email server-which operated unencrypted over the Internet for three months, including during trips to China and Russia, and which contained top-secret national-security data-was not hacked by the Russians now are certain that the DNC server was hacked by the Russians" http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/unpacking-the-dnc-emails/ ..."
"... The British government has learned that Vladimir Putin recently sought significant quantities of malware from Africa. ..."
"... Well, golly, if you're going to create a bright, shiny object to distract people from the actual content of the e-mails, why not blame little green men from Mars? I mean, seriously, isn't what this is all about deflecting away from what the DNC was up to, so as to keep as much of it as possible from further tarnishing the already-clouded view of both the process and the major candidate whom it benefited? ..."
"... And in addition to this little bit of obviousness, how can it possible have escaped anyone with a functioning brain that this escalating hysteria about the DNC hack was noticeably absent with respect to Clinton's own email operation? ..."
"... I also find it deeply and almost-hilariously ironic that we're all supposed to be livid at the idea of some foreign government trying to manipulate the US elections when not only is the Democratic Party's flagship organization flagrantly engaged in trying to manipulate the outcome, but the AMERICAN MEDIA wouldn't know what to do with itself if it wasn't constantly fking around with the entire process. ..."
"... Looks like another false flag propaganda ploy. The Obama Admin flares up with phony indignation and immediately swears there will be more sanctions. The FBI wants to prosecute ( or is it persecute) the messenger instead of investigating the real crimes. The e-mails and their contents are real. The noise is to cover up this fact! ..."
"... The CNN poll in yesterday's Links shows Trump beats Hillary by huge margins (12 points) on the economy and terrorism. She beats him on foreign policy (and nothing else). Dragging in Russian hackers and foreign intelligence services plays to her strength. ..."
"... In reality, politically motivated attacks like this are almost always domestic in origin. To go to Wikileaks specifically I expect an inside whistleblower is responsible. The same thing happened to Sony and the Swiss banks. Elites simply don't understand how many people they work with are disgusted by their policies. To them this is a perfectly believable thing. ..."
"... It reminds me very much of the French Fries to Freedom Fries movement. If you have a critical mass of people in on the fun, it can work, at least for a time. But what happens when most people don't care about being excommunicated from the DNC Serious People List? ..."
"... Obvious clues pointing back at a known adversary strategically-timed leaks from anonymous intelligence sources vague statements on the record from the President and other high-level officials stories fed to sympathetic media outlets yep, sounds a lot like the playbook used by the Bush White House for the run-up to the Iraq War. Except there's no way that the Democrats would ever ..."
"... No matter who is responsible for the hack, I'm just glad that the information about the DNC corruption is out in the open. I'm disappointed that this didn't happen before June 7, when California, New Jersey, and several other states had their primaries. Better late than never, I guess. ..."
"... why hadn't our press revealed this? ..."
"... It's now so routine to spin-doctor aggressively that the elites have lost any sense of whether what they are saying is credible or not. ..."
"... I thought Trump's comments today about wanting the Russians to find Hillary's emails were genius. He fans the flames of this whole Russia-Putin thing on day 3 of the Dem convention and what are the media outlets talking about? Plus, Hillary's campaign, in it's rebuttal to Trump, is indirectly reminding everyone that her homebrew server was putting national security at risk. ..."
Washington's Blog asked the highest-level NSA whistleblower in history, William Binney the NSA
executive who created the agency's mass surveillance program for digital information, who served
as the senior technical director within the agency, who managed six thousand NSA employees, the 36-year
NSA veteran widely regarded as a "legend" within the agency and the NSA's best-ever analyst and code-breaker,
who mapped out the Soviet command-and-control structure before anyone else knew how, and so predicted
Soviet invasions before they happened ("in the 1970s, he decrypted the Soviet Union's command system,
which provided the US and its allies with real-time surveillance of all Soviet troop movements and
Russian atomic weapons") what he thinks of such claims:
Edward Snowden says the NSA could easily determine who hacked Hillary Clinton's emails:
Evidence that could publicly attribute responsibility for the DNC hack certainly exists
at #NSA , but DNI traditionally
objects to sharing.
The mainstream media is also trumpeting the meme that Russia was behind the hack, because it
wants to help Trump get elected. In other words, the media is trying to deflect how damaging the
email leaks are to Clinton's character by trying to somehow associate Trump with Putin. See e.g.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/us/politics/kremlin-donald-trump-vladimir-putin.html
Who's right?
Binney responded:
Snowden is right and the MSM is clueless. Here's what I said to Ray McGovern and VIPS with
a little humor at the end. [McGovern is a 27-year CIA veteran, who chaired National Intelligence
Estimates and personally delivered intelligence briefings to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George
H.W. Bush, their Vice Presidents, Secretaries of State, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many other
senior government officials. McGovern is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity ("VIPS" for short).]
Ray, I am suspicious that they may have looked for known hacking code (used by Russians). And,
I'm sure they were one probably of many to hack her stuff. But, does that mean that they checked
to see if others also hacked in?
Further, do they have evidence that the Russians downloaded and later forwarded those emails
to wikileaks? Seems to me that they need to answer those questions to be sure that their assertion
is correct. Otherwise, HRC and her political activities are and I am sure have been prime targets
for the Russians (as well as many others) but without intent of course.
I would add that we proposed to do a program that would monitor all activity on the world-wide
NSA network back in 1991/92. We called it "Wellgrounded." NSA did not want anyone (especially
congress) to know what was going on inside NSA and therefore rejected that proposal. I have not
read what Ed has said, but, I do know that every line of code that goes across the network is
logged in the network log. This is where a little software could scan, analyze and find the intruders
initially and then compile all the code sent by them to determine the type of attack. This is
what we wanted to do back in 1991/92.
The newest allegation tying the Clinton email hack to Russia seems to be
all innuendo .
Binney explained to us:
My problem is that they have not listed intruders or attempted intrusions to the DNC site.
I suspect that's because they did a quick and dirty look for known attacks.
Of course, this brings up another question; if it's a know attack, why did the DNC not have
software to stop it? You can tell from the network log who is going into a site. I used that on
networks that I had. I looked to see who came into my LAN, where they went, how long they stayed
and what they did while in my network.
Further, if you needed to, you could trace back approaches through other servers etc. Trace
Route and Trace Watch are good examples of monitoring software that help do these things. Others
of course exist probably the best are in NSA/GCHQ and the other Five Eyes countries. But, these
countries have no monopoly on smart people that could do similar detection software.
Question is do they want to fix the problems with existing protection software. If the DNC
and OPM are examples, then obviously, they don't care to fix weakness probably because the want
to use these weaknesses to their own advantage.
Why is this newsworthy?
Well, the mainstream narrative alleges that the Clinton emails are not important and that it's
a conspiracy between Putin and Trump to make sure Trump and not Clinton is elected.
But there are other issues, as well
For example, an allegation of hacking could
literally lead to
war .
So we should be skeptical of such serious and potentially far-reaching allegations which may
be true or may be false unless and until they are proven .
Yup, as a former server admin it is patently absurd to attribute a hack to anyone in particular
until a substantial amount of forensic work has been done. (read, poring over multiple internal
log files gathering yet more log files of yet more internal devices, poring over them, then
once the request hops out of your org requesting logfiles from remote entities, poring over
*those* log files, requesting further log files from yet more upstream entities, wash rinse repeat
ad infinitum)
For example, at its simplest, I would expect a middling-competency hacker to find an open wifi
hub across town to connect to, then VPN to server in, say, Tonga, then VPN from there to another
box in Sweden, then connect to a PC previously compromised in Iowa, then VPN to yet another anonymous
cloud server in Latvia, and (assuming the mountain dew is running low, gotta get cracking) then
RDP to the target server and grab as many docs as possible. RAR those up and encrypt them, FTP
them to a compromised media server in South Korea, email them from there to someones gmail account
previously hacked, xfer them to a P2P file sharing app, and then finally access them later from
a completely different set of servers.
In many cases where I did this sort of analysis I still ended up with a complete dead end:
some sysadmins at remote companies or orgs would be sympathetic and give me actual related log
files. Others would be sympathetic but would not give files, and instead do their own analysis
to give me tips. Many never responded, and most IPs ended up at unknown (compromised) personal
PCs, or devices where the owner could not be found anyway.
If the hacker was sloppy and left other types of circumstantial evidence you might get lucky
but that demographic mostly points back to script kiddies and/or criminal dweebs i.e., rather
then just surreptitiously exfiltrating the goods they instead left messages or altered things
that seemed to indicate their own backgrounds or prejudices, or left a message that was more easily
'traced'. If, of course, you took that evidence at face value and it was not itself an attempt
at obfuscation.
Short of a state actor such as an NSA who captures it ALL anyway, and/or can access any log
files at any public or private network at its own whim its completely silly to attribute a hack
to anyone at this point.
So, I guess I am reduced to LOL OMG WTF its fer the LULZ!!!!!
hah, well I had a nice long answer but cloudflare blocked me. heh apparently it doesnt like
certain words one uses when describing this stuff. Understandable!
I guess try looking up 'phishing' and 'privilege elevation' on wikipedia. Former is easiest,
latter gives you street cred.
Just to clarify on the " If the hacker was sloppy and left other types of circumstantial evidence "
this is basically what I have seen reported as 'evidence' pointing to Russia: the Cyrillic keyboard
signature, the 'appeared to cease work on Russian holidays' stuff, and the association with 'known
Russian hacking groups'.
Thats great and all, but in past work I am sure my own 'research' could easily have gotten
me 'associated' with known hacking groups. Presumably various 'sophisticated' methods and tools
get you closer to possible suspects but that kind of stuff is cycled and recycled throughout the
community worldwide as soon as anything like that is known and published, any reasonably competent
hacker (or org of hackers) is learning how to do the same thing and incorporating such things
into their own methods. (imitation being the sincerest form of flattery)
I guess I have a lot more respect for the kinds of people I expect to be getting a paycheck
from foreign Intelligence agencies then to believe that they would leave such obvious clues behind
'accidentally'. But if we are going to be starting wars over this stuff w/Russia, or China, I
guess I would hope the adults in the room don't go all apesh*t and start chanting COMMIES, THE
RUSSIANS ARE COMING!, etc. before the ink is dry on the 'crime'.
Even then, I fail to see why this person (foreign, domestic, professional, amateur, state-sponsored,
or otherwise) hasn't done us a great service by exposing the DNC corruption in the first place.
Hell, I would love to give them the Medal of Freedom for this and (hopefully) the next boot to
drop! :)
There is a problem with those who argue that these are sophisticated Nation State attackers
and then point to the most basic circumstantial evidence to support their case. I'd bet that,
among others, the Israelis have hacked some Russian servers to launch attacks from and have some
of their workers on a Russian holiday schedule. Those things have been written about in attack
analysis so much over the last 15-20 years that they'd be stupid not to.
Now, I'm not saying the Israelis did it. I'm saying that the evidence provided so far by those
arguing it is Russia is so flaky as to prove that the Russia accusers are blinded
or corrupted by their own political agenda.
Oh, "they" just use the system management features baked right into the embedded computers
either the ones inside the "secure server" itself or (much more convenient and easy to do), they
attack the cheap-ish COTS lapdog that the support techie will be using to access the "secure server"
with:
if there's a non-NSA evidence the attacks originated from Russia, then someone wanted the
world to know it was from Russia (or was just a private snoop).
even if there was a technical evidence that the attack originated from Russia, unless it
could be tied very specifically to an institution (as opposed to a "PC in Russia"), it does not
prove that it was Russia. All it proves that someone using a computer in Russia initiated it.
Well phooey. My theory now goes up in smoke: Here we can clearly see an attempt at disinformation
from a Russian Operative, likely FSB possibly from Putin's inner circle.
We know this through 2 things:
A.) The name, 'Vlad' inequivocally a Russian given name, and not a common one at that.
B.) Note the slightly wrong grammar: " a non-NSA evidence " & "..was a technical evidence".
Clearly not a native English speaker.
See how easy that was? Yves, no need for log files to track IP here case closed. In Soviet
Russia, crow eats me.
Anyone gots some nuke launch codes handy? 00000000 doesn't work for me anymore
The recently murdered DNC Date Director Seth Rich being the leaker, or at least knowing who
the leaker was, as was hinted at recently by Julian Assange himself, makes a far more interesting
conspiracy theory.
Ten days after the murder of promising Democratic staffer Seth Rich, the Washington D.C.
slaying remains unsolved and police say they have no suspects in the crime.
Rich, a Jewish data analyst for the Democratic National Committee who worked on polling
station expansion, was shot and killed as he walked home on Sunday, July 10.
Police told Rich's parents that they believed his death was the result of a botched robbery.
Though Rich's killer did not take his wallet or phone, D.C. Police Commander William Fitzgerald
said that "there is no other reason (other than robbery) for an altercation at 4:30 in the
morning" at a community meeting on Monday.
The meeting was meant to address the recent uptick in robberies in the Bloomingdale neighborhood
near Howard University. Police reports say robberies in the area are down 20%, but an investigation
by the Washington Post found that armed robberies are actually up over 20% compared
with July 2015.
Of course there is absolutely no proof of Seth Rich's involvement, but I suppose it is a reasonable
surmise, as George Will recently said about the Russia allegations! In any case a possible crypto-BernieBro
tech-guy mole from within the DNC, as the source of the DNCLeaks, would make a much better made-for-TV
movie than the Russian theory. And if it was an internal mole, what better way to cover their
tracks than to leave some "traces" of a Russian hack.
Its one thing for Republicans to resort to the old chestnut of red scare mongering, but for
the Democrats to use the same ammo they once had lobed at them is surreal .
"The same people on the Clinton team who made enormous efforts to claim her private email
server-which operated unencrypted over the Internet for three months, including during trips to
China and Russia, and which contained top-secret national-security data-was not hacked by the
Russians now are certain that the DNC server was hacked by the Russians"
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/unpacking-the-dnc-emails/
Well, golly, if you're going to create a bright, shiny object to distract people from the
actual content of the e-mails, why not blame little green men from Mars? I mean, seriously, isn't
what this is all about deflecting away from what the DNC was up to, so as to keep as much of
it as possible from further tarnishing the already-clouded view of both the process and the major
candidate whom it benefited?
And in addition to this little bit of obviousness, how can it possible have escaped
anyone with a functioning brain that this escalating hysteria about the DNC hack was noticeably
absent with respect to Clinton's own email operation?
I also find it deeply and almost-hilariously ironic that we're all supposed to be livid
at the idea of some foreign government trying to manipulate the US elections when not only is
the Democratic Party's flagship organization flagrantly engaged in trying to manipulate the outcome,
but the AMERICAN MEDIA wouldn't know what to do with itself if it wasn't constantly fking around
with the entire process.
I'm not sure we're ever coming out of this rabbit-hole-to-hell.
Looks like another false flag propaganda ploy. The Obama Admin flares up with phony indignation
and immediately swears there will be more sanctions. The FBI wants to prosecute ( or is it persecute)
the messenger instead of investigating the real crimes. The e-mails and their contents are real.
The noise is to cover up this fact!
"Why play the Russian/Putin/Trump card with the DNC email hack?" An excellent question for
which you have provided a logical potential answer. Beyond that, this generally seems like an
act of desperation. I am nowhere near an expert on the details of hacking like the two who have
commented above, but what I see is a desperate attempt to capture the "stupid" vote. The whole
Democrat dog and pony show being put on now only serves to make those who will vote for Hillary
no matter what, feel self satisfied that they are right minded. What matters though is how they
connect with those not inclined to vote for her. In their logic it follows that the HIllary crowd
basically believes that anyone who would consider voting for Trump is very stupid, and this is
a desperate attempt to convince the "stupid's" to vote for Hillary. I have no idea how Trump will
act if he is elected President, but the critical factor for me is that there is now overwhelming
evidence that the entire Democrat establishment is just like Hillary (as made clear by Mr. Comey):
They are either grossly negligent and incompetent, or criminals who are not being prosecuted.
Anyone but her and her merry band of thieves will leave us all better off after November.
The association the Dems want to create is "scary foreign people support Trump".
The CNN poll in yesterday's Links shows Trump beats Hillary by huge margins (12 points)
on the economy and terrorism. She beats him on foreign policy (and nothing else). Dragging in
Russian hackers and foreign intelligence services plays to her strength.
In reality, politically motivated attacks like this are almost always domestic in origin.
To go to Wikileaks specifically I expect an inside whistleblower is responsible. The same thing
happened to Sony and the Swiss banks. Elites simply don't understand how many people they work
with are disgusted by their policies. To them this is a perfectly believable thing.
I also wonder whether there are significant numbers of Poles and Eastern Europeans generally
in the industrial precincts in some swing states; a vote against Russia in the form of a vote
against Trump might appeal to them.
I doubt it's that strategiclooks more like classic red-baiting (minus any communism but saying
"Russia" still evokes the same emotional response for people of a certain age) of the sort a former
Goldwater girl like Hillary would understand all too well.
Linking the hack and delivery of DNC emails to WIkiLeaks by Putin as a way of helping Trump
may strategically backfire.
Agreed. There are so many moving parts at this point the blowback looks to happen more rapidly
than they can manage perception, especially with things online. They spent so much time segmenting
and dismissing the various developments as disparate conspiracy theories, and now in one fell
swoop they've both legitimized critiques and connected them together (they run the risk that even
criticism that isn't true will still stick more than it otherwise would have). I'm not sure they
fully realize what they've done yet. It's a simple equation to them: Wikileaks = Bad. Russia =
Bad. Wikileaks + Russia = DoubleBad.
It reminds me very much of the French Fries to Freedom Fries movement. If you have a critical
mass of people in on the fun, it can work, at least for a time. But what happens when most people
don't care about being excommunicated from the DNC Serious People List?
Obvious clues pointing back at a known adversary strategically-timed leaks from anonymous
intelligence sources vague statements on the record from the President and other high-level officials stories
fed to sympathetic media outlets yep, sounds a lot like the playbook used by the Bush White House
for the run-up to the Iraq War. Except there's no way that the Democrats would ever do
something so shady.
Admin feeds story to crony media > media report story as if independently sourced > admin
then uses those reports to corroborate its own claims
It's not like they can reasonably deny anymore that they do this. The DNC leak provides hard
evidence. So plant your stories now, before there's a run!
Hey why fix our cybersecurity problems when we can just bomb Russia instead? To a hammer with
bombs everything looks like a nail.
Perhaps the biggest tell regarding our clueless, and mostly geriatric, establishment is their
superstitious misunderstanding of modern technology. Every toddler these days probably knows that
you don't put controversial material in emails or on cellphones unless you are willing to take
the kind of precautions Snowden talks about. The notion of ginning up an international conflict
over hacking is like Hollywood's idea of five years in jail for stealing one of Meryl Streep's
movies. The punishment doesn't fit the crime.
Plus of course there's the immense irony of the US, home of the NSA, getting huffy about other
countries doing the same thing. As always with out elites it's "do as we say, not as we do."
No matter who is responsible for the hack, I'm just glad that the information about the
DNC corruption is out in the open. I'm disappointed that this didn't happen before June 7, when
California, New Jersey, and several other states had their primaries. Better late than never,
I guess.
1. Before the evidence comes out: "The DNC is secretly sabotaging Sanders? Laughable conspiracy
theory!"
2. After the evidence comes out: "There's nothing new here, everyone knew this was happening,
it made no difference anyway! Sore loser."
Was flipping through 'convention' last night and happened upon Bernie's face as they try to
thank/bury him. It was the look of resignation to corruption, like Mr. Smith's just before Claude
Rains goes extra-Hollywood, tries to off himself, then says 'Arrest me', etc.
Bernie, you should have just run against both of them, damn the torpedoes.
It doesn't matter if Russia hacked it or someone else. The really important issue this brings
up is why hadn't our press revealed this? Why do we need to here about this from outsiders? And
why, now that it has been released, do they spend the bulk of their time speculating on the source
and not the content? Me thinks it's because our corporate main stream media, that merely masquerades
as a press entity, was complicit.
I think the leaked emails establish that the DNC was working closely with the 'press'. Anyone
who watched CNN during the primary season would not be surprised at the revelation that the 'press'
was complicit in the coronation of Hillary.
The DNCLeaks showed that the DNC (aka the Clinton Machine) was heavily influencing,
if not totally controlling, much of the mass media, using it to smear HRC's rivals and to
whitewash her crimes.
This fascist totalitarian control of the mass media by the DNC/Clinton campaign
has been exposed but that doesn't mean it has stopped! It hasn't. Ergo, one
will see minimal to no coverage, or whitewashing or diversionary coverage.
Why isn't it just as grave a concern that the primary contest of one of the 2 major political
parties was rigged to favor one candidate? Heck, people worried more about deflategate.
an aside: "A separate story pointed out that Trump's primary banking relationships are with
mid-sized players, and that makes sense too. He's be a third-tier account at a too-big-to-fail
banks (see here on how a much richer billionaire was abused by JP Morgan). Trump would get much
better service at a smaller institution. "
From what I've read at NC I think everyone would get much better service at a smaller
bank than at a TBTF.
"I joked early on that in the Obama administration that its solution to every problem was
better propaganda. What is troubling is how so many other players have emulated that strategy.
It's now so routine to spin-doctor aggressively that the elites have lost any sense of
whether what they are saying is credible or not. And as a skeptical consumer of media,
I find it uncomfortable to be living in an informational hall of mirrors."
It's no coincidence that trust in institutions is at an all-time low.
Eroded public trust translates to crappy, Banana Republic economies - and politics so venal that
it requires constant deceit to (mal)function.
On the upside, the dwindling credibility of institutions is providing opportunities for outlets
like The Young Turks (via YouTube), which take a lot of time unpacking propaganda and looking
for alternative perspectives. Ditto 'The Real News Network' (RNN). And ditto NC.
When I hear the "reporters" and "newscasters" on our American MSM speak, it reminds me of something
Wolfgang Leonhard taught: "Pravda lies in such a a way that not even the opposite of what they
say is true."
Huh. It is clear and irrefutable that the NSA (ie, the USA) has hacked Germany, France, Britain,
Japan, etc, etc, etc, etc. So since hacking is an "act of war" we are now at war with our allies.
Yes?
Or does a war-worthy hack HAVE to originate in Russia (or China) to be an "act of war"? If
the USA is doing it it's an act of peacylove?
If the issue is the hack itself and its perpetrator(s), as opposed to the content of the hack,
I remain curious about the inattention to this fact: One of the documents in the DNC cache released
by Wikileaks was an excel spreadsheet of Trump donors. I haven't heard
anyone question the origin of a document that would itself appear to be the product of a hack
by the DNC (the only other possibility that comes to mind is a mole inside the Trump campaign).
I certainly haven't seen a request by the Trump campaign or anybody else for an FBI investigation
of what would seem to be prima facie evidence of a hack by the DNC of Trump computers in violation
of 18 U.S.C. § 1030.
But, then, there's been relative silence, generally, by the DNC with regard to leaks of donor
information. At least I haven't seen any PR-ly apology by the DNC, or Trump's organization for
that matter, for the insecure storing of donor information and a promise that steps have been
taken to make sure it doesn't happen again. Maybe I just missed that public apology. But I also
wonder if there isn't a reluctance to draw any attention whatsoever to that now public information.
Trump's affection for Putin and all things Russian has been known for years. In Russia, however,
Trump is considered to be clownish. Putin's affection for Trump might best be characterized as
condescending. Trump is the preference of the Putin crowd. And why not? Russian oligarch money
has been flowing into Trump's coffers for at least a decade. Why? Well, after four bankruptcies,
where else is Trump going to borrow money? There is solid evidence of financial ties between Trump
advisors and Putin's circle. Try the website Ballotpedia and look up "Carter Page," Trump's advisor
on all things Russian. Other examples are out there.
That said, I would not absolutely eliminate Putin and his operatives of conspiring with hackers
to obtain and then release documents that would denigrate the Democratic party and HRC.
I find it interesting that Trump telegraphed to the world a skeptical view of NATO allies,
especially the Putin-coveted Baltics, and signaled that he might not come to their defense if
attacked. Those views were expressed in an interview with the New York Times on Thursday, July
21. These comments, predictably, set off alarms all across Europe, and had Republicans scrambling
to backpedal. And then the next day, come the DNC leaks.
And now rumors of Scalia's assassination are being floated again! Distraction after distraction!
KKR, Blackstone, Apollo, etc al, have bankrupted HUNDREDS of companies each. Yet they not only
do they have no trouble borrowing money, they are eagerly pursued by Wall Street.
Trump has never gone bankrupt personally. He had four companies go bankrupt. Trump has started
and operated hundreds of corporate entities. That makes his ratio of bankruptcies way lower than
average and thus means he's a good credit, and much better than private equity. I'm not about
to waste time tracking it down, but the media has already reported on who Trump's regular lender
is, and it's a domestic financial institution, but not one of the TBTF banks.
In addition, I had a major NYC real estate developer/syndicator, a billionaire, in the late
1980s. The early 1990s recession hit NYC real estate very hard and every developer was in serious
trouble. My former client and Trump were the only big NYC developers not to have to give up major
NY properties to the banks.
And as far as your NATO remarks are concerned, you've clearly not been paying attention. Trump
has been critical of the US role in NATO for months, and has already gotten plenty of heat for
that.
Finally, as even the New York Times was forced to concede, the timing of the hacks was all
wrong to be intended to help Trump. It started long before he was a factor on the Republican side.
The DNC hired Crowdstrike to get 2 major Russian hacks off the DNC network prior to this guccifer2.0
nonsense.
You write: "Binney explained to us:
My problem is that they have not listed intruders or attempted intrusions to the DNC site. I suspect
that's because they did a quick and dirty look for known attacks."
But they have listed the initial intruders, see links below.
Binny keeps describing how he would check his LAN back in 1991. His experience is that of a
dinosaur. This article is a mess, conflating the Hrc email scandal with the DNC scandal. What
is at issue, as stated in the FAIR link, is whether the leak to gawker and wiki etc was perpetrated
by a lone Romanian hacker or by the Russian government, not whether the DNC was spied upon by
the Russian; it was.
I am not arguing the the Clinton campaign did not figure out how to use this to their advantage,
guccifer 2.0 and crowd strike stuff both came out in June but was not the subject of much crowing
until now
> not whether the DNC was spied upon by the Russian; it was.
Based on what evidence? So many blanket statements we're supposed to accept as fact. No.
Guccifer 1.0, who is Romanian, hacked Sidney Blumenthal's email. Generally speaking, Romanians
like many Eastern Europeans hate Russia. Guccifer 1.0 was extradited to the US and made various
statements to the press about Clinton's private email server. I'm not aware of anything he said
about the DNC.
Guccifer 2.0 released DNC documents to the public and apparently to WikiLeaks. There is no
evidence he is Russian or connected to the Russians.
The mainstream media is also trumpeting the meme that Russia was behind the hack, because it
wants to help Trump get elected. In other words, the media is trying to deflect how damaging the
email leaks are to Clinton's character by trying to somehow associate Trump with Putin. See e.g.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/26/us/politics/kremlin-donald-trump-vladimir-putin.html "
don't you mean MSM wants to get Clinton elected, not Trump?
think the sentence was trying to express the idea that "Russia" "wants to help Trump get electedthe
"it" referring to "Russia" and not to "mainstream media"as that idea is the predicate of a meme
that the mainstream media is trumpeting.
Always better to repeat the noun you are referring to, rather than use a pronoun, where use
of a pronoun could create ambiguity, as "it" (or should I have said, " such use" ?) did here.
Did any one see the recent docu ' Zero days' re STUXNET worm (invented by combined efforts
of US _NSA,CIA + Israeli intelligent +?UK) introduced into the NET to take down the Nulc program
in IRAN!
There is fascinating discussion and the threat of cyber terrorism from any one from any where
to the infra structures Energy grid, transportation ++
It has lot of bearing on this Hillary E-mail gate scandal
Did you bother reading the comments earlier in this thread by JacobiteInTraining and Hacker,
who confirm that the claims don't stand up to scrutiny?
And you appear not to have been following this at all. Right after the story broke, a hacker
who called himself Guccifer 2.0 posted two sets of DNC docs and said more were coming, which was
presumed even then to be a Wikileaks releases (Assange had separately said lots of material on
Clinton was coming).
Because Hillary's campaign has insisted that national security was not compromised with her
use of a homebrew email server. Which would be the higher value target to a foreign intelligence
service email she used as sec state, or the DNC server? Which would probably have better security
the homebrew server, or the DNC server? If you buy into the idea that the Russians hacked the
DNC server, you have to admit there is a _strong_ probability they hacked her personal server
as well. I find it kindof amusing that her campaign, in it's response to Trump today, is basically
making the same point (even though it hasn't sunk in yet).
That's why it's relevant.
I can't speak to what security Hillary had in place. But I can say with 100% certainty that
it is I direly easier to secure a small network for one or two people over a large network that
has 100s or 1000s.
I have been working in network security for 20 years. I guarantee that I could build a small
network that would be close to impossible to break into regardless of the ability of the attacker.
So I reject the premise that we should presume that Hillary was hacked
I suggest you get up to speed on this story before making assumptions and assertions based
on them. It has been widely reported that Hillary's tech had no experience in network security
whatsoever, so the issue re the size of the network is irrelevant.
Bryan Pagliano's
resume , which the State Department recently turned over to Judicial Watch, shows he had
neither experience nor certification in protecting email systems against cyber security threats
His main qualification seems to be that he had been an IT director for the Clinton campaign
in 2006. CNN points out he was hired at State as a "political appointee":
Again, irrelevant to my point. The fact that the DNC mail servers were hacked does NOT mean
that Clinton's mail servers were hacked. Clinton's mail servers may have been hacked and Assange
is claiming that he has documents that prove it was. But, to date, no evidence has been provided
to show that her mail servers were hacked.
What we DO know is that the State Department mail servers were hacked, at least twice and at
least once by the Russians.
Regardless, none of this has anything to do with whether the Russians hacked the DNC mail servers
and whether they gave that information to Wikileaks.
Crowdstrike ,
Fiedlis Cybersecurity , and Mandiant all independently corroborated that it was the Russians.
The German government corroborated that an SSL cert found on the DNC servers was the same cert
that was used to infiltrate the German Parliament.
guccifer 2.0 is some guy that made a claim that made a claim the day AFTER Crowdstrike released
their report. He/She offered no evidence to support their claim.
So perhaps 3 different professional IT security companies are incompetent, despite all evidence
to the contrary, or Guccifer 2.0 is just some guy trying to take credit for something they didn't
do or it is a Russian agent trying to actively distract people from the actual culprits.
It is possible that the Russians weren't the ones to give the docs to wikileaks. But they almost
certainly were the ones who perpetrated an attack into the DNC mail servers. That in itself is
a huge problem.
I'm curious, is your background on the computer side or the policy side? You're making some
leaps where I think I follow your meaning, but the actual logic/evidence/warrant isn't there,
so I'm not sure exactly what you're claiming.
Aside from questions of whether elements of the Russian government attacked the DNC,
for example, you imply that the Russians were the only people attacking the DNC. Do you
have any technical reason to conclude that? Or is it just sloppy sentence construction, and you
didn't mean to imply that? Because at a policy level, it seems a reasonably solid understanding
of the world we inhabit that elements of many foreign governments attack US computer
systems, both for active penetration of documents and for more passive denial of service by legitimate
users. For goodness sakes, elements of the USFG itself attack US computer systems.
Anyone who can stand up straight for 5 minutes without falling over backwards and has half
a brain and an ounce of institutional memory knows it wasn't the Russkies who dropped the email
dime on the DNC shenanigans
I thought Trump's comments today about wanting the Russians to find Hillary's emails were
genius. He fans the flames of this whole Russia-Putin thing on day 3 of the Dem convention and
what are the media outlets talking about? Plus, Hillary's campaign, in it's rebuttal to Trump,
is indirectly reminding everyone that her homebrew server was putting national security at risk.
This whole Russia-Putin connection thing won't work it really isn't that believable in the
first place, the timing is suspect, and a lot of people in this country really don't care that
deeply about Putin one way or the other.
I am missing a white sock from the laundry I did over the weekend. I know Putin did it, I'm
just not sure how he broke into my basement to steal it. All the other sock-stealing suspects,
Hussein, Khadafy, bin Laden, they've all been killed. So it has to be Putin.
"... Seems Putin controls Trump and Clinton! The man is amazing. ..."
"... Hold on there, Clintonites - Both I and the World remember seeing Madame
Clinton herself hand over to Putin that gigantic red Reset button. ..."
"... So now, of course - he's resetting EVERYTHING! And you, dear lady, you
gave it to him! I rest my case. ..."
"... Putin is god--it is well-known scientific fact. He actually controls the
weather and even Earth's rotation speed. Russians always knew it, now, with the
advancement of information technologies (also controlled by Putin--ah yes, he, not
Al Gore, invented the internet) decadent West can witness his powers and omnipresence.
Remember Katrina? Putin! Remember the water main break in NYT--also Putin. I had
a constipation last week--damn Putin. Got rid of constipation and back to normal
BMs--Putin's hand was definitely in it. If you look attentively at HRC for 20+ minutes
you will see Putin's image surfacing on her face. ..."
"... In an interview Andrew Bacevich spoke about what he saw at various institutes,
academic, etc. conferences he attended as an academic which I believe has effected
his later known books. He noted among other things, that there was an inability
for empathic thinking. He did not mean sympathy, but rather the act of trying to
understand the actions of other people. I think the phrase is to treat people as
rational actors. As horrific as Hitler was, historians dug into his motivations
for example, for his invasion of the Soviet Union. ..."
"... The propaganda demonization of Putin and the Russians is part of the same
playbook republicans and the neocons used to fertilize the field of popular belief
for the justification of war and invasion of Iraq to the American people (but now
followed by democrats). Every one of those articles is a bit of propaganda manure
which will eventually sprout the seeds of conflict and war. ..."
"... What I find alarming about all of this Putin bashing and Hillary using
it in her campaign is that I am seeing many of my acquaintances who identify as
liberal/progressive Democrats are becoming more and more anti-Russian. ..."
"... I like a good meme as much as the next guy, but there wasn't any putin-did-it
in that Reuters article about the ferry accident in NY. ..."
"... 'But Russia is secretly plotting even more nefarious schemes. Putin is
infiltrating Europe. And not only Europe.' US regime would never infiltrate europe...its
already there! ..."
"... All I can say here is ... this is Sheer Comedy Gold. Hollywood couldn't
make this stuff up. ..."
"... PS - anyone know what Putin does on the seventh day? ..."
"... @60 He really is versatile. No sooner had he finished rigging the Brexit
vote than he was off to France in a truck. Then he was spotted in Kabul. This week
he has been busy making trouble in Germany and he still finds time to fake HRC's
emails. The man must be stopped! ..."
"... Indeed. Democrats have become hysterical and unhinged in all things regarding
Clinton. I have been reading a few Democrat partisan sites. With the DNC blaming
Putin/Russians for the release of the DNC emails, the partisans are demanding what
amounts to McCarthy era witch hunts, and some strong immediate NATO action against
the Russians for the evil act. One supporter had a posting showing how the Russians
plan to invade the Baltics with graphics showing the invasion route -- good grief.
It is curious to see that those not buying the propaganda are drawing comparisons
to the witch hunts of the 1950s'. ..."
"... When I post or talk to partisan Dems I don't get accused of supporting
Trump but called a Putin lackey/stooge. ..."
"... Thanks for quote-will use it . You did something readers of anti-Russian/Putin
propaganda don't do. Actually listen to or read what Putin says. I am still puzzled
even though I shouldn't be when I read descriptions of Putin in the Western media,
and then read what he actually said or acted on: two people from two different planets.
I was listening to Stephen Cohen, and he said the same thing. Nobody bothers to
read what Putin says, forget his actions. ..."
M of A - Clinton Asserts Putin Influence On Trump - After Taking Russian
Bribes
Off topic but still within context of the West's "lets bash Russia/Putin
at every chance we get"..
Seems the BBC and their assorted groupies just got eggs all over their
collective faces after the IOC ruled that Russian athletes can compete in
the olympics. The British press are crying foul - dunno if they're afraid
of losing to Russian athlete or something.
This whole doping thing stunk from day one.. All the accusers pretends
they never dope before. But then, anything to humiliate Russia and Putin
will do. How many American athletes have been caught doping - yet nobody
called for a blanket ban on the American Olympic team. The hypocrisy is
just beyond stupid!!!
Watch this space, won't be long before we see a campaign to oust the
current OIC chief..lol
Clinton/Kaine certainly confident that the MSM will not report. For all
the money given to the Clinton's it didn't prevent the Ukraine disasters.
Of course, Ukraine may not have been a concern among the particular oligarchs
who made these bribes.
Putin is god--it is well-known scientific fact. He actually controls
the weather and even Earth's rotation speed. Russians always knew it, now,
with the advancement of information technologies (also controlled by Putin--ah
yes, he, not Al Gore, invented the internet) decadent West can witness his
powers and omnipresence. Remember Katrina? Putin! Remember the water main
break in NYT--also Putin. I had a constipation last week--damn Putin. Got
rid of constipation and back to normal BMs--Putin's hand was definitely
in it. If you look attentively at HRC for 20+ minutes you will see Putin's
image surfacing on her face.
In an interview Andrew Bacevich spoke about what he saw at various institutes,
academic, etc. conferences he attended as an academic which I believe has
effected his later known books. He noted among other things, that there
was an inability for empathic thinking. He did not mean sympathy, but rather
the act of trying to understand the actions of other people. I think the
phrase is to treat people as rational actors. As horrific as Hitler was,
historians dug into his motivations for example, for his invasion of the
Soviet Union.
So we get with Putin not a rational understanding of what he does and
why, but rather cartoon psychological and religious explanations which cannot
be argued against as they defy rationality. How can one argue against people
calling Putin evil as that person has not invoked a rational argument.
The propaganda demonization of Putin and the Russians is part of
the same playbook republicans and the neocons used to fertilize the field
of popular belief for the justification of war and invasion of Iraq to the
American people (but now followed by democrats). Every one of those articles
is a bit of propaganda manure which will eventually sprout the seeds of
conflict and war.
What I find alarming about all of this Putin bashing and Hillary using
it in her campaign is that I am seeing many of my acquaintances who identify
as liberal/progressive Democrats are becoming more and more anti-Russian.
By the time she becomes president there will be a majority of Democrats
clamoring for war against Russia. This is something to worry about. Recall
that liberal Democrat Truman got us involved in the Korean war and it was
liber LBJ that led us to war in Vietnam. I recall very clearly how the liberal
press in the US was advocating for and supporting war in Vietnam between
1964 and 1968. The liberalists of all liberal Democrats Hubert Humphrey
was leading that charge.
Democratic Party partisans are losing their common sense in this effort
to back Clinton. A year ago I could carry on rational discussion with those
I know about how unwise our Ukraine policy is -- today when I try to defend
Russia I am accused of backing Trump.
'But Russia is secretly plotting even more nefarious schemes. Putin
is infiltrating Europe. And not only Europe.' US regime would never infiltrate
europe...its already there!
@60 He really is versatile. No sooner had he finished rigging the Brexit
vote than he was off to France in a truck. Then he was spotted in Kabul.
This week he has been busy making trouble in Germany and he still finds
time to fake HRC's emails. The man must be stopped!
Yes, yes, it's all true; Vladimir Putin, master of the universe; the
Whirlwind; omnipotent; everywhere and nowhere all at the same time.
I'm so glad people are waking up to reality. :-)
Indeed. Democrats have become hysterical and unhinged in all things
regarding Clinton. I have been reading a few Democrat partisan sites. With
the DNC blaming Putin/Russians for the release of the DNC emails, the partisans
are demanding what amounts to McCarthy era witch hunts, and some strong
immediate NATO action against the Russians for the evil act. One supporter
had a posting showing how the Russians plan to invade the Baltics with graphics
showing the invasion route -- good grief. It is curious to see that those
not buying the propaganda are drawing comparisons to the witch hunts of
the 1950s'.
When I post or talk to partisan Dems I don't get accused of supporting
Trump but called a Putin lackey/stooge.
@ Relis 44
Thanks for quote-will use it . You did something readers of anti-Russian/Putin
propaganda don't do. Actually listen to or read what Putin says. I am still
puzzled even though I shouldn't be when I read descriptions of Putin in
the Western media, and then read what he actually said or acted on: two
people from two different planets. I was listening to Stephen Cohen, and
he said the same thing. Nobody bothers to read what Putin says, forget his
actions.
Putin should hire an agent and get a role on the TV series SHIELD as
the new head of HYDRA. And then attend comic-cons giving out autographs.
Fort-Russ has the video of '
Putin's full speech ' at St. Petersburg International Economic Forum
- 2016 with subtitles, I
transcribed the subtitles , if any one else is interested in reading
what he actually said on the subject of the US auto-missile defense in Romania
and Poland.
Probably one of the best pieces I have read on the doping scandal ..it does highlight what
a nonsensical approach it is to punish summer Olympic athletes for Winter Olympic "offences" (which
the author knocks down comprehensively).
This is now both Browder and Rodchenkov, 2 guys punished for offences in Russia, both flee
to the USA, both have undetermined locations of residence, both have their bollocks supported
in massive PR campaigns by the American state, both can make criminal allegations but both are
unindictable .and both are allowed to cause harm to the Russian state.
Unless it is fully disclosed what Rodchenkov is doing in the United States, who is paying him
and that some of his "evidence" is made public .then the IOC should discard this entire WADA
and Mclaren report
That is a good piece, and it very effectively makes an important point. He's right that
this is an angle on it that nobody has covered. It will be interesting to see what comes of the
Speigel report on new discoveries relating to doping at Beijing and in the UK. But of course they
would never ban any entire country but Russia.
This is bringing the real haters out of their holes, the ones who reacted with jubilation to
the Russian ban. I can't protest the decision by ignoring the Olympics, because I don't pay any
attention to them anyway, only checking the medals standings once in awhile online. Now I won't
be interested enough even to do that. But I think there is going to be a significant decline in
interest in the Games this time around; that's unfortunate for Brazil, because Washington is agitating
for the Games to be a failure to discredit Brazil, as well. But in the end I think the effect
will be positive Brazil will learn a valuable lesson, and hopefully the blame for spoiling the
Olympics as a sports venue will be laid at America's door where it belongs. If America cannot
own something totally and brag about how thoroughly it is under its control, it must piss all
over it to ruin it for everyone else.
This guy nails it, regarding the alleged Russian doping. Like I said a week ago or so, all
of this was a way for Rodchenkov and the Stepanovs to secure some sort of future career after
having been disgraced in Russia. That's all there is too it. I wonder if the IOC noticed this
in their decision NOT to ban Russia from Rio, or if something else was at play.
Yes, most of it is a reprint of the Oriental Review piece. I'm so confused now that I don't know
what is what. Is Russia banned from the Summer Olympics, or just its Track Team, or anyone or
everyone? There's so much conflicting testimony. I think that Russia should not attend, as a protest
to the way it has been treated, but as I mentioned before, it will be the last chance for some
of them to set a new world record. That's balanced against Washington's probable heckling from
the gallery and the probability that American officials will conspire to rig samples. Washington
simply cannot be trusted, and this latest example of its perfidy was a grievous overstep which
is building international sympathy for Russia. That will be imperiled if Russia participates.
But of course it is up to the athletes.
"As a result of the negligent actions of an employee of the cleaning company, the World
Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has lost all samples of American athletes who played for team USA since
1990", reports the BBC.
"As a result of the negligent actions of an employee of the cleaning company, "
I think that was my brother-in-law, he's a real screw-up.
Always blame the cleaning crew.
Yes, I wouldn't have believed it if I had not
seen it with my own eyes : Putin again. The Russian state obviously does not give him enough
to do. He seems to have plenty of time on his hands to meddle around the world and to tirelessly
work to thwart that nice Mrs. Clinton's plans. There is a real danger that Putin will suffer some
sort of embolism in a laughing fit. What can you do but laugh? The United States government is
so ridiculous, how humiliating for Americans.
As usual, it escapes unnoticed that Russian hackers must have gained access to Mrs. Clinton's
illegal email server, which she was repeatedly warned against having in the first place, yet pretended
various authorities had signed off on it and she was allowed to have it. She denied anyone else
had gained access to it but now Putin is rolling around in a pile of her emails; how is that possible?
She therefore deliberately and willfully put American security at risk. How does the FBI not see
this? Would it have happened if she had used the government's server as she was supposed to do?
Well, how many hacks has Putin offered up from that system? Pavlo Svolochenko
,
July 24, 2016 at 6:28 pm
If she treats all her staff like she used to treat the secret service, then the source of the
leaks is probably much closer to home.
Published on 24 Jul 2016
Polish lawmakers have adopted a resolution calling the massacres committed between 1943 and 1945
by Ukrainian nationalists against Polish people, genocide.
The document makes July 11 a day of remembrance for the victims of the atrocity.
According to The Daily Mail, it would not have been beyond the realms of possibility for Putin
to have had a hand in organising the Volyn massacre. In a past life, he sat for Leonardo da
Vinci and his portrait now hangs in the Louvre.
One of the commenters pointed out that Putin also served as the model (in 1350) for "Satan" in
this detail of "The Last Judgement" by medieval painter Jacopo da Bologna:
The man in the picture is
Giovanni Arnolfini
, but actually a time-travelling Putin in disguise. His purpose in going back in time to Italy
was to impregnate the lady in green. This was the year 1434.
The ultimate goal was to give birth to
Antonio Grimani ,
who went on to cause several colossal military defeats, in favor of Ottoman Turkey.
This was Putin's way of changing history and propping up the Ottoman Empire back in the day. Presumably
as a counter-weight to Western Europe.
Playing a very deep and very long game, which is little understood.
Oh, and the little dog was in on it too. 'cause remember that Putin can talk with the animals.
Putin must have been an evil Time Lord in disguise The Master perhaps? and the dog his trusty
alien companion who asks dumb questions (so that TV viewers understand the plot). 'Cos you know,
Time Lords don't time-travel alone.
He's like the original 'Highlander'; immortal, pretending to die every couple of decades, and
coming back as some new guy. But in that movie, if you put all the names together and ran them
through a sophisticated computer program, it would reveal that they are all anagrams of one another,
and are really all the same name with the letters rearranged. Too clever by half, Mr. Putin! Or
should I call you Napassoulasvalintsocanoline?
Jen is on to something about Putin being a Timelord. But I don't think he is the Master, because
the Master is COMPLETELY nuts in the head, he is, like, LA-LA-LA-LALLALALALA!, and the Master's
schemes are always of the most hare-brained variety.
The Master will concoct some uber-complex plot to rule the universe which, after the twists and
turns, basically boils down to cloning more Daleks. And in the end is always hoisted upon his
own petard. Putin does not show any of this kind of impulsiveness, except in the case of nuzzling
children's bellies.
Instead, I believe there is evidence that Putin is Lord Rassilon himself.
This is why the Presdient of Russia wears the Belt of Rassilon, the Tie of Rassilon, and even
the Watch of Rassilon.
"... Clinton and the Democrats have far more to worry about from Wikileaks than they do disaffected Sanders supporters. ..."
"... The game is rigged and the house always win. You should know that by now. ..."
"... the neoconservatives do not support or trust Trump or anyone who makes nice with Putin. Hillary is a dependable hawk. Victoria Nuland worked in her State Dept. The empire will continue with Hillary in the White House. ..."
"... The other reason she is vulnerable to Trump is because she is almost as loathed as he is but unlike Trump she doesn't generate the adulation to counter it. ..."
"... I think the election could be compared to the EU referendum because just like the EU it's very hard to feel much enthusiasm for Clinton, wheras just like the Brexit campaign, Trump generates strong support with a bunch of easy answers and cheap soundbites ..."
"... Even Bill Clinton chose someone other than Hillary ... shouldn't we? ..."
"... If Trump is elected. who knows what will happen, but we know what will happen if the Clintons are elected. I will vote for Trump and watch the events and hope that the DNC fragments and then watch as a revolution and a rebuilding of our political system begins. I do not anymore wars. With the Clintons, there will be a continuation and new wars, perhaps a conflict with Russia and mankind will vanish. ..."
"... Obama didn't equal huge positive change, so why do we think Trump can create huge negative change ??? ..."
"... There won't be a video, Goldman Sachs own her. And with either Clinton or Trump, we will still be living under the dictate of Wall Street. ..."
"... Once again this election is proof positive that you BUY elections. The masters of the DNC ordained that Clinton represent them and they were so insulated in their rich little world that they failed to recognize that she is unelectable; the republican turnout will be higher than it has ever been in history, so polarizing is she. People like me, poor people who crave change, will NOT vote for banks so, by default, Trump wins. ..."
If Bernie won the nomination, and Clinton gave him 'belated and tepid support', he would still
win the election by a large margin. Which is testament to Clinton's ineptitude as a politician
I had hoped Obama would deliver genuine economic change but that didn't happen. Before
becoming a journalist, I even moved to Pennsylvania for a couple of months to volunteer for
Barack Obama's campaign. I was enamored by his intelligence and the beautiful ways he wrote
and spoke about race. But I was also thrilled (naively) that Obama seemed to get his money
from small donors, and that he might break Wall Street's stranglehold on the Democrats.
The game is rigged and the house always win. You should know that by now.
George won the vote in Florida because Cubans in Dade and Broward counties voted for him 4-1 over
Gore. Why do you think she went to Miami last week and her V.P. is fluent in Spanish?
Latinos and women will vote in the tens of millions for Hillary. Plus, the neoconservatives
do not support or trust Trump or anyone who makes nice with Putin. Hillary is a dependable hawk.
Victoria Nuland worked in her State Dept. The empire will continue with Hillary in the White House.
Sanders would never have lost to Trump.
Hillary is incredibly vulnerable to Trump.
The Media and the DNC's obsession with making sure that Hillary won may go down as one of the
greatest mistakes in American history.
Obviously she can win. But Sanders looks infinitely more capable of beating Trump in the states
where it's going to be dog fight. Whereas Hillary represents everything Trump has specialised
in opposing with such great success.
Sanders would have brushed Trump off like a fly and peeled off large parts of his blue collar
support. And Rep leaders would blush and giggle when discussing his integrity and honesty. But
instead we get Hillary and her baggage train. Lousy.
Whereas Hillary represents everything Trump has specialised in opposing with such great
success.
Very good point.
The other reason she is vulnerable to Trump is because she is almost as loathed as he is
but unlike Trump she doesn't generate the adulation to counter it.
I think the election could be compared to the EU referendum because just like the EU it's
very hard to feel much enthusiasm for Clinton, wheras just like the Brexit campaign, Trump generates
strong support with a bunch of easy answers and cheap soundbites.
If the Democrats are to bring about a different outcome they need to recognise just how bad
their candidate is and really concentrate on running an anti-Trump campaign. As I see it it's
the only they can win.
If Trump is elected. who knows what will happen, but we know what will happen if the Clintons
are elected. I will vote for Trump and watch the events and hope that the DNC fragments and then
watch as a revolution and a rebuilding of our political system begins. I do not anymore wars.
With the Clintons, there will be a continuation and new wars, perhaps a conflict with Russia and
mankind will vanish.
Poor whites in the U.S. are not voting for the "Left" because they have been dismissed, if not
vilified, by the cosmopolitan luvvies of the Democratic Party who are in thrall to every trendy
identity politics of the moment.
The elections are the X-Factor theatre for us lot every 4/5 years.
The shadow government (Wall Street/global corporations/war machine) always remains the same
throughout the decades, regardless of the rolling red/blue figurehead.
You can't get anywhere near the top job without being in the pocket of the kingmakers.
If only you could take the money out of politics. Maybe in a parallel universe we'll have grown
up sufficiently to understand that it's absolutely this that kills any hope of democracy.
Would a Trump presidency be a disaster? Yes. Would it cause all manner of economic, legal,
political and moral crises? Definitely. Yup. Would a good chunk of Trump voters even angry
white Trump voters grow to regret their votes? No doubt.
Would poor people and people of color especially immigrants, those assumed to be immigrants
and Muslims pay the highest price?
Why would it be a disaster ?
Would it cause all manner of economic, legal, political and moral crises?
Would poor people and people of color especially immigrants, those assumed to be immigrants
and Muslims pay the highest price?
I don't think you can categorically say it would be a disaster, any policy would still need
to be voted through, and congress isn't suddenly going to change based on the President.
You thought Obama was going to change everything for the better, but he couldn't due to the
restrictions of power on a president, so why do people think Trump is suddenly going to have unlimited
power.
Obama didn't equal huge positive change, so why do we think Trump can create huge negative
change ???
Bernie actually brought in the young crowd who frankly sees Clinton as an establishment dragging
the sack candidate and would have never voted for her. Ron Paul did the same for Republicans.
He did actually start a conversation about what it means to be a socialist and have all the
great ideas and no way to pay for them, except raise taxes.
Neither Bernie or Hillary have a response to get people employed. Their answer is to send people
to school till they actually want to drop out of the perpetual education carousel and try and
get a job.
I wouldn't consider the same old steal (tax) the working stiffs money from them under a different
acronym (slush fund) a viable plan.
At last some rational commentary coming from the Guardian. The democratic party nominated Hillary
Clinton last night and elected Donald Trump.. Blame Clinton, Wasserman and the rest of the crooked
DNC cabal for what may well be the disintegration for the Democratic Party...
If Hillary Clinton hadn't been married to Bill Clinton she would have come nowhere, she wouldn't
have been a senator, the same principal as the Bush legacy, where would GWBush have got in the
selection process if his father hadn't have been pulling strings. The US needs a president on
merit, not who they are related to or married to. It is like a monarchy, just what the American
revolution was carried out to escape from.
There really is only one party at the Federal level and that is the $ party. The rest is just
a carnival con game with the banners and shouting. The truth is that all of us but the very rich,
have been abandoned by what is supposed to be representative govt. Sanders supporters have learned
a hard lesson, that you can't reform this level of corruption from inside the system.
Another interesting aspect will be the Wall Street speeches that no one has mentioned for a while.
Clinton still refuses to disclose anything about those but now, she's up against the very people
to whom those speeches were delivered. They not only have transcripts, they doubtless have VIDEO and that video will probably surface at the least-convenient time for Clinton.
> the Democrats seem bent on putting up people and policies that
> will redistribute money to Wall Street and ignore the 99% when their
> base been screaming at them to stop this.
> Americans might not regret casting a vote for Trump until it's too late.
>
One of the policies that Trump advocates is less of a seeming oneness with Wall Street. If Obama
couldn't divorce himself of that sort of thing, why do you think that Hillary Big Banks Pay Me
Big Bucks For Speeches Clinton would?
Once again this election is proof positive that you BUY elections. The masters of the DNC
ordained that Clinton represent them and they were so insulated in their rich little world that
they failed to recognize that she is unelectable; the republican turnout will be higher than it
has ever been in history, so polarizing is she. People like me, poor people who crave change,
will NOT vote for banks so, by default, Trump wins.
"... As life exceeds satire, one can imagine that within a week Wikileaks will
produce those "missing e-mails". And later Hillary's Wall Street speeches, following
the next appeal from Trump. ..."
"... PB @ 4, confirming some earlier analysis that trump is playing the media
for suckers over HRC's hysteria. "Trump calls on Kremlin to commit acts of espionage
against Hillary Clinton." omg. ..."
"... they cannot afford to have the truth about ISIS revealed. They need the
next president to continue their lies. It is terrifying. ..."
"... Even if Russia did the hack and leaked that information (no evidence) --
so what? We have done and do the same all the time in other countries. Just doesn't
feel as good when you are at the receiving end. ..."
"... It's like 9/11. What do you desperately want to believe? What are you desperately
afraid to admit? ..."
"... No amount of 'debunking' of the DNC's assertions will affect the beliefs
of those who want to believe, who are afraid to admit that they are going to vote
for the corporate whore who mocks them with her pathetic ruses. The corporate media
have suffered irreparable damage to their credibility over the past decade, at least.
..."
"... What is scary about this campaign is that the anti-Russian hysteria is
being incorporated by Hillary supporters. By the time she is elected there will
be many millions of Democrats crying for war against Russia. The last time a Democrat
ran to the right of the Republican in a presidential election was the Kennedy-Nixon
race. That resulted in Kennedy entering office and believing his own bs. He then
very quickly carried out the Bay of Pigs fiasco but much worse the near start of
WWIII during the Cuban missile crisis. ..."
"... Hillary is definitely stupid enough to listen to her neocon advisers and,
fueled with self righteous Russian hatred, get us involved in some shooting war
with them in Syria, Ukraine or the Baltic region. Very dangerous times ahead I fear.
This why I am moving closer and closer to voting for Trump rather than a third party.
..."
"... Great observation. Cuts to the chase, to bedrock reality. We are the Evil
Empire that Ronald Reagan ranted about. Have been since the Dulles Boys' coup. ..."
"... Trump is beginning to look like the lessor of two evils. And we Americans
are proven suckers for that line of 'reasoning'. The champion poll forecaster now
'shows Donald Trump leading Hillary Clinton with a shocking 15 percentage point-greater
chance of winning if the general election were held today.'. ..."
Usually, the only thing that stops mass- and self-delusion (and the attending
propaganda) on this scale is the massive intervention of reality. I worry
that many casualties will ensue.
Trump apparently said in his press conference that the US should
cooperate to with Russia to destroy ISIS. The panic created in DC by this
man must be incredible.
ELECTION 2016
Trump Calls for Russia's Help to Expose Emails Clinton Deleted
By ASHLEY PARKER 11:44 AM ET (NYT)
"Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails
that are missing," Donald J. Trump said, referring to messages deemed personal
by Hillary Clinton and deleted from her private email server.
===
As life exceeds satire, one can imagine that within a week Wikileaks
will produce those "missing e-mails". And later Hillary's Wall Street speeches,
following the next appeal from Trump.
PB @ 4, confirming some earlier analysis that trump is playing the media
for suckers over HRC's hysteria. "Trump calls on Kremlin to commit acts
of espionage against Hillary Clinton." omg.
There is just not enough of Orville Redenbacher's popcorn to last to the
end of this crazy 2016 . I think if Putin came out personally and said that
he did it the world would cheer . yet for some reason Russia needs to be
vilified ...Thanks for the work you do b ...
What cracks me up about the idea that the Russians were behind the DNC hack
is that Putin has little to fear from the accusation. It would probably
help him politically at home and seriously, what are we going to do about
it? Go to war? More sanctions? Denounce Russia in the UN? He's probably
having a good laugh over the whole thing.
Here are a couple of links to techie stories about the issue. They each
have links and educational comments. How deep down the rabbit hole do you
want to go?
Assange Timed WikiLeaks Release of Democratic Emails to Harm Hillary
Clinton
The New York Times
By CHARLIE SAVAGE
5 hrs ago
WASHINGTON - Six weeks before the anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks
published an archive of hacked Democratic National Committee emails ahead
of the Democratic convention, the organization's founder, Julian Assange,
foreshadowed the release - and made it clear that he hoped to harm Hillary
Clinton's chances of winning the presidency.
Mr. Assange's remarks in a June 12 interview underscored that for all
the drama of the...
Essentially: "Even if Russia did the hack and leaked that information
(no evidence) -- so what? We have done and do the same all the time in other
countries. Just doesn't feel as good when you are at the receiving end."
Thanks, b - a very acute analysis. It reminds me of the warning of false
narrative the "Merlin" sponsors were peddling which Control warned George
Smiley about in Le Carre's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy":
"They're buying their way in with false money, George."
It's like 9/11. What do you desperately want to believe? What are you
desperately afraid to admit?
Trump made light of the charges with 'hope the Russians find the 30,000
missing emails' crack, but his vp immediately made a show of taking the
claim seriously ... he looks to be the mole set up by the RNC to take down
Trump.
No amount of 'debunking' of the DNC's assertions will affect the
beliefs of those who want to believe, who are afraid to admit that they
are going to vote for the corporate whore who mocks them with her pathetic
ruses. The corporate media have suffered irreparable damage to their credibility
over the past decade, at least.
The D-N-Cee,
the men-a-ger-ie,
they're not for you,
and they're not for me!
They're runnin' in circles,
around the tree.
When they turn to butter, let's make pancakes. I'm so hungry I could
eat one hundred and sixty-nine! Breakfast for us indigenes.
What is scary about this campaign is that the anti-Russian hysteria
is being incorporated by Hillary supporters. By the time she is elected
there will be many millions of Democrats crying for war against Russia.
The last time a Democrat ran to the right of the Republican in a presidential
election was the Kennedy-Nixon race. That resulted in Kennedy entering office
and believing his own bs. He then very quickly carried out the Bay of Pigs
fiasco but much worse the near start of WWIII during the Cuban missile crisis.
Hillary is definitely stupid enough to listen to her neocon advisers
and, fueled with self righteous Russian hatred, get us involved in some
shooting war with them in Syria, Ukraine or the Baltic region. Very dangerous
times ahead I fear. This why I am moving closer and closer to voting for
Trump rather than a third party.
Credit to Julian Assange for having guts. If Clinton should win it's foreseeable
that a major effort to regime-change Ecuador will ensue so they can get
him booted from the London embassy straight into a CIA jet.
Putin knows the zionists hate him, and Trump. I don't believe he would release
this stuff. just because of the anti Russian BS the MSD would stir, which
wo proof, they are anyway.
I read it was Guccifer?somewhere,a Russian? blogger.
This will all backfire,as the American people have been had too many
times by the serial liars.
What if this came from GB,say?What would be the reaction then?
And why is Russia,who has never done a thing to US,in history,an enemy,when
the Zionists spy,bribe and control our whole nation,nakedly,shamelessly,but
there is the ol'crickets only, chirping in the weeds?
Yahoo to Putin; Hey, you are cutting in on our action.
WaPo comment sections are full of people who seem to be true believers in
the ideology of the new Cold War. Or maybe they only say that because they're
being paid to do so. Hard to believe so many people could be so stupid.
I was thinking the other day that Putin should send a squad of angry babushkas
after the sisterhood of the traveling pantsuits running the DNC. Evidently
this is already in the works.
#UKRAINE-UA police released warning that the "#HolyCross Procession
includes violent grandmas who provoke Ukrainian youth to beat them up."
Great observation. Cuts to the chase, to bedrock reality. We are
the Evil Empire that Ronald Reagan ranted about. Have been since the Dulles
Boys' coup.
Still I agree with yours and with Toivo S' point just above. Trump
is beginning to look like the lessor of two evils. And we Americans are
proven suckers for that line of 'reasoning'. The
champion poll forecaster now 'shows Donald Trump leading Hillary Clinton
with a shocking 15 percentage point-greater chance of winning if the general
election were held today.'.
Before the Dulles Boy's coup there was the changing of the motto in the
1950's from E Pluribus Unum (Out of many, one) to In Gawd We Trust.
Before that in 1913 the Fed was created with the 12 regional banks owned
privately.
Has the City of London and that empire ever died?
Has the City of Rome corner of the global financial system ever been
made clear?
The basic tenets of the Western way are private ownership of property
enhanced by rampant inheritance at the top and private finance owned and
operated by historical families and others unknown. It is sad to me when
commenter here and other places rail on about bankers and corporations and
not the global cabal that own them all.
Why can't humanity evolve beyond private finance to totally sovereign
finance and, at a minimum, neuter inheritance laws globally so that none
can accumulate enough to control social policy? Private finance is a cancer
humanity can no loner afford.
Warning: Bellingcat is a disinformation outpost probably created by some intelligence agency. It
lied about MH17 extensively.
Notable quotes:
"... Beware Bellingcat; he's been busted more than once publishing fraudulent information; especially re: Putin and Ukraine ..."
"... This is an interesting article that explores possibilities (if only partially) of an extremely murky event: the recent coup in Turkey. One very keen observation is that this coup has one extraordinary aspect: nobody seems to blame Putin! The second observation is that it is not typical for a coup that it is not possible to trace who was running it, while indisputably, someone activated a bunch of conspirators to action. In the past, even failed coup had an identified leader. ..."
3 Turkish specialized NATO regiments (20,000+ troops?} led coup attempt. Using Bellingcat translated
records of coup communications, Sybil Edmonds explains:
This is an interesting article that explores possibilities (if only partially) of an extremely
murky event: the recent coup in Turkey. One very keen observation is that this coup has one extraordinary
aspect: nobody seems to blame Putin! The second observation is that it is not typical for a coup
that it is not possible to trace who was running it, while indisputably, someone activated a bunch
of conspirators to action. In the past, even failed coup had an identified leader.
[Tinfoil hat on] This points to a masterful hand behind the plot, perhaps a bit deficient in
purely military details but very capable in conspiratorial techniques. [delete]Gulen[end delete]
Putin! Putin theory could have a weak spot, namely that he is competent in purely military details,
but it can be elegantly rescued by the fact that he had no interest in actually replacing Erdogan,
but merely in rendering him ineffective against Russia. As Russians know only too well, the most
effective way of disabling a military organization is to imbue the national leader with total
paranoia. [Tinfoil hat off, malignant waves enter brain again]
Clearly, Erdogan is another person who benefits from the coup, and who has much simpler means
to assure that the leadership of the coup remains unclear: his devoted stooges run the investigation
after all! Moreover, Akira correctly observed that the past actions attributed to Gulen's movement
lacked outright violence. In my opinion, this stems from religious principles of Gulen himself,
his own interpretation of Islam (which clearly allows for intrigue and subterfuge). Gulen did
not create his movement in vacuum, he became a leader of followers of Said Nursi who died in 1960.
The way those movements (Nur of Nursi, Hizmet of Gulen) operated is compared to Sufi brotherhoods
which may be loosely hierarchical and highly conspiratorial. Some Sufi movements may be violent,
by calling to armed Jihad etc. However, Nursi was a pacifist. As I said, unlike some other Muslim
movements in Turkey. Erdogan has a somewhat murky religious movement of his own, and he clearly
accepts the concept of violent Jihad.
One can dwell more of it, but pretty safe conclusion is that we have two likely possibilities:
Erdogan pulling the strings (in that case, using Hakan Fidan, his spy master) and going to some
lengths to make the appearance that Guelen does it, or the reverse. Because of that, no single
piece of evidence is conclusive, any single person can be a double/multiple agent etc. And because
those possibilities are both so compelling, the true guiding master hand remains hidden (Putin!!!!).
Great stuff pb. I think that Erdo's 'genius' lies in his ability to react rather than act.
He just waits to see his chances then takes 'em. Having plans opens one up to having one's plans
divined by others and so defeated. His strength lies in his nihilism, the g-forces alone of his
about faces would so distort the physique of any ordinary man that he could never survive. But
Erdo is focused exclusively on his own ends - and possesses the magical ability of convincing
his followers of his invincibility and hence, of theirs. His survival of his seemingly endless
stream of volte faces proves this in the eyes of his followers and so confounds his more or less
principled opposition that their very bones melt and they puddle.
So the CIA, who have kept Gulen bottled up in their Pennsylvania super-fortress all these years,
perhaps their secret, kryptonite-like antidote to al-CIAduh, sprang him to avail Erdogan of yet
another of his nine-times-nine-lives, in order to keep his ego-driven presence alive and disruptive
on their geostrategic gameboard.
The terrifying thing from the CIA's/USA's point of view would be any kind of coherent coincidence
of aims among Russia, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, the Caucasus, and the stans of Central Asia.
They feel that they can rely upon Erdo to keep the Caucasus and Central Asia high on its own version
of the Ottoman dream, and in competition with the Sunni/IS, the Shia, and Kurdish Axes.
If the Turkmen and the Shia were to cohere rather than contend, or, worse, the Turkmen-Shia-Kurds
were to do so, there would be far too much constructive activity in the Middle East for the empire
of chaos to survive there let alone prevail. The opposite hand of Putin did it! is ... the CIA
did it! I say the CIA did it. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
The real story will become apparent in the fullness of time.
Seems the Clinton and her assorted groupies just need a scapegoat :-). Seems Putin controls Trump
and Clinton! The man is amazing.
Notable quotes:
"... From Bloomberg - "If the Democrats can show the hidden hand of Russian intelligence agencies, they believe that voter outrage will probably outweigh any embarrassing revelations, a person familiar with the party's thinking said' ..."
"... Ha! Fat chance. I'm thinking the American voter is going to start sending Thank You notes to the Kremlin! As usual, their heads are stuck so far up the arse of their donkey they incapable of gauging Main Street sentiment. ..."
"... She is just a symptom of the DNC disease. And yes, she'll take the fall for the team, but make no mistake, the cancer remains and will continue to metastasize. ..."
Russia is weaponizing everything : Word files, federalism, finance and Jedi mind tricks - everything
is transformed into a weapon if Russia or its president Putin is imagined to come near it.
Putin, the President of the Russian Federation, is influencing, manipulating and controlling many
"western" politicians, parties and movements - in Europe AND in the United States.
Here are,
thanks
to Mark Sleboda , a partial list
of political entities and issue Putin secretly manipulates and controls:
Putin is
in cahoots with the Republican presidential candidate Trump -
claims the Clinton
campaign . Putin is behind, it asserts, the leak of the DNC emails which prove that the Democratic
National Committee
has been working against Sanders to promote Hillary Clinton. The leak of the DNC emails, says
the Clinton campaign, is ..:
.. further evidence the Russian government is trying to influence the outcome of the election.
The Clinton campaign has not looked thoroughly enough into Putin's schemes. Reveal we can that
Putin has penetrated U.S. politics even deeper than thought - right down into the Clinton Foundation
and the
Clinton family itself:
As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009
to 2013, Canadian records show, a flow of cash made its way to the Clinton Foundation. Uranium
One's chairman used his family foundation to make four donations totaling $2.35 million.
That money, surely, had no influence on then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's decisions? And
what about her husband?
Mr. Clinton received $500,000 ... from a Russian investment bank with links to the Kremlin
These undisputed facts demonstrate that Putin is indeed waging influence by bribing U.S. politicians.
But the Clinton campaign is be a bit more hesitant in pointing these out.
Clinton/Kaine certainly confident that the MSM will not report.
For all the money given to the Clinton's it didn't prevent the Ukraine disasters. Of course,
Ukraine may not have been a concern among the particular oligarchs who made these bribes.
HOw could this anti-russian hysteria/bashing go on, I mean the level of paranoia and disinformation
against Russia and Putin is plain crazy.
From Bloomberg - "If the Democrats can show the hidden hand of Russian intelligence agencies,
they believe that voter outrage will probably outweigh any embarrassing revelations, a person
familiar with the party's thinking said'
Ha! Fat chance. I'm thinking the American voter is going to start sending Thank You notes
to the Kremlin! As usual, their heads are stuck so far up the arse of their donkey they incapable
of gauging Main Street sentiment.
Funny though, Schultz takes her orders from Obama, as the Chairman of the Party, the DNC Board
of Directors and team Hillary. Period. If any blame should go around it should splash onto all
individuals NOT just Schultz.
She is just a symptom of the DNC disease. And yes, she'll take the fall for the team, but
make no mistake, the cancer remains and will continue to metastasize.
"... Robert Mackey would like you to know that many in the Arab-speaking world are doing some genuine soul-searching about their culture's own role in the emergence of ISIS and that these conspiracy theories have simply been a haven for the obstinate and the self-deluded; Muslims who are too afraid to look themselves and their societies in the mirror. ..."
"... Ha, ha. "Washington." What buffoons! ..."
"... In a report this week on the blistering efficiency and military prowess of ISIS, ABC News reporter James Gordon Meek got an incredibly great, short answer as to where the Islamic State gained its technical expertise: "Probably the Chechens," a U.S. official said. ..."
"... ISIS, or ISIL, or the Islamic State-whatever you want to call it-was nearly dead in 2007, after U.S. forces in Iraq and local Sunni tribes successfully joined forces against the group. It wasn't until the Syrian uprisings that it reemerged as a potent force, after a failed merger with the al-Qaida-affiliated Syrian rebel group al-Nusra, lead most of al-Nusra's foreign-born jihadis to defect to ISIS . ..."
"... "Foreign-born jihadis" here meaning career Islamists like the Chechen groups, which have been conducting terror campaigns, kidnappings, and suicide bombings in Russia , with a reasonable degree of success, for over 15 years now. Some of the most prominent leaders now fighting with ISIS are Chechens: the ginger-bearded "rising star" Omar al-Shishani and the group's Che Guevara, Muslem al-Shishani (the unnervingly studly viking face pictured above). In addition to Saudi and Pakistani assistance, many of the Chechens were led and supported by the CIA-trained Afghan mujahideen, up-to-and-including Osama bin Laden: ace mentors, in other words, with proven experience in a professional terror setting. ..."
"... When not actively defending the Chechen extremists with weirdly bipartisan neocon-neoliberal advocacy groups , policy makers and government officials in Washington have turned a proactively blind eye to Chechen Islamist activities in Russia and here in the United States with infamously fatal consequences. Both the 9/11 Commission Report and FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley have shown that senior-level officials refused to classify Islamic terrorists in Chechnya-like their then-leader Ibn al Khattab who had direct contact with bin Laden-as actual terrorists, thus preventing the FBI from properly investigating "20th hijacker" Zaccarias Moussaoui before 9/11. ..."
"... A big part of the reason for this sensitivity is that covertly letting the Saudis and their Islamic radicals chip away at the oil-rich rubble on the fringes of the collapsed Soviet empire has been America's favored strategy for collecting the spoils of the Cold War. ..."
"... "The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against the Red Army," a former CIA analyst told Swiss journalist Richard Labιviθre back in the late 1990s . "The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power, and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia." ..."
Wise Men of Foreign Affairs have jumped at the chance
to debunk a wild rumor that Hillary Clinton bragged about creating ISIS in her new memoir-truly
an easy layup in the annals of punditry. The rumor even got the name of Clinton's memoir wrong. But,
that's OK: The remaining facts still allow America to feel guilty.
According to
at least one Egyptian blogger, the conspiracy theory-complete with fake quotes from a fantasy
version of Clinton's memoir entitled Plan 360-emerged from the hothouse of Egypt's Pro-Mubarak/Pro-Military
Facebook pages: a social circle in which it is already de rigueur to suggest that the U.S.
and the Muslim Brotherhood secretly conspired to orchestrate the Arab Spring. This screenshot of
a Facebook page for the Egyptian military's counter-terrorism and special operations unit,
Task Force 777, and its reconnaissance
special operations unit, Task Force 999, depicts one of the earliest appearances of the fake Clinton
quotes:
Leaving aside for the moment the question of why Clinton would brag about this covert operation,
in progress, in her memoir, what foreign policy objectives could possibly be achieved by America
manufacturing ISIS? Like: Why do that? To what ends?
One version involves Israel (obviously), and something about balkanizing Israel's Mid-East neighbors
to both justify their nefarious Zionist expansion, or whatever, and remove opposition to it. Another
version,
as The Week pointed out Tuesday, claims that the U.S. would plan to recognize an ISIS
caliphate and that this caliphate would turn out to be (somehow) very amenable to America's strategic
and economic interests.
The hashtag #HilaryClintonsMemoirs (
#مذكرات_هيلاري_كلينتون)
quickly started trending across social media in the region,
Huffington Post UK reported, "with satirical tweets mocking the theory with outlandish claims
about what else the Secretary of State might have written-like a secret CIA plot to close all the
restaurants in Cairo and replace them with McDonalds."
Good one, the Middle East. I'm lovin' it.
Not everyone appreciated the Middle East's jokes, however.
Writing in his "Open Source" column for the
New York Times, Robert Mackey would like you to know that many in the Arab-speaking world
are doing some genuine soul-searching about their culture's own role in the emergence of ISIS and
that these conspiracy theories have simply been a haven for the obstinate and the self-deluded; Muslims
who are too afraid to look themselves and their societies in the mirror.
For instance, the Lebanese scholar Ziad Majed
wrote
on his blog that at least six factors from the recent history of the Middle East helped give
birth to the militant movement, including "despotism in the most heinous form that has plagued
the region," as well as "the American invasion of Iraq in 2003," and "a profound crisis, deeply
rooted in the thinking of some Islamist groups seeking to escape from their terrible failure to
confront the challenges of the present toward a delusional model ostensibly taken from the seventh
century."
That sort of introspection is not for everyone, of course, so a popular conspiracy theory has
spread online that offers an easier answer to the riddle of where ISIS came from: Washington.
Ha, ha. "Washington." What buffoons!
Let's learn a valuable lesson from the psychological projections of these weak-willed Third World
plebes: desert Archie Bunkers and izaar-clad Tony Sopranos too parochial in their worldview
and too much in denial of their own culpability to face this present danger.
America is better than that.
Let us examine with clear eyes all the ways in which our own democratically elected government-in
Washington-is responsible for where ISIS came from.
U.S. Policy in Chechnya
In a report this week on the blistering efficiency and military prowess of ISIS, ABC News
reporter James Gordon Meek got
an incredibly great, short answer as to where the Islamic State gained its technical expertise:
"Probably the Chechens," a U.S. official said.
ISIS, or ISIL, or the Islamic State-whatever you want to call it-was nearly dead in 2007,
after U.S. forces in Iraq and local Sunni tribes successfully joined forces against the group. It
wasn't until the Syrian uprisings that it reemerged as a potent force, after a failed merger with
the al-Qaida-affiliated Syrian rebel group al-Nusra,
lead most of al-Nusra's foreign-born jihadis to defect to ISIS.
"Foreign-born jihadis" here meaning career Islamists like the Chechen groups, which have been
conducting
terror
campaigns, kidnappings, and suicide bombings in Russia, with a reasonable degree of success,
for over 15 years now. Some of the most prominent leaders now fighting with ISIS are Chechens:
the ginger-bearded "rising star" Omar al-Shishani and
the group's Che Guevara, Muslem al-Shishani (the unnervingly studly viking face pictured above).
In addition to Saudi and Pakistani assistance, many of the Chechens were led and supported by the
CIA-trained Afghan mujahideen, up-to-and-including Osama bin Laden: ace mentors, in other words,
with proven experience in a professional terror setting.
When not actively defending the Chechen extremists with
weirdly
bipartisan neocon-neoliberal advocacy groups, policy makers and government officials in Washington
have turned a proactively blind eye to Chechen Islamist activities in Russia and here in the United
States with infamously fatal consequences. Both
the 9/11 Commission Report and
FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley have shown that senior-level officials refused to classify Islamic
terrorists in Chechnya-like their then-leader Ibn al Khattab who had direct contact with bin Laden-as
actual terrorists, thus preventing the FBI from properly investigating "20th hijacker" Zaccarias
Moussaoui before 9/11. Another pre-9/11 FBI investigation, this time into a Florida summer camp
run by the Saudi-funded
World Assembly
of Muslim Youth (WAMY), discovered that the group was showing children videos praising Chechen
bombers, only to be pulled off the case according to an FBI memo,
ID 1991-WF-213589, uncovered by
Greg Palast for the BBC and Vice.
Upon further digging by Palast:
Several insiders repeated the same story: U.S. agencies ended the investigation of the bin
Laden-terrorist-Chechen-jihad connection out of fear of exposing uncomfortable facts. U.S. intelligence
had turned a blind eye to the Abdullah bin Laden organisation [yes, WAMY was run by a bin Laden
brother] because our own government was more than happy that our Saudi allies were sending jihadis
to Afghanistan, then, via WAMY, helping Muslims to fight in Bosnia then, later, giving the Russians
grief in Chechnya. The problem is that terrorists are like homing pigeons they come home to
roost.
As Joe Trento of the National Security News Service, who helped me on the investigation, said,
"It would be unseemly if [someone] were arrested by the FBI and word got back that he'd once been
on the payroll of the CIA What we're talking about is blow-back. What we're talking about is embarrassing,
career-destroying blow-back for intelligence officials."
A big part of the reason for this sensitivity is that covertly letting the Saudis and their
Islamic radicals chip away at the oil-rich rubble on the fringes of the collapsed Soviet empire has
been America's favored strategy for collecting the spoils of the Cold War.
"The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries
worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against the Red Army,"
a former CIA analyst told Swiss journalist Richard
Labιviθre back in the late 1990s. "The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains
of Russian power, and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia."
Granted: The events of September 11th made this
grand strategy
a little tricky, domestically, but as you may have noticed over the past few years,
particularly in Russian-allied Syria, it's mostly back on track.
"... Speaking at the White House today, President Obama denied unequivocally that the US had any prior knowledge of last week's failed military coup in Turkey, calling on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to make sure everyone in Turkey knows the US wasn't involved. ..."
"... The early US reaction to the coup has raised a lot of speculation, as Secretary of State John Kerry, during the coup, issued a tepid comment just urging "stability." The US only condemned the coup when it became clear, later that evening, that it was going to fail. ..."
Obama Denies Advance Knowledge of Turkish Coup; Insists US Had No Involvement in Failed Coup
Speaking at the White House today, President Obama denied unequivocally that the US had any
prior knowledge of last week's failed military coup in Turkey, calling on Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan to make sure everyone in Turkey knows the US wasn't involved.
The early US reaction to the coup has raised a lot of speculation, as Secretary of State John
Kerry, during the coup, issued a tepid comment just urging "stability." The US only condemned the
coup when it became clear, later that evening, that it was going to fail.
Turkey cut power to the Incirlik Air Base, where many US warplanes and dozens of US nuclear weapons
are based, and jailed the commander as a co-conspirator to the coup. That, and Turkey's blaming of
cleric Fethullah Gulen, exiled to the US, as being behind the plot, are likely the source of a lot
of the speculation.
The US has been keen to keep its ties close to Turkey, whoever ends up running it, and the Obama
Administration is understandably eager to distance itself from any suspicion. This is a key part
of why the US has been so reluctant to seriously criticize Turkey's post-coup purge, and why Turkey
feels comfortable pressuring them to extradite Gulen without any evidence.
TEHRAN (FNA)- Arab media outlets quoted diplomats in Ankara as disclosing that Turkey's President
Erdogan was alerted by Russia against an imminent army coup hours before it was initiated on Friday,
while a western media outlet said Erdogan asked his supporters to remain in the streets after receiving
advice from Tehran.
Several Arab media outlets, including Rai Alyoum, quoted diplomatic sources
in Ankara as saying that Turkey's National Intelligence Organization, known locally as the MIT, received
intel from its Russian counterpart that warned of an impending coup in the Muslim state.
The unnamed diplomats said the Russian army in the region had intercepted highly sensitive army
exchanges and encoded radio messages showing that the Turkish army was readying to stage a coup against
the administration in Ankara.
The exchanges included dispatch of several army choppers to President Erdogan's resort hotel to
arrest or kill the president.
The diplomats were not sure of the Russian station that had intercepted the exchanges, but said
the Russian army intelligence unit deployed in Khmeimim (also called Hmeimim) in Syria's Northern
province of Lattakia is reportedly equipped with state-of-the-art electronic and eavesdropping systems
to gather highly sensitive information for the Russian squadrons that are on an anti-terrorism mission
in Syria.
Khmeimim in Northwestern Syria is the only Russian air force base in the war-ravaged country that
provides cover for Syrian army and popular forces in multiple fronts across the country, in addition
to bombing missions against terrorist targets. The Russian naval fleet, including its only aircraft
carrier, are deployed along the coasts of Lattakia border province to provide logistical aid to the
air base in a short time. Meantime, Russia has deployed its highly sophisticated S-400 air defense
shield at Khmeimim and announced that it covers the entire Syrian skies with the same air defense
system.
Last year, Turkey shot down a Russian Sukhoi bomber over Syrian skies and President Erdogan who
was then a staunch enemy of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad rejected extending an apology to Moscow
for about a year, although economic sanctions by Russia as well as growing victories by the Syrian
army, popular forces, Hezbollah fighters, Iranian advisors and Russian air force that cornered the
terrorists in Syria and similar victories against ISIL in Iraq convinced the Turkish president to
not just apologize for the Sukhoi incident, but also show signs of a U-turn in foreign policy, saying
that he is dropping his opposition to President Assad.
Four days after the coup, officials in Ankara announced that the two Turkish pilots who played
a role in the downing of the Russian plane in November were in custody over the recent failed coup.
"Two pilots who were part of the operation to down the Russian Su-24 in November 2015 are in custody,"
a Turkish official told journalists on Tuesday, adding that they were detained over links to the
coup bid.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday,
describing the attempted coup as unacceptable and voicing hope for a speedy return to stability.
The diplomatic sources said the shift in Erdogan's foreign policy stated only a week before the
coup has been "a major cause pushing several foreign states to provoke and promise support for the
army to stage the coup, and the same shift also saved him" as it was not clear if the Russians would
provide Ankara with their intel, otherwise.
Officials of neither country have made any comment on the report yet. In Ankara, official sources,
including the Army itself, confirmed that the Turkish army's top generals had been informed of last
week's coup by the MIT hours before the plot came into action.
A statement issued by the army on July 19 described the events that took place on July 15, saying
a majority within the military managed to suppress the coup attempt due to information provided by
the MIT some five hours before the coup plot became public, national newspaper Hurriyet reported.
"The information given by the National Intelligence Organization on July 15, 2016, at around 4:00
p.m. was evaluated at the General Staff headquarters with the attendance of Chief of Staff General
Hulusi Akar, Chief of the Army General Salih Zeki Colak and Deputy Chief of Staff General Yasar Guler."
In order to counter the coup, high ranking officials within the Turkish army gave orders for all
air and ground forces around the country to immediately cease operations including military vehicles
such as tanks, planes and helicopters.
A report by Al-Jazeera Arabic suggests the coup plotters initiated the operation six hours ahead
of time as they had previously planned to launch the coup at 3:00 a.m. local time on July 16.
While the report does not indicate the reason for the coup being initiated ahead of time, the
revelation by the military suggests the coup plotters understood their plans had been compromised
and decided to act. 1
Reports also suggest the coup plotters had orders to kidnap or kill President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
as helicopters headed toward the hotel he was staying in at the holiday resort of Marmaris. But Erdogan
had left 44 minutes before they arrived, according to Al-Jazeera's report.
The official statements coming out from Ankara are in full compliance with the Arab media reports
quoting the diplomatic sources on the Russian intel.
Only four days after the coup, Erdogan appeared on the media saying that he plans to declare a
crucial turn in foreign policy that would "end differences with Turkey's neighboring states".
Less than a day later, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov announced that President Erdogan would
visit Russia early in August to meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
Meantime, Iran rushed to condemn the Turkish army coup only two hours after it started. Several
top security and foreign policy officials in Tehran were in constant contact with President Erdogan
and his cabinet ministers all throughout Friday.
As July 15 was coming to an end in Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was on
the phone with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, whose government was under the threat of
being overthrown by a military coup. Meanwhile, Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National
Security Council (SNSC), was on another line with security officials in Ankara. All the while, Qassem
Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force, Iran's regional military
arm, was busy pursuing and reviewing various scenarios that might emerge.
"It's not a secret anymore," an Iranian official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. "Zarif,
Shamkhani and Soleimani were executing higher orders. The whole establishment was too concerned.
Turkey is a neighboring state. President Erdogan and his government are strong partners of Iran.
Our nations enjoy strong brotherly ties, so it's the least we can do to show solidarity and try to
offer any help they might need in such critical times."
"Another Iranian official saw parallels between the successful coup against Iranian Prime Minister
Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953 and this year's coup attempt in Turkey," Al-Monitor said.
The official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, "What we know is that this move was triggered
by foreign hands. We went through the same in the past, and because Mr. Erdogan is today looking
forward to playing a better role in the region, they want him down." The Iranian official said, "There
was a message that was conveyed to Turkish security officials: Don't leave the streets. This coup
might be made up of several waves; it happened in Iran in 1953. When the first coup failed, they
had another one ready - and they succeeded."
In Ankara, the government claims the coup and the generals behind it are loyal followers of US-based
Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, who was once Erdogan's key ally before a major fallout in 2012. Many
believe that Gulen is the main cause of why Ankara officials have repeatedly accused the US of masterminding
the plot.
Gulen is running a multi-billion dollar enterprise in Saudi Arabia and has grown into a serious
bone of contention in Ankara-Riyadh ties. Saudi Arabia reserved condemnation of the coup in a suspicious
move. Later, reports surfaced the media that the top brass in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi two strong allies
of the US with unbreakably intimate ties with each other in the Persian Gulf were involved in the
coup.
Saudi whistle-blower Mujtahid, who is believed to be a member of or have a well-connected source
in the royal family, dislosed that senior government officials in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi had been informed
of the coup in Turkey long before it took place.
Mujtahid wrote on his twitter page on Monday that the UAE leaders had played a role in the coup
and the Turkish spy agencies have come to decode this involvement, adding that the UAE leaders had
also alerted the Saudis about the impending coup.
"Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammad bin Salman had been informed of the military
coup in Turkey," Mujtahid wrote on his twitter page on Monday.
"There are reasons to prove that given his intimate relations with Mohammad bin Zayed bin Sultan
Al-Nahyan (the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces), Mohammad
bin Salman had been filled with information about this coup," he added.
According to Mujtahid, Turkish intelligence agencies had received information about some negative
collaboration between bin Salman and bin Zayed, but the Saudis managed to convince the Justice and
Development party to rest assured and be optimistic about Riyadh's actions.
He revealed that bin Salman has been trying to convince the Turks to conceal the UAE's role in
the coup and has promised a large amount of cash in retribution.
The last week coup in Turkey is now growing into a major regional confrontation over Turkey's
shift in its Syria policy now. If confirmed, the Russian and Iranian aid to Erdogan would mean the
power balance and equations in the region ought to be redefined.
"... [The world] respected our strengths, and when they saw to an exaggerated degree that we were not as strong as they thought, that Russia was "a colossus on clay legs," then the picture changed immediately, domestic and foreign enemies raised their heads, and the indifferent stopped paying attention to us. ..."
"... Dimitri K. Simes, publisher and CEO of the ..."
"... , is president of the Center for the National Interest. ..."
ONE REASON for avoiding a sense of inevitable confrontation with Russia is that
Moscow's truculence is primarily a function of what America does rather than
who it is. To the extent that Russia has an ideology, it is an assertive
nationalism that allows cooperation with any nation that does not challenge
Russian geopolitical interests or its system of government. Russia thus
maintains good relations with authoritarian countries like China and Qatar, and
with democracies like India and Israel. In part because its leaders are
pragmatic rather than messianic, Russia's authoritarianism is still relatively
soft and incorporates many democratic procedures including meaningful if not
entirely free or fair elections, a judicial branch that is autonomous most of
the time and a semi-independent media. Transitions to democracy in other
countries are only a problem for Russia's live-and-let-live foreign policy when
the Kremlin sees them as either destabilizing (as in some cases in the Middle
East) or anti-Russian (as in some cases in its immediate neighborhood).
While a U.S.-Russian conflict is not inevitable, Russia's estrangement from
the West after the Cold War probably stemmed from the unrealistic and
contrasting expectations held on both sides. When Mikhail Gorbachev and his
liberal allies like Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, Central Committee
Secretary Alexander Yakovlev, and foreign-policy aide Anatoly Chernyaev began
articulating and implementing Gorbachev's "new thinking," which emphasized
universal human values at the expense of national interests, they assumed that
the Soviet Union could cease being a global superpower, give up its system of
alliances, rely increasingly on foreign economic assistance and still benefit
from others' deference to Moscow as a key player in world affairs. If Soviet
leaders had consulted Russia's own history, they would have realized how
profoundly unrealistic their expectations were.
Sergei Witte, who became Russia's first constitutionally appointed prime
minister under Czar Nicholas II following the country's humiliating defeat in
the Russo-Japanese War, would have immediately foreseen what was to come. "It
was not because of our culture or our bureaucratic church or our wealth and
welfare that the world respected us," Witte wrote.
[The world] respected our strengths, and when they saw to an exaggerated
degree that we were not as strong as they thought, that Russia was "a colossus
on clay legs," then the picture changed immediately, domestic and foreign
enemies raised their heads, and the indifferent stopped paying attention to us.
Of course, the Soviet Union did not suffer a military defeat in the 1980s
like the Russian Empire's loss in 1905. Nor did the changes in Russian
government, policy and philosophy follow a domestic rebellion; instead, they
were imposed from the top by a leadership that decided it was on the wrong side
of history. Notwithstanding the motives of Gorbachev and, later, President
Boris Yeltsin, Western officials showed little gratitude for their roles in
destroying the Soviet empire once it became clear that a Russia collapsing upon
itself was unwilling to use force and had very little remaining economic
leverage. Similarly, while most Russians not only counted on massive Western
assistance but even thought of themselves as Western allies in destroying the
USSR, most in the West, particularly in central Europe, determined that the
time had finally come to act on historical grievances against Moscow or felt
that a weak, corrupt and unstable Russia did not deserve to be taken seriously,
much less accepted as an equal partner with the United States and the European
Union.
... ... ...
THE DARING combination of NATO expansion and growing interventionism further accentuated
Russia's alienation from the West. Remarkably, NATO failed to consider how its dramatically
different conduct would affect relations with Russia or world politics in general. With postCold
War triumphalism increasingly seeping into conventional wisdom, most assumed that when the United
States and major European powers wanted to do something in the international arena, they could
impose their will without significant costs. Though this new NATO assertiveness was not
deliberately directed against Russia, few within the alliance took seriously Moscow's
concerns-which were met by most with either indifference or contemptuous disregard. Rarely if
ever did U.S. leaders critically assess how they themselves would react if a powerful (and not
even necessarily hostile) alliance sought to add Canada and Mexico to its ranks while excluding
the United States.
... ... ...
Advocates of NATO expansion argued that Russia could not really object to the
process. Neither Washington nor anyone else signed an agreement with Gorbachev
or Yeltsin to limit NATO to its current membership, they said. And anyway, the
central and eastern European countries themselves were asking to join. Beyond
that, advocates said, expansion would actually make Russia more secure because
new members under NATO's security umbrella would be less afraid of their former
imperial master and would accordingly be better able to set aside their past
grievances to begin new relationships with Moscow. Since Yeltsin was
instrumental in achieving relatively peaceful independence for the Baltic
states by refusing to allow Russian citizens to participate in any military
action against them, some expected Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to be
especially grateful. Nevertheless, all these arguments were either incomplete,
superficial or just plain wrong.
It is true that the George H. W. Bush
administration did not provide any formal guarantees that NATO would not expand
further east. That was perfectly appropriate since neither Gorbachev nor
Yeltsin asked for a legally binding agreement. Nevertheless, as their memoirs
and other documents make clear, President Bush, James Baker and Brent Scowcroft
may not have considered post-Communist Russia to be a superpower, but they did
view it as a friendly power. They intended to treat Moscow with respect and
dignity and to work to provide it what they saw as an appropriate place in the
new European security architecture. This attitude discouraged Gorbachev and
Yeltsin from insisting on legally binding guarantees.
... ... ...
In the absence of a serious foreign-policy debate, few Americans understood what an ambitious
project Washington was undertaking in allowing NATO's expansion and interventionism to proceed
blindly until the alliance had incorporated most of Europe. Yet looking at the last two centuries
of Europe's history, a nation or a group of nations has only attempted to dominate Europe three
times. Napoleon Bonaparte, World War I's victorious allies and the Third Reich each tried and
failed. Napoleon and Hitler were defeated by a countercoalition; the World War I allies created
an unsustainable security architecture in Europe that contributed to the rise of Nazism and World
War II. Moreover, while Westerners may believe that NATO's eastward expansion has been peaceful
and voluntary, Russians see it as inseparable from NATO's European and global military exploits.
How could bringing small new members into NATO and mollifying them outweigh the danger of
provoking Russia's anti-Western militarism?
... ... ...
Many say that without Ukraine Russia cannot be an empire. This is true, to a
point. Conversely, however, Russia's elite and much of its public believes that
Russia can never be secure if Ukraine becomes a hostile nation and particularly
if it joins a hostile alliance. Russian leaders have already seen how NATO's
new members have changed the character of the alliance in its dealings with
Moscow. A NATO influenced by not only Poland and the Baltic states, but also
Ukraine, may form an existential threat for Moscow. This in turn would place
both Ukraine's and NATO's security in terrible jeopardy-a development that
America should seek to avoid.
Relations between the two sides have
deteriorated to dangerous levels. It's in the U.S. national interest to explore
better relations with Russia from a position of strength, something that will
require both patience and realism in acknowledging that the effort may not
succeed. If Moscow refuses to oblige, Washington should do whatever is
necessary to protect its interests. Since this is likely to be risky and
costly, it should not be America's first choice.
Dimitri K. Simes, publisher and CEO of the National Interest,
is president of the Center for the National Interest.
"... There is an interesting campaign going on in Washington right now pushing for a no-fly zone over Syria. As we saw in an earlier thread the petition by those 51 FSOs inside the State Dept calling for this. That was preceded by the main editorial in the WaPo calling for the same. ..."
"... This is obviously orchestrated very likely involving the Hillary campaign and/or those who are trying to influence her. Hillary has after all called for such in recent months. Could Hillary really be that stupid or incompetent to set off a shooting war with Russia? ..."
"... Hillary may be the fist president from the democratic party to be impeached. There is no WW3 scenario only nuke apocalypse that would be bad for business and even Putin isn't about to sacrifice his nation for Assad or the Iranians. ..."
"... The US apparatchiks have measured the Russian ability to protect Assad and found them lacking and are moving to ratchet up the rhetoric hopefully forcing a deal without any real escalation but they appear ready to directly confront the Russians in Syria. ..."
"... My fear is that if, say Russia, sunk say a destroyer with the loss of all hands the fools running the US would panic and then respond with a nuclear escalation. I think Russia and China really are preparing for conventional weapons confrontation with the US. And the battlefield will not be in Syria but on those nations borders. Russian forces in Syria are no more than a trip wire. ..."
"... Thus, the humanitarian crisis (which has always existed) will now be touted as a newly-discovered reason for NATO/UN peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention. As long as that intervention creates a well-guarded Sunni Corridor from north to south Syria with the appropriate UN buffer zones. Oh yeah - it should include nearly all of Syria's oil resources (for future U.S. use). Toss in a few bazillion blue helmets and NATO air support for the inevitable No-fly Zones and Operation Yinon: Block the Evil Shia Corridor will have been accomplished. ..."
"... Russia still has its port and doesn't have to bomb anyone else. Assad still has a leftover chunk of partitioned Syria without any oil, gas or water - but Israel will sell them all they want for a slight premium. The Kurds get whatever bones they're thrown. And the U.S. and Israel have their coveted Sunnistan - even though the Sunnis will be impoverished and little more than oil well guards and human shields for any imaginary Iranian invasion of Syria. Oh, and foreign diplomats will have guaranteed jobs for a decade as they try to solve the unsolvable problem they created. ..."
"... pretty sorry state of affairs when the world - americans in particular - think it is okay to play chicken over the possibility of nuclear war... basically sums up the level of stupidity in the usa today - reflected best in the idiots running for political office who haven't a clue about anything their there own political future with the military industrial complex/clinton.. ..."
"... toivo - i really think americans need to be thinking the next war will be on their homeland... enough of the shit of making war in faraway lands on others... americans need to fucking wake up.. ..."
"... Russia has been boxed into a corner by the Rep, Dem, Brit, NATO neocons. Russia has been exceedingly patient and diplomatic at every turn. Russia should be well prepared now to militarily defend the legitimate Syrian Government and it territory. ..."
"... john helmers article from a few days ago - US STRATEGY FOR RUSSIA WAGE WAR BUT NOT DECLARE IT ..."
"... 'The current head of the US CIA, William Brennan, lived in Saudi Arabia for years' ..."
There is an interesting campaign going on in Washington right now pushing for a no-fly zone
over Syria. As we saw in an earlier thread the petition by those 51 FSOs inside the State Dept calling
for this. That was preceded by the main editorial in the WaPo calling for the same.
Then yesterday the Yazidi woman who was held as a "sex slave" by ISIS testified before Congress
and called for Obama to set up no fly zones so refugees could find safety. Her testimony was horrific
and only the most heartless could dismiss her story. But since ISIS does not have nor has ever had
an airforce it is not clear how a no fly zone would have prevented the horror she experienced.
This is obviously orchestrated very likely involving the Hillary campaign and/or those who
are trying to influence her. Hillary has after all called for such in recent months. Could Hillary
really be that stupid or incompetent to set off a shooting war with Russia?
ToivoS | Jun 22, 2016 3:27:26 PM |
2 Northern Observer | Jun 22, 2016 3:35:04 PM |
3
Hillary may be the fist president from the democratic party to be impeached. There is no WW3
scenario only nuke apocalypse that would be bad for business and even Putin isn't about to sacrifice
his nation for Assad or the Iranians.
The US apparatchiks have measured the Russian ability to protect Assad and found them lacking
and are moving to ratchet up the rhetoric hopefully forcing a deal without any real escalation
but they appear ready to directly confront the Russians in Syria.
#10 wow. For once I agree with you. Those forces working for the no fly zone over Syria do
not want nuclear war. They happen to believe that in any game of chicken the Russians will blink
first. However, I would hope that this would happen but there are other scenarios here short (it
is hoped) of nuclear war. The Russians also do not want nuclear war. They like the Chinese have
been preparing their military in conventional war tactics against the US. Not that these tactics
will defeat the US but that they will cause so much damage that it would drain domestic support
for future US aggression against those countries.
Both China and Russia have concentrated their defenses on anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles.
Today, the Russians have the ability to sink any US warship in either the Black or Baltic seas.
The Russians have made those weapons available to Iran and they may possibly be able to easily
sink any destroyer or cruiser in the Persian Gulf.
My fear is that if, say Russia, sunk say a destroyer with the loss of all hands the fools
running the US would panic and then respond with a nuclear escalation. I think Russia and China
really are preparing for conventional weapons confrontation with the US. And the battlefield will
not be in Syria but on those nations borders. Russian forces in Syria are no more than a trip
wire.
Wayoutwest@10 - "...but they appear ready to directly confront the Russians in Syria..."
Whaa...? You're talking about Americans, right?
The soft invasion of Syria is happening as we speak. What's the latest roll call: French, Belgian,
German, UK special forces? Norway on deck? NATO has already invaded without confronting Russia.
The U.S. will not permit Sunnistan to fall. If you don't believe the pipeline reason, then you
have to recognize the NATO Sunni Corridor must exist to block the Shia Corridor from Iran.
The U.S./Israeli plan to separate Syria and create the Sunni/Turkey corridor is going along
as always planned - although they're rushing as of late. We're at the stage where Turkey and Jordan
are shutting their borders. Useless in practice, but necessary to give western MSM the cover story
of the threat of ISIS spreading to those countries. Laughable because that's where the head-choppers
came from, but reason has nothing to do with propaganda. ZATO has to foment a massive, well-publicised
humanitarian crisis to justify the next partitioning step.
Thus, the humanitarian crisis (which has always existed) will now be touted as a newly-discovered
reason for NATO/UN peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention. As long as that intervention creates
a well-guarded Sunni Corridor from north to south Syria with the appropriate UN buffer zones.
Oh yeah - it should include nearly all of Syria's oil resources (for future U.S. use). Toss in
a few bazillion blue helmets and NATO air support for the inevitable No-fly Zones and Operation
Yinon: Block the Evil Shia Corridor will have been accomplished.
Russia still has its port and doesn't have to bomb anyone else. Assad still has a leftover
chunk of partitioned Syria without any oil, gas or water - but Israel will sell them all they
want for a slight premium. The Kurds get whatever bones they're thrown. And the U.S. and Israel
have their coveted Sunnistan - even though the Sunnis will be impoverished and little more than
oil well guards and human shields for any imaginary Iranian invasion of Syria. Oh, and foreign
diplomats will have guaranteed jobs for a decade as they try to solve the unsolvable problem they
created.
Halliburton and their little Cheney KBR buddy are already salivating over the reconstruction
contracts. Let's get those damn blue helmets in there! The former KBR is loosing money every second
this scheme is delayed.
pretty sorry state of affairs when the world - americans in particular - think it is okay
to play chicken over the possibility of nuclear war... basically sums up the level of stupidity
in the usa today - reflected best in the idiots running for political office who haven't a clue
about anything their there own political future with the military industrial complex/clinton..
toivo - i really think americans need to be thinking the next war will be on their homeland...
enough of the shit of making war in faraway lands on others... americans need to fucking wake
up..
System is fubar. People are fed up. Let the chips fall where they may. Smart play is to get
out of EU.
Russia has been boxed into a corner by the Rep, Dem, Brit, NATO neocons. Russia has been
exceedingly patient and diplomatic at every turn. Russia should be well prepared now to militarily
defend the legitimate Syrian Government and it territory.
@34 ghubar shabih 'The current head of the US CIA, William Brennan, lived in Saudi Arabia
for years'
I'm sure you meant John Brennan. Wikipedia has
At one point in his career, he was a daily intelligence briefer for President Bill Clinton.
In 1996 he was CIA station chief in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia when the Khobar Towers bombing killed
19 U.S. servicemen. In 1999 he was appointed chief of staff to George Tenet, then-Director
of the CIA
I hadn't realized he was in Saudi Arabia. I also hadn't realized that he was out and in the revolving
door before working for Obama, before having Obama appoint him head of the CIA
His last post within the Intelligence Community was as director of the National Counterterrorism
Center in 2004 and 2005, which incorporated information on terrorist activities across U.S.
agencies.
Brennan then left government service for a few years, becoming Chairman of the Intelligence
and National Security Alliance (INSA) and the CEO of The Analysis Corporation (TAC). He continued
to lead TAC after its acquisition by Global Strategies Group in 2007 and its growth as the
Global Intelligence Solutions division of Global's North American technology business GTEC,
before returning to government service with the Obama administration as Homeland Security Advisor
on January 20, 2009.
Made good connections on the other side of the revolving door, I'm sure. No doubt the kickbacks
will flow from the drone builders/operators and the electronic communications spies after his
next trip through.
He may not be as good as the parrot with Arabic, but he had Obama parroting his lines very
well throughout his eight long years. Obama will share those kickbacks as well, I'm sure. Polly
wants a cracker.
"... Weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the Port of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The weapons shipped during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG's, and 125mm and 155mm howitzers missiles. ..."
"... The weapons shipped from Libya to Syria during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG's, and 125mm and 155mm howitzers missiles. The numbers for each weapon were estimated to be: 500 Sniper rifles, 100 RPG launchers with 300 total rounds, and approximately 400 howitzers missiles [200 ea - 125mm and 200ea - 1[55 mm]. ..."
WARNING: (U) THIS IS AN INFORMATION REPORT. NOT FINALLY EVALUATED
INTELLIGENCE. REPORT CLASSIFIED SECRET//NOFORN .
TEXT: 1. ( S//NF ) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. Weapons from the former Libya
military stockpiles were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to
the Port of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The weapons
shipped during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG's, and 125mm
and 155mm howitzers missiles.
2.( S//NF }During Ihe immediate altermath of, and following the
uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the ((Qaddafi)) regime in
October 2011 and up until early September of 2012, weapons from the
former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were
shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the ports of Banias and
the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The Syrian ports were chosen due to
the small amount of cargo traffic transiting these two ports. The
ships used to transport the weapons were medium-sized and able to
hold 10 or less shipping containers of cargo. (NFI)
3. ( S//NF ) The weapons shipped from Libya to Syria during late-August
2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG's, and 125mm and 155mm howitzers
missiles. The numbers for each weapon were estimated to be: 500
Sniper rifles, 100 RPG launchers with 300 total rounds, and
approximately 400 howitzers missiles [200 ea - 125mm and 200ea - 1[55
mm].
(b)(1) Sec. 1. 4(c).(b)(3): 10§USC 424,(b)(3):50§USC 3024(i)
REDACTED
CLASSIFIED
The Looming US War on Russia
By Finian Cunningham
June 22, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - "Sputnik" - Russian President Vladimir
Putin's comparison of increasing US-led NATO aggression towards Russia to the attack by
Nazi Germany on the Soviet Union is advisedly apt.
Putin was addressing the Russian State Duma this week on the occasion 75 years ago when
the Nazi Third Reich launched Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941.
Nazi Germany's aggression, which led to the Great Patriotic War in which up to 30
million Soviet citizens lost their lives in order to gain victory against that fascist
power, was at bottom an attack by Western imperialism. As Putin reminded, this
fundamental fact is often omitted in Western commentary.
In that way, the significance
of NATO's current military buildup what else is that but aggression? on Russian
territory is all too often absent in Western media. And, by extension, Western public
appreciation is lacking on how sinister the unfolding situation is.
~~~
The burgeoning US-led aggression towards Russia in the form of provocative political
campaigns to demonize and vilify with false accusations, economic sanctions and the
spurning of diplomacy and dialogue, as well as the expansion of military forces,
including the deployment of missile systems is in a long, reprehensible tradition of
Western belligerence towards Russia, going back to, among others, French emperor
Napoleon Bonaparte and German Fuhrer Adolf Hitler.
This congenital aggression towards Russia stems from the dynamic of the Western economic
system of capitalism, which in turns begets imperialism as its necessary tool for
expropriating natural resources and subjugating foreign nations.
~~~
The little-known historical record at least in Western media is that Nazi Germany
was fomented by American and British capitalism as a proxy with which to vanquish the
Soviet Union. The subsequent Western alliance with Soviet Russia to defeat Nazi Germany
was merely a cynical damage-control move by the Western powers who were witnessing their
Nazi attack dog being muzzled and liquidated.
~~~
As the US presidential election swings towards Democrat contender Hillary Clinton, that
portends ominously for relations with Russia. It was Clinton who as Secretary of State
in the first Obama administration in 2009-2013 plunged bilateral relations into the
freezer and who set the course for the present geopolitical tensions.
Of further concern is Clinton's likely
selection to head the Pentagon . It is hotly tipped that Clinton will appoint Michele
Flournoy as the first female Secretary of Defense. Flournoy (56) is a prominent Pentagon
insider, with close links to the military and CIA We can be sure that this duo will
keenly push a bellicose agenda towards Russia.
Only last week, Flournoy made strident calls for increased US military intervention in
Syria. She wants to deploy large numbers of American troops and openly use military
force to topple the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad.
Posted by: okie farmer | Jun 23, 2016 12:39:33 AM |
56
In the week of the referendum vote, no
British politician and, to my knowledge, no journalist referred to Vladimir Putin's
speech in St. Petersburg commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of Nazi
Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. The Soviet victory at a
cost of 27 million Soviet lives and the majority of all German forces won the
Second World War.
Russian President Vladimir Putin laying a wreath at Russia's Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier on May 8, 2014, as part of the observance of the World War II Victory over
Germany.
Putin likened the current frenzied build up of NATO troops and war materiel on
Russia's western borders to the Third Reich's Operation Barbarossa. NATO's exercises
in Poland were the biggest since the Nazi invasion; Operation Anaconda had simulated
an attack on Russia, presumably with nuclear weapons.
On the eve of the referendum, the quisling secretary-general of NATO, Jens
Stoltenberg, warned Britons they would be endangering "peace and security" if they
voted to leave the E.U. The millions who ignored him and Cameron, Osborne, Corbyn,
Obama and the man who runs the Bank of England may, just may, have struck a blow for
real peace and democracy in Europe.
John Pilger is an Australian-British journalist based in London.
Pilger's Web site is:
www.johnpilger.com
,
the films and journalism of John Pilger.
51 neocons warmongers, who need to be send to Afghanistan for some on site learning. Nuland's birds
of feather try to get worm places in Hillary new administration, playing on her war hawk tendencies...
Those "diplomats" forgot about the existence of Saudis and other theocracies which are much more brutal
and less democratic, viewing woman as domestic animals. These are dark times for American foreign
policy. the easy part is to depose Assad. But what might happen after Assad is disposed of? You
know, the hard part, what follows?
Notable quotes:
"... These Diplomats should be fired as idiots. Did they not just live through the Iraqi occupation, destruction and disaster? ..."
"... Are you a bit confused as to who these neocon dissenters at State support in the Syrian civil war? ..."
"... This is simply a roll call of neocon diplomats making a case for another non-strategic war that would badly hurt US interests. It does not represent State Department policy. The neocons have been very persistent in securing career appointments at State for decades now. ..."
"... You are pushing the world closer to war. ..."
"... what is intolerable about the position of the 51 "diplomats" in the memo is that it is their (failed) efforts to dislodge Assad by proxy, facilitating and organizing the flow of arms that more often than ended up in the hands of hard-line jihadists, that has led to almost 400,000 deaths (not to mention wounded) and the flight of over a million refugees. ..."
"... Wow, sounds like some housecleaning is needed at State. Whatever happened to jaw-jaw being better than war-war? If they are so keen on military action, they're in the wrong building. I'm sure some of the overworked troops and officers in the armed forces would be happy to let these guys take a few of the chances of getting shot or blown up that they deal with daily. ..."
"... It is troubling that the State Department, long a bulwark of common sense against America's foreign adventurism, has become as hawkish as its former head, Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... The Middle East Institute is financed, primarily, by the petroleum and arms industries. The Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy has HRC's close ally, Dennis Ross; who, with Martin Indyk, founded AIPAC in the mid-80's. ..."
"... This group's contention that direct confrontation with Russia could be avoided echoes their 2002 claim that Operation Iraqi Freedom would be a three month cake walk. ..."
"... Since WWII, U.S. foreign policy has been rooted in the projection and use of force (covert and overt) as the primary means to achieve whatever goals the executive office seeks. It placed the world on notice that the U.S. was ready and willing to use violence to back its foreign policy objectives. Just as in Vietnam and before the disastrous decision to escalate the use of ground forces, President Johnson's national security advisors (all holdovers from Kennedy's Presidency) pressed Johnson to use aerial bombardment against N. Vietnam to induce them to seek a negotiated peace that would allow the U.S. to withdraw from the conflict and save face while preserving the policy of projecting force as a means to maintain world order in accordance with U.S. designs. ..."
"... My oldest son is now completing his sixth Afghan/Iraq tour.I don't want him in Syria. Let these 51 diplomats volunteer their sons/daughters for Syria.That'll demonstrate their commitment.I'll bet not one of these 51 "geniuses" has a child on active military duty in Iraq/Afghan. ..."
"... These folks are, it appears, mid-level foreign service officers like I was. They are utterly unqualified to make these judgements as the Department of State is a failed organization culturally and functionally. Like HRC, who is still advocating for forced regime change if she wins, they have learned nothing from the past and again have no answer for what follows Asad being deposed. A majority Sunni regime in Syria will tear Iraq apart and there is no likelihood of it avoiding the trajectory of other "pluralistic" Arab state attempts. The fact that State has no culture of strategic analysis informing operational design and operational planning which, in turn, spawn series of tactical events, comes clear in situations like this. Doing nothing is the best case here. Tragic but still the best case. President Obama has seen this. Asad needs to regain control of Syria's territory, all of it. Feeding the hopes of the Ahmed Chalabi equivalents in Syria is perpetuating the violence. And, there is no room for an independent Kurdistan in the region, nor is it in the United States' interest for there to be one. ..."
"... That's the same class of people who figured that invading in Iraq in 2003 would turn out all right. ..."
"... Exhibit A being Samantha Power, the latest in a long line of militaristic, European-born white Americans (see Albright, Kissinger, Brzezinski) who believe that American firepower can bring order to the world. ..."
"... Sorry hawkish diplomats, but you're living in a fantasyland where the invasion of Iraq in 2003 did not permanently tarnish the image of the USA and wreck its credibility as an honest arbiter. That is the reality all US presidents will have to face in the post-Bush 43 era. ..."
"... Are those 51 U.S. Diplomats responsible for advising the Obama Administration to bomb Libya back in 2011? Apparently they have not learned from their mistakes. Or maybe they should just go work for their true Employer, The Military Industrial Complex. ..."
"... This is reckless and irresponsible. US backed "moderates" are fighting elbow to elbow with the Nusra Front and other radicals groups; that is why the cease-fire is collapsing. ..."
"... If we weaken Assad, Islamists will take over Damascus and if Damascus falls, soon Beirut will follow. These folk at State are neo cons, as usual shooting from the hip. ..."
"... Vietnam, 212,000 dead and countless north and south Vietnamese and citizens. Unjust and unwarranted war on Iraq with 4,491 and counting dead and countess Iraqi citizens. Now, Syria? Are you wanting the draft returned? You asking for boots on the ground? How about you 50 join up. I will willingly pay for taxes just arm you and send you in. Along with every other know it all who wants us 'TO DO MORE'!! Spare me. You have learned NOTHING in your past failures, have you? 1956, Iran. Cause the over throw of a duly elected government for the Shahs which led to 1980 revolution to fear of them acquiring nuclear weapons. Vietnam led to 'WHAT'? Now Iraq. ..."
"... The worse destabilization in that area I can remember. Not even during their many attacks on Israel when Egypt got a clue. Fire Saddam Hussein's soldiers and they become ISIS by 2006, yet one bright senator lied and said Obama caused them when we left which was President Bush's treaty Maliki. They did not want us there. Leave per the Iraqi people, also. When ISIS showed up they ran and left the weaponry we gave them and the money in the banks for them to grab. Now, you want us steeped into Syria. It's been said, hindsight is 20/20, ..."
"... In these so called diplomats cases, it is totally and legally blind. Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles has a better perception and one of them is dead. ..."
"... The war hawks, so comfortably away from the battle, are banging those drums of war again. Easy to do when your life and the lives of your fellow military are not at risk. ..."
"... We all know now that the invasion of Iraq by Mr. Bush junior was a) a mistake, and b) a War Crime - there were no threatening WMDs nor did Saddam hold hads with Al Quaeda (he was, actually, their worst enemy - and our security!), so, Iraq was c) total stupidity. It was an aggressive war without any cause - for the USA! ..."
"... This is much more about what Mark Landler thinks than about what those generic diplomats think. The Times's principal hawk, Landler has book and a series of articles pushing his neocon view. I guess we should assume the Times agrees. ..."
"... Having spent substantial time as a private consultant at the US Embassy in Kabul I was shocked by the lack of feelings of midlevel officials there with regard to the dead and injuries of American Troops. The Embassy shared a wall with the ISAF/NATO Main Quarters and every single day the US Flag there was half-mast to acknowledge the dead of our troops on that day in that country. The Embassy never shared this sadness and all midlevel officials there were only concerned about their paycheck, quality of meals served, having a drink, going for a swim, and their frequent trips back to the US; for such people wanting to have a say in when to fight in Syria is a sad state of affair. ..."
"... Perhaps we should figure out one take-down before we move on to the next. After 13 years, we still haven't figured out life in Iraq without Saddam. Any thoughts, neocons, on what might happen after Assad is disposed of? You know, the hard part, what follows? ..."
"... Get Rid of Assad, make relations with Russia worse (they back Assad) and allow ISIS to effectively take over Syria. Sounds like a great plan. I guess our military-industrial complex is getting itchy for a new war. And, of course, doing what these diplomats want will also result in putting boots on the ground. This will be a great legacy for Ms. Clinton (under her watch ISIS came into being), Mr. Kerry (who continued Clinton's failed legacy) and Mr. Obama (the Nobel Peace Prize president; who wasn't). ..."
"... The signers of the dissent letter are militarist neocons (of the Victoria Nuland ilk). More than any other, these people and their CIA collaborators are responsible for the death and destruction in Syria and the ensuing refugee crisis. They can't even give a cogent reason for deposing Assad other than point to the carnage of the civil war they fomented-as if Assad were solely responsible. Assad is acting no differently than the US did during it's own Civil War. ..."
"... The value of the memo can be summed up in one sentence as described in the article itself "what would happen in the event that Mr. Assad was forced from power - a scenario that the draft memo does not address." ..."
"... I wonder about the arrogance of these mid-level State Department foreign service officers. ..."
"... Sure -- a few well-placed cruise missiles will make it all good. Yeah, right. ..."
"... Absolutely amazing. My first question is who released this memo? Having a back channel does not permit anyone to unilaterally decide to release information that could cost lives and ruin negotiations that the releasing person knows nothing about. If you do not like the chain of command, then leave. We cannot continue to be involved in sectarian conflicts that cannot be resolved except by the combatants. Haven't we learned anything from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Vietnam? No neocon insanity. We have lost enough lives and treasure in the ME. ..."
"... Are these the same ingrates who urged Bush to attack Iraq - his legacy - ISIS! ..."
"... As a 26 year Marine Corps combat veteran I have a hard time trying to figure out what is going on here, and a harder time not becoming totally disgusted with our State Department. ..."
"... My suggestion would be that we arm these 51 individuals, given them a week's worth of ammunition and rations, and drop them into Syria, I am sure they can lead the way in showing us how to solve the mess in the ME. ..."
"... It's the fact that these are not "widely known names" which scares me most. However, Western-instituted regime change in that region has proven disastrous in every single country it has been tried. If possible, I would investigate these diplomats' ties to defense contractors. ..."
"... US intervention created the rubble and hell that is now Syria. When Assad had full control of Syria, the human rights of the people of Syria suffered under him but many if not most people led a civilised life. They had water and electricity. Past US interventions created Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. To puy it simply, life expectancy in all these countries dropped by 20 to 30 years after the US intervened, each time with the highest utopian ideals, and increased the power of Sunni supremacists after each act. ..."
"... Let's not forget that Bush's hasty appointment of Paul Bremer as the hapless Governor of Iraq following the defeat of Hussein's military regime led immediately to the disbanding of the entire Iraqi military, an incredibly short-sighted and reckless move that essentially unleashed 400,000 young trained fighters (including a honed officers corps) absent support programs to assimilate back into Iraqi society, only to have them emerge as readily available fodder essential for ISIS's marshalling a strong military force almost overnight. A huge price is now being exacted for this astounding stupidity. ..."
"... This is conveniently laying grounds for Hillary's grand comeback to the theatre of "humanitarian interventionism" in the Middle East. God help us all, as this is a prelude to the WW3. ..."
"... Wow the neo-cons are beating the war drums yet again! They have already created a huge mess throughout the Middle East with wars and revolutions directly attributable to the United States in invading Afghanistan and Iraq under false pretenses, helping overthrow the government in Libya, and arming rebels in Syria and Yemen. ..."
"... Unfortunately if Hillary Clinton wins, she is a neo-con puppet and we will be at war in Syria and/or Iran within a year or two. God help us! ..."
"... First of all, if this was a channel for employees to share "candidly and privately" about policy concerns, why is it on the front page of the NY Times? Additionally, as usual, it seems the war hawks are hawking war without thought for what comes next. We've done this most recently in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, all of which are now failed states and havens for terrorists. Because this seems rather obvious, either we are pathologically incapable of learning from past mistakes, or there are people who have an agenda different from the publicly stated one. ..."
"... The U.S. has a lengthy, very sordid history of leaping into the fray in areas such as the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Central America and Afghanistan, among others - all with catastrophic results, for which we never seemed to have a credible, well- crafted plan, nor have we ever comprehended the millennia of internecine tribal hatred and sectarian warfare. ..."
"... I am more scared of US diplomats and politicians than terrorists! Have they learned nothing from the US efforts to create western style democracy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria (by supporting separatists att an early stage). The US diplomats proposal would ensure more chaos, death and prolonged wR. 38 % of the population are Alewits. They will be killed, Christians will be killed. ..."
ScottW, is a trusted commenter Chapel Hill, NC 16 hours ago
These Diplomats should be fired as idiots. Did they not just live through the Iraqi occupation,
destruction and disaster?
A few years ago, a diplomat who quit was complaining about Syria at a conference I attended.
When I asked who would fill the void if Assad was deposed he said, "That is a difficult question
to answer." What he really meant to say is, "I don't have a clue."
We have already disrupted Syria by supporting rebels/terrorists. The region cannot tolerate
another Iraq.
Dan Stewart, NYC 16 hours ago
Are you a bit confused as to who these neocon dissenters at State support in the Syrian
civil war?
Here's a helpful hint:
If they have beards down to their belt buckles and seem to be hollering something about Allah,
those are the guys the neocons support.
If they're recently shaved and wearing Western attire, in other words, if they look like anyone
you might bump into on a US city street, those are the people the neocons call the enemy.
Retroatavist, DC 10 hours ago
This is simply a roll call of neocon diplomats making a case for another non-strategic
war that would badly hurt US interests. It does not represent State Department policy. The neocons
have been very persistent in securing career appointments at State for decades now. It's
as if we hadn't forgotten the endless horrible mess they got us and the rest of the world into
by breaking Iraq and destroying all its institutions with the insane de-baathification policy.
And it all started with a similar steady drumbeat for war throughout the mid and late '90s and
up to the 2003 disastrous invasion. Did we not learn anything? Really: Whose interest would
an open US war against Assad really serve, and what predictable outcome would be in the US's strategic
favor?
Robert Sawyer, New York, New York 14 hours ago
How many among the 51 are members of "Hillary's Legions, " the same geniuses responsible for
the unqualified success we achieved in Libya?
Gennady, Rhinebeck 16 hours ago
Stop this irresponsible reporting. You are pushing the world closer to war. Humanitarian
support is all we should bring to the Syrian people, regardless of which side they are on.
ScottW, is a trusted commenter Chapel Hill, NC
These Diplomats should be fired as idiots. Did they not just live through the Iraqi occupation,
destruction and disaster?
A few years ago, a diplomat who quit was complaining about Syria at a conference I attended.
When I asked who would fill the void if Assad was deposed he said, "That is a difficult question
to answer." What he really meant to say is, "I don't have a clue."
We have already disrupted Syria by supporting rebels/terrorists. The region cannot tolerate
another Iraq.
Alyoshak, Durant, OK
Isn't Congress supposed to declare war, and the President command our armed forces when such
declarations occur? But what is intolerable about the position of the 51 "diplomats" in the
memo is that it is their (failed) efforts to dislodge Assad by proxy, facilitating and organizing
the flow of arms that more often than ended up in the hands of hard-line jihadists, that has led
to almost 400,000 deaths (not to mention wounded) and the flight of over a million refugees.
But no, these casualties have nothing to do with our attempts at regime change, No!, the blame
for them lies squarely upon Assad for not scooting out of town immediately and submissively when
the U.S. decided it was time for him to go. So now we're supposed to double-down on a deeply immoral
and flawed strategy? How many more Syrians' lives must be ruined to "save" them from Assad?
Everyman, USA 16 hours ago
Wow, sounds like some housecleaning is needed at State. Whatever happened to jaw-jaw being
better than war-war? If they are so keen on military action, they're in the wrong building. I'm
sure some of the overworked troops and officers in the armed forces would be happy to let these
guys take a few of the chances of getting shot or blown up that they deal with daily.
Dan, Alexandria 16 hours ago
It is troubling that the State Department, long a bulwark of common sense against America's
foreign adventurism, has become as hawkish as its former head, Hillary Clinton.
I am grateful to President Obama for resisting this foolishness, but make no mistake, no matter
who gets into office in January, the kind of farcical, counterproductive, unrealistic "limited
engagement" advocated by these so-called diplomats will be our future. Clinton is champing at
the bit for it, and Trump is too weak to do anything but go along with it.
Clark M. Shanahan, Oak Park, Illinois 16 hours ago
Sadly, they'll most likely have a more accommodating commander and chief with HRC.
The Middle East Institute is financed, primarily, by the petroleum and arms industries.
The Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy has HRC's close ally, Dennis Ross; who, with
Martin Indyk, founded AIPAC in the mid-80's.
This group's contention that direct confrontation with Russia could be avoided echoes their
2002 claim that Operation Iraqi Freedom would be a three month cake walk.
Paul Cohen, is a trusted commenter Hartford CT 15 hours ago
Since WWII, U.S. foreign policy has been rooted in the projection and use of force (covert
and overt) as the primary means to achieve whatever goals the executive office seeks. It placed
the world on notice that the U.S. was ready and willing to use violence to back its foreign policy
objectives. Just as in Vietnam and before the disastrous decision to escalate the use of ground
forces, President Johnson's national security advisors (all holdovers from Kennedy's Presidency)
pressed Johnson to use aerial bombardment against N. Vietnam to induce them to seek a negotiated
peace that would allow the U.S. to withdraw from the conflict and save face while preserving the
policy of projecting force as a means to maintain world order in accordance with U.S. designs.
Nixon carried on this bombing for peace strategy to insane war crime level. This heavy reliance
on military force over a diplomatic solution has never worked. It didn't work for our knee-jerk
response to 9/11 by immediately resorting to military force without first thinking through the
consequences. We are now into our 15th year of aggression against the Muslim World. The time is
long past due to question our failed policy and seek an alternative solution.
Bud, McKinney, Texas 16 hours ago
My oldest son is now completing his sixth Afghan/Iraq tour.I don't want him in Syria. Let
these 51 diplomats volunteer their sons/daughters for Syria.That'll demonstrate their commitment.I'll
bet not one of these 51 "geniuses" has a child on active military duty in Iraq/Afghan.
Abu Charlie, Toronto, Ontario 14 hours ago
These folks are, it appears, mid-level foreign service officers like I was. They are utterly
unqualified to make these judgements as the Department of State is a failed organization culturally
and functionally. Like HRC, who is still advocating for forced regime change if she wins, they
have learned nothing from the past and again have no answer for what follows Asad being deposed.
A majority Sunni regime in Syria will tear Iraq apart and there is no likelihood of it avoiding
the trajectory of other "pluralistic" Arab state attempts. The fact that State has no culture
of strategic analysis informing operational design and operational planning which, in turn, spawn
series of tactical events, comes clear in situations like this. Doing nothing is the best case
here. Tragic but still the best case. President Obama has seen this. Asad needs to regain control
of Syria's territory, all of it. Feeding the hopes of the Ahmed Chalabi equivalents in Syria is
perpetuating the violence. And, there is no room for an independent Kurdistan in the region, nor
is it in the United States' interest for there to be one.
AR, is a trusted commenter Virginia 15 hours ago
How undiplomatic. I don't care that these people are diplomats and that many of them probably
have impeccable academic pedigrees with degrees from the usual suspects such as the Ivy League
schools, SAIS, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and Kennedy. That's the same class
of people who figured that invading in Iraq in 2003 would turn out all right. Obama is correct
to ignore these people, who more often than not are possessed by the notion of American Exceptionalism.
Exhibit A being Samantha Power, the latest in a long line of militaristic, European-born white
Americans (see Albright, Kissinger, Brzezinski) who believe that American firepower can bring
order to the world.
Let this be made clear: Any escalation of American involvement in Syria will be interpreted
as 1) an attempt to enhance the national security of Israel, 2) a means of benefiting the revenue
stream of the American military industrial complex, or 3) both. Only the most naive and foolish
people, since the absolutely disastrous events of 2003, would be inclined to believe that American
military intervention in Syria is motivated mainly by humanitarian impulses.
Sorry hawkish diplomats, but you're living in a fantasyland where the invasion of Iraq
in 2003 did not permanently tarnish the image of the USA and wreck its credibility as an honest
arbiter. That is the reality all US presidents will have to face in the post-Bush 43 era.
Robert Roth, NYC 14 hours ago
Everyone closes their eyes and imagines all the bloodshed they will prevent by all the bloodshed
they will cause.
Samsara, The West 16 hours ago
Have Iraq and Libya taught these State Department officials NOTHING??
Simon, Tampa 15 hours ago
The neo-cons who love regime change that never works. Let us examine their track record:
Iraq - a mess and infested with ISIS and Al Qaeda.
Libya - now an anarchist state infested with ISIS and Al Qaeda.
Yemen - bombing and murdering thousands of innocents and Al Qaeda.
Syria, the only secular Arab state, destroyed and infested with ISIS and Al Qaeda. The only
reason Syria hasn't completely fallen apart is thanks to Assad and his Sunni dominated army, Iran,
and the Russians. So of course, these neo-cons want to complete the job at the behest of the money
they will be getting from the Saudis and the other Gulf States.
Don't worry you warmongering greedy neocon, Hillary Clinton is one of you and will be president
soon enough.
Title Holder, Fl 15 hours ago
Are those 51 U.S. Diplomats responsible for advising the Obama Administration to bomb Libya
back in 2011? Apparently they have not learned from their mistakes. Or maybe they should just
go work for their true Employer, The Military Industrial Complex.
Andrea, New Jersey 15 hours ago
This is reckless and irresponsible. US backed "moderates" are fighting elbow to elbow with
the Nusra Front and other radicals groups; that is why the cease-fire is collapsing. Syrians
and Russians can not split hairs on the battlefield.
If we weaken Assad, Islamists will take over Damascus and if Damascus falls, soon Beirut
will follow. These folk at State are neo cons, as usual shooting from the hip.
Jett Rink, lafayette, la 15 hours ago
Here's the thing most people don't get about ISIS. They thrive on us being involved in the
Middle East. They are willing to kill other Muslims in order to keep us involved. As long as we
are there, terrorism will persist, over there and here too. They are playing us like chumps. They
use our tendency to knee-jerk reactions against us. They're out smarting us at every juncture.
Of course it's human nature to want to help people in such dire straights. But that's exactly
what ISIS wants, and correctly predict, that we'll do. So as long as they out-think us, they'll
continue to win.
If you want to help the innocent people caught in the cross-hairs of ISIS, the best thing we
could possibly do is pack up and leave. There'll be some more carnage, but eventually the backlash
from within will force them to stop the wrecking and killing. Many people will die, but in the
end, the tally would be far fewer.
Their goal is to keep us engaged. Ours should be to get out! As long as we stay, they win.
And that's how they're able to convince long-wolf's to strike us here, even when here is home
to them too.
Joane Johnson, Cleveland, Ohio 15 hours ago
Vietnam, 212,000 dead and countless north and south Vietnamese and citizens. Unjust and
unwarranted war on Iraq with 4,491 and counting dead and countess Iraqi citizens. Now, Syria?
Are you wanting the draft returned? You asking for boots on the ground? How about you 50 join
up. I will willingly pay for taxes just arm you and send you in. Along with every other know it
all who wants us 'TO DO MORE'!! Spare me. You have learned NOTHING in your past failures, have
you? 1956, Iran. Cause the over throw of a duly elected government for the Shahs which led to
1980 revolution to fear of them acquiring nuclear weapons. Vietnam led to 'WHAT'? Now Iraq.
The worse destabilization in that area I can remember. Not even during their many attacks
on Israel when Egypt got a clue. Fire Saddam Hussein's soldiers and they become ISIS by 2006,
yet one bright senator lied and said Obama caused them when we left which was President Bush's
treaty Maliki. They did not want us there. Leave per the Iraqi people, also. When ISIS showed
up they ran and left the weaponry we gave them and the money in the banks for them to grab. Now,
you want us steeped into Syria. It's been said, hindsight is 20/20,
In these so called diplomats cases, it is totally and legally blind. Stevie Wonder and
Ray Charles has a better perception and one of them is dead.
Bev, New York 16 hours ago
Yes the war machine wants more wars. Who will take the place of the evil Assad? We have removed
a number of evil dictators in that area of the world and all it has done is sap our resources,
killed hundreds of thousands of innocents, made millions hate us, and created vacuums of power
which are then filled with Saudi-assisted ISIS - AND profited our war machine (that's the important
part!) We need less involvement in the Mideast, not more. Bring them all home and start transitioning
from a war economy to an economy that serves the American citizens here.
ME, Toronto 13 hours ago
Thank goodness Obama kept his head and didn't (and hopefully won't) listen to such crazy advice.
To call the signers "diplomats" is a real stretch. It seems that somewhere back in time various
U.S. "diplomats" decided that they have the right to decide who and what the government should
be in various jurisdictions throughout the world. Of course this is motivated by purely humanitarian
concerns and love of democracy and not the self-interest of the U.S., as in having a friendly
government in place. As despicable as some governments are, the lessons over many years now should
be that military strikes are just as (maybe more) likely to produce something bad as anything
good. Better to talk and try to influence the development of nations through positive reinforcement
(as Obama has done in Iran). Undoubtedly this is a slow and somewhat frustrating process but that
is something real "diplomats" should be good at. If this process had been pursued in Syria we
would all be better off today and especially the Syrian people.
Mitchell, New York 16 hours ago
I assume these people at State also believe in the Tooth Fairy. The fantasy of "moderate" rebels
who will be grateful to us after they depose a tyrant and put in a fair democratic government
that takes into account all of our Western ideals and freedoms is so unrealistic that these people
at State need to find a job where their last words are, "Can I supersize that for you?" Our involvement
in the Middle East displacing despots and replacing them with chaos has been the biggest disaster
in foreign policy in many decades. Egypt, Iraq, Libya, and even Syria (remember the line in the
sand?). We should join with Russia in destroying ISIS and use our leverage to push Assad to make
some level of concessions.
Dan, Sandy, UT 15 hours ago
Here we go again. The war hawks, so comfortably away from the battle, are banging those
drums of war again. Easy to do when your life and the lives of your fellow military are not at
risk.
Second thought, as stated by a political comedian/satirist, let the Middle East take its own
trash out.
I couldn't agree more.
blackmamba, IL 16 hours ago
Since 9/11/01 only 0.75% of Americans have volunteered to put on the military of any American
armed force. They have been ground to emotional, mental and physical dust by repeated deployments.
Getting rid of Arab dictators has unleashed foreign ethnic sectarian socioeconomic political educational
civil wars that cannot be resolved by American military power.
Assad is an Arab civil secular dictator. Just like many of Americas Arab allies and unlike
those American Arab allies who are Islamic royal fossil fuel tyrants. But Assad is an Alawite
Shia Muslim allied with Russia. The alternatives to Assad are al Qaeda, ISIL and al Nusra. Diplomats
need to stick to diplomacy.
Jo Boost, Midlands 16 hours ago
This situation is not that simple.
There is not -as people in Washington who know better have told for years now- one big bad
wolf called Assad preying and devouring all poor little peaceful lambs (who, accidentally, have
been armed to their teeth by a certain Ms. Clinton and her Saudi friends - even with poison gas
which was, then, blamed on the said Assad).
We have here a follow-up civil war to the (also US started) one in Libya.
Let us just look at International Law, as understood since the Nuremberg Trials:
We all know now that the invasion of Iraq by Mr. Bush junior was a) a mistake, and b) a
War Crime - there were no threatening WMDs nor did Saddam hold hads with Al Quaeda (he was, actually,
their worst enemy - and our security!), so, Iraq was c) total stupidity. It was an aggressive
war without any cause - for the USA!
But a great cause for Saudi "Royals" whose cousins had been thrown out of Iraq, which is good
enough cause, in Arab customs, for a bloody feud and revenge.
The same applies to Syria, and could one, therefore, still wonder why ISIL was so well equipped
for the follow-up (envisaged) invasion?
Libya was a danger for Saudi Autocrates, because a secular Arab country with such a living
standard from fair distribution of oil wealth would be a dangerous advertisement for a Mother
of All Arab Springs in the desert.
So, we have one side with interest - and one without any - but the latter does the dirty work.
Is there more than one tail that wags the US dog?
Bonnie Rothman, NYC 13 hours ago
How brilliant---not! And what do these 50 people expect to happen if and when Assad falls,
chaos prevails and ISIS rushes in? Not to mention the immediate nasty confrontation with Putin.
This isn't 1941 and big Armies and big bombs are useless, USELESS against ISIS which operates
like cancer cells in the human body. And the last time we toppled a tyrant we midwived the ISIS
group which is funded by the Saudis which is funded by our own use of oil. Don't you dopes ever
read history and see the "whole" problem? Sheesh.
Prof. Jai Prakash Sharma, is a trusted commenter Jaipur, India. 16 hours ago
Given the complexity of the Syrian crisis and the multipower stakes involved in Syria, it would
be foolish for the US to direct its unilateral military fury at toppling the Assad regime ignoring
its fall out and the military financial cost to the US itself, specially when except for meeting
the common challenge and threat of the ISIS no direct national interests are at stake for the
US in Syria. The state department's dissenting memo to the President seems an attempt by the vested
interests to further complicate President Obama's Middle East policy that's on the right track
following the Iran deal.
Dennis Sullivan, NYC 16 hours ago
This is much more about what Mark Landler thinks than about what those generic diplomats
think. The Times's principal hawk, Landler has book and a series of articles pushing his neocon
view. I guess we should assume the Times agrees.
Rudolf, New York 7 hours ago
Having spent substantial time as a private consultant at the US Embassy in Kabul I was
shocked by the lack of feelings of midlevel officials there with regard to the dead and injuries
of American Troops. The Embassy shared a wall with the ISAF/NATO Main Quarters and every single
day the US Flag there was half-mast to acknowledge the dead of our troops on that day in that
country. The Embassy never shared this sadness and all midlevel officials there were only concerned
about their paycheck, quality of meals served, having a drink, going for a swim, and their frequent
trips back to the US; for such people wanting to have a say in when to fight in Syria is a sad
state of affair.
pat knapp, milwaukee 16 hours ago
Perhaps we should figure out one take-down before we move on to the next. After 13 years,
we still haven't figured out life in Iraq without Saddam. Any thoughts, neocons, on what might
happen after Assad is disposed of? You know, the hard part, what follows?
Mike Edwards, Providence, RI 16 hours ago
In what way do the views of the State Department officials in ISIS differ from those in the
US State Department who signed this memo?
Recent terrorist attacks in France and the US have been inspired by ISIS, not Mr. Assad. ISIS
is our enemy right now. Let Mr. Assad do what he can to eliminate them.
And haven't we learnt that the removal of a head of State, be it in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya
does not lead to an improvement; it actually causes an outright deterioration.
Finally, please let's also do away with this twaddle about "moderate" forces being present
in the Middle East, ready to enact our fantasy of what a peaceful Middle East should be like.
They don't exist in the Middle East. Ask the Israelis. Those moderates that do exist seem to serve
one purpose, which is to hand over the weapons supplied to them by the West to the terrorists.
I wish the signatories would have had the guts to spell it out. The Middle East is home to
a number of weal nations, a situation the stronger ones don't wish to correct. The only solution
would be for the West to take over the running of those countries and provide for their policing
and defense, as once the West leaves, a vacuum is created allowing terrorist groups to proliferate.
I doubt there is any appetite in the West for such a cause.
Donald, Yonkers 16 hours ago
Interesting how these " moderate" Syrian rebels so often fight alongside al Nusra.
The death toll in Syria is as high as it is because the rebels have outside help, Somehow no
one in the American mainstream, including the NYT, ever points this out. Incidently, note how
the NYT always uses the largest estimates for the death toll-- quite different from what they
did in Iraq.
Nick Metrowsky, is a trusted commenter Longmont, Colorado 17 hours ago
Get Rid of Assad, make relations with Russia worse (they back Assad) and allow ISIS to
effectively take over Syria. Sounds like a great plan. I guess our military-industrial complex
is getting itchy for a new war. And, of course, doing what these diplomats want will also result
in putting boots on the ground. This will be a great legacy for Ms. Clinton (under her watch ISIS
came into being), Mr. Kerry (who continued Clinton's failed legacy) and Mr. Obama (the Nobel Peace
Prize president; who wasn't).
So, guess what? The US starts bombing Syria, Assad will use human shields. ISIS is already
using human shields. So, the US will have more innocent blood on their hands. Of course, the US
follows through with these diplomats idea, ISIS, and their allies, will increase the risk of terrorism
attacks in the US. More mass shootings and bombings.
Of course, in an election year, the political rhetoric will be pushed up a notch between the
two wonderful people now running for president. Both who are more than willing to love the diplomat's
idea to show they are "strong". Mr. Obama may or may not follow through, but he hand may be forced.
Clinton or Trump will go after him, as both would pull the trigger first and ask questions later.
But, rest assured,. if you feel that a terrorist is lurking around each corner now, just wait
until the US decides that getting in the middle of the Syrian civil war is some warped good idea.
Diplomacy can be messy, as can politics.
Dan Stewart, NYC 16 hours ago
The signers of the dissent letter are militarist neocons (of the Victoria Nuland ilk).
More than any other, these people and their CIA collaborators are responsible for the death and
destruction in Syria and the ensuing refugee crisis. They can't even give a cogent reason for
deposing Assad other than point to the carnage of the civil war they fomented-as if Assad were
solely responsible. Assad is acting no differently than the US did during it's own Civil War.
For five years the US has been promoting Muslim extremists in Syria that move with fluidity
between the ranks of ISIL, al Nusra, al Qeada, etc. There are no reliable "moderates" in Syria.
The best hope for a stable Syria lies only with Bashar Assad, the secular Western-trained optometrist
(and his J.P. Morgan investment banker wife, Asma), who has kept Syria stable and free of terrorists
for decades.
To end the killing in Syria, and to defeat ISIL, the US should immediately stop arming and
funding the Islamic jihadists trying to overthrow the Assad government and join with Russia to
support Assad's military in regaining control over all Syrian territory and borders.
CT View, CT 17 hours ago
The value of the memo can be summed up in one sentence as described in the article itself
"what would happen in the event that Mr. Assad was forced from power - a scenario that the draft
memo does not address."
Why on earth would we support deposing a secular dictator who has multi-ethnic multi-religious
support in favor of a non-secular/ie religious leadership that has no moderates...remember we
tried to train vetted moderates, we found about 2 dozen and gave up on the program after half
were killed and the rest defected to the radicals WITH THE WEAPONS WE SUPPLIED. Perhaps, since
the military is anti-intervention and these diplomats are pro-intervention, the diplomats can
take the front line...would that change their opinion?
Gimme Shelter, 123 Happy Street 17 hours ago
I wonder about the arrogance of these mid-level State Department foreign service officers.
Do they think the National Security Council hasn't considered all options with respect to the
use of air power to affect the political situation in Syria? Do they think the President is unaware
of the what is required to stem the humanitarian crisis? How certain are they that their recommendations
will lead to their desired outcome? Do they not realize their actions undermine the commander
in chief in effectively addressing these issues?
Sure -- a few well-placed cruise missiles will make it all good. Yeah, right.
Wayne, Lake Conroe, Tx 7 hours ago
Absolutely amazing. My first question is who released this memo? Having a back channel
does not permit anyone to unilaterally decide to release information that could cost lives and
ruin negotiations that the releasing person knows nothing about. If you do not like the chain
of command, then leave. We cannot continue to be involved in sectarian conflicts that cannot be
resolved except by the combatants. Haven't we learned anything from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon,
and Vietnam? No neocon insanity. We have lost enough lives and treasure in the ME.
Chagrined, La Jolla, CA 10 hours ago
Are these the same ingrates who urged Bush to attack Iraq - his legacy - ISIS!
Real Americans don't want any more squandered blood and treasure in wars in the Middle East!
It is sad that our tax dollars pay the salaries for these insidious State Department war mongering
fools. How many neocons are among them?
The war in Syria is tragic as was the war in Iraq. Even more tragic would be more squandered
American blood and treasure.
Fifteen hundred American Jews joined the IDF terrorists to commit the "Gaza Genocide." Perhaps
they will volunteer to go to Syria.??
President Obama has the intellect, sophistication and morals not to repeat the mistakes of
the Bush administration. These State Department rank and file are obviously attempting to undermine
him just as many members of congress attempted to undermine him by supporting Netanyahu and Israel
during the Iran Diplomacy debate. Betraying America has become sport for so many insidious ingrates.
America deserves better!
xtian, Tallahassee 11 hours ago
As a 26 year Marine Corps combat veteran I have a hard time trying to figure out what is
going on here, and a harder time not becoming totally disgusted with our State Department.
So these 51 mid-level diplomates want to bomb a bit more, and that is going to do what?????
And how will that bring peace to that region of the world? Oh, and by the way, the Department
of Defense is not in agreement with that course of action. How wonderful.
My suggestion would be that we arm these 51 individuals, given them a week's worth of ammunition
and rations, and drop them into Syria, I am sure they can lead the way in showing us how to solve
the mess in the ME.
David Henry, Concord 17 hours ago
War is easy to do. Ask "W."
Lives matter! These "diplomats" should be fired.
Yinka Martins, New York, NY 17 hours ago
It's the fact that these are not "widely known names" which scares me most. However, Western-instituted
regime change in that region has proven disastrous in every single country it has been tried.
If possible, I would investigate these diplomats' ties to defense contractors.
PKJharkhand, Australia 7 hours ago
US intervention created the rubble and hell that is now Syria. When Assad had full control
of Syria, the human rights of the people of Syria suffered under him but many if not most people
led a civilised life. They had water and electricity. Past US interventions created Afghanistan,
Iraq, and Libya. To puy it simply, life expectancy in all these countries dropped by 20 to 30
years after the US intervened, each time with the highest utopian ideals, and increased the power
of Sunni supremacists after each act.
Jai Goodman, SF Bay Area 7 hours ago
These "diplomats" should instead be urging US to pressure Turkey and Saudi to stop supporting
terrorists in the region. Both Al Nusra and ISIS. That'll be the right step.
Thank you.
cml, pittsburgh, pa 10 hours ago
How many of these are the same (or same sort) of "wise" men that advised ignoring our weapon's
inspectors and invading Iraq? They're living inside an echo chamber. In a world of imperfect choices
I would prefer Assad to the Nusra Front or ISIL, as apparently our president does as well.
Lawrence, Washington D.C. 15 hours ago
How many of those 51 diplomats haves served in front line units and seen combat? How many have
their children in uniform? They wouldn't allow it.
Each bombing mission costs more than a million dollars, and we live in a nation of Chiraq and
Orlando.
We have more pressing needs at home, and you can't fix stupid mixed with superstition, topped
with hatred.
These diplomats want to continue to strap suicide vests on the rest of us, while they sip champagne.
Out now, no more of our children wasted for corporate profits.
John, San Francisco 15 hours ago
50 employees? There are approximately 24,000 employees in the state department. That's 0.002833%.
Not really a significant voice. Don't listen.
Vanessa Hall, is a trusted commenter Millersburg MO 13 hours ago
Reminds me of those 47 idiots in the House who signed on to the warmonger Tom Cotton's treasonous
letter.
John Townsend, Mexico 15 hours ago
Let's not forget that Bush's hasty appointment of Paul Bremer as the hapless Governor of
Iraq following the defeat of Hussein's military regime led immediately to the disbanding of the
entire Iraqi military, an incredibly short-sighted and reckless move that essentially unleashed
400,000 young trained fighters (including a honed officers corps) absent support programs to assimilate
back into Iraqi society, only to have them emerge as readily available fodder essential for ISIS's
marshalling a strong military force almost overnight. A huge price is now being exacted for this
astounding stupidity.
Hobart, Los Angeles, CA 7 hours ago
This is conveniently laying grounds for Hillary's grand comeback to the theatre of "humanitarian
interventionism" in the Middle East. God help us all, as this is a prelude to the WW3.
rice pritchard, nashville, tennessee 12 hours ago
Wow the neo-cons are beating the war drums yet again! They have already created a huge
mess throughout the Middle East with wars and revolutions directly attributable to the United
States in invading Afghanistan and Iraq under false pretenses, helping overthrow the government
in Libya, and arming rebels in Syria and Yemen. Apparently no regime that does not knuckle
under to the U.S. war machine is "fair game". This turmoil is sending millions of refugees fleeing
their homeland, many trying to swamp Europe, but the arm chair warriors in the diplomatic corps,
Congress, Wall Street, and the military contractors still cry for more intervention, more bombing,
more blockades, more invasions, etc.! Sheer madness! The more America meddle in the Middle East
the worse things become and unrest and fighting spread. Unfortunately if Hillary Clinton wins,
she is a neo-con puppet and we will be at war in Syria and/or Iran within a year or two. God help
us!
xmas, Delaware 13 hours ago
HOW MUCH WILL THIS COST????? When people demand an invasion of a foreign country, can they
please add the total cost of the bill to their request? Instead of saying "we need to invade,"
can they say, "I want your support to spend $1.7 trillion for invading this other country for
humanitarian reasons. Oh, by the way, sorry, about all the cuts to domestic spending. We just
don't have the money." We spent $1.7 TRILLION on Iraq. $1.7 TRILLION. I can think of several things
I would have preferred to spend a fraction of that on. I'm sure you can too.
Robert G. McKee, Lindenhurst, NY 12 hours ago
This is a very interesting development within the walls of the State Department. There seems
to be much enthusiasm for escalating war in the Middle East. My only question is does this enthusiasm
extend to the deaths and maiming of these same State Department officials' children and grandchildren?
Or do they propose that other people's children should die pursuing their high ideals in this
endless and fruitless religious civil war in Syria?
Kathy, Flemington, NJ 13 hours ago
First of all, if this was a channel for employees to share "candidly and privately" about
policy concerns, why is it on the front page of the NY Times? Additionally, as usual, it seems
the war hawks are hawking war without thought for what comes next. We've done this most recently
in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, all of which are now failed states and havens for terrorists.
Because this seems rather obvious, either we are pathologically incapable of learning from past
mistakes, or there are people who have an agenda different from the publicly stated one.
Rebecca Rabinowitz, . 13 hours ago
The U.S. has a lengthy, very sordid history of leaping into the fray in areas such as the
Middle East, Southeast Asia, Central America and Afghanistan, among others - all with catastrophic
results, for which we never seemed to have a credible, well- crafted plan, nor have we ever comprehended
the millennia of internecine tribal hatred and sectarian warfare. We have "been there, done
that" countless times, at the cost of our precious military blood and treasure, and incurring
the enmity of hundreds of millions of people. I empathize with the frustration of these State
Department employees - but apparently, they do not recall our overthrow of the Shah of Iran when
it suited our "cause du jour," or our fraudulent "domino theory" in Vietnam, or the hard reality
that no one has ever successfully invaded or "governed" Afghanistan, not to mention being able
to battle ideology with weapons. The President has already presided over significant mission creep
in the Iraq cesspool left by the Cheney-Bush neo-con crowd. His judicious caution is to be lauded
when it comes to Syria. Are these mid-level State Department employees advocating a war against
Vladimir Putin?
Yngve Frey, Sweden 12 hours ago
I am more scared of US diplomats and politicians than terrorists! Have they learned nothing
from the US efforts to create western style democracy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria (by
supporting separatists att an early stage). The US diplomats proposal would ensure more chaos,
death and prolonged wR. 38 % of the population are Alewits. They will be killed, Christians will
be killed.
The only way will probably be to work with Russia and force other opposition groups to sign
a peace agreement. Then we should arrange an intensive training course for US diplomats as well
as Syrian leaders: "There is no final truth: we have to learn the art of tolerance and accept
to live in a society where people you don't agree with also can live."
51 neocons warmongers, who need to be send to Afghanistan for some on site learning. Nuland's birds
of feather try to get worm places in Hillary new administration, playing on her war hawk tendencies...
Those "diplomats" forgot about the existence of Saudis and other theocracies which are much more brutal
and less democratic, viewing woman as domestic animals. These are dark times for American foreign
policy. the easy part is to depose Assad. But what might happen after Assad is disposed of? You
know, the hard part, what follows?
Notable quotes:
"... These Diplomats should be fired as idiots. Did they not just live through the Iraqi occupation, destruction and disaster? ..."
"... Are you a bit confused as to who these neocon dissenters at State support in the Syrian civil war? ..."
"... This is simply a roll call of neocon diplomats making a case for another non-strategic war that would badly hurt US interests. It does not represent State Department policy. The neocons have been very persistent in securing career appointments at State for decades now. ..."
"... You are pushing the world closer to war. ..."
"... what is intolerable about the position of the 51 "diplomats" in the memo is that it is their (failed) efforts to dislodge Assad by proxy, facilitating and organizing the flow of arms that more often than ended up in the hands of hard-line jihadists, that has led to almost 400,000 deaths (not to mention wounded) and the flight of over a million refugees. ..."
"... Wow, sounds like some housecleaning is needed at State. Whatever happened to jaw-jaw being better than war-war? If they are so keen on military action, they're in the wrong building. I'm sure some of the overworked troops and officers in the armed forces would be happy to let these guys take a few of the chances of getting shot or blown up that they deal with daily. ..."
"... It is troubling that the State Department, long a bulwark of common sense against America's foreign adventurism, has become as hawkish as its former head, Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... The Middle East Institute is financed, primarily, by the petroleum and arms industries. The Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy has HRC's close ally, Dennis Ross; who, with Martin Indyk, founded AIPAC in the mid-80's. ..."
"... This group's contention that direct confrontation with Russia could be avoided echoes their 2002 claim that Operation Iraqi Freedom would be a three month cake walk. ..."
"... Since WWII, U.S. foreign policy has been rooted in the projection and use of force (covert and overt) as the primary means to achieve whatever goals the executive office seeks. It placed the world on notice that the U.S. was ready and willing to use violence to back its foreign policy objectives. Just as in Vietnam and before the disastrous decision to escalate the use of ground forces, President Johnson's national security advisors (all holdovers from Kennedy's Presidency) pressed Johnson to use aerial bombardment against N. Vietnam to induce them to seek a negotiated peace that would allow the U.S. to withdraw from the conflict and save face while preserving the policy of projecting force as a means to maintain world order in accordance with U.S. designs. ..."
"... My oldest son is now completing his sixth Afghan/Iraq tour.I don't want him in Syria. Let these 51 diplomats volunteer their sons/daughters for Syria.That'll demonstrate their commitment.I'll bet not one of these 51 "geniuses" has a child on active military duty in Iraq/Afghan. ..."
"... These folks are, it appears, mid-level foreign service officers like I was. They are utterly unqualified to make these judgements as the Department of State is a failed organization culturally and functionally. Like HRC, who is still advocating for forced regime change if she wins, they have learned nothing from the past and again have no answer for what follows Asad being deposed. A majority Sunni regime in Syria will tear Iraq apart and there is no likelihood of it avoiding the trajectory of other "pluralistic" Arab state attempts. The fact that State has no culture of strategic analysis informing operational design and operational planning which, in turn, spawn series of tactical events, comes clear in situations like this. Doing nothing is the best case here. Tragic but still the best case. President Obama has seen this. Asad needs to regain control of Syria's territory, all of it. Feeding the hopes of the Ahmed Chalabi equivalents in Syria is perpetuating the violence. And, there is no room for an independent Kurdistan in the region, nor is it in the United States' interest for there to be one. ..."
"... That's the same class of people who figured that invading in Iraq in 2003 would turn out all right. ..."
"... Exhibit A being Samantha Power, the latest in a long line of militaristic, European-born white Americans (see Albright, Kissinger, Brzezinski) who believe that American firepower can bring order to the world. ..."
"... Sorry hawkish diplomats, but you're living in a fantasyland where the invasion of Iraq in 2003 did not permanently tarnish the image of the USA and wreck its credibility as an honest arbiter. That is the reality all US presidents will have to face in the post-Bush 43 era. ..."
"... Are those 51 U.S. Diplomats responsible for advising the Obama Administration to bomb Libya back in 2011? Apparently they have not learned from their mistakes. Or maybe they should just go work for their true Employer, The Military Industrial Complex. ..."
"... This is reckless and irresponsible. US backed "moderates" are fighting elbow to elbow with the Nusra Front and other radicals groups; that is why the cease-fire is collapsing. ..."
"... If we weaken Assad, Islamists will take over Damascus and if Damascus falls, soon Beirut will follow. These folk at State are neo cons, as usual shooting from the hip. ..."
"... Vietnam, 212,000 dead and countless north and south Vietnamese and citizens. Unjust and unwarranted war on Iraq with 4,491 and counting dead and countess Iraqi citizens. Now, Syria? Are you wanting the draft returned? You asking for boots on the ground? How about you 50 join up. I will willingly pay for taxes just arm you and send you in. Along with every other know it all who wants us 'TO DO MORE'!! Spare me. You have learned NOTHING in your past failures, have you? 1956, Iran. Cause the over throw of a duly elected government for the Shahs which led to 1980 revolution to fear of them acquiring nuclear weapons. Vietnam led to 'WHAT'? Now Iraq. ..."
"... The worse destabilization in that area I can remember. Not even during their many attacks on Israel when Egypt got a clue. Fire Saddam Hussein's soldiers and they become ISIS by 2006, yet one bright senator lied and said Obama caused them when we left which was President Bush's treaty Maliki. They did not want us there. Leave per the Iraqi people, also. When ISIS showed up they ran and left the weaponry we gave them and the money in the banks for them to grab. Now, you want us steeped into Syria. It's been said, hindsight is 20/20, ..."
"... In these so called diplomats cases, it is totally and legally blind. Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles has a better perception and one of them is dead. ..."
"... The war hawks, so comfortably away from the battle, are banging those drums of war again. Easy to do when your life and the lives of your fellow military are not at risk. ..."
"... We all know now that the invasion of Iraq by Mr. Bush junior was a) a mistake, and b) a War Crime - there were no threatening WMDs nor did Saddam hold hads with Al Quaeda (he was, actually, their worst enemy - and our security!), so, Iraq was c) total stupidity. It was an aggressive war without any cause - for the USA! ..."
"... This is much more about what Mark Landler thinks than about what those generic diplomats think. The Times's principal hawk, Landler has book and a series of articles pushing his neocon view. I guess we should assume the Times agrees. ..."
"... Having spent substantial time as a private consultant at the US Embassy in Kabul I was shocked by the lack of feelings of midlevel officials there with regard to the dead and injuries of American Troops. The Embassy shared a wall with the ISAF/NATO Main Quarters and every single day the US Flag there was half-mast to acknowledge the dead of our troops on that day in that country. The Embassy never shared this sadness and all midlevel officials there were only concerned about their paycheck, quality of meals served, having a drink, going for a swim, and their frequent trips back to the US; for such people wanting to have a say in when to fight in Syria is a sad state of affair. ..."
"... Perhaps we should figure out one take-down before we move on to the next. After 13 years, we still haven't figured out life in Iraq without Saddam. Any thoughts, neocons, on what might happen after Assad is disposed of? You know, the hard part, what follows? ..."
"... Get Rid of Assad, make relations with Russia worse (they back Assad) and allow ISIS to effectively take over Syria. Sounds like a great plan. I guess our military-industrial complex is getting itchy for a new war. And, of course, doing what these diplomats want will also result in putting boots on the ground. This will be a great legacy for Ms. Clinton (under her watch ISIS came into being), Mr. Kerry (who continued Clinton's failed legacy) and Mr. Obama (the Nobel Peace Prize president; who wasn't). ..."
"... The signers of the dissent letter are militarist neocons (of the Victoria Nuland ilk). More than any other, these people and their CIA collaborators are responsible for the death and destruction in Syria and the ensuing refugee crisis. They can't even give a cogent reason for deposing Assad other than point to the carnage of the civil war they fomented-as if Assad were solely responsible. Assad is acting no differently than the US did during it's own Civil War. ..."
"... The value of the memo can be summed up in one sentence as described in the article itself "what would happen in the event that Mr. Assad was forced from power - a scenario that the draft memo does not address." ..."
"... I wonder about the arrogance of these mid-level State Department foreign service officers. ..."
"... Sure -- a few well-placed cruise missiles will make it all good. Yeah, right. ..."
"... Absolutely amazing. My first question is who released this memo? Having a back channel does not permit anyone to unilaterally decide to release information that could cost lives and ruin negotiations that the releasing person knows nothing about. If you do not like the chain of command, then leave. We cannot continue to be involved in sectarian conflicts that cannot be resolved except by the combatants. Haven't we learned anything from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and Vietnam? No neocon insanity. We have lost enough lives and treasure in the ME. ..."
"... Are these the same ingrates who urged Bush to attack Iraq - his legacy - ISIS! ..."
"... As a 26 year Marine Corps combat veteran I have a hard time trying to figure out what is going on here, and a harder time not becoming totally disgusted with our State Department. ..."
"... My suggestion would be that we arm these 51 individuals, given them a week's worth of ammunition and rations, and drop them into Syria, I am sure they can lead the way in showing us how to solve the mess in the ME. ..."
"... It's the fact that these are not "widely known names" which scares me most. However, Western-instituted regime change in that region has proven disastrous in every single country it has been tried. If possible, I would investigate these diplomats' ties to defense contractors. ..."
"... US intervention created the rubble and hell that is now Syria. When Assad had full control of Syria, the human rights of the people of Syria suffered under him but many if not most people led a civilised life. They had water and electricity. Past US interventions created Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. To puy it simply, life expectancy in all these countries dropped by 20 to 30 years after the US intervened, each time with the highest utopian ideals, and increased the power of Sunni supremacists after each act. ..."
"... Let's not forget that Bush's hasty appointment of Paul Bremer as the hapless Governor of Iraq following the defeat of Hussein's military regime led immediately to the disbanding of the entire Iraqi military, an incredibly short-sighted and reckless move that essentially unleashed 400,000 young trained fighters (including a honed officers corps) absent support programs to assimilate back into Iraqi society, only to have them emerge as readily available fodder essential for ISIS's marshalling a strong military force almost overnight. A huge price is now being exacted for this astounding stupidity. ..."
"... This is conveniently laying grounds for Hillary's grand comeback to the theatre of "humanitarian interventionism" in the Middle East. God help us all, as this is a prelude to the WW3. ..."
"... Wow the neo-cons are beating the war drums yet again! They have already created a huge mess throughout the Middle East with wars and revolutions directly attributable to the United States in invading Afghanistan and Iraq under false pretenses, helping overthrow the government in Libya, and arming rebels in Syria and Yemen. ..."
"... Unfortunately if Hillary Clinton wins, she is a neo-con puppet and we will be at war in Syria and/or Iran within a year or two. God help us! ..."
"... First of all, if this was a channel for employees to share "candidly and privately" about policy concerns, why is it on the front page of the NY Times? Additionally, as usual, it seems the war hawks are hawking war without thought for what comes next. We've done this most recently in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, all of which are now failed states and havens for terrorists. Because this seems rather obvious, either we are pathologically incapable of learning from past mistakes, or there are people who have an agenda different from the publicly stated one. ..."
"... The U.S. has a lengthy, very sordid history of leaping into the fray in areas such as the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Central America and Afghanistan, among others - all with catastrophic results, for which we never seemed to have a credible, well- crafted plan, nor have we ever comprehended the millennia of internecine tribal hatred and sectarian warfare. ..."
"... I am more scared of US diplomats and politicians than terrorists! Have they learned nothing from the US efforts to create western style democracy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria (by supporting separatists att an early stage). The US diplomats proposal would ensure more chaos, death and prolonged wR. 38 % of the population are Alewits. They will be killed, Christians will be killed. ..."
ScottW, is a trusted commenter Chapel Hill, NC 16 hours ago
These Diplomats should be fired as idiots. Did they not just live through the Iraqi occupation,
destruction and disaster?
A few years ago, a diplomat who quit was complaining about Syria at a conference I attended.
When I asked who would fill the void if Assad was deposed he said, "That is a difficult question
to answer." What he really meant to say is, "I don't have a clue."
We have already disrupted Syria by supporting rebels/terrorists. The region cannot tolerate
another Iraq.
Dan Stewart, NYC 16 hours ago
Are you a bit confused as to who these neocon dissenters at State support in the Syrian
civil war?
Here's a helpful hint:
If they have beards down to their belt buckles and seem to be hollering something about Allah,
those are the guys the neocons support.
If they're recently shaved and wearing Western attire, in other words, if they look like anyone
you might bump into on a US city street, those are the people the neocons call the enemy.
Retroatavist, DC 10 hours ago
This is simply a roll call of neocon diplomats making a case for another non-strategic
war that would badly hurt US interests. It does not represent State Department policy. The neocons
have been very persistent in securing career appointments at State for decades now. It's
as if we hadn't forgotten the endless horrible mess they got us and the rest of the world into
by breaking Iraq and destroying all its institutions with the insane de-baathification policy.
And it all started with a similar steady drumbeat for war throughout the mid and late '90s and
up to the 2003 disastrous invasion. Did we not learn anything? Really: Whose interest would
an open US war against Assad really serve, and what predictable outcome would be in the US's strategic
favor?
Robert Sawyer, New York, New York 14 hours ago
How many among the 51 are members of "Hillary's Legions, " the same geniuses responsible for
the unqualified success we achieved in Libya?
Gennady, Rhinebeck 16 hours ago
Stop this irresponsible reporting. You are pushing the world closer to war. Humanitarian
support is all we should bring to the Syrian people, regardless of which side they are on.
ScottW, is a trusted commenter Chapel Hill, NC
These Diplomats should be fired as idiots. Did they not just live through the Iraqi occupation,
destruction and disaster?
A few years ago, a diplomat who quit was complaining about Syria at a conference I attended.
When I asked who would fill the void if Assad was deposed he said, "That is a difficult question
to answer." What he really meant to say is, "I don't have a clue."
We have already disrupted Syria by supporting rebels/terrorists. The region cannot tolerate
another Iraq.
Alyoshak, Durant, OK
Isn't Congress supposed to declare war, and the President command our armed forces when such
declarations occur? But what is intolerable about the position of the 51 "diplomats" in the
memo is that it is their (failed) efforts to dislodge Assad by proxy, facilitating and organizing
the flow of arms that more often than ended up in the hands of hard-line jihadists, that has led
to almost 400,000 deaths (not to mention wounded) and the flight of over a million refugees.
But no, these casualties have nothing to do with our attempts at regime change, No!, the blame
for them lies squarely upon Assad for not scooting out of town immediately and submissively when
the U.S. decided it was time for him to go. So now we're supposed to double-down on a deeply immoral
and flawed strategy? How many more Syrians' lives must be ruined to "save" them from Assad?
Everyman, USA 16 hours ago
Wow, sounds like some housecleaning is needed at State. Whatever happened to jaw-jaw being
better than war-war? If they are so keen on military action, they're in the wrong building. I'm
sure some of the overworked troops and officers in the armed forces would be happy to let these
guys take a few of the chances of getting shot or blown up that they deal with daily.
Dan, Alexandria 16 hours ago
It is troubling that the State Department, long a bulwark of common sense against America's
foreign adventurism, has become as hawkish as its former head, Hillary Clinton.
I am grateful to President Obama for resisting this foolishness, but make no mistake, no matter
who gets into office in January, the kind of farcical, counterproductive, unrealistic "limited
engagement" advocated by these so-called diplomats will be our future. Clinton is champing at
the bit for it, and Trump is too weak to do anything but go along with it.
Clark M. Shanahan, Oak Park, Illinois 16 hours ago
Sadly, they'll most likely have a more accommodating commander and chief with HRC.
The Middle East Institute is financed, primarily, by the petroleum and arms industries.
The Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy has HRC's close ally, Dennis Ross; who, with
Martin Indyk, founded AIPAC in the mid-80's.
This group's contention that direct confrontation with Russia could be avoided echoes their
2002 claim that Operation Iraqi Freedom would be a three month cake walk.
Paul Cohen, is a trusted commenter Hartford CT 15 hours ago
Since WWII, U.S. foreign policy has been rooted in the projection and use of force (covert
and overt) as the primary means to achieve whatever goals the executive office seeks. It placed
the world on notice that the U.S. was ready and willing to use violence to back its foreign policy
objectives. Just as in Vietnam and before the disastrous decision to escalate the use of ground
forces, President Johnson's national security advisors (all holdovers from Kennedy's Presidency)
pressed Johnson to use aerial bombardment against N. Vietnam to induce them to seek a negotiated
peace that would allow the U.S. to withdraw from the conflict and save face while preserving the
policy of projecting force as a means to maintain world order in accordance with U.S. designs.
Nixon carried on this bombing for peace strategy to insane war crime level. This heavy reliance
on military force over a diplomatic solution has never worked. It didn't work for our knee-jerk
response to 9/11 by immediately resorting to military force without first thinking through the
consequences. We are now into our 15th year of aggression against the Muslim World. The time is
long past due to question our failed policy and seek an alternative solution.
Bud, McKinney, Texas 16 hours ago
My oldest son is now completing his sixth Afghan/Iraq tour.I don't want him in Syria. Let
these 51 diplomats volunteer their sons/daughters for Syria.That'll demonstrate their commitment.I'll
bet not one of these 51 "geniuses" has a child on active military duty in Iraq/Afghan.
Abu Charlie, Toronto, Ontario 14 hours ago
These folks are, it appears, mid-level foreign service officers like I was. They are utterly
unqualified to make these judgements as the Department of State is a failed organization culturally
and functionally. Like HRC, who is still advocating for forced regime change if she wins, they
have learned nothing from the past and again have no answer for what follows Asad being deposed.
A majority Sunni regime in Syria will tear Iraq apart and there is no likelihood of it avoiding
the trajectory of other "pluralistic" Arab state attempts. The fact that State has no culture
of strategic analysis informing operational design and operational planning which, in turn, spawn
series of tactical events, comes clear in situations like this. Doing nothing is the best case
here. Tragic but still the best case. President Obama has seen this. Asad needs to regain control
of Syria's territory, all of it. Feeding the hopes of the Ahmed Chalabi equivalents in Syria is
perpetuating the violence. And, there is no room for an independent Kurdistan in the region, nor
is it in the United States' interest for there to be one.
AR, is a trusted commenter Virginia 15 hours ago
How undiplomatic. I don't care that these people are diplomats and that many of them probably
have impeccable academic pedigrees with degrees from the usual suspects such as the Ivy League
schools, SAIS, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and Kennedy. That's the same class
of people who figured that invading in Iraq in 2003 would turn out all right. Obama is correct
to ignore these people, who more often than not are possessed by the notion of American Exceptionalism.
Exhibit A being Samantha Power, the latest in a long line of militaristic, European-born white
Americans (see Albright, Kissinger, Brzezinski) who believe that American firepower can bring
order to the world.
Let this be made clear: Any escalation of American involvement in Syria will be interpreted
as 1) an attempt to enhance the national security of Israel, 2) a means of benefiting the revenue
stream of the American military industrial complex, or 3) both. Only the most naive and foolish
people, since the absolutely disastrous events of 2003, would be inclined to believe that American
military intervention in Syria is motivated mainly by humanitarian impulses.
Sorry hawkish diplomats, but you're living in a fantasyland where the invasion of Iraq
in 2003 did not permanently tarnish the image of the USA and wreck its credibility as an honest
arbiter. That is the reality all US presidents will have to face in the post-Bush 43 era.
Robert Roth, NYC 14 hours ago
Everyone closes their eyes and imagines all the bloodshed they will prevent by all the bloodshed
they will cause.
Samsara, The West 16 hours ago
Have Iraq and Libya taught these State Department officials NOTHING??
Simon, Tampa 15 hours ago
The neo-cons who love regime change that never works. Let us examine their track record:
Iraq - a mess and infested with ISIS and Al Qaeda.
Libya - now an anarchist state infested with ISIS and Al Qaeda.
Yemen - bombing and murdering thousands of innocents and Al Qaeda.
Syria, the only secular Arab state, destroyed and infested with ISIS and Al Qaeda. The only
reason Syria hasn't completely fallen apart is thanks to Assad and his Sunni dominated army, Iran,
and the Russians. So of course, these neo-cons want to complete the job at the behest of the money
they will be getting from the Saudis and the other Gulf States.
Don't worry you warmongering greedy neocon, Hillary Clinton is one of you and will be president
soon enough.
Title Holder, Fl 15 hours ago
Are those 51 U.S. Diplomats responsible for advising the Obama Administration to bomb Libya
back in 2011? Apparently they have not learned from their mistakes. Or maybe they should just
go work for their true Employer, The Military Industrial Complex.
Andrea, New Jersey 15 hours ago
This is reckless and irresponsible. US backed "moderates" are fighting elbow to elbow with
the Nusra Front and other radicals groups; that is why the cease-fire is collapsing. Syrians
and Russians can not split hairs on the battlefield.
If we weaken Assad, Islamists will take over Damascus and if Damascus falls, soon Beirut
will follow. These folk at State are neo cons, as usual shooting from the hip.
Jett Rink, lafayette, la 15 hours ago
Here's the thing most people don't get about ISIS. They thrive on us being involved in the
Middle East. They are willing to kill other Muslims in order to keep us involved. As long as we
are there, terrorism will persist, over there and here too. They are playing us like chumps. They
use our tendency to knee-jerk reactions against us. They're out smarting us at every juncture.
Of course it's human nature to want to help people in such dire straights. But that's exactly
what ISIS wants, and correctly predict, that we'll do. So as long as they out-think us, they'll
continue to win.
If you want to help the innocent people caught in the cross-hairs of ISIS, the best thing we
could possibly do is pack up and leave. There'll be some more carnage, but eventually the backlash
from within will force them to stop the wrecking and killing. Many people will die, but in the
end, the tally would be far fewer.
Their goal is to keep us engaged. Ours should be to get out! As long as we stay, they win.
And that's how they're able to convince long-wolf's to strike us here, even when here is home
to them too.
Joane Johnson, Cleveland, Ohio 15 hours ago
Vietnam, 212,000 dead and countless north and south Vietnamese and citizens. Unjust and
unwarranted war on Iraq with 4,491 and counting dead and countess Iraqi citizens. Now, Syria?
Are you wanting the draft returned? You asking for boots on the ground? How about you 50 join
up. I will willingly pay for taxes just arm you and send you in. Along with every other know it
all who wants us 'TO DO MORE'!! Spare me. You have learned NOTHING in your past failures, have
you? 1956, Iran. Cause the over throw of a duly elected government for the Shahs which led to
1980 revolution to fear of them acquiring nuclear weapons. Vietnam led to 'WHAT'? Now Iraq.
The worse destabilization in that area I can remember. Not even during their many attacks
on Israel when Egypt got a clue. Fire Saddam Hussein's soldiers and they become ISIS by 2006,
yet one bright senator lied and said Obama caused them when we left which was President Bush's
treaty Maliki. They did not want us there. Leave per the Iraqi people, also. When ISIS showed
up they ran and left the weaponry we gave them and the money in the banks for them to grab. Now,
you want us steeped into Syria. It's been said, hindsight is 20/20,
In these so called diplomats cases, it is totally and legally blind. Stevie Wonder and
Ray Charles has a better perception and one of them is dead.
Bev, New York 16 hours ago
Yes the war machine wants more wars. Who will take the place of the evil Assad? We have removed
a number of evil dictators in that area of the world and all it has done is sap our resources,
killed hundreds of thousands of innocents, made millions hate us, and created vacuums of power
which are then filled with Saudi-assisted ISIS - AND profited our war machine (that's the important
part!) We need less involvement in the Mideast, not more. Bring them all home and start transitioning
from a war economy to an economy that serves the American citizens here.
ME, Toronto 13 hours ago
Thank goodness Obama kept his head and didn't (and hopefully won't) listen to such crazy advice.
To call the signers "diplomats" is a real stretch. It seems that somewhere back in time various
U.S. "diplomats" decided that they have the right to decide who and what the government should
be in various jurisdictions throughout the world. Of course this is motivated by purely humanitarian
concerns and love of democracy and not the self-interest of the U.S., as in having a friendly
government in place. As despicable as some governments are, the lessons over many years now should
be that military strikes are just as (maybe more) likely to produce something bad as anything
good. Better to talk and try to influence the development of nations through positive reinforcement
(as Obama has done in Iran). Undoubtedly this is a slow and somewhat frustrating process but that
is something real "diplomats" should be good at. If this process had been pursued in Syria we
would all be better off today and especially the Syrian people.
Mitchell, New York 16 hours ago
I assume these people at State also believe in the Tooth Fairy. The fantasy of "moderate" rebels
who will be grateful to us after they depose a tyrant and put in a fair democratic government
that takes into account all of our Western ideals and freedoms is so unrealistic that these people
at State need to find a job where their last words are, "Can I supersize that for you?" Our involvement
in the Middle East displacing despots and replacing them with chaos has been the biggest disaster
in foreign policy in many decades. Egypt, Iraq, Libya, and even Syria (remember the line in the
sand?). We should join with Russia in destroying ISIS and use our leverage to push Assad to make
some level of concessions.
Dan, Sandy, UT 15 hours ago
Here we go again. The war hawks, so comfortably away from the battle, are banging those
drums of war again. Easy to do when your life and the lives of your fellow military are not at
risk.
Second thought, as stated by a political comedian/satirist, let the Middle East take its own
trash out.
I couldn't agree more.
blackmamba, IL 16 hours ago
Since 9/11/01 only 0.75% of Americans have volunteered to put on the military of any American
armed force. They have been ground to emotional, mental and physical dust by repeated deployments.
Getting rid of Arab dictators has unleashed foreign ethnic sectarian socioeconomic political educational
civil wars that cannot be resolved by American military power.
Assad is an Arab civil secular dictator. Just like many of Americas Arab allies and unlike
those American Arab allies who are Islamic royal fossil fuel tyrants. But Assad is an Alawite
Shia Muslim allied with Russia. The alternatives to Assad are al Qaeda, ISIL and al Nusra. Diplomats
need to stick to diplomacy.
Jo Boost, Midlands 16 hours ago
This situation is not that simple.
There is not -as people in Washington who know better have told for years now- one big bad
wolf called Assad preying and devouring all poor little peaceful lambs (who, accidentally, have
been armed to their teeth by a certain Ms. Clinton and her Saudi friends - even with poison gas
which was, then, blamed on the said Assad).
We have here a follow-up civil war to the (also US started) one in Libya.
Let us just look at International Law, as understood since the Nuremberg Trials:
We all know now that the invasion of Iraq by Mr. Bush junior was a) a mistake, and b) a
War Crime - there were no threatening WMDs nor did Saddam hold hads with Al Quaeda (he was, actually,
their worst enemy - and our security!), so, Iraq was c) total stupidity. It was an aggressive
war without any cause - for the USA!
But a great cause for Saudi "Royals" whose cousins had been thrown out of Iraq, which is good
enough cause, in Arab customs, for a bloody feud and revenge.
The same applies to Syria, and could one, therefore, still wonder why ISIL was so well equipped
for the follow-up (envisaged) invasion?
Libya was a danger for Saudi Autocrates, because a secular Arab country with such a living
standard from fair distribution of oil wealth would be a dangerous advertisement for a Mother
of All Arab Springs in the desert.
So, we have one side with interest - and one without any - but the latter does the dirty work.
Is there more than one tail that wags the US dog?
Bonnie Rothman, NYC 13 hours ago
How brilliant---not! And what do these 50 people expect to happen if and when Assad falls,
chaos prevails and ISIS rushes in? Not to mention the immediate nasty confrontation with Putin.
This isn't 1941 and big Armies and big bombs are useless, USELESS against ISIS which operates
like cancer cells in the human body. And the last time we toppled a tyrant we midwived the ISIS
group which is funded by the Saudis which is funded by our own use of oil. Don't you dopes ever
read history and see the "whole" problem? Sheesh.
Prof. Jai Prakash Sharma, is a trusted commenter Jaipur, India. 16 hours ago
Given the complexity of the Syrian crisis and the multipower stakes involved in Syria, it would
be foolish for the US to direct its unilateral military fury at toppling the Assad regime ignoring
its fall out and the military financial cost to the US itself, specially when except for meeting
the common challenge and threat of the ISIS no direct national interests are at stake for the
US in Syria. The state department's dissenting memo to the President seems an attempt by the vested
interests to further complicate President Obama's Middle East policy that's on the right track
following the Iran deal.
Dennis Sullivan, NYC 16 hours ago
This is much more about what Mark Landler thinks than about what those generic diplomats
think. The Times's principal hawk, Landler has book and a series of articles pushing his neocon
view. I guess we should assume the Times agrees.
Rudolf, New York 7 hours ago
Having spent substantial time as a private consultant at the US Embassy in Kabul I was
shocked by the lack of feelings of midlevel officials there with regard to the dead and injuries
of American Troops. The Embassy shared a wall with the ISAF/NATO Main Quarters and every single
day the US Flag there was half-mast to acknowledge the dead of our troops on that day in that
country. The Embassy never shared this sadness and all midlevel officials there were only concerned
about their paycheck, quality of meals served, having a drink, going for a swim, and their frequent
trips back to the US; for such people wanting to have a say in when to fight in Syria is a sad
state of affair.
pat knapp, milwaukee 16 hours ago
Perhaps we should figure out one take-down before we move on to the next. After 13 years,
we still haven't figured out life in Iraq without Saddam. Any thoughts, neocons, on what might
happen after Assad is disposed of? You know, the hard part, what follows?
Mike Edwards, Providence, RI 16 hours ago
In what way do the views of the State Department officials in ISIS differ from those in the
US State Department who signed this memo?
Recent terrorist attacks in France and the US have been inspired by ISIS, not Mr. Assad. ISIS
is our enemy right now. Let Mr. Assad do what he can to eliminate them.
And haven't we learnt that the removal of a head of State, be it in Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya
does not lead to an improvement; it actually causes an outright deterioration.
Finally, please let's also do away with this twaddle about "moderate" forces being present
in the Middle East, ready to enact our fantasy of what a peaceful Middle East should be like.
They don't exist in the Middle East. Ask the Israelis. Those moderates that do exist seem to serve
one purpose, which is to hand over the weapons supplied to them by the West to the terrorists.
I wish the signatories would have had the guts to spell it out. The Middle East is home to
a number of weal nations, a situation the stronger ones don't wish to correct. The only solution
would be for the West to take over the running of those countries and provide for their policing
and defense, as once the West leaves, a vacuum is created allowing terrorist groups to proliferate.
I doubt there is any appetite in the West for such a cause.
Donald, Yonkers 16 hours ago
Interesting how these " moderate" Syrian rebels so often fight alongside al Nusra.
The death toll in Syria is as high as it is because the rebels have outside help, Somehow no
one in the American mainstream, including the NYT, ever points this out. Incidently, note how
the NYT always uses the largest estimates for the death toll-- quite different from what they
did in Iraq.
Nick Metrowsky, is a trusted commenter Longmont, Colorado 17 hours ago
Get Rid of Assad, make relations with Russia worse (they back Assad) and allow ISIS to
effectively take over Syria. Sounds like a great plan. I guess our military-industrial complex
is getting itchy for a new war. And, of course, doing what these diplomats want will also result
in putting boots on the ground. This will be a great legacy for Ms. Clinton (under her watch ISIS
came into being), Mr. Kerry (who continued Clinton's failed legacy) and Mr. Obama (the Nobel Peace
Prize president; who wasn't).
So, guess what? The US starts bombing Syria, Assad will use human shields. ISIS is already
using human shields. So, the US will have more innocent blood on their hands. Of course, the US
follows through with these diplomats idea, ISIS, and their allies, will increase the risk of terrorism
attacks in the US. More mass shootings and bombings.
Of course, in an election year, the political rhetoric will be pushed up a notch between the
two wonderful people now running for president. Both who are more than willing to love the diplomat's
idea to show they are "strong". Mr. Obama may or may not follow through, but he hand may be forced.
Clinton or Trump will go after him, as both would pull the trigger first and ask questions later.
But, rest assured,. if you feel that a terrorist is lurking around each corner now, just wait
until the US decides that getting in the middle of the Syrian civil war is some warped good idea.
Diplomacy can be messy, as can politics.
Dan Stewart, NYC 16 hours ago
The signers of the dissent letter are militarist neocons (of the Victoria Nuland ilk).
More than any other, these people and their CIA collaborators are responsible for the death and
destruction in Syria and the ensuing refugee crisis. They can't even give a cogent reason for
deposing Assad other than point to the carnage of the civil war they fomented-as if Assad were
solely responsible. Assad is acting no differently than the US did during it's own Civil War.
For five years the US has been promoting Muslim extremists in Syria that move with fluidity
between the ranks of ISIL, al Nusra, al Qeada, etc. There are no reliable "moderates" in Syria.
The best hope for a stable Syria lies only with Bashar Assad, the secular Western-trained optometrist
(and his J.P. Morgan investment banker wife, Asma), who has kept Syria stable and free of terrorists
for decades.
To end the killing in Syria, and to defeat ISIL, the US should immediately stop arming and
funding the Islamic jihadists trying to overthrow the Assad government and join with Russia to
support Assad's military in regaining control over all Syrian territory and borders.
CT View, CT 17 hours ago
The value of the memo can be summed up in one sentence as described in the article itself
"what would happen in the event that Mr. Assad was forced from power - a scenario that the draft
memo does not address."
Why on earth would we support deposing a secular dictator who has multi-ethnic multi-religious
support in favor of a non-secular/ie religious leadership that has no moderates...remember we
tried to train vetted moderates, we found about 2 dozen and gave up on the program after half
were killed and the rest defected to the radicals WITH THE WEAPONS WE SUPPLIED. Perhaps, since
the military is anti-intervention and these diplomats are pro-intervention, the diplomats can
take the front line...would that change their opinion?
Gimme Shelter, 123 Happy Street 17 hours ago
I wonder about the arrogance of these mid-level State Department foreign service officers.
Do they think the National Security Council hasn't considered all options with respect to the
use of air power to affect the political situation in Syria? Do they think the President is unaware
of the what is required to stem the humanitarian crisis? How certain are they that their recommendations
will lead to their desired outcome? Do they not realize their actions undermine the commander
in chief in effectively addressing these issues?
Sure -- a few well-placed cruise missiles will make it all good. Yeah, right.
Wayne, Lake Conroe, Tx 7 hours ago
Absolutely amazing. My first question is who released this memo? Having a back channel
does not permit anyone to unilaterally decide to release information that could cost lives and
ruin negotiations that the releasing person knows nothing about. If you do not like the chain
of command, then leave. We cannot continue to be involved in sectarian conflicts that cannot be
resolved except by the combatants. Haven't we learned anything from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon,
and Vietnam? No neocon insanity. We have lost enough lives and treasure in the ME.
Chagrined, La Jolla, CA 10 hours ago
Are these the same ingrates who urged Bush to attack Iraq - his legacy - ISIS!
Real Americans don't want any more squandered blood and treasure in wars in the Middle East!
It is sad that our tax dollars pay the salaries for these insidious State Department war mongering
fools. How many neocons are among them?
The war in Syria is tragic as was the war in Iraq. Even more tragic would be more squandered
American blood and treasure.
Fifteen hundred American Jews joined the IDF terrorists to commit the "Gaza Genocide." Perhaps
they will volunteer to go to Syria.??
President Obama has the intellect, sophistication and morals not to repeat the mistakes of
the Bush administration. These State Department rank and file are obviously attempting to undermine
him just as many members of congress attempted to undermine him by supporting Netanyahu and Israel
during the Iran Diplomacy debate. Betraying America has become sport for so many insidious ingrates.
America deserves better!
xtian, Tallahassee 11 hours ago
As a 26 year Marine Corps combat veteran I have a hard time trying to figure out what is
going on here, and a harder time not becoming totally disgusted with our State Department.
So these 51 mid-level diplomates want to bomb a bit more, and that is going to do what?????
And how will that bring peace to that region of the world? Oh, and by the way, the Department
of Defense is not in agreement with that course of action. How wonderful.
My suggestion would be that we arm these 51 individuals, given them a week's worth of ammunition
and rations, and drop them into Syria, I am sure they can lead the way in showing us how to solve
the mess in the ME.
David Henry, Concord 17 hours ago
War is easy to do. Ask "W."
Lives matter! These "diplomats" should be fired.
Yinka Martins, New York, NY 17 hours ago
It's the fact that these are not "widely known names" which scares me most. However, Western-instituted
regime change in that region has proven disastrous in every single country it has been tried.
If possible, I would investigate these diplomats' ties to defense contractors.
PKJharkhand, Australia 7 hours ago
US intervention created the rubble and hell that is now Syria. When Assad had full control
of Syria, the human rights of the people of Syria suffered under him but many if not most people
led a civilised life. They had water and electricity. Past US interventions created Afghanistan,
Iraq, and Libya. To puy it simply, life expectancy in all these countries dropped by 20 to 30
years after the US intervened, each time with the highest utopian ideals, and increased the power
of Sunni supremacists after each act.
Jai Goodman, SF Bay Area 7 hours ago
These "diplomats" should instead be urging US to pressure Turkey and Saudi to stop supporting
terrorists in the region. Both Al Nusra and ISIS. That'll be the right step.
Thank you.
cml, pittsburgh, pa 10 hours ago
How many of these are the same (or same sort) of "wise" men that advised ignoring our weapon's
inspectors and invading Iraq? They're living inside an echo chamber. In a world of imperfect choices
I would prefer Assad to the Nusra Front or ISIL, as apparently our president does as well.
Lawrence, Washington D.C. 15 hours ago
How many of those 51 diplomats haves served in front line units and seen combat? How many have
their children in uniform? They wouldn't allow it.
Each bombing mission costs more than a million dollars, and we live in a nation of Chiraq and
Orlando.
We have more pressing needs at home, and you can't fix stupid mixed with superstition, topped
with hatred.
These diplomats want to continue to strap suicide vests on the rest of us, while they sip champagne.
Out now, no more of our children wasted for corporate profits.
John, San Francisco 15 hours ago
50 employees? There are approximately 24,000 employees in the state department. That's 0.002833%.
Not really a significant voice. Don't listen.
Vanessa Hall, is a trusted commenter Millersburg MO 13 hours ago
Reminds me of those 47 idiots in the House who signed on to the warmonger Tom Cotton's treasonous
letter.
John Townsend, Mexico 15 hours ago
Let's not forget that Bush's hasty appointment of Paul Bremer as the hapless Governor of
Iraq following the defeat of Hussein's military regime led immediately to the disbanding of the
entire Iraqi military, an incredibly short-sighted and reckless move that essentially unleashed
400,000 young trained fighters (including a honed officers corps) absent support programs to assimilate
back into Iraqi society, only to have them emerge as readily available fodder essential for ISIS's
marshalling a strong military force almost overnight. A huge price is now being exacted for this
astounding stupidity.
Hobart, Los Angeles, CA 7 hours ago
This is conveniently laying grounds for Hillary's grand comeback to the theatre of "humanitarian
interventionism" in the Middle East. God help us all, as this is a prelude to the WW3.
rice pritchard, nashville, tennessee 12 hours ago
Wow the neo-cons are beating the war drums yet again! They have already created a huge
mess throughout the Middle East with wars and revolutions directly attributable to the United
States in invading Afghanistan and Iraq under false pretenses, helping overthrow the government
in Libya, and arming rebels in Syria and Yemen. Apparently no regime that does not knuckle
under to the U.S. war machine is "fair game". This turmoil is sending millions of refugees fleeing
their homeland, many trying to swamp Europe, but the arm chair warriors in the diplomatic corps,
Congress, Wall Street, and the military contractors still cry for more intervention, more bombing,
more blockades, more invasions, etc.! Sheer madness! The more America meddle in the Middle East
the worse things become and unrest and fighting spread. Unfortunately if Hillary Clinton wins,
she is a neo-con puppet and we will be at war in Syria and/or Iran within a year or two. God help
us!
xmas, Delaware 13 hours ago
HOW MUCH WILL THIS COST????? When people demand an invasion of a foreign country, can they
please add the total cost of the bill to their request? Instead of saying "we need to invade,"
can they say, "I want your support to spend $1.7 trillion for invading this other country for
humanitarian reasons. Oh, by the way, sorry, about all the cuts to domestic spending. We just
don't have the money." We spent $1.7 TRILLION on Iraq. $1.7 TRILLION. I can think of several things
I would have preferred to spend a fraction of that on. I'm sure you can too.
Robert G. McKee, Lindenhurst, NY 12 hours ago
This is a very interesting development within the walls of the State Department. There seems
to be much enthusiasm for escalating war in the Middle East. My only question is does this enthusiasm
extend to the deaths and maiming of these same State Department officials' children and grandchildren?
Or do they propose that other people's children should die pursuing their high ideals in this
endless and fruitless religious civil war in Syria?
Kathy, Flemington, NJ 13 hours ago
First of all, if this was a channel for employees to share "candidly and privately" about
policy concerns, why is it on the front page of the NY Times? Additionally, as usual, it seems
the war hawks are hawking war without thought for what comes next. We've done this most recently
in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, all of which are now failed states and havens for terrorists.
Because this seems rather obvious, either we are pathologically incapable of learning from past
mistakes, or there are people who have an agenda different from the publicly stated one.
Rebecca Rabinowitz, . 13 hours ago
The U.S. has a lengthy, very sordid history of leaping into the fray in areas such as the
Middle East, Southeast Asia, Central America and Afghanistan, among others - all with catastrophic
results, for which we never seemed to have a credible, well- crafted plan, nor have we ever comprehended
the millennia of internecine tribal hatred and sectarian warfare. We have "been there, done
that" countless times, at the cost of our precious military blood and treasure, and incurring
the enmity of hundreds of millions of people. I empathize with the frustration of these State
Department employees - but apparently, they do not recall our overthrow of the Shah of Iran when
it suited our "cause du jour," or our fraudulent "domino theory" in Vietnam, or the hard reality
that no one has ever successfully invaded or "governed" Afghanistan, not to mention being able
to battle ideology with weapons. The President has already presided over significant mission creep
in the Iraq cesspool left by the Cheney-Bush neo-con crowd. His judicious caution is to be lauded
when it comes to Syria. Are these mid-level State Department employees advocating a war against
Vladimir Putin?
Yngve Frey, Sweden 12 hours ago
I am more scared of US diplomats and politicians than terrorists! Have they learned nothing
from the US efforts to create western style democracy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria (by
supporting separatists att an early stage). The US diplomats proposal would ensure more chaos,
death and prolonged wR. 38 % of the population are Alewits. They will be killed, Christians will
be killed.
The only way will probably be to work with Russia and force other opposition groups to sign
a peace agreement. Then we should arrange an intensive training course for US diplomats as well
as Syrian leaders: "There is no final truth: we have to learn the art of tolerance and accept
to live in a society where people you don't agree with also can live."
Looks like State Department became a paradise for neocons. Protest of diplomats is typical trick
used by State Departement during color revolution. That actually means this "color revolution" trick
came to the USA. Our presidents come and go, Republican or Democrat, but our Strangeloves remain permanent
employees of State Department. .
Notable quotes:
"... The State Department and the CIA's 'Plan C' (or are they on 'Plan D' yet?) is an independent Syrian Kurdistan. ..."
"... A desperate attempt to save the rebels, who now hate them and completely understand how they have been thrown under the bus by the State Department neocons. I really don't think the rebels will be the least bit impressed by the phony theatrics of a internal memo by mid-level bureaucrats. ..."
"... The Pentagram is in a bit of a different pickle. They have to do something to stop the Wahhabi head-choppers, but its a bit like herding cats. The best they've come up with is ginning up the SDF to take/hold ISIS territory. But they can't arm the Kurds or Arab members with any REAL weapons because that would anger Turkey. So they give them a bunch of eastern European AKs and a few pickup trucks with anti-aircraft guns, promise air support and toss in a few SF guys ..."
"... The MSM (as CIA lapdogs are paid to do) constantly try to reinforce the message that the independent YPG/YPJ militias are somehow 'the PYD's army'. Nothing is further from the truth - it's all MSM spin to create the impression that the Syrian Kurds uniformly desire the usurped PYD vision of an independent Kurdistan. In reality, the U.S. State Department neocons and the CIA are the ones that want an independent Syrian Kurdistan for their own scheming (and to deny Assad the land/water/oil). The MSM is constantly on message with this to set the narrative to the American public for Syrian partition - most people have no clue. ..."
"... For what it's worth, Assad is keenly aware of his history with the Kurds. Even by Kurdish media reports , he is willing to work with the Syrian Kurds as part of a unified Syrian state. He does not object to Kurdish rights or autonomy, just the U.S. meddling to goad the PYD into creating a separate Kurdish state. ..."
"... The whole Syria nightmare was planned from the US Embassy in Damascus in 2006 because Assad was so broadly popular in the country and "the region." Can't have that so a strategy was drummed up: http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-and-conspiracy-theories-it-is-a-conspiracy/29596 ..."
"... I'm sure the US will throw the Syrian Kurds "under the bus" when their usefulness is finished. I'm sure also that a lot of Syrian Kurds know this, and are hedging their bets. ..."
"... http://www.globalresearch.ca/france-building-military-bases-in-syria-report/5531259 "The use of proxy forces to destroy the secular government of Syria is now starting to give way to stealth methods of direct ground deployment of Western Special Forces and ground troops under the guise of assistance and coordination with "moderate" terrorists. "With a wide variety of Western-backed terrorist groups ranging from "extremist" terrorists like ISIS, al-Qaeda, and al-Nusra to the "moderate" terrorists of the FSA and the loose collection of terrorists, Kurds, and Arabs like the SDF, the West has a kaleidoscope of proxy forces on the ground already. ..."
"... So Russian peace talks with US evil empire in Syria were a disaster, which makes Putin look like an idiot, as well as the supporters of this idiocy. As well as Russian invitations for the US to join it in Syria makes it one of the most stupidest invitations ever. ..."
"... A preview on America's future strategies? http://www.cnas.org/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/CNASReport-EAP-FINAL.pdf ..."
"... The Iranians have been warring with Kurds by the border with Turkey. Neither the Turks nor the Iranians - nor the Syrians, but they do need the Kurds now - want a Kurdistan. The Kurds must know by now - must have been betrayed enough by now - to know that the US will tell them anything, promise them anything, and deliver nothing but betrayal in the end. ..."
"... As regards the State Department, the Pentagon, the US government ... what's required is a neo-con purge, top to bottom. They are all working against American interests and against the American people. and have been for the past two decades. The likelihood of such a purge is about zero. Neither Trump nor Hillary has the will or the backbone to stand up to anyone. Trump's all mouth and looking out for number one, and Hillary's plugged in to the money-mosaic as well. Obama's getting ready to cash in his chips. ..."
"... I am amazed at your unflagging obsession with holding Putin responsible for the US/UK/EU/NATO/GCC destruction of Syria. You've set him up as your omnipotent god and he's failed you, somehow. Putin, Rusia, is not responsible for the death, devastation, and destruction of Iraq, Syria, Libya or the rest of the middle east or north africa. You're throwing your stones at the wrong guy, at the only guy who's done anything at all to help the Syrians and to forestall the monstrous neo-con plan. ..."
"... Israeli bombed military base in Homs province with impunity from S400 http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.723701 ..."
"... There is more about Russian de-facto acquiescence for Syrian partition and pivot to Israel: STRANGE DAYS: Did Israelis Pivoted to Russia? Or the other way around. https://syrianwarupdate.wordpress.com/ ..."
"... On the bright side, maybe the 50 signatures are just trying to get noticed by the Clinton transition crew. ..."
"... The document you posted is a typical wet dream written by utterly incompetent neocons (Kagan's and Zoellik names are a tell), people who can not and must not be allowed to operate with serious strategic and operational categories in any "advisory" role. ..."
"... i read about 30 of 160 or so comments on this article at NYT. given who the audience of that shit rag is & that comments are vetted, overwhelmingly commenters stated increased military involvement is retarded. ..."
"... How can Russia, which dwarfs Israel in every meaningful category -- from economy to military -- and who does remember her history well can "pivot" to largely regional player -- I don't know. Russian "neocons" are a dramatically different breed than US ones, for starters they are much more educated and, actually, support Assad. Israel's pivot to Russia in some sense is inevitable, albeit it could be fairly protracted, with Russia being observed as honest broker. They are not completely stupid in Israel and are very aware of real situation in American politics, economy and military. ..."
"... I note that the 'moderate' Hillary Clinton is a blood-soaked queen of chaos, who if elected is certain to embroil us in pointless wars and spread death and devastation across even more of the world. ..."
"... Donald Trump is admittedly a gamble, but depute his over-the-top stage persona, his track record is of actually getting along with people and brokering stable working relationships. ..."
"... At this point I wish I could vote for Richard Nixon (!), but we have the choice that we have... ..."
"... This piece out of the NYT is pure propaganda. Period. Here's the big clue - where's the memo? It's not embedded in the article. It can't be found anywhere on the web. It's b/c it doesn't exist. The reader is 'TOLD' by a third party journalist few follow who writes for a MIC/Political/Policy corporate mouthpiece. ..."
"... We see the point of all the saber-rattling by NATO on Russia's borders: to get Putin tied up in a diversionary direct threat to Russia, thereby mitigating or eliminating his efforts in behalf of Assad. And you know what? Americans on the street couldn't care one way or the other what Obama or CIA or DoS does or says about Syria. 280,000 dead, millions displaced and Americans are more concerned by a factor of 1000 about 4 dozen gays in Orlando. ..."
"... Saudi Arabia rejoining Turkey: http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950326000441 ..."
"... These 51 useful idiots are IMO auditioning for the Clinton team while also providing cover for the neo-cons above them like Nuland, Powers, etc. And directionless Kerry says he'll rush home to confer with these idiots rather than dismissing them out of hand. Kerry could only be useful to anyone if Lavrov was in the room with him at all times to keep him in line -- otherwise he reverts to his normal mindless servant of US empire viewpoint, which is to follow whichever way the winds of power are blowing through Washington, DC. ..."
"... Hillary is the neocon's neocon. Pravy Sektor's honorary storm trooper Vicky Nuland is a Hillary protege. NYT has been positioning its readers to embrace Kerry's Plan B for the last month-plus. ..."
"... How many of these diplomats were bribed by Saudi Arabia? ..."
"... This clown Kagan is also the husband of the infamous Victoria Nuland who somehow, defying all logic, still has her job post imbroglio that is the Ukraine today. Hell, she's probably being hailed for that and is an inspiration for lowly State employees. ..."
"... Thank you Victoria, for giving Crimea back to the Russian Federation where it belongs. ..."
"... There are almost exactly 7 months until either Trump or Clinton takes office (presuming that the elites manage to completely control any bad news prior to the Dem nominating convention in late July; if the email dam breaks after that I have no idea what the Dem elites will do, but I figure they won't choose the obviously best candidate against Trump, Bernie). ..."
"... might the West actually directly take on Russia/Syrian government forces? Claiming, of course, some version of R2P ..."
"... State Department Diplomats who have captained failure after failure? If these people were Russian or Chinese they would have been executed for their serial failures in the ME and Afghanistan. The main problem with being 'exceptional' is that the 'exceptional' ones never make a mistake. "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength" ..."
"... So I was kind of wondering what psychopathic qualities the U.S. War... er, State Department is looking for in potential parasitic career bureaucrats, and came across this self-promotion page on their site. ..."
"... Counterpunch had a great article: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/17/the-case-for-not-voting-in-defense-of-the-lazy-ungrateful-and-uniformed/ ..."
"... And though the content of the review by Army Gen. John W. Nicholson is secret, the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan received a major incentive this month when President Obama decided to expand America's involvement with more airstrikes against insurgents, giving the U.S. military wider latitude to support Afghan forces, both in the air and on the ground." ..."
"... No respect for R2P warriors at the State Department, nor for HRC, Susan Rice and Samantha Power. ..."
"... For Israel to bomb the Syrian military right under the nose of Russian s-400s? Russia, supposedly so dedicated to defending sovereignty, smiles and yawns benignly? A dirty deal has been made... ..."
"... Saudi Arabia desperately needs battlefield success, or there will be a prince, I mean price, to pay http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-officials-fear-saudi-collapse-if-new-prince-fails-n593996 ..."
"... "Earlier this week as America was trying to make sense of the deadliest case of Islamic terrorism on US soil since 9/11, I wrote a detailed article here at Breitbart News that laid out the clear factual case about Hillary Clinton's top assistant Huma Abedin. I showed how she has deep, clear, and inarguable connections to a Saudi Arabian official named Abdul Omar Naseef, a powerful Kingdom insider who has helped lead a group called the Muslim World League. The Muslim World League is the huge "charity" whose goal is to spread Islam throughout the world and which has been connected to terror groups like Al Qaeda. ..."
"... What is Huma's relationship with a Saudi Arabian official named Abdullah Omar Naseef? ..."
"... Was he the founder of a Saudi charity called the Rabita Trust? ..."
"... Right after 9/11, was the Rabita Trust put on a list by the U.S. government of groups that were funding terrorism? ..."
"... the State Department official obviously has an agenda by providing it to the NYT. The NYT has its own agenda filled as well by prominently posting the article on the top of the front page . ..."
"... One senior official said that the test for whether these proposals for more aggressive action are given high-level consideration will be whether they "fall in line with our contention that there is no military solution to the conflict in Syria." ..."
"... It's important for Russia to ensure that the remains of the first "Israeli" jet it shoots down falls to earth inside Syria. If you've seen a story about the IAF doing something courageous it's bullshit. ..."
"... Wonder how many of these 51 war mongers were appointed by Hillary. ..."
"... The EU-Turkey deal's financial package includes one billion euros in humanitarian aid. There are undoubtedly needs in Turkey, a country which currently hosts close to three million Syrian refugees, but this aid has been negotiated as a reward for border control promises, rather than being based solely on needs. This instrumentalisation of humanitarian aid is unacceptable. ..."
"... kreepy kerry is "running out of patience" since his most desired regime change isn't happening fast enough. ..."
"... The difference between Hillary and ISIS: the latter "takes" the head of enemies, Hillary "gives" head to donors. Forgive the graphic. ..."
"... 50 diplomats petition president for war. Was that written by Orwell? ..."
"... Allow me to further my argument against American Exceptionalism. It is not merely the fact that the U.S. is far from exceptional. From education to infant mortality, the U.S. is woefully behind much of the world. ..."
"... So Hillary, the bloodthirsty Goddess of War, is longing for a second Libya, i.e., a Syria smashed to smithereens, in ashes and ruins, ruled by a chaotic bunch of mad Takfiri extremists, at war all against all. ..."
"... The FBI is stonewalling, keeping the contents of Mateen's 911 call unavailable - though it's part of the public record - presumably because it undermines the "ISIS did it" meme poured over the Orlando mass murder. Apparently Mateen may have mentioned ISIS not quite in the same light as has been portrayed. ..."
"... Now the NYTimes/WSJ are doing the same thing with the 50 dancing diplomats. Releasing what they want us to know and redacting what we want to know : the names of those 50 dancing diplomats. ..."
"... I suppose it comes under the CIA's blanket excuse for secrecy? "Methods and means", or whatever their boilerplate. ..."
"... No doubt the State Department dwarves were ginned up by "Cookies" Nuland and Count Kagan by visions of "x memorandum" of 1946 immortality by attacking the resistance to an unipolar hegemony. Mixing it up in Syria with the Russian presence seems civilization limiting at the outer limits of challenge/ response in a military confrontation. ..."
WASHINGTON - More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo sharply critical
of the Obama administration's policy in Syria, urging the United States to carry out military
strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad to stop its persistent violations
of a cease-fire in the country's five-year-old civil war.
Note that it was Ahrar al Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra and other U.S. paid and supported "moderates"
who on April 9
broke the ceasefire in Syria by attacking government troops south of Aleppo. They have since
continuously bombarded the government held parts of Aleppo which house over 1.5 million civilians
with improvised artillery.
Back to the piece:
The memo, a draft of which was provided to The New York Times by a State Department official
, says American policy has been "overwhelmed" by the unrelenting violence in Syria. It
calls for "a judicious use of stand-off and air weapons, which would undergird
and drive a more focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process."
...
The names on the memo are almost all midlevel officials - many of them career diplomats - who
have been involved in the administration's Syria policy over the last five years, at home or abroad.
They range from a Syria desk officer in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs to a former deputy
to the American ambassador in Damascus.
While there are no widely recognized names, higher-level State Department officials are known
to share their concerns. Mr. Kerry himself has pushed for stronger American action
against Syria, in part to force a diplomatic solution on Mr. Assad.
...
The State Department officials insisted in their memo that they were not "advocating for a
slippery slope that ends in a military confrontation with Russia," but rather a credible threat
of military action to keep Mr. Assad in line.
These State Department loons have their ass covered by Secretary of State Kerry. Otherwise they
would (and should) be fired for obvious ignorance. What "judicious" military threat against Russian
S-400 air defense in Syria is credible? Nukes on Moscow (and New York)?
In the memo, the State Department officials argued that military action against Mr. Assad would
help the fight against the Islamic State because it would bolster moderate Sunnis
, who are necessary allies against the group, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
Would these "diplomats" be able to name even one group of "moderate Sunnis" in Syria that is not
on the side of the Syrian government? Are Ahrar al-Sahm and the other U.S. supported groups, who
recently killed
50 civilians out of purely sectarian motives when they stormed the town of Zara, such "moderate
Sunnis"?
These 50 State Department non-diplomats, and the stinking fish head above them, have obviously
failed in their duty:
"Diplomats" urging military action do nothing but confirm that they do not know their job
which is diplomacy, not bombing. They failed.
These "diplomats" do not know or do not want to follow international law. On what legal basis
would the U.S. bomb the Syrian government and its people? They do not name any. There is none.
To what purpose would the Syrian government and the millions of its followers be bombed? Who
but al-Qaeda would follow if the Assad-led government falls? The "diplomats" ignore that obvious
question.
The NYT writer of the piece on the memo demonstrates that he is just as stupid or dishonest as
the State Department dupes by adding this paragraph:
[T]he memo mainly confirms what has been clear for some time: The State Department's rank and
file have chafed at the White House's refusal to be drawn into the conflict in Syria
.
How is spending
over $1 billion a year to hire, train, arm and support "moderate rebels" against the Syrian government
consistent with the claim of a U.S. "refusal to be drawn into the conflict"?
It is obvious and widely documented that the U.S. has been fueling the conflict from the very
beginning throughout five years and continues up to today to
deliver thousands of tons of weapons to the "moderate rebels".
All the above, the "diplomats" letter and the NYT writer lying, is in preparation of an open U.S.
war on Syria under a possible president Hillary Clinton. (Jo Cox, the "humanitarian" British MP who
was murdered yesterday by some neo-nazi, spoke
in support of such a crime.)
The U.S. military
continues to reject an escalation against the Syrian government. Its reasonable question "what
follows after Assad" has never been seriously answered by the war supporters in the CIA and the State
Department.
Unexpected support of the U.S. military's position now
seems to come from the Turkish side. The Erdogan regime finally acknowledges that a Syria under
Assad is more convenient to it than a Kurdish state in north-Syria which the U.S. is currently helping
to establish:
"Assad is, at the end of the day, a killer. He is torturing his own people. We're not going to
change our stance on that," a senior official from the ruling AK Party told Reuters, requesting
anonymity so as to speak more freely.
"But he does not support Kurdish autonomy. We may not like each other, but on that
we're backing the same policy ," he said.
Ankara fears that territorial gains by Kurdish YPG fighters in northern Syria will fuel an
insurgency by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged an armed struggle in Turkey's
southeast for three decades.
The Turks have suddenly removed their support for their "Turkmen" proxies fighting the Syrian
government in Latakia in north west Syria. Over the last few days the "Turkmen" retreated and the
Syrian army
advanced . It may soon reach the Turkish border. Should the Latakia front calm down the Syrian
army will be able to move several thousand troops from Latakia towards other critical sectors. The
Turkish government, under the new Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, is now also
sending peace signals towards Russia.
The situation in Syria could rapidly change in favor of the Syrian government should Turkey
change its bifurcating policies and continue these moves. Without their Turkish bases and support
the "moderate rebels" would soon be out of supplies and would lack the ability to continue their
fighting. The Russians and their allies should further emphasize the "Kurdish threat" to advance
this Turkish change of mind.
The race to preempt a Hillary administration war on Syria, which the "diplomats" memo prepares
for, is now on. May the not-warmongering side win.
This is the Yankees trying to pretend that they're still exceptionally invincible, in order to
conceal the fact that they never were. One only need look at all the tentative tiptoeing around
China & Russia to see that they're trying to convince themselves that Russia and China are run
by people as loony and disconnected as the self-seducers in charge of AmeriKKKan Foreign Policy.
SmoothieX got it 100% right in the previous thread..
"The names on the memo are almost all medeival offiCIAls ..."
There, fixed it for you. Enjoying the calm before the Goldman Sturm, the takeover of the US
Executive in 2017 for the Final Solution on liberating the Fifth Quintile's Last Free Life Savings,
and plunging the globe into a New Dark Ages: Trump or Clinton, allatime same-same.
The State Department and the CIA's 'Plan C' (or are they on 'Plan D' yet?) is an independent
Syrian Kurdistan.
The FSA Sunnistan plan has been going down the tubes for months. With the imminent fall of
the last few FSA strongholds, the State Department has gone berserk with their latest standoff
bombing memo 'leak' nonsense. A desperate attempt to save the rebels, who now hate them and
completely understand how they have been thrown under the bus by the State Department neocons.
I really don't think the rebels will be the least bit impressed by the phony theatrics of a internal
memo by mid-level bureaucrats.
The Pentagram is in a bit of a different pickle. They have to do something to stop the
Wahhabi head-choppers, but its a bit like herding cats. The best they've come up with is ginning
up the SDF to take/hold ISIS territory. But they can't arm the Kurds or Arab members with any
REAL weapons because that would anger Turkey. So they give them a bunch of eastern European AKs
and a few pickup trucks with anti-aircraft guns, promise air support and toss in a few SF guys.
This almost works, but not completely. For what it's worth, I don't think the Pentagram cares
at all about an independent Syrian Kurdistan, unifying the cantons or who gets what land/resources,
as long as it's taken from ISIS. When ISIS is wiped out, the SDF will cease to exist and
the SF guys will leave. The SDF and especially the YPG/YPJ will NOT ever be incented to provoke
or go to war with Assad after ISIS is gone. That's a problem for the State Department and CIA
The neocon State Department and CIA - normally at odds with the Pentagon's increasing reluctance
to get involved at all - are taking this opportunity to agitate for an independent Kurdistan.
This is done by funding the Kurdish PYD political party which purports to speak for all Kurds.
The State Department and CIA also fund the PYD's growing Asayish thug secret police 'enforcers'.
The PYD took control of Rojava by throwing out all the other political parties last year and crowning
itself the King of all Syrian Kurds. But most Kurds don't trust the PYD, figuring that either
Assad or the U.S. is really pulling the strings. The Kurds agree with the original PYD ideology,
but not its current land/resource-grabbing frenzy NOR the kind of independent Kurdistan the PYD
is suggesting. They want more rights and control of their affairs, but they do not want an actual
or de facto independent Syrian Kurdistan.
The MSM (as CIA lapdogs are paid to do) constantly try to reinforce the message that the
independent YPG/YPJ militias are somehow 'the PYD's army'. Nothing is further from the truth -
it's all MSM spin to create the impression that the Syrian Kurds uniformly desire the usurped
PYD vision of an independent Kurdistan. In reality, the U.S. State Department neocons and the
CIA are the ones that want an independent Syrian Kurdistan for their own scheming (and to deny
Assad the land/water/oil). The MSM is constantly on message with this to set the narrative to
the American public for Syrian partition - most people have no clue.
For what it's worth, Assad is keenly aware of his history with the Kurds. Even by
Kurdish media reports
, he is willing to work with the Syrian Kurds as part of a unified Syrian state. He does not
object to Kurdish rights or autonomy, just the U.S. meddling to goad the PYD into creating a separate
Kurdish state. The U.S. State Department does NOT want Rojava to be part of Syria or the
Syrian State and spins the Assad/Kurd relation as antagonistic in the MSM. This is the 'Plan C'
Syrian partition scheme. Hopefully, the average Kurd can see through their scheming and will not
follow the dictates of a usurped PYD to go to war with Syria for their independence. They would
be better off dumping and outlawing the PYD completely and working with the new Syrian government
on the future AFTER ISIS (and hopefully without any U.S. State Department and CIA).
Your assessment above is a supremely eloquent assessment and a scream for sanity to return.
Thank you so very much for your always illuminating writings.
I think you're quite right. That corresponds with what I've thought for some time. I'm
sure the US will throw the Syrian Kurds "under the bus" when their usefulness is finished. I'm
sure also that a lot of Syrian Kurds know this, and are hedging their bets.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/france-building-military-bases-in-syria-report/5531259 "The
use of proxy forces to destroy the secular government of Syria is now starting to give way to
stealth methods of direct ground deployment of Western Special Forces and ground troops under
the guise of assistance and coordination with "moderate" terrorists. "With a wide variety of Western-backed
terrorist groups ranging from "extremist" terrorists like ISIS, al-Qaeda, and al-Nusra to the
"moderate" terrorists of the FSA and the loose collection of terrorists, Kurds, and Arabs like
the SDF, the West has a kaleidoscope of proxy forces on the ground already.
"Yet, even as Syria's military clashes with the West's proxies, the United States, Britain,
and France have begun moving in Special Forces soldiers to assist in the mission of destroying
the Syrian government, a mission that Israeli, Jordanian, and Turkish officers have joined in
as well. That is, of course, despite the fact that Russian Special Forces are on the ground fighting
on the side of the Syrian military.
"Likewise, both the United States and Russia are busy building military bases in the northern
regions of Syria to use as staging grounds for new operations."
So Russian peace talks with US evil empire in Syria were a disaster, which makes Putin look
like an idiot, as well as the supporters of this idiocy. As well as Russian invitations for the
US to join it in Syria makes it one of the most stupidest invitations ever.
Since B is not mentioning it, he might as well not mention that the French terrorist invaders
along with the already US terrorists, and possibly German invaders will be occupying parts of
Syria.
Oh, but that's alright because Putin invited the evil minions of the Us empire into Syria,
you know, because the bad PR opportunity is a much better outcome then world War three.
The Iranians have been warring with Kurds by the border with Turkey. Neither the Turks nor
the Iranians - nor the Syrians, but they do need the Kurds now - want a Kurdistan. The Kurds must
know by now - must have been betrayed enough by now - to know that the US will tell them anything,
promise them anything, and deliver nothing but betrayal in the end.
As regards the State Department, the Pentagon, the US government ... what's required is
a neo-con purge, top to bottom. They are all working against American interests and against the
American people. and have been for the past two decades. The likelihood of such a purge is about
zero. Neither Trump nor Hillary has the will or the backbone to stand up to anyone. Trump's all
mouth and looking out for number one, and Hillary's plugged in to the money-mosaic as well. Obama's
getting ready to cash in his chips.
It looks to be more of the same, until they really do go after Russia, when it will be all
over for all of us. I can't imagine that they really believe they can get away with this, but
this bunch is all 'mid-level', 'just following orders', it won't be 'their fault' and that's the
level they're working at. The people calling the tune think they can play the real world as they
do their fake financial world, making up new rules as they go along, as they redefine success
after each of their serial failures.
Talk about boiled frogs. How in the hell have we let it get this far?
I am amazed at your unflagging obsession with holding Putin responsible for the US/UK/EU/NATO/GCC
destruction of Syria. You've set him up as your omnipotent god and he's failed you, somehow. Putin,
Rusia, is not responsible for the death, devastation, and destruction of Iraq, Syria, Libya or
the rest of the middle east or north africa. You're throwing your stones at the wrong guy, at
the only guy who's done anything at all to help the Syrians and to forestall the monstrous neo-con
plan. This letter may be, as b says, a measure of theneo-cons' fear that it will all be over
for 'their guys' in Syria by 21 January. If that were to come to pass, Vladimir Putin will have
had a big hand in it.
Nicola @10 from your link 'Extending American power' I had to laugh at this... 4. "All of which
provides the basis for our strong belief
that the United States still has the military, economic,
and political power to play the leading role in pro
-tecting a stable rules-based international order". 'Rules based',ha, the US is the leading regime
change state, acting always contrary to International law to benefit its hegemonic ambitions.
All five veto wielding powers and their friends are above International law for all time. Thankfully,
Russia and China cannot be threatened militarily and will confront the monstrous US designs in
Syria, once the head choppers are defeated the victors should move against the real source of
terrorism in the region, Saudi Arabia and the various GCC satraps. b's article above is excellent
and is echoed in this piece in Antiwar.com
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2016/06/16/something-going-worse-thought/
There are other worrying development in Syroi a namely changing of Riusssian attitude to Assaad.
First Lavrov said that Russia is not Syrian government ally, they just fight terrorists together.
An obvious nonsense.
And now this.
Israel, following several similar air raids in previous months just bombed SAA installation
in Homs province, in the middle of Syria just 45 second flight of S400 rockets located in latakia,
while Netanyahu was smiling with Putin in Moscow.
Can you explain WTF? All of that while IDF artillery provides cover for ANF commanded by formed
ISIL commander in Golan Heights foothills,
There is more about Russian de-facto acquiescence for Syrian partition and pivot to Israel:
STRANGE DAYS: Did Israelis Pivoted to Russia? Or the other way around.
https://syrianwarupdate.wordpress.com/
This is not preview nor is it a strategy, since strategies are based on more or less professional
and realistic, I may add, assessments of the outside world. I do not have any recollection of
any serious US doctrinal (policy or military wise) document in the last 20 years written from
the position of comprehensive situational awareness--this is a non existent condition among most
of US current "power elites". The document you posted is a typical wet dream written by utterly
incompetent neocons (Kagan's and Zoellik names are a tell), people who can not and must not be
allowed to operate with serious strategic and operational categories in any "advisory" role.
They simply have no qualifications for that and are nothing more than a bunch of ideologues and
propagandists from Ivy League humanities degree mill. Back to "preview"--it is a dominant ideology
of "exceptionalism" which afflicted US "elites" today, this document is just another iteration
of this ideology.
i read about 30 of 160 or so comments on this article at NYT. given who the audience of that
shit rag is & that comments are vetted, overwhelmingly commenters stated increased military involvement
is retarded. Of course, many of those speak from ignorance of what's really going on, but
the knee-jerk suspicion of US Syria policy & these FSO dickheads seems a good sign.
There is more about Russian de-facto acquiescence for Syrian partition and pivot to Israel:
It is exactly the other way around. How can Russia, which dwarfs Israel in every meaningful
category -- from economy to military -- and who does remember her history well can "pivot" to
largely regional player -- I don't know. Russian "neocons" are a dramatically different breed
than US ones, for starters they are much more educated and, actually, support Assad. Israel's
pivot to Russia in some sense is inevitable, albeit it could be fairly protracted, with Russia
being observed as honest broker. They are not completely stupid in Israel and are very aware of
real situation in American politics, economy and military. In other words -- they know how
to count and see who pulls the strings. And then there is another "little tiny" factor--Israelis
know damn well who won WW II in Europe. It matters, a great deal.
I note that the 'moderate' Hillary Clinton is a blood-soaked queen of chaos, who if elected
is certain to embroil us in pointless wars and spread death and devastation across even more of
the world. I say this not because I am psychic, but because that is her unambiguous record.
Donald Trump is admittedly a gamble, but depute his over-the-top stage persona, his track
record is of actually getting along with people and brokering stable working relationships.
This November I'm going for the wild-card who at least sounds rational (if you listen to what
he actually proposes, and not his style) and has a track record of actually being pragmatic, over
certain doom.
At this point I wish I could vote for Richard Nixon (!), but we have the choice that we
have...
This piece out of the NYT is pure propaganda. Period. Here's the big clue - where's the memo?
It's not embedded in the article. It can't be found anywhere on the web. It's b/c it doesn't exist.
The reader is 'TOLD' by a third party journalist few follow who writes for a MIC/Political/Policy
corporate mouthpiece.
If an article does not link to an original source OR quotes only 'anon sources' be skeptical.
Journalism, especially alt news journalists, site original sources AND try like hell to get sources
to go on the record.
My apologies in advance if I'm being offensive to our generous host. That is not my intent.
Rather, it's venting a long held frustration I've had with the division within corporate newsrooms
who are there solely to sell the readers the news, even if it's made up out of thin air.
Yeah . . .agree 90%. Here are some minor details that need to be tidied up, and a couple thoughts.
1.
b: it was Ahrar al Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra and other U.S. paid and supported "moderates"
who on April 9 broke the ceasefire in Syria.
This is not quite accurate. Resolution 2254 exempted al Nusra from the cease-fire, not sure
about al Sham and whatever others you are referring to. If they were excluded from the cease-fire,
then they couldn't break it.
2.
The NYT writer is Mark Landler, not Lander. If you're going to accuse him of being stupid or dishonest,
you want to get the name right. Mark Lander, whoever he is, might have a pack of bulldog lawyers.
3.
I don't see in Landler's article a link to the memo or a list of the people who signed it. Someone
needs to publish that list of signatories to preserve the record of who the DOS idiots are.
4. We see the point of all the saber-rattling by NATO on Russia's borders: to get Putin tied
up in a diversionary direct threat to Russia, thereby mitigating or eliminating his efforts in
behalf of Assad. And you know what? Americans on the street couldn't care one way or the other
what Obama or CIA or DoS does or says about Syria. 280,000 dead, millions displaced and Americans
are more concerned by a factor of 1000 about 4 dozen gays in Orlando.
Thanks for sharing your outrage, b. I completely agree. I have been ranting about this all morning
and it's good to see someone else stating the case so the rest of us don't feel isolated in our
anger at this vicious and dangerous stupidity. These 51 useful idiots are IMO auditioning
for the Clinton team while also providing cover for the neo-cons above them like Nuland, Powers,
etc. And directionless Kerry says he'll rush home to confer with these idiots rather than dismissing
them out of hand. Kerry could only be useful to anyone if Lavrov was in the room with him at all
times to keep him in line -- otherwise he reverts to his normal mindless servant of US empire
viewpoint, which is to follow whichever way the winds of power are blowing through Washington,
DC.
CIA .... YPG .... ALNUSRA.... FSL , all these acronyms are so confusing , how about considering
the level of sanity and intelligence of these groups ( which is probably below that of a wounded
flea .... ) why not call them Scoobidoos vs the Syrian Army
so the article would go something like this :
In the memo, the Scoobidoos State Department officials argued that military action against
Mr. Assad would help the fight against the Scoobidoos because it would bolster moderate Scoobidoos,
who are necessary allies against the group, also known as Scoobidoos .
I thought it was a "cessation of hostilities" not a case fire. The difference is not trivial,
and State Department employees should know the difference. The signers are either incompetent
or evil (not mutually exclusive, of course).
dont think landler is stupid. dishonest and deceiving would be my say. he is a nyt's jew writing,
maybe lying, regarding syria. NYT: only news acceptable to jews. sometimes, many times we have
to make up stories and facts to (maybe) fit.
cant find any of the dissenting names.
like to know how many are jew if story not total fake
then there is the political hatchet job on the russian track/field olym team.
I think the key takeaway is b's last two sentences: "The race to preempt a Hillary administration
war on Syria, which the 'diplomats' memo prepares for, is now on. May the not-warmongering side
win."
Hillary is the neocon's neocon. Pravy Sektor's honorary storm trooper Vicky Nuland is a
Hillary protege. NYT has been positioning its readers to embrace Kerry's Plan B for the last month-plus.
Whether during or shortly after Hillary's first 100 days in office, U.S. military engagement
with Libya and Syria will likely be significantly greater than it is now.
This is the exact reason the Ministers of Defense of Syria, Russia and Iran held meeting in Teheran
just recently. My assumption is they are planning on rolling up the acres, so to speak in Syria.
All before the new POTUS comes to office. Also, Hezbollah just announced it's sending in reinforcements
to the battlefield. All this while the Chinese continue to sleep. Sigh.
The Kurds are the last great hope for the oil and especially natural gas pipelines dream from
the GCC to Europe, but still, Israel is not happy. They wanted a branch-off pipeline for themselves.
Also Jordan was to get a small branch-off too. Israel is no more than a parasite, look up the
definition. It's exact. Turkey would benefit economically due to transit fees. That's why the
Turks are so heavily involved. Turkey, who's economy is done for due to Chinese cheap products
swamping the M.E; is crashed. Jordan is broke (hence they allow the head choppers to be trained
on their territory). The U.S is the overlord who wants this project to be implemented so as to
deny Russia the European market (see Saudia too).
Netanyahu has visited Russia 3-4 times (not sure)to dissuade Putin on his support for Bashar
( who said yes to the Friendship pipeline- Running from Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria..to the Mediterranean
thru to Greece, Europe). No other World leader makes that many visits is such a short time to
another capital. Netanyahu obviously failed in his endeavor, as the Russians are familiar with
these Zionist snakes very well. All they have to look at is the genocide perpetrated by said Zionists
in their very own 20th Century history. I even read that Putin irked Netanyahu when Putin offered
him back the Pale of Settlement if they wanted to make the smart choice. Beautiful if true. Probably
wishful thinking tho.
Anyways, Israel runs the U.S State Department(see, the Crazies in the Basement). They don't
call it Foggy Bottom for nothing. Must be foggy now due to too many employess smoking bongs in
the downstairs cafeteria, hence the ridiculous memo. Also the writer of the memo is most certainly
another member of the chosen tribe.
Yes, a 'Night of the Broken Glass' or 'Night of the Long Knives' is much needed to save Humanity
essentially. But don't hope for it. Congress, Capital Hill leaders , MSM heads and head anchors,
most everybody in the Whit house(except the kitchen staff) would have to be rounded up.
The only hope would have been the U.S Military Officer Corp. before the great purges post 9-11.
Now it's I'm possible. God help the American people and the World.
This clown Kagan is also the husband of the infamous Victoria Nuland who somehow, defying
all logic, still has her job post imbroglio that is the Ukraine today. Hell, she's probably being
hailed for that and is an inspiration for lowly State employees.
Thank you Victoria, for giving Crimea back to the Russian Federation where it belongs.
There are almost exactly 7 months until either Trump or Clinton takes office (presuming
that the elites manage to completely control any bad news prior to the Dem nominating convention
in late July; if the email dam breaks after that I have no idea what the Dem elites will do, but
I figure they won't choose the obviously best candidate against Trump, Bernie).
Seven months. If Russia lends more of its strength, is it possible to gain the territory and
hold it to the point that, oh, the West's illegal bases will have to close down? Or might
the West actually directly take on Russia/Syrian government forces? Claiming, of course, some
version of
R2P
State Department Diplomats who have captained failure after failure? If these people were
Russian or Chinese they would have been executed for their serial failures in the ME and Afghanistan.
The main problem with being 'exceptional' is that the 'exceptional' ones never make a mistake.
"War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength"
So I was kind of wondering what psychopathic qualities the U.S. War... er, State Department
is looking for in potential parasitic career bureaucrats, and came across this self-promotion
page on their site. They seem to feel that working for them immerses you in a 'Culture of
Leadership'. I guess the 'Culture of Chaos and Death' theme, although more neocon-appropriate,
was shot down in favor of tempting potential employees with the possibility of more power and
control.
There are times the depressing mood on MoA is mitigated by some of the rather classic spelling
errors. I sometimes wonder if they might be intentional in order to lighten the mood?
In the inner halls of Pentagramagon nothing succeeds financially like serial designed failure
...
KABUL, Afghanistan - "The new U.S. commander in Afghanistan has submitted his first three-month
assessment of the situation in the war-torn country and what it's going to take to defeat the
Taliban, a U.S. military official has told The Associated Press.
And though the content of the review by Army Gen. John W. Nicholson is secret, the U.S.
strategy in Afghanistan received a major incentive this month when President Obama decided to
expand America's involvement with more airstrikes against insurgents, giving the U.S. military
wider latitude to support Afghan forces, both in the air and on the ground."
No respect for
R2P warriors
at the State Department, nor for HRC, Susan Rice and Samantha Power. Jo Cox as former
Oxfam executive was moved by the same massacres of Rwanda, Yugoslavia and Darfur.
Unwittingly (?) the R2P argument was used by the Obama White House to intervene in Libya and
Syria. The US took R2P a step further to force regime change which is illegal by International
law. See George Bush and
Tony Blair
to white-wash the cruelty of torture, rendition, Abu Ghraib, extrajudicial assassinations,
etc, etc.
Former US Ambassador to Syria Robert S. Ford was an apprentice of John Negroponte in Baghdad,
Iraq.
If I were Assad, I would be shaking in my boots right now and having Gaddafi dreams. Russia has
clearly allied itself closely to Israel and Nato in Syria. Some kind of sanctions relief deal
must be in the works. Syria will be split up soon. Assad is a dead man.
For Israel to bomb the Syrian military right under the nose of Russian s-400s? Russia,
supposedly so dedicated to defending sovereignty, smiles and yawns benignly? A dirty deal has
been made...
"Earlier this week as America was trying to make sense of the deadliest case of Islamic terrorism
on US soil since 9/11, I wrote a detailed article here at Breitbart News that laid out the clear
factual case about Hillary Clinton's top assistant Huma Abedin. I showed how she has deep, clear,
and inarguable connections to a Saudi Arabian official named Abdul Omar Naseef, a powerful Kingdom
insider who has helped lead a group called the Muslim World League. The Muslim World League is
the huge "charity" whose goal is to spread Islam throughout the world and which has been connected
to terror groups like Al Qaeda. If that sounds like a serious accusation, you're damn right
it is."
"The three questions are very simple, very straightforward, and, frankly, anybody can research
the answers themselves. They are:
1) What is Huma's relationship with a Saudi Arabian official named Abdullah Omar Naseef?
2) Was he the founder of a Saudi charity called the Rabita Trust?
3) Right after 9/11, was the Rabita Trust put on a list by the U.S. government of groups
that were funding terrorism?"
"If I were Assad, I would be shaking in my boots right now and having Gaddafi dreams."
Interesting opinion? If you made a list of democratically elected Presidents and National Leaders
the US/GB/ISR axis have terminated you will fill a book. From Patrice Lumumba to Hugo Chavez the
list goes on and on. Could you supply me with a list of National Leaders that Russia under Putin
has terminated?
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US Department of State has no plans to make public an internal memo
calling for the United States to take military action against Syrian President Bashar Assad's
government, US Department of State spokesperson John Kirby said in a briefing on Friday. "There's
no plans to make it public," Kirby stated when asked when the State Department would release
the dissent letter.
Furthermore, Kirby said there will be no investigation as to how the letter ended up in
the public domain.
By 'public domain', Kirby means on some writer's desk at the NYT, never to be seen by the unwashed
masses. To be fair, the State Department's "Dissent Memo" program is supposed to be confidential
even within the State Department itself to encourage its use. Mark Landler said in his article
that a draft of it was leaked by 'a State Department official' to the NYT. So some skepticism
of the existence or eventual submission of the actual memo is warranted. Not that Landry is lying
or hasn't verified it, but the State Department official obviously has an agenda by providing
it to the NYT. The NYT has its own agenda filled as well by prominently posting the article
on
the top of the front page .
Nyt participating in these pressures is coordinated with medecins sans frontiere announcing
today that they ll refuse eu money to protest on the treatment of refugees and with recent surge
in french and uk msm of so called white helmets exclusive pictured
Obama, despite dissent on Syria, not shifting toward strikes on Assad
The U.S. administration sought on Friday to contain fallout from a leaked internal memo critical
of its Syria policy, but showed no sign it was willing to consider military strikes against Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad's forces called for in the letter signed by dozens of U.S. diplomats.
Several U.S. officials said that while the White House is prepared to hear the diplomats' dissenting
viewpoint, it is not expected to spur any changes in President Barack Obama's approach to Syria
in his final seven months in office.
One senior official said that the test for whether these proposals for more aggressive
action are given high-level consideration will be whether they "fall in line with our contention
that there is no military solution to the conflict in Syria."
It's important for Russia to ensure that the remains of the first "Israeli" jet it shoots
down falls to earth inside Syria. If you've seen a story about the IAF doing something courageous
it's bullshit.
The EU-Turkey deal's financial package includes one billion euros in humanitarian aid.
There are undoubtedly needs in Turkey, a country which currently hosts close to three million
Syrian refugees, but this aid has been negotiated as a reward for border control promises,
rather than being based solely on needs. This instrumentalisation of humanitarian aid is unacceptable.
Last week the European Commission unveiled a new proposal to replicate the EU-Turkey logic
across more than 16 countries in Africa and the Middle East.
These deals would impose trade and development aid sanctions on countries that do not stem
migration to Europe or facilitate forcible returns, rewarding those that do. Among these potential
partners are
Somalia ,
Eritrea , Sudan and Afghanistan four of the top ten* refugee generating countries.
kreepy kerry is "running out of patience" since his most desired regime change isn't happening
fast enough. How many others are in the works? I'm running-out-of-patience waiting for the
regime change anyone with 1/2 a brain wants, right here in the U.S. Regime Change US. It's our
turn. I just read Putin's speech at the St. Petersburg Int'l Forum. He must have used the word
"cooperation" at least 20 times. We need such a great leader. Terroristic turds like kerry and
co. belong in jail.
50 diplomats petition president for war. Was that written by Orwell? Isn't it enough
that this "peaceful" nation arms the world and places economic "pressure" on those nations that
displease her to the point of causing millions to die - do we really have to "kill the village
to save it?" Yes, I agree, each and every one of those "career diplomats" should be looking for
other work. They have not merely lost their way, they have lost their minds. My contempt for them
is manifest, as is my contempt for the entire MIC. That those trained in diplomacy should send
such a despicable petition illuminates the deep corrupting influence of American Exceptionalism
- a force for the kind of nationalism Germany endured 1933-45. Idiots.
Allow me to further my argument against American Exceptionalism. It is not merely the fact
that the U.S. is far from exceptional. From education to infant mortality, the U.S. is woefully
behind much of the world. My objection is that belief in exceptionalism leads to moral decay.
It is the functional equivalent of the 19th Century preachers who endorsed slavery, who preached
that negroes carried the mark of Cain, etc. Whites were God's chosen. The pseudo-righteousness
that preaching created in believers was largely responsible for America's Civil War. Americans
will be better people, with a better society, if we dispel this myth immediately. We're OK, you're
OK. Then we could have peace. Wouldn't that be nice?
So Hillary, the bloodthirsty Goddess of War, is longing for a second Libya, i.e., a Syria
smashed to smithereens, in ashes and ruins, ruled by a chaotic bunch of mad Takfiri extremists,
at war all against all. The Queen of Chaos, indeed, loves these scenarios. Especially because
her quick attack as first thing should she win the White House would shut the mouths of her critics
wanting her prosecuted for her crooked political and business corruption. But she and her State
Department surrogates would be in for a surprise: Russian and Syrian defences would not remain
silent. And afterwards, what would be left? How would the Exceptionalist who "gets things done"
proceed?
The FBI is stonewalling, keeping the contents of Mateen's 911 call unavailable - though it's
part of the public record - presumably because it undermines the "ISIS did it" meme poured over
the Orlando mass murder. Apparently Mateen may have mentioned ISIS not quite in the same light
as has been portrayed.
Now the NYTimes/WSJ are doing the same thing with the 50 dancing diplomats. Releasing what
they want us to know and redacting what we want to know : the names of those 50 dancing diplomats.
I suppose it comes under the CIA's blanket excuse for secrecy? "Methods and means", or
whatever their boilerplate.
Releasing their names might give us the means to track the 5th column as it winds its way through
'our' government, and that must be prevented at all costs. Think it might lead through Hillary?
Seems no doubt here.
No doubt the State Department dwarves were ginned up by "Cookies" Nuland and Count Kagan by
visions of "x memorandum" of 1946 immortality by attacking the resistance to an unipolar hegemony.
Mixing it up in Syria with the Russian presence seems civilization limiting at the outer limits
of challenge/ response in a military confrontation.
Looks like State Department became a paradise for neocons. Protest of diplomats is typical trick
used by State Departement during color revolution. That actually means this "color revolution" trick
came to the USA. Our presidents come and go, Republican or Democrat, but our Strangeloves remain permanent
employees of State Department. .
Notable quotes:
"... The State Department and the CIA's 'Plan C' (or are they on 'Plan D' yet?) is an independent Syrian Kurdistan. ..."
"... A desperate attempt to save the rebels, who now hate them and completely understand how they have been thrown under the bus by the State Department neocons. I really don't think the rebels will be the least bit impressed by the phony theatrics of a internal memo by mid-level bureaucrats. ..."
"... The Pentagram is in a bit of a different pickle. They have to do something to stop the Wahhabi head-choppers, but its a bit like herding cats. The best they've come up with is ginning up the SDF to take/hold ISIS territory. But they can't arm the Kurds or Arab members with any REAL weapons because that would anger Turkey. So they give them a bunch of eastern European AKs and a few pickup trucks with anti-aircraft guns, promise air support and toss in a few SF guys ..."
"... The MSM (as CIA lapdogs are paid to do) constantly try to reinforce the message that the independent YPG/YPJ militias are somehow 'the PYD's army'. Nothing is further from the truth - it's all MSM spin to create the impression that the Syrian Kurds uniformly desire the usurped PYD vision of an independent Kurdistan. In reality, the U.S. State Department neocons and the CIA are the ones that want an independent Syrian Kurdistan for their own scheming (and to deny Assad the land/water/oil). The MSM is constantly on message with this to set the narrative to the American public for Syrian partition - most people have no clue. ..."
"... For what it's worth, Assad is keenly aware of his history with the Kurds. Even by Kurdish media reports , he is willing to work with the Syrian Kurds as part of a unified Syrian state. He does not object to Kurdish rights or autonomy, just the U.S. meddling to goad the PYD into creating a separate Kurdish state. ..."
"... The whole Syria nightmare was planned from the US Embassy in Damascus in 2006 because Assad was so broadly popular in the country and "the region." Can't have that so a strategy was drummed up: http://www.globalresearch.ca/syria-and-conspiracy-theories-it-is-a-conspiracy/29596 ..."
"... I'm sure the US will throw the Syrian Kurds "under the bus" when their usefulness is finished. I'm sure also that a lot of Syrian Kurds know this, and are hedging their bets. ..."
"... http://www.globalresearch.ca/france-building-military-bases-in-syria-report/5531259 "The use of proxy forces to destroy the secular government of Syria is now starting to give way to stealth methods of direct ground deployment of Western Special Forces and ground troops under the guise of assistance and coordination with "moderate" terrorists. "With a wide variety of Western-backed terrorist groups ranging from "extremist" terrorists like ISIS, al-Qaeda, and al-Nusra to the "moderate" terrorists of the FSA and the loose collection of terrorists, Kurds, and Arabs like the SDF, the West has a kaleidoscope of proxy forces on the ground already. ..."
"... So Russian peace talks with US evil empire in Syria were a disaster, which makes Putin look like an idiot, as well as the supporters of this idiocy. As well as Russian invitations for the US to join it in Syria makes it one of the most stupidest invitations ever. ..."
"... A preview on America's future strategies? http://www.cnas.org/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/CNASReport-EAP-FINAL.pdf ..."
"... The Iranians have been warring with Kurds by the border with Turkey. Neither the Turks nor the Iranians - nor the Syrians, but they do need the Kurds now - want a Kurdistan. The Kurds must know by now - must have been betrayed enough by now - to know that the US will tell them anything, promise them anything, and deliver nothing but betrayal in the end. ..."
"... As regards the State Department, the Pentagon, the US government ... what's required is a neo-con purge, top to bottom. They are all working against American interests and against the American people. and have been for the past two decades. The likelihood of such a purge is about zero. Neither Trump nor Hillary has the will or the backbone to stand up to anyone. Trump's all mouth and looking out for number one, and Hillary's plugged in to the money-mosaic as well. Obama's getting ready to cash in his chips. ..."
"... I am amazed at your unflagging obsession with holding Putin responsible for the US/UK/EU/NATO/GCC destruction of Syria. You've set him up as your omnipotent god and he's failed you, somehow. Putin, Rusia, is not responsible for the death, devastation, and destruction of Iraq, Syria, Libya or the rest of the middle east or north africa. You're throwing your stones at the wrong guy, at the only guy who's done anything at all to help the Syrians and to forestall the monstrous neo-con plan. ..."
"... Israeli bombed military base in Homs province with impunity from S400 http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.723701 ..."
"... There is more about Russian de-facto acquiescence for Syrian partition and pivot to Israel: STRANGE DAYS: Did Israelis Pivoted to Russia? Or the other way around. https://syrianwarupdate.wordpress.com/ ..."
"... On the bright side, maybe the 50 signatures are just trying to get noticed by the Clinton transition crew. ..."
"... The document you posted is a typical wet dream written by utterly incompetent neocons (Kagan's and Zoellik names are a tell), people who can not and must not be allowed to operate with serious strategic and operational categories in any "advisory" role. ..."
"... i read about 30 of 160 or so comments on this article at NYT. given who the audience of that shit rag is & that comments are vetted, overwhelmingly commenters stated increased military involvement is retarded. ..."
"... How can Russia, which dwarfs Israel in every meaningful category -- from economy to military -- and who does remember her history well can "pivot" to largely regional player -- I don't know. Russian "neocons" are a dramatically different breed than US ones, for starters they are much more educated and, actually, support Assad. Israel's pivot to Russia in some sense is inevitable, albeit it could be fairly protracted, with Russia being observed as honest broker. They are not completely stupid in Israel and are very aware of real situation in American politics, economy and military. ..."
"... I note that the 'moderate' Hillary Clinton is a blood-soaked queen of chaos, who if elected is certain to embroil us in pointless wars and spread death and devastation across even more of the world. ..."
"... Donald Trump is admittedly a gamble, but depute his over-the-top stage persona, his track record is of actually getting along with people and brokering stable working relationships. ..."
"... At this point I wish I could vote for Richard Nixon (!), but we have the choice that we have... ..."
"... This piece out of the NYT is pure propaganda. Period. Here's the big clue - where's the memo? It's not embedded in the article. It can't be found anywhere on the web. It's b/c it doesn't exist. The reader is 'TOLD' by a third party journalist few follow who writes for a MIC/Political/Policy corporate mouthpiece. ..."
"... We see the point of all the saber-rattling by NATO on Russia's borders: to get Putin tied up in a diversionary direct threat to Russia, thereby mitigating or eliminating his efforts in behalf of Assad. And you know what? Americans on the street couldn't care one way or the other what Obama or CIA or DoS does or says about Syria. 280,000 dead, millions displaced and Americans are more concerned by a factor of 1000 about 4 dozen gays in Orlando. ..."
"... Saudi Arabia rejoining Turkey: http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950326000441 ..."
"... These 51 useful idiots are IMO auditioning for the Clinton team while also providing cover for the neo-cons above them like Nuland, Powers, etc. And directionless Kerry says he'll rush home to confer with these idiots rather than dismissing them out of hand. Kerry could only be useful to anyone if Lavrov was in the room with him at all times to keep him in line -- otherwise he reverts to his normal mindless servant of US empire viewpoint, which is to follow whichever way the winds of power are blowing through Washington, DC. ..."
"... Hillary is the neocon's neocon. Pravy Sektor's honorary storm trooper Vicky Nuland is a Hillary protege. NYT has been positioning its readers to embrace Kerry's Plan B for the last month-plus. ..."
"... How many of these diplomats were bribed by Saudi Arabia? ..."
"... This clown Kagan is also the husband of the infamous Victoria Nuland who somehow, defying all logic, still has her job post imbroglio that is the Ukraine today. Hell, she's probably being hailed for that and is an inspiration for lowly State employees. ..."
"... Thank you Victoria, for giving Crimea back to the Russian Federation where it belongs. ..."
"... There are almost exactly 7 months until either Trump or Clinton takes office (presuming that the elites manage to completely control any bad news prior to the Dem nominating convention in late July; if the email dam breaks after that I have no idea what the Dem elites will do, but I figure they won't choose the obviously best candidate against Trump, Bernie). ..."
"... might the West actually directly take on Russia/Syrian government forces? Claiming, of course, some version of R2P ..."
"... State Department Diplomats who have captained failure after failure? If these people were Russian or Chinese they would have been executed for their serial failures in the ME and Afghanistan. The main problem with being 'exceptional' is that the 'exceptional' ones never make a mistake. "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength" ..."
"... So I was kind of wondering what psychopathic qualities the U.S. War... er, State Department is looking for in potential parasitic career bureaucrats, and came across this self-promotion page on their site. ..."
"... Counterpunch had a great article: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/06/17/the-case-for-not-voting-in-defense-of-the-lazy-ungrateful-and-uniformed/ ..."
"... And though the content of the review by Army Gen. John W. Nicholson is secret, the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan received a major incentive this month when President Obama decided to expand America's involvement with more airstrikes against insurgents, giving the U.S. military wider latitude to support Afghan forces, both in the air and on the ground." ..."
"... No respect for R2P warriors at the State Department, nor for HRC, Susan Rice and Samantha Power. ..."
"... For Israel to bomb the Syrian military right under the nose of Russian s-400s? Russia, supposedly so dedicated to defending sovereignty, smiles and yawns benignly? A dirty deal has been made... ..."
"... Saudi Arabia desperately needs battlefield success, or there will be a prince, I mean price, to pay http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-officials-fear-saudi-collapse-if-new-prince-fails-n593996 ..."
"... "Earlier this week as America was trying to make sense of the deadliest case of Islamic terrorism on US soil since 9/11, I wrote a detailed article here at Breitbart News that laid out the clear factual case about Hillary Clinton's top assistant Huma Abedin. I showed how she has deep, clear, and inarguable connections to a Saudi Arabian official named Abdul Omar Naseef, a powerful Kingdom insider who has helped lead a group called the Muslim World League. The Muslim World League is the huge "charity" whose goal is to spread Islam throughout the world and which has been connected to terror groups like Al Qaeda. ..."
"... What is Huma's relationship with a Saudi Arabian official named Abdullah Omar Naseef? ..."
"... Was he the founder of a Saudi charity called the Rabita Trust? ..."
"... Right after 9/11, was the Rabita Trust put on a list by the U.S. government of groups that were funding terrorism? ..."
"... the State Department official obviously has an agenda by providing it to the NYT. The NYT has its own agenda filled as well by prominently posting the article on the top of the front page . ..."
"... One senior official said that the test for whether these proposals for more aggressive action are given high-level consideration will be whether they "fall in line with our contention that there is no military solution to the conflict in Syria." ..."
"... It's important for Russia to ensure that the remains of the first "Israeli" jet it shoots down falls to earth inside Syria. If you've seen a story about the IAF doing something courageous it's bullshit. ..."
"... Wonder how many of these 51 war mongers were appointed by Hillary. ..."
"... The EU-Turkey deal's financial package includes one billion euros in humanitarian aid. There are undoubtedly needs in Turkey, a country which currently hosts close to three million Syrian refugees, but this aid has been negotiated as a reward for border control promises, rather than being based solely on needs. This instrumentalisation of humanitarian aid is unacceptable. ..."
"... kreepy kerry is "running out of patience" since his most desired regime change isn't happening fast enough. ..."
"... The difference between Hillary and ISIS: the latter "takes" the head of enemies, Hillary "gives" head to donors. Forgive the graphic. ..."
"... 50 diplomats petition president for war. Was that written by Orwell? ..."
"... Allow me to further my argument against American Exceptionalism. It is not merely the fact that the U.S. is far from exceptional. From education to infant mortality, the U.S. is woefully behind much of the world. ..."
"... So Hillary, the bloodthirsty Goddess of War, is longing for a second Libya, i.e., a Syria smashed to smithereens, in ashes and ruins, ruled by a chaotic bunch of mad Takfiri extremists, at war all against all. ..."
"... The FBI is stonewalling, keeping the contents of Mateen's 911 call unavailable - though it's part of the public record - presumably because it undermines the "ISIS did it" meme poured over the Orlando mass murder. Apparently Mateen may have mentioned ISIS not quite in the same light as has been portrayed. ..."
"... Now the NYTimes/WSJ are doing the same thing with the 50 dancing diplomats. Releasing what they want us to know and redacting what we want to know : the names of those 50 dancing diplomats. ..."
"... I suppose it comes under the CIA's blanket excuse for secrecy? "Methods and means", or whatever their boilerplate. ..."
"... No doubt the State Department dwarves were ginned up by "Cookies" Nuland and Count Kagan by visions of "x memorandum" of 1946 immortality by attacking the resistance to an unipolar hegemony. Mixing it up in Syria with the Russian presence seems civilization limiting at the outer limits of challenge/ response in a military confrontation. ..."
WASHINGTON - More than 50 State Department diplomats have signed an internal memo sharply critical
of the Obama administration's policy in Syria, urging the United States to carry out military
strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad to stop its persistent violations
of a cease-fire in the country's five-year-old civil war.
Note that it was Ahrar al Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra and other U.S. paid and supported "moderates"
who on April 9
broke the ceasefire in Syria by attacking government troops south of Aleppo. They have since
continuously bombarded the government held parts of Aleppo which house over 1.5 million civilians
with improvised artillery.
Back to the piece:
The memo, a draft of which was provided to The New York Times by a State Department official
, says American policy has been "overwhelmed" by the unrelenting violence in Syria. It
calls for "a judicious use of stand-off and air weapons, which would undergird
and drive a more focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process."
...
The names on the memo are almost all midlevel officials - many of them career diplomats - who
have been involved in the administration's Syria policy over the last five years, at home or abroad.
They range from a Syria desk officer in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs to a former deputy
to the American ambassador in Damascus.
While there are no widely recognized names, higher-level State Department officials are known
to share their concerns. Mr. Kerry himself has pushed for stronger American action
against Syria, in part to force a diplomatic solution on Mr. Assad.
...
The State Department officials insisted in their memo that they were not "advocating for a
slippery slope that ends in a military confrontation with Russia," but rather a credible threat
of military action to keep Mr. Assad in line.
These State Department loons have their ass covered by Secretary of State Kerry. Otherwise they
would (and should) be fired for obvious ignorance. What "judicious" military threat against Russian
S-400 air defense in Syria is credible? Nukes on Moscow (and New York)?
In the memo, the State Department officials argued that military action against Mr. Assad would
help the fight against the Islamic State because it would bolster moderate Sunnis
, who are necessary allies against the group, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
Would these "diplomats" be able to name even one group of "moderate Sunnis" in Syria that is not
on the side of the Syrian government? Are Ahrar al-Sahm and the other U.S. supported groups, who
recently killed
50 civilians out of purely sectarian motives when they stormed the town of Zara, such "moderate
Sunnis"?
These 50 State Department non-diplomats, and the stinking fish head above them, have obviously
failed in their duty:
"Diplomats" urging military action do nothing but confirm that they do not know their job
which is diplomacy, not bombing. They failed.
These "diplomats" do not know or do not want to follow international law. On what legal basis
would the U.S. bomb the Syrian government and its people? They do not name any. There is none.
To what purpose would the Syrian government and the millions of its followers be bombed? Who
but al-Qaeda would follow if the Assad-led government falls? The "diplomats" ignore that obvious
question.
The NYT writer of the piece on the memo demonstrates that he is just as stupid or dishonest as
the State Department dupes by adding this paragraph:
[T]he memo mainly confirms what has been clear for some time: The State Department's rank and
file have chafed at the White House's refusal to be drawn into the conflict in Syria
.
How is spending
over $1 billion a year to hire, train, arm and support "moderate rebels" against the Syrian government
consistent with the claim of a U.S. "refusal to be drawn into the conflict"?
It is obvious and widely documented that the U.S. has been fueling the conflict from the very
beginning throughout five years and continues up to today to
deliver thousands of tons of weapons to the "moderate rebels".
All the above, the "diplomats" letter and the NYT writer lying, is in preparation of an open U.S.
war on Syria under a possible president Hillary Clinton. (Jo Cox, the "humanitarian" British MP who
was murdered yesterday by some neo-nazi, spoke
in support of such a crime.)
The U.S. military
continues to reject an escalation against the Syrian government. Its reasonable question "what
follows after Assad" has never been seriously answered by the war supporters in the CIA and the State
Department.
Unexpected support of the U.S. military's position now
seems to come from the Turkish side. The Erdogan regime finally acknowledges that a Syria under
Assad is more convenient to it than a Kurdish state in north-Syria which the U.S. is currently helping
to establish:
"Assad is, at the end of the day, a killer. He is torturing his own people. We're not going to
change our stance on that," a senior official from the ruling AK Party told Reuters, requesting
anonymity so as to speak more freely.
"But he does not support Kurdish autonomy. We may not like each other, but on that
we're backing the same policy ," he said.
Ankara fears that territorial gains by Kurdish YPG fighters in northern Syria will fuel an
insurgency by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged an armed struggle in Turkey's
southeast for three decades.
The Turks have suddenly removed their support for their "Turkmen" proxies fighting the Syrian
government in Latakia in north west Syria. Over the last few days the "Turkmen" retreated and the
Syrian army
advanced . It may soon reach the Turkish border. Should the Latakia front calm down the Syrian
army will be able to move several thousand troops from Latakia towards other critical sectors. The
Turkish government, under the new Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, is now also
sending peace signals towards Russia.
The situation in Syria could rapidly change in favor of the Syrian government should Turkey
change its bifurcating policies and continue these moves. Without their Turkish bases and support
the "moderate rebels" would soon be out of supplies and would lack the ability to continue their
fighting. The Russians and their allies should further emphasize the "Kurdish threat" to advance
this Turkish change of mind.
The race to preempt a Hillary administration war on Syria, which the "diplomats" memo prepares
for, is now on. May the not-warmongering side win.
This is the Yankees trying to pretend that they're still exceptionally invincible, in order to
conceal the fact that they never were. One only need look at all the tentative tiptoeing around
China & Russia to see that they're trying to convince themselves that Russia and China are run
by people as loony and disconnected as the self-seducers in charge of AmeriKKKan Foreign Policy.
SmoothieX got it 100% right in the previous thread..
"The names on the memo are almost all medeival offiCIAls ..."
There, fixed it for you. Enjoying the calm before the Goldman Sturm, the takeover of the US
Executive in 2017 for the Final Solution on liberating the Fifth Quintile's Last Free Life Savings,
and plunging the globe into a New Dark Ages: Trump or Clinton, allatime same-same.
The State Department and the CIA's 'Plan C' (or are they on 'Plan D' yet?) is an independent
Syrian Kurdistan.
The FSA Sunnistan plan has been going down the tubes for months. With the imminent fall of
the last few FSA strongholds, the State Department has gone berserk with their latest standoff
bombing memo 'leak' nonsense. A desperate attempt to save the rebels, who now hate them and
completely understand how they have been thrown under the bus by the State Department neocons.
I really don't think the rebels will be the least bit impressed by the phony theatrics of a internal
memo by mid-level bureaucrats.
The Pentagram is in a bit of a different pickle. They have to do something to stop the
Wahhabi head-choppers, but its a bit like herding cats. The best they've come up with is ginning
up the SDF to take/hold ISIS territory. But they can't arm the Kurds or Arab members with any
REAL weapons because that would anger Turkey. So they give them a bunch of eastern European AKs
and a few pickup trucks with anti-aircraft guns, promise air support and toss in a few SF guys.
This almost works, but not completely. For what it's worth, I don't think the Pentagram cares
at all about an independent Syrian Kurdistan, unifying the cantons or who gets what land/resources,
as long as it's taken from ISIS. When ISIS is wiped out, the SDF will cease to exist and
the SF guys will leave. The SDF and especially the YPG/YPJ will NOT ever be incented to provoke
or go to war with Assad after ISIS is gone. That's a problem for the State Department and CIA
The neocon State Department and CIA - normally at odds with the Pentagon's increasing reluctance
to get involved at all - are taking this opportunity to agitate for an independent Kurdistan.
This is done by funding the Kurdish PYD political party which purports to speak for all Kurds.
The State Department and CIA also fund the PYD's growing Asayish thug secret police 'enforcers'.
The PYD took control of Rojava by throwing out all the other political parties last year and crowning
itself the King of all Syrian Kurds. But most Kurds don't trust the PYD, figuring that either
Assad or the U.S. is really pulling the strings. The Kurds agree with the original PYD ideology,
but not its current land/resource-grabbing frenzy NOR the kind of independent Kurdistan the PYD
is suggesting. They want more rights and control of their affairs, but they do not want an actual
or de facto independent Syrian Kurdistan.
The MSM (as CIA lapdogs are paid to do) constantly try to reinforce the message that the
independent YPG/YPJ militias are somehow 'the PYD's army'. Nothing is further from the truth -
it's all MSM spin to create the impression that the Syrian Kurds uniformly desire the usurped
PYD vision of an independent Kurdistan. In reality, the U.S. State Department neocons and the
CIA are the ones that want an independent Syrian Kurdistan for their own scheming (and to deny
Assad the land/water/oil). The MSM is constantly on message with this to set the narrative to
the American public for Syrian partition - most people have no clue.
For what it's worth, Assad is keenly aware of his history with the Kurds. Even by
Kurdish media reports
, he is willing to work with the Syrian Kurds as part of a unified Syrian state. He does not
object to Kurdish rights or autonomy, just the U.S. meddling to goad the PYD into creating a separate
Kurdish state. The U.S. State Department does NOT want Rojava to be part of Syria or the
Syrian State and spins the Assad/Kurd relation as antagonistic in the MSM. This is the 'Plan C'
Syrian partition scheme. Hopefully, the average Kurd can see through their scheming and will not
follow the dictates of a usurped PYD to go to war with Syria for their independence. They would
be better off dumping and outlawing the PYD completely and working with the new Syrian government
on the future AFTER ISIS (and hopefully without any U.S. State Department and CIA).
Your assessment above is a supremely eloquent assessment and a scream for sanity to return.
Thank you so very much for your always illuminating writings.
I think you're quite right. That corresponds with what I've thought for some time. I'm
sure the US will throw the Syrian Kurds "under the bus" when their usefulness is finished. I'm
sure also that a lot of Syrian Kurds know this, and are hedging their bets.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/france-building-military-bases-in-syria-report/5531259 "The
use of proxy forces to destroy the secular government of Syria is now starting to give way to
stealth methods of direct ground deployment of Western Special Forces and ground troops under
the guise of assistance and coordination with "moderate" terrorists. "With a wide variety of Western-backed
terrorist groups ranging from "extremist" terrorists like ISIS, al-Qaeda, and al-Nusra to the
"moderate" terrorists of the FSA and the loose collection of terrorists, Kurds, and Arabs like
the SDF, the West has a kaleidoscope of proxy forces on the ground already.
"Yet, even as Syria's military clashes with the West's proxies, the United States, Britain,
and France have begun moving in Special Forces soldiers to assist in the mission of destroying
the Syrian government, a mission that Israeli, Jordanian, and Turkish officers have joined in
as well. That is, of course, despite the fact that Russian Special Forces are on the ground fighting
on the side of the Syrian military.
"Likewise, both the United States and Russia are busy building military bases in the northern
regions of Syria to use as staging grounds for new operations."
So Russian peace talks with US evil empire in Syria were a disaster, which makes Putin look
like an idiot, as well as the supporters of this idiocy. As well as Russian invitations for the
US to join it in Syria makes it one of the most stupidest invitations ever.
Since B is not mentioning it, he might as well not mention that the French terrorist invaders
along with the already US terrorists, and possibly German invaders will be occupying parts of
Syria.
Oh, but that's alright because Putin invited the evil minions of the Us empire into Syria,
you know, because the bad PR opportunity is a much better outcome then world War three.
The Iranians have been warring with Kurds by the border with Turkey. Neither the Turks nor
the Iranians - nor the Syrians, but they do need the Kurds now - want a Kurdistan. The Kurds must
know by now - must have been betrayed enough by now - to know that the US will tell them anything,
promise them anything, and deliver nothing but betrayal in the end.
As regards the State Department, the Pentagon, the US government ... what's required is
a neo-con purge, top to bottom. They are all working against American interests and against the
American people. and have been for the past two decades. The likelihood of such a purge is about
zero. Neither Trump nor Hillary has the will or the backbone to stand up to anyone. Trump's all
mouth and looking out for number one, and Hillary's plugged in to the money-mosaic as well. Obama's
getting ready to cash in his chips.
It looks to be more of the same, until they really do go after Russia, when it will be all
over for all of us. I can't imagine that they really believe they can get away with this, but
this bunch is all 'mid-level', 'just following orders', it won't be 'their fault' and that's the
level they're working at. The people calling the tune think they can play the real world as they
do their fake financial world, making up new rules as they go along, as they redefine success
after each of their serial failures.
Talk about boiled frogs. How in the hell have we let it get this far?
I am amazed at your unflagging obsession with holding Putin responsible for the US/UK/EU/NATO/GCC
destruction of Syria. You've set him up as your omnipotent god and he's failed you, somehow. Putin,
Rusia, is not responsible for the death, devastation, and destruction of Iraq, Syria, Libya or
the rest of the middle east or north africa. You're throwing your stones at the wrong guy, at
the only guy who's done anything at all to help the Syrians and to forestall the monstrous neo-con
plan. This letter may be, as b says, a measure of theneo-cons' fear that it will all be over
for 'their guys' in Syria by 21 January. If that were to come to pass, Vladimir Putin will have
had a big hand in it.
Nicola @10 from your link 'Extending American power' I had to laugh at this... 4. "All of which
provides the basis for our strong belief
that the United States still has the military, economic,
and political power to play the leading role in pro
-tecting a stable rules-based international order". 'Rules based',ha, the US is the leading regime
change state, acting always contrary to International law to benefit its hegemonic ambitions.
All five veto wielding powers and their friends are above International law for all time. Thankfully,
Russia and China cannot be threatened militarily and will confront the monstrous US designs in
Syria, once the head choppers are defeated the victors should move against the real source of
terrorism in the region, Saudi Arabia and the various GCC satraps. b's article above is excellent
and is echoed in this piece in Antiwar.com
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2016/06/16/something-going-worse-thought/
There are other worrying development in Syroi a namely changing of Riusssian attitude to Assaad.
First Lavrov said that Russia is not Syrian government ally, they just fight terrorists together.
An obvious nonsense.
And now this.
Israel, following several similar air raids in previous months just bombed SAA installation
in Homs province, in the middle of Syria just 45 second flight of S400 rockets located in latakia,
while Netanyahu was smiling with Putin in Moscow.
Can you explain WTF? All of that while IDF artillery provides cover for ANF commanded by formed
ISIL commander in Golan Heights foothills,
There is more about Russian de-facto acquiescence for Syrian partition and pivot to Israel:
STRANGE DAYS: Did Israelis Pivoted to Russia? Or the other way around.
https://syrianwarupdate.wordpress.com/
This is not preview nor is it a strategy, since strategies are based on more or less professional
and realistic, I may add, assessments of the outside world. I do not have any recollection of
any serious US doctrinal (policy or military wise) document in the last 20 years written from
the position of comprehensive situational awareness--this is a non existent condition among most
of US current "power elites". The document you posted is a typical wet dream written by utterly
incompetent neocons (Kagan's and Zoellik names are a tell), people who can not and must not be
allowed to operate with serious strategic and operational categories in any "advisory" role.
They simply have no qualifications for that and are nothing more than a bunch of ideologues and
propagandists from Ivy League humanities degree mill. Back to "preview"--it is a dominant ideology
of "exceptionalism" which afflicted US "elites" today, this document is just another iteration
of this ideology.
i read about 30 of 160 or so comments on this article at NYT. given who the audience of that
shit rag is & that comments are vetted, overwhelmingly commenters stated increased military involvement
is retarded. Of course, many of those speak from ignorance of what's really going on, but
the knee-jerk suspicion of US Syria policy & these FSO dickheads seems a good sign.
There is more about Russian de-facto acquiescence for Syrian partition and pivot to Israel:
It is exactly the other way around. How can Russia, which dwarfs Israel in every meaningful
category -- from economy to military -- and who does remember her history well can "pivot" to
largely regional player -- I don't know. Russian "neocons" are a dramatically different breed
than US ones, for starters they are much more educated and, actually, support Assad. Israel's
pivot to Russia in some sense is inevitable, albeit it could be fairly protracted, with Russia
being observed as honest broker. They are not completely stupid in Israel and are very aware of
real situation in American politics, economy and military. In other words -- they know how
to count and see who pulls the strings. And then there is another "little tiny" factor--Israelis
know damn well who won WW II in Europe. It matters, a great deal.
I note that the 'moderate' Hillary Clinton is a blood-soaked queen of chaos, who if elected
is certain to embroil us in pointless wars and spread death and devastation across even more of
the world. I say this not because I am psychic, but because that is her unambiguous record.
Donald Trump is admittedly a gamble, but depute his over-the-top stage persona, his track
record is of actually getting along with people and brokering stable working relationships.
This November I'm going for the wild-card who at least sounds rational (if you listen to what
he actually proposes, and not his style) and has a track record of actually being pragmatic, over
certain doom.
At this point I wish I could vote for Richard Nixon (!), but we have the choice that we
have...
This piece out of the NYT is pure propaganda. Period. Here's the big clue - where's the memo?
It's not embedded in the article. It can't be found anywhere on the web. It's b/c it doesn't exist.
The reader is 'TOLD' by a third party journalist few follow who writes for a MIC/Political/Policy
corporate mouthpiece.
If an article does not link to an original source OR quotes only 'anon sources' be skeptical.
Journalism, especially alt news journalists, site original sources AND try like hell to get sources
to go on the record.
My apologies in advance if I'm being offensive to our generous host. That is not my intent.
Rather, it's venting a long held frustration I've had with the division within corporate newsrooms
who are there solely to sell the readers the news, even if it's made up out of thin air.
Yeah . . .agree 90%. Here are some minor details that need to be tidied up, and a couple thoughts.
1.
b: it was Ahrar al Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra and other U.S. paid and supported "moderates"
who on April 9 broke the ceasefire in Syria.
This is not quite accurate. Resolution 2254 exempted al Nusra from the cease-fire, not sure
about al Sham and whatever others you are referring to. If they were excluded from the cease-fire,
then they couldn't break it.
2.
The NYT writer is Mark Landler, not Lander. If you're going to accuse him of being stupid or dishonest,
you want to get the name right. Mark Lander, whoever he is, might have a pack of bulldog lawyers.
3.
I don't see in Landler's article a link to the memo or a list of the people who signed it. Someone
needs to publish that list of signatories to preserve the record of who the DOS idiots are.
4. We see the point of all the saber-rattling by NATO on Russia's borders: to get Putin tied
up in a diversionary direct threat to Russia, thereby mitigating or eliminating his efforts in
behalf of Assad. And you know what? Americans on the street couldn't care one way or the other
what Obama or CIA or DoS does or says about Syria. 280,000 dead, millions displaced and Americans
are more concerned by a factor of 1000 about 4 dozen gays in Orlando.
Thanks for sharing your outrage, b. I completely agree. I have been ranting about this all morning
and it's good to see someone else stating the case so the rest of us don't feel isolated in our
anger at this vicious and dangerous stupidity. These 51 useful idiots are IMO auditioning
for the Clinton team while also providing cover for the neo-cons above them like Nuland, Powers,
etc. And directionless Kerry says he'll rush home to confer with these idiots rather than dismissing
them out of hand. Kerry could only be useful to anyone if Lavrov was in the room with him at all
times to keep him in line -- otherwise he reverts to his normal mindless servant of US empire
viewpoint, which is to follow whichever way the winds of power are blowing through Washington,
DC.
CIA .... YPG .... ALNUSRA.... FSL , all these acronyms are so confusing , how about considering
the level of sanity and intelligence of these groups ( which is probably below that of a wounded
flea .... ) why not call them Scoobidoos vs the Syrian Army
so the article would go something like this :
In the memo, the Scoobidoos State Department officials argued that military action against
Mr. Assad would help the fight against the Scoobidoos because it would bolster moderate Scoobidoos,
who are necessary allies against the group, also known as Scoobidoos .
I thought it was a "cessation of hostilities" not a case fire. The difference is not trivial,
and State Department employees should know the difference. The signers are either incompetent
or evil (not mutually exclusive, of course).
dont think landler is stupid. dishonest and deceiving would be my say. he is a nyt's jew writing,
maybe lying, regarding syria. NYT: only news acceptable to jews. sometimes, many times we have
to make up stories and facts to (maybe) fit.
cant find any of the dissenting names.
like to know how many are jew if story not total fake
then there is the political hatchet job on the russian track/field olym team.
I think the key takeaway is b's last two sentences: "The race to preempt a Hillary administration
war on Syria, which the 'diplomats' memo prepares for, is now on. May the not-warmongering side
win."
Hillary is the neocon's neocon. Pravy Sektor's honorary storm trooper Vicky Nuland is a
Hillary protege. NYT has been positioning its readers to embrace Kerry's Plan B for the last month-plus.
Whether during or shortly after Hillary's first 100 days in office, U.S. military engagement
with Libya and Syria will likely be significantly greater than it is now.
This is the exact reason the Ministers of Defense of Syria, Russia and Iran held meeting in Teheran
just recently. My assumption is they are planning on rolling up the acres, so to speak in Syria.
All before the new POTUS comes to office. Also, Hezbollah just announced it's sending in reinforcements
to the battlefield. All this while the Chinese continue to sleep. Sigh.
The Kurds are the last great hope for the oil and especially natural gas pipelines dream from
the GCC to Europe, but still, Israel is not happy. They wanted a branch-off pipeline for themselves.
Also Jordan was to get a small branch-off too. Israel is no more than a parasite, look up the
definition. It's exact. Turkey would benefit economically due to transit fees. That's why the
Turks are so heavily involved. Turkey, who's economy is done for due to Chinese cheap products
swamping the M.E; is crashed. Jordan is broke (hence they allow the head choppers to be trained
on their territory). The U.S is the overlord who wants this project to be implemented so as to
deny Russia the European market (see Saudia too).
Netanyahu has visited Russia 3-4 times (not sure)to dissuade Putin on his support for Bashar
( who said yes to the Friendship pipeline- Running from Russia, Iran, Iraq, Syria..to the Mediterranean
thru to Greece, Europe). No other World leader makes that many visits is such a short time to
another capital. Netanyahu obviously failed in his endeavor, as the Russians are familiar with
these Zionist snakes very well. All they have to look at is the genocide perpetrated by said Zionists
in their very own 20th Century history. I even read that Putin irked Netanyahu when Putin offered
him back the Pale of Settlement if they wanted to make the smart choice. Beautiful if true. Probably
wishful thinking tho.
Anyways, Israel runs the U.S State Department(see, the Crazies in the Basement). They don't
call it Foggy Bottom for nothing. Must be foggy now due to too many employess smoking bongs in
the downstairs cafeteria, hence the ridiculous memo. Also the writer of the memo is most certainly
another member of the chosen tribe.
Yes, a 'Night of the Broken Glass' or 'Night of the Long Knives' is much needed to save Humanity
essentially. But don't hope for it. Congress, Capital Hill leaders , MSM heads and head anchors,
most everybody in the Whit house(except the kitchen staff) would have to be rounded up.
The only hope would have been the U.S Military Officer Corp. before the great purges post 9-11.
Now it's I'm possible. God help the American people and the World.
This clown Kagan is also the husband of the infamous Victoria Nuland who somehow, defying
all logic, still has her job post imbroglio that is the Ukraine today. Hell, she's probably being
hailed for that and is an inspiration for lowly State employees.
Thank you Victoria, for giving Crimea back to the Russian Federation where it belongs.
There are almost exactly 7 months until either Trump or Clinton takes office (presuming
that the elites manage to completely control any bad news prior to the Dem nominating convention
in late July; if the email dam breaks after that I have no idea what the Dem elites will do, but
I figure they won't choose the obviously best candidate against Trump, Bernie).
Seven months. If Russia lends more of its strength, is it possible to gain the territory and
hold it to the point that, oh, the West's illegal bases will have to close down? Or might
the West actually directly take on Russia/Syrian government forces? Claiming, of course, some
version of
R2P
State Department Diplomats who have captained failure after failure? If these people were
Russian or Chinese they would have been executed for their serial failures in the ME and Afghanistan.
The main problem with being 'exceptional' is that the 'exceptional' ones never make a mistake.
"War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength"
So I was kind of wondering what psychopathic qualities the U.S. War... er, State Department
is looking for in potential parasitic career bureaucrats, and came across this self-promotion
page on their site. They seem to feel that working for them immerses you in a 'Culture of
Leadership'. I guess the 'Culture of Chaos and Death' theme, although more neocon-appropriate,
was shot down in favor of tempting potential employees with the possibility of more power and
control.
There are times the depressing mood on MoA is mitigated by some of the rather classic spelling
errors. I sometimes wonder if they might be intentional in order to lighten the mood?
In the inner halls of Pentagramagon nothing succeeds financially like serial designed failure
...
KABUL, Afghanistan - "The new U.S. commander in Afghanistan has submitted his first three-month
assessment of the situation in the war-torn country and what it's going to take to defeat the
Taliban, a U.S. military official has told The Associated Press.
And though the content of the review by Army Gen. John W. Nicholson is secret, the U.S.
strategy in Afghanistan received a major incentive this month when President Obama decided to
expand America's involvement with more airstrikes against insurgents, giving the U.S. military
wider latitude to support Afghan forces, both in the air and on the ground."
No respect for
R2P warriors
at the State Department, nor for HRC, Susan Rice and Samantha Power. Jo Cox as former
Oxfam executive was moved by the same massacres of Rwanda, Yugoslavia and Darfur.
Unwittingly (?) the R2P argument was used by the Obama White House to intervene in Libya and
Syria. The US took R2P a step further to force regime change which is illegal by International
law. See George Bush and
Tony Blair
to white-wash the cruelty of torture, rendition, Abu Ghraib, extrajudicial assassinations,
etc, etc.
Former US Ambassador to Syria Robert S. Ford was an apprentice of John Negroponte in Baghdad,
Iraq.
If I were Assad, I would be shaking in my boots right now and having Gaddafi dreams. Russia has
clearly allied itself closely to Israel and Nato in Syria. Some kind of sanctions relief deal
must be in the works. Syria will be split up soon. Assad is a dead man.
For Israel to bomb the Syrian military right under the nose of Russian s-400s? Russia,
supposedly so dedicated to defending sovereignty, smiles and yawns benignly? A dirty deal has
been made...
"Earlier this week as America was trying to make sense of the deadliest case of Islamic terrorism
on US soil since 9/11, I wrote a detailed article here at Breitbart News that laid out the clear
factual case about Hillary Clinton's top assistant Huma Abedin. I showed how she has deep, clear,
and inarguable connections to a Saudi Arabian official named Abdul Omar Naseef, a powerful Kingdom
insider who has helped lead a group called the Muslim World League. The Muslim World League is
the huge "charity" whose goal is to spread Islam throughout the world and which has been connected
to terror groups like Al Qaeda. If that sounds like a serious accusation, you're damn right
it is."
"The three questions are very simple, very straightforward, and, frankly, anybody can research
the answers themselves. They are:
1) What is Huma's relationship with a Saudi Arabian official named Abdullah Omar Naseef?
2) Was he the founder of a Saudi charity called the Rabita Trust?
3) Right after 9/11, was the Rabita Trust put on a list by the U.S. government of groups
that were funding terrorism?"
"If I were Assad, I would be shaking in my boots right now and having Gaddafi dreams."
Interesting opinion? If you made a list of democratically elected Presidents and National Leaders
the US/GB/ISR axis have terminated you will fill a book. From Patrice Lumumba to Hugo Chavez the
list goes on and on. Could you supply me with a list of National Leaders that Russia under Putin
has terminated?
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US Department of State has no plans to make public an internal memo
calling for the United States to take military action against Syrian President Bashar Assad's
government, US Department of State spokesperson John Kirby said in a briefing on Friday. "There's
no plans to make it public," Kirby stated when asked when the State Department would release
the dissent letter.
Furthermore, Kirby said there will be no investigation as to how the letter ended up in
the public domain.
By 'public domain', Kirby means on some writer's desk at the NYT, never to be seen by the unwashed
masses. To be fair, the State Department's "Dissent Memo" program is supposed to be confidential
even within the State Department itself to encourage its use. Mark Landler said in his article
that a draft of it was leaked by 'a State Department official' to the NYT. So some skepticism
of the existence or eventual submission of the actual memo is warranted. Not that Landry is lying
or hasn't verified it, but the State Department official obviously has an agenda by providing
it to the NYT. The NYT has its own agenda filled as well by prominently posting the article
on
the top of the front page .
Nyt participating in these pressures is coordinated with medecins sans frontiere announcing
today that they ll refuse eu money to protest on the treatment of refugees and with recent surge
in french and uk msm of so called white helmets exclusive pictured
Obama, despite dissent on Syria, not shifting toward strikes on Assad
The U.S. administration sought on Friday to contain fallout from a leaked internal memo critical
of its Syria policy, but showed no sign it was willing to consider military strikes against Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad's forces called for in the letter signed by dozens of U.S. diplomats.
Several U.S. officials said that while the White House is prepared to hear the diplomats' dissenting
viewpoint, it is not expected to spur any changes in President Barack Obama's approach to Syria
in his final seven months in office.
One senior official said that the test for whether these proposals for more aggressive
action are given high-level consideration will be whether they "fall in line with our contention
that there is no military solution to the conflict in Syria."
It's important for Russia to ensure that the remains of the first "Israeli" jet it shoots
down falls to earth inside Syria. If you've seen a story about the IAF doing something courageous
it's bullshit.
The EU-Turkey deal's financial package includes one billion euros in humanitarian aid.
There are undoubtedly needs in Turkey, a country which currently hosts close to three million
Syrian refugees, but this aid has been negotiated as a reward for border control promises,
rather than being based solely on needs. This instrumentalisation of humanitarian aid is unacceptable.
Last week the European Commission unveiled a new proposal to replicate the EU-Turkey logic
across more than 16 countries in Africa and the Middle East.
These deals would impose trade and development aid sanctions on countries that do not stem
migration to Europe or facilitate forcible returns, rewarding those that do. Among these potential
partners are
Somalia ,
Eritrea , Sudan and Afghanistan four of the top ten* refugee generating countries.
kreepy kerry is "running out of patience" since his most desired regime change isn't happening
fast enough. How many others are in the works? I'm running-out-of-patience waiting for the
regime change anyone with 1/2 a brain wants, right here in the U.S. Regime Change US. It's our
turn. I just read Putin's speech at the St. Petersburg Int'l Forum. He must have used the word
"cooperation" at least 20 times. We need such a great leader. Terroristic turds like kerry and
co. belong in jail.
50 diplomats petition president for war. Was that written by Orwell? Isn't it enough
that this "peaceful" nation arms the world and places economic "pressure" on those nations that
displease her to the point of causing millions to die - do we really have to "kill the village
to save it?" Yes, I agree, each and every one of those "career diplomats" should be looking for
other work. They have not merely lost their way, they have lost their minds. My contempt for them
is manifest, as is my contempt for the entire MIC. That those trained in diplomacy should send
such a despicable petition illuminates the deep corrupting influence of American Exceptionalism
- a force for the kind of nationalism Germany endured 1933-45. Idiots.
Allow me to further my argument against American Exceptionalism. It is not merely the fact
that the U.S. is far from exceptional. From education to infant mortality, the U.S. is woefully
behind much of the world. My objection is that belief in exceptionalism leads to moral decay.
It is the functional equivalent of the 19th Century preachers who endorsed slavery, who preached
that negroes carried the mark of Cain, etc. Whites were God's chosen. The pseudo-righteousness
that preaching created in believers was largely responsible for America's Civil War. Americans
will be better people, with a better society, if we dispel this myth immediately. We're OK, you're
OK. Then we could have peace. Wouldn't that be nice?
So Hillary, the bloodthirsty Goddess of War, is longing for a second Libya, i.e., a Syria
smashed to smithereens, in ashes and ruins, ruled by a chaotic bunch of mad Takfiri extremists,
at war all against all. The Queen of Chaos, indeed, loves these scenarios. Especially because
her quick attack as first thing should she win the White House would shut the mouths of her critics
wanting her prosecuted for her crooked political and business corruption. But she and her State
Department surrogates would be in for a surprise: Russian and Syrian defences would not remain
silent. And afterwards, what would be left? How would the Exceptionalist who "gets things done"
proceed?
The FBI is stonewalling, keeping the contents of Mateen's 911 call unavailable - though it's
part of the public record - presumably because it undermines the "ISIS did it" meme poured over
the Orlando mass murder. Apparently Mateen may have mentioned ISIS not quite in the same light
as has been portrayed.
Now the NYTimes/WSJ are doing the same thing with the 50 dancing diplomats. Releasing what
they want us to know and redacting what we want to know : the names of those 50 dancing diplomats.
I suppose it comes under the CIA's blanket excuse for secrecy? "Methods and means", or
whatever their boilerplate.
Releasing their names might give us the means to track the 5th column as it winds its way through
'our' government, and that must be prevented at all costs. Think it might lead through Hillary?
Seems no doubt here.
No doubt the State Department dwarves were ginned up by "Cookies" Nuland and Count Kagan by
visions of "x memorandum" of 1946 immortality by attacking the resistance to an unipolar hegemony.
Mixing it up in Syria with the Russian presence seems civilization limiting at the outer limits
of challenge/ response in a military confrontation.
Alleged peace-maker John Kerry threatened to wage war-without-end
on Syria - if the Middle East country does accept the US demand for regime change.
That's hardly the language of a supposed bona fide diplomat who presents an image to the world as
a politician concerned to bring about an end to the
five-year Syrian conflict.
The US Secretary of State repeatedly sounds anxious to alleviate the appalling suffering of the Syrian
nation, where over the past five years some 400,000 people have been killed and millions displaced
as refugees.
Anyone who has not been brainwashed by Western media propaganda knows full well that the suffering
of Syria has been caused by Washington and its allies sponsoring a covert war for regime change in
that country.
Kerry was speaking during another round of failed negotiations - this time in Vienna - along with
other leaders from the 17-nation International Syria Support Group that includes Russia, as well
as the United Nations.
The "support group" is a disgustingly erroneous name, given that certain
members of this entity - primarily the US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey - have done everything in their
power to sponsor a proxy terrorist war on Syria. If the truth were not so abject, it would be laughable.
In a Voice of America
report headlined "US still has leverage in Syria," Kerry is quoted thus: "He said the greatest
leverage [on Syria] was the fact that [President] Assad and his backers would never be able to end
the war in Syria if they declined to negotiate a political settlement."
In Kerry's Footsteps: What Saudi 'Plan B' Actually Means for Syria and Iran Consider the pernicious
import of that for a moment. In other words, America's top "diplomat" is laying down a criminal ultimatum
to the sovereign state of Syria and its elected government of President Bashar al-Assad. Kerry is
saying in no uncertain terms that unless the Syrian authorities do not accept Washington's demand
for regime change, then the country is facing never-ending war.
Of course, being a weasel-worded diplomat, Kerry does not use the illegal term "regime change".
He instead talks about "political transition". And he has set a date in August for this "transition"
to take place. But what Kerry's euphemistic jargon boils down to is this: the Syrian president and
his administration must vacate government - or else face more violence and destruction.
This is the political objective that Washington and its allies in NATO, Saudi Arabia and Turkey
have wanted all along. They want what is an independent, anti-imperialist Syrian government to give
way to some composite regime that would be a puppet for Washington's geopolitical interests in the
oil-rich, strategically vital Middle East region.
Any replacement regime would spurn its erstwhile allies of Russia, Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah
resistance movement to become an American vassal.
In reality, the supposed pro-democracy change that Washington allegedly
wants to install in Syria would be dominated by a repressive, fundamentalist regime that would betray
the interests of the Syrian people. We can count on this outcome because the proxies who are waging
Washington's covert war are dominated by extremists fully aligned with their despotic sponsors in
Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Kerry's apparent confidence in predicting that Syria faces a war of attrition if it does capitulate
is a tacit admission by Washington that it controls the illegally armed factions in Syria.
The United States may officially proscribe terror groups like al Qaeda-linked Jabhat al Nusra
and the so-called Islamic State (also known as Daesh). The US pays lip service to "defeating terrorism".
But anyone with an informed understanding of what is really happening in
Syria and other countries subjected to US-led regime change knows that Washington has orchestrated
these same terror groups for its criminal political objectives.
This is corroborated by the fact that Washington refuses to coordinate its (ineffectual) bombing
campaign with Russia to eliminate the terror groups. It is corroborated by the fact that Washington
and its allies point-blank refuse Russia's proposals at the UN Security Council to designate other
known terror outfits - Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Shams - as terrorist.
Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Shams are every bit as vile and barbaric as the other al Qaeda-affiliated
franchises. They all espouse the same twisted death-cult ideology; fight alongside each others (when
they are not feuding, that is, over war spoils); and ultimately they all share the same sponsors
and American-supplied weaponry.
'Fair Game'? What Kerry's 'Absolute Lines' in Syria Really Mean It is openly admitted that America's
allies Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as well as Qatar, bankroll Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Shams and
that this nexus serves as a conduit for American weapons from the Central Intelligence Agency.
Why else would John Kerry
begin his week of "diplomacy" in Vienna by first making an urgent visit to Saudi King Salman last
weekend. Kerry was reportedly appealing to the 9/11-sponsoring Saudi regime to support his diplomatic
push in Vienna. The Western media "reported" Kerry's Saudi visit as if it were a benign mission,
as they usually do. Whenever it should be obvious that what he was really doing was trying to get
the Saudis to ease off on the terror war in Syria.
Washington is currently trying to wrangle regime change in Syria through a political track. That
is a world of difference from gullible Western media projections of Kerry's pretensions of "negotiating
peace".
Yet all the while the US and the Saudis are reserving the right to use "Plan B" if the political
track should not materialize in regime change.
That is what Kerry really means when he said in Vienna that "Assad and his
backers would never be able to end the war in Syria if they declined to negotiate a political settlement."
Washington's "leverage" in Syria is due to the simple, diabolical fact that it and its despotic
allies ultimately can turn on and off the violence when it is expedient for their interests. And
that violence relies on the deployment of known terrorist organizations, including the ones that
Washington's double-think refuses to recognize as "terrorist".
So let's put this into stark perspective. Despite his Orwellian title of diplomat and peace-maker,
US Secretary of State John Kerry is the public face of a terrorist enterprise.
What other world power gives itself the right to threaten nations with "regime
change or war"? And yet this same nation considers itself a paragon of democracy, human rights and
law-abiding probity.
The United States of America is a rogue regime on a criminal scale that exceeds the very worst
in history.
As a parting footnote, John Kerry is a decorated American "war hero". He served four months as
a navy officer during the US genocidal war on Vietnam during the late 1960s. Kerry received a bunch
of medals for his "actions", which according to reliable accounts from veterans on his river-boat
patrols, involved shooting fleeing Vietnamese peasants in the back.
This is the same Kerry who is now purporting to bring peace to Syria.
Like everything that Washington says, it is full of lies and deception. The abiding lesson: don't
turn your back on Washington and its terrorist-sponsoring, war-mongering "diplomats".
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do notnecessarily reflect
the official position of Sputnik.
President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro
said that the United States is doing everything possible to keep the
oil market
from stabilizing.
The US administration takes every
effort to counter OPEC's attempts to stabilize oil prices, he said.
"You can't imagine all the pressure
that is coming from Washington to ensure the failure of the efforts we
have made during the last year to create a common strategy among OPEC
and non-OPEC producers to stabilize the market and prices," Maduro
said, speaking Tuesday in his own TV show.
He also said that the US economic war
against Russia and Venezuela affects the United States as well.
"These are almost war-like
pressure on governments, on heads of state. The US has a "fatal
obsession" with Russia, OPEC and Venezuela's leftist government,"
Maduro added.
Many specialists are convinced that the
ongoing decline in oil prices is intentional. However, according to
Maduro, the United States is trying to exhaust Russia. The tactics of
dumping oil hits the "
shale
revolution
" the US and Canada hardest. Oil companies in these
countries working to their own detriment.
A barrel of shale oil costs $32. A
barrel of oil produced on Russian old fields costs $28, ($16 at new
ones). The cost of Venezuelan oil makes up about $9.
The US aims to raise the degree of
public discontent in Russia, before the US market collapses. In
Russia, low oil prices, due to a large tax component, equally affect
the budget and ordinary consumers.
в
03:39 15 апреля
The days of U.S. domination in Latin America are long gone. The very assumption
that assassinating Hugo Chaves Frias, would give the U.S. the upper hand was a
serious mistake, beause Venezuelans are holding steadfast to the Bolivarian
Revolucion ofHugo Chvas and will coninue on tht path till sll their goals are
achieved. Hasta Victoria Siempre!Butto confuse Nicolas Maduro the Venezuelan
President with SaddamHussein shows how the addled minds of America's stooges cannot
think out of the box. But Ghizlane Kamalova is badly in need of psychiatric help.
в
21:33 14 апреля
Venezuela has one of the worst performing economies in the world. Oh, and
Maduro looks like a younger Saddam Hussein!
в
00:38 14 апреля
I've lived in Pacific Northwest for 22 years,with some brief stops for few
months in Boston,New York,
washington,D.C.,Philadelphia,Chicago,Cleveland,Minneapolis,san Diego,L.A.,
and 3 times Alaska...I've seen and experienced more than some idiots here
can comment,on that Great "rich" Satan,where are the obese soulless mutants
indeed,very poor in their hearts and minds! I prefer UK 100 times as better
country than that Great Satan,where people associate only in the shopping
malls!! A such idiots like Banan sucker,or that japanese radioactive mutant
Takayama and Chernobyl Mishka cannot fool me,nor others!!!
в
19:27 13 апреля
So, OPEC was formed to keep oil prices artifically high for the
benefit of themselves, and at a great cost to the US citizens. High
oil prices also negatively affected develoing countries and the
poor. Governments started to depend on oil money instead of
productivity. Now, US producers (not the government) come up with
a way to get more oil, driving the price of oil down to a more
market-based level, leaving OPEC out in the cold. Boo Hoo.
What you are calling an economic war on Venezuala and Russia is
just a lesson in supply and demand economics. Grow up and start
producing stuff on your own.
в
17:12 13
апреля
From retired in midAmerica. People should realize the U.S. (and probably EU,
europe, et al) is beginning to collapse. Economy. US an empiire without a
manufacturing base (all "outsourced"), produces nothing but military arms
trying to force other countries to buy them; fatal debt to GDP ratio;
imports everything, much from China; exports vertually nothing. this once
prosperous city is becoming a ghost town of closed stores, businesses;
abandoned homes of those that lost jobs. Indeedd the great US manufacturing
city Detroit is a total ghost town. We now see street beggars, beg for food.
US massive military it can't afford , the unemployed unemployable uneducated
warehoused inhundreds of foreign bases. Like collapse of Rome, returning
Legions promised retirement land to farm but found all land owned by the
wealthy and farmed by slaves. When Alaric kicked down gates of Rome 410AD
found a mostly deserted pestulence ridden city. The U.S. is now a rabid
dying mad dog, so will it just crumble away a Rome, or start WW-III ? The
latter seems already underway does it not.
в
00:32 14 апреля
I've lived in that "rich"zionist country,Seattle,WA,over 22 years,and I'm
very happy that I'm out of that boxed in country where the mutants barely
knows about Canada,only 80 to the north...An idiots who plays sports no
one in the world plays,and then these obese mutants shouts,"we are the
world champs"! What you call "rich",I call poverty!!! And
furthermore,they have powerty in their hearts and minds!
в
16:56 13 апреля
In fact is very true. The ENEMIES of RUSSIA are send out to the sides
similar to PRAVDA not necessary Russian site by their HANDLERS to CAUSE
CONFUSION for those who are NOT very well informed. This is "OK" because ARE
very well "informed" people and they will CORECT all the vile rotten NAZIS
and FASCISTS who do constantly ATTACK all
================================================================= those
NATIONS who REFUSE to dance on their DEADLY TUNES -- The world is AWAKENED
already what this rotten GREEDY maggots did cooked for their ENSLAVEMENT and
SUBJUGATION -- Their LIES are going only for a TIME span -- Then the TRUST in
them is CRUMBLING with a HUGE SPEED -- This is why HONESTY is PRICELESS --
NOBODY will never ever respect GREEDY KILLERS and LIARS --
в
15:20 13 апреля
I'd say the editorial staff of Pravda is very obsessed by the United States.
Very low self-esteem grows and harvests anger and hatred. We pity Russians.
The Western image of Russia and Putin in recent years has been very negative.
President Obama has publicly called Vladimir Putin a "
schoolboy
who slouches in his chair in the back of the room
" and derided his country as
a mere "
regional
power
."
This begs the question: how Russia could again become a major power after the
disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991? How could Putin do this without an
agrarian or consumer revolution and with the massive drop in the price of oil? If
Putin is a terrible leader, then how can you explain successful interventions in
Georgia (2008), Crimea (2014), Ukraine (2014-2016) and Syria (2015-2016)?
Putin, however, is actually a very shrewd leader with a brilliant Foreign
Minister, Sergei Lavrov, who relies on a capable Foreign Ministry. Putin has
rebuilt Russia's military capability by
spending $49B a year
on security. Russia retains
1,790 strategic nuclear weapons
. With over 140 million people and 13 million
college graduates, Russia has nearly a million first-class scientists, engineers
and technicians, most of whom work for the military.
Many former great powers are now no longer major powers. Japan, which smashed the
Russian army in the 1904 Sino-Japanese War, occupied much of China from 1937-1945
and has a four trillion dollar economy is no longer a great power. After its
defeat in World War II capped by the American dropping of atomic bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki and American post-war occupation, Japan has sworn off
further intervention in the world and refused to acquire nuclear weapons.
Europe, which once teemed with great powers such as Germany, France, England and
Austro-Hungary, now has gone in another direction. Germany soundly beat the
Russians in every World War I battle and came close to doing the same in 1941 and
1942. Today with weak power projection the three main powers have less than 1,000
mainline battle tanks and few aircraft carriers. Weak economic growth (
1.5%/year
),
disputes among its 28 members, migration from the Middle East, serious problems
with weaker members such as Greece, promote domestic over international issues.
China, with its
ten trillion dollar GDP
, over
two trillion dollars
of exports, over
three trillion dollars
in its reserve fund, 1.35 billion people and 3.7
million square miles of territory, is a future great power. It has made huge
economic progress since Deng Xiaopong launched the Four Modernizations in 1978.
Yet, its remaining problems are staggering:
enormous air pollution
, 675 million peasants, huge governmental corruption,
authoritarian one party dictatorship, lack of rule of law, rapidly aging
population,
hundreds of thousands of children
raising themselves and only $7,500
GDP/capita. Its military, while
boosted by 150 billion dollars of spending
, still needs another decade to
become a truly modern force.
India has
20 percent illiteracy
,
300 million people without electricity
and a $1,300 GDP/capita that is less
than three percent of the United States. It faces Pakistan soon with 200 atomic
bombs. India, with over a billion people, will be a major power but not for
several decades.
Then there is the United States, the sole global superpower since victory in the
Cold War and one of two superpowers in the world since 1945. Its
18 trillion dollar economy
, 17 of the world's top 20 universities, world
leadership in high technology, over
550 billion dollars
in military spending and 330 million people give it
serious advantages over Russia. But, with the rise of popular neo-isolationist
Presidential candidates, the slowest economic recovery since the Great Depression,
decline in its manufacturing sector, administration talk of reducing the size of
the American military to the 1940 level, and the Obama semi-withdrawal from the
Middle East, the door that had been shut to Russia has been open.
The unthinkable has become a reality. Russia, seemingly finished after its defeat
in the Cold War, now is emerging as a prospective great power challenging the
West. Russia has done the unthinkable-become a great power filling the void left
by other former great powers that have now shrunk in size, power and influence.
"... By John Helmer , the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with Bears ..."
"... But it is most likely that such an operation would be run out of an agency called the Russian Financial Monitoring Service (RFM). RFM is Putin's personal financial intelligence unit -- he created it and it answers only to him. It is completely legitimate and is widely recognized as the most powerful such agency in the world, with a monopoly on information about money laundering, offshore centers, and related issues involving Russia or Russian nationals." ..."
"... According to Putin, "we must prepare a national plan to combat money laundering, tax evasion, and offshore tax evaders, while understanding which company is the ultimate beneficiary of this. This is what other countries, or at least many of them, do." ..."
"... According to Gaddy's resume , in the mid-1990s he was "an advisor to the Russian finance ministry and regional governments on issues of fiscal federalism for the U.S. Government's Tax Reform Oversight Project for Russia." Talbott was Under-Secretary of State. ..."
"... Talbott's mandate was to keep Yeltsin in power if possible and if impossible, build up as his replacement Yegor Gaidar at best, Victor Chernomyrdin at worst. Getting rid of Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov was one of Talbott's regime changes; at the same time as he was plotting the overthrow of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia. For details, read this . ..."
"... For quality, independence, and impact this is what Talbott and Gaddy define as Brookings' current mission on Russia: "Confronting an aggressive Russia, U.S. policymakers must understand President Putin's motivations and worldview in order to devise an effective strategy to counter Moscow's revanchist agenda. Whether considering Putin's efforts to re-establish a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe or his turn to nationalism to burnish his domestic popularity, Senior Fellows Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy offer U.S. policymakers comprehensive insights into the Russian leader. In 2015, Gaddy and Hill, director of the Center on the United States and Europe, released an expanded edition of Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin, adding five new chapters that provide greater context on Putin's ambitions for Russia." Russia and China are defined by the think-tank as the principal "direct challengers to the liberal, international order." ..."
"... The second alternate expert on Russia on the Brookings payroll, titled "senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy in the Foreign Policy program", is Robert Kagan . He is the husband of Victoria Nuland, who is in charge of regime-change operations for Russia and Ukraine at the State Department at the moment. For details, click to read . ..."
"... For the money in the pay packets of Talbott, Gaddy, Hill and Kagan, open page 39 of the 2015 annual report for the current list of Brookings paymasters. The foreign governments giving this cash include the US military allies, Australia (foreign ministry, defence ministry), Canada, UK, Japan, South Korea, Qatar, Turkey, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Norway. To match these countries and governments to the list of names revealed in the Panama Papers, open this . Of the governments appearing on both the Brookings and Panama lists, either directly or through proxies, the most obvious are Qatar, Ukraine, UK, and UAE. ..."
"... There are no Russian donors to Brookings - only anti-Russian donors. The flushest of them is the Ukrainian oligarch, Victor Pinchuk. ..."
"... the financiers of ICIJ and its Washington parent, the Center for Public Integrity (CPI), there are George Soros's Open Society Foundations; many of the same American foundations to be found on the Brookings benefactor list; plus proprietors of the media which are publishing the Panama Papers. This cui bono trail runs around the world in a circle. For example, Soros pays money to the ICIJ to receive the Panama Papers, and pays the Mail& Guardian of South Africa to report them. ..."
"... The US Agency for International Development (USAID) also pays into the circle by financing "fact checking", "investigative journalism", and "responsible media" projects in countries where the Panama Papers stories have been amplified, such as the Balkans , Ukraine , Mexico , and the Philippines . ..."
"... On April 9 , the State Department spokesman acknowledged that one of the funnels for the Panama Papers, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) , is financed by USAID. "They", claimed spokesman Mark Toner (below) " this organization conducts investigative journalism, primarily, I think, in Europe." ..."
"... "Obviously, these are the kind of organizations that USAID has and continues to fund, but not specifically for to go after any particular government, but or any particular individual, but simply to conduct what and what we're supporting here is the conduct of independent investigative journalism that we believe can shine a light on corruption, because, as the Secretary on down have said, corruption continues to have a corrosive effect on good governance around the world. So it's part of our a core tenet of our foreign policy that we support organizations that go after corruption." ..."
"... Despite all the mud being slung at him, Putin, as an old KGB apparatchik, comes across as an unqualified Russian patriot. That independent streak is what the Neocons cannot stomach. ..."
"... Heh heh. I subscribed to Brookings' newsletter in March they are actually doing some marketing as there must be concern in Imperial circles that the teevee and the ny times are just not reaching enough pawns anymore. ..."
"... You've got to cast a wide net there is so much disinformation floating around but even the most obvious propaganda reveals more than the propagandist wants revealed. That's why Russians used to read Pravda the knew it was propaganda but they also knew it contained information for those with eyes to see. ..."
"... I thought the timing of the Mossack Fonseca story was possibly convenient, coming out within a few days after the Unaoil story, and effectively eclipsing it. One would think a journalist (at least one?) would put one and one together and associate (or seek to cross-reference) these two stories, but that has not happened yet. ..."
"... Birkenfeld, major banking whistleblower, late of UBS, believes that the Panama Papers leak originates with the CIA & NSA. Given that the targets thus far revealed are nations with a vexed relationship with the US, this seems plausible. ..."
"... Despite being at a Swiss bank, Birkenfeld appears to have had no or few dealings with the world of Mossack Fonseca. He knew that his customers were American. That's how he was able to blow the whistle on the bank. ..."
"... The whole point of using a firm like Mossack Fonseca is to set up a structure so that the ultimate owners can't be found. Birkenfeld would have had no idea where his customers were if he was dealing with registered agents like Mossack Fonseca. ..."
"... And the leak has hurt one of the US's pet project, our pet government in Ukraine The CIA can't have wanted that. See Economist: The Mossack Fonseca leak shakes Ukraine more than Russia ..."
"... The REAL question is will anything at all be done about tax evasion, money laundering, hidden criminal activities, and shell corporations doing anything from assisting terrorism, acquiring nuclear materials, continuing sex trafficking/slavery, organ harvesting and all the other "activities" they facilitate. Whole countries are being bankrupted by the SHELL GAME. Rob Kall says my "take" is essentially the same as John Perkins and an interview with him will be running soon. ..."
"... We should really stop calling these places "think tanks" and use the term "Ministries Of Truths" instead. ..."
"... My "three day" prediction on Panama Papers was pretty accurate, pretty much gone after the initial frisson. There's probably some superset of money hiding companies that are trying to scare clients out of Mossack and into their arms. What will be done? Zero, maybe a few perps walks for low level lawyers. ..."
Yves here. The Brookings paper in question showed up in my inbox. Normally, when think
tanks tell a howler, they do so through misleading framing or cherry picking data. This one, by
contrast, had a speculation to information ratio that was off the charts.
By John Helmer , the
longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to
direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor
of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia.
He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself
in Russia. Originally published at Dances
with Bears
Clifford Gaddy (lead image, left) has never recovered from his 20-year infatuation with Anatoly
Chubais and Alexei Kudrin. Neither has Gaddy's boss at Brookings Institution in Washington, Strobe
Talbott, the regime changer-in-chief at the State Department in the 1990s, when Boris Yeltsin was
his man in the Kremlin, and the rest of the country too weak to resist.
If only they ruled Russia today, President Chubais, Prime Minister Kudrin or vice versa, instead
of President Vladimir Putin, there could never ever be the Kremlin plot Gaddy and Brookings charged
last week for blackmailing United States officials and their allies with something like the Panama
Papers. A regime-changing plot like that isn't as preposterous as it sounds - not because Putin thought
of it, as Gaddy now claims, but because Gaddy and Talbott used it a good many times themselves in
Moscow, and in Belgrade too, until Putin put a stop to them. For lossmaking Brookings, however, putting
a stop to Putin's plotting is a desperate advertisement for badly needed funds.
"Are the Russians actually behind the Panama Papers?" is the title of Gaddy's indictment. It isn't
an opinion-page piece placed in a newspaper. There's no institutional disclaimer either. It is an
official publication of the Brookings think-tank where Gaddy is chief expert on Russia, and Talbott
is chief executive.
Also, the question isn't a genuine one, because Gaddy's answer is yes. "My thinking", he says,
ignoring the subjunctives, conditionals, and the cyrillization of control (контроль)
"is this could have been a Russian intelligence operation, which orchestrated a high-profile
leak and established total credibility by 'implicating' (not really implicating) Russia and keeping
the source hidden. Some documents would be used for anti-corruption campaigns in a few countries-topple
some minor regimes, destroy a few careers and fortunes. By then blackmailing the real targets
in the United States and elsewhere (individuals not in the current leak), the Russian puppet masters
get 'kontrol' and influence."
Gaddy provides no evidence. Instead, he proposes the ancient Roman courtroom trick of casting
blame in the direction of motive when the evidence of commission of acts is absent. "The cui bono
["to whose good"] principle connects profits with motives, asking who stands to gain from a certain
action. If it's the Russians who win, isn't it possible that they are somehow behind at least part
of this story?" - that's another of Gaddy's trick questions, to which he has the ready answer.
"So let's say that the 'who' is the Russians, and the 'why' is to deflect attention and show that
'everybody does it.' But how? Given Russia's vaunted hacking capabilities, a special cyber unit in
the Kremlin may have been able to obtain the documents. (Monssack [sic] Fonseca is maintaining that
the leak was not an inside job.) But it is most likely that such an operation would be run out
of an agency called the Russian Financial Monitoring Service (RFM). RFM is Putin's personal financial
intelligence unit -- he created it and it answers only to him. It is completely legitimate and is
widely recognized as the most powerful such agency in the world, with a monopoly on information about
money laundering, offshore centers, and related issues involving Russia or Russian nationals."
RosFinMonitoring's chief, Yury Chikhanchin, who has an economics doctorate like Gaddy and 16 years
in the security services, first took charge of the agency in 2008. Four years later, in June 2012,
Putin met him publicly, twice, to hand him the cover story, according to Gaddy, for what RFM really
does that's different from its US counterpart, the
US Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network
(FinCEN) , headed by Jennifer Shasky Calvery (right).
According to Putin, "we must prepare a national plan to combat money laundering, tax evasion,
and offshore tax evaders, while understanding which company is the ultimate beneficiary of this.
This is what other countries, or at least many of them, do."
Putin and Chikhanchin,
June 13, 2012 . According
to Brookings, Putin told Chikhanchin to break into Panamanian offshore company registration files
to find the names of influential US government officials and businessmen in order to blackmail them
into taking Kremlin orders.
Putin also told
Chikhanchin to keep his work secret. "I note that over these years, despite the complexity and confidential
nature of your work, the Service has never had any leak of information that could be damaging for
our country's business and economy. I hope that you will continue to work just as intensely, thoroughly
and carefully."
In
July 2013 the RFM was exposed in public as Putin's personal spy agency. That was in a publication
financed by the Russian state media budget. The author of the disclosure was Gaddy. One of the secrets
Gaddy kept then, and now, is that between 2000 and 2002
Chikhanchin
was head of the Currency Control Department at the Finance Ministry. The minister to whom he reported
was Kudrin.
But the Putin-Chikhanchin secret is now out, leaked by Gaddy:
"the purpose of the Panama Papers operation is a message directed at the Americans and other
Western political leaders who could be mentioned but are not. The message is: 'We have information
on your financial misdeeds, too. You know we do. We can keep them secret if you work with us.'
In other words, the individuals mentioned in the documents are not the targets. The ones who are
not mentioned are the targets."
When Cicero called out "cui bono", the Romans in court didn't know what a boomerang was. Without
evidence, the Putin plot according to Gaddy is just that. He invites the question what motive,
benefit, or profit can he, Talbott, and Brookings have for attacking the Panama Papers as a Putin
blackmail scheme? This isn't a trick question.
According to
Gaddy's resume
, in the mid-1990s he was "an advisor to the Russian finance ministry and regional governments
on issues of fiscal federalism for the U.S. Government's Tax Reform Oversight Project for Russia."
Talbott was Under-Secretary of State. The recent release of the transcripts of telephone-calls
and meetings at the time between President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair reveals
that Talbott's mandate was to keep Yeltsin in power if possible and if impossible, build up
as his replacement Yegor Gaidar at best, Victor Chernomyrdin at worst. Getting rid of Prime Minister
Yevgeny Primakov was one of Talbott's regime changes; at the same time as he was plotting the overthrow
of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia. For details, read
this .
How are their interests now, and Brookings' interests, affected by the Panama Papers? For cui
bono, read cash. Brookings doesn't fully reveal the identity and value of its funding sources. But
this how it describes
them: "Generous individuals, foundations, leading corporations, and U.S. and foreign government
agencies that share our commitment to quality, independence, and impact in public policy research
and analysis support Brookings with financial contributions and intellectual engagement. Donors invest
in Brookings with both project-specific gifts and unrestricted funds that help us react nimbly to
breaking events and confront urgent challenges, from the domestic and global economies to foreign
affairs to the health of America's cities and metropolitan areas."
For quality, independence, and impact this is what Talbott and Gaddy define as
Brookings' current mission on Russia: "Confronting an aggressive Russia, U.S. policymakers must
understand President Putin's motivations and worldview in order to devise an effective strategy to
counter Moscow's revanchist agenda. Whether considering Putin's efforts to re-establish a sphere
of influence in Eastern Europe or his turn to nationalism to burnish his domestic popularity, Senior
Fellows Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy offer U.S. policymakers comprehensive insights into the Russian
leader. In 2015, Gaddy and Hill, director of the Center on the United States and Europe, released
an expanded edition of Mr. Putin: Operative in the Kremlin, adding five new chapters that provide
greater context on Putin's ambitions for Russia." Russia and China are defined by the think-tank
as the principal "direct challengers to the liberal, international order."
Fiona Hill (right),
the alternate expert on Russia after Gaddy, was a UK national; a Harvard PhD, then an academic, and
between 2006 and 2009 "the national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at The National Intelligence
Council."
The second alternate expert on Russia on the Brookings payroll, titled "senior fellow in the
Project on International Order and Strategy in the Foreign Policy program", is
Robert Kagan . He is the husband
of Victoria Nuland, who is in charge of regime-change operations for Russia and Ukraine at the State
Department at the moment. For details, click to
read .
For the money in the pay packets of Talbott, Gaddy, Hill and Kagan, open page 39 of the
2015 annual report for the current list of Brookings paymasters. The foreign governments giving
this cash include the US military allies, Australia (foreign ministry, defence ministry), Canada,
UK, Japan, South Korea, Qatar, Turkey, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Norway. To match these countries
and governments to the list of names revealed in the Panama Papers, open
this . Of the governments appearing on both the Brookings and Panama lists, either directly or
through proxies, the most obvious are Qatar, Ukraine, UK, and UAE.
But their wars may be hurting Brookings' bottom-line. The think-tank reports its revenue in 2015
fell from the year before by 11% to $95.6 million, while its operating costs jumped 5% to $104.2
million. Brookings' investment income also suffered, dropping from a positive $38.9 million in 2014
to a negative $22 million in 2015. This means the think-tank is in the red operationally, and needs
to raise more donor cash urgently.
BROOKINGS IS NOW LOSS-MAKING THE 2015 BALANCE-SHEET
The need for fresh money is particularly urgent for foreign policy, because Talbott, Gaddy, Hill,
Pifer, and Kagan aren't cheap: they consume one-third of the think-tank budget each year. Foreign
enemies, not domestic American issues, are what brings home the bacon for Brookings.
Brookings' committee for offshore money-raising is headed by Antoine van Agtmael, an American
of Dutch origin. His business is emerging market investment funds; they appear to be based in the
UK, and use Ireland for offshore registration; Russia has not been one of his investment targets.
The
Brookings board is heavy on Americans (3), Spaniards (3), Mexicans (2), Canadians (2), and Israelis
(2).
The Panama Papers list of names counts five Israeli oligarchs - Lev Leviev, Idnan Ofer, Teddy
Sagi, Dan Gertler, and Beny Steinmetz. There are several Spaniards, including the Spanish duchess,
Pilar de Borbon, sister of former King Juan Carlos.
There are no Russian donors to Brookings - only anti-Russian donors. The flushest of them
is the Ukrainian oligarch, Victor Pinchuk. He has been providing $200,000 annually to the institution,
and he takes a seat on its International Advisory Council. He funds the pro-Kiev, anti-Moscow Ukrainian
coverage by former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Steven Pifer, a salaried Brookings Fellow. For more
details, including Brookings' and Pifer's refusal to discuss the Pinchuk money, read
this . The latest report from Brookings
on where its money came from in 2015 identifies Pinchuk as continuing to give in the range of $100,000-$249,000.
Talbott (right) was Pinchuk's guest at the Yalta European Strategy (YES) meeting in Kiev
on September 12, 2015. On the left, Ukrainian foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin; centre, James Appathurai,
the Canadian spokesman for NATO. Pifer of Brookings has been a regular guest of Pinchuk's at the
annual YES convention for years.
Following the Brookings money trail identifies a cui bono motive for Brookings to protect its
benefactors, local and foreign, by attacking the Panama Papers in case the money landing in the Brookings
till has been laundered from benefactor crimes. The Russian charges that Pinchuk stole more than
$200 million from his Rossiya Insurance Company in Moscow suggest something of the sort, though there
have been no trials, no convictions. For details of that case, read
this .
For the Talbott-Gaddy theory of Putin-Chikhanchik blackmail to turn into publishable evidence
requires a naοve believer, a stooge - indeed, several of them, including the most rabidly anti-Russian
media in the English-speaking world: the London Guardian, the Rupert Murdoch press, the Daily Beast
(director, Chelsea Clinton), and the Nikkei-owned Financial Times (Nikkei
gave more than $50,000 to Brookings last year). According to Gaddy's version, the International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) of Washington, which has supervised the authentication
and dissemination of the Panama Papers, is "the self-described elite of investigative journalists-but
what have they discovered about the source of all these documents?"
Nichevo, says Gaddy. "Perhaps, since the ICIJ is funded by Americans, they're not going to bite
the hand that feeds them Perhaps, then, someone purged those references before the documents were
handed over to the German newspaper. The 'someone' would be the Russians-and the absence of incriminating
information about Americans is an important hint of what I think to be the real purpose of this leak."
Brookings almost follows the money trail into the ICIJ, but stops short. Had it gone further,
it would have discovered among the financiers of
ICIJ and its Washington parent, the Center
for Public Integrity
(CPI), there are George Soros's Open Society Foundations; many of the same American foundations
to be found on the Brookings benefactor list; plus proprietors of the media which are publishing
the Panama Papers. This cui bono trail runs around the world in a circle. For example, Soros pays
money to the ICIJ to receive the Panama Papers, and pays the Mail& Guardian of South Africa to
report them.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) also pays into the circle by financing
"fact checking", "investigative journalism", and "responsible media" projects in countries where
the Panama Papers stories have been amplified, such as the
Balkans , Ukraine
,
Mexico , and the
Philippines .
On April 9
, the State Department spokesman acknowledged that one of the funnels for the Panama Papers,
the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting
Project (OCCRP) , is financed by USAID. "They", claimed spokesman Mark Toner (below) " this organization
conducts investigative journalism, primarily, I think, in Europe."
... ... ...
"Obviously, these are the kind of organizations that USAID has and continues to fund, but
not specifically for to go after any particular government, but or any particular individual,
but simply to conduct what and what we're supporting here is the conduct of independent investigative
journalism that we believe can shine a light on corruption, because, as the Secretary on down have
said, corruption continues to have a corrosive effect on good governance around the world. So it's
part of our a core tenet of our foreign policy that we support organizations that go after corruption."
Cui bono? asked reporters at the briefing. "We have no editorial control over what over their
reporting," Toner answered. "They're allowed [by the US Government] to and permitted to cover whatever
they want."
The Brookings attack on the Panama Papers as a Russian plot appeared on April 7, two days before
the State Department made these admissions.
The OCCRP reports the US Government and Soros money in the funding section of its
website ; it omits them both in its
history of the organization
. As for how accountable the ICIJ is to investigation of its own funds, it isn't. This is what happened
when the ICIJ's director, Gerard Ryle, was asked questions about a Russian investigation he had just
published with the Guardian in November 2012
before Ryle cut the telephone line.
it really looks like the PP is an American plot where ICIJ have been told to keep anything
that makes Americans look bad, secret, or else. I'm sure they would comply without question.
Once one learns to filter out the 'nationalist' bias in all this, and shift to a class based
analysis, things become clearer. "Cui bono" indeed.
Despite all the mud being slung at him, Putin, as an old KGB apparatchik, comes across
as an unqualified Russian patriot. That independent streak is what the Neocons cannot stomach.
Heh heh. I subscribed to Brookings' newsletter in March they are actually doing some
marketing as there must be concern in Imperial circles that the teevee and the ny times are just
not reaching enough pawns anymore.
Helmer's article confirms what is pretty obvious about Brookings if you read a few articles
it is a propaganda organ of Empire (or some major elements thereof). That's not to say that
it doesn't get some stuff right it is highly likely that the shadowy figures behind the Mossack
Fonsecka data hack are using it for making money blackmail such a dirty word but how about selectively
releasing data based on who will pay the most to expose their enemies? SO just take bad evil Russia
out of the mix and consider who the initial targets were and who would want them exposed and you
can get a pretty good idea of who the paymasters are.
You've got to cast a wide net there is so much disinformation floating around but even
the most obvious propaganda reveals more than the propagandist wants revealed. That's why Russians
used to read Pravda the knew it was propaganda but they also knew it contained information for
those with eyes to see.
Good old "cui bono" is it similar to children's 'I know you are but what am I", or a more
sophisticated Monty Python exercise in logic?
Those who own the hidden money, some of the shady 'winners' of our societies have been exposed.
Perhaps other humans who are suffering from governmental poverty will benefit from the potential
windfall.
Wait, wait; if the hungry or the homeless or ill benefit that must mean that they are the ones
to whom the "bono" falls. How dare such perpetrators of need behave so criminally as to hide money
and then criminally exposed proprietarily information? Let the rich keep the money and the rest
of us receive a well-deserved nothing of their ill-gotten gains.
Good to see Arnold foundation listed. xEnron Hedge Fund Billionaire is now messing in state
pensions everywhere, encouraging secret PE and HF while cutting benefits to workers.
So, what of Unaoil and that leak/scandal? What is known of the pedigree of its sources and
publishers? I cast no aspersion, just asking the question (at this point).
I thought the timing of the Mossack Fonseca story was possibly convenient, coming out within
a few days after the Unaoil story, and effectively eclipsing it. One would think a journalist
(at least one?) would put one and one together and associate (or seek to cross-reference) these
two stories, but that has not happened yet.
Birkenfeld, major banking whistleblower, late of UBS, believes that the Panama Papers leak
originates with the CIA & NSA. Given that the targets thus far revealed are nations with a vexed
relationship with the US, this seems plausible.
Short article, not dispositive, yet considering the interviewee, difficult to discount out
of hand, no?
Despite being at a Swiss bank, Birkenfeld appears to have had no or few dealings with the
world of Mossack Fonseca. He knew that his customers were American. That's how he was able to
blow the whistle on the bank.
The whole point of using a firm like Mossack Fonseca is to set up a structure so that the
ultimate owners can't be found. Birkenfeld would have had no idea where his customers were if
he was dealing with registered agents like Mossack Fonseca.
Our Richard Smith knows way more about this than Bireknfeld. He's being called by the UK media
heavily. He think Birkenfeld is all wet.
I put up a simplistic argument about the propaganda, misdirection and defocussing around the
papers on OpEd News trying to get people to stay focused on the fight against plutocracy and
what can be gained. I pointed that the alphabetsoupers are doing a really poor job.
I got trolled, had accusations heaped on my head and was dismayed to see that people cannot
even sit down and read the websites. People are just falling for every type of clickbait headline.
We can speculate all like about the leaker; the truth is WE DON'T KNOW. At least I got a handle
on how it was done with my friend:
http://www.unicornriot.ninja/?p=5357
so to say this was done as a robbery is pure bunk. The breech is still open and servers have
been seized by El Salvador. Who's gonna check them for the hands that took out information?
This entire zeitgeist opens up all sorts of opportunities for spin, manipulation, outright
lies, deluded accusations.
The REAL question is will anything at all be done about tax evasion, money laundering,
hidden criminal activities, and shell corporations doing anything from assisting terrorism, acquiring
nuclear materials, continuing sex trafficking/slavery, organ harvesting and all the other "activities"
they facilitate. Whole countries are being bankrupted by the SHELL GAME. Rob Kall says my "take"
is essentially the same as John Perkins and an interview with him will be running soon.
Of course we know ' who benefits ' ; the neoliberal consensus in its myriad forms . How ? I
offer three examples :
1. Make the little people everywhere believe that the big fish are going to be caught .
2. Keep plugging the ' Putin is Evil ' meme.
3. Create a climate of fear among the really dodgy money owners as a first strike before offering
them an accommodation within the properly laundered club.
I am sure there are others, but these stood out to me as soon as the story broke.
Geez Helmer does good old-fashioned investigative journalism.
My "three day" prediction on Panama Papers was pretty accurate, pretty much gone after
the initial frisson. There's probably some superset of money hiding companies that are trying
to scare clients out of Mossack and into their arms. What will be done? Zero, maybe a few perps
walks for low level lawyers.
Seeing BillG's name on Brookings confirms the obvious: he's just another corporo-fascist,
he backs stuff like The Better Than Cash Alliance whose sole aim is to get the world's citizens
hooked on credit card debt. So Mr. Super-Rich Goofy IT Guy shows his true colors, kinda like Sergey
Brin at Google and his efforts to overthrow Assad.
Note how carefully
Nikolas K. Gvosdev
avoid any issues connected with the costs of maintaining global American neoliberal
empire, promotion of globalization at all costs and subservience of the USA national interests to
transnational corporations interests...
Notable quotes:
"... The United States must either be prepared to increase what it is willing to spend in terms of funds, personnel and attention, or it must be willing to scale back its ambitions and to redefine what it considers to be acceptable outcomes. ..."
"... Currently, there is no sign that the American foreign-policy establishment is any readier to contemplate hard choices and entertain unpleasant tradeoffs in the coming years. The paradigm of low-cost, no-casualty intervention is a bipartisan construction that will endure with only minor modifications after 2017 in the absence of a truly existential threat to U.S. security. A new approach in 2016? Don't believe a word of it. ..."
"... Nikolas K. Gvosdev is a contributing editor at the National Interest and coauthor of ..."
"... (Georgetown, 2015). The views expressed here are his own. ..."
...Hopes that Washington could usher the Arab Spring into a glorious summer of democracy have
been replaced by the pessimism of an Arab Winter, with states collapsing and extremism on the
rise. The Obama administration is preparing to leave office with the Iran nuclear issue
essentially frozen for a decade-they were potentially successful in preventing a short-term
Iranian dash to weapons capability, but they have left larger concerns about Iran's intentions
unresolved. Russia's resurgence and its unwillingness to accept the postCold War settlement in
Europe, together with the European Union's own ongoing internal travails, have dashed hopes that
Europe could become a security provider to augment U.S. efforts elsewhere. A rising China seems
prepared to test American commitments in Asia as it seeks to redefine a regional order that the
United States has underwritten for many decades. The fate of landmark trade deals that would put
the United States at the center of both trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific economic areas remains
in doubt. Polling data collected at the end of 2015 suggests that Americans feel more unsafe and
believe that the Obama administration's policies are not sufficient to ensure the safety and
security of the United States in what they see as an increasingly dangerous and chaotic world.
... ... ...
This popular but mistaken view holds that the setbacks experienced in American foreign policy
are the results of errors in programming and execution made by a national-security team. This
avoids the more rigorous question: are those errors instead attributable to fundamental flaws in
America's perception of the world and its own place in it?
Indeed, the roots of Obama-era dysfunction precede his election by at least a decade, before
Obama was even a national figure; they arise from the still-unhealed 2002 Democratic schism over
the impending war in Iraq. Beyond that, the problems experienced during the Obama years reflect
an increasing sclerosis in the U.S. policy process itself that has made it far more difficult for
Washington to implement effective policy. If nothing is done, this dysfunction is likely to
continue into the next administration, regardless of party.
... ... ...
The Libyan intervention also soured relations with both Beijing and Moscow. UN Security Council resolution
1973 was ratified as a way to create safe havens for civilians to find refuge from the fighting-a
condition Russia and China were prepared to accept in order not to veto its passage in the Security
Council. Almost immediately, the Western-led intervention focused not on ending a threat to civilians
but entering the Libyan conflict as cobelligerents on the side of the opposition. Eventually, U.S.
and NATO airpower overwhelmed Qaddafi's military-and the Libyan despot ended up being captured and
executed by rebel forces. Russia and China, concluding that they were fooled by the Obama administration,
have subsequently resisted U.S. efforts to push for humanitarian action in other conflicts, notably
in Syria, where the opposition has concluded that if the United States had intervened in Libya to
stop a planned massacre in Benghazi, it would take action against the much more tangible crimes of
the Bashar al-Assad regime. The Syrian crisis has thus festered for more than four years. Combined
with the effective collapse of Libya as a state, spurring a migration crisis which has seriously
destabilized the European Union and allowed for militants to find a base from which to spread their
influence through Africa, the Libyan and Syrian wars have facilitated the rise of the Islamic State
as a new and more potent replacement for Al Qaeda, one that is also developing a reach capable of
striking targets in the West, including the U.S. homeland. The same warnings that Brent Scowcroft
sounded in 2002 prior to the start of the Iraq war were also voiced in the run-up to the Libya intervention,
and dismissed by a Democratic administration almost as quickly. Libya today is no more a model of
successful intervention in 2016 than Iraq was in 2007, with the one saving grace that the United
States is not expending large amounts of blood and treasure.
THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION has settled
into a pattern of delaying tough choices for as long as possible, and then being not fully on board
with owning the results. For instance, a national-security goal is for America to enjoy energy independence
by decreasing dependence on the Middle East, and offering an alternative to Russian sources of energy
supply to our European allies. An ambitious and expensive program of alternative options (such as
biofuels) would be unable to achieve this on its own-but tapping further sources of hydrocarbons
in North America might.
Yet there has been sustained opposition on environmental grounds to expanding production and development
of unconventional sources, as well as constructing the necessary infrastructure to bring them on
the market. The Obama administration delayed making a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline for years
for fear of alienating different domestic constituencies, but was also unwilling to make the case
that prioritizing environment and climate concerns trumped national-security concerns about global
energy markets. The result has been that other countries that choose to be proactive can drive results.
A Saudi Arabian decision to increase its oil supply to the international market, followed by a Russian
one not to cut supplies, lowered energy prices to levels that made the cost of North American projects
like the Keystone XL pipeline prohibitively high. Yet the long-term strategic questions remain unresolved:
the United States and its allies are once again becoming addicted to cheap foreign oil, which can
kill off alternative-energy programs-and makes it much harder to achieve another announced strategic
goal of being able to rebalance from the Middle East at any point in the near future.
The current crop of candidates vying to succeed Obama have all offered variants of the same message:
that a change in the occupant of the Oval Office will produce vastly different (and more preferable)
outcomes for U.S. foreign policy. If Hillary Clinton succeeds in her quest, she is unlikely to embrace
the team-of-rivals approach to governance and seems much more committed to following a more hawkish,
liberal-interventionist line. All of the Republican challengers also signal that they would be "different"
than Obama. Yet Clinton or any of the Republicans will find it extremely hard to break out of the
morass Obama finds himself in. Here's why.
THE CANDIDATES have criticized the Obama administration's responses to the crises in Ukraine and
Syria and to the growing threat of the Islamic State. Yet a closer examination of the accusations
does not reveal fundamentally different approaches. Instead, they indicate that a different president
would somehow be more effective in carrying out existing policies. For instance, across the spectrum,
different politicians continue to express the opinion that the solution to the chaos in Libya and
Syria is to find that illusive species of local moderates prepared to fight against extremist forces
and establish liberal-leaning, pro-American regimes to obviate the need for a large deployment of
U.S. ground forces. The red lines that political advisers that surround the current president and
also his potential successors insist cannot be crossed for fear of triggering another Iraq are the
same.
Obama has also received tremendous criticism-some of which is justified-for how he has handled
Putin and the relationship with Russia. Yet a good deal of the Obama administration's Russia policy
has been shaped by self-imposed U.S. constraints. Beyond the standard trope of Russia as a nuclear
superpower that cannot be subjected to much direct pressure, Americans want a policy of confronting
Russia that limits the risks they will be asked to bear-for example, the requirement that economic
sanctions imposed on Russia to punish it for the seizure of Crimea and its operations in Eastern
Ukraine have minimal fallout for U.S. economic and business interests. Additionally, for the Iran
nuclear deal to work, Russian cooperation is needed, and there is a growing desire for Moscow to
better align its operations in Syria with American preferences-shifting most of its military strikes
against Islamic State targets while using its influence to persuade al-Assad to step down. At the
same time, while proposals to settle the Ukraine crisis by formally designating Ukraine as a neutral
state is a nonviable option because the U.S. does not want to be seen as appeasing Moscow, it is
also reluctant to spend the necessary resources to pull Ukraine into the Euro-Atlantic orbit. One
principal policy divergence between Obama and his potential successors is the question of providing
aid to the Ukrainian military. Yet those who criticize Obama's refusal to take a more aggressive
stance on this issue still search for a way for the United States to supply weapons to Kiev to pressure
Russia to reverse its course while being able to disavow U.S. responsibility for how those arms might
be used by Kiev. Most of the 2016 candidates' stance on Russia policy involves some variant of being
"tougher" on Putin and showing "resolve," but not showing much willingness to own the only two plausible
policy options: a commitment to renewed and robust containment of Russia-requiring a much higher
expenditure than anyone in the U.S. seems willing to pay, plus the risks of losing Russian cooperation
on other issues-or a search for accommodation.
Such a loosely defined Ukraine policy represents in a microcosm what an
October 2015 RAND report indicates is
the prevailing problem for U.S. national-security policy today: the pronounced imbalance between
resources and requirements. The United States must either be prepared to increase what it is willing
to spend in terms of funds, personnel and attention, or it must be willing to scale back its ambitions
and to redefine what it considers to be acceptable outcomes.
Currently, there is no sign that the American foreign-policy establishment is any readier to contemplate
hard choices and entertain unpleasant tradeoffs in the coming years. The paradigm of low-cost, no-casualty
intervention is a bipartisan construction that will endure with only minor modifications after 2017
in the absence of a truly existential threat to U.S. security. A new approach in 2016? Don't believe
a word of it.
Nikolas K. Gvosdev is a contributing editor at the National Interest and coauthor of U.S. Foreign Policy and Defense Strategy (Georgetown, 2015). The views expressed here are his
own.
"... "Everyone in corporate press is controlled by corporations that profit on wars and have an interest in creating tensions all these people in the Western press, like the Guardian, are blackening Putin [for being] a designated villain here. Curiously, his name is not in these documents," ..."
"... "a complete lack of standards on the part of the Western media." ..."
"... "a major mistake made by the leaker" ..."
"... "It seems the Western press has lost all sense of fairness. This would be humorous if it weren't so serious. It seems even if Vladimir Putin was seen walking on water, the report in the Western media would come out as 'Putin doesn't know how to swim,'" ..."
"... "It's always worth taking a step back from whatever you read in the media and seeing who's funding this, what are the corporate interests behind what is being published in this particular outlet." ..."
"... "RT gets slated for that, and I think most western outlets could also be slated for the same reasons. The BBC is state funded, Fox News is corporate funded there is always going to be some sort of agenda behind any editorial decisions on any medium there," ..."
"... "The Guardian still has this 'how to hide your billions offshore' and a video with Putin and his family. I understand that journalistic organizations want to maximize the impact they should but you can maximize it and then minimize it by dragging it up too long. It's interesting that the press seems to have a certain agenda and yet the [primary] interest is the corruption of their leaders." ..."
"... "There is an obligation for the people who hold these documents to release the full text. I would caution people that the main points are not out [yet] all we see so far is what the corporate media selected for us to see, while certainly [there are] people in the US who do not want [everything] released until after the presidential primaries," ..."
While neither Vladimir Putin nor any members of his family were
mentioned in the Panama Papers leak, most Western media chose to break
the story with the Russian president's photo. Former US and UK
intelligence officers told RT this is no coincidence.
Ray McGovern, a former CIA officer, told RT that the fact that the
Western media has been using Putin as the
"face"
of the
Panama Papers leak can be easily explained by looking at the people
and organizations behind these news outlets.
"Everyone in
corporate press is controlled by corporations that profit on wars and
have an interest in creating tensions all these people in the
Western press, like the Guardian, are blackening Putin [for being] a
designated villain here. Curiously, his name is not in these
documents,"
Ray says.
He also claims that the way the story was presented demonstrates
"a complete lack of standards on the part of the Western media."
McGovern believes it was
"a major mistake made by the leaker"
to hand the documents over to the corporate media, instead of leaking
them to trusted independent journalists.
"It seems the Western press has lost all sense of fairness.
This would be humorous if it weren't so serious. It seems even if
Vladimir Putin was seen walking on water, the report in the Western
media would come out as 'Putin doesn't know how to swim,'"
McGovern said.
Annie Machon, a former MI5 agent, advised being cautious when
reading news in the MSM, as there is always an agenda behind what is
presented in those publications.
"It's always worth taking a step back from whatever you read in
the media and seeing who's funding this, what are the corporate
interests behind what is being published in this particular outlet."
"RT gets slated for that, and I think most western outlets
could also be slated for the same reasons. The BBC is state funded,
Fox News is corporate funded there is always going to be some sort
of agenda behind any editorial decisions on any medium there,"
she stressed.
Machon also suggests that the journalists who broke the story
concerning the Panama Papers leaks lost control of the story as they
tried to maximize its impact to make it
"breaking."
"The Guardian still has this 'how to hide your billions
offshore' and a video with Putin and his family. I understand that
journalistic organizations want to maximize the impact they should
but you can maximize it and then minimize it by dragging it up too
long. It's interesting that the press seems to have a certain agenda
and yet the [primary] interest is the corruption of their leaders."
Meanwhile, both experts question the speed with which the
information contained in the papers is being released, calling on the
news outlets to make all of the information public instead of holding
on to it, creating a mystery where there shouldn't be one.
"There is an obligation for the people who hold these documents
to release the full text. I would caution people that the main points
are not out [yet] all we see so far is what the corporate media
selected for us to see, while certainly [there are] people in the US
who do not want [everything] released until after the presidential
primaries,"
McGovern stressed.
According to Machon, now that the media has
"made a splash,"
it must put all the information out for everyone to research, which
she says is what
"crowdsourcing journalism, crowdsourcing
democracy"
is really about and what is, in her opinion, what the
global community needs.
"... So here we've got some friend of the Russian president, he has done something, probably there is an aspect of corruption to it... But what aspect [exactly]? Well, there is none ..."
"... You are all journalists here and you know what an informational product is... They've plowed through offshore [funds]. [Putin] is not there, there is nothing to talk about. But the task has been assigned! So what have they done? They've created an informational product by having found some acquaintances and friends ..."
"... more agreeable ..."
"... The easiest way to do so is to induce some mistrust to authorities within the society ..."
"... I am proud of people like Sergey Pavlovich [Roldugin]... and am proud to have him among my friends ..."
"... Almost all money that he has earnt he spent on buying music instruments abroad, which he then brought to Russia ..."
"... got used to a monopoly ..."
"... and don't want to consider others ..."
"... Our position on the situation in the south-east of Ukraine, as well as smaller scale things, such as [Russia's] refusal to extradite [Edward] Snowden have become irritants in our relations ..."
Putin on Panama Papers: 'Info product' aimed
to destabilize Russia
Published time: 7 Apr, 2016
14:42
Edited time: 7 Apr,
2016 15:22
Get short
URL
The Russian part of the so-called Panama Papers leak that claims to
reveal offshore financial activities of a number of public figures is
not about corruption, but aims to destabilize Russia, says President
Vladimir Putin.
Trends
Panama
Papers
"
So here we've got some friend of the Russian president, he has
done something, probably there is an aspect of corruption to it... But
what aspect [exactly]? Well, there is none
," Putin said on
Thursday, addressing a media forum in St. Petersburg. He also pointed
out that he himself had not been mentioned in the leaked documents.
"
You are all journalists here and you know what an
informational product is... They've plowed through offshore [funds].
[Putin] is not there, there is nothing to talk about. But the task has
been assigned! So what have they done? They've created an
informational product by having found some acquaintances and friends
,"
the president told the media forum.
WikiLeaks has already shown who's behind all this scandal, he
added.
According to Putin, the Panama Papers episode is yet another
attempt to destabilize Russia from within, and make it "
more
agreeable
."
"
The easiest way to do so is to induce some mistrust to
authorities within the society
," Putin said, adding that the
creators of the leak aimed at the unity of the multiethnic Russian
people.
The "
biggest leak
" on corruption in journalistic history
was
published
on Sunday, claiming to expose offshore holdings and financial
activities of dozens of politicians and public figures from different
countries. Russian businessmen Suleiman Kerimov and Arkady Rotenberg,
as well as figure skater Tatiana Navka and musician Sergey Roldugin
are among those featured in the released data.
"
I am proud of people like Sergey Pavlovich [Roldugin]... and
am proud to have him among my friends
," Putin said, adding that
claims that the cellist has billions are nonsense. "
Almost all
money that he has earnt he spent on buying music instruments abroad,
which he then brought to Russia
" and gave them to state
institutions, Putin said.
Some of Russia's counterparts on the international arena "
got
used to a monopoly
" there "
and don't want to consider others
,"
he said, having also quoted some opinions on why relations with the
West have worsened.
"
Our position on the situation in the south-east of Ukraine, as
well as smaller scale things, such as [Russia's] refusal to extradite
[Edward] Snowden have become irritants in our relations
," Putin
said.
Whoever leaked the Mossack Fonseca papers appears motivated by a genuine desire to expose the
system that enables the ultra wealthy to hide their massive stashes, often corruptly obtained
and all involved in tax avoidance. These Panamanian lawyers hide the wealth of a significant proportion
of the 1%, and the massive leak of their documents ought to be a wonderful thing.
Unfortunately the leaker has made the dreadful mistake of turning to the western corporate
media to publicise the results. In consequence the
first major story, published today by the Guardian, is all about Vladimir Putin and a cellist
on the fiddle. As it happens I believe the story and have no doubt Putin is bent.
But why focus on Russia? Russian wealth is only a tiny minority of the money
hidden away with the aid of Mossack Fonseca. In fact, it soon becomes obvious that the selective
reporting is going to stink.
The Suddeutsche Zeitung, which received the leak, gives a
detailed explanation of the methodology the corporate media used to search the files. The
main search they have done is for names associated with breaking UN sanctions regimes. The Guardian
reports this too and helpfully lists those countries as Zimbabwe, North Korea, Russia and
Syria. The filtering of this Mossack Fonseca information by the corporate media follows
a direct western governmental agenda. There is no mention at all of use of Mossack Fonseca
by massive western corporations or western billionaires the main customers. And the
Guardian is quick to reassure that "much of the leaked material will remain private."
What do you expect? The leak is being
managed by the grandly but laughably named "International Consortium of Investigative Journalists",
which is funded and organised entirely by the USA's Center for Public Integrity. Their
funders include
Ford Foundation Carnegie Endowment Rockefeller Family Fund W K Kellogg Foundation Open Society Foundation (Soros)
among many others. Do not expect a genuine expose of western capitalism. The dirty secrets
of western corporations will remain unpublished.
Expect hits at Russia, Iran and Syria and some tiny "balancing" western country like Iceland.
A superannuated UK peer or two will be sacrificed someone already with dementia.
The corporate media the Guardian and BBC in the UK have exclusive access to the
database which you and I cannot see.
They are protecting themselves from even seeing western corporations' sensitive information
by only looking at those documents which are brought up by specific searches such as UN sanctions
busters. Never forget the Guardian smashed its copies of the Snowden files on the instruction
of MI6.
What if they did Mossack Fonseca database searches on the owners of all the corporate
media and their companies, and all the editors and senior corporate media journalists? What if
they did Mossack Fonseca searches on all the most senior people at the BBC? What if they did Mossack
Fonseca searches on every donor to the Center for Public Integrity and their companies?
What if they did Mossack Fonseca searches on every listed company in the western stock exchanges,
and on every western millionaire they could trace?
That would be much more interesting. I know Russia and China are corrupt, you don't have to
tell me that. What if you look at things that we might, here in the west, be able to rise up and
do something about?
And what if you corporate lapdogs let the people see the actual data?
Putin attack was produced by OCCRP which targets Russia & former USSR and was funded by USAID
& Soros.
U.S. Companies Use Foreign Tax Evasion
American companies are big users of foreign tax havens. For example, we
pointed out in 2014:
American multinationals pay much less in taxes than they should because they use a widespread
variety of tax-avoidance scams and schemes, including Pretending they are headquartered in tax
havens like Bermuda, the Cayman Islands or Panama , so that they can enjoy all
of the benefits of actually being based in America (including the use of American law and the
court system, listing on the Dow, etc.), with the tax benefits associated with having a principal
address in a sunny tax haven.
Tax haven abusers benefit from America's markets, public infrastructure, educated workforce,
security and rule of law all supported in one way or another by tax dollars but they avoid
paying for these benefits. Instead, ordinary taxpayers end up picking up the tab, either in
the form of higher taxes, cuts to public spending priorities, or increases to the federal debt.
USPIRG continues:
The United States loses approximately $184 billion in federal and state revenue
each year due to corporations and individuals using tax havens to dodge taxes. On average,
every filer who fills out a 1040 individual income tax form would need to pay an additional
$1,259 in taxes to make up for the revenue lost.
Pfizer , the world's largest drug maker, paid no U.S. income taxes between
2010 and 2012 despite earning $43 billion worldwide. In fact, the corporation received more
than $2 billion in federal tax refunds. In 2013, Pfizer operated 128 subsidiaries in tax haven
countries and had $69 billion offshore and out of the reach of the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS).
Microsoft maintains five tax haven subsidiaries and stashed $76.4 billion
overseas in 2013. If Microsoft had not booked these profits offshore, they would have owed
an additional $24.4 billion in taxes.
Citigroup, bailed out by taxpayers in the wake of the financial crisis
of 2008 , maintained 21 subsidiaries in tax haven countries in 2013, and kept
$43.8 billion in offshore jurisdictions. If that money had not been booked offshore, Citigroup
would have owed an additional $11.7 billion in taxes.
Rich individuals and their families have as much as $32 trillion of hidden financial assets
in offshore tax havens, representing up to $280bn in lost income tax revenues, according to
research published on Sunday.
***
"We're talking about very big, well-known brands HSBC, Citigroup, Bank of America
, UBS, Credit Suisse some of the world's biggest banks are involved and they do
it knowing fully well that their clients, more often than not, are evading and avoiding taxes."
Much of this activity , Christensen added, was illegal
.
So the Panama Papers stories haven't focused on it, but U.S. corporations are hiding huge sums
of money in foreign tax havens.
Obama and Clinton Enabled Panamanian Tax Evasion Havens
Of course, Obama and Hillary Clinton
enabled and supported Panama's ability to act as a tax evasion haven.
So it's a little disingenuous for them now to say we should "crack down" on tax havens.
US and UK Not Panama Biggest Tax Havens for Money Laundering Criminals and Tax Cheats
But the bigger story is that America is the world's largest tax haven with the UK in a close
second-place position.
The US has overtaken Singapore, Luxembourg and the Cayman Islands as an attractive haven
for super-rich individuals and businesses looking to shelter assets behind a veil of secrecy,
according to a study by the Tax Justice
Network (TJN).
After years of lambasting other countries for helping rich Americans hide their money offshore,
the U.S. is emerging as a leading tax and secrecy haven for rich foreigners. By resisting new
global disclosure standards, the U.S. is creating a hot new market, becoming the go-to place
to stash foreign wealth. Everyone from London lawyers to Swiss trust companies is getting in
on the act, helping the world's rich move accounts from places like the Bahamas and the British
Virgin Islands to Nevada, Wyoming, and South Dakota.
"How ironic-no, how perverse-that the USA, which has been so sanctimonious in its condemnation
of Swiss banks, has become the banking secrecy jurisdiction du jour," wrote
Peter A. Cotorceanu
, a lawyer at Anaford AG, a Zurich law firm, in a recent legal journal. "That 'giant sucking
sound' you hear? It is the sound of money rushing to the USA."
Rothschild, the centuries-old European financial institution, has opened a trust company
in Reno, Nev., a few blocks from the Harrah's and Eldorado casinos. It is now moving the fortunes
of wealthy foreign clients out of offshore havens such as Bermuda, subject to the new international
disclosure requirements, and into Rothschild-run trusts in Nevada, which are exempt.
The U.S. "is effectively the biggest tax haven in the world" -Andrew Penney, Rothschild
& Co.
***
Others are also jumping in: Geneva-based Cisa Trust Co. SA, which advises wealthy Latin
Americans, is applying to open in Pierre, S.D., to "serve the needs of our foreign clients,"
said John J. Ryan Jr., Cisa's president.
Trident Trust Co. , one of the
world's biggest providers of offshore trusts, moved dozens of accounts out of Switzerland,
Grand Cayman, and other locales and into Sioux Falls, S.D., in December, ahead of a Jan. 1
disclosure deadline.
"Cayman was slammed in December, closing things that people were withdrawing," said Alice
Rokahr, the president of Trident in South Dakota, one of several states promoting low taxes
and confidentiality in their trust laws. "I was surprised at how many were coming across that
were formerly Swiss bank accounts, but they want out of Switzerland."
***
One wealthy Turkish family is using Rothschild's trust company to move assets from the Bahamas
into the U.S., he said. Another Rothschild client, a family from Asia, is moving assets from
Bermuda into Nevada. He said customers are often international families with offspring in the
U.S.
Forbes
points out that the U.S. is not practicing what it is preaching:
A report by the Tax Justice Network says that the U.S. doesn't even practice what it preaches.
Indeed, the report ranks America as one of the worst. How bad? Worse than the Cayman Islands.
The report claims that America has refused to participate in the OECD's global
automatic information exchange for bank data. The OECD has been designing and implementing
the system to target tax evasion. Given the IRS fixation on that topic, you might think that
the U.S. would join in.
However, it turns out that the United States jealously guards its information. The Tax Justice
Network says the IRS is stingy with data. Of course, with FATCA, America has more data than
anyone else.
FATCA , the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act is up and running. The IRS says it is now
swapping taxpayer data reciprocally with other countries. The IRS says it will only engage
in reciprocal exchanges with foreign jurisdictions meeting the IRS's stringent safeguard, privacy,
and technical standards.
The United States, which has for decades hosted vast stocks of financial and other wealth
under conditions of considerable secrecy, has moved up from sixth to third place in our
index. It is more of a cause for concern than any other individual country because of
both the size of its offshore sector, and also its rather recalcitrant attitude to international
co-operation and reform. Though the U.S. has been a pioneer in defending itself from foreign
secrecy jurisdictions, aggressively taking on the Swiss banking establishment and setting
up its technically quite strong Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) it provides
little information in return to other countries, making it a formidable, harmful and irresponsible
secrecy jurisdiction at both the Federal and state levels. (Click here for a short explainer;
See our special report on the USA for more)."
One of the least recognized facts about the global offshore industry is that much of it,
in fact, is not offshore. Indeed, some critics of the offshore industry say the U.S. is now
becoming one of the world's largest "offshore" financial destinations.
***
A 2012 study in which researchers sent more than 7,400 email solicitations to more than
3,700 corporate service providers - the kind of companies that typically register shell companies,
such as the Corporation Trust Company at 1209 North Orange St. - found that the U.S.
had the laxest regulations for setting up a shell company anywhere in the world outside
of Kenya. The researchers impersonated both low- and high-risk customers, including potential
money launderers, terrorist financiers and corrupt officials.
Contrary to popular belief, notorious tax havens such as the Cayman Islands, Jersey
and the Bahamas were far less permissive in offering the researchers shell companies than states
such as Nevada, Delaware, Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming and New York , the researchers
found.
***
"In some places [in the U.S.], it's easier to incorporate a company than it is to get a
library card," Joseph Spanjers of Global Financial Integrity, a research and advocacy organization
that wants to curtail illicit financial flows, said in an interview earlier this year.
***
Too often, however, shell companies are used as a vehicle for criminal activity - disguising
wealth from tax authorities, financing terrorism, concealing fraudulent schemes, or laundering
funds from corruption or the trafficking in drugs, people and arms.
***
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, a group of 34 advanced countries,
drew up its own tough tax disclosure requirements, called Common Reporting Standards, and asked
roughly 100 countries and jurisdictions around the world to approve them. Only a handful
of countries have refused, including Bahrain, Vanuatu and the United States .
Advisers around the world are increasingly using the U.S. resistance to the OECD's standards
as a marketing tool -
attracting overseas money to U.S. state-level tax and secrecy havens like Nevada and South
Dakota, potentially keeping it hidden from their home governments.
Several states Delaware, Nevada, South Dakota, Wyoming specialize in incorporating anonymous
shell corporations. Delaware earns between one-quarter and one-third of their budget from incorporation
fees, according to Clark Gascoigne of the FACT Coalition. The appeal of this revenue has emboldened
small states, and now Wyoming bank accounts are the new Swiss bank accounts. America has become
a lure, not only for foreign elites looking to seal money away from their own governments,
but to launder their money through the
purchase of U.S. real estate .
And the UK is a giant swamp of tax evasion and laundering as well
The City of London is the money-laundering centre of the world's drug trade, according to
an internationally acclaimed crime expert.
***
His warning follows a National Crime Agency (NCA) threat assessment which stated: "We assess
that hundreds of billions of US dollars of criminal money almost certainly continue to be laundered
through UK banks, including their subsidiaries, each year."
Last month, the NCA warned that despite the UK's role in developing international standards
to tackle money laundering, the continued extent of it amounts to a "strategic threat to the
UK's economy and reputation". It added that the same money-laundering networks used by organised
crime were being used by terrorists as well.
***
Interviewed by The Independent on Sunday, Mr Saviano said of the international drugs trade
that "Mexico is its heart and London is its head". He said the cheapness and the ease of laundering
dirty money through UK-based banks gave London a key role in drugs trade. "Antonio Maria Costa
of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime found that drug trafficking organisations were blatantly
recycling dirty money through European and American banks, but no one takes any notice," he
said. "He found that banks were welcoming dirty money because they need cash, liquidity during
the financial crisis. The figures are too big to be rejected . Yet there was no reaction."
Billions of pounds of corruptly gained money has been laundered by criminals and foreign
officials buying upmarket London properties through anonymous offshore front companies making
the city arguably the world capital of money laundering.
The flow of corrupt cash has driven up average prices with a "widespread ripple effect down
the property price chain and beyond London", according to property experts cited in the most
comprehensive study ever carried out into the long-suspected money laundering route through
central London real estate, by the respected anti-corruption organisation Transparency International.
***
Any anonymous company in a secret location, such as the British Virgin Islands, can buy
and sell houses in the UK with no disclosure of who the actual purchaser is. Meanwhile, TI
said, estate agents only have to carry out anti-money-laundering checks on the person selling
the property, leaving the buyers bringing their money into the country facing little, if any
scrutiny.
***
Detective Chief Inspector Jon Benton, director of operations at the Proceeds of Corruption
Unit, said: "Properties that are purchased with illicit money, which is often stolen from some
of the poorest people in the world, are nearly always layered through offshore structures.
***
Companies set up in the Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories such as Jersey,
British Virgin Islands and Gibraltar are the preferred option for concealment of corrupt property
purchases.
More than a third of company-owned London houses are held by effectively anonymous firms
.
The consequence of its operations is that money laundering is now at such levels and so
widespread that the authorities have recently admitted defeat in its battle of attrition by
stating openly it has been completely overwhelmed and lost control. Keith Bristow Director-General
of the UK's National Crime Agency
said just six months ago that the sheer scale of crime and its subsequent money laundering
operations was "a strategic threat" to the country's economy and reputation and that "high-end
money laundering is a major risk".
TJN [the Tax Justice Network] says the UK would be ranked as the worst offender
in the world if considered along with the three Crown Dependencies
(Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man) and the 14 Overseas Territories
(including notorious tax havens such as Bermuda, the Cayman and Virgin islands).
In their 2015 Index, TJN state: "Overall, the City of London and these offshore satellites
constitute by far the most important part of the global offshore world of secrecy jurisdictions."
"London is the epicentre of so much of the sleaze that happens in the world,"
Nicholas Shaxson, author of the book "Treasure Islands", which examines the role of
offshore banks and tax havens, told AFP.
***
"Tax evasion and stuff like that will be done in the external parts of the network. Usually
there will be links to the City of London, UK law firms, UK accountancy firms and to UK banks,"
he said, calling London the centre of a "spider's web" .
"They're all agents of the City of London -- that is where the whole exercise is controlled
from," Richard Murphy, professor at London's City University, said of the offshore havens.
***
"When the British empire collapsed, London swapped being the governor of the imperial engine
to being an offshore island and allowing money to come with no questions asked," he added.
With public pressure mounting, Murphy said Britain had the power to legislate directly on
its overseas territories, but the lobbying power of the financial sector and worries about
upsetting the jewel in Britain's economic crown were holding back efforts.
"The City of London seems to believe that without these conduits, then it would not have
the competitive edge that it needs," he said.
"The financial institutions have become like wild animals," added Shaxson.
Snνpιir_Ag_Obair
as is often the case [wikileaks, snowden] - it is perhaps more important to discern who
and what is not covered or divulged in a leak.
This seems to largely be as GW describes.
What's amazing is reading, say, the NYT coverage. They have such contempt for the American
people they really don't even try to hide the fact that they are the voice of the Deep State.
dumb_funded
OT - WTC7 evidence of demolition. Not a demolition? This is one of the best videos that
show numerous charges set off just before the implosion
scroll down to the video clip. I did a quick youtube search and didn't find this particular
footage. It's the best i have seen yet.
You'd think it's only a matter of time before the door's blown open on the complicity of
Cheney, Rumsfeld and company but they've got everybody's hands tied and mouth taped shut with
threats if they speak.
These bastards need to be help accountable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe Putin will release the info he has on 911. Mr. Churchhill tells me Putin hangs out
here at ZH
johnofRandI
Once the propaganda clips on youtubish settings started to come out on the Panama Papers
it became clear... the propaganda was to be aimed at western enemies..
"look, look, Putin and Assad used these Nazis to hide ill-gottten money and kill innocent
Syrian revolutionaries ( and well meaning Isils,) so we should "arm up" surround Russia and
invade Syria with boots on the ground.
We must get Cheney's Sunni pipeline built and end the Russia Shia threat
Murder by poison is only one clue to offshore dealings by top Chinese
For months, Gu Kailai worried about a secret that threatened to upend her comfortable life
and stop her husband's climb to the top rungs of China's political leadership. So she took
action. In a hotel room in the southwestern Chinese megacity of Chongqing, she mixed tea and
rat poison in a small container as Neil Heywood, a British business associate, lay drunken
and dazed on the hotel bed. Then she dripped the mixture into Heywood's mouth.
Land of plenty: Duma committee approves bill for free handover of Russian territory to foreigners
A plot of land in Russia's Far East could be yours, after a Russian lower house committee
approved a bill that, if passed, will introduce the free handover of land to Russians and foreigners
who want to build homes or start businesses in agriculture or tourism in the region.
To the best of my knowledge, none of our Presidential candidates have had anything to say
about the Panama Papers, and only two of our Presidential candidates have had anything to say
about Panama, itself. Their statements clash.
""Panama is a world leader when it comes to allowing wealthy Americans and large corporations
to evade US taxes by stashing their cash in offshore tax havens. The Panama free trade agreement
will make this bad situation much worse. Each and every year, the wealthiest people in this
country and the largest corporations evade about $100 billion in taxes through abusive and
illegal offshore tax havens in Panama and in other countries." Bernie Sanders
As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton was on the complete opposite side of the issue. In
an
official statement issued by the US Department of State on October 13, 2011 (one day after
Sanders' floor address), Clinton congratulated President Obama for passing the trade pact,
citing the very same job creation arguments Sen. Sanders shot down a day earlier. Clinton made
no mention of Panama's reputation as a tax haven, and even invoked "working families" in her
statement:
"These initiatives are the leading edge of a job-creating trade agenda that will open
markets, level the playing field for our businesses and workers, and champion America's
working families in an age of tough global competition. They deserve the historic and widespread
support they received in Congress tonight. We will continue our work to rebuild an American
consensus on trade."
It is perfectly legitimate to set up foreign accounts and to do whatever one can legally
do to ensure their safety and privacy. The ONLY reason one actually needs is "I feel like it".
It should be obvious that these leaks are not at all about unmasking corruption - that is just
the pretext. In reality it is all about smearing perceived enemies, distracting from recent
scandals like the IMF's secret Greece agenda, expanding State control, and cutting off all
avenues for escape for citizens who want to defend their legitimately accumulated wealth from
the depredations of the State. The fact that criminals are using these structures as well is
a big "so what"? Drugs shouldn't be prohibited anyway - repeal prohibition, and 90% of the
criminal cartels disappear. Moroever, this argument is on the same level as saying "criminals
use guns" or "criminals use iPhones" - therefore, so the statist logic goes, guns should be
made illegal and the government should have a "backdoor" into every citizen's smart phone.
If you join the faux "outrage" over these leaks, you are simply being played.
It just stirs moral indignations among the 99% with no actions. Salivating at treasures
that you can see but not touch. The sheep are impotent because of mindsets. So what if these
vaults are dismantled with the full display of their movements to fully transparent virtual
websites. Are you looking the distractions of nip slips or at the faces of the Predators ?
Where is the focus of the 99% ?
the 99% are focused on how skinny Angelina Jolie is, the opening of baseball season, whose
looking good on idol and the voice, how to keep the mortgage paid . . . .
break the 9-11 story wide open and no one will see the elite that runs this country and
the world the same way. the crime is too great and too black. the perps don't even need to
be tried and convicted although i strongly recommend trials if only for the truth uncovering
(like south africa).
it is the best and gravest chink in their armor. they went too far and killed too many of
"their own".
"vatican city??? where are the papists in the u.s./u.k. government?"
Look up Tony Blair. The $10 million payoff for bleating about Saddam's purported yellow cake
in Africa went to the Vatican Bank. Tony outed himself within 6 months of leaving office.
But naming Putin in these Panama Papers makes me wonder when he will name the European and
U.S. criminals in their tax havens.
After all, it was Putin that outed Erdogan's dirty ISIS oil deal.
look up richard perle, douglas feith, scooter libby, and dozens of prominent jewish neocons
who advocated for that war because they felt
it would benefit Israel .
even if true - 10 million is couch cushion money as to Zionist involvement. This isn't to say
that the Vatican has no power, or engages in evil fuckery, it surely does, but it has nowhere
near the power over us and british policy, or banking, as does the Jewish/Israeli lobbies in each
country. I mean it isn;t even a serious question. Those who constantly bring up the vatican like
karen hude are curiously silent about the role of Israel and its global network of advocates.
And I don't mean to just pick on them. The fucking Saudis are also more complicit,
more insidious, more powerful - So probably is Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai... This isn't the 15th
century - if anything the Vatican is dependent on the whims of the US/UK and those who control
it... as for who fabricated the evidence -
it wasnt the
Vatican.
i think it's tax avoidance that's the violation not "where people have their money" that's
the issue.
but gw's real point is the constant, unrelenting control of news by the, essentially, zionist/bankster
cabal/cartel and their ownership of the traditional media (and much of the internet).
apparently trump and sanders scare them and their plans for hillary clinton to assume the presidency.
i swear 9-11 is still the litmus test under all the obfuscation. they so don't want to be found
out.
"... Their decision whether to resume an interest rate-cutting cycle this week is almost beside the point as the government of Vladimir Putin lubricates the economy in the background with oil wealth amassed in better times. Russian banks are sitting on the most cash in five years, allowing them to lend to each other at a lower rate than they borrow from the central bank. In the euro zone and in the U.S., money market rates are higher than benchmarks. ..."
"... "This amounts to easing of monetary conditions without key rate cuts," said Alina Slyusarchuk, Morgan Stanley's London-based economist for Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. ..."
"... Considering US is constantly painting Russia as Satan, surrounds them with nuclear missiles through NATO, tries to economically isolate them from the world's banking system, and politically manipulates their neighboring countries with CIA sponsored coups and revolts Russia shows considerable restraint and resilience. ..."
"... Do not believe everything you hear about these brave leaders and nations standing against US force and controls./ ..."
Russian central bankers have fewer reasons to offer relief to their recession-wracked economy
than you might think.
Their decision whether to resume an interest rate-cutting cycle this week is almost beside
the point as the government of Vladimir Putin lubricates the economy in the background with oil
wealth amassed in better times. Russian banks are sitting on the most cash in five years,
allowing them to lend to each other at a lower rate than they borrow from the central bank. In
the euro zone and in the U.S., money market rates are higher than benchmarks.
"This amounts to easing of monetary conditions without key rate cuts," said Alina Slyusarchuk,
Morgan Stanley's London-based economist for Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
How did this happen? The Finance Ministry transferred 2.6 trillion rubles ($37 billion)
of accumulated oil riches from the $50 billion rainy-day sovereign wealth fund into the economy
last year to cover a fiscal gap. It's budgeting another 2 trillion-ruble drawdown from the
Reserve Fund in 2016. The influx of cash is allowing Russian banks to wean themselves off the
central bank loans they were relying on to help them weather international sanctions. Those
obligations fell to 1.57 trillion rubles as of March 10 from 7.8 trillion rubles at the end of
2014.
Since the Bank of Russia brought its rate-cutting cycle to an end on Sept. 11, the overnight
money-market rate known as Ruonia has detached from central bank benchmarks, falling to 10.83
percent compared with an average 11.17 percent over the past six months.
In contrast to unprecedented stimulus measures by European peers, Russian central bank
governor, Elvira Nabiullina, is expected to leave rates unchanged at 11 percent when she convenes
policy makers Friday. The European Central Bank cut all its rates on March 10 and expanded its
bond buying program by 20 billion euros ($22 billion) to 80 billion euros a month.
Unlike for Mario Draghi, easy conditions pose a threat to Nabiullina's goals. She is still
working to curb inflation of 8.1 percent, twice her medium-term target even after it fell from
almost 17 percent a year ago. The governor is juggling the need to spur an economy that has been
shrinking since the first quarter of 2015 against the risk of runaway inflation. Brent crude,
used to price Russia's main export blend, has averaged $34 per barrel this year compared with an
average $86 the previous decade.
Scorpio
Considering US is constantly painting Russia as Satan, surrounds them with nuclear
missiles through NATO, tries to economically isolate them from the world's banking system, and
politically manipulates their neighboring countries with CIA sponsored coups and revolts
Russia shows considerable restraint and resilience. We still need them for a ride to the
space station.
There are Churches in Russian. They have 10 commandments. They don't obsess over gays,
transexuals, killing unborn children, drugs, and mass marketing alcoholism, drugs, and adultry
through the media.
Maybe they're not so bad. Maybe we just don't like competition selling arms and destruction to
the world. Don't worry. We're still number one.
Calgery
There is a value in devaluation of money. The great example is China where the US is
constantly bit**ing about it. Russia is naturally getting that. Iran fixed its one time oil
depending economy through natural sanction devaluation imposed by the enemies of its
independance and is now in tracks for more exports and relevance with the world economy.
Do not believe everything you hear about these brave leaders and nations standing against US
force and controls./
JohnC
In other words, the vaunted Pen Weapon (signing economic sanctions on Russia) of President
Obama has failed and Vladimir Putin is laughing of the U.S.' 21st century benign weapon it has
ever created...
"... What wars are you citing? WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Grenada, Cuban Bay of Pigs, Libya, Syria, Yemen,....that is what the Democrats have done. ..."
"... The Reps are no peackeniks but somehow Democrats are better able to initiate and conduct war because people like you build myths that Democrats are more peace loving. Sorry, history does not support your view. ..."
"... Hillary is by far the most dangerous because she has both Administration and Senatorial experience and knows how to muster support for her war mongering ways with the likes of Neo-cons and AIPAC'ers. ..."
"... The RTP doctrine was born with the Balkan war, driven by Clinton and Blair, the latter advocating a ground assault, and Blair's military intervention in Sierra Leone, rebirthing the whole idea of British expeditionary forces ..."
"... The proportion of superdelegates has actually increased from 14% to 20% of the total delegate count over the years since this was introduced (in 1982). So the Democratic Party have been adding more slots for party cronies and making the results less and less democratic. ..."
"... Slick Willy/Obama moderate centrists running Dem establishment, same sleaze bags that did the welfare and justice reforms of 90s and deregulated WS in the first place ..."
What wars are you citing? WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Angola, Grenada, Cuban Bay of Pigs, Libya, Syria, Yemen,....that is what
the Democrats have done.
The Reps are no peackeniks but somehow Democrats are better able to initiate and conduct war because people like you build
myths that Democrats are more peace loving. Sorry, history does not support your view.
Trump is impetuous and dangerous but he would be a lame duck president like Jimmy Carter; unable to muster Congressional support
to do much of anything.
Hillary is by far the most dangerous because she has both Administration and Senatorial experience and knows how to muster
support for her war mongering ways with the likes of Neo-cons and AIPAC'ers.
Since the Oligarchy supposedly control the media, the corporations, the money, the congress, the bureaucracy, the states, the
armed forces, etc, why on earth would one alleged Lefty in the White House be 'very dangerous' for them? Even assuming he really
wanted to be a real threat to them (as distinct from merely saying the things that get him votes), he simply wouldn't have the
power to do any more than a few minor things that marginally protect the interests of the 99.9% of us who are not so-called Oligarchs.
Did you watch the debate tonight? He brought up all the coups. He is a Social Democrat, so was Allende and Albeniz.
Cruz is a political whore, I am a simple Dem Socialist Bernie supporter.
Cruz is a phony Jesus freak (was Catholic), I am an Atheist, like all Dem Socialists.
Cruz is a Canadian, I am an American.
Cruz is a transgender, I am straight.
Cruz is a racist teabagger, who made fame by opposing even the most conservative Obama policies. I have Dr. King's portrait in
my office and a fierce enemy of social injustice.
Cruz is a demagogue, I simply pointed some historical facts (bloody Coups) and some of our historical atrocities around the globe.
Super delegates are almost completely with HRC, the WS call girl. Why...do you think it is so?
Again, Bernie is very dangerous for the ruling few that run this Oligarchy. He used the term Oligarchy again in this debate.
And he stated again that this is not a democracy.
Hillary and Bill are murderers, rapists, thieves, fraudsters and drug dealers. A long history of criminal violence. Google "Mena
Airport" and take it from there, you will be busy for days.
The elite don't care about you, they only care about their own access to your tax dollar.
Do not vote for Hillary, the world will be a better place when she and rapist Bill swing from the end of a rope
The RTP doctrine was born with the Balkan war, driven by Clinton and Blair, the latter advocating a ground assault, and
Blair's military intervention in Sierra Leone, rebirthing the whole idea of British expeditionary forces
This is a cause worth fighting for. America is crumbling under our feet, yet the Uniparty continues to point us towards a downward
spiral. But, the People have awakened. They realize the game is rigged. Nothing illustrates this better than Big Media and the
DNC that marginalize Sanders and his message every chance it gets. Why? They obviously support the official Uniparty pick, Clinton.
America is fortunate that Sanders has stepped up to face the Clinton campaign machine. Sanders wants to do what is best for America.
Not the elite. But the People. Sanders has fought for civil rights and equality his entire political career. Name anyone else
who has done this over decades. We can use them on the good ship Reclaim America.
Join the political revolution of the People, for the People, by the People. Vote for Bernie. He is the only candidate running
who is for all of us, because he cares...
If nothing else, America, please stop voting for the same crowd, the Uniparty; they are literally sucking the life out of the
People and have been for decades (going back to Bill Clinton and beyond)...
The proportion of superdelegates has actually increased from 14% to 20% of the total delegate count over the years since this
was introduced (in 1982). So the Democratic Party have been adding more slots for party cronies and making the results less and
less democratic.
Corporate media and Dem establishment campaign against Bernie's chances have completely backlashed. And the more he stays in the
race, the more likely he will get the max number of pledged delegates or nomination.
And the longer the race for nomination is, the more likely that the WS speeches, Sec of State emails, and bribes by foreign
sleazy regimes to the Foundation will be exposed before nomination.
Slick Willy/Obama moderate centrists running Dem establishment, same sleaze bags that did the welfare and justice reforms
of 90s and deregulated WS in the first place, wanted Bernie out by last night;...thanks to Michigan...we will see them all
in Philadelphia!
The WS(Ruben, Summers, Geithner,...)/Clinton/Obama wing of the party will be buried by Uncle Bernie when all this is said and
done, and with it the D-establishment media: msnbc athews, the executive Wolffe and te corporate-feminist Maddows!
The truth is that before Tuesday's elections, Clinton was ahead of Sanders by 673 to 477 pledged delegates, and her lead is now
745 to 540-by no means insurmountable, as a recent NBC-Washington Post poll shows (the numbers don't sum to 100% because 'Other'
and 'No opinion' replies were included): In December Clinton led Sanders 59% to 28%; in January 55% to 36%; in March 49% to 42%.
These figures show that Hillary's lead is slowly but steadily evaporating.
Anyone who believes that superdelegates can hand Clinton the nomination even if she loses the primary fight is betting the
Democratic Party is willing to commit suicide: Sanders supporters already loathe Hillary Clinton, and if she is carried to the
coronation throne on the backs of superdelegates, that loathing will multiply, and many of them will stay home or participate
in a write-in campaign for Bernie, enough to cause Hillary to lose the general election. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and her friends
in the DNC will have achieved their goal: a woman will have been nominated, but at the price of making Donald Trump President,
and having to find another name for their party-"Democratic Party" would hardly be fitting after such a betrayal.
free trade is unfair trade it is like these subsidies on food where people pay tax and then farmers get money from govt to grow
what they are told. Then there is free trade deal such as with europe where the american subsidised food too compete with the
european subsidised food but there are differences in regulations so too compete fairly the europeans would have to reduce the
regulations in a race to the bottom with the Americans who are already suffering from obesity. http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2015/12/ttip-disaster-left-brexit-would-be-worse
Here's my comment finally allowed to be published in the NYT today 3/8 after Michigan
Bernie is on the Bern across America --- and he hasn't even fired a 'shout heard round the world' yet.
When Bernie fires a non-violent 'shout heard round the world' to further ignite his & our "Political Revolution against Empire"
the Bern will burn through the rest of the primary states.
Understand that Bernie will increase both the enthusiasm and the education of Americans in evolutionary ways of understanding
the essential need for the "Political Revolution against Empire".
Initially, Bernie can point to the flaws and failures of a 'foreign policy' that does not serve the interests of Americans
nor peace in our world, any better than domestic economic tyranny at home, because our country is being pushed by the same corrupted
politics to "act like a global Empire abroad".
Even the most trusted elder anchorman and author of "Greatest Generation", Tom Brokaw, on "Meet the Press" shocked Chuck Toad
and other young pundits at the 'Round Table' when he explained, "When Trump and Cruz are talking about three year old orphans
and refugees [from Syria to Europe], what we're really talking about is three year old orphans and refugees, caused by
American policy".
Such truth telling by older and politically experienced people like Bernie, Tom, and the late Walter Cronkite is what has radically
changed, even Revolutionized the political landscape as it did half a century ago when such truthful shocks caused LBJ not to
run and admit, "If I've lost Cronkite, we've lost the war"
Looks like the corporate media attempts to keep Bernie Sanders coverage down, and making any attention they do give him negative
isn't totally working... what will they try next?
I just don't like the slaughter of half a million Syrians and Libyans and 10 million refugees facing devastation of their lives
just so the USA and NATO can control oil supplies out of the Middle East. Its not a good look Hillary.
I'm not all that happy about the splitting up of Syria just to isolate Iran and destroy the Russian economy while risking a nuclear
war.
illary needs to explain why we can't have world peace because the insecurity and armaments industry makes so much money for the
1%. In fact Hilary needs to prove she cares about the worlds ordinary people like the Palestinians living under the yoke of the
cruel oppresive Israeli Gogernment. And she would need to demonstrate her concern with policies to help the people living on the
streets of America before I would support her.
(RECENT!) Hillary Clinton's Email About Gay Parents Should Seriously Trouble Her LGBT Supporters
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2015/10/01/hillary_clinton_on_gay_rights_a_new_email_is_troubling.html
Looks like she hasn't really "evolved" on LGBT acceptance, but is simply taking on positions that she thinks is politically beneficial
to her, as usual. Much of her campaign platform (specifically her sudden focus on social and civil issues) is pretty much copied
over from Sander's after all.
Racism is still alive. Black lives DO matter, and the things BLM activists are doing may look excessive, but I find it necessary
if they are EVER to be heard by the government. Things are desperate now, and the Clintons has a hand in the current sad sate
of things for African Americans due to the policies that they have pushed. Bernie have repeatedly highlighted how Black people
in America is oppressed. Just look at the % of black vs white jobless rate, and % of black vs white people being jailed for weed
possession. Something needs to be done. "Enough is Enough" as Bernie says.
There is perhaps no more perverse relationship in the world than that which exists between
the West and Saudi Arabia - or, "the ISIS that made it," as Kamel Daoud, a columnist for
Quotidien d'Oran, and the author of "The Meursault Investigation"
calls the kingdom.
We've been over and over the glaring absurdity inherent in the fact
that the US and its partners consider the kingdom to be an "ally" in the fight against terrorism
and you can read more in the article linked above, but the problem is quite simply this:
the Saudis promote and export an ultra orthodox, ultra puritanical brand of Sunni Islam that is virtually
indistinguishable from that espoused by ISIS, al-Qaeda, and many of the other militant groups the
world generally identifies with "terrorism."
Wahhabism - championed by the Saudis - is poisonous, backward, and fuels sectarian strife
as well as international terrorism. That's not our opinion. It's a fact.
But hey, Riyadh has all of the oil, so no harm, no foul right?
Even as the very same ideals exported by Riyadh inspire the ISIS jihad, the kingdom
is so sure it has the political world in its pocket that it sought a seat on the UN Human Rights
Council, even as the country continues to carry out record numbers of executions.
They even had the nerve to establish what they called a
34-state Islamic military alliance against terrorism in December. Of course the members don't
include Shiite Iran (the Saudis' mortal enemy) or Shiite Iraq, both of which are actually
fighting terror rather than bombing civilians in Yemen and engaging in Wahhabist proselytizing.
But while everyone in the world is well aware of just how silly the "alliance" is, the farce will
apparently continue as French President Francois Hollande on Friday awarded Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Naif France's highest national honor, the Legion of Honor for "for his efforts in the
region and around the world to combat extremism and terrorism."
"... weaponized bullsh!t, so we're safe for now. ..."
"... The weaponized Western propaganda. ..."
"... AmeriKan elites showing they are ever desperate for an eternal enemy...or as a distraction from their own corruption. Delay that "off with their heads" moment forever if possible. ..."
"... What a dangerous country. Thank God the world has America to protect it. And thank heavens it weaponized depleted uranium for the benefit of all the countries it has liberated. ..."
"... I think that take is confined to the Zionists and their whores, as Trump says he can get along with Russia and the American people seem to agree. The West caused this whole disaster of refugees, not Russia. Wake up world, and give Frau Merkle a nudge in the right direction. ..."
"... When the only tool you (the U.S.) have is a hammer (war), everything looks like a nail (a weapon). ..."
Apparently the West still maintains the lead in weaponized actors (ht Penelope), weaponized extremists
(ht Sy Hersh), and weaponized bullsh!t, so we're safe for now.
AmeriKan elites showing they are ever desperate for an eternal enemy...or as a distraction from their
own corruption. Delay that "off with their heads" moment forever if possible.
The mass production of faux news demonizing Russians invokes depictions of Orwell's nefarious Eurasians
from whom the populace needed Big Brother for protection.
What a dangerous country. Thank God the world has America to protect it. And thank heavens it weaponized
depleted uranium for the benefit of all the countries it has liberated.
I think that take is confined to the Zionists and their whores, as Trump says he can get along with
Russia and the American people seem to agree. The West caused this whole disaster of refugees, not Russia. Wake up world, and give Frau Merkle a nudge in the right direction. Another lost human in the maze
of Zion.
Moderate Syrian rebels should be supplied with surface-to-air missiles to defend against air strikes,
Germany weekly Der Spiegel quoted Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir as saying.
The rebels are under attack from both the Syrian air force and Russian strikes. Jubeir said providing
them with the rockets would "enable the moderate opposition to neutralize the regime's helicopters
and planes".
Al-Jubeir repeated his calls for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to step down in order to enable
a political solution to the five-year-long war.
"The other option is that the war goes on and Assad is being defeated," al-Jubeir said.
At least 250,000 people have been killed, 11 million made homeless and hundreds of thousands have
fled to Europe since the conflict began in 2011.
Riyadh was still ready to support the U.S.-led coalition against the militant group Islamic State
(IS) with special forces on the ground, he said.
Al-Jubeir rejected any similarities between the Islamist extremist group and Saudi-Arabia's national,
conservative interpretation of Islam, the Wahhabism.
"IS is about as Islamic as the Ku-Klux-Klan is Christian," al-Jubeir said.
While we would be the first
to admit that Jeffrey Sachs was the godfather of "shock therapy" (aka "the economic rape of Russia"
and several other xUSSR republics), he is right as for the ongoing Syria bloodbath which has come to
define the geopolitical situation for the past 3 years. And how this is an event that would "surely
rival Watergate in shaking the foundations of the US establishment" if the truth were fully known, we
agree 100 percent.
Notable quotes:
"... Clinton bears heavy responsibility for that carnage, which has by now displaced more than 10 million Syrians and left more than 250,000 dead. ..."
"... As every knowledgeable observer understands, the Syrian War is not mostly about Bashar al-Assad, or even about Syria itself. It is mostly a proxy war, about Iran. And the bloodbath is doubly tragic and misguided for that reason. ..."
"... Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the leading Sunni powers in the Middle East, view Iran, the leading Shia power, as a regional rival for power and influence. Right-wing Israelis view Iran as an implacable foe that controls Hezbollah, a Shi'a militant group operating in Lebanon, a border state of Israel. Thus, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel have all clamored to remove Iran's influence in Syria. ..."
"... And Israeli right-wingers are naοve, and deeply ignorant of history, to regard Iran as their implacable foe, especially when that mistaken view pushes Israel to side with Sunni jihadists. ..."
"... Yet Clinton did not pursue that route. Instead she joined Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and right-wing Israelis to try to isolate, even defeat, Iran. In 2010, she supported secret negotiations between Israel and Syria to attempt to wrest Syria from Iran's influence. Those talks failed. Then the CIA and Clinton pressed successfully for Plan B: to overthrow Assad. ..."
"... When the unrest of the Arab Spring broke out in early 2011, the CIA and the anti-Iran front of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey saw an opportunity to topple Assad quickly and thereby to gain a geopolitical victory. Clinton became the leading proponent of the CIA-led effort at Syrian regime change. ..."
"... Clinton has been much more than a bit player in the Syrian crisis. Her diplomat Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi was killed as he was running a CIA operation to ship Libyan heavy weapons to Syria. Clinton herself took the lead role in organizing the so-called "Friends of Syria" to back the CIA-led insurgency. ..."
"... This instrument of U.S. foreign policy has not only been in stark violation of international law but has also been a massive and repeated failure. Rather than a single, quick, and decisive coup d'ιtat resolving a US foreign policy problem, each CIA-led regime change has been, almost inevitably, a prelude to a bloodbath. How could it be otherwise? Other societies don't like their countries to be manipulated by U.S. covert operations. ..."
"... And where is the establishment media in this debacle? The New York Times finally covered a bit of this story last month in describing the CIA-Saudi connection , in which Saudi funds are used to pay for CIA operations in order to make an end-run around Congress and the American people. The story ran once and was dropped. Yet the Saudi funding of CIA operations is the same basic tactic used by Ronald Reagan and Oliver North in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s (with Iranian arms sales used to fund CIA-led covert operations in Central America without consent or oversight by the American people). ..."
"... Clinton herself has never shown the least reservation or scruples in deploying this instrument of U.S. foreign policy. Her record of avid support for US-led regime change includes (but is not limited to) the US bombing of Belgrade in 1999, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Iraq War in 2003, the Honduran coup in 2009, the killing of Libya's Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, and the CIA-coordinated insurrection against Assad from 2011 until today. ..."
"... Many historians believe that JFK was assassinated as a result of his peace overtures to the Soviet Union, overture he made against the objections of hardline rightwing opposition in the CIA and other parts of the U.S. government. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton has never shown an iota of bravery, or even of comprehension, in facing down the CIA She has been the CIA's relentless supporter, and has exulted in showing her toughness by supporting every one of its misguided operations. The failures, of course, are relentlessly hidden from view. Clinton is a danger to global peace. She has much to answer for regarding the disaster in Syria. ..."
"... She is totally unqualified, a disaster of a secretary of state, has incredibly poor judgement is a terrible candidate and should never be allowed to serve in any government capacity - EVER. ..."
"... Well said. Hillary is a warmonger neocon just like Bush/McCain/Graham/Cheney. Trump and Bernie are not. ..."
"... Pundits do not realize when they heap praises at Hillary Clinton's debate performances that ordinary people watching cannot get past her lack of trustworthiness and her dishonesty; and that whatever she says is viewed in that context and is therefore worthless. ..."
"... It's dismaying that the blowback from the 1953 CIA-assisted overthrow of Mossadegh is still behind the instability of the Middle East, and that we have continued to commit the same mistakes over and over. Can't we just get rid of this agency? ..."
"... The CIA repeated this stunt in Vietnam 10 years after the Mossadegh mess and have been doing it at least once every decade since then. In every case, it has been a failure. How supporting that nonsense is seen as foreign policy experience, I'll never know. ..."
"... Hillary helped facilitate the arming of terrorists in Syria in 2010 and 2011. She as far as I al concerned, Hillary supported the deaths of Syrians and terrorism. So why on earth would I want her to be president? Hello? ..."
"... More like a continuance of a disaster deferred. Thanks to John Kerry cleaning up the mess of her disastrous term as SoS. Syria is still a mess, but he has been working his butt off to be every bit of diplomat that Hillary was not. ..."
"... she was for an all out invasion by the USA into Syria to remove Assad. She, John McCain, and Linsey Graham had to settle for just arming the Al Queda and IS for the time being. ..."
"... Clinton, Obama, Bush, etc DC corruption used to bring down regimes that have continually destabilized America & the world. ..."
"... Where & Why was Obama & Holder not as directly held accountable in this discussion. Trump rightfully points that Americans have died for nothing yet the villains who are the catalysts of these atrocities still have jobs & stature in US. America needs to be rebooted once again & bring in leadership not buoyed by greed. power & indifference of those before him. ..."
"... The problem here really is the fact that Americans bitch and don't vote every election and this has let money just walk in and buy more influence, you want a real revolution, ..."
"... That is about it, Clinton is a repub in dem clothing and the US is the biggest threat to world peace when it can not get its way in another countries politics or to get them to follow the US master plan that mainly supports the US's goal. ..."
"... what makes her so maddeningly hawkish? what credentials she has that her peace-loving supporters believe that she can lead the US/world for peace? wake-up, and let's get united behind bernie. ..."
"... They believe the mythology that if women ruled the world it would be a better place...I beg to differ....Margaret Thatcher, Catherine the Great, Elizabeth I were not exactly peace lovers... ..."
"... years ago I was shocked to see that there were women members of the KKK. So much for women by their gender alone saving the world. ..."
"... But let us not forget Hillary Clinton's "regime change" record in Ukraine with Victoria "Fuc# the E.U.!" Nuland, wife of Neocon Robert Kagan and an Under Secretary of Hillary Clinton's at The State Department. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton's fingerprints are all over Ukraine: ..."
"... Yes, Somehow the so-called MSM refuses to expose the continuing debacle of our worldwide acts of Terrorism! The failure after failure of "our" military establishment such as targeted assassinations ..."
"... Further it is American war industry in partnership with our military that is arming the world with military grade weapon systems, tons and tons of munitions, and training to use them for such terror weapons as IEDs. It is MSM control by the establishment that enables the failures of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Obama, Clinton to treat horrendous failures as successes! ..."
"... Hillary Clinton supporters don't care, they don't care that she could be a felon nor do they care she is owned by Wall Street and many other corporate special interest, they just don't care. ..."
"... Up here in New Hampshire, we soundly rejected untrustworthy, dishonest, disingenuous and corrupt Hillary, we just wish the rest of the nation had as much time to get to know the candidates as we had up here! ..."
In the
Milwaukee debate, Hillary Clinton took pride in her role in a recent UN Security Council resolution
on a Syrian ceasefire:
But I would add this. You know, the Security Council finally got around to adopting a resolution.
At the core of that resolution is an agreement I negotiated in June of 2012 in Geneva, which set
forth a cease-fire and moving toward a political resolution, trying to bring the parties at stake
in Syria together.
This is the kind of compulsive misrepresentation that makes Clinton unfit to be President. Clinton's
role in Syria has been to help instigate and prolong the Syrian bloodbath, not to bring it to a close.
In 2012, Clinton was the obstacle, not the solution, to a ceasefire being negotiated by UN Special
Envoy Kofi Annan. It was US intransigence - Clinton's intransigence - that led to the failure of
Annan's peace efforts in the spring of 2012, a point well known among diplomats. Despite Clinton's
insinuation in the Milwaukee debate, there was (of course) no 2012 ceasefire, only escalating carnage.
Clinton bears heavy responsibility for that carnage, which has by now displaced more than 10
million Syrians and left more than 250,000 dead.
As every knowledgeable observer understands, the Syrian War is not mostly about Bashar al-Assad,
or even about Syria itself. It is mostly a proxy war, about Iran. And the bloodbath is doubly tragic
and misguided for that reason.
Saudi Arabia and Turkey, the leading Sunni powers in the Middle East, view Iran, the leading
Shia power, as a regional rival for power and influence. Right-wing Israelis view Iran as an implacable
foe that controls Hezbollah, a Shi'a militant group operating in Lebanon, a border state of Israel.
Thus, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Israel have all clamored to remove Iran's influence in Syria.
This idea is incredibly naοve. Iran has been around as a regional power for a long time--in fact,
for about 2,700 years. And Shia Islam is not going away. There is no way, and no reason, to "defeat"
Iran. The regional powers need to forge a geopolitical equilibrium that recognizes the mutual and
balancing roles of the Gulf Arabs, Turkey, and Iran. And Israeli right-wingers are naοve, and
deeply ignorant of history, to regard Iran as their implacable foe, especially when that mistaken
view pushes Israel to side with Sunni jihadists.
Yet Clinton did not pursue that route. Instead she joined Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and right-wing
Israelis to try to isolate, even defeat, Iran. In 2010, she supported secret negotiations between
Israel and Syria
to attempt to wrest Syria from Iran's influence. Those talks failed. Then the CIA and Clinton
pressed successfully for Plan B: to overthrow Assad.
When the unrest of the Arab Spring broke out in early 2011, the CIA and the anti-Iran front
of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey saw an opportunity to topple Assad quickly and thereby to gain
a geopolitical victory. Clinton became the leading proponent of the CIA-led effort at Syrian regime
change.
In early 2011, Turkey and Saudi Arabia leveraged local protests against Assad to try to foment
conditions for his ouster. By the spring of 2011, the CIA and the US allies were organizing an armed
insurrection against the regime. On August 18, 2011, the US Government
made public
its position: "Assad must go."
Since then and until the
recent fragile UN Security Council accord, the US has refused to agree to any ceasefire unless
Assad is first deposed. The US policy--under Clinton and until recently--has been: regime change
first, ceasefire after. After all, it's only Syrians who are dying. Annan's peace efforts were sunk
by the United States' unbending insistence that U.S.-led regime change must precede or at least accompany
a ceasefire. As the
Nation editors
put it in August 2012:
The US demand that Assad be removed and sanctions be imposed before negotiations could seriously
begin, along with the refusal to include Iran in the process, doomed [Annan's] mission.
The U.S. policy was a massive, horrific failure. Assad did not go, and was not defeated. Russia
came to his support. Iran came to his support. The mercenaries sent in to overthrow him were themselves
radical jihadists with their own agendas. The chaos opened the way for the Islamic State, building
on disaffected Iraqi Army leaders (deposed by the US in 2003), on captured U.S. weaponry, and on
the considerable backing by Saudi funds. If the truth were fully known, the multiple scandals
involved would surely rival Watergate in shaking the foundations of the US establishment.
The hubris of the United States in this approach seems to know no bounds. The tactic of CIA-led
regime change is so deeply enmeshed as a "normal" instrument of U.S. foreign policy that it is hardly
noticed by the U.S. public or media. Overthrowing another government is against the U.N. charter
and international law. But what are such niceties among friends?
This instrument of U.S. foreign policy has not only been in stark violation of international
law but has also been a massive and repeated failure. Rather than a single, quick, and decisive coup
d'ιtat resolving a US foreign policy problem, each CIA-led regime change has been, almost inevitably,
a prelude to a bloodbath. How could it be otherwise? Other societies don't like their countries to
be manipulated by U.S. covert operations.
Removing a leader, even if done "successfully," doesn't solve any underlying geopolitical problems,
much less ecological, social, or economic ones. A coup d'etat invites a civil war, the kind that
now wracks Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria. It invites a hostile international response, such
as Russia's backing of its Syrian ally in the face of the CIA-led operations. The record of misery
caused by covert CIA operations literally fills volumes at this point. What surprise, then, the Clinton
acknowledges Henry Kissinger as a mentor and guide?
And where is the establishment media in this debacle? The New York Times finally covered a
bit of this story last month in
describing the CIA-Saudi connection, in which Saudi funds are used to pay for CIA operations
in order to make an end-run around Congress and the American people. The story ran once and was dropped.
Yet the Saudi funding of CIA operations is the same basic tactic used by Ronald Reagan and Oliver
North in the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s (with Iranian arms sales used to fund CIA-led covert
operations in Central America without consent or oversight by the American people).
Clinton herself has never shown the least reservation or scruples in deploying this instrument
of U.S. foreign policy. Her record of avid support for US-led regime change includes (but is not
limited to) the US bombing of Belgrade in 1999, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Iraq War
in 2003, the Honduran coup in 2009, the killing of Libya's Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, and the CIA-coordinated
insurrection against Assad from 2011 until today.
It takes great presidential leadership to resist CIA misadventures. Presidents get along by going
along with arms contractors, generals, and CIA operatives. They thereby also protect themselves from
political attack by hardline right-wingers. They succeed by exulting in U.S. military might, not
restraining it. Many historians believe that JFK was assassinated as a result of his peace overtures
to the Soviet Union, overture he made against the objections of hardline rightwing opposition in
the CIA and other parts of the U.S. government.
Hillary Clinton has never shown an iota of bravery, or even of comprehension, in facing down
the CIA She has been the CIA's relentless supporter, and has exulted in showing her toughness by
supporting every one of its misguided operations. The failures, of course, are relentlessly hidden
from view. Clinton is a danger to global peace. She has much to answer for regarding the disaster
in Syria.
The people of the United States do not want that woman, Hillary Rodham Clinton to have relations
with the people of the United States. She is totally unqualified, a disaster of a secretary
of state, has incredibly poor judgement is a terrible candidate and should never be allowed to
serve in any government capacity - EVER.
Simple equation....war=money=power. Perpetual warfare is the post 911 gold rush and every establishment
politician in every country is the snake oil salesman pushing this through. The people on the
top make money and the rest of us get killed and go broke.
Max South
Not only the root cause, but also to-ols are important: now Western media/StateDep try depict
what happens in Syria as sectarian, all while majority of both Syrian army and government are
Sunni (even Assad's wife is Sunni) -- secular ones.
Syrian government is only hope for them, as well as for Christians, Kurds and all other ethnic
and religious minorities that fight against Wahhabi/Salafist jihadists.
Sanders' platform is expansive and IMO he has provided the most detail on how he will get things
done, which anyone can find out with a bit of investigation (http://berniesanders.com/issues/).
But all of it doesn't matter since you can't predict how events will unfold. In this regard, I
trust Sanders more than anyone else to decide what is best for all people in the the country (and
even the world). I personally will do well with anyone but I think Sanders is looking out for
the average person more than anyone else.
Pundits do not realize when they heap praises at Hillary Clinton's debate performances that
ordinary people watching cannot get past her lack of trustworthiness and her dishonesty; and that
whatever she says is viewed in that context and is therefore worthless.
It's dismaying that the blowback from the 1953 CIA-assisted overthrow of Mossadegh is still behind
the instability of the Middle East, and that we have continued to commit the same mistakes over
and over. Can't we just get rid of this agency?
Bijan Sharifi
as an iranian-american (and veteran), i appreciate sen sanders bringing this up in the debate.
Bijan Sharifi Indeed. The CIA repeated this stunt in Vietnam 10 years after the Mossadegh mess
and have been doing it at least once every decade since then. In every case, it has been a failure.
How supporting that nonsense is seen as foreign policy experience, I'll never know.
Hillary helped facilitate the arming of terrorists in Syria in 2010 and 2011. She as far as I
al concerned, Hillary supported the deaths of Syrians and terrorism. So why on earth would I want
her to be president? Hello?
More like a continuance of a disaster deferred. Thanks to John Kerry cleaning up the mess of her
disastrous term as SoS. Syria is still a mess, but he has been working his butt off to be every bit of diplomat that
Hillary was not. As soon as she returns to office expect more of her warfare first and diplomacy 'meh'.
Gary Pack
Ignacio, she was for an all out invasion by the USA into Syria to remove Assad. She, John McCain,
and Linsey Graham had to settle for just arming the Al Queda and IS for the time being.
This is what Trump has been alluding to in re Clinton, Obama, Bush, etc DC corruption used to
bring down regimes that have continually destabilized America & the world.
Where & Why was Obama
& Holder not as directly held accountable in this discussion. Trump rightfully points that Americans
have died for nothing yet the villains who are the catalysts of these atrocities still have jobs
& stature in US. America needs to be rebooted once again & bring in leadership not buoyed by greed.
power & indifference of those before him.
James Elliott cheerleading will not get anything done, I don't think Bernie understands how to
get things done in our system, reality is 40 years of bad will not be fixed in even 4 years.
The problem here really is the fact that Americans bitch and don't vote every election
and this has let money just walk in and buy more influence, you want a real revolution,
vote every election you are alive and you will let your children and their children a better
life.
Harvey Riggs
That is about it, Clinton is a repub in dem clothing and the US is the biggest threat to world
peace when it can not get its way in another countries politics or to get them to follow the US
master plan that mainly supports the US's goal.
More messes in this world has been started with covert means in order to get what we want and
millions upon milllions are suffering and the rest of the world countries 1'%ers who run those
countries are scared to stand up aguinst the US and lose that under the table support.
what makes her so maddeningly hawkish? what credentials she has that her peace-loving supporters
believe that she can lead the US/world for peace? wake-up, and let's get united behind bernie.
They believe the mythology that if women ruled the world it would be a better place...I beg to
differ....Margaret Thatcher, Catherine the Great, Elizabeth I were not exactly peace lovers...
Additionally, years ago I was shocked to see that there were women members of the KKK. So much
for women by their gender alone saving the world.
Sheila Rajan
Looking at the various misguided US excursions over the past 2 decades from outside of America,
this comes as no surprise. Clinton's deep involvement in these venal adventures comes as no surprise
either. Bill Clinton may have been adored in liberal America, but he was NOT, outside of your
borders. To us he appeared as just another one in a long line of Presidents under the sway of
the arms manufacturers, CIA, banks and financiers. Hillary Clinton is just an offshoot.
But let us not forget Hillary Clinton's "regime change" record in Ukraine
with Victoria "Fuc# the E.U.!" Nuland, wife of Neocon Robert Kagan and an Under Secretary of Hillary
Clinton's at The State Department.
Hillary Clinton's fingerprints are all over Ukraine:
Yes, Somehow the so-called MSM refuses to expose the continuing debacle of our worldwide acts
of Terrorism! The failure after failure of "our" military establishment such as targeted assassinations
as an official policy using drones, black ops, spec ops, military "contractors", hired mercenaries,
war lord militias and the like; the illegal and immoral acts of war cloaked in the Israeli framed
rubric of "national defense".
Further it is American war industry in partnership with our military that is arming the
world with military grade weapon systems, tons and tons of munitions, and training to use them
for such terror weapons as IEDs. It is MSM control by the establishment that enables the failures
of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Obama, Clinton to treat horrendous failures as successes!
Hillary Clinton supporters don't care, they don't care that she could be a felon nor do they
care she is owned by Wall Street and many other corporate special interest, they just don't care.
Up here in New Hampshire, we soundly rejected untrustworthy, dishonest, disingenuous and corrupt
Hillary, we just wish the rest of the nation had as much time to get to know the candidates as
we had up here!
The US is the dominant force in international banking. It is this position from which sanctions
are derived. Iran had to (and often did) find other ways to get paid for shipping oil than money
flow through international banking, which US and EU sanctions prohibited.
If you seek to oppose the US, you must not fight in a money arena. It's a disadvantageous battlefield.
The price of oil is determined by what? NYMEX traders? Or agreement between a refinery and
an oil exporter?
I would suggest it is the latter, which need not depend on NYMEX numbers at all.
If your goal is to destroy US shale, the last thing you would do is allow your weapon (price)
to be defined by your target (the US in general, which is where the NYMEX is). Nor would you allow
it to be defined by something as variable as free market forces. If you specify price to your
buyer, perhaps lower than his bid, you remove the marketplace from involvement in the battle.
The goal is victory. Not profit. How could you allow yourself to define victory in pieces of
paper printed by your enemy?
If your goal is to destroy US shale, the last thing you would do is allow your weapon (price)
to be defined by your target (the US in general, which is where the NYMEX is). Nor would you allow
it to be defined by something as variable as free market forces.
If your goal is to destroy US shale then the only way you can do that is to produce every barrel
of oil you possibly can. It would not be within your power to allow the price to be defined
by anyone or anything other than market forces. Of course every exporter negotiates a price with
his buyer. But that price must be within a reasonable amount of what the world oil price is at
the moment.
The price of oil is determined by supply and demand just like every commodity on the market.
Every day, there are thousands of oil buyers around the world. There are dozens of sellers,
many of them exporters. All the buyers are in competition with other buyers to get the lowest
possible price. All the sellers are in competition with other sellers to get the highest price
possible. And the price moves up and down with each trade, hourly or sometimes minute by minute.
To believe that even one of those dozens of exporters has the power to set the price oil, much
higher than everyone else is getting, is just silly. And likewise, to believe that a buyer can
get a much lower price than everyone else is getting, is just as silly.
They say that depletion never sleeps. Well, market forces never sleep either.
But that price must be within a reasonable amount of what the world oil price is at the moment.
Which is why it took the predator 18 mos to get it down to lethal levels. Just repeatedly be
willing to sell for a bit less than the bid and down it will go, because others will protect their
marketshare by matching your price (sound familiar?). Then you're no longer the only one offering
a low price.
All the sellers are in competition with other sellers to get the highest price possible.
Were this so there would exist no wiki for predatory pricing.
You aren't thinking about victory. If you seek victory, you don't fight in an arena where you
are disadvantaged. If you're the low cost producer of the lifeblood of civilization, you assert
that advantage and kill the enemy.
By your reasoning the price of oil should be close to zero, say $1/b.
Explain why that isn't the case, if "victory" is the sole objective.
Also predatory pricing is not an effective strategy especially in commodity markets where the
barriers to entry are low.
OPEC does not set the price of oil on World Markets, they simply influence it by their level
of output. In the case of the oil industry attempts at predatory pricing are not rational, it
is simply a strategy for losing money.
Which is why it took the predator 18 mos to get it down to lethal levels. Just repeatedly be
willing to sell for a bit less than the bid and down it will go, because others will protect their
market share by matching your price (sound familiar?). Then you're no longer the only one offering
a low price.
Oh good grief. I give up. You are a hopeless case.
I don't think Watcher expresses the situation very clearly, especially with words like 'predator'.
I don't see it as an apt analogy. I do however feel that the current price war/production war/phantom
production war is clearly an act of economic warfare by Saudi Arabia against their competitors.
It seems odd to me that a world oil production system that can't very accurately tell me how much
oil was produced today until months after the fact is going to start the day tomorrow by saying
'we are over supplied by 1.8 million barrels a day today' and then proceed to talk the price into
the gutter.
Russian President Vladimir Putin predicted the US ambitions to rule the world, experts said.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Russian President Vladimir Putin clearly identified a documented US drive
to dominate the world in his 2007 Munich speech, but nations around the world continue to resist
it, American and European scholars told Sputnik.
"President Putin is obviously aware of the fundamental tenets of neo-conservative US foreign policy
since 2001," California State University Emeritus Professor of Political Science Beau Grosscup, an
author and terrorism analyst, told Sputnik.
That plan was spelled out clearly in the 1992 Pentagon Defense Planning Guidance (DPG) authored
by Paul Wolfowitz and future Vice President Dick Cheney to maintain the United States as the sole
architect of the post-Cold War landscape, Grosscup noted.
"[The plan] includes by-passing existing international institutions, the United Nations in particular,
for unilateral reliance on military power, backed by ad hoc alliances," Grosscup pointed out.
The plan also included a Full Spectrum Doctrine that said the United States should be able to
fight and win numerous wars, including nuclear ones, for regime change purposes in rogue nations,
and that it should prevent the rise of competing powers such as Russia, China and Europe, Grosscup
added.
"Most notable is the right wing Neo-Nazi-inspired Ukrainian regime-change coup backed by the United
States. Along with the Georgia political crisis in 2008, [they] are the final building blocks to
move NATO to Russia's immediate borders," Grosscup claimed.
The purpose of these moves was to prevent Russia rise as a competing power and to control Central
Asian oil and gas reserves, he observed.
"President Putin's concerns expressed at Munich are understandable. Putin points out correctly
that the United States and its ad hoc coalition allies have used non-UN sanctioned unilateral military
force in the Middle East to de-stabilize Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Libya, Palestinian Occupied
Areas and Syria," Grosscup observed.
On the nuclear front, the United States continues its effort to "out-invent" its strategic weapons
rivals with a technological breakthrough that would allow it to win a strategic nuclear war with
Russia," he stated.
Also, "Current US President Barack Obama had given battlefield commanders the authority to breach
the conventional-nuclear threshold on their own, Grosscup warned.
However, recent Russian policies in the Middle East and Eastern Europe had blunted the drive to
expand US influence, University of Louvain Professor and author of "Humanitarian Imperialism" Jean
Bricmont told Sputnik.
"The resistance of Russia in Syria and Ukraine has strengthened the hand of the anti-interventionists
in the US," he stated.
The current US presidential election campaign had already demonstrated that the American public
did not share their rulers' appetite for endless interventions and wars around the world, Bricmont
emphasized.
"The tide is changing, slowly but surely. The American public does not go along any more with
the neo-cons-liberal interventionists," he maintained.
The pattern of voting in the early US primary and caucuses indicated that the US public had no
enthusiasm for new wars, Bricmont concluded.
"... The myth was created to conceal the consciously made choice of the then Soviet administration. The choice was to deliberately destroy the Soviet Union. They lied when they said that the Soviet Union was starving in 1990-1991 because of very poor harvest. On the contrary, the harvest in the Soviet Union was fantastic in 1990 and 1991. ..."
"... The Russian authorities need to properly estimate the times that Russia lived under Gorbachev and Yeltsin not to go back to those times again. President Vladimir Putin says that the destruction of the Soviet Union was a geopolitical catastrophe . However, this catastrophe has a name - the first name and the last name. This Soviet Union did not break up just like that. Three people gathered and signed something. The fourth person did nothing to stop them. We need to have a legal approach to what happened back then. ..."
Pravda.Ru editor-in-chief Inna Novikova sat down with historian Alexander Fursov to
speak about Russia's foreign and domestic policy.
"In connection with the collapse of the world prices on oil, many analysts say that the
times that we are living now are very similar to the times of the 90s when the Soviet Union broke
up."
"The
Soviet Union did not break up because of the oil prices, although it did create a number of
problems for the country. The myth was created to conceal the consciously made choice of the
then Soviet administration. The choice was to deliberately destroy the Soviet Union. They
lied when they said that the Soviet Union was starving in 1990-1991 because of very poor harvest.
On the contrary, the harvest in the Soviet Union was fantastic in 1990 and 1991.
"During the 80s, a whole group of people appeared in the Soviet Union, who wanted to
remove the Communist Party from power. The West won the game back then. Gorbachev and
Shevardnadze where only the exterior facade, and we will probably never know the names of the
real puppeteers. If you believe when they say the Soviet Union broke out because of oil, just
look at the share of oil in the export of the Soviet Union and in the export of today's Russia.
"Chaos around Russia never stops from growing, but our goal is not to let the chaos in. The
strategy of controllable chaos is a fundamentally new strategy. We can see it developing in the
Middle East and along our borders. It is very hard to struggle against it but we need to learn
how to live in a completely different world. Who could ever think 20 years ago that it would be
possible to commit terrorist acts in the centre of Moscow, that all metro passengers would have
to listen to announcements warning them about the danger of terrorist attacks. This is the
reality that we're dealing with today."
"What about the contradictions between our internal and external ambition? The majority
of Russians fully support the foreign policy of the country, but have many questions about
economic policy of the Russian government."
"This is a very serious contradiction that cannot last long and will have to be resolved in
the nearest future this way or other."
"Do you see any ray of light in the dark kingdom of the Russian domestic policy?"
"For the time being, I don't. Of course, Russia has got up from its knees but now everything
depends a lot on how the situation unfolds in the world. The future depends on the people and to
which extent they are ready to fight for it and even sacrifice something for it. When people live
in times of the crisis and Chubais says at the same time that he has a lot of money - this is not
good."
"Chubais is a notorious character."
"Chubais is part of the authorities. The Russian authorities need to properly estimate the
times that Russia lived under
Gorbachev and Yeltsin not to go back to those times again. President Vladimir Putin says that
the
destruction of the Soviet Union was a geopolitical catastrophe. However, this catastrophe has
a name - the first name and the last name. This Soviet Union did not break up just like that.
Three people gathered and signed something. The fourth person did nothing to stop them. We need
to have a legal approach to what happened back then."
"But this is a very difficult step to make."
"I'm not saying it's easy. Being in power is a hard job to do. It means that you have to be
responsible and take risks for very unpopular things. Yet, a traitor shall be called and judged
as a traitor. Such things exclude understatement. One cannot curse and praise one and the same
thing at once."
"History shows us that assessments may alter with time. The things that were generally
seen as negative in the past can be seen as positive in present times. We can brand Gorbachev [as
triator], but it may turn out in 20 years that everything that he did was right and that he even
saved us."
"From whom did he save us? This relativity theory is a favorite trick of our liberals. The Soviet
Union was a nuclear power with a very strong economy. In 1991, Margaret Thatcher acknowledged in
Houston that the Soviet economy was a threat for Western economies during the 80s.
Gorbachev came to power in 1985 and the country was destroyed six years later. There can be
only one assessment made to what he had done to the country. As Lenin used to say, best politics
is politics based on principles."
"... a sense of disgust and horror he did not himself understand, ..."
"... "War and Peace" ..."
"... But what does our dear Krechetnikov do next? Oh, that's a real gem! Here is his main reason for opposing Kadyrov and his "attacks" on the shy and conscientious democratic opposition in Russia, whom he dares to call "the enemies of the people": ..."
"... "In fact, the term is meaningless because there is no national-superpersonality, able to want something or do not want it, to love or hate someone. There are many people who have different interests, opinions, and, accordingly, friends and enemies". ..."
"... That's it, people! That was my own "Bingo!" moment, when I finally got it all about the real issue of this "Kadyrov's scandal", but most importantly, I've 'groked' the essence of the modern international so-called Liberalism and its faithful servants in Russian. Let me explain it. ..."
"... What does it mean? Well, it means that any given country of the Progressive And Culturally Superior West is ruled by this or that iteration of a filthy rich elite brought up to power by this or that iteration of the local Bourgeoisie Revolution with the motto " Fuck the Poor! " engraved on every single decision of this self-perpetuation oligarchy draped in the, ha-ha, republican robes. Then there is a small but very, very noisy, so they appear larger than they actually are strata of the "intellectuals", high-priests in the temples of the long-dead gods of Freedom, Liberty and Equality, who fancy themselves as the one and only true keepers of the Democratic Legacy, of the Quintessence of what their particular "Nation" is all about but screw the history and traditions if we feel the other way on Tuesday. The fact that both of these"ruling classes" comprise (combined) perhaps less than 10% of the entire population doesn't discourage them at all in their perceived view of the world at large naturally, with them at the top. ..."
"... So, who are the rest of the people? Pfft, what a silly question! They do not exist. At all. Why are you looking so surprised at me? Didn't the good Sir Krechentikov just say that 'the people' do not exist? There you go! Move along nothing to see here. What you have for the 90% of the population instead of the "people" or even the "working class" are what good pro-democracy (and as any idiot in the Net will tell you pro-gay) Greeks referred as "walking and talking tools". And tools, as we know, usually are dumb, mono-tasked and easily replaceable. By other tools, no matter what their country of origin or the reasons of becoming "tools" in the first place. Ultimately, to the "ruling classes" they are all the same. ..."
"... So, when the so-called 'Russian liberals' are decrying 'their' own people and wish it to be replaced entirely one way or another they are actually voicing in their naive neophyte way what their much more experienced masters and colleagues from across the "Civilized World" have been keeping in mind for a long, long time. ..."
"... The Washington Post ..."
"... Well, what can one say? These fuckers are beyond redemption. Yes, I'm talking about WaPos Editorial Board not the Chechens. ..."
"... Andrei Piontkovsky is a "Russian journalist" (once again sorry for the word "journalist"), a researcher at the Institute for Systemic Analysis, a member of the International PEN Club. In 2012 he was elected to the Coordinating Council of the Opposition. In 2014 Piontkovsky signed a statement demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of the Ukraine and an end to "the annexation of Crimea". Such a paragon of handshakeability is just a rank'n'file "non-systemic opposition" figure a very typical representative indeed, but not on par with some of the more notorious ones. ..."
"... Editor's Note : We're only halfway through this thing, gang, so I have decided to break it in two so that it will not be too long. We'll give this first installment a week or so of exposure, and then follow with the conclusion. I have to say I like it so far! ..."
Uncle Volodya says, "There is a noticeable element of the pathological in some
current leftist critiques, which I tend to attribute to feelings of guilt allied to
feelings of impotence. Not an attractive combination, because it results in self-hatred."
One principal advantage this blog enjoys over many other Russia-focused blogs in English
is the participation of some ethnic-Russian and extremely competent speakers of English, some of
whom still live in Russia. We are therefore offered direct access to at least some opinion which
comes from the country which is our focus of interest, rather than being told what Russians think
by English-speaking journalists such as Shaun Walker, Roland Oliphant, Edward Lucas and thoroughly-westernized
Russian
ιmigrιs
like Julia Ioffe and Leonid Bershidsky. The importance of that unfiltered
opinion cannot be exaggerated, because the foregoing journalists and
ιmigrιs
frequently
sample only the opinions of groups likely to provide the soundbites they are looking for, or simply
make them up. This offers the comforting for some picture that there is widespread discontent
within Russia of the current government, wages have remained stagnant for decades and Russians envy
and covet western freedoms, which we must acknowledge is a popular narrative in the Anglosphere.
Our only opportunity to rebut it comes from passionate Russians who can express themselves competently
in English, and substantiate, flesh out and bring to life the alternative reality we know exists.
This, of course, is leading into another post from the erudite native Muscovite we know as Lyttenburgh.
I am delighted to be able to offer it here. Lyttenburgh, it's all yours.
Prologue
:
Prince Andrew was somewhat refreshed by having ridden off the dusty highroad along which the
troops were moving. But not far from Bald Hills he again came out on the road and overtook his regiment
at its halting place by the dam of a small pond. It was past one o'clock. The sun, a red ball through
the dust, burned and scorched his back intolerably through his black coat. The dust always hung motionless
above the buzz of talk that came from the resting troops. There was no wind. As he crossed the dam
Prince Andrew smelled the ooze and freshness of the pond. He longed to get into that water, however
dirty it might be, and he glanced round at the pool from whence came sounds of shrieks and laughter.
The small, muddy, green pond had risen visibly more than a foot, flooding the dam, because it was
full of the naked white bodies of soldiers with brick-red hands, necks, and faces, who were splashing
about in it. All this naked white human flesh, laughing and shrieking, floundered about in that dirty
pool like carp stuffed into a watering can, and the suggestion of merriment in that floundering mass
rendered it specially pathetic.
[ ]
"Flesh, bodies, cannon fodder!" he thought, and he looked at his own naked body and shuddered,
not from cold but from
a sense of disgust and horror he did not himself understand,
aroused by the sight of that immense number of bodies splashing about in the dirty pond
.
L. Tolstoy,
"War and Peace"
, volume 3, Book 10, Chapter V.
Part I.
I was "triggered" into writing this article by two factors. First by a somewhat "popular" in
narrow circles writer, Lyudmila Ulitskaya (a regular of "intelligentsia gatherings" organized by
Mikhail Khodorkovskiy) who just recently
compared Russians to "filthy, sick
savages"
. Not something out of the ordinary, really sadly, this is just another example of
the self-proclaimed members of the "Nation's Conscience" passing judgment on the rest of the people,
who might (o, horror!) disagree with them and their foreign sponsors.
Another came from a rather unusual source. As you all probably know, the "Kadyrov Scandal", started
when the President of the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation called non-systemic oppositionists
"traitors" and "enemies of the people" and called for them to be investigated and, if needed, prosecuted
in accordance with Russian Law. The scandal is not abating in Russia and now even the Foreign Democratic
And Independent press began noticing it. And so we have many different pieces from across the Civilized
World, all of them professing their love for the so-called "Russian liberals", "true opposition",
"civil society" and a burning hatred for the "wrong" Chechen Kadyrov (as opposed to the "good " Chechens,
whose actions they supported in the 90s and 00s).
This article
on a British government funded
BBC Russia
site is typical. Its author Artyom
Krechetnikov is a fine example of sad and failed dissident and ιmigrι, who just physically can't
write a good thing about his former country of birth.
Quite predictably, our Artyom is highly critical of Kadyrov's comparisons of the non-systemic
opposition to the enemies of the people. He even decided to write a little "historical essay" devoted
to that question starting with the Great French Revolution and ending with Mao's China. He makes
all possible mistakes one can expect from a rabid Russophobe and anti-Sovietist (which, all too often,
means the same thing). Say, while admitting that the Committee on the National Safety executed via
"
Mme Guillotine
" only 18,613 people, he immediately references 1935 "studies" of the American
historian Donald Greer, who, somehow, managed to increase this number to 40,000. The same way he
acts while talking about the "Great Terror" in the Soviet Union. He claims that in the period of
1921-1953, 3, 777, 380 people were persecuted by "political" charges (read: "they were completely
innocent from our absolutely superior liberal POV") and that 799,445 of them were executed. On the
one hand that's kinda-sorta progress compared to Beevor-SoLZHEnytsin's
"millions of innocents
shot for nothing in the span of a few years"
concept; but, still, a gross exaggeration and a
shameless lie. First of all he conflates in his "persecuted" claim in the form of a number of people
close to 4 million. Both those who were just charged with various political (but very real) crimes
and then released, and those who were sentenced to prison time or executed. Next, for an uninformed
reader a number of 799,455 looks big, scary and (because it's uneven) legit. But it's actually a
number of death
warrants
issued not the number of the actual executions carried out in the
USSR for this sort of crime in the period of more than 30
years
. The actual number is lower
about 680,000. Which is, kinda-sorta, less scary and also, by its mere fact of existence, proves
that some people (a whopping 120,000 of them) got pardoned or successfully pleaded their cause before
the ghoulish, baby-eating Stalinist government. But we don't want any ideological ambiguity, do we?
Even then, possessing basic skills of math, some primitive solar-panel calculator and access to reliable
and relevant statistical data will lead any would be "demolisher of Stalinism" to rather disheartening
conclusion that bloody mustachioed vampire managed to repress for political reasons about 2.7-3%
of the entire population. Boo-fricking-hoo.
But what does our dear Krechetnikov do next? Oh, that's a real gem! Here is his main reason for
opposing Kadyrov and his "attacks" on the shy and conscientious democratic opposition in Russia,
whom he dares to call "the enemies of the people":
"In fact, the term is meaningless because there is no national-superpersonality, able to want
something or do not want it, to love or hate someone. There are many people who have different interests,
opinions, and, accordingly, friends and enemies".
That's it, people! That was my own "Bingo!" moment, when I finally got it all about the real issue
of this "Kadyrov's scandal", but most importantly, I've 'groked' the essence of the modern international
so-called Liberalism and its faithful servants in Russian. Let me explain it.
Part II
It is considered to be a
mauvais ton
, a taboo even to talk about 'the people' or the 'working
class' in the Western Respectable Media and Academia. Big Scary No-No. Why? Well, because if you
are talking about the 'people' then you will inevitably go Patriotism=>Nationalism=>Nazism road.
And were you ever to raise a question about the 'working class', then, surely you will next arrive
at Socialism=>Stalinism=>gulags. That's a Well Known Fact . And no use to argue against the Free
and Independent Opinion, you Commie-Nazi Freak!
What does it mean? Well, it means that any given country of the Progressive And Culturally Superior
West is ruled by this or that iteration of a filthy rich elite brought up to power by this or that
iteration of the local Bourgeoisie Revolution with the motto "
Fuck the Poor!
" engraved
on every single decision of this self-perpetuation oligarchy draped in the, ha-ha, republican robes.
Then there is a small but very, very noisy, so they appear larger than they actually are strata
of the "intellectuals", high-priests in the temples of the long-dead gods of Freedom, Liberty and
Equality, who fancy themselves as the one and only true keepers of the Democratic Legacy, of the
Quintessence of what their particular "Nation" is all about but screw the history and traditions
if we feel the other way on Tuesday. The fact that both of these"ruling classes" comprise (combined)
perhaps less than 10% of the entire population doesn't discourage them at all in their perceived
view of the world at large naturally, with them at the top.
So, who are the rest of the people? Pfft, what a silly question! They do not exist. At all. Why
are you looking so surprised at me? Didn't the good Sir Krechentikov just say that 'the people' do
not exist? There you go! Move along nothing to see here. What you have for the 90% of the population
instead of the "people" or even the "working class" are what good pro-democracy (and as any idiot
in the Net will tell you pro-gay) Greeks referred as "walking and talking tools". And tools, as
we know, usually are dumb, mono-tasked and easily replaceable. By other tools, no matter what their
country of origin or the reasons of becoming "tools" in the first place. Ultimately, to the "ruling
classes" they are all the same.
So, when the so-called 'Russian liberals' are decrying 'their' own people and wish it to be replaced
entirely one way or another they are actually voicing in their naive neophyte way what their much
more experienced masters and colleagues from across the "Civilized World" have been keeping in mind
for a long, long time.
Naturally, it's a little wonder that the "nonexistent people" (according to the liberal
l'Internationale
)
have no "enemies" wishing to harm them or to screw them over
. And because about 90% of these
"non-people" are basically not even cognizant citizens who can take responsible actions on
their own its only in their best interests if some much more educated, handshakeable (albeit
miniscule) group of the "full-rights citizens" will decide what's better for them and, ugh, the "nation".
And to hell with these "elections" cattle know not how to vote properly anyway!
Don't believe me? I remind you, that thoroughly-beloved-by-the-West Russian journalist Yulia Latynina
argued against
allowing poor people to vote
. Plus, this Russian Ayn Rand-wannabe also
denies global warming
. She insists
that only when the "proper" Russia will "cut-away" the Far East, Siberia and North Caucasus will
we "start living like human beings" To no one's surprise, she's a great fan of Pinochet's Chile and
Lee Kwan-Yew's Singapore
.
Another rather descriptive example: Garry Kasparov, touted by the Free Press as yet another "leader
of the Russian opposition", now living in a self-imposed (and very comfortable) exile in the West,
who recently "erupted" with a program of actions for the Liberal Opposition when (not if when!)
they capture the power from the Regime.
A breathtaking
read
, I must say. He calls for the "purification" (that's not totalitarian purges, no it's
democratic "purification"!) of the society, because "
the society will have to pay for everything
for the support of Putin, for Georgia, for Crimea and for Donbass
" just like Germany and
Japan had to pay after 1945. He, jumping from here, calls for a "historical Nuremberg", with real
"
judicial process punishing the architects of the current regime
". And elections, democracy
and all that jazz? Oh, no it's impossible. No elections after the destruction of the Evil Regime
the people are too brainwashed, could be easily swayed and, Freedom forbid, might not vote for
the Good Guys. Dictatorship of the Warriors of the Light (now with Filtration Camps of Freedom)
are the only true way.
And now read anything from a bunch of other articles about "poor, isolated Russia" from our usual
suspects belonging to the Free And Independent Western Media and you'll notice the trend not a
peep about what the Russian
people
really, really want. Sure, you will find here many ballsy
claims about "Many in Russia suspect that Kadyrov [something-something-something-Dark Side]" without
any real proof about these mythical "many". 'Cause this particular ambiguously big "many" actually
covers only a Barbie-seized crowd of shy and conscientious
intilligents
, democratic journalists,
kreakls, hipsters and gays from the breadth of Russia.
They
are seen as the voice of Russia
and the true Elite who is entitled to rule the country not the 86% of unmentionable "others".
See for yourself
. There is no more vanilla anti-Russian pro-jingoistic neo-con paper in the American
Olympus of the 4th Estate than the "Pravda on the Potomac" AKA "
The Washington Post
". This
time, they scare their readership shitless with this scaaaary tale:
"
Now, the attack dog seems to be unleashed. Mr. Kadyrov has written an article published in
the daily Izvestia that pours scorn on the "nonsystemic opposition" to Mr. Putin and suggests it
be punished. The term "systemic opposition" in Russia usually refers to the toadies and sycophants
who support Mr. Putin. Mr. Kadyrov's sights are on everyone else who criticizes the president - and
he named names, including prominent opposition figure Alexei Navalny and journalists for Echo of
Moscow radio and Dozhd television, both progressive outlets. In the article, Mr. Kadyrov declares
that "there is a very good psychiatric hospital" in Chechnya where "we will not be stingy with injections"
to these critics. "When they are prescribed one injection, we can give two." He says the opposition
is a "pack of jackals," "bunch of traitors," "Western lackeys," "enemies of the people," "haters
of Russia," people who are trying "to destroy our country and undermine its constitutional order."
Stalin would recognize the language. Mr. Kadyrov's chief of staff drove the point home with a photo
posted on social media of the Chechen leader holding back a massive Caucasian Shepherd dog named
Tarzan, saying the beast's "teeth itch."
Well, what can one say? These fuckers are beyond redemption. Yes, I'm talking about WaPos Editorial
Board not the Chechens.
Not only did Mr. Kadyrov avoid naming anyone whom this article claims he
already wrote down into his "proscription lists" the article fails to mention that, in both of
his articles, Ramzan Achmadovitch didn't call for extra-judicial punishment of the so-called "non-systemic
opposition". He called for them to be investigated in accordance with Russian law. Meanwhile, the
very same Russian oppositionists who decry at every opportunity the brutality of Stalinist purges
and the sordid fact that a lot of people indeed wrote anonymous reports to NKVD
wrote
an anonymous report
accusing the president of Chechnya of violating art. 282 of the Criminal
Code of the Russian Federation, i.e. "inflammation of national strife" (as if "non-systemic opposition"
is in itself a nationality or ethnicity to be targeted specifically) and "the humiliation of dignity
of a certain social group". Some of them even went as far as to demand his resignation. But, understandably,
the chances of such
demarches
are very slim "traitors" and "the enemies of the people"
are not a social group according to existing Russian legislation, as well as "non-systemic opposition",
so that people labeled such could not demand any kind of legal recognition or compensation. Besides,
if the so-called Russian liberals are truly innocent before Russian law why are they fretting so
much at quite ordinary calls for an inquiry? C'mon, liberals are just a bunch of shy and conscientious
blokes and shiksas, who only want to embrace sweet Freedom and Universal Western Values! And, really
guys, no one is threatening Russia claiming otherwise means endorsing Kremlinite propaganda! Right?
Wrong. Just last Saturday, on ultra-liberal pro-opposition radio "Ekho Moscvy" (hailed by the
West as "one of the few remaining Free Media Sources in Russia") site,
an article
by equally
ultra-liberal and pro-opposition Andrey Piontkovskiy had been brought to the attention of
urbi
et orbi
. And there was a good reason for that in his article Piontkovskiy
calls for the secession
of Chechnya from Russia
. In this article, among other things, the author claims that the continued
presence of the Chechen republic within Russia threatens "a third Chechen war", so stopping the "ticking
clock of the Russian-Chechen disaster" is only possible through the provision of the full state of
independence of the republic. Among other reasons why it is necessary to do so, Piontkovsky lists
the murder of Boris Nemtsov and Anna Politkovskaya, and the story of the Krasnoyarsk deputy Senchenko,
who was forced to make a "humiliating apology" to Ramzan Kadyrov for calling him "a disgrace of Russia".
According to the "journalist" (sorry for the word journalist here), the Chechen people are the "most
difficult" of all the peoples of Russia and they don't want "
to transform from the Germans into
the Jews of the Third Reich
."
Later that part was cut from the article, but only after a huge (and I mean HUGE!) wave of angry
responses from both readers and from the people beyond the "comfort zone" of the "Ekho". And, of
course, ordinary users of RuNet proved themselves wily beasts by making lots of screenshots of that
page pre-"purging". Meanwhile, this whole fracas is more serious than it looks. According to art.
280, p.1 of the LC RF there is a real legal responsibility for public calls for action aimed at violating
the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation. Part two of this article states that said actions
are punishable by up to 5 years of imprisonment for such calls made with the use of the media. Also,
not only the author, but the editorial board of the media source hosting such articles are equally
responsible, and must answer before the law. That's the current Russian legislation. And not knowing
it does not absolve anyone from having committed a crime.
Andrei Piontkovsky is a "Russian journalist" (once again sorry for the word "journalist"), a
researcher at the Institute for Systemic Analysis, a member of the International PEN Club. In 2012
he was elected to the Coordinating Council of the Opposition. In 2014 Piontkovsky signed a statement
demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of the Ukraine and an end to "the annexation
of Crimea". Such a paragon of handshakeability is just a rank'n'file "non-systemic opposition" figure
a very typical representative indeed, but not on par with some of the more notorious ones.
I think the whole world must be reminded about other "achievements" of the so-called "Russian
liberal opposition". In 1994 they went to
Dudayev's stronghold
in
separatist Chechnya and, while there, used the radio relay to call for Russian soldiers to commit
an act of treason and surrender to the militants. Among them, human rights activist Sergey Kovalyov,
who swore that no harm will come to all who will surrender immediately they will even be transported
back to their military bases. The lucky ones of those naive soldiers who raised up their arms and
surrendered entered into years-long slavery. The less lucky were brutally tortured and mutilated,
and then killed.
And, yes these are the people hailed as true heroes by the Western Press, NGOs and Governments
(which, as Everybody Knows, are totally not interconnected between themselves). Should such persons
be investigated in accordance with Russian law and do they really deserve the term "enemies of the
people"? Well, the collective West thinks "No!". Russians have a diametrically opposite opinion
but who cares, as long as the Western Enlightened Populace's opinion is formed by the rabid Russophobic
spin-doctors from the WaPo and their ilk? Hell, even the best of them in the professional circle
of the "Russia-watchers" (read: as ethical and loyal as 17th century German mercenaries) are no better
and can't even bring themselves to say one simple phrase "Russian People". But they, unwittingly,
provide a useful insight into other interesting tidbits of this ugly elitist worldview.
Editor's Note
: We're only halfway through this thing, gang, so I have decided
to break it in two so that it will not be too long. We'll give this first installment a week
or so of exposure, and then follow with the conclusion. I have to say I like it so far!
A very good piece. The under 3% figure is something that is never presented to the western (and
Russian) masses. Sadly many good people suffered after 1917. They were not 5th column scum like
the liberast "non systemic" opposition today. Yet this scum is treated with kid gloves with no
sign of legal sanction for their actions. Kadyrov is right, it is time to throw the book at them.
I would say they merit more than simple legal prosecution. They need real persecution befitting
of their behaviour. They should be coerced out of Russia to go and live in their NATzO paradise.
The Russian constitution needs to be changed to allow for the revocation of citizenship. Liberast
5th columnists need to be stripped of Russian citizenship. This is quite natural and fair. These
mentally sick freaks are a real threat to Russian society and the Russian people.
I may be mistaken, but I don't think Lyttenburgh is a native Muscovite. I'm almost certain he
once said that he originates from the Urals somewhere, which makes his opinion even better, because
many often say that Moscow life does not reflect "real" life in Russia, and Lyttenburgh knows
full well what life in the provinces is ike as well as how things are in the capital.
If you
really want the views of a much lauded by the Moscow Times native Muscovite, see the opinions
of Alexei Bayer.
If Vladimir Volfovitch Zhirinovky could be a Kzakstan born native Muscovite and chief defender
of ethnic Russians ans the poor well, who am I to resist a title of Muscovite myself? ;)
I
was born in Sverdlovsk, USSR. Now its Yekaterinburg, Groysmanstan. I'm indeed a member of provincial
intilligentsia
who had it rought for itself during the 'Rough 90s' which makes us more
aligned to the plights of the working class, so to speak.
Years later I moved to Moscow region, and then to Moscow. Now I live on "two homes", with Moscow
being for work/study and the
oblast
for living like a human being (TM).
I also would like to use this comment as opportunity to come forward before the whole
mir
of the "Kremlin Stooge
Re: "Is NATO actually willing to go to war with Russia for NATO's credibility rather than the
slightly less fabulous idea of a Russian invasion of Poland and the Baltics (as the BBC would
like us to believe)? Germany doesn't want moslem Turkey in the EU, so why would 'Christian Europe'
sacrifice itself for power mad moslem Erdogan?"
Gilbert Doctorow wrote quite a great piece about
the BBC piece here:
I think GD is actually right about Russia's over-reaction:
"The tragedy of our times of information warfare is that well-educated and sincere citizens
are blind-sighted. We have an old maxim that when you cannot persuade, confuse. The fatal flaw
is when you believe your own propaganda. If nothing else, the BBC documentary demonstrates that
for Western elites this is what has happened. The reaction to the film from the Kremlin, suggests
the same has happened to Eastern elites."
I think this the first time I've seen Russian officials "losing their heads" a little bit.
Yes, that is a great piece, and Doctorow seldom disappoints. Russia certainly did miss a golden
opportunity to highlight those closing quotes, if they are as described (I didn't see it), although
they were perfectly right to rage against the demonization of Russia implicit in the scenario,
which supposedly had it attacking Latvia. Why would Russia do such a thing? If left to its own
devices and if current trends prevail (plummeting population and a youth unemployment rate of
more than 18%), the place will be empty in 20 years anyway.
Moreover, the scenario proposes that some 20 Latvian towns are 'taken by pro-Russian separatists',
a la Donbas. What happened to the will of the people? These are ethnic-Russian Latvians, not foreign
invaders. The west in general and Washington in particular has always had a soft spot in its heart
for popular uprisings, and if there is not a good one happening somewhere it often tries to create
one, it likes them so much. are you telling me that's just a political destabilization device,
and not a value the west champions at all?
"... Russia will certainly react, probably by moving more of its own heavy weapons, including advanced missiles, to its Western borders, possibly along with a number of tactical nuclear weapons. Indeed, a new and more dangerous US-Russian nuclear arms race has been under way for several years, which the Obama administration's latest decision can only intensify. ..."
"... Astonishingly, these potentially fateful developments have barely been reported in the US media, and there's been no public discussion, not even by the current presidential candidates during their debates. ..."
"... Every presidential candidate and the other leaders of both parties, as well as the editors and writers in the mainstream media who profess to be covering the 2016 campaign, the state of our nation, and world affairs are professionally and morally obliged to bring these dire developments to the fore. Otherwise, they will be harshly judged by history-if anyone is still around to write it. ..."
he Obama administration has just recklessly escalated its military confrontation with Russia.
The Pentagon's announcement that it will more than quadruple military spending on the US-NATO forces
in countries on or near Russia's borders pushes the new Cold War toward actual war-possibly even
a nuclear one.
The move is unprecedented in modern times. With the exception of Nazi Germany's invasion of the
Soviet Union, Western military power has never been positioned so close to Russia. The Obama administration's
decision is Russian roulette Washington-style, making the new Cold War even more dangerous than the
preceding one. Russia will certainly react, probably by moving more of its own heavy weapons,
including advanced missiles, to its Western borders, possibly along with a number of tactical nuclear
weapons. Indeed, a new and more dangerous US-Russian nuclear arms race has been under way for several
years, which the Obama administration's latest decision can only intensify.
The decision will also have other woeful consequences. It will undermine ongoing negotiations
between Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the Ukrainian
and Syrian crises, and it will further divide Europe itself, which is far from united on Washington's
increasingly hawkish approach to Moscow.
Astonishingly, these potentially fateful developments have barely been reported in the US
media, and there's been no public discussion, not even by the current presidential candidates during
their debates. Never before in modern times has such a dire international situation been so
ignored in an American presidential campaign. The reason may be that everything related to the new
Cold War in US-Russian relations since the Ukrainian crisis erupted in November 2013 has been attributed
solely to the "aggression" of Russian President Vladimir Putin or to "Putin's Russia"-a highly questionable
assertion, but long the media's standard policy narrative.
Every presidential candidate and the other leaders of both parties, as well as the editors
and writers in the mainstream media who profess to be covering the 2016 campaign, the state of our
nation, and world affairs are professionally and morally obliged to bring these dire developments
to the fore. Otherwise, they will be harshly judged by history-if anyone is still around to write
it.
"... the global oil market is not a market like those for smartphones, automobiles or ladies purses. The global oil ( gas) market is a STRATEGIC one. Which goes on to say that the core states, such as first of all, North America, then NW Europe get to have the first and final say. ..."
"... This problem is compounded by the fact that high oil prices enable geo-strategic rivals such as Russia/Iran/Iraq/Venezuela to be more defiant than they would otherwise be. ..."
"... The oil rich countries that are directly controlled by the US co (the US Empire) also known as GCC, follow an oil production policy that largely suits the core states themselves, depending on the situation and their ability to affect the global market. ..."
"... As North America was a massive oil importer circa 2009 (Canada cannot be seen in isolation, but as appendix to the US) this increased oil production went a lot way in: a)boosting economic growth (North America has easily outpaced other advanced economies since the Lehman crisis) b) Minimize the US trade deficit and therefore: c) Boosting the value of the US dollar. ..."
"... Countries outside of the US, Canada (to a lesser extent UK, Norway ) that are major oil producers, need to accrue massive profits from their oil sales, since they universally divert most of those funds into financing the government, the military and social spending, while they must also keep some for re-investments into their oil sectors. US Canada are uber-happy if they can more or less break-even. ..."
Could this have been due to the special place US has in the hierarchy.
When camels are thirsty
they are chewing thistle to relieve their thirst, but the thistle is dry, so in fact their own
blood relieve their thirst.
Dogs chew old bones but there is nothing in them, but pieces of splited bone pierce their mouth
ceiling and fresh blood makes them think there is food in there.
This is what US has done f.ed the little economic moment it still had because is the forefront
of the empire, he is going for the fresh blood of shale.
As I have repeatedly stated on this blog, the global oil market is not a market like those
for smartphones, automobiles or ladies purses. The global oil (& gas) market is a STRATEGIC one.
Which goes on to say that the core states, such as first of all, North America, then NW Europe
get to have the first and final say.
The problem for the US, Canada, Norway and the UK (the only wealthy countries producing large
quantities of oil) is that their oil reserves are extremely marginal and can only be accessed
with high oil prices (in the long-run) This problem is compounded by the fact that high oil
prices enable geo-strategic rivals such as Russia/Iran/Iraq/Venezuela to be more defiant than
they would otherwise be.
The oil rich countries that are directly controlled by the US & co (the US Empire) also
known as GCC, follow an oil production policy that largely suits the core states themselves, depending
on the situation and their ability to affect the global market.
In my view, this is what preceded the recent oil market collapse:
NATO-GCC to Russia in 2011/12: "Give up Assad, or we'll fill our media with BS stories
about you. We will also 'encourage' our corporations to not invest in your country"
Russia to NATO-GCC: "You have been doing that for ages, who cares for even more propaganda.
Assad stays"
NATO-GCC to Russia in 2013/14: "Give up Assad, or we will turn Ukraine against you, there
will be serious trouble for you, as now we will make our economic warfare against you, official.
Moreover, our 'regime-change' efforts will intensify"
Russia replies to NATO-GCC: "Bring it on, Assad stays"
NATO-GCC to Russia in 2014: "We will pummel the oil price into oblivion*, we promise that
you will feel the strain, just give up on Assad or we will destroy you"
Russia replies to NATO-GCC: "I have seen worse. Assad stays"
*Notice that NATO-GCC did not use the oil-price weapon until one of two things happened:
a) Time-pressure on regime-changing-Syria became serious.
b) The shale and tar sands infrastructure had been already put in place under high oil prices.
But back to Ron's core (and largely correct) claim that the global oil production gains of
recent years have been a North American phenomenon (I would also add Iraq)
North America has been able to ramp-up production spectacularly in recent years because of
the following reasons:
a) It's capital rich. Instead of diverting all of that QE-enabled loans to the parasitic "housing
market" and lots of inane Silicon Valley start-ups (that fail 99 times of 100) it was wiser to
have some dough flow into the "shale oil & gas miracle" as well as Alberta's vast tar sands deposits.
Which made both economic as well as strategic sense.
b) As North America was a massive oil importer circa 2009 (Canada cannot be seen in isolation,
but as appendix to the US) this increased oil production went a lot way in: a)boosting economic
growth (North America has easily outpaced other advanced economies since the Lehman crisis) b)
Minimize the US trade deficit and therefore: c) Boosting the value of the US dollar.
As I have noted many times before on this blog, some (maybe several) countries around the world
have massive oil reserves that are far more prolific than those currently being exploited in North
America. But these countries, do not enjoy neither the political/military clout over the GCC,
nor remotely the financial capital to engage in such massive (and risky) investments.
Countries outside of the US, Canada (to a lesser extent UK, Norway ) that are major oil
producers, need to accrue massive profits from their oil sales, since they universally divert
most of those funds into financing the government, the military and social spending, while they
must also keep some for re-investments into their oil sectors. US & Canada are uber-happy if they
can more or less break-even.
But the peak-oil-environmental bias of many, does not allow them to see this.
Your strategic analyses are very interesting Stavros, and fit many of the things we all know are
true. However I have a problem with the "We will pummel the oil price into oblivion" part.
The available evidence is that the price of oil followed very closely the supply/demand ratio.
The chart below is from Dr. Ed's blog.
I am always skeptical of interpretations that are not supported by evidence. There are multiple
theories about who caused the oil price to go down and why. I rather stick with the data, it is
not a PO bias but quite the opposite. A supply/demand mismatch caused it and nobody wanted to
cut production unilaterally.
The oil rich countries that are directly controlled by the US & co (the US Empire) also
known as GCC, The oil rich countries that are directly controlled by the US & co (the US Empire)
also known as GCC, follow an oil production policy that largely suits the core states themselves,
depending on the situation and their ability to affect the global market.
That statement makes no sense whatsoever. Just who is/are "US & Co"? Would that be Obama? Or
perhaps the US Congress? Or perhaps the US Oil Companies? Then in the second half of that long
sentence, you completely contradict the first half of the sentence. You say: follow an oil
production policy that largely suits the core states themselves," Now which is it? Are they
controlled by US & co, or are do they pay no attention to whomever in the US that is doing the
controlling and follow a policy that simply suits themselves?
I would definitely agree with the second half of your sentence, the GCC states do exactly what
they damn well please. And I would definitely disagree with the first half of your sentence. They
would pay no attention to any US politician or businessman that might call them up and try to
tell them what to do.
But back to Ron's core (and largely correct) claim that the global oil production gains
of recent years have been a North American phenomenon (I would also add Iraq).
Well no, that's not what I said. Yes, recent oil production gains have been from US, Canada,
Iraq and Saudi Arabia. But what I said was:
The recent surge in world production that was brought about by high prices
The recent gains in Iraq and Saudi Arabia were after the price already started to fall. Those
gains were not brought about by high prices. They were despite a steep decline in prices.
That statement makes no sense whatsoever. Just who is/are "US & Co"?
"US and Co" is essentially a codename for NATO. It is ruled by international financial elite
(Davos crowd) which BTW consider the USA (and, by extension, NATO) as an enforcer, a tool for
getting what they want, much like Bolsheviks considered Soviet Russia to be such a tool.
The last thing they are concerned is the well-being of American people.
The alleged Syrian peace process now enters its Geneva charade stage. This could last
months; get ready for lavish doses of posturing and bluster capable of stunning even Donald Trump.
The notion that Geneva may be able to impersonate Damascus in a suit-and-tie pantomime
is ludicrous to begin with. Even the UN envoy, the sartorially superb
Staffan
de Mistura, admits the Sisyphean task ahead - even if all relevant players were at the table.
Then we have Syrian "opposition figure" George Sabra announcing that no delegation from the
Riyadh-based High Negotiations Committee will be at the table in Geneva. As if Syrians needed
an "opposition" instrumentalized by Saudi Arabia.
So in the interest of providing context, here's an extremely concise recap of recent, crucial
facts on the Syrian ground which the "new capital" Geneva may ignore at its own peril.
Let's start with last summer, when Iranian Quds Force superstar commander Qasem Soleimani laid
down the law, in person, in Moscow, establishing without a doubt the grim situation across the
Syrian theater of war.
Essentially Soleimani told the Kremlin and Russian intelligence that Aleppo might be about
to fall; that Jabhat al-Nusra was at the doors of southern Damascus; that Idlib had fallen; and
Latakia - home to Russia's naval base at Tartus - would be next.
One can imagine the effect of this jolt of realpolitik on President Putin's mind. That clinched
his resolution to stop the fall of Syria, and prevent it from becoming a Libyan remix.
The Russian Air Force campaign turned out to be the ultimate game-changer.
It is in the process of securing the Damascus-Homs-Latakia-Hama-Aleppo network - the urban, developed
Western Syria that holds 70 percent of the country's population. ISIS/ISIL/Daesh and/or Jabhat
al-Nusra, a.k.a. al-Qaeda in Syria, have zero chances of taking over this territory. The rest
is mostly desert.
Jaysh al-Islam - a motley crew weaponized by Saudi Arabia - still holds a few positions north
of Damascus. That's containable. The country bumpkins in Daraa province, south of Damascus, could
only make a push towards the capital in an impossible 1991 Desert Storm context.
"Moderate rebels" - that Beltway concoction - did try to hold Homs and Al-Qusayr, cutting off
the resupply of Damascus. They were repelled. As for the gaggle of "moderate rebels" who took
all of Idlib province, they are being pounded mercilessly for four months now by the Russian Air
Force. Aleppo's southern front is also being secured.
Don't bomb "our" rebels
It's easy to pinpoint who's livid with all the Russian action: Saudi Arabia, Turkey and - last
but not least - the 'Empire of Chaos', all at the table in Geneva.
Jabhat al-Nusra - remote-controlled by Ayman al-Zawahiri - is intimately linked to a gaggle
of Salafi-jihadists in the Saudi-sponsored Army of Conquest, as well as tactically allied with
myriad outfits nominally grouped in the nearly extinct Free Syrian Army (FSA).
The CIA, using the Saudis for plausible deniability, fully weaponized "vetted" FSA outfits,
which received, among other things, TOW anti-tank missiles. Guess who "intercepted" virtually
all the weapons: Jabhat al-Nusra.
The follow-up was nothing short of hilarious: Washington, Ankara and Riyadh furiously denouncing
Moscow for bombing their "moderate rebels" and not ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.
Slowly but surely, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA), parallel to the Russian offensive, retook the
initiative. The "4+1" - Russia, Syria, Iran (Special Forces, many of them from Afghanistan), Iraq,
plus Hezbollah - started coordinating their efforts. Latakia Province - which hosts not only Tartus
but the Khmeimim Russian airbase - is now under total control by Damascus.
And that brings us to Ankara's nightmares. Russian Air Force smashed most of Ankara's Turkmen
proxies - heavily infiltrated by Turkish fascists - in northwest Syria. That was the key reason
for Sultan Erdogan's desperate move of shooting down the Su-24.
It's by now clear that the winners, as it stands, on the ground, are the "4+1", and the losers
are Saudi Arabia and Turkey. So no wonder the Saudis want at least some of their proxies at the
negotiating table in Geneva, while Turkey tries to change the subject by barring the Syrian Kurds:
these are accused of being terrorists, much more than ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.
Exit Geneva, enter Jarabulus
As if this was not messy enough, US 'Think Tankland' is now spinning there is an "understanding"
between Washington and Ankara for what will be, for all practical purposes, a Turkish invasion
of northern Syria, under the pretext of Ankara smashing ISIS/ISIL/Daesh in northern Aleppo.
This is utter nonsense. Ankara's game is three-pronged; prop up their heavily battered Turkmen
proxies; keep very much alive the corridor to Aleppo - a corridor that crucially includes the
Jihadi Highway between Turkey and Syria; and most of all prevent by all means necessary that YPG
Kurds bridge the gap from Afrin to Kobani and unite all three Syrian Kurd cantons near the Turkish
border.
None of this has anything to do with fighting ISISL/ISIL/Daesh. And the nuttiest part is that
Washington is actually assisting the Syrian Kurds with air support. Either the Pentagon supports
the Syrian Kurds or Erdogan's invasion of northern Syria; schizophrenia does not apply here.
A desperate Erdogan may be foolish enough to confront the Russian Air Force during his purported
"invasion". Putin is on the record saying response to any provocation will be immediate, and lethal.
To top it off, the Russians and Americans are actually coordinating airspace action in northern
Syria.
This is bound to be the next big thing, fully eclipsing the Geneva pantomime. The YPG and its
allies are planning a major attack to finally seize the 100-kilometer stretch of the Syria-Turkey
border still controlled by ISIS/ISIL/Daesh - thus reuniting their three cantons.
Erdogan was blunt; if the YPG pushes west of the Euphrates, it's war. Well, looks like war
then. The YPG is getting ready to attack the crucial towns of Jarabulus and Manbij. Russia most
certainly will aid the YPG to reconquer Jarabulus. And that will directly pit - once again - Turkey
against Russia on the ground.
Geneva? That's for tourists; the capital of the Syrian horror show is now Jarabulus.
"... And yet the alliance persists, kept afloat on a sea of Saudi money and a recognition of mutual self-interest. In addition to Saudi Arabia's vast oil reserves and role as the spiritual anchor of the Sunni Muslim world, the long intelligence relationship helps explain why the United States has been reluctant to openly criticize Saudi Arabia for its human rights abuses ..."
"... Although the Saudis have been public about their help arming rebel groups in Syria, the extent of their partnership with the CIA's covert action campaign and their direct financial support had not been disclosed. Details were pieced together in interviews with a half-dozen current and former American officials and sources from several Persian Gulf countries. Most spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the program. ..."
"... Months later, Mr. Obama gave his approval for the CIA to begin directly arming and training the rebels from a base in Jordan, amending the Timber Sycamore program to allow lethal assistance. Under the new arrangement, the CIA took the lead in training, while Saudi Arabia's intelligence agency, the General Intelligence Directorate, provided money and weapons, including TOW anti-tank missiles. ..."
"... The Qataris have also helped finance the training and allowed a Qatari base to be used as an additional training location. But American officials said Saudi Arabia was by far the largest contributor to the operation. While the Obama administration saw this coalition as a selling point in Congress, some, including Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, raised questions about why the CIA needed Saudi money for the operation, according to one former American official. Mr. Wyden declined to be interviewed, but his office released a statement calling for more transparency. "Senior officials have said publicly that the U.S. is trying to build up the battlefield capabilities of the anti-Assad opposition, but they haven't provided the public with details about how this is being done, which U.S. agencies are involved, or which foreign partners those agencies are working with," the statement said. ..."
"... While the Saudis have financed previous CIA missions with no strings attached, the money for Syria comes with expectations, current and former officials said. "They want a seat at the table, and a say in what the agenda of the table is going to be," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution . ..."
"... "The more that the argument becomes, 'We need them as a counterterrorism partner,' the less persuasive it is," said William McCants, a former State Department counterterrorism adviser and the author of a book on the Islamic State . "If this is purely a conversation about counterterrorism cooperation, and if the Saudis are a big part of the problem in creating terrorism in the first place, then how persuasive of an argument is it?" ..."
"... Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi interior minister who took over the effort to arm the Syrian rebels from Prince Bandar, has known the CIA director, John O. Brennan, from the time Mr. Brennan was the agency's Riyadh station chief in the 1990s. Former colleagues say the two men remain close, and Prince Mohammed has won friends in Washington with his aggressive moves to dismantle terrorist groups like Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. ..."
"... The roots of the relationship run deep. In the late 1970s, the Saudis organized what was known as the "Safari Club" - a coalition of nations including Morocco, Egypt and France - that ran covert operations around Africa at a time when Congress had clipped the CIA's wings over years of abuses. ..."
"... In the 1980s, the Saudis helped finance CIA operations in Angola, where the United States backed rebels against the Soviet-allied government. While the Saudis were staunchly anticommunist, Riyadh's primary incentive seemed to be to solidify its CIA ties. "They were buying good will," recalled one former senior intelligence officer who was involved in the operation. ..."
"... In perhaps the most consequential episode, the Saudis helped arm the mujahedeen rebels to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. The United States committed hundreds of millions of dollars each year to the mission, and the Saudis matched it, dollar for dollar. ..."
"... Prince Bandar pledged $1 million per month to help fund the contras, in recognition of the administration's past support to the Saudis. The contributions continued after Congress cut off funding to the contras. By the end, the Saudis had contributed $32 million, paid through a Cayman Islands bank account. ..."
WASHINGTON - When President Obama secretly authorized the
Central Intelligence Agency to begin arming
Syria 's embattled rebels in 2013, the spy agency knew it would have a willing partner to help
pay for the covert operation. It was the same partner the
CIA has relied on for decades for money and discretion in far-off conflicts: the Kingdom of
Saudi Arabia .
Since then, the CIA and its Saudi counterpart have maintained an unusual arrangement for the
rebel-training mission, which the Americans have code-named Timber Sycamore. Under the deal, current
and former administration officials said, the Saudis contribute both weapons and large sums of money,
and the CIA takes the lead in training the rebels on AK-47 assault rifles and tank-destroying missiles.
The support for the Syrian rebels is only the latest chapter in the decadeslong relationship between
the spy services of
Saudi Arabia and the United States, an alliance that has endured through the Iran-contra scandal,
support for the mujahedeen against the Soviets in Afghanistan and proxy fights in Africa. Sometimes,
as in
Syria , the two countries have worked in concert. In others, Saudi Arabia has simply written
checks underwriting American covert activities.
Decades of Discreet Cooperation
The joint arming and training program, which other Middle East nations contribute money to, continues
as America's relations with Saudi Arabia - and the kingdom's place in the region - are in flux. The
old ties of cheap oil and geopolitics that have long bound the countries together have loosened as
America's dependence on foreign oil declines and the Obama administration tiptoes toward a diplomatic
rapprochement with Iran.
And yet the alliance persists, kept afloat on a sea of Saudi money and a recognition of mutual
self-interest. In addition to Saudi Arabia's vast oil reserves and role as the spiritual anchor of
the Sunni Muslim world, the long intelligence relationship helps explain why the United States has
been reluctant to openly criticize Saudi Arabia for its human rights abuses, its treatment of
women and its support for the
extreme strain of Islam, Wahhabism , that has inspired many of the very terrorist groups the
United States is fighting. The Obama administration did not publicly condemn Saudi Arabia's
public beheading this month of a dissident Shiite cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who had challenged
the royal family.
Although the Saudis have been public about their help arming rebel groups in Syria, the extent
of their partnership with the CIA's covert action campaign and their direct financial support
had not been disclosed. Details were pieced together in interviews with a half-dozen current and
former American officials and sources from several Persian Gulf countries. Most spoke on the condition
of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the program.
From the moment the CIA operation was started, Saudi money supported it.
"They understand that they have to have us, and we understand that we have to have them," said
Mike Rogers, the former Republican congressman from Michigan who was chairman of the
House Intelligence Committee when the
CIA operation began. Mr. Rogers declined to discuss details of the classified program.
American officials have not disclosed the amount of the Saudi contribution, which is by far the
largest from another nation to the program to arm the rebels against President Bashar al-Assad's
military. But estimates have put the total cost of the arming and training effort at several billion
dollars.
The White House has embraced the covert financing from Saudi Arabia - and from Qatar, Jordan and
Turkey - at a time when Mr. Obama has pushed gulf nations to take a greater security role in the
region.
Spokesmen for both the CIA and the Saudi Embassy in Washington declined to comment.
When Mr. Obama signed off on
arming the rebels in the spring of 2013, it was partly to try to gain control of the apparent
free-for-all in the region. The Qataris and the Saudis had been funneling weapons into Syria for
more than a year. The Qataris had even smuggled in
shipments of Chinese-made FN-6 shoulder-fired missiles over the border from Turkey.
The Saudi efforts were led by the flamboyant Prince Bandar bin Sultan, at the time the intelligence
chief, who directed Saudi spies to buy thousands of AK-47s and millions of rounds of ammunition in
Eastern Europe for the Syrian rebels. The CIA helped arrange some of the arms purchases for the
Saudis, including a large deal in Croatia in 2012.
By the summer of 2012, a freewheeling feel had taken hold along Turkey's border with Syria as
the gulf nations funneled cash and weapons to rebel groups - even some that American officials were
concerned had ties to radical groups like Al Qaeda.
The CIA was mostly on the sidelines during this period, authorized by the White House under
the Timber Sycamore training program to deliver nonlethal aid to the rebels but not weapons. In late
2012, according to two former senior American officials, David H. Petraeus, then the CIA director,
delivered a stern lecture to intelligence officials of several gulf nations at a meeting near the
Dead Sea in Jordan. He chastised them for sending arms into Syria without coordinating with one another
or with CIA officers in Jordan and Turkey.
Months later, Mr. Obama gave his approval for the CIA to begin directly arming and training
the rebels from a base in Jordan, amending the Timber Sycamore program to allow lethal assistance.
Under the new arrangement, the CIA took the lead in training, while Saudi Arabia's intelligence
agency, the General Intelligence Directorate, provided money and weapons, including TOW anti-tank
missiles.
The Qataris have also helped finance the training and allowed a Qatari base to be used as
an additional training location. But American officials said Saudi Arabia was by far the largest
contributor to the operation. While the Obama administration saw this coalition as a selling point
in Congress, some, including Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, raised questions about why the
CIA needed Saudi money for the operation, according to one former American official. Mr. Wyden
declined to be interviewed, but his office released a statement calling for more transparency. "Senior
officials have said publicly that the U.S. is trying to build up the battlefield capabilities of
the anti-Assad opposition, but they haven't provided the public with details about how this is being
done, which U.S. agencies are involved, or which foreign partners those agencies are working with,"
the statement said.
When relations among the countries involved in the training program are strained, it often falls
to the United States to broker solutions. As the host, Jordan expects regular payments from the Saudis
and the Americans. When the Saudis pay late, according to a former senior intelligence official,
the Jordanians complain to CIA officials.
While the Saudis have financed previous CIA missions with no strings attached, the money
for Syria comes with expectations, current and former officials said. "They want a seat at the table,
and a say in what the agenda of the table is going to be," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst
and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution
.
The CIA training program is separate from another program to arm Syrian rebels, one the Pentagon
ran that has since ended. That program was designed to train rebels to combat Islamic State fighters
in Syria, unlike the CIA's program, which focuses on rebel groups fighting the Syrian military.
While the intelligence alliance is central to the Syria fight and has been important in the war
against Al Qaeda, a constant irritant in American-Saudi relations is just how much Saudi citizens
continue to support terrorist groups, analysts said.
"The more that the argument becomes, 'We need them as a counterterrorism partner,' the less
persuasive it is," said William McCants, a former State Department counterterrorism adviser and the
author of a book
on the Islamic State . "If this is purely a conversation about counterterrorism cooperation,
and if the Saudis are a big part of the problem in creating terrorism in the first place, then how
persuasive of an argument is it?"
In the near term, the alliance remains solid, strengthened by a bond between spy masters.
Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Saudi interior minister who took over the effort to arm the Syrian
rebels from Prince Bandar, has known the CIA director, John O. Brennan, from the time Mr. Brennan
was the agency's Riyadh station chief in the 1990s. Former colleagues say the two men remain close,
and Prince Mohammed has won friends in Washington with his aggressive moves to dismantle terrorist
groups like Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
The job Mr. Brennan once held in Riyadh is, more than the ambassador's, the true locus of American
power in the kingdom. Former diplomats recall that the most important discussions always flowed through
the CIA station chief.
Current and former intelligence officials say there is a benefit to this communication channel:
The Saudis are far more responsive to American criticism when it is done in private, and this secret
channel has done more to steer Saudi behavior toward America's interests than any public chastising
could have.
The roots of the relationship run deep. In the late 1970s, the Saudis organized what was known
as the "Safari Club" - a coalition of nations including Morocco, Egypt and France - that ran covert
operations around Africa at a time when Congress had clipped the CIA's wings over years of abuses.
"And so the kingdom, with these countries, helped in some way, I believe, to keep the world safe
at a time when the United States was not able to do that," Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former head
of Saudi intelligence, recalled in a speech at Georgetown University in 2002.
In the 1980s, the Saudis helped finance CIA operations in Angola, where the United States
backed rebels against the Soviet-allied government. While the Saudis were staunchly anticommunist,
Riyadh's primary incentive seemed to be to solidify its CIA ties. "They were buying good will,"
recalled one former senior intelligence officer who was involved in the operation.
In perhaps the most consequential episode, the Saudis helped arm the mujahedeen rebels to
drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. The United States committed hundreds of millions of dollars
each year to the mission, and the Saudis matched it, dollar for dollar.
The money flowed through a CIA-run Swiss bank account. In the book "
Charlie
Wilson's War ," the journalist George Crile III describes how the CIA arranged for the account
to earn no interest, in keeping with the Islamic ban on usury.
In 1984, when the Reagan administration sought help with its secret plan to sell arms to Iran
to finance the contra rebels in Nicaragua, Robert C. McFarlane, the national security adviser, met
with Prince Bandar, who was the Saudi ambassador to Washington at the time. The White House made
it clear that the Saudis would "gain a considerable amount of favor" by cooperating, Mr. McFarlane
later recalled.
Prince Bandar pledged $1 million per month to help fund the contras, in recognition of the
administration's past support to the Saudis. The contributions continued after Congress cut off funding
to the contras. By the end, the Saudis had contributed $32 million, paid through a Cayman Islands
bank account.
When the Iran-contra scandal broke, and questions arose about the Saudi role, the kingdom kept
its secrets. Prince Bandar refused to cooperate with the investigation led by
Lawrence E. Walsh , the independent counsel.
In a letter, the prince declined to testify, explaining that his country's "confidences and commitments,
like our friendship, are given not just for the moment but the long run."
"... While playing down the importance of government gains, Saleh said military aid from the rebels' foreign backers - including Saudi Arabia and Turkey - was not enough to confront offensives that are also backed on the ground by Iran. ..."
"... These are among the difficulties facing the FSA on the ground especially since the aerial bombing is affecting some headquarters, equipment, cars and personnel ..."
... The government last week made one of its most significant
gains since the start of the Russian intervention, capturing the town of Salma in Latakia province.
While recent gains do not appear to mark a tipping point in the conflict, with rebels fighting
back and regaining positions in some places, insurgents describe high levels of attrition on the
front lines of western Syria.
Officials close to Damascus say sealing the northwestern border with Turkey is the priority. A
Syrian military source said rebel supply lines from Turkey, which backs the insurgents, were under
pressure from Russian and Syrian air strikes.
... ... ...
"Most opposition-held areas turned to defense because of the huge mobilization by Russians troops
and the use of a large number of planes with unlimited munitions," said Jamil al-Saleh, commander
of a rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) group.
While playing down the importance of government gains, Saleh said military aid from the rebels'
foreign backers - including Saudi Arabia and Turkey - was not enough to confront offensives that
are also backed on the ground by Iran.
"These are among the difficulties facing the FSA on the ground especially since the aerial
bombing is affecting some headquarters, equipment, cars and personnel and the aid given is little
compared to the ferocious attack," he told Reuters.
Saudi Arabia's support for the opposition has yet to be translated into the kind of heavier weapons
the rebels are seeking, notably anti-aircraft missiles.
The military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said rebels were suffering from the destruction
of their weapons depots, made possible by good intelligence. Their appeals for more support showed
they had "lost a lot of field capacities", the source said.
"... Is there still this neocon superiority illusion that lets U.S. news media and politicians believe they are the only ones who matter? That the U.S. is the only country which has a say in global issues? ..."
"... We here in the US are not free, nor do we have a democracy at present. This is because the people are not being listened to by those appointed by them, nor is it clear that those appointed have actually been appointed by the people. (Putin did not say that - it is my own assessment.) ..."
"... Ignatius is a member of the American ruling class. His father was Secretary of the Navy and publisher of the Washington Post. Ignatius himself was educated at St. Albans School, Harvard, and Cambridge. During his career in journalism, he has occupied all sorts of prestigious postings. ..."
"... In the particular case of Obama and the US government, they dont seem motivated at all to reduce this dissonance, or to avoid situations and information likely to increase it, on the contrary, cognitive dissonance is the platform from which they constantly deny, contort, distort, and twist reality to fit their spurious needs. Thanks b for expounding into the US denial syndrome. ..."
"... Regarding the US vessels drifting into Irans territorial waters: Yes, my first thought was Gulf of Tonkin/USS Pueblo redux? ..."
"... The factual scenarios are different in all of these incidents, but there is a common denominator of US naval forces provocatively entering a hostile nations territorial waters, and claiming afterwards that it was either fully justified or an innocent mistake. ..."
"... The extract from the Putin interview contains some not-so-subtle swipes at US-style democracy which seem to have flown under the radar. Putin raised the Snowden issue because he sees Snowden Assad as equally Patriotic and trustworthy. Snowden believes in an America for all Americans and Assad believes in a Syria for all Syrians. And thats the reason the criminally insane USG hates them. ..."
"... He is making the point that Obama (unlike Assad) doesnt want Syrians deciding who their President should be and made damn sure that Americans didnt get to decide whether Snowden should be rewarded or punished for exposing USG criminality. ..."
"... It seems that the US media is so desperate that the US administration leaked that Bashar Al Assad will will stay until 2017 ( at least) that they are trying to present some compensation to that humiliating reality by inventing the idea of a punishment on Bashar al Assad. ..."
"... David Cameron concedes his claim of 70,000 moderate rebels was nonsense, but reiterates the policy: using rebel forces as pressure to achieve the removal of Assad. ..."
Some U.S. media
say that Iran is "aggressive" when it detains U.S. ships and sailors ... who invade Iranian waters.
It is such delusional worldview that has people all over the world shake their heads over U.S.
media and politics.
But this messy thinking starts at the top. The Obama administration is filled with delusional
thinkers. Consider
this nonsense , relayed by the unofficial spokesperson David Ignatius, over Putin's position
towards the Syrian President Assad:
Putin this week seemed to take a public step toward the U.S. position that Assad must
go eventually . In an interview with the German newspaper Bild released Tuesday,
Putin hinted that he might grant Assad asylum.
...
Putin's reference to asylum was taken "very seriously" by the White House, a second administration
official noted Tuesday. "I think he was sending a signal about where he stands"
that was consistent with what Russian officials have been telling the United States in private,
the official said.
Putin was in no way "sending a signal". He was deflecting a direct question that the reporters
asked. He took a firm stance that Assad must stay and be allowed to take part in new elections:
Question: If, contrary to expectations, al-Assad loses the elections, will you grant him the possibility
of asylum in your country?
Vladimir Putin: I think it is quite premature to discuss this. We granted asylum to Mr Snowden,
which was far more difficult than to do the same for Mr al-Assad.
First, the Syrian people should be given the opportunity to have their say. I assure
you, if this process is conducted democratically, then al-Assad will probably not need to leave
the country at all. And it is not important whether he remains President or not.
How is that "sending a signal"? The only signal I perceive therein is that - as far as Russia
is concerned - Assad will stay where he is right now. I have no doubt that the private statements
of Putin and the Russian government in this case are exactly the same than the official ones.
In October Obama
demanded that Russia let go of Assad or end in a quagmire. Since then the position of the Syrian
government
has solidified and the Russian support has turned out to be very effective and not a burden.
The position of the U.S. administration and its jihadist proxy forces in Syria has deteriorated.
With each Islamic State attack the pressure to end the U.S. war on Syria is increasing.
How then can the "administration official" come up with this nonsense?
Is there still this neocon superiority illusion that lets U.S. news media and politicians
believe they are the only ones who matter? That the U.S. is the only country which has a say in global
issues?
One would have thought that the lost war in Iraq and the U.S. quagmire in Afghanistan would have
cured such delusions. But stupid thinking seems hard to heal.
The interview you link to up top is important reading if only for the final comment on sports
and the arts that Putin makes. But I also enjoyed his reference to Goethe and the difference between
the Russian and German languages. I find Russian very hard to follow because of the rapid pace
at which it is spoken - Putin's explanation certainly corroborates that impression.
Also, his points about "freedom' and 'democracy' are worth consideration.
We here in the US are not free, nor do we have a democracy at present. This is because the
people are not being listened to by those appointed by them, nor is it clear that those appointed
have actually been appointed by the people. (Putin did not say that - it is my own assessment.)
lysias | Jan 13, 2016 11:47:16 AM | 5
Mikhail Lermontov did a great translation into Russian of Goethe's Wandrers Nachtlied 2. Here's
the German:
άber allen Gipfeln/ Ist Ruh,/ In allen Wipfeln/ Spόrest du/ Kaum einen Hauch;/ Die Vφgelein
schweigen im Walde./ Warte nur, balde/ Ruhest du auch.
And Lermontov's Russian:
Горные вершины/ Спят во тьме ночной./ Тихие долины/ Полны свежей мглой./ Не пылит дорога,/
Не дрожат листы./ Подожди немного,/ Отдохнёшь и ты.
Preserves Goethe's metrical/rhyme scheme almost perfectly, and stays remarkably close to the
sense of the German version.
Seward | Jan 13, 2016 12:04:52 PM | 6
Remember that David Ignatius is a writer of fiction. (He also has close insider ties with the
CIA, so often reflects their point of view. A mid-level manager I knew from there, now deceased,
was amazed at how much he knew.)
Ignatius is a member of the American ruling class. His father was Secretary of the Navy and
publisher of the Washington Post. Ignatius himself was educated at St. Albans School, Harvard,
and Cambridge. During his career in journalism, he has occupied all sorts of prestigious postings.
How then can the "administration official" come up with this nonsense?
Typical cognitive dissonance, which
Wikipedia defines
as
[...]"an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the
same time, performs an action that is contradictory to one or more beliefs, ideas or values, or
is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.[1][2]
Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance focuses on how humans strive for internal
consistency. An individual who experiences inconsistency (dissonance) tends to become psychologically
uncomfortable, and is motivated to try to reduce this dissonance-as well as actively avoid situations
and information likely to increase it.[1] [...]
In the particular case of Obama and the US government, they don't seem motivated at all to
reduce this dissonance, or to "avoid situations and information likely to increase it," on the
contrary, cognitive dissonance is the platform from which they constantly deny, contort, distort,
and twist reality to fit their spurious needs. Thanks b for expounding into the US denial syndrome.
Regarding the US vessels "drifting" into Iran's territorial waters: Yes, my first thought
was "Gulf of Tonkin/USS Pueblo redux?"
The factual scenarios are different in all of these incidents, but there is a common denominator
of US naval forces provocatively entering a hostile nation's territorial waters, and claiming
afterwards that it was either fully justified or an innocent mistake.
As noted in the links and comments, US wingnut politicians and pundits will incorporate this
event into their ever-bubbling stream of reactionary demagoguery. However, it seems as though
this contretemps is not escalating on the geopolitical level. So perhaps this time it really
was just a merry mixup.
Still-- I'm no sailor, and I defer to nautical experts here. But with all of the billions invested
in procuring state-of-the-art, high-tech navigation equipment for US Navy ships-- including a
network of satellites to support GPS location and tracking systems-- is it really plausible that
these vessels can indeed "drift" past territorial boundaries? Just askin'.
The extract from the Putin interview contains some not-so-subtle swipes at US-style democracy
which seem to have flown under the radar. Putin raised the Snowden issue because he sees Snowden
& Assad as equally Patriotic and trustworthy. Snowden believes in an America for all Americans
and Assad believes in a Syria for all Syrians. And that's the reason the criminally insane USG
hates them.
He is making the point that Obama (unlike Assad) doesn't want Syrians deciding who their
President should be and made damn sure that Americans didn't get to decide whether Snowden should
be rewarded or punished for exposing USG criminality.
He described Smowden's asylum in Russia as "far more difficult" because Obama and Putin both
know that the USG cancelled Snowden's passport, rendering him stateless and stranding him in Russia.
What a ridiculous idea! Why Bashar al Assad who stood facing the hateful plots of the USA, France,
the UK, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar and is winning over ISIS would go on exile? Who will decide
that? The UN? The US? The pathetic opposition? Erdogan? Under which authority? Normally a leader
is sent to exile if he loose the war. Bashar did not loose the war, he is winning politically
and militarily. The losers are the SNC and the rebels and they are already exiled in Turkey where
they will stay to the end of their lives if they care for their lives.
It seems that the US media is so desperate that the US administration leaked that Bashar Al
Assad will will stay until 2017 ( at least) that they are trying to present some compensation
to that humiliating reality by inventing the idea of a punishment on Bashar al Assad.
Ignatius is totally off track as he has been for 4 years...
Not sure the political leadership or punditry are delusional or stupid - they are simply staying
"on message" and their statements reflect policy. The policy, even after Russia's intervention
in Syria, continues to be regime-change in Damascus and the use of "rebel" proxy forces to see
this through.
Here, David Cameron concedes his claim of 70,000 moderate rebels was nonsense, but reiterates
the policy: using rebel forces as "pressure" to achieve the removal of Assad.
"... Is there still this neocon superiority illusion that lets U.S. news media and politicians believe they are the only ones who matter? That the U.S. is the only country which has a say in global issues? ..."
"... Ignatius is a member of the American ruling class. His father was Secretary of the Navy and publisher of the Washington Post. Ignatius himself was educated at St. Albans School, Harvard, and Cambridge. During his career in journalism, he has occupied all sorts of prestigious postings. ..."
"... Regarding the US vessels drifting into Irans territorial waters: Yes, my first thought was Gulf of Tonkin/USS Pueblo redux? ..."
"... The factual scenarios are different in all of these incidents, but there is a common denominator of US naval forces provocatively entering a hostile nations territorial waters, and claiming afterwards that it was either fully justified or an innocent mistake. ..."
"... The extract from the Putin interview contains some not-so-subtle swipes at US-style democracy which seem to have flown under the radar. Putin raised the Snowden issue because he sees Snowden Assad as equally Patriotic and trustworthy. Snowden believes in an America for all Americans and Assad believes in a Syria for all Syrians. And thats the reason the criminally insane USG hates them. ..."
"... He is making the point that Obama (unlike Assad) doesnt want Syrians deciding who their President should be and made damn sure that Americans didnt get to decide whether Snowden should be rewarded or punished for exposing USG criminality. ..."
"... David Cameron concedes his claim of 70,000 moderate rebels was nonsense, but reiterates the policy: using rebel forces as pressure to achieve the removal of Assad. ..."
Some U.S. media
say that Iran is "aggressive" when it detains U.S. ships and sailors ... who invade Iranian waters.
It is such delusional worldview that has people all over the world shake their heads over U.S.
media and politics.
But this messy thinking starts at the top. The Obama administration is filled with delusional
thinkers. Consider
this nonsense , relayed by the unofficial spokesperson David Ignatius, over Putin's position
towards the Syrian President Assad:
Putin this week seemed to take a public step toward the U.S. position that Assad must
go eventually . In an interview with the German newspaper Bild released Tuesday,
Putin hinted that he might grant Assad asylum.
...
Putin's reference to asylum was taken "very seriously" by the White House, a second administration
official noted Tuesday. "I think he was sending a signal about where he stands"
that was consistent with what Russian officials have been telling the United States in private,
the official said.
Putin was in no way "sending a signal". He was deflecting a direct question that the reporters
asked. He took a firm stance that Assad must stay and be allowed to take part in new elections:
Question: If, contrary to expectations, al-Assad loses the elections, will you grant him the possibility
of asylum in your country?
Vladimir Putin: I think it is quite premature to discuss this. We granted asylum to Mr Snowden,
which was far more difficult than to do the same for Mr al-Assad.
First, the Syrian people should be given the opportunity to have their say. I assure
you, if this process is conducted democratically, then al-Assad will probably not need to leave
the country at all. And it is not important whether he remains President or not.
How is that "sending a signal"? The only signal I perceive therein is that - as far as Russia
is concerned - Assad will stay where he is right now. I have no doubt that the private statements
of Putin and the Russian government in this case are exactly the same than the official ones.
In October Obama
demanded that Russia let go of Assad or end in a quagmire. Since then the position of the Syrian
government
has solidified and the Russian support has turned out to be very effective and not a burden.
The position of the U.S. administration and its jihadist proxy forces in Syria has deteriorated.
With each Islamic State attack the pressure to end the U.S. war on Syria is increasing.
How then can the "administration official" come up with this nonsense?
Is there still this neocon superiority illusion that lets U.S. news media and politicians
believe they are the only ones who matter? That the U.S. is the only country which has a say in global
issues?
One would have thought that the lost war in Iraq and the U.S. quagmire in Afghanistan would have
cured such delusions. But stupid thinking seems hard to heal.
The interview you link to up top is important reading if only for the final comment on sports
and the arts that Putin makes. But I also enjoyed his reference to Goethe and the difference between
the Russian and German languages. I find Russian very hard to follow because of the rapid pace
at which it is spoken - Putin's explanation certainly corroborates that impression.
Also, his points about "freedom' and 'democracy' are worth consideration.
We here in the US are not free, nor do we have a democracy at present. This is because the
people are not being listened to by those appointed by them, nor is it clear that those appointed
have actually been appointed by the people. (Putin did not say that - it is my own assessment.)
lysias | Jan 13, 2016 11:47:16 AM | 5
Mikhail Lermontov did a great translation into Russian of Goethe's Wandrers Nachtlied 2. Here's
the German:
άber allen Gipfeln/ Ist Ruh,/ In allen Wipfeln/ Spόrest du/ Kaum einen Hauch;/ Die Vφgelein
schweigen im Walde./ Warte nur, balde/ Ruhest du auch.
And Lermontov's Russian:
Горные вершины/ Спят во тьме ночной./ Тихие долины/ Полны свежей мглой./ Не пылит дорога,/
Не дрожат листы./ Подожди немного,/ Отдохнёшь и ты.
Preserves Goethe's metrical/rhyme scheme almost perfectly, and stays remarkably close to the
sense of the German version.
Seward | Jan 13, 2016 12:04:52 PM | 6
Remember that David Ignatius is a writer of fiction. (He also has close insider ties with the
CIA, so often reflects their point of view. A mid-level manager I knew from there, now deceased,
was amazed at how much he knew.)
Ignatius is a member of the American ruling class. His father was Secretary of the Navy and
publisher of the Washington Post. Ignatius himself was educated at St. Albans School, Harvard,
and Cambridge. During his career in journalism, he has occupied all sorts of prestigious postings.
How then can the "administration official" come up with this nonsense?
Typical cognitive dissonance, which
Wikipedia defines
as [...]"an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the
same time, performs an action that is contradictory to one or more beliefs, ideas or values, or
is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.[1][2]
Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance focuses on how humans strive for internal
consistency. An individual who experiences inconsistency (dissonance) tends to become psychologically
uncomfortable, and is motivated to try to reduce this dissonance-as well as actively avoid situations
and information likely to increase it.[1] [...]
In the particular case of Obama and the US government, they don't seem motivated at all to
reduce this dissonance, or to "avoid situations and information likely to increase it," on the
contrary, cognitive dissonance is the platform from which they constantly deny, contort, distort,
and twist reality to fit their spurious needs.
Thanks b for expounding into the US denial syndrome.
Regarding the US vessels "drifting" into Iran's territorial waters: Yes, my first thought
was "Gulf of Tonkin/USS Pueblo redux?"
The factual scenarios are different in all of these incidents, but there is a common denominator
of US naval forces provocatively entering a hostile nation's territorial waters, and claiming
afterwards that it was either fully justified or an innocent mistake.
As noted in the links and comments, US wingnut politicians and pundits will incorporate this
event into their ever-bubbling stream of reactionary demagoguery. However, it seems as though
this contretemps is not escalating on the geopolitical level. So perhaps this time it really
was just a merry mixup.
Still-- I'm no sailor, and I defer to nautical experts here. But with all of the billions invested
in procuring state-of-the-art, high-tech navigation equipment for US Navy ships-- including a
network of satellites to support GPS location and tracking systems-- is it really plausible that
these vessels can indeed "drift" past territorial boundaries? Just askin'.
The extract from the Putin interview contains some not-so-subtle swipes at US-style democracy
which seem to have flown under the radar. Putin raised the Snowden issue because he sees Snowden
& Assad as equally Patriotic and trustworthy. Snowden believes in an America for all Americans
and Assad believes in a Syria for all Syrians. And that's the reason the criminally insane USG
hates them.
He is making the point that Obama (unlike Assad) doesn't want Syrians deciding who their
President should be and made damn sure that Americans didn't get to decide whether Snowden should
be rewarded or punished for exposing USG criminality.
He described Smowden's asylum in Russia as "far more difficult" because Obama and Putin both
know that the USG cancelled Snowden's passport, rendering him stateless and stranding him in Russia.
What a ridiculous idea! Why Bashar al Assad who stood facing the hateful plots of the USA, France,
the UK, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar and is winning over ISIS would go on exile? Who will decide
that? The UN? The US? The pathetic opposition? Erdogan? Under which authority? Normally a leader
is sent to exile if he loose the war. Bashar did not loose the war, he is winning politically
and militarily. The losers are the SNC and the rebels and they are already exiled in Turkey where
they will stay to the end of their lives if they care for their lives.
It seems that the US media is so desperate that the US administration leaked that Bashar Al
Assad will will stay until 2017 ( at least) that they are trying to present some compensation
to that humiliating reality by inventing the idea of a punishment on Bashar al Assad.
Ignatius is totally off track as he has been for 4 years...
Not sure the political leadership or punditry are delusional or stupid - they are simply staying
"on message" and their statements reflect policy. The policy, even after Russia's intervention
in Syria, continues to be regime-change in Damascus and the use of "rebel" proxy forces to see
this through.
Here, David Cameron concedes his claim of 70,000 moderate rebels was nonsense, but reiterates
the policy: using rebel forces as "pressure" to achieve the removal of Assad.
The West goal from the very beginning was the regime change by whatever means and to neoliberalize
Syria just like Iraq. Now Germany got payback.
Notable quotes:
"... The Turkish government says the culprit was a 28 year old Saudi man. That mostly excludes that this was an attack of the PKK or any radical left group. ..."
"... The attacks real target is the Turkish economy. Istanbul is the third most visited tourist city in Europe. That will now change. ..."
"... The border crossing remained open until Kurdish forces took control of the town in June, at which point Turkey promptly sealed it. The crossing remains closed, a government official confirmed. ..."
"... There are still other parts of the border where people can cross from Islamic State held territory to Turkey and back. Imports to the Islamic State come mostly from Turkey while stolen oil is exported to Turkey. Turkey will have to stop all support for the various terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq or it will experience ever increasing mayhem on its own soil. ..."
"... Last year Turkey helped an alliance that included al-Qaeda in Syria and similar groups in capturing Idleb province and Idleb city from the Syrian government. That attack und the Turkish support for these groups was one of the reasons that prompted the Russians to intervene on the Syrian government side. ..."
"... But Turkey is not the only western country that is still actively supporting the Jihadidsts ..."
"... Can someone explain why and how the U.S. Syrian Emergency Task Force, which is financed by the U.S. State Department , can continue to operate in al-Qaeda occupied Idleb? ..."
"... According to the Indian ambassador in Syria at that time al-Qaeda was involved even in the very first weeks of the 2011 peaceful protests . A fact that at that time was denied by western media and is still covered up in recent reporting. ..."
"... Nabil Fadli, a 28-year-old ISIL militant of Syrian origin who was born in Saudi Arabia in 1988 , blew himself up after blending into a tourist group of 33 German citizens ..."
"... Oddly, and alarmingly, CCTV picked up on BBCs starvation bs fake photos only moments after BBC started the rumours. But this morning (less than an hour ago) reported that the rebels had been commandeering the food aid and extorting money from BBCs starving Syrians - a pretty difficult crime to pin on the SAA or Assad in the circumstances. ..."
"... Why would Daesh attack its patron Erdogan, even if only to strike against Germany? Why would Erdogan openly blame his proteges in Daesh? ..."
"... Erdogan made a lucrative deal with the EU in exchange for stemming the flow of refugees and part of that deal was Turkey closing its borders discernibly to the free (and very lucrative) flow of money, oil, personnel, weapons TO and FROM ISIS ... i.e. they became (at least publicly) accomodationists if not fully collaborators in the war against ISIS (talk is cheap, proof of the pudding, etc). ..."
"... Because it is Turkey, nothing can be taken for what it seems to be ... is Turkey begin punished by ISIS? or is this Turkey way of proving that it is stifling ISIS ambitions (false flags can never be ruled out wrt Turkey) ..."
"... At this point in time, you seriously have to have your f*cking head examined to visit ANY place at all in the Islamic world. Why risk becoming collateral damage while the West is at war with them and the Muslims are at war with each other? ..."
"... Iran is quite safe, and will see the biggest tourist boom this year. But you are right, other than Iran the rest of Muslim World is f**cked, US and its puppets set them all ablaze. ..."
"... I suspect that Bibi is praying to whatever G-d he worships, that Erdogan doesnt start questioning his belief that some of my best friends are Israelis . ..."
"... Looks like Turkeys little pet cobra project has taken a new turn.. All the cuddly pet cobras have now grown into uncontrollable king cobras that dont mind biting anyone - including their masters. ..."
... Ten people, most of them
foreign tourists, were
killed
in a suicide attack in the Sultanahmet district, a main tourist area in Istanbul.
The Turkish government
says
the culprit was a 28 year old Saudi man. That mostly excludes that this was an attack of
the PKK or any radical left group.
The Islamic State is likely the organization behind this attack.
The attack's real target is the Turkish economy. Istanbul is the third most visited tourist city
in Europe. That will now change.
Turkey has long said that it is unable to secure its 500-mile border with Syria. In January, as
Isis was logging people passing in and out of Tel Abyad, the Turkish prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu,
told the Independent that sealing the border would be impossible.
...
The border crossing remained open until Kurdish forces took control of the town in June, at which
point Turkey promptly sealed it. The crossing remains closed, a government official confirmed.
There are still other parts of the border where people can cross from Islamic State held territory
to Turkey and back. Imports to the Islamic State come mostly from Turkey while stolen oil is exported
to Turkey. Turkey will have to stop all support for the various terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq
or it will experience ever increasing mayhem on its own soil.
Last year Turkey helped an alliance that included al-Qaeda in Syria and similar groups in capturing
Idleb province and Idleb city from the Syrian government. That attack und the Turkish support for
these groups was one of the reasons that prompted the Russians to intervene on the Syrian
government side.
... ... ...
But Turkey is
not the only
"western" country that is still actively supporting the Jihadidsts
:
In a statement Monday to Foreign Policy, the Syrian Emergency Task Force said Russian planes bombed
one of its offices in central Idlib province in a strike that "completely destroyed" the facility
and equipment. The staff - which host civil society workshops, helps distribute U.S. humanitarian
aid, and documents atrocities - was not present during the incident, and no one was killed, according
to SETF.
Can someone explain why and how the U.S. Syrian Emergency Task Force, which is
financed by the U.S. State Department
, can continue to operate in al-Qaeda occupied Idleb?
When the Russian air support in Syria started and the Syrian army went on the offense a large
number of U.S. provided anti-tank guided missiles where used by the terrorists. The number of such
missile attacks has now significantly decreased. The Russian bombing broke the logistic lines of
the various groups and ransacked their headquarters and support areas. The four month bombing campaign
is now showing real results.
In Latakia in north west Syria the Syrian army today took the resort town Salma which had been
a major center of terrorist activities in the area. Yesterday a whole suburb west of Aleppo city
fell to the Syrian army. East of Aleppo city the Syrian army is advancing towards Al Bab which lies
on one of the Islamic State's major roads to Turkey. Near Rastan in Homs province the Syrian army
crossed the Orontes river and captured Jarjisah. Further south the Syrian army is progressing towards
the Jordanian border. The Russian air attacks also
support
the advances of the Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State under the label of the
U.S. created Syrian Democratic Front.
The SDF is now moving to Manbij north east from Aleppo from
the east and
towards
Avaz north-west of Aleppo from the west which together with the Syrian government rush
north towards Al Bab develops into a pincer movement that will cut the Islamic State and other terrorist
groups from the Turkish border.
... ... ...
The "starving" claims were fake assertions as they have accompanied the war on Syria from its
very beginning.
According to the Indian ambassador in Syria at that time al-Qaeda was
involved even in the very first weeks of the 2011 "peaceful protests". A fact that at that time
was denied by "western" media and is still covered up in recent reporting.
9 dead Germans was what I thought I heard on RT television, but RT's print report only says "At least
nine German citizens were injured in the blast, Reuters reports citing a senior Turkish official."
https://www.rt.com/news/328603-turkey-istanbul-blast-square/
There was apparently a party of German tourists in Sultanahmet Square when the bomb went off.
Sultanahmet Square (Sultanahmet Meydanı), located between Hagia Sophia and the Blue (Sultanahmet)
Mosque, is the site of the Hippodrome of Constantine, one of the prime tourist sites in Istanbul.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippodrome_of_Constantinople
"
Nabil Fadli, a 28-year-old ISIL militant of Syrian origin who
was born in Saudi Arabia in 1988
, blew himself up after blending into a tourist group of 33 German citizens
on a visit to the
Obelisk of Theodosius in Sultanahmet Square near the Blue Mosque in the morning hours of Jan. 12
when the popular square was relatively less crowded compared to the rest of the day. "
You all are on top of things more than I am, so excuse me if you have already taken note of
this
:
The Islamic State terror group is making significant gains in Libya as hundreds of its members
have been detected moving there from Syria and Iraq in recent weeks amid stepped up bombing and tighter
border controls.
i walked thru this area a number of times when we visited turkey in 2012...
i feel sorry for the people of turkey and the world by extension that we have to suffer thru this
all..
"Can someone explain why and how the U.S. Syrian Emergency Task Force, which is financed by the
U.S. State Department, can continue to operate in al-Qaeda occupied Idleb?" the usa is in bed with
'''moderate''' terrorists...
"Bombing (only) is not a solution for conflicts." ditto that.
"information operations".. they are running out of pretty well everything else and hollywood is
all they have..
Thanks for the timely report, b. CCTV and the once-a-week RT broadcast I watch have been silent on
Russia's Syria campaign for nearly 2 months. Sporadic reports from other sources have been positive
so I assumed that Russia had decided to let the results speak for themselves or, more accurately,
to be whined about by Zio-FRUKUS. The BBC led the Western Whine-fest with its Bliar-ish reports about
Madaya, quickly followed by the Turkish Govt which is whining about Russia helping Assad instead
of "fighting IS" (a US joke which is only funny if you're not Syrian or Russian).
Oddly, and alarmingly, CCTV picked up on BBC's starvation bs & fake photos only moments after
BBC started the rumours. But this morning (less than an hour ago) reported that the "rebels" had
been commandeering the food aid and extorting money from BBC's 'starving Syrians' - a pretty difficult
crime to pin on the SAA or Assad in the circumstances.
Erdogan made a lucrative deal with the EU in exchange for stemming the flow of refugees and part
of that deal was Turkey closing its borders discernibly to the free (and very lucrative) flow of
money, oil, personnel, weapons TO and FROM ISIS ... i.e. they became (at least publicly) accomodationists
if not fully collaborators in the war against ISIS (talk is cheap, proof of the pudding, etc).
Because it is Turkey, nothing can be taken for "what it seems to be" ... is Turkey begin punished
by ISIS? or is this Turkey way of proving that it is stifling ISIS' ambitions (false flags can never
be ruled out wrt Turkey)
It's rather shocking that all stories on the suicide bombing fret immediately about the effect
on Turkey's tourism economy ... "Nuclear War? -- There goes my whole career"
graphic
. Yes, investor dividends may be disappointing.
At this point in time, you seriously have to have your f*cking head examined to visit ANY place at
all in the Islamic world. Why risk becoming collateral damage while the West is at war with them
and the Muslims are at war with each other?
Iran is quite safe, and will see the biggest tourist boom this year. But you are right, other
than Iran the rest of Muslim World is f**cked, US and its puppets set them all ablaze.
I suspect that Bibi is praying to whatever G-d he worships, that Erdogan doesn't start questioning
his belief that "some of my best friends are "Israelis".
Because if that belief falters then it's
Game Over for Israel and a slightly better than even chance of a Turkey-Iran alliance.
Looks like Turkey's little pet cobra project has taken a new turn.. All the cuddly pet cobras have
now grown into uncontrollable king cobras that don't mind biting anyone - including their masters.
When Turkey started messing around in Syria, I said Turkey will eventually become like Pakistan.
Guess I was right.
May the souls of the innocent, who had absolutely nothing to do with all this mess, rest in peace.
Every sane Europeans should begin questioning their leaders about their support of the AKP, Saudi
Arabia and the whole regime change nonsense in Syria. It's brought them nothing but pain.
Can someone explain why and how the U.S. Syrian Emergency Task Force, which is financed by the
U.S. State Department, can continue to operate in al-Qaeda occupied Idleb?
In the liberated areas in the north of Syria, civilians are finding ways to develop grassroots
civilian democratic structures to provide rule of law, basic services such as trash collection, civilian
police force, and utilities. These CACs are being created out of necessity, but they are also the
seeds of proto-democratic structures that the Syrian people themselves developed without international
help.
Defying conventional wisdom, the authority of the CACs is respected by the armed opposition,
because they are providing social services and a structure that encourages stability for the families
of the men currently fighting the regime.
It is important that the funding mechanism being employed
helps to further unite the opposition and mitigates financial competition from occurring. Support
of CACs helps to stabilize liberated areas and provide civilian oversight and authority.
This is the review of the book of David Talbot's The Devil's Chessboard. Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise
of America's Secret Government by one of Moon of Alabama readers.
Looks like the course on making The USA imperial power (which was related later in Washington consensus and Wolfowitz doctrine)
was taken directly after WWII. Cold War was just a smoke screen under which the USA tried to establish hegemony over the world. Both
documents could well be written by Alan Dulles himself.
Any president who dare to deviate from this is ostracized , impeached or killed. So the political role of intelligence agencies
since their establishment by Truman was to serve as the brain center if USA imperial beuracracy (as well as the tools for projecting
it abroad)
The CIA is a hybrid of an intelligence service that gathers and analyzes foreign intelligence and a clandestine service that
conducts covert operations. Both functions are essential to creating pretexts for wars and for expanding the US influence abroad for
multinationals, and that is what they have done for 70 years (Dulles came from Wall Street). Among other things it
deliberately creates small wars just to demonstrate the US military might. Neoconservative theorist and intelligence operative
Michael Ledeen suggested that every 10 years or so, the United States "pick up some small crappy little country and throw it
against the wall, just to show we mean business."
Another book deserves to mentioned here too here too. Prouty book
The Secret Team: The CIA and its Allies in Control
of the United States and the World (which was suppressed in 1973 when irt was published and did not see shelves before
republishing in 2011) is described like the the U.S.'s aggressive and illegal war policy conducted by CIA has finally provoked
a real military threat to the U.S., albeit one that has emerged only in response to U.S. war plans
U.S. Air Force Colonel Fletcher Prouty was the chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1955 to 1964,
managing the global military support system for the CIA in Vietnam and around the world. described how the CIA infiltrated the U.S.
military, the State Department, the National Security Council and other government institutions, covertly placing its officers in
critical positions to ensure that its plans are approved and that it has access to whatever forces, weapons, equipment, ammunition
and other resources it needs to carry them out.
Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... We find Dulles attempting to convince his superiors of the need and advantages of dealing with "moderate Nazis" like Reinhard
Gehlen, so today there are personalities in our government following a policy of working with "moderate Islamists" and "moderate ultra-nationalists"
to achieve our goals. ..."
"... Perhaps someone looking for more focus on Dulles the man might be disappointed by this, but for someone like myself interested
in the history and insights of era Dulles lived in. The era covered is approximately the 1930s through the 1969. ..."
"... the ruling elite of the US was deeply split. ..."
"... A large portion of the US elite was sympathetic to the Nazis. Indeed, the pro-Nazi segment of the US elite had built up ties
with Germany during the inter-war period. The bonds were economic, political and even ideological - indeed, these links were so important
that likely Germany would not have been able to rearm itself without the help of these "patriotic" Americans (Talbot makes clear that
in some cases this kinship was evident even during the war itself!). ..."
"... And no one represents the fascist sympathizing segment of the US elite like Allen Dulles. ..."
"... Talbot covers this topic well and makes a very good case for Dulles involvement - including revealing (from his day calendar)
the fact that "fired" and "retired" from the CIA Allen Dulles, spent the weekend - from the time Kennedy was shot and killed Friday
through the hours that Oswald was gunned down - at a CIA command facility in Virginia. ..."
I just finished listening to the audio book of David Talbot's The Devil's Chessboard. Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise
of America's Secret Government . It was very good I think.
I'll spare you a full review, but the Dulles era has some very important and interesting similarities with our own (in fact,
the ties are most certainly those first formed during the Dulles brothers tenure at State and CIA). Talbot doesn't delve deeply
into these more recent aspects, but he does acknowledge them. And the similarities are quite clear. We find Dulles attempting
to convince his superiors of the need and advantages of dealing with "moderate Nazis" like Reinhard Gehlen, so today there are
personalities in our government following a policy of working with "moderate Islamists" and "moderate ultra-nationalists" to achieve
our goals.
Initially I had heard that it was a Allen Dulles biography, and though there is a lot of detail about his personal life, his
marriage, and even his kids, I would say it strays from what one might consider a "standard" biography and is more about Dulles
and his times. For instance, there are a couple of chapters devoted just to the Kennedy Assassination, another on Oswald, and
one on the "Generals' putsch" in France in '61. Perhaps someone looking for more focus on Dulles the man might be disappointed
by this, but for someone like myself interested in the history and insights of era Dulles lived in. The era covered is approximately
the 1930s through the 1969.
Talbot uses Dulles life as the base to build up the important (and to my mind misunderstood and misconstrued) stories in recent
US history. That story is, of course, the following: despite the impression most Americans have of our country fighting the ultimate
"good war" against universally despised enemies - that fact is that the ruling elite of the US was deeply split.
A large portion of the US elite was sympathetic to the Nazis. Indeed, the pro-Nazi segment of the US elite had built up
ties with Germany during the inter-war period. The bonds were economic, political and even ideological - indeed, these links were
so important that likely Germany would not have been able to rearm itself without the help of these "patriotic" Americans (Talbot
makes clear that in some cases this kinship was evident even during the war itself!).
And no one represents the fascist sympathizing segment of the US elite like Allen Dulles. And Talbot tracks this key
figure's fascist ties as he rises in the US power structure from his early years as an OSS man wheeling and dealing with Nazi
generals in Bern, Switzerland and on through Dulles' creation and/or support of fascist governments in Latin America, the Middle
East, and Africa during the Cold War. Talbot covers the events surrounding Dulles life excellently. Especially moving was his
chapter on Guatemala - the tragedy of the Arbenz family as a mirror of the tragedy of Guatemala is covered through the eyes of
the grandson of Arbez.
Talbot covers the horror stories of the results of America working closely with dictators like Trujillo, the Shah, Mobutu Sese
Seko, and Batista (he misses Indonesia though, an operation that caused the death of 1,000,000 Indonesians). But of course, as
an American, the most important question to Talbot is that of Dulles role in the Kennedy assassination. Talbot covers this
topic well and makes a very good case for Dulles involvement - including revealing (from his day calendar) the fact that "fired"
and "retired" from the CIA Allen Dulles, spent the weekend - from the time Kennedy was shot and killed Friday through the hours
that Oswald was gunned down - at a CIA command facility in Virginia.
Allen Dulles papers released by CIA to Princeton are now online
Posted on January 23, 2008 by Dan Linke
The Central Intelligence Agency has released to Princeton University some 7,800 documents covering the career of Allen W.
Dulles, the agency's longest-serving director, which now can be viewed online at
http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/st74cq497
Dulles (1893-1969), a Princeton alumnus who headed the CIA from 1953 to 1961, was renowned for his role in shaping U.S.
intelligence operations during the Cold War. Last March, the CIA released to Princeton a collection of letters, memoranda,
reports and other papers - some still redacted - that the agency had removed from Dulles' papers after his death and before
their transfer to the University in 1974.
"... ...Russia ( China) will continue to promote the BS plan of partnership with the West... because it maintains and reinforces their record of promoting global unity and cooperation. Their (almost) joint military announcements on the same forum, on the same day (January 2, 2016) was intended as a final(?) warning that theres an iron fist in Chinas velvet glove of friendship, and that Russia isnt buying US-NATOs bs. ..."
"... This thing about Russia, and Putin especially, calling everybody colleagues and partners, tends to make us think that Russia believes that these nations can be trusted, but I dont think for one moment that this is the case. The language Russia uses is simply the courtesy of reason, used equally by friend and hangman. Russia likes to give people a chance to change because it knows how frequently this happens. We can see ourselves that this is so. ..."
"... Either the American people will discover how to regain control of their politics - unlikely, given that no other Western democracy can pull off that trick - or President Carters oligarchs will get their act together. As in Francos Spain or as in Russia in the late 1990s they will discover that theres more to running a country than looting it. Someone has to set long term policy objectives and hold it all together just so theres something to loot. ..."
"... the case of the 2008 meltdown where the little people where penalized and the banks were let off with a bailout is a good example of how i see things unfolding.. the banks are considered more central and in need of being bailed out then the little people.. that seems like money is the main driver, as opposed to looking after the society more generally.. ..."
"... The USA attacks militarily directly, or by overt other means (economic), or behind the curtain: ..."
"... countries, groups, that have a socialistic bent, try to do well for their citizens, and/or espouse some ideology that appears, *on the face of it*, anti-capitalistic, nationalistic, or pan-national (e.g. Communism in the past, Baath party, Arab nationalism, Cuba.) ..."
"... Energy rich countries who wont open up to US corps, domination. (ex. Venezuela), or wont permit US type banking system in their country, or arent subservient enough on a host of points (ex. Syria, Lybia) or somehow manage to cozy and then resist for a long while (ex. Iraq) ..."
Since now the Russian Federation has now openly declared the US and NATO strategic threats to Russia,
will Russia and Putin now quit with the always BS plan of partnership with the West against terrorism
in Syria?
Putin did try hard to retain a status quo friendly position with the current leadership of
the West, but that is a genocidal, racist, class war, maniacle capitilist, earth polluting, and generally
evil west, that deserves to die ASAP. If small Cuba right on the evil US empires door was able to
resist, why not far larger Russia?
...Russia (& China) will continue to promote the "BS plan of partnership with the West..." because it
maintains and reinforces their record of promoting global unity and cooperation. Their (almost) joint
military announcements on the same forum, on the same day (January 2, 2016) was intended as a final(?)
warning that there's an iron fist in China's velvet glove of friendship, and that Russia isn't buying
US-NATO's bs.
Russia's Syria intervention was, imo, more of an experiment than an exercise in resuscitating
a broken Syria. Putin needed to know whether thwarting ISIS was REALLY as hard as US-NATO was making
it look, and gave himself 4 months to find out. But he'd be the first, one imagines, to admit that
swatting head-chopping mosquitoes whilst doing NOTHING about the swamps in which they breed, could
easily become an exercise in Perpetual Pointlessness.
As the end of Russia's 4-month 'fact-finding mission' in Syria draws to a close, it's highly likely
that Russia knows a lot more about swamps and head-choppers than it did on September 30, 2015 and
what, and how, to implement a more effective course of therapy. Preferably non-violent but if n-v
proves to be impractical, then with as much (Russian & Chinese) violence as necessary to produce
a cure.
Your description of the Orwellian nature of current media output is sickeningly accurate. During
recent annual phone conversations with old friends that were hip to the BS in the 60-70's, a few
are now ranting about Muslims and those conversations were short. The effectiveness of TV as a brainwashing
tool is under 'appreciated". That said, it is encouraging to read b and commenters here cutting through
the BS.
Just keep remembering the role that private financing and the global plutocrats play at the top
of our real-life SimWorld
This thing about Russia, and Putin especially, calling everybody colleagues and partners,
tends to make us think that Russia believes that these nations can be trusted, but I don't think
for one moment that this is the case. The language Russia uses is simply the courtesy of reason,
used equally by friend and hangman. Russia likes to give people a chance to change because it knows
how frequently this happens. We can see ourselves that this is so.
If you haven't watched the World Order documentary yet, I highly recommend it. It's a powerful
dose of realpolitik and recent history, with English subtitles by Vox Populi. Putin describes in
very plain terms much of the substance of Russia's foreign policy. There will be no nuclear war,
he believes, and I trust his judgment on this.
He is consciously changing the world, nudging it to return to a fundamental recognition of the
global balance of power, as it once relied on that recognition. I believe he will live to see this
effort succeed in his own time:
World Order. Documentary.
Eng. Subs.
Haha, I like the notion of Israel and Saudi Arabia's inverse relationship in our wonderful capitalist
ideal...Israel being the western capitalist 'welfare state' if you will. A tumour...a useless growth
displaying all the nasty excesses of the ideal... the type of sick rich child that repeatedly tortures
animals because there is no negative recourse for doing so. Saudi Arabia, the other sick rich kid
sitting on an inheritance it does not have the wisdom to know what to do with - its plaything called
oil.
Its surplus, foolishly, reinvested in the US financial sector...creating this monster called the
petrodollar...the major denomination of our age...our reality.
"@17 lw... yes - money is a factor, even if pl at ssr doesn't agree!"
Could we say that money is an indispensable but secondary factor? The corporations and lobbyists
do buy the politicians, as President Carter explained to us recently, but that's to get immediate
benefits such as contracts or other favours in return. They do of course need a foreign policy framework
that allows for such a return but I don't think they are too bothered by what that framework is.
The present framework, if that's not too kind a term for it, is partly set by the ideologues -
Wolfowitz and Brzezinski et al are first and foremost ideologues rather than pork barrel practitioners
- and partly by the random workings of the American political and administrative machinery. Random
because there is little control of that machinery from underneath - government by the people scarcely
exists in the US since it costs so much to get a politician elected - and little control from above:
as explained, as long as the corporations get their immediate return they have no interest in setting
long term and coherent foreign policy objectives.
So the crazies are out of the basement and running the front office. Why not? - it was empty anyway
so it was open to whoever chanced along.
They won't be there for ever.
Either the American people will discover how to regain control of
their politics - unlikely, given that no other Western democracy can pull off that trick - or President
Carter's 'oligarchs' will get their act together. As in Franco's Spain or as in Russia in the late
1990's they will discover that there's more to running a country than looting it. Someone has to
set long term policy objectives and hold it all together just so there's something to loot.
Which will happen, and how, is anyone's guess but I doubt we'll see current American foreign policy
perpetuated. Unless the US is destined simply to self-destruct - and take the rest of us down with
it - someone, voter or oligarch, will be obliged to take its government in hand and do some thinking
about the long term.
When that happens the crazies will have to return to the basement and, if only out of the need
for survival, someone is going to have to work at devising policies that aren't so obviously suicidal
for the US. With any luck, they won't be so murderous for the rest of us either.
@44 peter... thanks.. those are reasonable viewpoints to hold on the complicated dynamics
that define how the usa operates.. i think they are more idealistic then how i see it.. i am not
sure money is a 2ndary consideration so much as it is the most important ingredient in the capitalist
ideology, devoid of more social considerations.. it seems to me that democracy is only a good idea
if it can't be bought out by (special interests groups) - money.. as it stands the usa is a good
example of what happens when it is bought out by money.. meanwhile there are a lot of good people
that wish the best for the country and hopefully the world by extension, but i don't see them as
having the influence and control that the more self interested moneyed group has.. so, i would flip
the way you see it whereby money is the primary consideration, especially in an atmosphere where
the folks on the bottom end will do whatever they have to do, to continue to live, eat and have a
roof over their heads..
the case of the 2008 meltdown where the little people where penalized and the banks were let off
with a bailout is a good example of how i see things unfolding.. the banks are considered more central
and in need of being bailed out then the little people.. that seems like money is the main driver,
as opposed to looking after the society more generally..
24;comparing 17th,18th and 19th century attitudes with 20th and 21st century ones are very
problematic.Yes,the white settlers,who to a man(and woman)believed themselves superior to the red
black and brown man.Many still do,but the internal domestic expansion violence was nationalistic,while
our current escapades world wide are internationalist Zionism and imperialism,and are not really
comparable other than victim counts.
Obomba;A lot of words while the roof falls in;Hamlet.
Dan at 2.
There is no single cohesive policy. Only selfishness
The USA attacks militarily directly, or by overt other means (economic), or behind the curtain:
those that challenge it even in the imagination, provided small and pretty powerless
countries, groups, that have a 'socialistic' bent, try to do well for their citizens, and/or
espouse some ideology that appears, *on the face of it*, anti-capitalistic, nationalistic, or pan-national
(e.g. Communism in the past, Baath party, Arab nationalism, Cuba.)
those who try to annul or wash away ethnic, racist, religious, and so on differences in favor
of some kind of 'universality', a citizen status, mandate - this goes against the colonialist model,
abroad and at home, in which ppl are sand niggers, blacks, etc. The US support for equality thus
turns to trivia, gay marriage, quarrels about abortion, etc.
Energy rich countries who won't open up to US corps, domination. (ex. Venezuela), or won't
permit US type banking system in their country, or aren't subservient enough on a host of points
(ex. Syria, Lybia) or somehow manage to cozy and then resist for a long while (ex. Iraq)
Those who are involved massively with illegal and dubious trade - human trafficking, organ
sales, child forced prostitution, drugs, illegal arms, condoned murder of rivals, vicious internal
repression, heavy torture, prisons, etc. are generally supported, but on occasion they rebel or try
for other, which is not to be allowed (ex. Afghanistan)
Anyone that can be attacked on any grounds, opportunistically, to racketeer fines, big sums
of money, such as in the banking sector.
Countries it pretends to admire who are secretely dominated by them and only escape ostracim,
sanctions or bombs or more by subservience, and a 'belonging to a controlled block' (EU.) Sweden
and the Netherlands come to mind.
Other.
That is a lot countries, people, all together. The foreign policy is not cohesive, I agree, it
is simply all over the board, adjusted all the time, based on ad hoc criteria, racist supremacy,
capitalistic short term profiteering, snobby disaproval, empty rage, power plays, sectorial interests,
corporate meddling, personal arm-twisting and blackmail, deals with foreign potentates, arms production
and selling which needs war, and on and on.
"... According to the Westminster-controlled BBC, a Russian pilot "died when his SU-24 aircraft was shot down". If that is a time appreciation, it is a fairly accurate one, but he actually died after his aircraft hit the ground, and that fact was not the cause of his death. He died because he was shot full of holes from the ground while he was hanging helpless in his parachute straps and was not armed. As has been demonstrated to what should be the complete satisfaction of all, this is a war crime, illegal under international law regardless who does it. ..."
"... But the Washington-and-Westminster-controlled western media skates adroitly around that fact, and consistently normalizes his death as just one of those unfortunate things that happens in war. ..."
"... I can promise you that the murder of a western pilot under the same circumstances would not be soft-pedaled in the same manner, and the fact that criminal circumstances were attached to his dying would have been shouted to the skies. ..."
According to the Westminster-controlled BBC, a Russian pilot "died when his SU-24 aircraft was
shot down". If that is a time appreciation, it is a fairly accurate one, but he actually died
after his aircraft hit the ground, and that fact was not the cause of his death. He died because
he was shot full of holes from the ground while he was hanging helpless in his parachute straps
and was not armed. As has been demonstrated to what should be the complete satisfaction of all,
this is a war crime, illegal under international law regardless who does it.
But the Washington-and-Westminster-controlled
western media skates adroitly around that fact, and consistently normalizes his death as just
one of those unfortunate things that happens in war.
I can promise you that the murder of a western
pilot under the same circumstances would not be soft-pedaled in the same manner, and the fact
that criminal circumstances were attached to his dying would have been shouted to the skies.
"... Meanwhile, the United States and Russia have embarked on massive programs to modernize their nuclear triads - thereby undermining existing nuclear weapons treaties. "The clock ticks now at just three minutes to midnight because international leaders are failing to perform their most important duty-ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization." ..."
"Unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons
arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity, and
world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from
potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth."
Despite some modestly positive developments in the climate change arena, current efforts are
entirely insufficient to prevent a catastrophic warming of Earth.
Meanwhile, the United States and Russia have embarked on massive programs to modernize their
nuclear triads - thereby undermining existing nuclear weapons treaties. "The clock ticks now at
just three minutes to midnight because international leaders are failing to perform their most
important duty-ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization."
What appears to have happened here is this: Vladimir Putin has
exploited both the fight against ISIS and Iran's need to preserve the
regional balance of power on the way to enhancing Russia's influence over
Mid-East affairs which in turn helps to ensure that Gazprom's interests
are protected going forward.
Thanks to the
awkward position the US has gotten itself in by covertly allying itself
with various Sunni extremist groups, Washington is for all intents and
purposes powerless to stop Putin lest the public should suddenly get wise
to the fact that combating Russia's resurgence and preventing Iran from
expanding its interests are more important than fighting terror.
In short, Washington gambled on a dangerous game of geopolitical chess, lost, and now faces
two rather terrifyingly disastrous outcomes: 1) China establishing a presence in the Mid-East in
concert with Russia and Iran, and 2) seeing Iraq effectively ceded to the Quds Force and
ultimately, to the Russian army.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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mkey
says:
11/27/2016 at 6:33 am
paul4
says:
11/27/2016 at 8:14 am
Corbett
says:
11/27/2016 at 6:15 pm
nosoapradio
says:
11/27/2016 at 7:07 pm
blunder
says:
11/27/2016 at 11:08 pm
'Goebbels
had less-biased articles': Public slams MSM for Putin focus after
Panama papers leak
While we would be the first
to admit that Jeffrey Sachs was the godfather of "shock therapy" (aka "the economic rape of Russia"
and several other xUSSR republics), he is right as for the ongoing Syria bloodbath which has come to
define the geopolitical situation for the past 3 years. And how this is an event that would "surely
rival Watergate in shaking the foundations of the US establishment" if the truth were fully known, we
agree 100 percent. 