"... Maybe I am overestimating the intelligence of MIC profiteers, but my impression is that those thieves know that their loot is only useful as long as they are alive. There is a lot of silly hostile talk against Russia and China, but have you noticed how the US military always makes sure that there are no direct confrontations with countries that can turn the US into radioactive dust? The profiteers want huge Pentagon budget to steal from, but not the war where they lose along with everyone else. ..."
Maybe I am overestimating the intelligence of MIC profiteers, but my impression is that those thieves know that their loot
is only useful as long as they are alive. There is a lot of silly hostile talk against Russia and China, but have you noticed
how the US military always makes sure that there are no direct confrontations with countries that can turn the US into radioactive
dust? The profiteers want huge Pentagon budget to steal from, but not the war where they lose along with everyone else.
As to the wall, it is one of the silliest projects ever suggested. Maybe that's why it was so easy to sell it to the intellectually
disadvantaged electorate. There are two things that can stop illegal immigration.
First, go for the employers, enact a law that fines them to the tune of $50,000 or more per every illegal they employ. Second,
enact the law that anyone caught residing in the US illegally has no right to enter the US legally, to obtain asylum, permanent
residency, or citizenship for life, and include a provision that marriage to a US citizen does not nullify this ban.
Then enforce both laws. After that illegals would run out of the country, and greedy employers won't hire any more. Naturally,
the wall, even if built, won't change anything: as long as there are employers trying to save on salaries, immigration fees, and
Social Security tax, and people willing to live and work illegally risking nothing, no wall would stem the flow.
Unfortunately, no side is even thinking about real measures, both are just posturing.
Am wondering in which prosperous U.S. Zionist "career" field has John Yoo landed?
He is a distinguished professor at Berkley Law, UC. Here's his bio:
Professor Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law and director of the Korea Law
Center, the California Constitution Center, and the Law School's Program in Public Law and
Policy. His most recent books are Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons
Change the Rules for War (Encounter 2017) (with Jeremy Rabkin) and Point of Attack:
Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare (Oxford University Press, 2014).
Professor Yoo is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a visiting
fellow at the Hoover Institution
From 2001 to 2003, he served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of
Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on issues involving
foreign affairs, national security and the separation of powers.
Notice how they gloss over his diabolical activities as deputy AG for the Bush II
Adminstration "where he worked on issues involving foreign affairs, national security and the
separation of powers."
And, oh, yeah, he cobbled together legal statements that gave the Bush Admin carte blanche
to engage in "enhanced interrogation techniques," more commonly known as "torture." He was
about to be in big dodo for his crimes. but just like the 5 dancing Israelis were rescued by
Chertoff, a guy named David Margolis managed to get Yoo off the hook:
The Office of Professional Responsibilty (OPR) report concluded that Yoo had "committed
'intentional professional misconduct' when he advised the CIA it could proceed with
waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques against Al Qaeda suspects,"
although the recommendation that he be referred to his state bar association for possible
disciplinary proceedings was overruled by David Margolis, another senior Justice department
lawyer.
The recent veneration of George H.W. Bush has been wonderfully uplifting, especially as it
recalled his cautious use of persuasion and honest argument.
Peggy Noonan, Ronald Reagan's former speechwriter, beautifully described Bush's funeral in
the Wall Street Journal as reminding us of our dignity and "re-summoning our mystique."
The event, Noonan said, harkened back to when America was respected and admired, generous and
"expected to do good." President Bush, she noted, had presided over the collapse of the Soviet
Union diplomatically and without humiliating Russia's leaders or its people. He also declined
to occupy a Muslim country after defeating Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Bush was indeed a very
decent man. In fact, he was a
great statesman, as TAC 's editor Jim Antle has noted on these pages.
Yet almost none of the news reported on what was the darkest chapter of his legacy: the
First Gulf War. I was a co-founder at the time of a small and vastly outgunned opposition group
of conservatives and (mainly) libertarians, the Committee to Avert a Mid-East Holocaust
. Today, with at least a million Arabs, Afghans, and Americans dead from the unending chaos the
United States unleashed in the Muslim world, the name seems very appropriate.
Our group included truly great conservatives: Henry Regnery, almost the only publisher of
conservative books, who helped keep liberty alive during the dark days of the 1940s and '50s,
along with the always brave Pat Buchanan and Joseph Sobran. Regnery and Buchanan were the main
contributors to our group. But we were a virtual who's who of the incipient libertarian
movement: Ron Paul, the once and future Texas congressman who would eventually gain a wider
following as a presidential candidate; Lew Rockwell, his former congressional staffer; the
economist Murray Rothbard; Bill Niskanen, chairman of the Cato Institute; Sheldon Richman,
longtime editor at FEE ; Justin Raimondo, who
would go on to be a co-founder at Antiwar.com ; and Burt Blumert, who helped fund much of Rothbard and
Raimondo's work.
Our chair and guide was
Phil Nicolaides , former deputy director at Voice of America during the Reagan era. The
executive committee included myself, Richman, Sobran, and chess champion Phil Collier. Fran
Griffin, a strong Catholic and founding member of Young Americans for Freedom, did tremendous
work for almost no pay handling our mail-outs and administration with her company Griffin
Communications.
In those days, communication consisted of direct mail, while most of the media just accepted
pro-war government handouts. If only we'd the internet! We did get some news coverage but of
course we were no match for Kuwaiti money and evangelical supporters of Israel. Still, the
Senate vote in favor of the war was only 52-47, despite the overwhelming propaganda in favor of
it as described below.
The war led to a major break between
libertarians and conservatives , especially as the giant Heritage Foundation became a
champion of war from that moment on. Even today, Heritage has backed continued U.S. support for
the Saudi bombing of Yemen.
Much about the Gulf War and especially its lies and subsequent brutality were not reported.
Bush himself may not have known all that took place in the military campaign. After all, Dick
Cheney, whom we know now to be a liar, was his secretary of defense. But the deeds need to be
remembered and indeed researched.
Particularly odious was the calculated destruction of Iraq's sanitation, irrigation, and
electrical grid, with the intent of causing
mass civilian disease and starvation, as specified in a Defense
Intelligence Agency report. It would have been interesting to find out who ordered this
policy. Reconstruction supplies were then blockaded over the following nine years, including
during the Clinton presidency. The consequent half million deaths of children were deemed
acceptable by Clinton's former secretary of state Madeleine Albright in this famous 60 Minutes
interview with Leslie Stahl. Osama bin Laden later listed civilian suffering in Iraq as one
of the three reasons for his subsequent terrorist attack on America.
Public support for the war was in part ginned up by the infamous "incubator babies" lie and
claims that aerial photographs showed 200,000 Iraqi soldiers waiting along the border to invade
Saudi Arabia. Indeed, the reason given to Americans for sending troops was to protect the
Saudis.
The Christian Science Monitor and LA Times reported later
how it was untrue and that such photographs never existed. Photos of the border showed no
troops congregated there. The Defense Department claimed the photos were secret and never
released them even after the war.
Such
misinformation is critical if you're trying to get America into a war. Remember the British propaganda
that got us into the First World War? A repeated story was that German soldiers were eating
Belgian babies. In the second Iraq war, it was lies that Saddam had aided bin Laden and was
developing nuclear "weapons of mass destruction."
Kuwait's ruling family spent billions of dollars and paid for top public relations in
Washington. I remember particularly the yearly CPAC meeting when the Kuwaitis paid for a dozen
tables to be filled with students to cheer for war. Saddam was sending cash bequests to the
families of Palestinian terrorists whom Israel had killed, so pro-Israel forces in Washington
also supported the war, though they were less important to the lobbying effort than Kuwait.
Nevertheless, the United States initially hesitated to go to war. There was the meeting of
the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, with Saddam Hussein during which she told him that
inter-Arab quarrels were
not the concern of the United States government . A top State Department official told
Congress the same thing. The ambassador strangely disappeared from the news after the war
started.
Then there was President Bush's rather casual attitude about Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Only
after he met with British Prime Minister Thatcher and faced the vast pro-war publicity campaign
did he change his mind. Thatcher was very alarmed because Kuwait's vast deposits in British
banks were important for their solvency. She feared Iraq might continue threatening other Gulf
states and their bank deposits. She insisted and begged America to save Kuwait. Bush than
organized a United Nations Security Council vote to condemn Iraq and a coalition that included
many Arab nations. He did it with full international legality (unlike his son's subsequent war)
and above all he got our allies to pay for the war. There was massive support in America for
the operation.
Bush's national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft, later opposed the younger Bush's attack
on and subsequent occupation of Iraq in 2003. He understood well the limits of power and the
importance of having allies -- something the next President Bush cared little about.
Actually, George H. W. Bush only looks good next to the Current Occupant (of the Oval
Office).
I, too, can remember his Presidency, and even his candidacy, when he authorized the use of
those Willie Horton ads. (Which contributed both to the rise of the alt-right and the BLM
movements.)
I recall his first candidacy,k when he was opposed to "voodoo economics" before he was all
for it.
One need not lay out any secret cabal when he was in office as indicative of his
character. It was on full display long before. And it had nothing to do with a "kinder,
gentler America", only with the pursuit of power at any cost to integrity or honor.
Look there are valid reasons to challenger the first gulf war. It was strictly a debate
between Iraq and Kuwait. Historical issues and the matter of supplemental dollars for what
Iraq believed was a defense against the Iranian revolution.
But unlike the last invasion the First Gulf effort was largely supported even by Gulf
States. Stop dreaming up libertarian fantasies about Sen rand Paul. Libertarian anti-war
effort. As for PM thatcher's fears – the Iraqi invasion did not budge the price of oil.
This was a dispute between two neighbors and nothing more.
But it was the international effort that made the case. And it was not just Israel. It was
limited to one goal,pushing Iraqi troops back into Iraq proper.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
The valid critiques on Pres. Bush, Sr. are those in the above comments about economics and
"Willie Horton."
The case against iraq in the second effort was very clear.
Iraq had invaded no one
Had nothing to do with 9/11
No evidence the wmd in any viable state
No evidence that the weapons inspectors were not accomplishing their mission.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -
I didn't hear a peep from the likes of your clique about challenging the war in
Afghanistan. That was an effort that would have demonstrated some serious unnecessary
anti-war thinking. Some intellectual work in examining the issues and the consequence. The
internet was alive and well during the Afghanistan advance --
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
There is a difference between being anti-war and being opposed to unnecessary military
efforts. Libertarians trying to hide in the minutia of being anti-war as they savage their
fellow citizens with their immigration no borders nonsense, selling marijuana -- a tax boon
no where in sight in Colorado, Ca., or anywhere else, now want to unleash their carelessness
on heroin, cocaine, and hashish.
Bush talked about Dukakis's prison furloughs, and his campaign did produce and ad about them,
but the famous Willie Horton ad was produced by an independent PAC. It was done on Bush's
behalf, and Lee Atwater was all in favor of making Horton an issue, but so far as is known,
Bush didn't authorize or approve the well-known ad himself.
_________
I wonder if it would have been possible for antiwar conservatives (and conservatives
critical of trade and immigration policy) to mainstream their concerns. As it was, many
tended to become trapped in paleocon land, arguing forever that they were further to the
right than the others, and embracing some embarrassing ideas and historical icons.
You may recall John O'Sullivan's law – any organization that isn't explicitly
expressly right-wing will become left-wing over time. But the corollary seems to be that
critical or unorthodox movements on the right tend to get boxed into being "more conservative
than thou" and losing access to the centrist mainstream.
Whatever the current orthodoxy is appropriates the conservative label, and dissenters
either move to left or the far right.
Conservatives and liberals both have a great diversity of opinion, but it seems like
politics today are so polarized and binary that it's impossible for those of divergent
opinions to be on the same side or at more or less the same place on the political
spectrum.
One side is always going to be accused of being sell-outs to the enemy or of being on the
lunatic fringe.
I'm inclined to make a distinction between the "jus ad bellum" and the "jus in bello" aspects
of the Gulf War. I think I can say that I lean heavily anti-war in general, but I do think
the Gulf War was justified. Even if it's true that America and others wouldn't have
intervened in a case where the countries involved were small and unimportant, I don't think
the answer would be to also refuse to intervene in the case at hand. There's a great value in
upholding the principle that countries can't forcibly annex land from each other. Also, it's
hard to believe that Saddam Hussein would have settled down and minded his own business. It's
more likely that the lack of pushback from his Kuwait invasion would have encouraged further
adventurism.
None of that is to defend the way the war was actually conducted. It's just to suggest
that the preferable alternative would have been to wage the war more ethically rather than
not to wage it at all.
ElitCommInc appears to have a requisite necessity to interject "Sen rand Paul" into articles
that don't even mention him. C'est la vie.
As regards Afghanistan, I confess to having not a clue what is meant by " some serious
unnecessary anti-war thinking" but as I remember those days, while there was general support
for getting Bin Laden there were voices in the libertarian/paleoconservative movement that
argued for a special forces operation, a quit hit and not a full out occupation force.
Marijuana legalization has nothing to do with the article though I suppose those awful
libertarians also "savage" their fellow citizens with the sale of adult beverages as well.
C'est la vie.
I reluctantly got on board with the first Gulf War and about all that can be said that's
positive is that Bush Sr. at least endorsed a limited objective i.e. get Iraq out of Kuwait.
Not so that brain-dead son of his who was taking his orders from his VP.
The Great War Christmas Truce: 'They Were
Positively Human'For a brief moment in 1914, the guns went silent and the men risked
court martial to play soccer, smoke and sing---with the other side. By Hunter DeRensis
•
December 21, 2018
Wikimedia Commons/public domain A 19th-century peace activist once asked, "Is it possible
that any Christian, of whatever sect, who believes the New Testament to be anything better than
a fable, can doubt for a moment that the time will come when all the kingdoms of the earth
shall be at peace?"
Jesus Christ, as both a religious and historical figure, has been chronicled as the "Prince
of Peace." He was the man (or son of God) who instructed his followers to turn the other cheek.
This philosophy of love, forgiveness, and the rejection of violence is difficult to mesh with a
modern age that has fought two world wars. Reaching even farther back, it's hard to reconcile
Christ's message with the violence inflicted by Christians against both non-Christians and
other members of the faith.
But one moment, found in the bloody, secularized 20th century, stands out: the Christmas
Truce of 1914.
World War I had begun in August, engulfing most of Europe. On the western front, a German
invasion of France by way of Belgium had stalled just 50 miles outside of Paris. Fighting
quickly devolved into trench warfare, with German and British-French lines divided by a
no-man's land of barbed wire, shell holes, and death. Soldiers lived and died in trenches of
mud and dirt, infested with fleas and other vermin and often flooded with water that was knee
deep. Winter added frost and bitter cold. The war that people on both sides said would be done
by Christmas showed no sign of ending. By December, after barely five months of combat,
casualties on all sides numbered over two million.
Yet that Christmas Eve, an unexpected sound could be heard above the din of gunfire:
soldiers on the German side singing Stille Nacht , the original German-language
Silent Night . Small fir trees, makeshift replacements for the grand Christmas trees
back home, had been placed. The constant fighting might have had the effect of increasing
religious reflection. During the opening months of the war in 1914, churches in Germany were
fuller than they had ever been, even in working-class areas infamous for secular and
anti-clerical politics.
After much hesitation, soldiers on the British side began to poke their heads out of the
trenches. The Germans did not fire. The Brits responded by applauding and singing their own
English version of the carol. The two sides then met together in no man's land. Frederick James
Davies, a private in the 2nd Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers,
described his experiences in a letter home to his mother: "They [the Germans] were only
fifty yards away from us in the trenches. They came out and we went to meet them. We shook
hands with them . They also gave us cigars but they didn't have much food. I think they are
hard up for it. They were fed up with the war." They exchanged "cigs, jam and corn beef" and
Davies added that he had "a good chat with the Germans on Xmas day."
Writer Henry Williamson, then a private in the London Rifle Brigade,
wrote cheerfully home to his mother that he was smoking German tobacco he had exchanged
with a live soldier. He recounted, "Yesterday the British & Germans met & shook hands
in the Ground between the trenches, & exchanged souvenirs, & shook hands." He describes
his military counterparts: "Many are gentle looking men in goatee beards & spectacles, and
some are very big and arrogant looking." In other words, they looked positively human.
Williamson even showed empathy for their similar motivations: "The Germans put 'For Fatherland
& Freedom' on the cross. They obviously think their cause is a just one."
In his own account, Captain A.D. Chater of the 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders
wrote : "This extraordinary truce has been quite impromptu. There was no previous
arrangement and of course it had been decided that there was not to be any cessation of
hostilities."
This outbreak of peace was entirely spontaneous, started by privates on the front lines as
their officers threatened them with court-martial. Soldiers laughed, talked, sang, exchanged
gifts, and helped to bury their dead. A few games of soccer were even played.
They had been killing each other for months, indoctrinated for most of their lives to view
the "other" as evil, inhuman. But here they were, ordinary men who missed their homes and
families, who had only the vaguest idea of why they were there, why they were dying and
killing. Karl Muhlegg of the 17th Bavarian Regiment wrote home, "Never was I as keenly aware of
the insanity of war."
The truce continued until the end of Christmas. In some spots it continued for days. But
slowly men returned to their sides and fighting resumed. Europe would not see another Christmas
in peacetime until 1918, after 10,000,000 men had been killed. When the war ended, the French
military academy Saint-Cyr listed all its graduates who had fallen. For one year, it contains
just one brief but chilling entry: "The Class of 1914." In comparison, only 81 British soldiers
died on Christmas Day 1914 in all of Europe.
What is striking is the difference between the propaganda put forward by the governments on
the home front and the spontaneous actions that Christmas. Besides Pope Benedict XV, who urged
a temporary ceasefire so war cannons would not be booming across Europe on the night the angels
were meant to announce Christ's birth, what the soldiers did was opposed by governments on both
sides.
There's a case to be made that the truce had nothing to do with Christianity. Periodic and
unplanned truces occur in war regularly. Fighting ceases while the two sides take time to bury
their dead. And trade and fraternization do occur. One might ask, does the common soldier need
a higher reason to stop killing or be killed? But this rejoinder is far too simplistic. It's
estimated that roughly 100,000 soldiers participated in the Christmas Truce of 1914 to some
degree. This is far too large a number to be written off as a casual occurrence. This event was
unplanned, uncoordinated, and not sanctioned by the officer core. Yet it happened. And it just
happened to take place on the most celebrated day in the Christian calendar, the observance of
the birth of Christ, the "Prince of Peace." If both sides were not united under Christendom,
joined together in mutual belief, it is a definite that the truce would not have occurred.
In November 1914, three months into the war, Pope Benedict XV grieved, "Who would imagine,
as we see them thus filled with hatred of one another, that they are all of one common stock,
all of the same nature, all members of the same human society? Who would recognize brothers,
whose Father is in Heaven?" Perhaps on Christmas, with morals engraved on their innermost
hearts, the soldiers realized the truth of this statement.
As an event in the history of war, the Christmas Truce of 1914 is barely a footnote; it had
no major effects on the fighting or outcome of World War I. But in the history of peace, the
truce is a powerful story. This moment, this flash of love, bookended on both sides by
destruction and hate, was a triumph of humanity. It's the closest thing we'll see to a miracle
in this fallen world.
Frederick Niven, a minor Scottish poet, ended his poem "A Carol from Flanders" with a
sentiment that should be prayed for year-round:
O ye who read this truthful rime
From Flanders, kneel and say:
God Speed the time when every day
Shall be as Christmas Day
Hunter DeRensis is a regular contributor to. Follow him on Twitter @HunterDeRensis .
"Leaders" don't care about the ordinary soldier–and it doesn't matter which countries
are fighting. "God Save The King (or Queen)" "Deutschland Ueber Alles" "Allons enfant de la
Patrie" "Make The World Safe For Democracy". Blah, blah, blah.
Could you imagine the singing of "Happy Holidays" igniting such an overwhelming burst of
love? Do the owners of our mainstream media outlets pay announcers a bonus for everytime they
squeeze "holiday" into their scripts? I am not taking a holiday and I find it offensive to
discount the happiest day of my religious belief system discounted such. BTW – The
officers had to force the troops back into the killing fields at gunpoint. Had the Christmas
Peace of 1914 held – just imagine? The secularization of Christmas is not a joining
phenomenon it is a divisive act. Those who launched this war on Christmas have had great
victories here. It is being stalled overseas in both supposedly Christian and non-Christian
countries. If we get into a really nasty war – just see how quickly these warmongers
will give us back Christam (temporarily).
"War made the State and the State makes War."
These poor men had barely more influence on policy than livestock do in managing a cattle
ranch.
It's ridiculous to say Christians fought Christians etc.
These wars were made by States which had amassed the power – through ideology and
technology – to control multitudes of helpless, defenceless people.
History can be summed up as: Man v State; Law v Power; Civilisation v Barbarism.
In the twentieth century, we saw the triumph of State Power over Law, Civilisation and
Humanity.
(The State surpassed disease as mankind's greatest affliction.)
The German invasion didn't stall by itself before Paris. The French fought like lions at the
First battle of the Marne (the British troops' contribution was numerically quite reduced at
that time) and prevailed over the Germans. Sadly with not enough of a decision on the war
that then went on Why is it always so difficult for American magazines (and newspapers) to
mention the French ? It always gives the silent impression French were hapless bystanders to
a war on their own soil.
The trouble with CIA democrats is not that they are stupid, but that that are evil.
Hillary proved to be really destructive witch during her Obama stunt as the Secretary of State. Destroyed Libya and Ukraine,
which is no small feat.
Notable quotes:
"... The policy of the Obama administration, and particularly Hillary Clinton's State Department, was – and still is – regime change in Syria. This overrode all other considerations. We armed, trained, and "vetted" the Syrian rebels, even as we looked the other way while the Saudis and the Gulf sheikdoms funded groups like al-Nusra and al-Qaeda affiliates who wouldn't pass muster. And our "moderates" quickly passed into the ranks of the outfront terrorists, complete with the weapons we'd provided. ..."
"... She is truly an idiot. Thanks again, Ivy League. ..."
The Grauniad just quoted a tweet from a predictably OUTRAGED @HillaryClinton:
Actions have consequences, and whether we're in Syria or not, the people who want to
harm us are there & at war. Isolationism is weakness. Empowering ISIS is dangerous.
Playing into Russia & Iran's hands is foolish. This President is putting our national
security at grave risk.
This from the woman who almost singlehandedly (i.e. along with David Cameron and Sarkovy)
destroyed Libya and allowed -- if not encouraged -- the flow of US weapons to go into the
hands of ISIS allies in the US-Saudi-Israeli obsession with toppling Assad regardless of the
consequences. As Justin Raimondo wrote in
Antiwar.com in 2015:
The policy of the Obama administration, and particularly Hillary Clinton's State
Department, was – and still is – regime change in Syria. This overrode all
other considerations. We armed, trained, and "vetted" the Syrian rebels, even as we looked
the other way while the Saudis and the Gulf sheikdoms funded groups like al-Nusra and
al-Qaeda affiliates who wouldn't pass muster. And our "moderates" quickly passed into the
ranks of the outfront terrorists, complete with the weapons we'd provided.
This crazy policy was an extension of our regime change operation in Libya, a.k.a.
"Hillary's War," where the US – "leading from behind" – and a coalition of our
Western allies and the Gulf protectorates overthrew Muammar Qaddafi. There, too, we
empowered radical Islamists with links to al-Qaeda affiliates – and then used them to
ship weapons to their Syrian brothers, as another document uncovered by Judicial Watch
shows.
After HRC's multiple foreign policy fiascos she is the last person who should be
commenting on this matter.
a different chris, December 21, 2018 at 11:50 am
> the people who want to harm us are there & at war
Sounds like then they are too busy to harm us? She is truly an idiot. Thanks again, Ivy League.
"... With the advent of Obama, many peace leaders and followers joined the Obama political machine .Those who were not co-opted were quickly disillusioned on all counts. Obama continued the ongoing wars and added new ones -- Libya, Honduras, Syria. The US occupation in Iraq led to new extremist militia armies which preceded to defeat US trained vassal armies up to the gates of Baghdad. In short time Obama launched a flotilla of warships and warplanes to the South China Sea and dispatched added troops to Afghanistan. ..."
"... The anti-war movement which started in opposition to the Iraq war was marginalized by the two dominant parties. The result was the multiplication of new wars. By the second year of Obama's presidency the US was engaged in seven wars. ..."
"... The international conditions are ripening. Washington has alienated countries around the world ;it is challenged by allies and faces formidable rivals. The domestic economy is polarized and the elites are divided. ..."
Over the past three decades, the US government has engaged in over a dozen wars, none of
which have evoked popular celebrations either before, during or after. Nor did the government
succeed in securing popular support in its efforts to confront the economic crises of 2008
– 2009.
This paper will begin by discussing the major wars of our time, namely the two US invasions
of Iraq . We will proceed to analyze the nature of the popular response and the political
consequences.
In the second section we will discuss the economic crises of 2008 -2009, the government
bailout and popular response. We will conclude by focusing on the potential powerful changes
inherent in mass popular movements.
The Iraq War and the US Public
In the run-up to the two US wars against Iraq, (1990 – 01 and 2003 – 2011) there
was no mass war fever, nor did the public celebrate the outcome. On the contrary both wars were
preceded by massive protests in the US and among EU allies. The first Iraqi invasion was
opposed by the vast-majority of the US public despite a major mass media and regime propaganda
campaign backed by President George H. W. Bush. Subsequently, President Clinton launched a
bombing campaign against Iraq in December 1998 with virtually no public support or
approval.
March 20, 2003, President George W. Bush launched the second major war against Iraq despite
massive protests in all major US cities. The war was officially concluded by President Obama in
December 2011. President Obama's declaration of a successful conclusion failed to elicit
popular agreement.
Several questions arise:
Why mass opposition at the start of the Iraq wars and why did they fail to continue?
Why did the public refuse to celebrate President Obama's ending of the war in 2011?
Why did mass protests of the Iraq wars fail to produce durable political vehicles to
secure the peace?
The Anti-Iraq War Syndrome
The massive popular movements which actively opposed the Iraq wars had their roots in
several historical sources. The success of the movements that ended the Viet Nam war, the ideas
that mass activity could resist and win was solidly embedded in large segments of the
progressive public. Moreover, they strongly held the idea that the mass media and Congress
could not be trusted; this reinforced the idea that mass direct action was essential to reverse
Presidential and Pentagon war policies.
The second factor encouraging US mass protest was the fact that the US was internationally
isolated. Presidents George H. W. and George W. Bush wars faced hostile regime and mass
opposition in Europe, the Middle East and in the UN General Assembly. US activists felt that
they were part of a global movement which could succeed.
Thirdly the advent of Democratic President Clinton did not reverse the mass anti-war
movements.The terror bombing of Iraq in December 1998 was destructive and Clinton's war against
Serbia kept the movements alive and active To the extent that Clinton avoided large scale
long-term wars, he avoided provoking mass movements from re-emerging during the latter part of
the 1990's.
The last big wave of mass anti-war protest occurred from 2003 to 2008. Mass anti-war protest
to war exploded soon after the World Trade Center bombings of 9/11. White House exploited the
events to proclaim a global 'war on terror', yet the mass popular movements interpreted the
same events as a call to oppose new wars in the Middle East.
Anti-war leaders drew activists of the entire decade, envisioning a 'build-up' which could
prevent the Bush regime from launching a series of wars without end. Moreover, the
vast-majority of the public was not convinced by officials' claims that Iraq, weakened and
encircled, was stocking 'weapons of mass destruction' to attack the US.
Large scale popular protests challenged the mass media, the so called respectable press and
ignored the Israeli lobby and other Pentagon warlords demanding an invasion of Iraq. The
vast-majority of American, did not believe they were threatened by Saddam Hussain they felt a
greater threat from the White House's resort to severe repressive legislation like the Patriot
Act. Washington's rapid military defeat of Iraqi forces and its occupation of the Iraqi state
led to a decline in the size and scope of the anti-war movement but not to its potential mass
base.
Two events led to the demise of the anti-war movements. The anti-war leaders turned from
independent direct action to electoral politics and secondly, they embraced and channeled their
followers to support Democratic presidential candidate Obama. In large part the movement
leaders and activists believed that direct action had failed to prevent or end the previous two
Iraq wars. Secondly, Obama made a direct demagogic appeal to the peace movement – he
promised to end wars and pursue social justice at home.
With the advent of Obama, many peace leaders and followers joined the Obama political
machine .Those who were not co-opted were quickly disillusioned on all counts. Obama continued
the ongoing wars and added new ones -- Libya, Honduras, Syria. The US occupation in Iraq led to
new extremist militia armies which preceded to defeat US trained vassal armies up to the gates
of Baghdad. In short time Obama launched a flotilla of warships and warplanes to the South
China Sea and dispatched added troops to Afghanistan.
The mass popular movements of the previous two decades were totally disillusioned, betrayed
and disoriented. While most opposed Obama's 'new' and 'old wars' they struggled to find new
outlets for their anti-war beliefs. Lacking alternative anti-war movements, they were
vulnerable to the war propaganda of the media and the new demagogue of the right. Donald Trump
attracted many who opposed the war monger Hilary Clinton.
The Bank Bailout: Mass Protest
Denied
In 2008, at the end of his presidency, President George W. Bush signed off on a massive
federal bailout of the biggest Wall Street banks who faced bankruptcy from their wild
speculative profiteering.
In 2009 President Obama endorsed the bailout and urged rapid Congressional approval.
Congress complied to a $700-billion- dollar handout ,which according to Forbes (July 14, 2015)
rose to $7.77 trillion. Overnight hundreds of thousands of American demanded Congress rescind
the vote. Under immense popular protest, Congress capitulated. However President Obama and the
Democratic Party leadership insisted: the bill was slightly modified and approved. The 'popular
will' was denied. The protests were neutralized and dissipated. The bailout of the banks
proceeded, while several million households watched while their homes were foreclosed ,despite
some local protests. Among the anti-bank movement, radical proposals flourished, ranging from
calls to nationalize them, to demands to let the big banks go bankrupt and provide federal
financing for co-operatives and community banks.
Clearly the vast-majority of the American people were aware and acted to resist
corporate-collusion to plunder taxpayers.
Conclusion: What is to be Done?
Mass popular mobilizations are a reality in the United States. The problem is that they have
not been sustained and the reasons are clear : they lacked political organization which would
go beyond protests and reject lesser evil policies.
The anti-war movement which started in opposition to the Iraq war was marginalized by the
two dominant parties. The result was the multiplication of new wars. By the second year of
Obama's presidency the US was engaged in seven wars.
By the second year of Trump's Presidency the US was threatening nuclear wars against Russia,
Iran and other 'enemies' of the empire. While public opinion was decidedly opposed, the
'opinion' barely rippled in the mid-term elections.
Where have the anti-war and anti-bank masses gone? I would argue they are still with us but
they cannot turn their voices into action and organization if they remain in the Democratic
Party . Before the movements can turn direct action into effective political and economic
transformations, they need to build struggles at every level from the local to the
national.
The international conditions are ripening. Washington has alienated countries around the
world ;it is challenged by allies and faces formidable rivals. The domestic economy is
polarized and the elites are divided.
Mobilizations, as in France today, are self-organized through the internet; the mass media
are discredited. The time of liberal and rightwing demagogues is passing; the bombast of Trump
arouses the same disgust as ended the Obama regime.
Optimal conditions for a new comprehensive movement that goes beyond piecemeal reforms is on
the agenda. The question is whether it is now or in future years or decades?
Mass protest, which must ignore the mass media, depends on organizers. No organizers--no
protest. Since organizers are mostly working for somebodies agenda, those agendas apparently
don't want mass protest against war. They only want to push multi-genderism and minority
resistance, these days.
" Where have the anti-war and anti-bank masses gone? I would argue they are still with us
but they cannot turn their voices into action and organization if they remain in the
Democratic Party . Before the movements can turn direct action into effective political and
economic transformations, they need to build struggles at every level from the local to the
national. "
.gov gives not one damn what the people think and they willl do what pleases their
masters. We are allowed to "vote" once in a while to maintain the illusion that they
care.
Very few Americans are anti-war. They are just fine with endless war and the killing of
millions of people with brown skin for any reason the government gives. Even the so-called
anti-war protesters of the Sixties are now pro war. Back then there was a draft, and they
were at risk of dying in the war. Turns they were only against themselves dying, not somebody
else's child. The volunteer army is staffed by the unfortunates of American society who have
very few options except the military. Uneducated rural whites and inner city black youths are
today's military. Poor white trash and ghetto blacks. Who cares if they die? That's the
attitude of the Sixties anti-war crowd. Hypocrites.
A universal draft, male and female, would stop all the wars in a day.
True, I also believe many Americans turn their heads toward these endless/unneeded wars
because the "enemies" mortar fire is not landing in our own backyard.
But White people know if they pray, buy groceries, buy clothes for kids, keep their
appearance up... then losing jobs & middle class is only an obstacle if you don't work
harder... Fascism is about responsibility, looking and acting like the winner class. White
people will enlist in military, police, fire department... will work harder... will work 2-4
jobs... will blame themselves for everything.
No warning or reason given for closures,Customers, employees and communities are outraged
after Papa Gino's Pizza abruptly closed dozens of locations across New England overnight.
Now that congress serves only as a mechanism for creating and maintaining skimming
operations and rigging all markets, it is imperative that citizens get no information. Since
organized crime also owns the major media outlets, that is an easy task. With no information
in the mainstream there is no anti war and no anti bank.
Gone, like the people who wanted a real 9/11 investigation. Yahoos out there still think
that if it was an inside job someone would have spoke out by now . Lol
They are all their, they are just silenced in corporate main stream media whilst corporate
main stream media absolutely 'SCREAMS' about identity politics, not an accident. Identity
politics is the deep state and shadow government plan to silence the masses about fiscal and
foreign policy.
For example, even though I am centre left, I was there in the beginning of the alt right,
it was not white supremacy for the first few weeks it was Libertarian vs corporate
Republican, then the deep state and shadow government stepped in and using corporate main
stream media, re-branded alt-right as white supremacy, is was really fast.
Most people don't even know alt-right started out as very much Libertarian taking on the
corporate state and that is what triggered that attack and a stream of fake right wingers
(deep state agents) screaming they were the alt-right together with corporate main stream
media, to ensure Libertarian where silenced.
Look at it now, how much do you here from Libertarians, practically nothing, every time
they try, they are targeted as alt-right which they were as in the alternate to corporate
Republicans much the same as the Corporate Democrats. From my perspective the real left and
the Libertarians had much more in common, than the corporate Republicans and the corporate
Democrats (both attacking the libertarians and the greens to silence them).
They are all there fighting, just totally silenced in corporate main stream media, you
have to go to https://www.rt.com/ to find
them.
Bankers control the CFR, the CFR controls the media and most gov positions and most of the
deepstate 3 letter agencies.. Everything said is tracked by the NSA and everywhere you go is
tracked by your phone and cars. Ever wonder how they take over a grass root movement so fast?
Think about it.
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? Or if, during periods of mass
arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city,
people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the
downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing
left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people
with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly
have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's
thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom
enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and
simply deserved everything that happened afterward.
The United States is now too big for popular protest. How can I, living in California,
have common cause with someone living in New York? We live on opposite sides of this
continent and have wildly different climates. Our heavy hitters are in Technology while New
York has Banking and Wall St.
Our elected officials are unable to get crap done in the same manner we're unable to get a
good protest underway. We can withdraw somewhat or go off grid where possible but that's
about it.
African American lack of support for the Iraq war:
According to several polls taken right before the war, only a minority of African-Americans
supported the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq. Most notably, a poll by the
Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies had found that only 19 percent of
African-Americans supported it.
That is a striking statistic, especially considering that more than 70 percent of white
Americans were in favor of the military invasion, according to some polls.
Also note that 90% of white males were for that illegal war of aggression.
the left is so obsessed with getting trump, they can do nothing else. they are so *******
stoopid, that they wont even try to develop someone to beat trump. they put 100% of their
energy in hating trump. they are blinded by hatred.
the end is nigh and there's nothing to be done about it.... 10 years and thats it....
beyond that and event horizon... black hole... no one knows. ai terminator coming soon...
thats all i can see.
Most thinking people are not wanting to be part of a movement that will be co-opted for
someone else's political gain. I would rather prepare myself and family for the inevitable
collapse of the economy and perhaps more that awaits us. That's enough to keep me busy. I
can't change the whole world but I can prepare to help my family friends and neighbors.
In answer to the the question posed by the headerof this article, they have either been
exiled from 'respectable' media or are stuck yelling "Trump! Trump! Trump! Russia! Russia!
Russia" like a poorly programmed NPC caught in an infinite loop.
The hidden hand behind the puppet show has done a hell of a job massaging the masses, and
turning their minds into mush.
"Where have the anti-war and anti-bank masses gone? I would argue they are still with us
but they cannot turn their voices into action and organization if they remain in the
Democratic Party ."
Exactly! If there are any anti-war people out there they sure as hell are not with the
Democratic Party. Those leftist lunatics are the most destructive political group on this
planet. Their thinking is 'divide & conquer', incite racial tensions, spew hatred,
promoting that killing babies before they are born, or even on the day they are born is
awesome. One has to wonder if people that evil even have souls.
As for anti-bankers... is this author off his rocker? He's not fooling anyone by trying to
present the theory that if there are any consciencous objectors out there they would be
supporters of the Democratic party. That thought is outright laughable. Even worse, to try to
create this new narrative by writing this type of article is absolutely despicable.
Fortunately, not the least bit convincing. People know better.
" Where have the anti-war and anti-bank masses gone? I would argue they are still with us
but they cannot turn their voices into action and organization if they remain in the
Democratic Party "
OK, so..... it's the Democrat Party, not the Democratic Party. Not like anyone gives a
**** what words mean any more, but.... whatever. Use the right ******* words or..... *******
don't. Not like any of this **** matters any more at this level.
And not all of us are ******* Democrats. Neither party is really anti-war or anti-bank
now, so the red/blue thing has little relevance to those subjects. We all argue about much
more important issues now like transgender bathrooms and whether Kanye West is a racist for
supporting Trump or not.
Politics has become a black hole collapsing on us. Black hole don't give a ****. Look at
that black hole. It just ate a star and became bigger. It don't care.
Sorry but I do not see Trump as "threatening nuclear war".
Surely some of the Deep Staters did. But it's hard to see Trump as in control. His
presidency has been great for exposing how things really work. That's worth a lot. If only
the idiots would pay attention. But they won't. They're too busy placing great importance on
the trifling and little or none on the critically important.
Excuse me I have to run now and get the latest iPhone.
Hawaii congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard took to Twitter on Wednesday to excoriate Donald Trump
for his decision to apparently pardon Saudi Arabia for the killing of journalist Jamal
Khashoggi, labeling the president the "bitch" of the authoritarian kingdom. "Hey
@realDonaldTrump," Gabbard tweeted , "being Saudi
Arabia's bitch is not "America First."
Gabbard's tweet comes just a day after Trump released
a statement -- with "America First!" right at the top -- that heavily implied that he will
not pursue any further action against top Saudi officials, who are widely believed to be
responsible for the writer's murder, and cast doubt on the finding of the CIA, his own
intelligence service.
Gabbard previously came
under fire for her own forays into Middle Eastern affairs, including her secret 2016
trip to meet with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria at the height of its civil war and her
suggestion that Assad, a brutal dictator who has overseen the deaths of more than 500,000
people in his country, should not be removed from office.
@ChuckOrloski
Not surprising to anyone who understands that stealing ,especially from 'others' is a first
choice career of Jews/Israelis.
I have always suspected that the 9 billion of stolen Iraq funds were stolen by the Jews who
were embedded in the US occupation administration and sent to Israel. Israel was so broke in
2001 they asked the Us for economic aid then suddenly in 2004 by some miracle they were
rolling in surplus money again.
Investigations reveal a pattern of Israeli officials stone-walling efforts to stop the
perpetrators of massive financial swindles in various countries, from Europe to the US to the
Philippines While some Israeli reporters work to expose the scams, a new one is already
underway
By Alison Weir
[MORE]
French and Israeli media report that a group largely made up of Israelis scammed 3,000 French
citizens out of approximately $20 million. Most of the stolen money is in Israel, but Israeli
authorities are reportedly failing to cooperate with France in prosecuting the scammers and
retrieving the money.
This is the latest of numerous examples of Israeli officials stone-walling international
efforts against the perpetrators of massive financial swindles around the world, according to
Israeli investigative journalists and others. These scams have brought estimated billions
into the Israeli economy, propping up a regime widely condemned for human rights abuses and
ethnic cleansing against indigenous Palestinians. Together, the stories paint a picture of a
government that seems to be turning a blind eye to -- and even protecting -- scammers.
A Finance Magnates analysis reports that one of the swindles alone has brought in over a
billion dollars and employs 5,000 people. And a new scam, described below, may help what is
predicted to be "the next major driver of the Israeli economy."
A former IRS expert on international crime notes that "fraudulent industries are often
major economic drivers, and that can translate into political clout."
Some Israeli journalists have been working to expose the situation in Israeli newspapers,
publishing exposés like "As Israel turns blind eye to vast binary options fraud,
French investigators step in" and "Are French Jewish criminals using Israel as a
get-out-of-jail card?" (Short answer: yes.)
Victimizing French business owners & churches
The victims of the recent scam against French citizens included churches and the owners of
small businesses -- delicatessens, car repair shops, hair salons, plumbers, etc. Some lost
their life savings and describe being threatened and intimidated by the scammers.
by John Quiggin on November 11, 2018 It's 100 years since
the Armistice that brought an end to fighting on the Western Front of the Great War. Ten
million soldiers or more were dead, and even more gravely wounded, along with millions of
civilians. Most of the empires that had begun the war were destroyed, and even the victors had
suffered crippling losses. Far from being a "war to end war", the Great War was the starting
point for many more, as well as bloody and destructive revolutions. These wars continue even
today, in the Middle East, carved up in secret treaties between the victors.
For much of the century since then, it seemed that we had learned at least something from
this tragedy, and the disasters that followed it. Commemoration of the war focused on the loss
and sacrifice of those who served, and were accompanied by a desire that the peace they sought
might finally be achieved.
But now that everyone who served in that war has passed away, along with most of those who
remember its consequences, the tone has shifted to one of glorification and jingoism.
In part, this reflects the fact that, for rich countries, war no longer has any real impact
on most people. As in the 19th century, we have small professional armies fighting in faraway
countries and suffering relatively few casualties. Tens of thousands of people may die in these
conflicts, but the victims of war impinge on our consciousness only when they seek shelter as
refugees, to be turned away or locked up.
In the past, I've concluded message like this with the tag "Lest we Forget". Sadly, it seems
as if everything important has already been forgotten.
novakant 11.11.18 at 11:11 am (no link)
There's an interesting review in this week's TLS (paywall) by Richard J. Evans of
Jörn Leonhard: Pandora's Box – A History of the First World War
I think it varies per place, even within countries. In my English village this morning, about
a quarter of the population gathered in front of the war memorial, closing the only road.
They stood there, quietly. A couple of older people spent twenty minutes reading out the
names of all the poor souls who had left the village for war and never returned. Then there
was two minutes silence, the vicar called for personal peace for all those affected by war,
and then demanded that all those who could work for peace do so. A grim soberness marked the
whole thing
I had nearly not gone, expecting it to be too jingoistic, but it was nothing of the sort. I
am sure across the many communities remembering the Armistice across the world, many will be
doing the same.
This is my way of responding to Armistice Day.
Bob Dylan, Masters of War" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCnYmrADSns
"You that fasten all the trigger
For the others to fire
And you sit back and watch
While the death toll gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud"
Phil Ochs, "I Declare the War Is Over https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOs9xYUjY4I
"One-legged veterans will greet the dawn
And they're whistling marches as they mow the lawn
And the gargoyles only sit and grieve
The gypsy fortune teller told me that we'd been deceived
You only are what you believe"
Big Ed McCurdy, "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc5hxqNdqKo
"Last night I had the strangest dream
I ever dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war"
Just a personal question on jq. I left Australia 30 years ago. I can remember no jingoism on
armistice Day. On Australia Day and Anzac Day perhaps, but never on remembrance Day. Had that
really changed?
Regarding Leonhard, it is always a cause for concern when a reviewer calls a historian
"judicious."
The most important thing to remember about the Great War is that it wasn't caused by
malign ideologies, or nefarious leveling schemes, or crazed utopian economic cranks. It was
simply an inevitable breakdown of the normal operation of the capitalist world system.
Remember that when the ever growing infestation of libertarians, respected by their peers,
trot out their mythology.
Speaking of "lest we forget," how many people and how many commemorations have managed to
forget that the armistice came about as a direct consequence of the socialist uprising in
Germany, sparked in large part by a mass mutiny among German sailors in Kiel? Two days before
the formal armistice declaration, workers led by the left wing of the SPD stormed the
Reichstag, an ad hoc governing coalition led by the right wing of the SPD negotiated the
abdication of the Kaiser, and both the left and right wings of the SPD simultaneously issued
separate proclamations of a socialist German republic (by which they meant two very different
things, of course, a divergence that was notoriously written out over the following few years
in the blood of revolutionaries like Rosa Luxemburg).
In short, you can toss Armistice Day into the category as things like weekend, the 8 hour
work day, the 40 hour work week, social safety nets, and so on: if you celebrate it, don't
forget to thank revolutionary socialism for making it possible.
I'm with John on this one. I'll wear the poppy in recognition of the sacrifice, but will
avoid the local cenotaph ceremony. I find the current temper of Remembrance Day services
distasteful and the "our freedoms" trope abhorrent.
Reason @5 It's mostly Anzac Day, but the 100th anniversary has made Remembrance Day a bigger
deal than usual. And we just had a breathless announcement that "veterans" (I still haven't
got used to this Americanism) would be given boarding priority on Virgin airlines.
To be fair, our PM, who is generally hopeless on this and other issues, gave quite a good
speech on the day, which ran under the headline "War is always a failure of our humanity"
the loss of life and the lasting injuries that follow the fighting remain to show the
futility of allowing war to arise as an answer to our conflicting ideas. humanity has failed
as the dominant species. the fault lies in the hopes of too many to emulate the past society
of material greed as a goal. reaching our limits of destroying the clean air and poisoning
the seas with chemical and plastic waste as though the planet could absorb an endless spew
will cause humanity's end. honoring the dead is the least we may do to salute those that went
before us.
steven t johnson@6: WWI was "simply an inevitable breakdown of the normal operation of the
capitalist world system".
Remind me how many other "inevitable breakdowns of the normal operation" happened before,
or after 1914.
Remind me how far the authorities in Serbia, Russia (or indeed Austria-Hungary or Germany)
believed themselves to be operating in the interests of, or governed by, the capitalist world
system.
Come to that, for the next catastrophe in 1939, do the same for the authorities in Russia,
Poland and Germany.
And explain why there have been no such inevitable breakdowns since.
John Quiggin@10 "To be fair, our PM, who is generally hopeless on this and other issues, gave
quite a good speech on the day, which ran under the headline 'War is always a failure of our
humanity'" It seems to me to be quite unfair to blame WWI on us and our depraved human
nature. As Norman Angell notoriously demonstrated "us" do not get any benefit from war. Cui
bono? Nationalists want to go back to a world where sovereign nations struggle for their
place in the sun. Some, like Trump and Putin, want to go it alone. Others like the lords of
the EU want a consortium. What all share is a system of capitalist competition which will,
like all complex, crisis-ridden systems, eventually break down. Whining about human nature
seems to me detestable.
stephen@12 agrees with majority here, and elsewhere, of course. Nonetheless the confidence
the Spanish-American war, the Boer war, the Russian-Turkish war, the Sino-Japanese war, the
Russian-Japanese war and either of the Balkan wars would of course not, ever, possibly, have
spread like the third Balkan war, er, WWI would be touching were it not so disingenuous. Even
if one insists only conflicts between the great powers, the possibility that the Crimean war,
the war with Magenta and Solferino, the Schleswig-Holstein war, the Franco-Prussian war
(proper,) could not possibly have spread out of control is equally disingenous. Remember
54-40 or fight, the Aroostook war? The monotonously repetitive crises like Fashoda and the
first and second Moroccan crises and the brouhaha over the annexation of Bosnia clearly shows
crisis is normal operation. stephen's insistence this is all irrelevant is convenience, not
argument.
As to the absurd notion that a capitalist world system, in which states are the protectors
of the property of the nation's ruling class, somehow means the chieftains are pursuing the
general interests of world capitalism is delirious twaddle. It is the reformist who pretends
globalism means trade and peace.
I am well aware that everyone agrees with stephen on this point, but it is still
wrong.
Tens of thousands of people may die in these conflicts
Try 2 million in Korea.
One million in Vietnam.
500,000 in Iraq.
And who knows how many in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Serbia, Somalia and all our
various proxy wars in Yemen, Latin America and Africa plus all of the civilians massacred by
our client-state dictators in Chile, Nicaragua, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, Congo, Egypt, the
Dominican Republic, Haiti, Guatemala and others I'm likely forgetting.
America is the biggest purveyor of death, destruction and human misery on the globe, but
it sounds like we've "forgotten" that as well.
Plenty of horrible things have happened in various American and other war zones since the
Western Front. Plenty of busted-up vets in every city. The problem can't be that we
forgot .
but isn't the capitalist system an emergent effect based on properties of human nature:
individualism, acquisitiveness, aggression. Surely a change of human nature would lead to a
change of economics at least; hopefully in a progressive direction but not necessarily
so.
A while back, a native American on Twitter commented that her people had already
experienced an apocalypse. This led to the following reflection on my part:
The history of modern Western Europe can be viewed as a series of apocalypses. War after
war after war, only at peace after nearly destroying itself. And that is the history of the
modern world.
>In short, you can toss Armistice Day into the category as things like weekend, the 8
hour work day, the 40 hour work week, social safety nets, and so on: if you celebrate it,
don't forget to thank revolutionary socialism for making it possible.
Do and the 100 million people revolutionary socialists would murder in the 80 or so years
following armistice day, what do they owe the revolutionary socialists?
@13
>What all share is a system of capitalist competition which will, like all complex,
crisis-ridden systems, eventually break down. Whining about human nature seems to me
detestable.
Ah yes, we all remember how non-violent those non-capitalist systems were, with the gulags
and mass killing and terror famines.
In an Old Holborn 'baccy tin somewhere in the house is my grandad's WW1 medal. He served in
the London Labour Battalions. Gassed.
He worked twice between his return and his too early death. Both jobs being very
temporary. His family lived in poverty in the East End; the "Panel" was used at times:
charity from the worthies. My dad was crippled with diseases of poverty. He was a communist
(until the 50s).
He signed up with his mates in '39. His best mate Jimmy Biscoe killed in a bomber operation
in the early 40s.
I got my dad's medals this year, twenty years after his death. He only told me a bit of
his experiences when he was dying. He loved my mum, music and kindness.
My dear, gruff dad-in-law lost his left leg at Monte Cassino. Every few years he'd get a
new "fitting", which was a great strain for him. He loved his family, his garden, rowing; we
talked a little about his experiences one quiet afternoon at the RSA. He too died too
early.
My Mum's favourite brother was a boy sailor. He went through the River Plate among other
actions. He spent time in psychiatric hospital after the war for his 'war trauma'. He too
died early.
The padre at my daughter's funeral had been a padre at Arnhem. A quiet, deeply
compassionate man who took his own life some three years later.
My best friend at school, dead in his twenties, doing his "duty".
Not a hero among them: ordinary, flawed, loved and loving human beings.
And the people left behind ? Lives filled with quiet, unresolved sadness and loss; getting by
with grit and quiet courage.
I used to go to Dawn Service. Then it got to be political Theatre. I get f .g angry with
all the brouhaha, preening and cavorting. None of this helps or helped any of those people
mentioned above.
Half a billion for the AWM? And cutting the funding of food banks? Moral bloody Bankruptcy
writ large.
You know I could possibly be sympathetic with all of you if it wasn't the case that
utopian ideology didn't have more victims than all the nationalisms put together. A plague on
all your houses.
Birdie@17 is telling us human nature generated capitalism a hundred thousand years ago? Or is
telling us that human nature is only free in a capitalist system? I think neither.
Raven Onthill@18 seems to think it is incumbent on the lesser peoples to surrender without
a fight, and accept the status quo as God-given. That Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman empires
could be liquidated peacefully, like a common bankruptcy. That is not how it works in a
capitalist system of sovereign states defending the property of their respective ruling
classes, against other states. The rise of Germany and the US against the relative decline of
the British empire meant the balance of forces must change. The new balance could only be
found by war.
The relative decline of the US means the current balance of forces must change. That's why
the US government has explicitly declared Russia and China to be revisionist powers. The US
state will no more go quietly than the British empire, which would not reach a peaceful
accommodation with Germany then any more than it can reach a real accommodation with "Europe"
today.
ironoutofcavalry@19 spells out the shared premises of liberal democrats and fascists, the
determination that famines and wars under capitalism are acts of God, while everything that
happens under socialism is always deliberate. Even if you somehow pretend the depopulation of
the Americas and the mass deaths of the Middle Passage somehow had nothing to do with
capitalism, there were plenty of holocausts in later days. See Mike Davis' Late Victorian
Holocausts. (Davis contention that famines relatively soon after the revolution are the same
as the great Bengal famine or the Irish famine is social-democratic piety, the sort of thing
that gives it a bad name.) Idiot theorists of "totalitarianism" are invited to comment upon
the Triple War in South America.
ironoutofcavalry, the Black Book of Communism is a contemptible far-right propaganda rag
whose death tally was denounced by several of its own co-authors due to the main author's
obsession with reaching the nice round 100 million mark by any means necessary, with "victims
of communism" including such figures as hypothetical deaths due to lack of population growth
during famine periods, Soviet civilian deaths resulting from the economic dislocations of the
Nazi invasion, and even Nazi soldiers killed on the battlefields of the Eastern Front. By
standards much more rigorous and defensible than those used in the Black Book of Communism,
the basic functioning of global capitalist material inequality kills tens of millions of
people per decade -- which is before you even begin trying to tally the casualties of
capitalist conflicts like the two world wars, let alone any of the other massively
destructive imperial interventions around the world before and since, which people like
stephen seem to have trained themselves not to regard as catastrophic in the same way as
WWI/WWII as long as the victims are mostly poor brown people in the Third World. Hell, even
at this very moment the US is providing direct political and military support for a campaign
of intentional starvation by its Saudi proxy state against millions of people in northern
Yemen, a "terror famine" at least as deliberate and premeditated as anything Stalin or Mao
ever dreamed of.
If you must insist on spreading uninformed reactionary bromides, at least take it to a
less serious discussion space where it belongs, and regardless, don't forget to thank a
socialist if you enjoy not being sent to die in a muddy trench.
Stephen, here's a reasonable
summary of how the dynamics of capitalist economic development led inexorably to WWI and
WWII, and are leading to a future global conflict that may be much less distant than we'd
like to imagine. Now before you click the link, note the following passage quoted in the
linked article, by a political commentator writing in 1887 about the prospect of:
a world war, moreover of an extent the violence hitherto unimagined. Eight to ten
million soldiers will be at each other's throats and in the process they will strip Europe
barer than a swarm of locusts. The depredations of the Thirty Years' War compressed into
three to four years and extended over the entire continent; famine, disease, the universal
lapse into barbarism, both of the armies and the people, in the wake of acute misery
irretrievable dislocation of our artificial system of' trade, industry and credit, ending
in universal bankruptcy collapse of the old states and their conventional political wisdom
to the point where crowns will roll into the gutters by the dozen, and no one will be
around to pick them up; the absolute impossibility of foreseeing how it will all end and
who will emerge as victor from the battle. That is the prospect for the moment when the
development of mutual one-upmanship in armaments reaches us, climax and finally brings
forth its inevitable fruits. This is the pass, my worthy princes and statesmen, to which
you in your wisdom have brought our ancient Europe.
Now based on what you can guess of my political orientation strictly from what I've
posted here, try to guess which 19th century European political figure might have written
that passage. No, your first guess is wrong, he died in 1883, but close, now guess again.
Yes, your second guess is correct .
I've seen "X is bad" statements receive the "Oh yeah? Well Stalin was worse !" non
sequitur in response for many values of X. But this thread is the first time I've seen it
happen for X = WWI.
WLGR@7: if you think that revolutionary socialism made possible "weekend, the 8 hour work
day, the 40 hour work week, social safety nets" how do you explain that all these things
happened in states that did not have to endure the catastrophic misfortunes of revolutionary
socialism?
steven t johnson@14
This is the first time that I have ever been told that everyone [on CT? in the wider
universe?] agrees with me, but if that is so I do not see it as a reason for supposing I am
wrong. Rational arguments dissenting from my opinions are of course always welcome.
stj's argument that, because conflicts pre-1914 did not result in world wars, therefore
WWI was inevitable, has only to be made explicit to collapse.
I am particularly interested by stj's argument that the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78,
between two absolutist non-capitalist monarchies, was in some way the result of international
capitalism. If he will reconsider that opinion, he might like to recalibrate his denunciation
of other wars as capitalist. I would recommend the works of an intelligent Marxist, Perry
Anderson, who explains why pre-Revolutionary Russia and Wilhelmine Germany had many
capitalists, they were not actually capitalist states.
As for his denunciation of capitalism in which "states are the protectors of the property
of the nation's ruling class": there is of course some truth there, but in which system is
that not true? In capitalism, unlike some other systems – revolutionary socialism, to
start with – whose property has been protected?
Birdie@17: "isn't the capitalist system an emergent effect based on properties of human
nature: individualism, acquisitiveness, aggression?" Human nature indeed; try explaining to
Ashurbanipal of Assyria, Alexander, Genghiz Khan why these properties did not apply to their
very n0n-capitalist selves.
Stephen, are you under the impression that western Europe and the US never had a
revolutionary socialist tradition? If so, I don't really know what to tell you other than to
read even the most passing history of Western mass politics and labor struggles, the upshot
of which is that yes of course it was Western ruling classes' fear of working-class
revolutionary agitation that led to the implementation of every single one of those things,
up to and including the German ruling class in early November 1918 deciding to hand over
power to the moderate reformist wing of the SPD, whose first major policy decision as soon as
they'd settled into their desks was to pursue an armistice with the Entente. I can understand
maybe a few token Birchers or Randroids poking their heads out here and there, but has the
anti-intellectual right-wing fever swamp of our current era really risen high enough that
such mild observations are somehow surprising or controversial even in a forum like this one?
'I used to go to Dawn Service. Then it got to be political Theatre. I get f .g angry with
all the brouhaha, preening and cavorting. None of this helps or helped any of those people
mentioned above."
After Trump's election, I chose to abstain for a while from the drenching but never quenching
fire hose of information of the web, and for a while worked through the stacks of books I had
long left unread.
One I avoided for quite a while, not remembering its provenance was "Human Smoke", by
Nicholson Baker. It could not have been a gift; no one in the family still living is familiar
with this author.
It's an assemblage of quotes from various authors from the beginning of the twentieth
century up until the operation of the crematoria which furnishes the title, and its general
tendency is pacifism, disarmament, the efforts made both before and after the Great War to
prevent such catastrophes, and the inhumanity of the conduct of the war. From the outset, the
policy of our side was to starve the other into submission through naval blockades, and to a
considerable extent it was successful.
In the second round, our side was the first to start bombing civilians, and we got better
at it the longer the war went on, though it's far from clear that this was a useful
strategy.
Baker's book is not, could hardly be, a convincing argument for pacifism, given the
drumbeat of fascist pronouncements, threats, denunciations, bragging and swaggering. The
first world war was so pointless that it's hard to understand how it happened, why it
couldn't have been avoided, why it couldn't have been stopped sooner. The second was
different.
It is worth remembering that the First World War was called, by those who opposed it after
the fact, the "War to End War". An organisation was set up to ensure that there would be no
more wars, and an international agreement renouncing war was signed.
The organisation was being set up while the war was actually going on, if you count the
Western blockade and invasion of Russia, and the Greek invasion of Turkey, as part of the
war.
Nevertheless, within less than twenty years you had the Italian invasion of Ethiopia
(arguably an after-effect of Italy's failure to get what it wanted out of the First World
War) and soon after that, the Japanese invasion of southern China (inarguably, ditto).
It is possible for people to argue that since there has not been a similar war since 1945,
"humanity" has "learned its lesson". In reality, however, the reason why there has been no
similar war has been that the principal protagonists have nuclear weapons and no means of
defense against them. If anybody comes up with a genuinely reliable defense against ballistic
and cruise missiles, I'd give the world less than ten more years of peace.
Incidentally, I'd give the world less than ten more years of peace at the moment, but
that's because of the preponderance of doltish psychopaths in governments. It's interesting,
however, that a doltish psychopath like Macron is nevertheless capable of realising that
France is vulnerable to the intermediate-range nuclear missiles which the U.S. is currently
unleashing on the world, and therefore is trying to, er, have a conference about banning the
use of naughty weapons and about promoting world peace.
Stephen has won the gallery with the claim that repeated crises failing to result in systemic
failure of the world diplomatic system (that is, causing world war,) on a an easily
predictable schedule shows obviously it is entirely possible for us to go back to a world of
sovereign nations like before the US hegemony and have endless crises with nary a collapse.
It's like the capitalist economy that way. "We" are now so wise that we can avoid the follies
of our predecessors, who are obviously stupid, which is proven by their being dead, dead,
dead.
I am sure Stephen has also won hearts and minds with the claim Russian conquests
against Turkey meant the extension of the Russian empire rather than the creation of the
states of Montenegro, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria. But perhaps people think those new
countries came complete with serfdom; extensive church lands and widespread monasticism;
aristocratic estates and caste privileges; relative absence of cities, etc. That is, the new
states were non-capitalist because absolutist monarchy isn't capitalist.
(I'm not familiar with Perry Anderson because leftist and foreign means it will not be
easily available in the US outside elite libraries. But if Perry Anderson thinks absolutism
and mercantilism were not part of the transition to capitalism, I believe he is gravely
mistaken. Defining "capitalism" as the most refined bourgeois democracy in the imperial
metropole is popular, because it is so usefully apologetic, yet it is still nonsense.)
Last and least, reason@21 utters the preposterous claim "utopian ideologies" have killed
more people than anything else. (The comment seems to include ironoutof cavalry, but I'm sure
ironoutofcavalry, like Stephen and reason, are resolutely complacent about social evils,
because, anti-utopian.) Personally I think business as usual, not utopian ideology, had
everything to do with the great Bengal famine circa 1770 (not the WWII one.) Etc. etc. etc.
in a litany that would sicken the soul, were it not fortified by the conviction it is utopian
ideology that is the spirit of evil.
"Sadly, it seems as if everything important has already been forgotten".
But Von Clownstick just remembered it was "them Germans" – and sadly not one comment
here was about Macron reminding US that "everything important" is how to deal with
"Nationalism"?
– and about:
"But now that everyone who served in that war has passed away, along with most of those who
remember its consequences, the tone has shifted to one of glorification and jingoism".
Didn't the French and the Germans mention that it is now 70 years that these "Archenemies"
at peace? – and I think to this "Armistice Day" the first time even the Germans were
invited? – but how true there was a "shifted tone" by the German Baron Von Clownstick
–
(who somehow still pretends he is "American"?)
Britain tried to negotiate an end to the naval arms race with Germany at least twice
before 1914. Germany was not interested. After 1905 Russia was also keen to avoid conflict.
The proponents of this policy lost credibility due to German sabre-rattling and insouciant
reversals by Vienna.
– and for everybody who might have missed it – let me explain what was going on
at this "Armistice Day".
Baron von Clownstick was very, VERY unhappy -(not only because he was afraid to ruin his
hair) BUT also – BE-cause as he always says "we built the best Arms" – "the most
beautiful weaponry" – and when he always told them Germans and them French and all
these other Nato members to pay more for Nato he was hoping for more Sales of US Arms BUT
then this Macron dude -(and now also Merkel) suddenly were talking about "Europeans
protecting themselves" -(and NOT buying more US weapons) and that made Von Clownstick very,
VERY sad – as his funny tweets about the US not wanting to protect Europe anymore
– if Europe wasn't "pony up" came to let's call it – to "fruition" – or a
classical "protect me from what I want" – and THAT's what happened on this –
"Armistice Day" –
(besides the danger for Von Clownsticks hair)
Just wading in a bit to say that "Revolutionary Socialism" is one of those labels that
obfuscates more than it reveals. Lenin, Debs, and Luxembourg were all contemporaries who
believed in Socialism and revolution, but they didn't all believe in the same "Revolutionary
Socialism." Just look at the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks for proof that even seemingly
small distinctions in what it means to be "revolutionary" have huge implications.
People seem to have settled on using "Revolutionary" as a code word to mean "violent,
dangerous, and radical," or "serious, committed, and effective," depending on their politics,
while "Democratic" is treated as being the opposite (for good or ill), but it's a false
dichotomy. Pacifists can be radical, democrats can be thuggish, and democracy can be
revolutionary or counterrevolutionary, and "effectiveness" is subjective. Given that even
with conventional definitions, it's not always easy to see which of the two camps a
particular Socialist falls under (and many of them changed factions), it's probably best to
clarify what type of revolution you're talking about up front.
er, Peter T, Britain wanted to end the naval arms race with Germany because it was ahead and
in complete control of European seas. It was Britain which had introduced the Dreadnought
battleship and the battlecruiser. It's rather like the American calls to restrict the number
of nuclear weapons and discourage countries which don't have them from acquiring them.
I won't say that German sabre-rattling wasn't a factor in promoting European crisis.
However, it's hard not to see the Russian military buildup in Europe between 1905 and 1914 as
anything other than preparation for war (however inept it turned out to be in practice), and
of course the Russians were heavily involved (diplomatically) in the Balkan wars. It
certainly wasn't the Austrians who orchestrated the murder of their heir to the throne, and
if Britain were to grow grumpy at Syria murdering Prince Charles I would hardly call that
"insouciant".
Wars are a strategy for male reproduction. Invade. Kill the competing men. Impregnate the
women. Enslave and trade women as reproductive property. Repeat. It's what men have done for
centuries.
Eg. Iceland
. ""This supports the model, put forward by some historians, that the majority of females
in the Icelandic founding population had Gaelic ancestry, whereas the majority of males had
Scandinavian ancestry,"
Britain had roughly 70% of the world's merchant fleet, a world-wide empire tied together
by maritime communications and was critically dependent on sea-borne trade. This was not new
– it had been the situation since 1815. Germany set out to build a fleet specifically
designed to challenge Britain's control of its home waters (heavy on battleships, short
range). Britain responded by building the dreadnoughts, then by coming to an arrangement with
France so as to free up forces from the Med, all the while seeking a naval truce. One can
argue that Germany had every right to seek to diminish British naval dominance, but it was
surely both a foolish and an aggressive policy, given that it posed a threat no British
government could not respond to (the invasion of Belgium and German plans to annex the
Belgian coast were similar, in that they would place the High Seas Fleet across Britain's
major trade artery. In 1914 London was the greatest port in the world).
The Viennese insouciance I had in mind was in regard to the Bosnian annexation in 1909.
The details are in Dominic Lieven's Towards the Flame, but it was a typical bit of
Austro-Hungarian over-clever dickishness. It added a layer of distrust that was not helpful
in 1914.
What worried Germany the most was Russian railway-building, which threatened to make their
military planning more difficult. They saw 1914 as a narrow and shrinking window (much as
many of the same people saw war in 1939 as a last military opportunity). Indeed, they had
mooted war against Russia in 1906 and again in 1909.
It's overlooked that Europe had an established mechanism for resolving diplomatic crises
– either an international congress or a meeting of the affected powers (as at Vienna
1813, Berlin 1878, London 1912..). The Powers had imposed settlements in the Balkans on
several previous occasions, and could have done so this time. Britain and France proposed a
congress; Berlin refused.
While they all look similar to us, Germany really was much more militarist and much more
inclined to seek salvation from their dilemmas in war than the other powers. While all the
elites were in a febrile state, Germany's were in something close to a collective nervous
breakdown, isolated, truculent and fearful.
I am a big fan of Hobson's book "Imperialism, a study", written in 1902, that I believe
explain tendencies, that evidently were present in 1902 and before, that later exploded and
caused WW1 and WW2.
The general theory of the book is that capitalist countries face underconsumption problems
at home, due to the exceedigly low wage share (Hobson though is not a marxist so he doesn't
believes that this is the normal situation in capitalism).
This underconsumption forces capitalist countries to expand in the colonies, and ultimately
also to create an military/financial/industrial complex that becomes the valve through which
excess savings (due to underconsumption due to excessively low wages) can be reinvested.
I'll leave out a discussion if Hobson's economic theories make sense (I think they do) or
wether they are the same of marxist theories (I think they are the same expressed from
another point of view and with a more moderate approach), but I want to point out the chapter
about "the scientific defence of imperialism" (pp.162 onwards in the link), because it
clearly speaks of the "scientific racism" theories that are nowadays associated with fascism
and nazism.
Here a cite from p.163:
Admitting that the efficiency of a nation or a race requires a suspension of intestine
warfare, at any rate l' =trance, the crude struggle on the larger plane must, they urge, be
maintained. It serves, indeed, two related purposes. A constant struggle with other races
or nations is demanded for the maintenance and progress of a race or nation ; abate the
necessity of the struggle and the vigour of the race flags and perishes. Thus it is to the
real interest of a vigorous race to be " kept up to a high pitch of external efficiency by
contest, chiefly by way of war with inferior races, and with equal races by the struggle
for trade routes and for the sources of raw material and of food supply." " This," adds
Professor Karl Pearson," is the natural history view of mankind, and I do not think you can
in its main features subvert it." Others, taking the wider cosmic standpoint, insist that
the progress of humanity itself requires the main-tenance of a selective and destructive
struggle between races which embody different power and capacities, different types of
civilisation.
From this I think it's obvious how Italian fascism and German nazism were mostly an
extremisation of theories that were already present before WW1 (and Japanese militarism and
probably many other militarism that we prefer to forget today).
In fact Mussolini justified the entry of Italy into WW2 with the idea of a natural struggle
between nations/races/cultures.
Now the main question is: was Hobson correct to say that these theories were just covers
for economic interests, that in turn were caused by underconsumption?
Or to say the same thing from a more marxist standpoint, is it true that WW1 was caused by
various capitalist countries were forced by the capitalist need for continuous
growth/expansion to continually expand their colonial empires, and in the end they had to
clash one with the other?
I think it is true.
This doesn't mean that all war in history were caused by capitalism, before capitalism ever
existed. Hower this gives an answer to some of your questions, and specifically:
1) Why didn't the normal conditions of capitalist production give rise to a world war
before?
Because various capitalist powers hadn't already conquered most of the world, so they didn't
have to go directly at each other's throat before WW1.
2) Why didn't the normal conditions of capitalist production give rise to a world war
after WW2?
Because
(2.a) after WW2 the capitalist system in developed countries had a much higer wage share due
to government intervention and anyway excess savings were repurposed through Keynesian
policies and inflation, thus much less underconsuption,
and
(2.b) because after WW2 for some decades there was only one main capitalist pole, that was
the USA, that was the main proponent of this kind of keynesian policies, either because it
was wiser, or because of the menace of socialism, or for whatever the reason.
WLGR@29: You ask whether I am "under the impression that western Europe and the US never had
a revolutionary socialist tradition?" Well, definitely not, and I cannot see that I have
written anything that could lead you to form an honest opinion that I am, or even might be.
Nor can I see any basis for your belief that, disagreeing with you, I must be wholly ignorant
of Western mass politics. I would advise you to have less faith in your own powers of
telepathy.
To refresh your memory: I wrote that various good thing happened in states that did not
have to endure the catastrophic misfortunes of revolutionary socialism. And I cannot see how
you can dispute either that states which were historically ruled by revolutionary socialists
suffered catastrophes; or that many European and other states, though never ruled by
revolutionary socialists and so avoiding their catastrophes, acquired these good things.
Pre-emptive disclaimer: I am not of course claiming that all catastrophes have been due to
revolutionary socialism.
stj@33: with regard to Russo/Turkish history, I think you are rather confused. You seem to
think I claimed that "Russian conquests against Turkey meant the extension of the Russian
empire rather than the creation of the states of Montenegro, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria." I
didn't: I merely pointed out that the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-8 was not in any intelligible
sense a conflict between two capitalist states. But if you want to widen the discussion to
cover Russian conquests against Turkey, I must point out that (1) several such conquests did
in fact involve extension of the Russian empire: take a quick look at the history of Ukraine
and Crimea (2) the creation of Montenegro was a result of Austrian and Venetian victories,
not Russian (3) Russia never conquered any part of Serbia from the Turks, though Russian
support for autonomously rebellious Serbs was significant (4) a complicating factor in the
formation of Romania was the Russian invasion of the principalities of Wallachia and
Moldavia, followed by an attempt to incorporate them into the Russian empire: many Romanians
preferred Ottoman rule (5) Bulgaria, you're right for once, that was a direct and
uncomplicated result of Russian conquest followed by creation of a new state. Which I never
said it wasn't.
I really do think it would be a good idea for you to read Perry Anderson's thoughtful and
erudite works before dismissing them; they may be more accessible than you think. I don't
know if your socialist principles would allow you to use the capitalist outfit Amazon
yourself, but if so Anderson's Lineages of the Absolutist state is available at $29.95 plus
postage. I would also recommend on a rather different topic Passages from Antiquity to
Feudalism, same price: second-hand copies of either are a little cheaper.
Wasn't World War I the result of Germany pursuing conquest?
World War 1 was equally the result of Britain 'pursuing conquest', i.e. its decades-long
ambition to expand its empire into the Near and Far Easts. Josh Marshall is, I'm afraid, an
unreconstructed Anglophile who also believes silly claims that the British went back to
'peace' (whatever that may be for a militarised empire) after WWI.
MFB @ 39
Correct. From contemporary accounts, we know that those members of the public who were
paying attention at the time could see the various empires building up to war for years
beforehand.
Marxist explanations work better for some events than for others; I don't think they work
particularly well for WW 1, though they aren't completely irrelevant.
I don't keep up with the historiography (e.g., the probably endless debate btw the Fischer
school and its critics/opponents), but one can distinguish btw contingent and deeper causes.
The latter were both 'ideational' (e.g., hypernationalism; views of war in general; 'cult of
the offensive'; influence of Social Darwinist and racialist perspectives on intl relations;
relative weakness of the peace mvts and their msg; dominant styles of diplomacy; etc.) and
'material' (e.g., problems faced by the multinational empires, esp. Austria-Hungary; rigidity
of mobilization plans; economic and political pressures on ruling elites; etc.), though the
distinction between ideational and material is somewhat artificial.
I'm not sure which among all the historical works is most worth reading (J.C.G. Rohl was
mentioned by someone in a past thread on this topic, and there were a lot of books published
around 2014 on the centenary of the war's start); but istm James Joll's work, among others,
has held up pretty well. Political scientists/ IR people have also continued to publish on
this. (The last journal article I'm aware of is Keir Lieber's in Intl Security several yrs
ago [and the replies], though I'm sure there have been others since. And even though it's
old, S. Van Evera's piece from the '80s, "Why Cooperation Failed in 1914," is still worth
reading, for the copious footnotes to the then-extant historical work in English (and English
translation), among other things.)
MFB: "It was Britain which had introduced the Dreadnought battleship and the battlecruiser."
Hmm, wasn't the Dreadnought class a direct response to the Tirpitz Memorandum (1896) and
the subsequent German Navy Bill of 1898, the purpose of which was to build a battleship fleet
with which to confront the Royal Navy?
As regards the historical arguments about war guilt, there was a strong pro-war faction in
nearly every European country, and even in Australia (on this last point, and the links to
the British pro-war faction, see Douglas Newton's Hell Bent ). The pro-war faction
prevailed nearly everywhere. Arguing about which pro-war faction was most responsible for
bringing about the war they all wanted seems pointless to me.
Moreover, once the war started, no-one wanted in power anywhere to bring it to an end on
any terms other than victory, annexations and reparations.
Looking specifically at the British government, since it seems to have the most defenders,
they first refused an offer of alliance from Turkey and then (when Turkey entered on the
German side instead) made a secret deal with France to carve up the Ottoman empire. As
mentioned in the OP, we are still dealing with the consequences today. That's not to excuse
the pro-war factions that dominated the governments of Germany, France, Russia,
Austria-Hungary, Italy etc.
"... Over 60,000 US troops either killed or wounded in conflicts ..."
"... The study estimates between 480,000 and 507,000 people were killed in the course of the three conflicts. ..."
"... Civilians make up over half of the roughly 500,000 killed, with both opposition fighters and US-backed foreign military forces each sustaining in excess of 100,000 deaths as well. ..."
"... This is admittedly a dramatic under-report of people killed in the wars, as it only attempts to calculate those killed directly in war violence, and not the massive number of others civilians who died from infrastructure damage or other indirect results of the wars. The list also excludes the US war in Syria, which itself stakes claims to another 500,000 killed since 2011. ..."
Over 60,000 US troops either killed or wounded in conflicts
Brown University has released a new study on the cost
in lives of America's Post-9/11 Wars, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The study estimates between 480,000 and 507,000 people
were killed in the course of the three conflicts.
This includes combatant deaths and civilian deaths in fighting and war violence. Civilians make up over half of the roughly
500,000 killed, with both opposition fighters and US-backed foreign military forces each sustaining in excess of 100,000 deaths as
well.
This is admittedly a dramatic under-report of people killed in the wars, as it only attempts to calculate those killed directly
in war violence, and not the massive number of others civilians who died from infrastructure damage or other indirect results of
the wars. The list also excludes the US war in Syria, which itself stakes claims to another 500,000 killed since 2011.
The report also notes that over 60,000 US troops were either killed or wounded in the course of the wars. This includes 6,951
US military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11.
The Brown study also faults the US for having done very little in the last 17 years to provide transparency to the country about
the scope of the conflicts, concluding that they are "inhibited by governments determined to paint a rosy picture of perfect execution
and progress."
A long fight by lawmakers like Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) is set to go mainstream, and an
antiwar push on Yemen soon after the midterms could show how.
WASHINGTON ― As Democrats plan for a potential future in which they have control of
the U.S. House, lawmakers, candidates and outside groups close to the party are quietly
preparing a new push against the overlooked war in Afghanistan. The last time the party
controlled the lower chamber of Congress, the U.S. had close to 50,000 troops in Afghanistan.
Today that number is 15,000 -- but it's been eight years, and there's still no clarity about
when the longest war in American history will actually come to an end. President Donald Trump 's stated
policy is that the U.S. presence has no time limit. So Democrats are considering long-discussed
proposals to torpedo the war's entire legal justification -- the sweeping post-9/11
congressional authorization that has been used to support U.S. military action well beyond
Afghan borders -- and tie funding for the campaign to clearly outlined strategic goals and
troop reductions. There's also talk of using new oversight powers to hold top officials,
military commanders, defense contractors and foreign partners accountable for accusations of
human rights violations, corruption and political posturing at the cost of human lives. And
while party leaders are loath to commit to a particular course, they feel certain this is an
issue their colleagues and their political base see as a priority. A dramatic but now largely
forgotten vote in June 2017 underscored why this is a natural fight for Democrats. House
Appropriations Committee lawmakers from both parties voted for the first time for a measure
long pushed by war critic Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) that would repeal the authorization. GOP
leadership quashed the effort, but it clearly signaled that, after years of worrying about
being seen as too dovish, Democrats have reached a moment when even the other party and its
voters can seriously consider serious antiwar action. "We've come a long way from just one vote
in opposition [when the authorization came up in 2001] to a widespread recognition among
members of Congress that this was an overly-broad authorization that set the stage for
perpetual war," Lee wrote in an email to HuffPost. She sees Democratic unity on the issue
today: "There's a lot of common ground across the caucus around holding this debate and
vote."
by Chris Bertram on October 31, 2018 Candice Delmas, A
Duty to Resist: When Disobedience Should Be Uncivil (Oxford University Press, 2018).
Political obligation has always been a somewhat unsatisfactory topic in political
philosophy, as has, relatedly, civil disobedience. The "standard view" of civil disobedience,
to be found in Rawls, presupposes that we live in a nearly just society in which some serious
violations of the basic liberties yet occur and conceives of civil disobedience as a deliberate
act of public lawbreaking, nonviolent in character, which aims to communicate a sense of grave
wrong to our fellow citizens. To demonstrate their fidelity to law, civil disobedients are
willing to accept the consequences of their actions and to take their punishment. When Rawls
first wrote about civil disobedience, in 1964, parts of the US were openly and flagrantly
engaged in the violent subordination of their black population, so it was quite a stretch for
him to think of that society as "nearly just". But perhaps its injustice impinged less
obviously on a white professor at an elite university in Massachusetts than it did on poor
blacks in the deep South.
The problems with the standard account hardly stop there. Civil disobedience thus conceived
is awfully narrow. In truth, the range of actions which amount to resistance to the state and
to unjust societies is extremely broad, running from ordinary political opposition, through
civil disobedience to disobedience that is rather uncivil, through sabotage, hacktivism,
leaking, whistle-blowing, carrying out Samaritan assistance in defiance of laws that prohibit
it, striking, occupation, violent resistance, violent revolution, and, ultimately, terrorism.
For the non-ideal world in which we actually live and where we are nowhere close to a "nearly
just" society, we need a better theory, one which tells us whether Black Lives Matter activists
are justified or whether antifa can punch Richard Spencer. Moreover, we need a theory that
tells us not only what we may do but also what we are obliged to do: when is standing by in the
face of injustice simply not morally permissible.
Step forward Candice Delmas with her superb and challenging book The Duty to Resist:
When Disobedience Should Be Uncivil (Oxford University Press). Delmas points out the
manifold shortcomings of the standard account and how it is often derived from taking the
particular tactics of the civil rights movement and turning pragmatic choices into moral
principles. Lots of acts of resistance against unjust societies, in order to be effective, far
from being communicative, need to be covert. Non-violence may be an effective strategy, but
sometimes those resisting state injustice have a right to defend themselves. [click
to continue ]
Hidari 10.31.18 at 3:41 pm (no link)
Strangely enough, the link I was looking at immediately before I clicked on the OP, was this:
It would be interesting to see a philosopher's view on whether or not civil disobedience
was necessary, and to what extent, to prevent actions that will lead to the end of our
species.
Ebenezer Scrooge 10.31.18 at 4:52 pm (no link)
Two points:
As far as the Nazi-punching goes, it is important to remember that we hung Julius Streicher
for nothing but speech acts.
I have no idea who Candice Delmas is, but "Delmas" is a French name. The French have a very
different attitude toward civil disobedience than we do.
Moz of Yarramulla 10.31.18 at 11:23 pm (no link)
civil disobedience as a deliberate act of public lawbreaking, nonviolent in character,
which aims to communicate a sense of grave wrong to our fellow citizens.
I think that's a pretty narrow view of civil disobedience even if you just count the
actions of the protesters. Often NVDA is aimed at or merely accepts that a violent response
is inevitable. The resistance at Parihaka, for example, was in no doubt that the response
would be military and probably lethal. And Animal Liberation are often classified as
terrorists by the US and UK governments while murderers against abortion are not.
Which is to say that the definition of "nonviolent" is itself an area of conflict, with
some taking the Buddhist extremist position that any harm or even inconvenience to any living
thing makes an action violent, and others saying that anything short of genocide can be
nonviolent (and then there are the "intention is all" clowns). Likewise terrorism, most
obviously of late the Afghani mujahideen when they transitioned from being revolutionaries to
terrorists when the invader changed.
In Australia we have the actual government taking the view that any action taken by a
worker or protester that inconveniences a company is a criminal act and the criminal must
both compensate the company (including consequential damages) as well as facing jail time.
tasmania and
NSW and of course the anti-union
laws . The penalties suggest they're considered crimes of violence, as does the
rhetoric.
Moz of Yarramulla 11.01.18 at 12:13 am (no link)
Jeff@11
one should never legitimize any means toward social change that you would not object to
seeing used by your mortal enemies.
Are you using an unusual definition of "mortal enemy" here? Viz, other than "enemy that
wants to kill you"? Even US law has theoretical prohibitions on expressing that
intention.
It's especially odd since we're right now in the middle of a great deal of bad-faith use
of protest techniques by mortal enemies. "free speech" used to protect Nazi rallies,
"academic freedom" to defend anti-science activists, "non-violent protest" used to describe
violent attacks, "freedom of religion" used to excuse terrorism, the list goes on.
In Australia we have a 'proud boys' leader coming to Australia who has somehow managed to
pass the character test imposed by our government. He's the leader of a gang that requires an
arrest for violence as a condition of membership and regularly says his goal is to incite
others to commit murder. It seems odd that our immigration minister has found those things to
be
not disqualifying while deporting someone for merely
associating with a vaguely similar gang , but we live in weird times.
As far as the Nazi-punching goes, it is important to remember that we hung Julius
Streicher for nothing but speech acts.
I do remember that*, but it's not clear to me why you think it's important to remember it
in this context. If somebody who had fatally punched a Nazi speaker were prosecuted for
murder, I doubt that 'he was a Nazi speaker' would be accepted as a defence on the basis of
the Streicher precedent.
*Strictly speaking, I don't remember it as something that 'we' did: I wasn't born at the
time, and it's not clear to me who you mean by 'we'. (Streicher himself probably would have
said that it was the Jews, or possibly the Jews and the Bolsheviks, who were hanging him, but
I don't suppose that would be your view.) However, I'm aware of the events you're referring
to, which is the real point.
Rawls presupposes that we live in a nearly just society in which some serious violations
of the basic liberties yet occur For the non-ideal world in which we actually live and where
we are nowhere close to a "nearly just" society, we need a better theory
People need to stop spreading this misinterpretation about Rawls on civil disobedience, which
I've seen several places in the past few years. Rawls focuses on the case of a nearly just
society not because he thinks it's the only case in which you can engage in civil
disobedience but because he thinks it's the only case in which there are difficulties with
justifying it. He states this very clearly in A Theory of Justice : in cases where the
society is not nearly just, there are no difficulties in justifying civil disobedience or
even sometimes armed resistance. His natural duty account is not put forward as a general
theory of civil disobedience but to argue that civil disobedience can admit of justification
even in the case in which it is hardest to justify.
I'm not a fan of Rawls myself, but I don't know how he could possibly have been more clear
on this, since he makes all these points explicitly.
LFC 11.02.18 at 12:45 am (no link)
J-D @18
The Nuremberg tribunal was set up and staffed by the U.S., Britain, USSR, and France; so
whether Ebenezer's "we" was intended to refer to the four countries collectively or just to
the U.S., it's clear who hanged Streicher et al., and the tone of your comment on this point
is rather odd.
anon 11.02.18 at 4:23 pm (no link)
Resisting by protesting is OK.
However, here in the USA, actual legislation creating laws is done by our elected
representatives.
So if you're an Amaerican and really want Social Change and aren't just posturing or
'virtue signaling' make sure you vote in the upcoming election.
I'm afraid too many will think that their individual vote won't 'matter' or the polls show
it isn't needed or some other excuse to justify not voting. Please do not be that person.
Don Berinati 11.02.18 at 5:06 pm (no link)
Recently re-reading '1968' by Kurlansky and he repeatedly made this point about protests
– that to be effective they had to get on television (major networks, not like our
youtube, I think, so it would be seen by the masses in order to sway them) and to do that the
acts had to be outlandish because they were competing for network time. This increasingly led
to violent acts, which almost always worked in getting on the news, but flew in the face of
King's and others peaceful methods.
So, maybe punching out a Nazi is the way to change people's minds or at least get them to
think about stuff.
After eight years of the Obama regime expanding the Bush regime's wars from around two to
around seven (with very little opposition from the so-called antiwar movement ), the Women 's
March on the Pentagon is rebuilding a movement from practically scratch.
We are struggling to not get trapped in the antiwar old ways which never have been truly
successful. If the anti-Vietnam war movement, its tactics, and energy were so awesome, then why
is the US currently mired so deeply in at least seven wars for Empire with 1000 bases in over
130 countries around the world and continued support for the apartheid, colonial, illegal state
of Israel?
We are planning to march on the Pentagon. The Pentagon is not a typical target because many
activists are afraid of offending the military despite recognizing that the US military is the
largest terrorist organization in the world. We are also having a rally on the 21st of October
and are committed to "Occupying" the Pentagon until Veteran's Day, November 11th.
We are also reimagining new ways to state what the Women 's March on the Pentagon is
doing.
Yes, we are against the US Empire's perpetual and devastating wars but being "anti" war was
never enough. Being "pro" peace is also deficient because peace is just not an absence of war
-- it is also the presence of social justice and social safety nets.
WMOP is putting the PRO back in PROtest but before we are PRO-peace, we feel we need to be
each of the following. The list that follows is not exhaustive, but it is a good start.
PRO-woman: Every single woman on this planet, regardless of race, religion, sexual
orientation, economic status or national origin, is entitled to the same quality of life as
wealthy, white women in the USA -- including being free from military occupation (and all the
horrors that brings, including rape and the murder of children) and other oppression.
PRO-equality: Every human is entitled to every good thing, including the right to PRO-test
wrong things.
PRO-planet: The Pentagon's War Machine is responsible for a hugely disproportionate amount
of pollution, waste, environmental degradation and use of fossil fuels. The Pentagon seriously
needs to be reduced to a size where it can be drowned in a bucket before we can save human life
from extinction on our only planet, our Mother Earth.
PRO-education: Education is a human right and the trillions of dollars spent on active wars
and empire maintenance robs our communities and schools from money needed to give our children
a high-quality and free education from Pre to University. In all levels, our children should
feel safe to attend school without the horrors of mass-shootings and police state
oppression.
PRO-gun control: As long as guns, ammunition, bombs and other weapons of murder are taken
from the Pentagon and police forces first. Our mothers and grandmothers in occupied lands,
inner cities, and other economically disadvantaged areas should not have to worry themselves
sick when their young ones leave the home that they will be executed by a killer cop or
drone-bombed by the USA. Our sisters in other countries should not have to bury their children,
or flee their homes in fear for their lives, because of the US Empire.
PRO-health care: Women bear the burden of ill children and are likely the ones to miss work
when a child is ill. Health care must be free and high-quality, but it must also serve families
and communities with healthy food, water, air and opportunities for care for ill children (or
elderly relatives) when the woman needs or wants to go to work. Health care must be
comprehensive and include dental, mental, chiropractic and any other holistic
treatment/prevention that is needed/wanted. Prescriptions must be free and no woman/family
should have to choose between life-saving medication and/or food.
PRO-labor at a living wage and PRO-basic guaranteed income
PRO-housing/food: In a nation as wealthy as the US, not one person should exist without
shelter or healthy and abundant food. Housing and food are human rights, not privileges. Most
homeless people work hard, but cannot afford a place to live. 19% of the United States of
American children (14 million) go to bed hungry every night in the land of plenty and plenty of
waste. These statistics are shameful and abominable but can be changed after the
commodification and privatization of everything for profit over people ends.
PRO-redistribution of resources: Ending the Pentagon, the billions of dollars of waste and
more than a trillion dollar budget would go a long way to address the horrendous human rights'
abuses and fundamental economic crises 2/3 of the people in the US face.
Once there is justice, environmental sustainability, economic equality and celebration of
diversity, combined with the end of the US Military Empire, THEN, and only then, will we live
in relative peace in our communities and families.
If one woman is living under military occupation, colonial rule, or otherwise oppressed,
none of us are free!
"... Like with a fantasy novel, the reader gets all the thrills of an epic battle while being certain that the evil empires will never triumph. An attractive form of propaganda, to be certain. ..."
IMO the US Government's propaganda is structured to along the lines of a fantasy novel. The propaganda is designed to convince
the public of two inherently contradictory ideas:
1) that the country is surrounded on vast sides by vast hostile empires that threaten everything we hold dear and
2) despite these dire threats, the country cannot really be harmed because of "our freedoms."
Like with a fantasy novel, the reader gets all the thrills of an epic battle while being certain that the evil empires
will never triumph. An attractive form of propaganda, to be certain.
IMO the US Government's propaganda is structured to along the lines of a fantasy novel.
Posted by: Timothy Hagios | Oct 5, 2018 8:52:41 AM | 1
Whatever is alleged by the US, UK, Netherlands, France et al, if you point in the opposite direction it will probably do. They
falsely accuse others of whatever they in fact do themselves.
Enrico Malatesta | Oct 5, 2018 10:28:08 AM | 7
@Timothy Hagios | Oct 5, 2018 8:52:41 AM | 1
Think I've read it - "Orange Storm Rising" by Clancy Bear
An element of the Skripal poisoning saga in Britain (the Novichok) was lifted from the TV
series "Strikeback" screening in the country in November 2017 and February 2018. I have seen
something on the Internet (but can't find the link) that said the subplot with the abandoned
perfume bottle that contained poison was also taken from a TV show.
Prepare to be unsurprised then when the people who write propaganda for The Powers That
Should Not Be turn out to be the same people who write scripts for Hollywood films and TV
shows. A lot of these people also write novels or teach creative writing courses.
We really do seem to be living in a society where mythology and fantasy are becoming more
prominent than facts and analysis in decision-making.
The Ragin' Cajun, I believe, coined the phrase "Nuts and Sluts" to succinctly describe the
tactic used by the elites I call The Davos Crowd to smear and destroy someone they've
targeted.
Brett Kavanaugh is the latest victim of this technique. But, there have been dozens of
victims I can list from Gary Hart in the 1980's to former IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn to
Donald Trump.
"Nuts and Sluts" is easy to understand. Simply accuse the person you want to destroy of
being either crazy (the definition of which shifts with whatever is the political trigger issue
of the day) or a sexual deviant.
This technique works because it triggers most people's Disgust Circuit, a term created by
Mark Schaller as part of what he calls the Behavioral Immune System and popularized by
Johnathan Haidt.
The disgust circuit is easy to understand.
It is the limit at which behavior in others triggers our gut-level outrage and we recoil
with disgust.
The reason "Nuts and Sluts" works so well on conservative candidates and voters is because,
on average, conservatives have a much stronger disgust circuit than liberals and/or
libertarians.
This is why it always seems to be that anyone who threatens the global order or the
political system always turns out to have some horrible sexual deviance in their closet.
It's why the only thing any of us remember about the infamous Trump Dossier is the image of
Trump standing on a bed in a Moscow hotel room urinating on a hooker.
The technique is used to drive a wedge between Republican voters and lawmakers and make it
easy for them to go along with whatever stupidity is brought forth by the press and the
Democrats.
And don't think for a second that, more often than not, GOP leadership isn't in cahoots with
the DNC on these take-downs. Because they are.
But, here's the problem. As liberals and cultural Marxists break down the societal order, as
they win skirmish after skirmish in the Culture War, and desensitize us to normalize ever more
deviant behavior, the circumstances of a "Nuts and Sluts" accusation have to rise
accordingly.
It's behavioral heroin. And the more tolerance we build up to it the more likely people are
to see right through the lie.
It's why Gary Hart simply had to be accused of having an affair in the 1980's to scuttle his
presidential aspirations but today Trump has to piss on a hooker.
And it's why it was mild sexual harassment and a pubic hair on a Coke can for Clarence
Thomas, but today, for Brett Kavanaugh, it has to be a gang-rape straight out of an 80's frat
party in a Brett Eaton Ellis book -- whose books, by the way, are meant to be warnings not
blueprints.
Trump has weathered both the Nuts side of the technique and the Sluts side. And as he has
done so The Resistance has become more and more outraged that it's not working like it used
to.
This is why they have to pay people to be outraged by Kavanaugh's nomination. They can't
muster up a critical mass of outrage while Trump is winning on many fronts. Like it or not, the
economy has improved. It's still not good, but it's better and sentiment is higher.
So they have to pay people to protest Kavanaugh. And when that didn't work, then the fear of
his ascending to the Supreme Court and jeopardizing Roe v. Wade became acute, it doesn't
surprise me to see them pull out Christine Blasie Ford's story to guide them through to the
mid-term elections.
And that was a bridge too far for a lot of people.
The one who finally had enough of 'Nuts and Sluts' was, of all people, Lindsey Graham . Graham is one of
the most vile and venal people in D.C. He is a war-mongering neoconservative-enabling
praetorian of Imperial Washington's status quo.
But even he has a disgust circuit and Brett Kavanaugh's spirited defense of himself, shaming
Diane Feinstein in the process, was enough for Graham to finally redeem himself for one brief
moment.
When Lindsey Graham is the best defense we have against becoming a country ruled by men
rather than laws, our society hangs by a thread.
It was important for Graham to do this. It was a wake-up call to the 'moderate' GOP senators
wavering on Kavanaugh. Graham may be bucking for Senate Majority Leader or Attorney General,
but whatever. For four minutes his disgust was palpable.
The two men finally did what the 'Right' in this country have been screaming for for
years.
Fight back. Stop being reasonable. Stop playing it safe. Trump cannot do this by
himself.
Fight for what this country was supposed to stand for.
Because as Graham said, this is all about regaining power and they don't care what damage
they do to get it back.
The disgust circuit can kick in a number of different ways. And Thursday it kicked in to
finally call out what was actually happening on Capitol Hill. This was The Swamp in all its
glory.
And believe me millions were outraged by what they saw.
It will destroy what is left of the Democratic Party. I told you back in June that
Kanye West and Donald Trump had won the Battle of the Bulge in the Culture War. Graham and
Kavanuagh's honest and brutal outrage at the unfairness of this process was snuffing out of
that counter-attack.
The mid-terms will be a Red Tide with the bodies washing up on the shore the leadership of
the DNC and the carpet-baggers standing behind them with billions in money to buy fake
opposition.
The truth is easy to support. Lies cost money. The more outrageous the lie the more
expensive it gets to maintain it.
Because the majority of this country just became thoroughly disgusted with the Democrats.
And they will have no one to blame but themselves.
It will not be any new information for regular readers here of course but it is well
edited and produced and good for sharing with friends who have not yet questioned too much
the narrative on Syria.
"... This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Zen Cash , The War State , by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com ; Roberts and Roberts Brokerage Inc. ; LibertyStickers.com ; TheBumperSticker.com ; and ExpandDesigns.com/Scott . ..."
Danny Sjursen is interviewed on his service in the Terror Wars, how he became antiwar, and
how he wants his service and the service of others to be honored.
"... There is consensus between commentators who have studied the effects of neo-liberalism that it has become all pervasive and is the key to ensuring that the rich remain rich, while the poor and the merely well to do continue on a perpetual hamster's wheel, going nowhere and never improving their lot in life while they serve their masters. ..."
"... Monbiot says of this largely anonymous scourge: "Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulations should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous, a reward for utility and a genera-tor of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve." ..."
"... Senior cadres co-opted Unfortunately, history shows that some key senior cadres of the ANC were all too keen to be coopted into the neo-liberal fold and any attempts to put forward radical measures that would bring something fresh to the table to address the massive inequalities of the past were and continue to be kept off the table and we are still endlessly fed the neo-liberal trickle-down baloney. ..."
SA is cursed with neo-liberal trickle-down baloney stifling radical economicchangeKevin Humphrey, The New Age, Johannesburg, 1 December 2016
South Africa's massive inequalities are abundantly obvious to even the most casual observer. When the ANC won the elections in
1994, it came armed with a left-wing pedigree second to none, having fought a protracted liberation war in alliance with progressive
forces which drew in organised labour and civic groupings.
At the dawn of democracy the tight knit tripartite alliance also carried in its wake a patchwork of disparate groupings who, while
clearly supportive of efforts to rid the country of apartheid, could best be described as liberal. It was these groupings that first
began the clamour of opposition to all left-wing, radical or revolutionary ideas that has by now become the constant backdrop to
all conversations about the state of our country, the economy, the education system, the health services, everything. Thus was the
new South Africa introduced to its own version of a curse that had befallen all countries that gained independence from oppressors,
neo-colonialism.
By the time South Africa was liberated, neo-colonialism, which as always sought to buy off the libera-tors with the political
kingdom while keep-ing control of the economic kingdom, had perfected itself into what has become an era where neo-liberalism reigns
supreme. But what exactly is neo-liberalism? George Monbiot says: "Neo-liberalism sees competi-tion as the defining characteristic
of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process
that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that 'the market' delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning."
Never improving
There is consensus between commentators who have studied the effects of neo-liberalism that it has become all pervasive and
is the key to ensuring that the rich remain rich, while the poor and the merely well to do continue on a perpetual hamster's wheel,
going nowhere and never improving their lot in life while they serve their masters.
Monbiot says of this largely anonymous scourge: "Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and
regulations should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade
unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is
recast as virtuous, a reward for utility and a genera-tor of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a
more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve."
Nelson Mandela
South Africa's sad slide into neo-liberalism was given impetus at Davos in 1992 where Nelson Mandela had this to say to the assembled
super rich: "We visualise a mixed economy, in which the private sector would play a central and critical role to ensure the creation
of wealth and jobs. Future economic policy will also have to address such questions as security of investments and the right to repatriate
earnings, realistic exchange rates, the rate of inflation and the fiscus."
Further insight into this pivotal moment was provided by Anthony Sampson, Mandela's official biographer who wrote: "It was not
until February 1992, when Mandela went to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that he finally turned against nationalisation.
He was lionised by the world's bankers and industrialists at lunches and dinners."
This is not to cast any aspersions on Mandela, he had to make these decisions at the time to protect our democratic transition.
But these utterances should have been accom-panied by a behind the scenes interrogation of all the ANC's thoughts on how to proceed
in terms of the economy delivering socialist orientated solutions without falling into the minefield of neo-liberal traps that lay
in wait for our emerging country.
Senior cadres co-opted Unfortunately, history shows that some key senior cadres of the ANC were all too keen
to be coopted into the neo-liberal fold and any attempts to put forward radical measures that would bring something fresh to the
table to address the massive inequalities of the past were and continue to be kept off the table and we are still endlessly fed the
neo-liberal trickle-down baloney.
Now no one dares to express any type of radical approach to our economic woes unless it is some loony populist. Debate around
these important issues is largely missing and the level of commentary on all important national questions is shockingly shallow.
Anti-labour, anti-socialist, anti-poor, anti-black The status quo as set by the largely white-owned media revolves
around key neo-liberal slogans mas-querading as commentary that is anti-labour, anti-socialist and anti-poor, which sadly translates
within our own context as anti-black and therefore repugnantly racist.
We live in a country where the black, over-whelmingly poor majority of our citizens have voted for a much revered liberation movement
that is constantly under attack from within and without by people who do not have their best interests at heart and are brilliant
at manipulating outcomes to suit themselves on a global scale.
Kevin Humphrey is associate executive editor of The New Age
"... The Montana connection was unexpectedly brought to mind during the exhibition because of a passing curatorial note about Hollywood's involvement in the war effort: "Some in US Congress believed film propaganda to be a threat to democracy. In 1941, Senator Burton K. Wheeler wrote to Paramount News that 'the motion picture industry is carrying on a violent propaganda campaign intending to incite the American people [to war] '" ..."
"... Military actions are kept just small enough to stay within the limits of a volunteer force, so conscription need not be justified in the public eye. Social pressures and secular pieties now drive recycling and self-rationing in the service of climate change and veganism. In short, governments today don't perceive a need to mobilize broad public support before waging war. They just do it. ..."
"... runs through October 7 at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. ..."
A certain amount of dehumanizing of the enemy is a natural part of any war effort, but
Allied propaganda against the Germans in World War I is particularly striking in its crudity
and ferocity, especially since one would have a hard time finding Americans today capable of
explaining, even in the broadest of terms, exactly what our country was doing in that war. One
of the more visually arresting World War I posters in the exhibition portrays a slumbering,
rosy-cheeked, and classically-garbed female personification of America. "Wake Up, America!" the
poster admonishes. "Civilization Calls Every Man, Woman, and Child!" No arguing with that.
Against such a backdrop some stories from that time come into focus. One involves Hermann
Bausch, a Montana farmer who was dragged from his home and nearly lynched in 1918 when
neighbors surrounded his house and demanded that he buy Liberty Bonds to prove his loyalty to
the United States. He survived the day but only because he ended up in the state penitentiary
for sedition.
The Montana connection was unexpectedly brought to mind during the exhibition
because of a passing curatorial note about Hollywood's involvement in the war effort: "Some in
US Congress believed film propaganda to be a threat to democracy. In 1941, Senator Burton K.
Wheeler wrote to Paramount News that 'the motion picture industry is carrying on a violent
propaganda campaign intending to incite the American people [to war] '"
Although not identified as such, Wheeler was a Montanan who first became famous as a U.S.
attorney in Butte who refused to indict anyone under the national Sedition Act during World War
I. He later became a four-term U.S. senator and steadfast opponent of American involvement in
World War II until Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. But it's noteworthy that Montana produced
strong antiwar leaders such as Wheeler and Jeanette Rankin (the only member of Congress to vote
against entering both world wars) while also being a hotbed of patriotic war fervor. Such
skepticism about foreign conflicts, mixed with patriotic support for the troops, is
characteristic even today of much of Middle America.
At such an exhibition, one expects to see some links with contemporary America, in which the
drums of war are always within earshot. But there are substantial differences. With limitless
federal borrowing, the government no longer needs to hawk Liberty Bonds to finance foreign
adventurism.
Military actions are kept just small enough to stay within the limits of a
volunteer force, so conscription need not be justified in the public eye. Social pressures and
secular pieties now drive recycling and self-rationing in the service of climate change and
veganism. In short, governments today don't perceive a need to mobilize broad public support
before waging war. They just do it.
"... With the strong support of these four monolithic lobbies -- his electoral base -- politician Donald Trump can count on the indefectible support of between 35 percent and 40 percent of the American electorate. It is ironic that some of Trump's other policies, like reducing health care coverage and the raising of import taxes, will hurt the poor and the middle class, even though some of Trump's victims can be considered members of the above lobbies. ..."
"... Donald Trump does not seem to take politics and public affairs very seriously, at least when his own personal interests are involved. Therefore, when things go bad, he never volunteers to take personal responsibility, contrary to what a true leader would do, and he conveniently shifts the blame on somebody else. This is a sign of immaturity or cowardice. Paraphrasing President Harry Truman, "the buck never stops at his desk." ..."
"... Donald Trump essentially has the traits of a typical showman diva , behaving in politics just as he did when he was the host of a TV show. Indeed, if one considers politics and public affairs as no more than a reality show, this means that they are really entertainment, and politicians are first and foremost entertainers or comedians. ..."
There are four groups of one-issue voters to whom President
Donald Trump has delivered the goodies:
Christian religious right voters, whose main political issue is to fill the U. S. Supreme
Court with ultra conservative judges. On that score, Donald Trump has been true to them by
naming one such judge and in nominating a second one.
Super rich Zionists and the Pro-Israel Lobby, whose obsession is the state of Israel.
Again, on that score, President Donald Trump has fulfilled his promise to them and he has
unilaterally moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in addition to attacking the
Palestinians and tearing up the 'Iran Deal'.
The one-percent Income earners and some corporate owners , whose main demand to Trump was
substantial tax cuts and deregulation. Once again, President Trump has fulfilled this group's
wishes with huge tax cuts, mainly financed with future public debt increases, which are going
to be paid for by all taxpayers.
The NRA and the Pro-Gun Lobby, whose main obsession is to have the right to arm
themselves to the teeth, including with military assault weapons, with as few strings
attached as possible. Here again President Donald Trump has sided with them and against
students who are increasingly in the line of fire in American schools.
With the strong support of these four monolithic lobbies -- his electoral base --
politician Donald Trump can count on the indefectible support of between 35 percent and 40
percent of the American electorate. It is ironic that some of Trump's other policies, like
reducing health care coverage and the raising of import taxes, will hurt the poor and the
middle class, even though some of Trump's victims can be considered members of the above
lobbies.
Moreover, some of Trump's supporters regularly rely on hypocrisy and on excuses to
exonerate their favorite but flawed politician of choice. If any other politician from a
different party were to say and do half of what Donald Trump does and says, they would be
asking for his impeachment.
There are three other reasons why Trump's rants, his
record-breaking lies , his untruths, his deceptions and his dictatorial-style attempts to
control information , in the eyes of his fanatical supporters, at least, are like water on
the back of a duck. ( -- For the record, according to the
Washington Post , as of early August, President Trump has made some 4,229 false claims,
which amount to 7.6 a day, since his inauguration.)
The first reason can be found in Trump's view that politics and even government
business are first and foremost another form of
entertainment , i.e. a sort of TV reality show, which must be scripted and acted upon.
Trump thinks that is
OK to lie and to ask his assistants to
lie . In this new immoral world, the Trump phenomenon could be seen a sign of
post-democracy .
The second one can be found in Trump's artful and cunning tactics to unbalance and
manipulate the media to increase his visibility to the general public and to turn them
into his own tools of propaganda. When Trump attacks the media, he is in fact coaxing them to
give him free coverage to spread his
insults , his fake accusations, his provocations, his constant
threats , his denials or reversals, his convenient
changes of subject or his political spins. Indeed, with his outrageous statements, his
gratuitous accusations and his attacks ' ad hominem' , and by constantly bullying
and insulting adversaries at home and foreign heads of states abroad, and by issuing threats
in repetition, right and left, Trump has forced the media to talk and journalists to write
about him constantly, on a daily basis, 24/7.
That suits him perfectly well because he likes to be the center of attention. That is how he
can change the political rhetoric when any negative issue gets too close to him. In the coming
weeks and months, as the Special prosecutor
Robert Mueller's report is likely to be released, Donald Trump is not above resorting to
some sort of "
Wag the Dog " political trickery, to change the topic and to possibly push the damaging
report off the headlines.
In such a circumstance, it is not impossible that launching an illegal war of choice, say
against Iran (a
pet project of Trump's National Security Advisor John Bolton), could then look very
convenient to a crafty politician like Donald Trump and to his warmonger advisors. Therefore,
observers should be on the lookout to spot any development of the sort in the coming weeks.
That one man and his entourage could whimsically consider launching a
war of aggression is a throwback
to ancient times and is a sure indication of the level of depravity to which current politics
has fallen. This should be a justified and clear
case for impeachment .
Finally, some far-right media outlets, such as
Fox News and
Sinclair Broadcasting, have taken it upon themselves to systematically present Trump's
lies and misrepresentations as some 'alternative' truths and facts.
Indeed, ever since 1987, when the Reagan administration abolished the Fairness Doctrine for licensing
public radio and TV waves, and since a Republican dominated Congress passed the
Telecommunications Act of 1996, which allowed for the mass conglomeration of local
broadcasting in the United States, extreme conservative news outlets, such as the Fox and
Sinclair networks, have sprung up. They are well financed, and they have essentially become
powerful
political propaganda machines , erasing the line between facts and fiction, and regularly
presenting fictitious alternative facts as the truth.
In so doing, they have pushed public debates in the United States away from facts, reason
and logic, at least for those listeners and viewers for whom such outlets are the only source
of information. It is not surprising that such far-right media have also made Donald Trump the
champion of their cause, maliciously branding anything inconvenient as 'fake' news, as Trump
has done in his own anti-media campaign and his sustained assault on the free press.
2- Show Politics and public affairs as a form of entertainment
Donald Trump does not seem to take politics and public affairs very seriously, at least when
his own personal interests are involved. Therefore, when things go bad, he never volunteers to
take personal responsibility, contrary to what a true leader would do, and he conveniently
shifts the blame on somebody else. This is a sign of immaturity or cowardice. Paraphrasing
President Harry Truman, "the buck never stops at his desk."
Donald Trump essentially has the traits of a typical showman
diva , behaving in politics just as he did when he was the host of a TV show. Indeed, if
one considers politics and public affairs as no more than a reality show, this means that they
are really entertainment, and politicians are first and foremost entertainers or comedians.
3- Trump VS the media and the journalists
Donald Trump is the first U.S. president who rarely holds scheduled press conferences. Why
would he, since he considers journalists to be his "enemies"! It doesn't seem to matter to him
that freedom of the press is guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution by the First Amendment. He
prefers to rely on one-directional so-called 'tweets' to express unfiltered personal ideas and
emotions (as if he were a private person), and to use them as his main public relations channel
of communication.
The ABC News
network has calculated that, as of last July, Trump has tweeted more than 3,500 times,
slightly more than seven tweets a day. How could he have time left to do anything productive!
Coincidently, Donald Trump's number of tweets is not far away from the number of outright lies
and misleading claims that he has told and made since his inauguration.
The Washington Post has counted no less than 3,251 lies or misleading claims of his,
through the end of May of this year, -- an average of 6.5 such misstatements per day of his
presidency. Fun fact: Trump seems to accelerate the pace of his lies. Last year, he told 5.5
lies per day, on average. Is it possible to have a more cynical view of politics!
The media in general, (and
not only American ones), then serve more or less voluntarily as so many resonance boxes for
his daily 'tweets', most of which are often devoid of any thought and logic.
Such a practice has the consequence of demeaning the public discourse in the pursuit of the
common good and the general welfare of the people to the level of a frivolous private
enterprise, where expertise, research and competence can easily be replaced by improvisation,
whimsical arbitrariness and charlatanry. In such a climate, only the short run counts, at the
expense of planning for the long run.
Conclusion
All this leads to this conclusion: Trump's approach is not the way to run an efficient
government. Notwithstanding the U.S. Constitution and what it says about the need to have "
checks and balance s" among different government branches, President Donald Trump has
de facto pushed aside the U.S. Congress and the civil servants in important government
Departments, even his own Cabinet
, whose formal meetings under Trump have been little more than photo-up happenings, to grab the
central political stage for himself. If such a development does not represent an ominous threat
to American democracy, what does?
The centralization of power in the hands of one man is bound to have serious political
consequences, both for the current administration and for future ones.
"... Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, is the author of 10 books on international affairs, including ..."
"... Judith Miller was a pawn of Dick Cheney, so it is improper to indict all of the press for a war Bush was going to launch no matter what ..."
"... Well, you could say the same about the alleged Russian meddling in 2016 election. I haven't seen a single evidence, but most of the American public believes that narrative. I think TAC believes it too. ..."
"... How about those chemical attacks in Syria? Staged events. But the media keeps turning them time and again. I don't watch them and don't read them either, but they do have tremendous influence over the society. ..."
"... This is a pot calling a kettle black to deflect blame. If the US under Trump goes to war with Iran, China or Russia it's entirely his fault. He appointed Mike Pompeo. He appointed John Bolton. He appointed Nicky Haily. ..."
"... He wants to enlist Russia to fight the other two and possibly North Korea as well; enlist Russia to achieve the US's goals, not any Russian goal. This ambition is a pipe dream as Russia and the others correctly view the US as a much bigger threat than each other and will band together. If they turn on each other at all it'd only be after the US is defeated and subdued. ..."
"... The mainstream US media (CNN, FOX, Washington Post, NYT, WSJ, etc) is as intertwined with the government as the Chinese media is to theirs. Whatever narrative the powerful in government and their big business associates want to spin, the media will dutifully comply. The "press" is essentially a de facto government agency, and one cannot separate the government push for war from the medias. ..."
"... So, because the press were uncritical in pushing the lies and deceptions, the treason if you will, of the Bush administration in the run-up to the Iraq War, the press should be less critical of the lies and deceptions spread by the Trump administration. A bit like Fox News, perhaps. Uncritical of the Iraq War back when, uncritical of Trump today. ..."
"... There was more to the War on Iraq than Judith Miller. The entire national MSM abdicated its duty to ask questions of those in power. Instead, the NYT, the WaPo and others became dutiful stenographers of the Bush Administration, the Pentagon, and the intelligence agencies. ..."
"... For truly power is to sociopaths what cocaine is to addicts. ..."
"... Let the case of Yemen take the measure of these men and women. Trump is doing absolutely nothing to end Obama's War, and makes it worse at every turn. The press is doing everything it can to aid and abet him. Today's media might not start wars, the same media do absolutely nothing to end them. ..."
"... To Joe F: It's a bit hard in 900-word op-ed to cover more than a few examples. Others include the one-sided, pro-intervention coverage of the Balkan turmoil in the 1990s, the lobbying for intervention in Libya, and the distorted, pro-intervention coverage of the Syrian civil war. And your implication that I was justifying a Trump crackdown on the media is just bizarre. ..."
"... "The sometimes shrill hostility of the mainstream media towards Russia is pushing the United States toward an increasingly hardline policy that now borders on a second cold war. " ..."
"... Yes, the Press Helps Start Wars ..."
"... The Spanish / American war was a creation of the government in charge manipulating the press in order to justify the war the politicians so desperately wanted ..."
"... "Yes, the Press Helps Start Wars" Old news. Newspapers have been doing this despicable practice since Gutenberg invented the movable-type printing press. ..."
"... Media lies and distortions (mainstream, right-wing, left-wing, less so on one or both wings some of the time) enabled (or continue to enable) all of the following American imperialist adventures and/or interventions, be they military, financial, political or otherwise: ..."
"... Vietnam, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Iraq again, Libya, Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela and Nicaragua again. ..."
"... Hell, if much of the mainstream media -- including the liberal "humanitarian" interventionists at MSDNC- had their way, the US would have committed actual military acts of war against Russia and North Korea, as opposed to the economic and political ones we've engaged in. ..."
Two cases stand out: the Spanish-American War and the Iraq War. Historians have long recognized that jingoistic "yellow journalism,"
epitomized by the newspaper chains owned by William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, played a significant role in the former
conflict. Months before the outbreak of the war, one of Hearst's reporters wished to return home from Cuba because there was no sign
of a worsening crisis. Hearst instructed him to stay, adding , "you
furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war."
Hearst's boast was hyperbolic, but the Hearst and Pulitzer papers did repeatedly hype the Spanish "threat" and beat the drums
for war against Madrid. They featured stories that not only focused on but exaggerated the uglier features of Madrid's treatment
of its colonial subjects in Cuba. Those outlets also
exploited
the mysterious explosion that destroyed the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana's harbor. To this day, the identity of the culprit
is uncertain, but the yellow press exhibited no doubts whatever. According to their accounts, it was an outrageous attack on America
by the villainous Spanish regime.
Such journalistic pressure was not the only factor that impelled William McKinley's administration to push for a declaration of
war against Spain or for Congress to approve that declaration. A rising generation of American imperialists wanted to emulate the
European great powers and build a colonial empire. That underlying motive became evident when the first U.S. attack following the
declaration of war came not in Cuba, but in the Philippines, Spain's colony on the other side of the Pacific.
Nevertheless, it would be naïve to assume that the jingoist press did not play a significant role in causing the war against Spain.
Indeed, the corrupt role of yellow journalism in creating public support for that conflict is not a particularly controversial proposition
among historians.
The role of an irresponsible press in shaping a pro-war narrative was even more evident in the prelude to the 2003 U.S. military
intervention in Iraq. New York Times reporter Judith Miller and other prominent mainstream journalists were especially culpable
in publicizing
erroneous information about Saddam Hussein's government regarding two emotionally charged issues. They uncritically circulated
"evidence" from Iraqi defectors and George W. Bush's administration that Iraq was in league with al-Qaeda and may well have had a
role in the devastating 9/11 terrorist attacks. And they pushed the case that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was actively
working on developing a nuclear arsenal.
Again, it would be too much to place all or even most of the blame for the disastrous Iraq war on gullible or ultra-hawkish journalists.
The Bush administration seemed determined to oust Saddam, and it might have attempted to do so even without strong public support.
But most of the media was staunchly pro-war, and that bias
greatly skewed the narrative
presented to the public. When highly respected journalistic institutions like TheNew York Times circulated story
after story highlighting the alleged security threat that Saddam posed, and those stories were then featured in other publications
and on TV, it was hardly surprising that much of the public believed the narrative. The tendency of mainstream media outlets to ignore
or marginalize war critics amplified their pro-war bias.
As is so often the case with Trump's arguments, his accusation that the press can cause wars is an exaggeration, but one that
contains an important kernel of truth. Irresponsible media coverage has undoubtedly strengthened public sentiment for ill-advised
wars in the past, and it could do so again in the future. The sometimes shrill hostility of the mainstream media towards Russia is
pushing the United States toward an increasingly hardline policy that now borders on a second cold war. The original Cold War nearly
escalated to a hot one on several occasions. The press needs to be doubly cautious about pushing policies that would send America
down a similar perilous path. Trump is wrong to brand the press as an enemy of the people, but it is still a powerful institution
that has not always used its great influence responsibly regarding matters of war and peace.
Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, is the author of 10 books
on international affairs, including The Captive Press: Foreign Policy Crises and the First Amendment .
An elitist corporate media has ends that are not often in sync with the interests of the mass of Americans and thus is a tool
for manufacturing faux public opinion. It is now legal to propagandize the American public, a recent development. With media ownership
concentration unprecedented, and government in the pocket of giant corporate interests, public opinion becomes an exercise of
monopoly lying.
The Spanish/American War and Judith Miller are the foundation for tour argument that the press starts wars? Good grief, how weak
is this? There are no Americans alive who were around for the Spanish American War and Judith Miller was a pawn of Dick Cheney,
so it is improper to indict all of the press for a war Bush was going to launch no matter what . How about the rest of the
conflagrations of the 20th Century or perhaps that would diminish your paper thin premise. I really enjoy TAC, but enough with
publishing these lazy and weak pieces. Lame to blame the press for what politicians of all stripes have wreaked upon us. Geez,
this wasn't even a quarter effort to make a point. You can actually make a point that the press contributed to our War of Independence,
but I guess that would glorify your boogeyman
Lame. Judith Miller and a war fought before any living American was born? What about all of the other unnecessary wars we have
tangled in? Bush et al were going to war with or without one lane shill in Miller, but what about press role in stopping Viet
Nam or Korea? Not to mention the role played in our War for Independence? Oh, that would shred your paper thin premise. TAC slacking
in allowing such lazy and self serving analysis. TAC should exercise better editorial judgement as some (like this post) are so
weak Facebook might delete. Step it up TAC, you are too good for this lazy bunk
Well, you could say the same about the alleged Russian meddling in 2016 election. I haven't seen a single evidence, but most
of the American public believes that narrative. I think TAC believes it too.
How about those chemical attacks in Syria? Staged events. But the media keeps turning them time and again. I don't watch
them and don't read them either, but they do have tremendous influence over the society.
The sad thing is that this or the next president will send troops to war here or there in the world and Americans will stay
indifferent.
This is a pot calling a kettle black to deflect blame. If the US under Trump goes to war with Iran, China or Russia it's entirely
his fault. He appointed Mike Pompeo. He appointed John Bolton. He appointed Nicky Haily.
Of the 3 potential adversaries listed above, there are 2 (Iran, China) where Trump is actively looking for a fight. He deliberately
breached an accord with Iran that was keeping the peace. The only country on which there's a disagreement about whether to pick
a fight with is Russia. But what is behind this disagreement? It's not that Trump is looking for a mutually-respectful peace with
Russia. He wants to enlist Russia to fight the other two and possibly North Korea as well; enlist Russia to achieve the US's
goals, not any Russian goal. This ambition is a pipe dream as Russia and the others correctly view the US as a much bigger threat
than each other and will band together. If they turn on each other at all it'd only be after the US is defeated and subdued.
I just watched Daniel Hoffman (ex-CIA operative) spout the most vile, one sided, pro-Saudi, anti-Iran propaganda, rationalizing
their latest war crime in Yemen on the Shannon Bream show. This demonstrates what is wrong with the MSM today.
They take information uncritically from the CIA, Pentagon, and govt bureaucrats to get the narrative which favors conflict.
List:
1. The bombing of Syria (the only time they gave Trump positive press coverage).
2. The destruction of Libya (they fell for the R2P lie)
3. The genocidal starvation campaign against Yemen (most transparent cover up ever, the 70's press corp would see through it)
4. They assisting Iraq 2 but this time in Iran.
The mainstream US media (CNN, FOX, Washington Post, NYT, WSJ, etc) is as intertwined with the government as the Chinese media
is to theirs. Whatever narrative the powerful in government and their big business associates want to spin, the media will dutifully
comply. The "press" is essentially a de facto government agency, and one cannot separate the government push for war from the
medias.
As was mentioned here, the lunacy that making internet memes is now considered an act of war is the doing of the mainstream
media and they are certainly responsible if a real war breaks out.
Around 1917 a remarkably unanimous push for war infused ALL media. Not just newspapers but technical journals and academic
publications. Teachers and radio experimenters had to read pro-war and pro-Wilson propaganda in EVERY article. All curricula had
to be anti-German, all circuits had to be anti-German.
Same today. All techy websites infuse BOMB RUSSIA into their info on software and hardware developments. Everything must work
together to BOMB RUSSIA.
It is worth noting that America's imperialist adventures in the Philippines resulted in a second war soon after, with between
200,000 and a million (or more) civilian casualties.
talk about 'yellow journalism'. in the 2042 years of the republic, you offer 2 examples? and it is worth noting, the latter (Iraq
2003) was simply the media reporting the cherry-picked intelligence and/or WH-directed narrative(s). while it's agreed the media
was something of a co-conspirator in 2003 (think the current "collusion" debate with Russia being the US and the Trump campaign
being the US media -- the former had a 'mission' and it leveraged its relationship with the latter.). to paraphrase the late George
Carlin, never believe ANYTHING the government or the media tells you. in a plutocracy, the government and the media share (some)
common interests -- not all interests, but some. no sir, the media does not start wars in truth or hyperbole. media, at times,
serves the marketing/business development needs of the MIC, and by proxy the government (usually the Executive Branch). when is
TAC going to show some "tough love" and stop the co-dependent/enabler stuff?
So, because the press were uncritical in pushing the lies and deceptions, the treason if you will, of the Bush administration
in the run-up to the Iraq War, the press should be less critical of the lies and deceptions spread by the Trump administration.
A bit like Fox News, perhaps. Uncritical of the Iraq War back when, uncritical of Trump today.
Truth is, Trump plays the press like a fiddle. He creates outrage saying something stupid, they publish, he walks back or doubles
down or pushes something completely unrelated, and before someone can figure what's going on, we're two days later and the next
controversy arrives. And if the press do manage to back Trump into a corner, it's unfair because they're misrepresenting his constantly
shifting positions.
What the American press should do is, instead of blowing things up (metaphorically, obvs), simply list every day the policies
of the Trump administration in terse, dry manner, and completely ignore any tweet sent by Trump, his cabinet, his family members,
and any of his supporters at any level. Deny Trump the attention he seeks, and before you know it he'll drop his pants in front
of a group of veterans just to make front page again.
Still, enemies of the people. When that phrase came in full swing, the lucky ones were shot, the unlucky ones sent to labour
camps in frozen wastes. Trump will never have the guts. Nor will he ever use his great influence in a responsible manner.
There was more to the War on Iraq than Judith Miller. The entire national MSM abdicated its duty to ask questions of those
in power. Instead, the NYT, the WaPo and others became dutiful stenographers of the Bush Administration, the Pentagon, and the
intelligence agencies.
Others correctly point out WWI and the Spanish American War. I could add Vietnam, when too few journalists questioned the dominant
narrative until we were stuck in.
However, rather than call for censorship, the correct answer is to ask *why* the executive, the Pentagon, and the various alphabet
agencies have this outsized influence, and what can be done to curtail it.
For truly power is to sociopaths what cocaine is to addicts.
@Mark_be: what you say is sensible, but only for an MSM that is not ratings and profits-driven.
The latest serving of the "let Putin win in Ukraine" propaganda line. Mr Carpenter's objection to the media he criticizes is that
they peddle a different propaganda line to the one he would like them to peddle.
Joe F " You can actually make a point that the press contributed to our War of Independence, but I guess that would glorify your
boogeyman"
************
I think it did too, but I don't think that in any way glorified the press.
Let the case of Yemen take the measure of these men and women. Trump is doing absolutely nothing to end Obama's War, and makes
it worse at every turn. The press is doing everything it can to aid and abet him. Today's media might not start wars, the same
media do absolutely nothing to end them.
"I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great division & distrust.
They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!"
One can't really argue with any of this. Of course, this statement is silent on the warmongering of Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump,
as well as Congress past and present, but Trump is doing a great service to the American People, not least by serving as a bad
example. Few if any other politicians would be willing and able to trigger another overdue national debate.
The report referenced by the author has a hilariously revealing typo in its first sentence. Yes, recalling the US press coverage
of the push for illegal aggressive war against Iraq, and decades of Iraq/Syria/Iran coverage, it would indeed appear that our
intrepid for-profit press and the purveyors of rent-a-speech published opinion are "casing the joint" for future opportunities
of profitable military intervention.
To Joe F: It's a bit hard in 900-word op-ed to cover more than a few examples. Others include the one-sided, pro-intervention
coverage of the Balkan turmoil in the 1990s, the lobbying for intervention in Libya, and the distorted, pro-intervention coverage
of the Syrian civil war. And your implication that I was justifying a Trump crackdown on the media is just bizarre.
Similarly bizarre is Mark's interpretation that I was suggesting that because of the media's past sins, they should go easy
on Trump's abuses. No reasonable reading of the article could reach that conclusion.
"The sometimes shrill hostility of the mainstream media towards Russia is pushing the United States toward an increasingly
hardline policy that now borders on a second cold war. "
Many in the media, not all, give credence to the unanimous assessment of our intelligence agencies, the intelligence agencies
of our allies, and the evidence provided by their own eyes and ears. Others in the media are pushing another line, and with no
evidence whatsoever, as far as I can tell. Draw your own conclusions as to what they are up to.
The headline reads: Yes, the Press Helps Start Wars . I would argue that the word "helps" is doing most of the work in
that sentence. The real question is, who exactly are they "helping"? I think that in most, if not all, cases it starts with a
political party or faction that is advocating for war, and those elements of the press who support them use their voice to help.
So the same can be said about any political issue at all "Yes the press helps [fill in the blank with any issue]". Conservative
press helps push conservative issues, liberal press helps push liberal issues. And yes, when war drums are being beaten, it becomes
very easy for the warmongering voices to drown out the voices of reason. But that is not the fault of the press, it is the fault
of a population that is all too willing to let itself be led into war fever. The press would not be willing to take that position
if they were not so confident that it would be met with approval by their readers and advertisers.
1) The Spanish / American war was a creation of the government in charge manipulating the press in order to justify the war
the politicians so desperately wanted
2) If the author had taken the time to do the research or remember the facts as they were .. The NYTimes as well as the Washington
Post etc -- et al all reported how Cheney had manipulated the Intelligence Agencies with threats unless they lied to both the
public as well as GWB about Iraq having WMD .. which every intelligence agency knew they did not .
Given the time and space one could go on for an encyclopedias worth of pages pointing out the irrefutable fact as in F-A-C-T
that in each and every case throughout US history it has been the politicians that have started the wars .. with more often than
not the media ( as well as in many cases the military ) standing in opposition to the government and politicians which they the
press more often than not paid a heavy price for until they were willing to comply with the destructive wished of the politicians
The irony of Trump's comments about the press helping start wars is that he is intentionally facilitating that very thing every
time Fox "News" parrots his childish, jingoistic rhetoric about Iran, North Korea, etc.
Fox "News" is certainly trying to start wars, I'll give Mr. Carpenter that. And thank you for pointing out that there is only
a kernel of truth in Trump's comments. Does one kernel justify an entire article? Why not write about his barrels of lies?
I suppose the article has value as a history lesson-100-year-old history. After all, if the USA hadn't entered WWI, we may
not have had WWII. But the press didn't start WWI.
"Yes, the Press Helps Start Wars" Old news. Newspapers have been doing this despicable practice since Gutenberg invented the
movable-type printing press.
"I suppose the article has value as a history lesson-100-year-old history. After all, if the USA hadn't entered WWI, we may
not have had WWII. But the press didn't start WWI."
*************
The press operated in a similar way back then too. It didn't start WWI but it surely enabled it.
Media lies and distortions (mainstream, right-wing, left-wing, less so on one or both wings some of the time) enabled (or
continue to enable) all of the following American imperialist adventures and/or interventions, be they military, financial, political
or otherwise:
Vietnam, Afghanistan, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Iraq again, Libya, Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela
and Nicaragua again.
I don't remember U.S. press coverage of Allende's Chile, but I imagine it was of a piece with today's coverage of Venezuela,
Brazil, Ecuador and Nicaragua, all the while ignoring the far greater corruption and brutality of America's regional allies/clients/lapdogs.
Hell, if much of the mainstream media -- including the liberal "humanitarian" interventionists at MSDNC- had their way, the
US would have committed actual military acts of war against Russia and North Korea, as opposed to the economic and political ones
we've engaged in.
Let us not forget the enthusiastic reporting on the "Gulf of Tonkin attack." As for those sneering at this because only two examples
are offered, consider reading that part where the author said he was going to offer -- wait for it -- TWO EXAMPLES.
As for that "kernel of truth," those in media sources not being paid to spew anti-Trump propaganda 24/7/365 have pointed out,
to no avail, that he often says things that are true. Unfortunately, he (or whoever is writing his stuff on Twitter) presents
the kernel buried in a pile of nonsense. Which gives the corporate media free rein to focus entirely on the nonsense to ensure
the kernel of truth gets killed at birth.
And no, I do NOT support Mr. Trump nor did I vote for him. He's the poster child for the corporate oligarchy currently . running
the US government, and the sooner he and all his ilk are removed the better. That includes corporate Democrats.
The substance of this piece is obviously correct, but you get the predictable caterwauling from silly commenters because you had
to frame it as a defense of something Trump said. That just confused the issue for people who can't hold more than one thought
in their heads at a time. Trump is a war criminal himself, so he should get no credit for saying something right once in a while.
He only does so for his own self interest. But it is ironic to see so called liberals react by taking the opposite side just because
Trump said something right.
Trump is spot on. Pretty much every single war since WWI was egged on by the media. War sells news! Enemy of the people is right.
I hate mainstream media.
CNN, MSDNC, Fox and all those 24hr news channels are the worst. They actively promote wars and chaos the world over. CNN is
losing the ratings war. I'm sure they'd love another real war to ratchet up the ratings, that's why they're promoting war with
Iran.
Excellent article. I agree with the author except that I would blame the press a little more.
One instance I can think of when a large part of the press advocated against going to war was at the start of the Civil War.
Lincoln shut down a few papers and I think even jailed some newspapermen.
In the end it is up to each of us as individuals to decide what to believe. Certainly a large swath of the media today is advocating
an aggressive stance toward a number of countries based on what I believe is false information.
Regarding an earlier comment about believing our intelligence agencies: Should we have believe them when they say (including
the Israeli Mossad)Iran has never had a nuclear weapons program or should we believe Netanyahu when he claims they say Iran can
have nuclear weapons within months. (In truth, I haven't really talked to Netanyahu or the Mossad directly. I only know what I
read in the papers.)
"Yes, the Press Helps Start Wars" -- this goes back at least to the American Revolution. "The vicious border warfare of the Revolution
produced atrocities on both sides, but Americans placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Indians and their British backers.
. . . Crawford's torture and execution joined a host of reports, real or imagined, that appeared in American newspapers, fueled
American propaganda, and made killing Indians a patriotic duty. Indians saw what was happening. The Americans charged them with
many acts of cruelty that they never committed and publicized them in 'their false Papers' as 'a pretence to hurt & murder us,'
they told the British; 'if we had the means of publishing to the World the many Acts of Treachery & Cruelty committed by them
on our Women & Children, it would appear that the title of Savages would with much greater justice be applied to them than to
us.'. . . When Washington received news of the preliminary terms of peace, he sent three Oneidas in the spring of 1783 with a
message to Brigadier General Allan Maclean, the British commander at Fort Niagara, asking him to prevent the Indians from committing
acts of cruelty 'disagreeable to them and to inhabitants of the United States.' Maclean wrote back in anger asking Washington
why, if he really wanted to prevent 'disagreeable consequences,' he had condoned attacks on Indians from Fort Pitt, and why did
he allow newspapers to print lies that were a disgrace to any nation and served only to inflame tempers?" (Colin G. Calloway,
"The Indian World of George Washington" (Oxford University Press, 2018) pp. 279, 281 (footnotes omitted).)
POTUS tweeted: "The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it's TRUE. I am providing
a great service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause
War! They are very dangerous & sick!"
Ted's follow-up article "Yes, Reporters Do Get Sick."
"They uncritically circulated 'evidence' from Iraqi defectors and George W. Bush's administration "
That is your sole example of the past 100 years? That "the press helps start wars" by being uncritical of evidence provided
by the government? This is an intellectually dishonest argument.
Of course the press needs to be held to account in providing accurate and vetted material. But your argument in no way reflects
the definitive tone of the headline.
Laughing. Because I think most people understood what the president meant by his coment. He was not talking about the policy initiative
for war. Butas the article states, the press is overwhelmingly partners with ot agitators for conflict.
And they are second to government at every level to admit when they get it wrong. Of course the press agitates for conflict.
There's no btter examples in modern times than those of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. I would contend that the east coast papers
since 9/11 have been leaders in agitating for regime change and military intervention.
But the notion that the press is somehow new to advocating "american conflict" might wanty to consider the following acites:
I have not read Carrol Sue Humphrey's book on the subject, The American Revolution and the Press. But reviews and summaries
make it clear that as agitators -- the press may have been ,ore influential then than they are today.
"... But this part of the story was the most revelatory: "'Rand Paul has persuaded the president that we are not for regime change in Iran,' this person said, because adopting that position would instigate another war in the Middle East." ..."
"... This is significant, not because Trump couldn't have arrived at the same position without Paul's counsel, but because it's easy to imagine him embracing regime change, what with virtually every major foreign policy advisor in his cabinet supporting something close to war with Iran. "Personnel is policy" is more than a cliché. ..."
"... "So let's understand that the people pushing for regime change in Iran are seeking to destabilize and harm the country " writes TAC ..."
"... Most importantly, on arguably the most crucial potential foreign policy decision the president can make -- one that could potentially start another disastrous U.S. Middle Eastern war -- it appears to be Rand Paul who is literally keeping the peace. ..."
President Trump has been known to be hawkish on Iran. Politicoobserved
Wednesday: "Trump has drawn praise from the right-wing establishment for hammering the mullahs
in Tehran, junking the Iran nuclear deal and responding to the regime's saber rattling with
aggressive rhetoric of his own ." There are also powerful factions in Congress
and Washington with
inroads to the president that have been
itching for regime change for years. "The policy of the United States should be regime
change in Iran," says
Senator Tom Cotton, once rumored to be
Trump's pick to head the CIA.
Politicorevealed
Wednesday some interesting aspects of the relationship between Senator Rand Paul and the
president, particularly on foreign policy: "While Trump tolerates his hawkish advisers, the
[Trump] aide added, he shares a real bond with Paul: 'He actually at gut level has the same
instincts as Rand Paul '."
On Iran, Politico notes, "Trump has stopped short of calling for regime change even
though Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and Bolton support
it, aligning with Paul instead, according to a GOP foreign policy expert in frequent contact
with the White House."
But this part of the story was the most revelatory: "'Rand Paul has persuaded the
president that we are not for regime change in Iran,' this person said, because adopting that
position would instigate another war in the Middle East."
This is significant, not because Trump couldn't have arrived at the same position
without Paul's counsel, but because it's easy to imagine him embracing regime change, what with
virtually every major foreign policy advisor in his cabinet supporting something close to war
with Iran. "Personnel is policy" is more than a cliché.
Paul and Trump apparently like making fun of some White House staffers, as Politico
also reported: "the Kentucky senator and the commander-in-chief have bonded over a shared
delight in thumbing their noses at experts the president likes to deride as 'foreign policy
eggheads,' including those who work in his own administration."
Eggheads indeed. For every foreign policy "expert" in Washington who now admits that regime
change in Iraq was a mistake (and a whole slew of them
won't even cop to that), you will find the same people making the case for regime change in
other countries, including
Iran , explaining how this time, somehow, America's toppling of a despot will turn out
differently.
"So let's understand that the people pushing for regime change in Iran are seeking to
destabilize and harm the country " writesTAC 's Daniel Larison. "Just as many of the same people did when they agitated for
regime change in Iraq and again in Syria, they don't care about the devastation and chaos that
the people in the country would have to endure if the policy 'works.'"
These are the same Washington foreign policy consensus standard bearers who would
likely be shaping U.S. foreign policy unfettered if 2011 Libya
"liberator" Hillary Clinton had become president -- or any other Republican
not named Trump or Paul.
When it comes to who President Trump can turn to for a more sober and realist
view of foreign policy, one who actually takes into account past U.S. mistakes abroad and
tries to learn from them, at the moment it appears to be Paul against the Washington foreign
policy world.
President Trump hired regime change advocates as advisors presumably because he wanted their
advice, yet there's evidence to suggest that at least on Iran, certain hawks' wings
might have been clipped .
Most importantly, on arguably the most crucial potential foreign policy decision the
president can make -- one that could potentially start another disastrous U.S. Middle Eastern
war -- it appears to be Rand Paul who is literally keeping the peace.
Rand's father, Ron Paul is the greatest President America never had, and unlike Trump he told
Americans what they needed to hear rather than what they wanted to hear.
The problem is that we don't consider Rand a neocon because we are comparing him to the
warmongers and lunatics in the White House. Whereas comapred to his father, Rand is a neocon
who time and time again has flip flopped on his morals and principals whereas his father
never did.
And Rand is not the reason the US doesn't want war with Iran. Iran is the reason the US
doesn't want war.
Iran simply has to flood A-stan with small arms, their respective ammo, and logistical
equipment, and 15,000 US soldiers will 'Saigoned'
Combine the above with the distaste of European countries to NOT have refugees flood their
borders and Turkey's increasing hatred for the US, and you have a perfect storm of
potentially deadly but wholly justified anti-Americanism
"... Coalition attacks on Yemeni markets are unfortunately all too common. The Saudis and their allies know they can strike civilian targets with impunity because the Western governments that arm and support them never call them out for what they do. ..."
There was another Saudi coalition airstrike on a
crowded market in northern Yemen today. Dozens of civilians have been killed and dozens more
injured. Many of the dead and injured were children whose school bus was hit in the attack:
Coalition attacks on Yemeni
markets are unfortunately all too common. The Saudis and their allies know they can strike
civilian targets with impunity because the Western governments that arm and support them never
call them out for what they do. The U.S. continues to arm and refuel coalition planes
despite ample evidence that the coalition has been deliberately attacking civilian targets. At
the very least, the coalition hits civilian targets with such regularity that they are
ignoring whatever
procedures they are supposed to be following to prevent that. The weapons that the U.S.,
Britain, and other arms suppliers provide them are being used to slaughter wedding-goers,
hospital patients, and schoolchildren, and U.S. refueling of coalition planes allows them to
carry out more of these attacks than they otherwise could. Today's attack ranks as one of the
worst.
Saada has come under some of the most intense attacks from the coalition bombing campaign.
The coalition illegally
declared the entire area a military target three years ago, and ever since they have been
blowing up
homes ,
markets ,
schools ,
water treatment systems, and
hospitals without any regard for the innocent civilians that are killed and injured.
The official U.S. line on support for the war is that even more civilians would be killed if
the U.S. weren't supporting the coalition. Our government has never provided any evidence to
support this, and the record shows that civilian casualties from Saudi coalition airstrikes
have
increased over the last year. The Saudis and their allies either don't listen to any of the
advice they're receiving, or they know they won't pay any price for ignoring it. As long as the
U.S. arms and refuels coalition planes while they slaughter Yemeni civilians in attacks like
this one, our government is implicated in the war crimes enabled by our unstinting military
assistance. Congress can and must halt that assistance immediately.
Update: CNN reports on the
aftermath of the airstrike:
The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) said that a hospital it supports in
Saada had received 29 dead bodies of "mainly children" under 15 years of age, and 40 injured,
including 30 children.
"(The hospital) is very busy. They've been receiving wounded and dead since the morning
and it is non-stop ," ICRC head of communications and spokesperson Mirella Hodeib told
CNN.
Second Update: The Associated Press
reports that the death toll stands at 43 with another 63 injured.
Third Update: The death toll has reportedly risen to 50 . 77 were
injured.
Of course I have no right to surprise or shock. They've already targeted hospitals,
foreign doctors and nurses, first responders, wedding parties, and funerals.
School buses.
We used to make movies about killing people who do things like this. Now we help them do
it.
The repetitive frequency and intensity of these attacks on hospitals, schools, markets and
other civilian gatherings, coupled with the indifference of the guilty national governments
and their international enablers, signals that the world and human species is passing through
a mass psychosis. This psychosis is playing itself out at all levels. Fascism, which is very
current as a national psychology, is generally speaking, a coping strategy for dealing with
nasty chaos. This coping strategy is designed around generating even more chaos, since that
is a familiar and therefore more comfortable pattern of behavior; and that does provide a
delusion of stability. A good example would be the sanctions just declared by the Trump
Administration on Iranian commerce. In an intrinsically connected global market, these
sanctions are so thorough that they qualify as a blockade, within a contingency plan for
greater global conflict. But those who destroy hospitals, schools, school buses and public
celebrations are not, otherwise, forward looking nice people. We are descending into a nasty
fascist war psychosis. Just shake it. Live. Long and well.
"even more civilians would be killed if the U.S. weren't supporting the coalition"
If we did not hand them satellite images, did not service, repair and refuel their planes,
and did not sell them the bombs, then they would . kill more civilians how? They could not
even reach their targets, let alone drop explosives they do not have.
What Would Mohammad Do? Buy bombs from the Russians? Who have better quality control and
fewer duds, hence more victims?
What Would Mohammad Do? Get the UAE to hire Blackwater to poison the wells across
Yemen?
How exactly do the profiteers in our country, that get counted out blood money for every
single Yemeni killed, propose that the Saudis and Emiratis would make this worse?
But, good to know that our "smart" and "precise" munitions can still hit a school bus.
Made In America!
The coverage in the media has been predictably cowardly and contemptible in the aftermath of
this story. I read articles from CNN and MSNBC and they were variations on "school bus
bombed", in the passive tense – with no mention of who did it or who is supporting them
in the headline, ad if the bombings were natural disasters.
Fox, predictably, was even worse and led with "Biblical relics endangered by war", which
speaks volumes about the presumed priorities of their viewership.
This, and not anything to do with red meat domestic politics, is the worst media
malpractice of our time. "Stop directly helping the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks drop
bombs on school children" should be the absolute easiest possible moral issue for our media
to take a stand on and yet they treat it like it's radioactive.
Speaking as someone who considers themselves a liberal I am infuriated by the Democrats
response. How can the party leadership not see that if they keep flogging the horse of
Russian trolls and shrugging their shoulders over American given (not sold – *given*)
bombs being dropped on schools and hospitals, no one is ever going to take the supposed
Democratic anti-war platform seriously again. The Republicans can afford to be tarde by
association with these atrocities. The Democrats can't.
I wonder how many Democrats are in the same boat as me right now: I may not like Trump or
the Christian conservatives but fights over the Supreme Court or coal plants or a healthcare
law look terribly petty compared to the apparent decision by Saudi Arabia to kill literally
millions. For the first time in my life I'm seriously wishing there was a third-party
candidate I could support and the congressional elections just so I could send a message on
this.
@Hunter C
Vote Libertarian Party. You won't agree with a lot of their domestic agenda, but they're not
going to win, so it doesn't matter. The noninterventionist foreign policy is your message.
In the wake of President Trump's Helsinki press conference, National Review declared
itself "Against
Moral Equivalence." The magazine claimed that there could be no equating American
meddling in foreign elections with Russian interference in our election because the goal of
the U.S. is to "promote democracy and political liberty and human rights." Though while
America's actions might be noble and have the sanction of heaven, National Review did
concede that its efforts to promote democracy have often been "messy" -- an adjective that the
people of Iraq might find understated.
Like many of Trump's critics, National Review 's embrace of American exceptionalism,
of exempting the United States from the moral laws of the universe because of its commitment to
democracy, is of a type the West has seen before. Swept up in their revolutionary enthusiasm,
the French Jacobins made similar claims. In late 1791, a member of the Assembly, while
agitating for war with Austria, declared that France "had become the foremost people of the
universe, so their conduct must now correspond to their new destiny. As slaves they were bold
and great; are they to be timid and feeble now that they are free?"
Robespierre himself was taken aback by the turn of a domestic revolution into a call for
military adventurism. Of plans to invade Austria and to overthrow "enemies" of liberty in other
nations, he famously remarked, "No one loves armed missionaries." (Robespierre's advice might
have also benefited the American occupiers of Iraq.) The Jacobins' moral preening led France to
declare war on Austria in 1792 and set in motion years of French military adventurism that
devastated much of central Europe. Military imperialism abroad and guillotines at home became
the legacy of self-declared French exceptionalism.
Hubristic nations that claim a unique place for themselves high atop the moral universe tend
to be imperialistic. This is because claims of national exceptionalism, whether of the French
or American variety, are antinomian, even nihilistic. The "exceptional" ones carve out for
themselves an exemption from the moral law. And prideful claims of moral purity are the
inevitable predicate to imposing one's will upon another. Once leaders assert that their
national soul is of a special kind -- indispensable and not subject to the same rules -- the
road to hell has been paved.
While supporters of American exceptionalism are careful to claim the mantle of Western
civilization, their philosophical orientation in fact amounts to a repudiation of the central
principles of the West and the Constitution.
Arguably, the tradition of the Judeo-Christian West has been special because it has asserted
that human nature is not particularly special. And the Constitution has been exceptional
because it's warned Americans that we are not particularly exceptional.
For example, the legacy of Pauline Christianity, Irving Babbitt tells us, is "the haunting
sense of sin and the stress it lays upon the struggle between the higher and lower self,
between the law of the flesh and the law of the spirit." No person or nation is above this
moral challenge. The uniquely American repudiation of exceptionalism shines brightly in The
Federalist , where no angels can be found among men, and, because no one's behavior enjoys
the sanction of heaven, extensive checks are placed upon people's ability to impose their wills
upon others. The foreign policy that flowed out of the worldview of the Framers was that of
George Washington, a strong recommendation against hubris and foreign meddling.
These historical and cultural warnings about human nature have since been swept away by
acolytes of American exceptionalism. Our moral superiority, they claim, makes us Masters of the
Universe, not careful and mindful custodians of our own fallen nature. We have been put on
earth to judge other nations, not to be judged. Tossing the legacy of the Framers onto the ash
heap of history, George W. Bush declared in his Second Inaugural Address
that our exceptionalism creates an obligation to promote democracy "in every nation and
culture." In this endeavor, Bush pronounced, the United States enjoys the sanction of heaven,
as "history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the author of liberty." Bush's
Second Inaugural was probably better in the original French.
Now, the puffed-up American establishment, many of whom supported the bloody Iraq war, drip
with moral condescension as they brand Vladimir Putin an existential outlaw and the enemy of
democracy, foreclosing the possibility of common ground with Russia on nuclear weapons, China,
terrorism, and other issues that matter to the national security of the United States. That
Washington has meddled in countless nations' affairs from Iraq to Russia -- and caused untold
damage -- is of no account to the establishment. Rules do not apply to democracy promoters.
After the Iraq war, we should have reconsidered our hubristic American exceptionalism. One
can take pride in the American tradition without laying claim to a uniquely beautiful national
soul that is exempt from the laws of nature and of nature's God. The hysterical reaction to
Trump's truthful admission that the United States too has made mistakes in its relationship
with Russia is a sign that American exceptionalism is still in full flower among elites.
Without the return of a certain humility, there will be more military adventures abroad and
political strife at home.
William S. Smith is research fellow and managing director at the Center for the Study
of Statesmanship at The Catholic University of America.11 Responses to America the
Unexceptional
I agree with the sentiment but the facts show we've always been this way. Historically
speaking our hubris didn't start with George W. Bush. We had quite the exceptionalist spirt
with "Manifest Destiny" back in the 19th century. And indeed it took a bit of hubris to
declare independence from Britain.
Dr. Smith wrote his PhD dissertation in political philosophy on a critique of romanticism in
political thinking. However, in the above article he somehow believes America is unexceptional
for having exempted itself from God's laws and natural law. But what if American policy makers
acted out of political necessity and realism, not "hubris" or un-humility? I might agree with
Smith about using "democracy building" as a pretense for military intervention. But does Smith
take what US presidents and congressmen say at face value? What if US intervention in Iraq had
to do with trying to balance power between Iraq and Iran, or stop Islamic expansionism from
pushing into Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states? Moralism can be just as dangerous as democracy
building in foreign affairs.
We did renounce exceptionalism and imperialism after WW1. Wilson's pet agencies faded out and
we focused internally. We remained non-interventionist until 1946 when the Wilsonians snatched
power again.
We should figure out why and how the bureaucracy and media gave up Empire in the early '20s.
Obviously the people were tired, just as they are now, but the people are irrelevant.
Something changed in the power structure. What was it? Can we help it to happen again?
The writer in question of the referenced piece at National Review, Jimmy Quinn, is a
20something college intern, proving they aren't even interested in hiring newer young
conservatives at NRO who don't just mindlessly repeat the neoconservative line on "American
exceptionalism". They are long past their days as a serious magazine. If not by ideology, just
by having a more interesting collection of writers, I'd say even the Weekly Standard is now a
better magazine than National Review. It's become like the boring Pravda rulebook for Official
Conservatism™ in America.
Well done, Mr. Smith. Our hubris blinds this nation to the pain it inflicts in other lands. I
reflect again and again on these words from the hymn (tune Finlandia):
This is my song, oh God of all the nations,
a song of peace for lands afar and mine.
This is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine;
but other hearts in other lands are beating
with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.
My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
and sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too and clover,
and skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
This is my song, thou God of all the nations;
a song of peace for their land and for mine.
When nations rage, and fears erupt coercive,
The drumbeats sound, invoking pious cause.
My neighbors rise, their stalwart hearts they offer,
The gavels drop, suspending rights and laws.
While others wield their swords with blind devotion;
For peace I'll stand, my true and steadfast cause.
We would be one as now we join in singing,
Our hymn of love, to pledge ourselves anew.
To that high cause of greater understanding
Of who we are, and what in us is true.
We would be one in loving and forgiving,
with hopes and dreams as true and high as thine.
C'mon people, it's right to separate yourselves from the bombast and violent meddling we've
done all over the world, but let's not get carried away with this ridiculous "we're just like
any other bully" mentality.
The exceptionalism is in the elevation of individual human freedom as a foundational
principle. We declared it, the French declared it, and it remains a beacon for many others, no
matter how poorly we've observed it from time to time.
"Military imperialism abroad and guillotines at home became the legacy of self-declared
French exceptionalism." No, that was the paroxysm of revolution, one that the U,S. fortunately
avoided.
The real legacy was the sweeping away of monarchy across the continent, despite the irony of
Napoleon making himself emperor.
For all our imperialism, did we treat western Europe the same as Stalin treated eastern
Europe?
Is it just an accident of history that the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, former
British colonies all, lead the world in the protection of individual human rights? You can draw
a line, crooked though it may be, from those countries right back to the Magna Carta.
Yes, we had slavery, a legacy of our status as an agricultural colony, but the British,
French, and Americans all abolished it because it couldn't square with our declared
principles.
We may forget why we are exceptional but our immigration pressure shows that the the rest of
the world hasn't.
Re: The Jacobins' moral preening led France to declare war on Austria in 1792
It wasn't just the Jacobins: pretty much everyone wanted war. The royalists hoped that
foreign intervention would restore Louis XVI as an absolute monarch. The moderates wanted to
consolidate the gains of the Revolution and deflect public anger at its economic failings. The
radicals, as noted, looked to evangelize Europe with the Rights of Man. And the foreign powers
wanted to crush the Revolution lest its ideals take root in their own country -- and help
themselves to this or that bit of France's empire.
"... Akhilesh "Akhi" Pillalamarri is a fellow at Defense Priorities. An international relations analyst, editor, and writer, he studied international security at Georgetown University. Find him on Twitter ..."
Iranians: Not Pining for American InterventionSome seem to think they can't wait
for us to overthrow their government. Nothing could be further from the truth. By
Akhilesh Pillalamarri
•
August 6, 2018
Ryan
Rodrick Beiler/Shutterstock Defense hawks in Washington think the people of Iran are
waiting with bated breath for the regime in Tehran to collapse and wouldn't mind a little
American help along the way -- whether through direct military intervention, or "naturally" as
the result of grassroots
protests , "with Washington backing," of course.
There is no greater fallacy. While the people of Iran are undoubtedly frustrated with their
government, they are not on the
cusp of changing it, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seems to believe . In fact, any attempt
by outside actors to change the regime would cause the people of Iran to unify around the
clerics. We would end up deflating the reformist party and enabling the hardliners who have
consistently warned their people that we can't be trusted.
This ongoing mind reading of the Iranian people is pure Washington hokum with no basis in
reality.
After witnessing the debacles of our interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, who can
blame the people of Iran for not wanting direct American military aid? As Damon Linker
points out in
The Week , our attitude towards unsavory regimes in other nations is all too often
informed by "an incorrigible optimism about the benefits of change and consequent refusal to
entertain the possibility that a bad situation might be made even worse by overturning it."
Almost nobody in Iran supports the main group pushing for Western-backed regime change, the
National Council for the Resistance of Iran (NCRI). That organization is widely seen as a
front for
the despised Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MeK), an Iranian Marxist group that fought against the late
Shah, was virulently anti-American, and worked with Saddam Hussein to
invade Iran during the Iran-Iraq War before rebranding itself as a democratic opposition
group.
Despite this being common knowledge among unbiased observers, figures like National Security
Advisor John Bolton
continue to promote it as an alternative for Iran.
In actuality, despite the desire among a sizable segment of Iranians -- especially young
people in Tehran and other large cities -- for a pro-Western government, there is no
well-organized, secular, democratic alternative waiting to take charge. Any organization that
bills itself as such is following in the deceitful footsteps of Ahmed
Chalabi , the Iraqi leader-in-exile who sold himself in the United States as the Iraqi
George Washington, but failed to garner any political support after the fall of Saddam
Hussein.
History shows us that there is no quicker way for a leader or group to lose legitimacy than
by seeking the aid of a foreign power. King Louis XVI of France managed to hold on to his
throne for a few years after the storming of the Bastille, but was deposed after fleeing Paris
and seeking the aid of France's enemies. Iranians, like Americans, value liberty in the sense
of national self-determination: they would rather be under-served by their own leaders than by
well-meaning foreigners or those perceived to be puppets.
After wasting almost two decades of blood and treasure trying to rebuild countries with
weaker national identities than Iran -- like Iraq -- U.S. policymakers would have to be
detached from reality to believe that anything good could come of intervention in Iranian
affairs.
The people of Iran have a long historical memory: those who sold out their nation to foreign
powers, even in opposition to tyranny, have garnered not thanks but the collective hatred of
the Iranian people. From the actions
of the satrap Bessus who killed the last Achaemenid Persian king Darius III to curry favor with
Alexander the Great, to the slaying of the last pre-Islamic Persian ruler Yazdegerd III by a
local ruler to appease the invading Arabs, Iranians have long looked askance at collaboration
with foreigners. Numerous 19th-century Qajar rulers failed to implement their policies because
they were thought to be too close to the goals of the imperial powers of Russia or Britain. And
the last Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, never escaped the perception that his ascent to power in
1953 was enabled by British and American intelligence agencies, regardless of his own
self-portrayal as a nationalist.
Most Iranians, no matter how much they oppose their current government and politics, would
not support an invasion of their own country, let alone the peaceful ascendancy of groups
believed to serve interests other than theirs: it is a matter
of pride and honor.
It is true that Iran has been racked by protests throughout the past year, such as January's
multi-city demonstrations and the closure of the Grand Bazaar in Tehran in June. But those were
spontaneous actions resulting from blue-collar frustrations with the economy and are unlikely
to lead to an outcome favorable to American interests.
If our pressure on Iran leads to regime change, the most likely alternative is
probably a military junta led by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a
shift away from the semi-civilian government that Iran now enjoys. The IRGC has been infringing
on our geopolitical interests throughout the Middle East for decades and could take an even
harder anti-American line than the current government. When confronted with invaders and
foreign pressure, Iranians have always rallied around military strongmen, such as Nader Shah in
the early 18th century, who threw out the invading Afghans, and Reza Shah in the early 20th
century, who saved
Iran from disintegration after World War I.
Washington should be careful what it wishes for. We should not delude ourselves into
thinking that the people of Iran are waiting for our support and intervention. The truth is
much darker.
Akhilesh "Akhi" Pillalamarri is a fellow at Defense Priorities. An international
relations analyst, editor, and writer, he studied international security at Georgetown
University. Find him on Twitter@akhipill.
The people of Iran instinctively love America because everyone in the world loves America.
This is true regardless of the fact that we have never done anything whatsoever to merit
their love. We have never given them assistance when they had an earthquake, we won't let
them get spare parts for passenger airlines causing air travel to be unsafe. We hinder
civilian projects but since we are narcissists, we simply believe that everyone loves us
because of our intrinsically great qualities.
Really, what if the shoe were on the other foot? Trump is very unpopular as our own
President. But if a foreign power were to attempt to depose him and install a new government,
there would be massive popular resistance to that here. Why the neocons think it would be
different in any other country eludes me.
Nothing can unite even a fractiously divided nation more readily than foreign
interference.
US policy since Libya and Syria has been "regime destruction", with not even token
commitments to pretend "nation building". The miscalculation continues: if the US manages to
turn Iran into a "failed to comply" state without effective governance, there will be several
factions with professional military capabilities – especially given the IRGC
"deterrent" of connections and alliances throughout the Middle East – that can continue
where our pathological US "maglinity" plans to stop.
There are no "wars of choice". The only choice the US gets is whether to start an
unnecessary war, from then on our victims get a say, eventually. We are still trapped in
Eisenhower's grandstanding "meddling" in Iranian elections, after all .
Everyone knows that Iranians are not begging for "liberation", just as everyone with the
brains God gave my youngest cat knew damn well that American boots would not transform Iraq
into a western democracy, that American bombs would ruin Libya and American bombs are used
for genocide in Yemen.
The Trump Administration is looking for an excuse to attack. Just as the Bush
Administration shed crocodile tears over the poor Iraqis, and Obama cynically exploited the
fate of Libyans.
On August 6, 1945; The US dropped an atomic bomb (Little Boy) on Hiroshima destroying much
of the city and instantly killing 80,000 of its citizens. 60,000 more would die later
On August 6, 1945; The Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb ever used in military combat
on Hiroshima. A second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki August 9, 1945.
On August 6, 2018; On the 73rd anniversary of dropping of the first atomic bomb, the
residents of Hiroshima will pause to remember the 80,000 residents and the destruction which
changed the course of history. Church bells will ring at 8:15 AM, the moment the bomb was
dropped from the Enola Gay.
Later on August 6, 2018 and in the evening, Toro Nagashi Lanterns will be floated down the
Motoyasu river and past The Atomic Dome (Prefuctural Industrial Promotion Hall). First held in
1946, the Toro Nagashi (literally, "flowing lanterns") ceremony was first held in Tokyo.
Participants Float glowing paper lanterns down a river to commemorate the souls of the
dead.
Today, Hiroshima is a prosperous manufacturing city.
In February, the Pentagon announced
a $950 million no-bid contract to REAN Cloud, LLC for the migration of legacy systems to the
cloud. As an Amazon Web Services consulting partner and reseller, REAN Cloud was likely favored
due to Amazon's recent $600 million cloud project for the Central Intelligence Agency. Creating
an unusually large contract with little oversight or competition led to ample criticism of the
Pentagon, as lawmakers demanded an explanation from DoD. In response to the brouhaha, the
Pentagon announced in early March that the maximum value of the contract would be
reduced from $950 million to $65 million.
As it turned out, though, even the Pentagon wasn't exactly sure how to apply the murky
requirements of OTA. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) ruled in May that the REAN contract did not
accord with federal law, in that REAN was granted an award without even really considering
going through a competitive bidding process. "Vague and attenuated" statements from the
Pentagon to potential bidders in the beginning of the process ensured that the process would
not be an open one. After the cancellation of the REAN deal, the Pentagon finally seems open to
competitive bidding for cloud migration.
Unfortunately, OTA is still alive and well across the DoD procurement process. In June, the
Defense Information Systems Agency
joined the growing list of agencies dabbling in OTA, noting that "many of the companies
we're dealing with are small start-ups." But as the REAN Cloud case shows, many companies
appear "small" but have far larger partners. According to statistics in the
Federal News Radio report , "Only $7.4 billion of the nearly $21 billion went to
nontraditional companies." The problem is created in part by the use of consortiums, which are
comprised of multiple companies, which vary in size. The consortium can decide how money is
allocated for an award, allowing larger businesses to benefit disproportionately out of sight
of the DoD and taxpayers.
Congress has finally started to demand more accountability for OTAs. The 2019 National
Defense Authorization Act passed by Congress requires more data
reporting and analysis by acquisition officials. But far more work remains.
Lawmakers should set stricter limits on when it's okay to eschew competitive bidding, and
lower the threshold for requiring congressional notification (currently set at $500 million).
Allowing tens of billions of dollars to be spent behind the backs of taxpayers without a
bidding process cannot continue.
Ross Marchand is the director of policy for the Taxpayers Protection Alliance.
We have lost some of our democratic habits -- indeed, in many ways we are losing
our very cohesion as a society. But I frame the question very differently.
I know a bunch of Trump supporters. Some of them are intellectuals who write for places like
TAC . But most are not. Neither are any of them raving bigots or knuckle-dragging
neanderthals, and all of them read the news, though with vastly less obsessiveness than people
who work in the business.
None of them "like" things like "unremitting chaos, lies, ignorance, trash-talking
vulgarity, legislative failure" or collusion with foreign governments. Some of them minimize
some of these things at least some of the time -- and I myself have been known to derive a kind
of pleasure from the absurdity of a figure like Mooch. But this isn't what the people who I
know who voted Trump voted for , nor is it why they continue to be happy with their
vote -- which, however unhappy they are with how the administration is conducting itself, most
of them still are.
Rather, the commonality among those who voted for Trump is their conviction that the
Democratic party's leadership is utterly bankrupt, and, to one degree or another, so is the
Republican leadership. And that assessment hasn't changed one iota since the
election.
"They are, however, people who have lost trust in the individuals and institutions who are
most alarmed about Trump: the political establishment, the press, etc. And so, on a relative
basis, they'd rather continue to put their trust in Trump."
That last line does not follow .We have lost trust in all of the others; so would rather
see what Trump does; not that we have any trust in him to do the right thing
THAT would be ridiculous; especially after the last six months.
Hmmm. Populism can not govern or build institutions by its very nature? I can't help but read
that as saying the plebeians are so incompetent and stupid that only the elites are capable
of governing. As for the American people taking a turn to authoritarianism. This is possible,
after all, our Federal government has spent most of the last century increasing their control
over many of the aspects of our lives and stretching the limits of the Constitution beyond
any recognition. We have been prepared to accept authoritarianism. Increasingly we have had
an authoritarian presidency that surveils its own people and has usurped regulatory and
warmaking authority from the Congress. The Federal government has created, out of whole
cloth, a role for itself in public education. Do not blame the populace for being what the
elite has spent a century shaping them to be.
I am convinced that the saber rattling and fear-mongering concerning Korea, Iran, and Russia
are not happening because we have any reason to be particularly concerned about these
countries or because they threaten our interests. No, this is the way a corrupt and
ineffective regime distracts its citizens from its own failings. Lets be clear, this would be
happening even if She-who-shall-not-be-named had one the Presidency.
Whatever happened to "trust but verify"?
OK, a bunch of people did the political equivalent of a Hail Mary play in voting for Trump.
But now that the ball has not only fallen short but gone way out of bounds and beaned some
spectators in the stands shouldn't they be revoking that trust and casting around for someone
else to represent them? Why stick with a sinking ship?
There is strong evidence to suggest that one factor in Trump's victory was distrust of US
foreign policy. The link above is to an article about exit polls showing Trump won the
veteran's vote 2:1 over Hillary Clinton.
People don't regret their votes for Trump because if they had voted for Clinton, they or
their loved ones would be coming home in body bags–or minus body parts.
As bad as Trump is, his foreign policy instincts are less hawkish than
Clinton's–witness his decision to end the CIA funding of Syrian insurgents.
Trump's behavior is certainly "unpresidential" and chaotic. It is also less horrible than
war by many orders of magnitude.
"The politically relevant, and profoundly disturbing, fact is precisely the opposite of the
conventional wisdom: After six months of unremitting chaos, lies, ignorance, trash-talking
vulgarity, legislative failure, and credible evidence of a desire to collude with a hostile
foreign government to subvert an American election, President Trump's approval rating is
astonishingly high -- with something between one-third and two-fifths of the American people
apparently liking what they see and hear from the White House"
But George W Bush at his nadir averaged 26% approval, and that's seven years in, during an
epic economic collapse, a catastrophic war, and a host of other disasters. Trump is not THAT
far away from that average.
There is simply a line beyond which a president can't decline unless he murders and eats a
puppy in public, and I see no reason to presume that we can judge that Trump hit his bottom
six months in, when the economy is decent and no non-self inflicted crisis looming.
I'd also add that while all your friends have different reasons to stay aboard the Trump
train, all of them sound like high information, fairly ideological voters. This is probably
not the profile of Trump voters set to vote for The Rock in 2020
Well, when a building is rotten to the core, the only thing you can do is raze it to the
ground to start rebuilding. Our government has long passed its sell-by date. Really,
expecting a political solution to arise from a government controlled system such as ours does
not border on insanity – it completely crosses that border in leaves it miles in the
dust. Witness our insane Congress voting by a 98% margin to inflict sanctions based upon
absolute crock. But then the US has never let reality get in the way of statesmenshowmanship.
We get what we deserve, good and hard.
You're OK until the last line. "And populism by its very nature cannot build institutions,
cannot govern "
You're still using the Deepstate definition of populism. In fact populists want only one
thing: We think the government of THIS country should serve the interests of the people of
THIS country.
It's perfectly possible to govern by this rule. FDR did it magnificently.
Why did it work for FDR? Because he was determined to BREAK the monopolies and forces that
acted contrary to the interests of the people, and because governments BELOW the Federal
level were still strong. When he closed the banks for several months, cities and Chambers of
Commerce jumped in immediately to develop scrip systems.
Thanks to an unbroken series of evil judges and presidents after WW2, local governments
and institutions are dead or dying. Even if a competent and determined populist tried to
close down banks or Amazon or the "health" insurance system, there would be no organized way
to replace them.
What exactly did these people think a Clinton administration would do? What nightmarish
dystopia did they see coming around the bend? And what do you think -- were their perceptions
of America's future under a Clinton administration accurate, or at least close to the mark?
And if so, why?
Also, I get that people have lost trust in mainstream institutions. What makes them think
that Trump is trustworthy in comparison? Why do they have more trust in Trump than in the
institutions? And does that seem reasonable?
I didn't vote for Trump: His rhetorical style turns me cold; I don't like his position on
many issues, or his general governing philosophy, to the extent he can be said to have one.
But, BUT, I sure as Hell did not vote for Hilary Clinton(I voted for Johnson and Weld, who
were obvious non-starters from the word Go. I might possibly have voted for Trump if it had
looked like the election might be close in Illinois, but since the Chicago Machine had
already stolen it for HRC, I could salve my conscience and vote for Johnson.
Clinton was the status quo candidate, and since I did not desire "more of the same",
governmentally, Trump and his circus are preferable to Clinton and whatever cabal she would
have assembled to run the country.
You claim that the elite "inevitably" run the machinery of government, but it's worth
noting that once upon a time in America, most of the people in government were political
appointees who could be sent packing(along with their bosses) by the voters. Nowadays, the
'elite' which runs government is dug in pretty much permanently, and the same people will be,
in practice, running the government no matter who wins the next election, or the one after
that
Hilary Clinton was forthrightly the candidate of the permanent, un-elected bureaucracy,
and Trump, well, didn't seem to be. The choice was between Trump, whose actual position on
the size of government was not clear, and Hilary Clinton who was actually promising to make
government bigger, more centralized, more expensive and less responsive. I'm not sorry Trump
won however distasteful he and his henchmen are to me.
I too had a friend who was a huge Ron Paul supporter who not only backed Trump, but became a
major apologist for him ever since. The man ran two back to back campaigns in Georgia for US
Senate, the Ron Paul mold. Now, no on his original team will give him the time of day. Those
who tried to get some sense into him, have been closed off.
As a libertarian, I am no more afraid of the left or the right. In fact, listening to the
right rant about the left yields a lot of ignorance, disinformation and paranoia: stock in
trade for right wing propaganda. But I am disturbed when people spend years fighting for
liberty suddenly joined Cult 45 that has no sense of liberty Ron Paul or his followers would
recognize.
But Trump fit the bankrupt GOP. Lest we forget, those 49 GOP Senators who voted for
"skinny repeal" (even the name is joke!) never gave a moment's consideration to the bill
written by Rand Paul that covers the conservative attributes of free markets and
self-determination. Lest we also forget that Rand is not only one of the few legit
conservatives, but a doctor and the son of doctor or former Congressman. Those credentials
alone would have been enough if GOP was actually interested being conservative. Apparently,
Trumpism is what the GOP is about and 49 of them proved it.
I think that you have identified a problem that transcends Trump and his opponents. Vitriolic
partisanship is one thing. At various points in our history, we have had some nasty spells of
polarization. The deeper problem that the institutions of public life are now losing their
very legitimacy.
Legitimacy is something deeper than mere approval. It relies upon the unspoken acceptance
of political and institutional norms.
We are clearly in the process of publicly reevaluating and even rejecting these norms. The
birthers questioning Obama's background and "not my president" folks do not view their
oppponents as legitimate, if mistaken. In the case of Trump and the radical left, they
contest the legitimacy of the other side even participating in the process, a process by the
way to which they owe no fealty.
Nothing wrong with America that couldn't be fixed, one, by making voting mandatory, and two,
by having top two vote getters in primary face each other in the general.
We'd have a moderate politics with elected officials clustering slightly right and left of
the center.
Speaking as a Commie Pinko Red, I still prefer Trump as President over Clinton, precisely
because he is doing so much to undermine America's "leadership" in world affairs. He's still
a murderous imperialist, maybe even just as much as she would have been, but there's just so
much more damage that she could have done making bi-partisan deals with the GOP for the
benefit of Wall Street and the insurance industry.
The movement against GOPcare – Trumpcare wasn't really a fair name for the wet
dreams of Paul Ryan and Conservative, Inc. – probably couldn't have been so effective
or flew under the radar of the establishment tools running the Democratic Party and its media
mouthpieces if a Democrat was in the White House and the various beltway "movement" honchos
had had their precious seat at the table where they could have rolled over for the Democratic
president of the moment.
The biggest problem is what comes after Trump for the GOP?
He's kicked off a process for the GOP that will be very difficult to manage going forward.
He showed that outright racism, sexism, continuous lying, even treasonous collusion with
Russia to subvert our election is just fine with the Republican Party. How does the GOP sell
family values to their 'base' after they all lined up with Donald j Trump, serial
wife-cheater and money-launderer?
It will be hard for anyone to forget that any of this happened.
Consider this: 8 years of W Bush yielded the first black President – It really could
not have happened if W hadn't burned the house down. What comes after Trump?
I'm a very middle-class worker in the IT sector where most of my coworkers have been
sensible, but my weekend hobby of playing music has put me in contact (largely via Facebook)
with many Trump supporters who do happen to be knuckle-dragging neanderthals. They generally
don't read; their "news" comes from partisan demagogues on the radio or TV. If I give one the
benefit of the doubt and share an article from, say, The American Conservative -- "The
Madness of King Donald" was a favorite -- it's been all too common to receive a
childish/hate-filled meme in response. Bigots are legion: I've unfriended the raving variety,
and unfollowed the milder dog-whistlers. These deplorables have in fact been emboldened by
the current POTUS.
But I get your point. I abhor the current duopoly, but it could be fixed if thinking
citizens wanted to put in some effort. So, it's depressing in a different kind of way that so
many thoughtful and well-read Americans are so cynical about state of US politics that they
are fine with Trump wrecking it.
"Rather, the commonality among those who voted for Trump is their conviction that the
Democratic party's leadership is utterly bankrupt, and, to one degree or another, so is the
Republican leadership. And that assessment hasn't changed one iota since the election."
They are people who were full of it beforehand, and as the evidence rolls in, they just
sink deeper into lies.
Linker's quote "a desire to collude" you reference later as "collusion". The first instance
is an attempt to broaden the charge from collusion, the second instance is a (sloppy?) change
in language.
@Will Harrington, "Populism can not govern or build institutions by its very nature? I can't
help but read that as saying the plebeians are so incompetent and stupid that only the elites
are capable of governing."
I read that statement as "Once you are governing, once you are the one(s) in a position of
power, then by definition you have become 'the elite' and are no longer 'a plebeian'".
Populists, by definition, are the people who call for the tearing down of institutions that
make up the status-quo, and elites, by definition, are the people who build and maintain
status-quo institutions. At least in my eyes, "being a populist" and "governing institutions"
are mutually exclusive.
Since the conservative party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Eisenhower was invaded by the right
wingers and became the party of Jefferson Davis and John Wilkes Booth, the goal has been to
tarnish all concept of a functioning a democracy and a government is built to work for the
people, of the people, and by the people. The right wing main tactic is lies and just get
people riled up so that they don't realize and oblivious to the fact that America has slipped
from capitalism to corporatism; from a capitalist democracy to a caste based plutocracy run
for the sole benefit of the oligarchs who bought this country.
Don Trump is the embodiment and distillation of the right winger and their economic and
social cultural policies. He is not an alternative or antidote to the Republicans or
Democrats.
" Is he happy with Trump? No -- he's especially unhappy with the number of Goldman bankers
Trump appointed to senior economic posts, but more generally he acknowledges that the
government is in chaos and that Trump is not bringing the change he hoped for. But he doesn't
regret his vote, and he prefers the chaos of Trump to business-as-usual under either the
Democrats or the Republicans. And if Trump winds up discrediting the Federal government
generally, that's fine with him."
I didn't vote this election because I didn't like either candidate. I had been promoting
'America First' as a rallying cry for a candidate for years but Trump wasnt exactly the kind
of leader I had in mind for it.
But I'm with the guy above -- if chaos will bust up the musical chair dual monarchies of the
dems and repubs and the corrupt status quo government bring it on.
A somewhat related question, Noah: If you had been a young man living in China on August 1,
1927, do you think you would have joined the People's Liberation Army?
Originally I wanted to sit out this past election but gave in to peer pressure. And I regret
this. Trump? Clinton? Johnson? Stein? All were mediocre. Clinton/Trump were the two worst
candidates that the "major" parties have ever produced in my lifetime. It was with fear and
trepidation that I voted for Trump, notwithstanding that I fundamentally agreed with him on
the issues of immigration and the need for a reduced American role in global affairs. In the
end, I rationalized this (wasted) vote based upon the notion that not only had his opponent
committed a felony (detouring government emails) but also because (as others have pointed
out) she was the candidate of the status quo, the "permanent bureaucracy", Big Finance etc.
etc. The fact that Trump actually won surprised me, but only moderately, because as terrible
a candidate as he was, his opponent was even worse.
What has transpired since his election comes as no surprise. Had Clinton been elected
conditions would have only been mirror imaged, such being the state of things in this
once-great republic. I continue to maintain that the two-party system is archaic and has to
go. Whether a multi-party system would be better, I don't know. Perhaps we have reached a
point where the country is simply ungovernable. Perhaps more responsibility should be
returned to state and local government (Jefferson would have approved). Again, I don't
know.
What I do know is that the current system is dysfunctional.
And that, my friends, is why we have a real estate/TV personality as President.
i am neither an establishment voter, or a member of the media/press. i am deeply worried
where the man (trump) is taking this nation. the gop is complicit in this chaos as they see
trump as a rubber stamp for their plutocratic agenda. i don't know what it will take to right
the ship of state
I don't regret my vote. And I ave had issues with my choice before and after the election.
The sky is not even close to falling as predicted. And the democracy you claim is at threat
may very well be, but it's from the current executive. And nothing thus far suggests that it
will.
I m not going to dismiss the caterwauling liberals have been making since the campaign or
the election as major distraction to governance.
And by the way there remain not a twiddle's evidence that the WH prior to the election
colluded to undermine the US in any manner. It's time to cease throwing that out as sauce for
the goose.
I think I agree with all four of your "freinds". I am very fond of the establishment, they
have their place. What they provide in cohesion, stability and continuity is valuable to the
state. But they appear to be want for any level of substance, depth thereof or moral
consistency (if any at all). The double standards they hold themselves, their donors and
connections on issues and accountability is unsustainable in a democracy as I think you
understand it.
When I was laid out in the ER, I found myself wrestling with my own position on
healthcare. The temptations are great to bend the guide as to my own conditions -- but I
don't think I could so with a clear conscience. I am nor sot sure that what we haven't lost
is a sense of conscience -- that sense that truth overrides immediate gain. I don't think the
US can survive as the US if the leadership is bent on holding themselves to a standard not
available to the country's citizens.
"Is he happy with Trump? No -- he's especially unhappy with the number of Goldman bankers
Trump appointed to senior economic posts, but more generally he acknowledges that the
government . . ."
And the discredited notions that
1. the rich know how to run an economy effectively and
2. that a rise in the market is a sign of economic health.
Pear Conference captures perfectly the 'thinking' i have heard from more than one Trump
voter. This is 'reasoning'?
If there is one system in America that needs blowing up to start over it might be our
education system. I am generally supportive of public ed, and i am impressed by some of the
commitment and inventiveness i see among the proposers of various alternatives to public ed.
So, some folks are trying, even sometimes succeeding, but we have managed to arrive at a
point in our culture where we have elected a President whose election success depended more
than anything else on a public who have lost the ability to think critically. (if they ever
had it, of course)
Yes I know the other one got more votes, by a lot. And i know that this other candidate was
oddly not at all an attractive alternative. I know all that, but still, a huge fraction of
the voting population–a fraction large enough to make themselves now THE base the
government is playing to–is a group who could not/would not see this con-job coming?
There was every opportunity to use actual logic and facts to reach a voting decision, but
these millions of voters chose instead to go with various variations on the theme of 'they
all stink, so i'm using my vote to poke a stick in their eyes." Or, as Pear satirized, "I
hate/mistrust the elites and they like almost anybody else other than my guy, so I'm gonna
turn my country over to the most vulgar non-elite pig the system can come up with."
There is talk now about the damage he can do to American politics and sense of community, but
I think he may be more symptom than cause. We don't value the things we thought were a
standard part of the American process: truthfulness, kindness, authenticity, devotion to the
common good. We value, it turns out, showmanship, machismo, crass shows of wealth and power,
and ..I can't go on.
I'm not sure how we got here, but I know the institutions held in high regard on this site,
such as church, and some factors we all put our faith in such as increasing levels of
education, turn out not to matter so much as we had thought. It is going to take some hard
work and more than a little time to recover from this sickness in the country's soul.
"Trump supporters are just like people who are outraged by something and show it by rioting
and burning down their own neighborhoods." – Greg in PDX
The antifas rioting and destroying in Portland also got very violent when some old folks
held a peaceful rally for Trump there.
Oh, sorry. I forgot that when "progressives" disagree with someone, they consider that
merely disagreeing with them constitutes "violence" against their "safe space" and they are
compelled to go out and punch or shoot people.
No reason why populism couldn't govern. Huey Long was a damn effective governor of Louisiana.
Send the whole Acela Corridor élite to Saddam's woodchipper and the country would
noodle along just fine. I'm not for state violence, and yet the fantasy gives me a
frisson. Forgive me, a sinner.
Is David Brooks openly flirting with the state-worship
of this vexing 19th Century philosopher?Conservatism has gone from a rigid waltz between
libertarians, social conservatives, and foreign policy hawks to a limb-flailing rave. Writers
are reaching towards the bookshelf for thinkers that will refine and define first principles
during this time of flux. While it's all been great fun, an esteemed but concerning guest has
now entered the party. Increasingly, the right is dancing with G.W. Hegel.
David Brooks' recent column
is a clear example of a Hegel flirtation. In it, Brooks defines conservatism as an internal
critique of the Enlightenment. Explaining opposition to the idea that individuals randomly
choose to start society, he writes: "There never was such a thing as an autonomous, free
individual who could gather with others to create order. Rather, individuals emerge out of
families, communities, faiths, neighborhoods and nations. The order comes first. Individual
freedom is an artifact of that order."
Family and community are the basic building blocks of society and social contract theory has
plenty of flaws. Yet note how Brooks lists the nation state as prior to individual freedom.
It's dropped so casually that its radicalism is almost obscured. What type of freedom is
dependent on the nation state? Hegelian.
Hegel argued that freedom was the origin of self-consciousness, and defined his work as
tracing "the stages in the evolution of the idea of the will free in and for itself." In
Philosophy of Right , he critiqued how Enlightenment liberals see freedom, arguing
that liberal freedom could be divided into three stages.
First comes freedom defined negatively: "Nothing can determine where I'll eat dinner!" In
the second stage of freedom, we want to choose specific states of mind or to concern ourselves
with a particular. "I'm going to eat at Waffle House." But if we choose to eat at Waffle House,
we've restricted that first stage of freedom. We can no longer say "nothing can determine where
I'll eat dinner" because we've selected a particular place to eat. So the third stage of
freedom is the ability to change one's mind, to keep options open, regardless of prior
commitments. "I will eat at Waffle House, unless I decide to just drink mini-wines in the
Applebee's parking lot." This reveals how our conception of freedom is dependent upon the
options available to us.
Liberal freedom is thus our capacity to enter and exit choices, which are determined by
factors other than ourselves. I did not choose for Waffle House to exist. I did not choose to
get hungry at dinner time. We do not choose what we choose between. Therefore, the order of
society creates freedom.
So Brooks is clearly doing the robot with Hegel. But so what? Maybe Hegel's ideas are both
conservative and correct. Maybe conservatives ought to embrace Hegel openly. There have always
been right-wing Hegelians. These are defensible positions. Yet we should remember that
conservative bouncers have restricted Hegel from their canon before and for good reason.
Hegel has always been associated with state worship, and Marxism largely sprang from his
thought. In History of the Idea of Progress , conservative sociologist Robert Nisbet
wrote that, while many try to disguise Hegel as some sort of liberal, "There is simply no way
of separating him from ideas and expressions which were in themselves acts of obeisance to the
national state and which on the ineffacable record, led others to ever-higher levels of
intensity in the glorification of the state."
Some may disagree with Nisbet's reading. Some
may say that Marxists misread Hegel . Yet the link to state worship and Marxism must be
contended with, and anyone who slips in Hegel without acknowledging it -- like Brooks -- is
masking the potentially radical nature of his statement.
Strip the Brooks column of the usual sentimental odes to "beautiful communities" and his
strange statement stands bare and a little menacing. There is a world of difference between
saying that freedom is dependent upon the family and saying that it's dependent on the nation
state. Brooks sounds an awful lot like former President Barack Obama: "Somebody helped to
create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody
invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business -- you didn't build that."
Yet apparently, as Brooks tells us, big government is no longer a threat to the "sacred
space." Community focused conservatives often use Nisbet's Quest for Community to
criticize hyper-individualism, yet they should also remember Nisbet's criticism of Hegelian
freedom: "Hegel clothes the absolute state, just as Rousseau had, in the garments of freedom;
but there cannot be the slightest doubt of Hegel's dedicated belief in the absolutism, the
sanctity, even the divinity of the national state's power."
Perhaps I'm reading too much into a throwaway line. After all, Aristotle offered ideas
similar to those of Hegel and Brooks without the taint of state worship -- maybe that's where
Brooks is drawing his inspiration from. Yet the connection between Brooks and Hegel is still
inescapable because the former is basing his definition of conservatism from British
philosopher Roger Scruton.
Scruton is one of two modern philosophers currently disseminating Hegelian ideas into
mainstream punditry. He reads Hegel in a positive light, and in his book The Soul of the
World , he writes: "Freedom is fully realized only in the world of persons, bound together
by rights and duties that are mutually recognized." Yet Scruton does not say "in the world of
nations," and elsewhere warns that Hegel is like a "beautiful oasis around a treacherous pool
of nonsense." Brooks doesn't offer any such qualifications.
Alasdair MacIntyre is the other philosopher who has helped popularize Hegel in conservative
circles, and in fact Brooks referenced him
just a few days ago . Conservatives who discuss "liquid modernity" as read through
MacIntyre describe something almost identical to Hegel's Absolute Negativity. And McIntyre's
idea of waiting for Benedict is similar to waiting for the Absolute Spirit, which is similar to
waiting for the revolution.
What would a more Hegelian conservatism look like? It's hard to tell. Perhaps we'd see books
declaring an end to one form of consciousness. Perhaps Hegel's ideas on corporations would be
directly referenced by those concerned with working-class alienation. Or perhaps we would see
more fishy ideas about the nation state being a prerequisite for individual freedom.
This isn't about pointing at Brooks and pulling an " Invasion of the Body Snatchers ," or just
beating up on him for the sake of it. He's merely the most obvious example of a conservative
who's done a waltz with the German philosopher. And even then it's always difficult to tell.
Hegel wrote on such a wide range of topics in such confusing prose, that, like a crazed ex, we
might mistakenly spot him everywhere.
Hegel's work is important, and both Scruton and MacIntyre are geniuses. Yet we should always
remember Russell Kirk's warnings that "Marx could draw upon Hegel's magazine; he could find
nothing to suit him in Burke" and that Hegel was "a conservative only from chance and
expediency." Hegel is already at the party; whether we want him to stay is another question
entirely.
James McElroy is a New York City-based novelist and essayist, who also works in
finance.
To some, that fear was not a problem but a tool -- one could defeat political enemies simply by accusing them of being Russian
sympathizers. There was no need for evidence, so desperate were Americans to believe; just an accusation that someone was in league
with Russia was enough. Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy
fired his first shot on February 9, 1950,
proclaiming there were 205 card-carrying members of the Communist Party working for the Department of State. The evidence? Nothing
but assertions .
Indeed, the very word " McCarthyism " came to mean making
accusations of treason without sufficient evidence. Other
definitionsinclude a ggressively
questioning a person's patriotism, using accusations of disloyalty to pressure a person to adhere to conformist politics or discredit
an opponent, and subverting civil and political rights in the name of national security.
Pretending to be saving America while he tore at its foundations, McCarthy destroyed thousands of lives over the next four years
simply by pointing a finger and saying "communist." Whenever anyone invoked his Fifth Amendment right to silence, McCarthy
answered that this was "the most positive
proof obtainable that the witness is communist." The power of accusation was used by others as well: the
Lavender Scare , which
concluded that the State Department was overrun with closeted homosexuals who were at risk of being blackmailed by Moscow for their
perversions, was an offshoot of McCarthyism, and by 1951, 600 people had been fired based solely on evidence-free "morals" charges.
State legislatures and school boards
mimicked McCarthy. Books and movies were banned. Blacklists abounded.
The FBI embarked on campaigns of political
repression (they would later claim Martin Luther
King Jr. had communist ties), even as journalists and academics voluntarily narrowed their political thinking to exclude communism.
Hegel: The Uninvited Guest at the Conservative Party
Is David Brooks openly flirting with the state-worship of this vexing 19th Century philosopher?
By
James McElroy
•
August 1, 2018
Columnist David Brooks and German Philosopher G.W. Hagel (public domain)
Conservatism has gone from a rigid waltz between libertarians, social conservatives, and foreign policy hawks to a
limb-flailing rave. Writers are reaching towards the bookshelf for thinkers that will refine and define first principles
during this time of flux. While it's all been great fun, an esteemed but concerning guest has now entered the party.
Increasingly, the right is dancing with G.W. Hegel.
David Brooks' recent
column
is a clear example of a Hegel flirtation. In it, Brooks defines conservatism as an internal critique of the
Enlightenment. Explaining opposition to the idea that individuals randomly choose to start society, he writes: "There
never was such a thing as an autonomous, free individual who could gather with others to create order. Rather,
individuals emerge out of families, communities, faiths, neighborhoods and nations. The order comes first. Individual
freedom is an artifact of that order."
Family and community are the basic building blocks of society and social contract theory has plenty of flaws. Yet
note how Brooks lists the nation state as prior to individual freedom. It's dropped so casually that its radicalism is
almost obscured. What type of freedom is dependent on the nation state? Hegelian.
Hegel argued that freedom was the origin of self-consciousness, and defined his work as tracing "the stages in the
evolution of the idea of the will free in and for itself." In
Philosophy of Right
, he critiqued how
Enlightenment liberals see freedom, arguing that liberal freedom could be divided into three stages.
First comes freedom defined negatively: "Nothing can determine where I'll eat dinner!" In the second stage of
freedom, we want to choose specific states of mind or to concern ourselves with a particular. "I'm going to eat at
Waffle House." But if we choose to eat at Waffle House, we've restricted that first stage of freedom. We can no longer
say "nothing can determine where I'll eat dinner" because we've selected a particular place to eat. So the third stage
of freedom is the ability to change one's mind, to keep options open, regardless of prior commitments. "I will eat at
Waffle House, unless I decide to just drink mini-wines in the Applebee's parking lot." This reveals how our conception
of freedom is dependent upon the options available to us.
Liberal freedom is thus our capacity to enter and exit choices, which are determined by factors other than ourselves.
I did not choose for Waffle House to exist. I did not choose to get hungry at dinner time. We do not choose what we
choose between. Therefore, the order of society creates freedom.
So Brooks is clearly doing the robot with Hegel. But so what? Maybe Hegel's ideas are both conservative and correct.
Maybe conservatives ought to embrace Hegel openly. There have always been right-wing Hegelians. These are defensible
positions. Yet we should remember that conservative bouncers have restricted Hegel from their canon before and for good
reason.
Hegel has always been associated with state worship, and Marxism largely sprang from his thought. In
History of
the Idea of Progress
, conservative sociologist Robert Nisbet wrote that, while many try to disguise Hegel as some
sort of liberal, "There is simply no way of separating him from ideas and expressions which were in themselves acts of
obeisance to the national state and which on the ineffacable record, led others to ever-higher levels of intensity in
the glorification of the state."
Some may disagree with Nisbet's reading.
Some may say that
Marxists misread Hegel
. Yet the link to state worship and Marxism must be contended with, and anyone who slips in
Hegel without acknowledging it -- like Brooks -- is masking the potentially radical nature of his statement.
Strip the Brooks column of the usual sentimental odes to "beautiful communities" and his strange statement stands
bare and a little menacing. There is a world of difference between saying that freedom is dependent upon the family and
saying that it's dependent on the nation state. Brooks sounds an awful lot like former President Barack Obama: "Somebody
helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads
and bridges. If you've got a business -- you didn't build that."
Yet apparently, as Brooks tells us, big government is no longer a threat to the "sacred space." Community focused
conservatives often use Nisbet's
Quest for Community
to criticize hyper-individualism, yet they should also
remember Nisbet's criticism of Hegelian freedom: "Hegel clothes the absolute state, just as Rousseau had, in the
garments of freedom; but there cannot be the slightest doubt of Hegel's dedicated belief in the absolutism, the
sanctity, even the divinity of the national state's power."
Perhaps I'm reading too much into a throwaway line. After all, Aristotle offered ideas similar to those of Hegel and
Brooks without the taint of state worship -- maybe that's where Brooks is drawing his inspiration from. Yet the connection
between Brooks and Hegel is still inescapable because the former is basing his definition of conservatism from British
philosopher Roger Scruton.
Scruton is one of two modern philosophers currently disseminating Hegelian ideas into mainstream punditry. He reads
Hegel in a positive light, and in his book
The Soul of the World
, he writes: "Freedom is fully realized only in
the world of persons, bound together by rights and duties that are mutually recognized." Yet Scruton does not say "in
the world of nations," and elsewhere warns that Hegel is like a "beautiful oasis around a treacherous pool of nonsense."
Brooks doesn't offer any such qualifications.
Alasdair MacIntyre is the other philosopher who has helped popularize Hegel in conservative circles, and in fact
Brooks referenced him
just a few days
ago
. Conservatives who discuss "liquid modernity" as read through MacIntyre describe something almost identical to
Hegel's Absolute Negativity. And McIntyre's idea of waiting for Benedict is similar to waiting for the Absolute Spirit,
which is similar to waiting for the revolution.
What would a more Hegelian conservatism look like? It's hard to tell. Perhaps we'd see books declaring an end to one
form of consciousness. Perhaps Hegel's ideas on corporations would be directly referenced by those concerned with
working-class alienation. Or perhaps we would see more fishy ideas about the nation state being a prerequisite for
individual freedom.
This isn't about pointing at Brooks and pulling an "
Invasion of
the Body Snatchers
," or just beating up on him for the sake of it. He's merely the most obvious example of a
conservative who's done a waltz with the German philosopher. And even then it's always difficult to tell. Hegel wrote on
such a wide range of topics in such confusing prose, that, like a crazed ex, we might mistakenly spot him everywhere.
Hegel's work is important, and both Scruton and MacIntyre are geniuses. Yet we should always remember Russell Kirk's
warnings that "Marx could draw upon Hegel's magazine; he could find nothing to suit him in Burke" and that Hegel was "a
conservative only from chance and expediency." Hegel is already at the party; whether we want him to stay is another
question entirely.
James McElroy is a New York City-based novelist and essayist, who also works in finance.
"... With impeachment itself on the table, Mueller has done little more than issue the equivalent of parking tickets to foreigners he has no jurisdiction over. Intelligence summaries claim the Russians meddled, but don't show that Trump was involved. Indictments against Russians are cheered as evidence, when they are just Mueller's uncontested assertions. ..."
An answer was needed, so one was created: the Russians. As World War II ended with the U.S.
the planet's predominant power, dark forces saw advantage in arousing new
fears . The Soviet Union morphed from a decimated ally in the fight against fascism into a
competitor locked in a titanic struggle with America. How did they get so powerful so quickly?
Nothing could explain it except traitors. Cold War-era America? Or 2018 Trump America? Yes, on
both counts.
To some, that fear was not a problem but a tool -- one could defeat political enemies simply
by accusing them of being Russian sympathizers. There was no need for evidence, so desperate
were Americans to believe; just an accusation that someone was in league with Russia was
enough. Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy fired his first shot on February
9, 1950, proclaiming there were 205 card-carrying members of the Communist Party working for
the Department of State. The evidence? Nothing but assertions .
Indeed, the very word " McCarthyism " came to mean making accusations
of treason without sufficient evidence. Other definitionsinclude a ggressively
questioning a person's patriotism, using accusations of disloyalty to pressure a person to
adhere to conformist politics or discredit an opponent, and subverting civil and political
rights in the name of national security.
Pretending to be saving America while he tore at its foundations, McCarthy destroyed
thousands of lives over the next four years simply by pointing a finger and saying "communist."
Whenever anyone invoked his Fifth Amendment right to silence, McCarthy answered that this was "the
most positive proof obtainable that the witness is communist." The power of accusation was used
by others as well: the Lavender
Scare , which concluded that the State Department was overrun with closeted homosexuals who
were at risk of being blackmailed by Moscow for their perversions, was an offshoot of
McCarthyism, and by 1951, 600 people had been fired based solely on evidence-free "morals"
charges. State legislatures and school boards mimicked McCarthy.
Books and movies were banned. Blacklists abounded. The FBI embarked on campaigns of political
repression (they would later claim Martin Luther King Jr. had
communist ties), even as journalists and academics voluntarily narrowed their political
thinking to exclude communism.
Watching sincere people succumb to paranoia again, today, is not something to relish. But
having trained themselves to intellectualize away Hillary Clinton's flaws, as they had with
Obama, about half of America seemed truly gobsmacked when she lost to the antithesis of
everything that she had represented to them. Every
poll (that they read) said she would win. Every
article (that they read) said it too, as did every
person (that they knew). Lacking an explanation for the unexplainable, many advanced
scenarios that would have failed high school civics, claiming that only the popular vote
mattered, or that the archaic
Emoluments Clause prevented Trump from taking office, or that Trump was insane and could be
disposed of under the
25th Amendment .
After a few trial balloons during the primaries under which
Bernie Sanders' visits to Russia and
Jill Stein's attendance at a banquet in Moscow were used to imply disloyalty, the fearful
cry that the Russians meddled in the election morphed into the claim that Trump had worked with
the Russians and/or (fear is flexible) that the Russians had something on Trump. Everyone
learned a new Russian word: kompromat .
Donald Trump became the Manchurian Candidate. That term was taken from a 1959 novel made
into a classic Cold War movie that follows an American soldier brainwashed by communists as
part of a Kremlin plot to gain influence in the Oval Office. A
Google search shows that dozens of news sources -- including
The
New York Times , Vanity
Fair ,
Salon ,
The Washington Post , and, why not, Stormy Daniels' lawyer
Michael Avenatti -- have all claimed that Trump is
a 2018 variant of the Manchurian Candidate,
controlled by ex-KGB officer Vladimir Putin.
The birth moment of Trump as a Russian asset is traceable to MI-6 intelligence
officer-turned-Democratic opposition researcher-turned FBI mole
Christopher Steele , whose "dossier" claimed the existence of the pee tape. Supposedly,
somewhere deep in the Kremlin is a surveillance video made in 2013 of Trump in Moscow's
Ritz-Carlton Hotel, watching prostitutes urinate on a bed that the Obamas had once slept in. As
McCarthy did with homosexuality, naughty sex was thrown in to keep the rubes' attention.
No one, not even Steele's alleged informants, has actually seen
the pee tape. It exists in a blurry land of certainty alongside the elevator
tape , alleged video of Trump doing something in an elevator that's so salacious it's been
called "Every Trump Reporter's White Whale." No one knows when the elevator video was made, but
a dossier-length article in
New York magazine posits that Trump has been a Russian asset since 1987.
Suddenly no real evidence is necessary, because it is always right in front of your face.
McCarthy accused
Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower of being communists or communist stooges over the
"loss" of China in 1949. Trump holds a bizarre press conference in Helsinki and the only
explanation must be that he is a traitor.
Nancy
Pelosi ("President Trump's weakness in front of Putin was embarrassing, and proves that the
Russians have something on the president, personally, financially, or politically") and
Cory Booker ("Trump is acting like he's guilty of something") and
Hillary Clinton ("now we know whose side he plays for") and John Brennan ("rises to and
exceeds the threshold of 'high crimes and misdemeanors.' It was nothing short of treasonous.
Not only were Trump's comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin") and
Rachel Maddow ("We haven't ever had to reckon with the possibility that someone had
ascended to the presidency of the United States to serve the interests of
another country rather than our own") and others have said that Trump is
controlled by Russia. As in 1954 when the press provided live TV coverage of McCarthy's
dirty assertions against the Army, the modern media uses each new assertion as "proof" of an
earlier one. Snowballs get bigger rolling downhill.
When assertion is accepted as evidence, it forces the other side to prove a negative to
break free. So until Trump "proves" he is not a Russian stooge, his denials will be seen as
attempts to wiggle out from under evidence that in fact doesn't exist. Who, pundits ask, can
come up with a better explanation for Trump's actions than blackmail, as if that was a
necessary step to clearing his name?
Joe McCarthy's victims faced similar challenges: once labeled a communist or a homosexual,
the onus shifted to them to somehow prove they weren't. Their failure to prove their innocence
became more evidence of their guilt. The Cold War version of this mindset was well illustrated
in movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or the classic Twilight Zone episode "
The Monsters Are Due on
Maple Street ." Anyone who questions this must themselves be at best a useful fool, if not
an outright Russia collaborator. (Wrote one
pundit : "They are accessories, before and after the fact, to the hijacking of a democratic
election. So, yes, goddamn them all.") In the McCarthy era, the term was "fellow traveler":
anyone, witting or unwitting, who helped the Russians. Mere skepticism, never mind actual
dissent, is muddled with disloyalty.
Blackmail? Payoffs? Deals? It isn't just the months of Mueller's investigation that have
passed without evidence. The IRS and Treasury have had Trump's tax documents and financials for
decades, even if Rachel Maddow has not. If Trump has been a Russian asset since 1987, or even
2013, he has done it behind the backs of the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, and NSA. Yet at the same
time, in what history would see as the most out-in-the-open intelligence operation ever, some
claim he asked on TV for his handlers to deliver hacked emails. In TheManchurian
Candidate , the whole thing was at least done in secret as you'd expect.
With impeachment itself on the table, Mueller has done little more than issue the
equivalent of parking tickets to foreigners he has no jurisdiction over. Intelligence summaries
claim the Russians meddled, but don't show that Trump was involved. Indictments against
Russians are cheered as evidence, when they are just Mueller's uncontested assertions.
There is no evidence the president is acting on orders from Russia or is under their
influence. None.
As with McCarthy, as in those famous witch trials at Salem, allegations shouldn't be
accepted as truth, though in 2018 even pointing out that basic tenet is blasphemy. The burden
of proof should be on the accusing party, yet the standing narrative in America is that the
Russia story must be assumed plausible, if not true, until proven false. Joe McCarthy tore
America apart for four years under just such standards, until finally public opinion, led by
Edward R. Murrow , a
journalist brave enough to demand answers McCarthy did not have, turned against him. There is no
Edward R. Murrow in 2018.
When asking for proof is seen as disloyal, when demanding evidence after years of
accusations is considered a Big Ask, when a clear answer somehow always needs additional time,
there is more on the line in a democracy than the fate of one man.
Peter Van Buren, a
24-year State Department veteran, is the author of We Meant Well : How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and
Minds of the Iraqi People and Hooper's War
: A Novel of WWII Japan. Follow him on Twitter @WeMeantWell .
"... This silly article is proof, as if more was needed that what passes for Russia scholarship in the US is little more than politicized group-think. ..."
"... Russia has risen from utter economic, political, and societal collapse (gold reserves, factories, military secrets, science labs stripped bare and shipped or brain-drained out of the country; millions of pre-mature deaths; plunging birth rates) to recover, within a mere 20 years, to the point where the population has stabilized and the nation can credibly hold its own again on the world stage. Infrastructure is being rebuilt and modernized, the military has been restructured and re-equipped, pensions and salaries have risen 3 or 4-fold. ..."
"Vladimir Putin rode a counter-wave of anti-Western nationalism to power in Moscow."
Uh, no. Putin came to power at a time when Russia seemed to be falling apart, quite
literally. There was war in Chechnya, open criminal activity on the streets, and clear social
decay. Putin's popularity begins with his address to the nation after the bombing of the
Moscow metro, promising that the government (which he did not then lead) would chase those
responsible down and kill them, even if that meant chasing them into outhouses. The
relationship between the bombing and Putin's rise is so well-known that the conspiracy
theorists who have Jay Nordlinger's ear over at National Review claim that the bombing was a
set up by Putin's pals in the FSB, precisely to bring Putin to power.
My wife is Russian, from the city of Kazan in the Tatar Republic (part of Russia; it's
complicated), and when we were merely pen pals in 2003 she wrote me what it was like. It was
bad, very bad. At one point her entire neighborhood was placed under curfew on account of
open warfare between criminal gangs. And of course when we visit the cemetery today one sees
the striking spike in tombstones whose date of death is at some point in the mid- to late
90's, when it all seemed to be going to pieces and the government didn't even pay its own
employees for half a year.
Today, by contrast, Russians can walk the streets more or less without fear, count on a
paycheck, read in the news how their country has sent yet another capsule of Western
astronauts to the international space station (because Westerners haven't been able to do
that for the better part of a decade, thanks to Bush and Obama), and even find jobs in a
successful tech sector (Kaspersky, JetBrains, Yandex, the list goes on).
But, hey, if you want to fantasize that Putin's rise is thanks to anti-Western sentiment,
you go ahead and do that.
One other comment, if I may. I share the concern most Westerners have about Russia's seizure
of Crimea. But where is our concern about Turkey's 40-plus-year occupation of northern
Cyprus, also sparked by internal political disorder on the island? Why is it alright for a
NATO country to invade another nation and prop up its separatists, expel the inhabitants of a
disfavored ethnic group -- in this case, the Greeks?
Shame on TAC for publishing this garbage. For one, Putin more or less saved Russia as a
sovereign state, it is easy to forget the sorry condition Russia was in at the turn of the
century. Without him, Russia would've most likely been dismembered or simply colonized by the
West and China. He has performed admirably in the face of massive odds. Russia will still
exist in 100 years as the state of the Russian and other native people of its land –
can the same be said of the United States? Russia is slowly climbing its way out of the pit
of despair created by 80 years of Communism, the United States is crawling into the very same
pit.
I am much more concerned that voter roll purges, suppression of the vote, Citizen's United
Dark Money and folks like the Kochs and Addelson are undermining US democracy than the
Russians. As for the aggression of military machines around the world, the US wins hands
down.
Like Fran my inclination was to bail after the first paragraph but I pushed on.
In the first paragraph Mr Desch lays out his position which is well within the bounds of
polite discussion that Russia is a corrupt oligarchy but don't worry because it's an economic
and military basketcase.
Where to start?
1. Corrupt kleptocracy. The Russian oligarchy/ mafia was a biproduct of the
privatization binge that followed the collapse of the USSR. This evolved under the disastrous
Yeltsin aided and abetted by US elites. The case of William Browder is instructive. Putin has
taken significant measures to reassert government control and has greatly improved the lot of
the average Russian.
2. Political freedom. Putin did not inherit a developed liberal democracy. Russia
needs to be judged in the context of its own historical timeline in this regard not compared
to western democracies. Do you prefer Stalin, Brezhnev, Andropov? In contrast compare the
state and trajectory of US democratic institutions to, say the 1970s.
3. Human rights. Again the situation in Russia vis a vis human rights needs to be
judged in terms of Russia's history not against Western nations with a long-standing
tradition of human rights and political freedoms. That said, the illusion of political
repression is largely overstated. For example Putin is routinely accused of murdering
journalists but no real proof is ever offered. Instead, the statement is made again in this
article as though it were self evident.
4. Foreign aggression. This is my favorite because it flies in the face of
observable reality to the point of being ridiculous. Russia did not invade Ukraine. It
provided support to ethnic Russians in Ukraine who rebelled after the illegal armed overthrow
of the Russian leaning democratically elected president.That coup was directly supported by
the United States. Far from ratcheting up tensions Russia has consistently pressed for the
implementation of the Minsk accords. Putin is not interested in becoming responsible for the
economic and political basket case which is Ukraine. The "largely bloodless" occupation of
Crimea was actually a referendum in which the citizens of Crimea overwhelmingly supported
annexation to Russia. Again This result makes sense in light of even a basic understanding of
Russian history. Finally, in the case of Georgia Russia engaged after Georgia attacked what
was essentially a Russian protectorate. This was the conclusion reached by an EU
investigation.
Russia's so-called aggressive foreign-policy has been primarily in response to NATOs
continuous push eastward and the perceived need to defend ethnic Russians from corrupt
ultranationalist governments in former republics of the USSR. This is what Putin was talking
about when he called the dissolution of the USSR one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th
century – the fact that, overnight 20 million Russians found themselves living in
foreign countries. It wasn't about longing for a Russian empire.
As for the current state of Russias military capabilities, Mr Desch Would do well to read
Pepe Escobar's recent article in the Asia Times. Russian accomplishments in Syria illustrated
a level of technology and strategic effectiveness that rivals anything the US can do. Name
one other nation – other than the US – that can design and build a world class
6th generation fighter jet or develop its own space program. Even Germany can't do that.
This silly article is proof, as if more was needed that what passes for Russia
scholarship in the US is little more than politicized group-think.
VG1959
"It is in the pursuit of empire that Putin, like Napoleon or Hitler before him, threatens the
stability of Europe and by extension world peace."
Ah! ha!ha! Right.
Like Russia with a population of 150 million persons inhabiting a land mass that stretches
across 9 or 10 time zones, from the Arctic pole to the Black Sea is chafing for "lebensraum"
!?
No, Russia just wants to develop what it already owns. And, trying to do it on the
strength of their own efforts (no overseas colonies filling the coffers), on a GDP as
Winston, above, has pointed out which is smaller than that some US states. They're focussed,
not on grabbing tiny, constipated territories like Estonia. Latvia, and Lithuania (full of
Nazi sympathizers), but on bringing back to life those ancient trade routes which are their
inheritance from the past (the Silk Road, primarily).
Why not just leave them alone and see what they can do? Those who have been relentlessly
picking fault with Russia (and North Korea) might want to put down their megaphones and start
taking notes.
What I mean is: pause for a moment to consider that:
1. Russia has risen from utter economic, political, and societal collapse (gold
reserves, factories, military secrets, science labs stripped bare and shipped or
brain-drained out of the country; millions of pre-mature deaths; plunging birth rates) to
recover, within a mere 20 years, to the point where the population has stabilized and the
nation can credibly hold its own again on the world stage. Infrastructure is being rebuilt
and modernized, the military has been restructured and re-equipped, pensions and salaries
have risen 3 or 4-fold.
2. North Korea, in 1953, had been so destroyed by war that no structures over a single
story were left standing (and American generals were actually barfing into their helmets at
the horror of what had been done to those people). The DPRK authorities, helpless to assist
the population, could only advise to dig shelters underground to survive the winter. Yet, 70
years later, under international sanctions designed to starve those traumatized people into
surrender, North Korea has restored its infrastructure, built modern cities, and developed a
military apparatus able to credibly resist constant threats from abroad.
See: rather than picking nits to find things that are not yet perfectly hunky-dory with
the governing structures/systems in those countries, I'm taking notes!!
Because, I'm convinced that if those people (those nations) were able to do what they've
done with the time and resources they've had to work with, there is absolutely no reason and
no excuse for our rich nations of "the West" to be caught in a nightmare of austerity
budgeting, crumbling infrastructure, collapsing pensions, and spiralling debt.
Funny how the English speaking world SO resisst learning something that could actually do
us a whole lot of good. I don't know who coined the terms "stiffnecked" and "bloodyminded",
but it sure describes us!
"From Moscow's perspective, the events in Kiev in late 2013 and 2014 looked suspiciously like
a Western-backed coup."
Gee, ya think? Kinda reminds one of the 1996 Russian election. But, hey, don't broadcast
this because, after all, too many people might start, er, noticing.
California – $2.751 trillion
Texas – $1.707 trillion
Russia – $1.578 trillion
Likbez:
@Winston July 28, 2018 at 10:00 am
Cult of GDP is a damaging mental disease. With the size of the USA financial sector it is grossly distorted.
The inflated costs of pharmaceutical and medical-industrial complex add another large portion of air into the US GDP.
Surveillance Valley (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, etc ) firms valuations are also inflated and their
contribution to the USA economics is overestimated in GDP.
There is also such thing as purchase parity. To compare GDP between countries, you must use purchasing power parity. To
compare GDP without calculating in purchasing parity is just naïve.
I suspect that in real purchasing power Russia is close to Germany (which means it it is the fifth largest economy)
The USA still has dominance is key technologies and cultural influence.
"... While agree totally with what Col. Davis says here about ending America's involvement in the Afghanistan War. Way to many are profiting from this long-term misadventure. ..."
"... Eminently sensible advice, except that Trump can't take it without being greeted with a hysterical chorus of "we're losing Afghanistan ZOMG!" (as if we ever had it) and "Putin puppet!" ..."
"... "Of course most Americans are clueless about the cost of these wars and how it impacts money necessary to re-build our country infrastructures." ..."
"... Completely disagree. I don't know a single individual who supports the war in Afghanistan or misunderstands its costs. The American people just have no say in the matter. ..."
"... Finally, they realise what St Ronnie knew in the 1980s. He created the Taliban we know today via Operation Cyclone. Maybe Ollie North can lead the negotiations? He seems to have a good channel to the Iranians ..."
"... Putting together Sid_finster's and spite's comments paints an interesting picture. Aside from war profiteering (Fran Macadam) there is no real purpose served by our occupation except to be there. ..."
"... I'll go a step further and say that the invasion of Afghanistan was unnecessary too. We were not attacked by Afghanistan. We were not even attacked by the Taliban. We were attacked by al Quaida, by teams comprised mostly of Saudi Arabians. ..."
"... It cannot be repeated too often that Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. Let the Taliban have it. ..."
"... What the Army could not do, and still cannot do, is transform a tribal society in isolated mountainous terrain into a liberal democracy. As LTC Davis observes: "The reason McChrystal failed to end the war -- and Miller will likewise fail -- is that these objectives can't be militarily accomplished." ..."
"... The conclusion of this simple argument is that the war in Afghanistan actually has almost nothing to do with that country and almost entirely to do with the political and economic demands arising from the US .nothing to do with Afghanistan other than the destruction of the place and its people. ..."
We have no choice. The 17-year war in Afghanistan has failed at every level, while the violence is only
getting worse.
Reports have surfaced recently that the White House is
instructing
its senior diplomats
to begin seeking "direct talks with the Taliban." It's a
measure that would have been unthinkable at the start of the Afghanistan war yet today it's long overdue. Despite the
criticism it's elicited, such talks offer the best chance of ending America's longest and most futile war.
While there is broad agreement that American leaders were justified in launching military
operations in Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks, it's painfully evident after 17 years that no one has any idea how
to end the fighting on military terms.
Possibly the biggest impediment to ending the war has been the definition of the word
"win." General
Stanley McChrystal
said in 2009 that winning in
Afghanistan meant "reversing the perceived momentum" of the Taliban, "seek[ing] rapid growth of Afghan national security
forces," and "tackl[ing] the issue of predatory corruption by some" Afghan officials.
Nine full years and zero successes later, however, Lieutenant General Austin S.
Miller, latest in line to command U.S. troops in Afghanistan, defined as America's "core goal" at his
confirmation hearing
that "terrorists can never again use Afghanistan as a
safe haven to threaten the United States."
The reason McChrystal failed to end the war -- and Miller will likewise fail -- is that
these objectives
can't be militarily accomplished.
Predicating an end to the war on such is to guarantee perpetual failure. A major course correction is therefore in
order.
Keeping 15,000 U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan does not,
in any way
, prevent terror attacks against the
United States from originating there -- and for this lack of success we will pay at least
$45 billion
this year alone. The real solution
is therefore to withdraw our troops as quickly as can be safely accomplished rather than throw more of them into a
fruitless conflict.
I personally observed in 2011 during my second combat deployment in Afghanistan that
even with 140,000 U.S. and NATO boots on the ground, there were still vast swaths of the country that were ungoverned
and off-limits to allied troops.
Meaning, at no point since October 2001 has American military power prevented
Afghanistan from having ungoverned spaces. What
has
kept us safe, however -- and will continue to keep us safe -- has been our robust, globally
focused
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities that work in concert with the CIA, FBI, and local law
enforcement to defend our borders from external attack.
Many pundits claim that if the U.S. military withdraws from Afghanistan then chaos
will reign there -- and that is almost certainly true. But that's how we found Afghanistan, that's how it is today,
and -- wholly irrespective of when or under what conditions the U.S. leaves -- that's how it will be long into the future
until Afghans themselves come to an accommodation.
The question U.S. policymakers need to ask is which is more important to American
interests: the maintenance of a perpetually costly war that fails to prevent any future attacks, or ending America's
participation in that war?
Continuing to fight for a country that can't be won cements a policy that has drained
the U.S. of vital resources, spilled the blood of American service members to no effect, and dissipated the Armed Forces'
ability to defend against potentially existential threats later on -- while in the meantime not diminishing the threat of
international terrorism. To strengthen our national security, we must end the enduring policy of failure by prudently
and effectively ending our military mission.
While the fundamentals of a withdrawal plan are relatively straightforward, they would
still be met by considerable opposition. One of the arguments against leaving was voiced by McChrystal nine years ago
when
he pleaded
with the American public to "show resolve" because "uncertainty
disheartens our allies [and] emboldens our foe." Yet the facts can't be denied any longer: for all eight years of the
Obama administration and the first 500 days of Trump's tenure, we maintained that "resolve" and were rewarded with an
unequivocal deterioration of the war.
Since McChrystal's admonition to maintain the status quo, the Taliban have exploded in
strength to
reportedly 77,000
, more territory is now in the
hands of the insurgents than at
any point since 2001
, the Afghan government
remains one of the
most corrupt regimes
on the planet, and
civilian casualties in the first half of 2018 are the
highest ever recorded
.
The only way this permanent failure ends is if President Trump shows the courage he
has sometimes demonstrated to push back against the Washington establishment. That means ignoring the status quo that
holds our security hostage, ending the war, and redeploying our troops. Without that resolve, we can count on continued
failure in Afghanistan. With it, American security will be strengthened and readiness improved.
Daniel L. Davis is a senior fellow at Defense Priorities and a former lieutenant
colonel in the U.S. Army who retired in 2015 after 21 years, including four combat deployments. Follow him on Twitter
@DanielLDavis1
.
While agree totally with what Col. Davis says here about ending America's involvement in the Afghanistan War.
Way to many are profiting from this long-term misadventure. The only way these wars of choice will ever end is
when Congress has the balls to cut off funding. Of course most Americans are clueless about the cost of these
wars and how it impacts money necessary to re-build our country infrastructures. Military madness indeed.
Eminently sensible advice, except that Trump can't take it without being greeted with a hysterical chorus of
"we're losing Afghanistan ZOMG!" (as if we ever had it) and "Putin puppet!"
If Trump were going to leave, he
should have done so soon after taking office. At least then he could blame his predecessors.
The financial security of the National Security State and its suppliers now depends on no war ever ending or
being won. The new definition of defeat is having any war end. As long as it continues, that war is being won.
"Of course most Americans are clueless about the cost of these wars and how it impacts money necessary to
re-build our country infrastructures."
Completely disagree. I don't know a single individual who supports the
war in Afghanistan or misunderstands its costs.
The American people just have no say in the matter.
There is only one reason why the USA is still in Afghanistan that makes sense (all the official reasons are an
insult to ones intelligence), it borders on Iran and thus serves as a means to open a new front against Iran.
The more the US pushes for war against Iran, the more this seems correct.
"Reports have surfaced recently that the White House is instructing its senior diplomats to begin seeking
"direct talks with the Taliban."
I have to give my Jr High response here:
"Well, duh."
__________________
"While there is broad agreement that American leaders were justified in launching military operations in
Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks . . ."
Yeah . . . no.
1. They manipulated the game to make what was a crime an act of war to justify the an unnecessary,
unethical, and strategically unwise invasion. I remain now where I was 14 years ago -- bad decision in every
way.
2. It was even a poor decision based on reason for war. To utterly bend the will of the opponent to conform
to the will of the US. it is possible to win. But to do so would require such massive force, brutality and
will.
3. 9/11 was a simple criminal act, despite the damage. As a crime we should have sought extradition, and or
small team FBI and special forces operations to a small footprint in either capturing, and or if need be
killing Osama bin Laden and company.
Nothing that has occurred since 9/11 provides evidence that the invasion was either justified or effective.
It will if the end game is to quit be one of three losses suffered by the US.
They are: War of 1812
Iraq
Afghanistan
" . . . it's painfully evident after 17 years that no one has any idea how to end the fighting on military
terms."
Sure leave. Though talking so as to avert whole slaughter of those that aided the US is the decent thing to
do.
Finally, they realise what St Ronnie knew in the 1980s. He created the Taliban we know today via Operation
Cyclone. Maybe Ollie North can lead the negotiations? He seems to have a good channel to the Iranians
Solving USA problems in Afghanistan an at the same time pushing for war with Iran is by definition classic
oxymoron. Afghanistan's problems can only be solved with cooperation and understanding with Iran. Conflict of
the USA with Iran will extend indefinitely the suffering of the Afghanis and the eventual lose of the
Afghanistan and Iran to the Russia. Always reigniting and keeping on the front burner the conflict with Iran by
the USA is exactly what Russia and V. Putin want. I can't see any other politicians except D. Trump, B.
Netanyahu and American 'conservatives' for the advancement of the Russia's goals in the Middle East and in the
globalistan. These are the new XXI century 'useful (adjective)'.
Putting together Sid_finster's and spite's comments paints an interesting picture. Aside from war profiteering
(Fran Macadam) there is no real purpose served by our occupation except to be there.
I'll go a step further
and say that the invasion of Afghanistan was unnecessary too. We were not attacked by Afghanistan. We were not
even attacked by the Taliban. We were attacked by al Quaida, by teams comprised mostly of Saudi Arabians. This
should have been a dirty knife fight in all the back alleys of the world, but we responded to the sucker punch
as our attackers intended; getting into a brawl with somebody else in the same bar; eventually, with more than
one somebody else.
It cannot be repeated too often that Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. Let the Taliban have it.
Indeed, but as others have commented, the entire point of the Afghanistan war is that it is pointless. It can
suck up enormous amounts of money, and generate incredible profits for politically connected defense
contractors – and because Afghanistan is in fact pointless, it doesn't matter if all of that money is wasted or
stolen, how could you tell? The vested interest in these winless pointless foreign wars means that they will
continue until the American economy finally collapses – and anyone who opposes these wars is a fascist, a
Russian stooge, "literally Hitler." Because money.
Thank you for this. I am very surprised to learn that Trump is pursuing this, given his pugilistic nature. I
hope he does in fact, get us the hell out of there. He may be, like Nixon, the one who is politically able to
make this smart move. Can you imagine the Republican outrage if Obama had tried a diplomatic exit from this
sand trap?
We can still be proud of what we attempted to do there. A few years post-9/11, an Afghan colleague of mine
who had come to the US as a boy said, "9/11 is the best thing to ever happen to Afghanistan." He meant that
rather than carpet bombing Afghanistan "back to the Stone Age," as the left predicted the US would do, we
poured billions of dollars in aide to build schools, hospitals, sewage and water plants, roads, etc.
"He meant that rather than carpet bombing Afghanistan "back to the Stone Age," as the left predicted the US
would do, we poured billions of dollars in aide to build schools, hospitals, sewage and water plants, roads,
etc."
And we could have done a lot more if we had not invaded. The Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11.
The achievable operational level Military objectives in the Afghan war were accomplished in the first year; The
Taliban were out of power and hiding in Pakistan and the Afghans had a somewhat benevolent government that
wanted to guarantee security an property and a measure of individual liberty.
What the Army could not do, and still cannot do, is transform a tribal society in isolated mountainous
terrain into a liberal democracy. As LTC Davis observes: "The reason McChrystal failed to end the war -- and
Miller will likewise fail -- is that these objectives can't be militarily accomplished."
This has been particularly true with the intense guerrilla actions enabled by the Pakistanis who have a
vested interest in an unstable Afghanistan.
I believe the noble goals 'might' have been doable – but it would have required a level of effort, and more
importantly a 'cultural confidence' on par with the Roman Empire of the 2nd Century to pull it off. That is no
longer us.
"9/11 is the best thing to ever happen to Afghanistan"? I bet none of his family members died or suffered.
Probably they are all living in the US. Are we supposed to feel proud that instead of carpet bombing and
killing millions our war killed only a hundred thousand?
Sadly, Kent, I do know people who still claim that our continued presence in Afghanistan is a good thing. Some
of these are otherwise fairly bright people, so I really can't comprehend why they continue to buy into this
idiocy.
Afghanistan must be Afghanistan and the US must be the US; this is such a simple tautology. If the US leaves,
Afghanistan will become what ever it can for its own reasons and options. If the US stays, it will be for the
US' reasons, not for the Afghans.
The conclusion of this simple argument is that the war in Afghanistan
actually has almost nothing to do with that country and almost entirely to do with the political and economic
demands arising from the US .nothing to do with Afghanistan other than the destruction of the place and its
people.
The Washington establishment came to their own conclusions about Russia and NATO --
but this is what they missed.
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump during the recent
summit in Helsinki. (Office of the Russian Presisdent/Kremin.ru) Sifting through the cacophony
of commentary from the Trump-Putin meeting in Helsinki, here are four key points missed,
ignored or glossed over by the Washington establishment and mainstream news coverage -- and
they require a good airing.
They are:
It's clear now that Europeans will increase their contributions to NATO. But
Big Media totally ignored the trillion dollar gorilla in room: Why does anyone have to spend so
much on NATO in the first place?
Are we planning a ground attack on Russia because we really think the former Soviet Empire
will invade Poland or the Baltic nations? Are we planning for a land war in Europe to intervene
in the Ukraine? What for is the money? The Trump administration and Big Media, for all their
noise, mainly argue that more spending is good. There is no debate about the reasons why.
Meanwhile
Russia is cutting its military spending.
Washington is so dominated by our military-industrial-congressional complex that spending
money is a major intent. Remember when Washington first insisted that putting up an
anti-missile system in Poland and Romania was supposed to protect Europe from an Iranian
attack? Of course, it was really directed against Russia. Washington was so eager to spend the
money that it didn't even ask the Europeans to pay the cost even though it was supposedly for
their defense. As of 2016 Washington had spent $800 million on the
site in Romania. Now it appears that Poland and Romania will pay billions to the Raytheon
Corporation for the shield to comply with their commitment to increase military spending to 2
percent of gross national product.
There was no focus on the real, growing threat of
nuclear war, intentional or accidental. No one, including journalists at the joint press
conference, spoke about the collapsing missile treaties (the only one who reportedly seemed
keen to discuss it was ejected beforehand).
Scott Ritter details these alarming risks here on TAC .
The U.S. is now funding new cruise missiles with nukes which allow for a surprise attack on
Russia with only a few minutes of warning, unlike the ICBMs which launch gives a half an hour
or more. This was the reason Russia opposed the anti-missile system in Eastern Europe, because
they could have little warning if cruise missiles were fired from the new bases. Americans may
think that we don't start wars, but the Russians don't. The old shill argument that democracies
don't start wars is belied by American attacks on Serbia, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen.
For
all the Democratic and Big Media attacks on Trump for supposedly caving in to Putin, he gave
Putin nothing. His administration is still maintaining an increasingly stringent economic
attack on Russian trade and banking, announcing (just days after his meeting)
$200 million of new aid to Ukraine's military and threatening Europeans with sanctions if
they go ahead with a new Baltic pipeline to import Russian natural gas. Consequently, some
analysts believe that
Putin has given up on wanting better relations with the U.S. and instead is just trying to
weaken and discredit America's overwhelming power in the world. In a similar vein Rand Paul
writes how we never think
about other nations' interests.TAC argues we should
"Forget Trump: The Military-Industrial Complex is Still Running the Show With Russia, "
showing how Washington wants to keep Russia as an enemy because it's good for business.
Furthermore, releasing the accusations and indictments via a press already out for Trump's
blood is explained away by pointing out that the special prosecutor has separate authority to
that of the president. But the timing, a day before the Helsinki meeting, obviously shows
intent to cause disarray and to prevent meaningful dialogue with Russia. It's interesting to
note that TAC has been criticizing the "Deep
State" since at least 2015.
The casualness with which much of Washington regards conflict and starting wars is only
comparable to the thoughtlessness of Europeans when they started World War I. Like now, that
war followed nearly a century of relative peace and prosperity. Both sides thought a war would
be "easy" and over quickly and were engulfed in it because of minor incidents instigated by
their small nation allies. It was started with a single assassination in Serbia. The situation
is similar now. America is hostage to the actions of a host of tiny countries possibly starting
a war. Think of our NATO obligations and promises to Taiwan and Israel.
America has become inured to the risks of escalation and Congress has ceded its war powers
to the president. The authority of war power was one of the most important tenets of our
Constitution, designed to prevent our rulers from irresponsibly launching conflicts like the
European kings. Witness now how casually Trump talks about starting a war with Iran, with no
thought of possible consequences, including blowing up oil facilities in the Persian Gulf, oil
and gas vital for the world economy.
For most Americans, war means sitting in front of their TVs watching the bombs fall on small
nations unable to resist or respond to our power. "We" kill thousands of "them" in easy battles
and then worry if a single American soldier is harmed. We don't viscerally understand the full
threat of modern weapons because they've never been used against us. This is not unlike World
War I, for which the countries engaged were wholly unprepared for a protracted siege war
against the lethality of new modern artillery and chemical weapons. All had assumed the war
would be over in weeks. I wrote about these issues after visiting the battlefields of the
Crimean war. (See " Lessons in
Empire")
And so we continue careening towards more conflicts which can always lead to unintended
consequences, ever closer to nuclear war. Meanwhile efforts for a dialogue with Russia are
thwarted by our internal politics and dysfunction in Washington.
Mr. Utley is the publisher of The American Conservative 15 Responses to What
Everyone Seemed to Ignore in Helsinki
"And so we continue careening towards more conflicts which can always lead to unintended
consequences, ever closer to nuclear war. Meanwhile efforts for a dialogue with Russia are
thwarted by our internal politics and dysfunction in Washington."
Careful with such cavalier use of the truth. Someone is sure to point out Vlad said just
the same, which means according to D.C. war profiteer sponsored consensus we should do
exactly the opposite.
Lovely article. One aspect of going to war for conquest over and over, is that it leads to
moral deterioration. Defensive wars aren't that bad. I am not sure why we haven't seen any
articles on TAC about this aspect -- is it that it's not a popular idea?
"1) It's clear now that Europeans will increase their contributions to NATO."
No, they are not. Defense budgets are increasing -- very different, and it was happening
already before Trump's tweets came along.
"2) There was no focus on the real, growing threat of nuclear war, intentional or
accidental."
How do you know, since Trump hasn't told anyone what was discussed in Helsinki?
"3) For all the Democratic and Big Media attacks on Trump for supposedly caving in to Putin,
he gave Putin nothing."
Trump abased himself before Putin. That's not nothing. And who knows what else he gave Putin
behind closed doors. One must assume a lot since Trump is not out bragging about
particulars.
"4) The release of intelligence agency findings about Russians' intervention in the last
election just a day before the conference precisely shows the strength of the "Deep State" in
dominating American foreign policy."
Trump personally approved the release of that intelligence.
The myth that NATO has kept Europe at peace since WWII (except for the Balkan war) is still
alive and well. But really, it was the fear of nuclear weapons that kept the peace.
It is the risk of war vs. the hidden agenda of trying to break Russia a second time.
The people who want to break Russia a second time really do believe that Russia is weak and
unwilling to risk war under any circumstances. So they want to expand NATO, get into another
arms race and wait for Russia to go bankrupt again. Rinse repeat China.
If we expand NATO, pull out of INF and even START, we can build missile bases near Russia's
borders, reduce or eliminate their exports, we can drive their economy into overdrive. But this
requires an information war to make it look like they are the aggressors while we are the ones
implementing this strategy.
By 'we' I mean our entrenched Foreign Policy Establishment that blathers about the 'rules
based world order' while we bomb any country we want whenever we want. Queue up another story
on how they encroached on NATO airspace while flying to their enclave in Kaliningrad, look at a
map, it's impossible not to so so.
Tying it back, they do not believe that there is any risk of war. They are wrong.
"The release of intelligence agency findings about Russians' intervention in the last
election just a day before the conference precisely shows the strength of the 'Deep State' in
dominating American foreign policy Releasing the accusations and indictments via a press
already out for Trump's blood a day before the Helsinki meeting, obviously shows intent to
cause disarray and to prevent meaningful dialogue with Russia."
To be sure, the 6-4-3 (Mueller to Rosenstein to Mainstream Media) double play appeared at
first to be a real beauty. However, the video replay showed that the pitcher had not yet
pitched the ball to the batter and that the shortstop Mueller, the second baseman Rosenstein,
and the MSM first baseman had carried out their double play with a ball that Mueller had pulled
out of his hip pocket. ("Hip pocket" is a polite euphemism for the proximate area of the
Mueller anatomy from whence the ball was actually pulled.)
The real question is what did Putin give Trump? Nothing, as far as can be seen. Efforts for a
dialogue with Russia are thwarted by Putin's continued occupation of Ukrainian territory, with
its implicit denial of the principle of the sovereign nation-state, which has been the building
block of the European political order since the French Revolution. For Americans, given the
history of the American continent, European nationalism and the nation-state are wholly
incomprehensible concepts but they're very real to us in Europe. Those Americans who promote a
poorly-understood European nationalism in the hope of destroying the EU are promoting the very
war they so piously claim to oppose.
It's clear now that Europeans will increase their contributions to NATO. But Big Media
totally ignored the trillion dollar gorilla in room: Why does anyone have to spend so much on
NATO in the first place?
Why would you top post a commentor who so clearly doesn't understand the details of what
he's discussing?
I mean -- such fundamental misunderstanding of the issues might qualify him to be the
Republican nominee for President (and thanks to the Electoral College, the President) but it is
beneath your editorial standards.
Enough of this "Deep State" nonsense: stop lambasting U.S. Federal law enforcement and
intelligence professionals for calling out Trump's willful ignorance/intentional lies about
Russia's malicious actions. Russian belligerence against the U.S. is a predictable and
manageable problem, but only by a President (e.g., Reagan, Bush 41) who grasps the complexity
of the issue and who can balance targeted confrontation and selective cooperation with Russia.
Trump is inherently incapable of striking that balance, as Putin clearly understands, therefore
U.S.-Russian relations will remain (usefully for Putin) confrontational for the near term.
Why is it up to the media to address the elephant in the room? Shouldn't the media simply
report what happened? Why doesn't Trump address the elephant in the room?
Our grandparents and parents fought the Commies.
GOP throws that away in search of lower taxes and less regulation.
GOP elites belong to the international elite, namely the highest bidder.
Shame.
"The release of intelligence agency findings about Russians' intervention in the last election
just a day before the conference precisely shows the strength of the 'Deep State' in dominating
American foreign policy"
Others have already pointed out that the facts might not back up that the timing was some
elaborate plot, but even if this was a Derp State conspiracy on full display, it would probably
be proof of the opposite -- this would have not been an indication of influence, control,
domination, but a sign of weakness.
Like all conspiracy theories, "Deep State" implies competence, coordination, capability. Our
problem appears to be that we have too many bureaucracies infighting with each other, and
filled with too many shallow minds. Indeed, one could argue that 9/11 happened precisely
because of this.
That said, the first half of the article makes a compelling case of the foreign policy
aspect of the manufactured "Russia!" hysteria, and the existential threat originating with the
nuclear sector of the war profiteering presidential-congressional-military-industrial complex
-- "We end the world for money!" -- and the Great Gambler faction of the nelibcon biparty --
"We can win nuclear war!".
The other half of the national, collectivized insanity that is "Russia!" is the domestic
fraud: the biggest threat to the integrity of our elections and the functions of our
institutions of government is not Russia, but ourselves.
The semi-organized biparty mob -- the "Derp State" -- that is pushing the "Russia!"
narrative as the Grant Unified Theory of US American Home-Made Failure is systematically
destroying whatever is left of The People's confidence in our processes and institutions --
confidence in our ruling class had to have died before anybody considered voting for Trump --
and soon, we will find ourselves in a nation in which nobody can profess any trust in any
elected representative without being accused of being a traitor or useful idiot.
Putin, for one, could never accomplish that. American Excess: Hamstring your political
opponent? Worth It. Destroy democracy to protect it from The People? Priceless.
I wasn't aware that the U.s. Is finding new niclear-armed cruise missiles that would give
Russia only minutes to respond to an attack, as opposed to a half hour with ICBMs. Russia only
has to recalibrate its fully automated Doomsday Machine to target Warsaw, Berlin, and Cracow
along with U.S. cities, and to shorten the time of response.
We have to ask whether the exponentially greater likelihood of nuclear holocaust by
accident, which is what the U.S. would be bringing about by nuclear-arming cruise missiles,
proves that the Deep State's lust for power is irrational bordering on madness.
"... Rouhani is identifying the current administration policy of trying to strangle Iran's oil exports as a hostile act, a "declaration of war" by the U.S. against the Iranian people. Trump's hostility to Iran is such that he treats a verbal rebuke to a destructive policy he initiated as the same as a threat of attack, and he twists Rouhani's defensive statement into a call for war. ..."
"... Trump's outburst is not the response of someone interested in finding a diplomatic solution to tensions between our countries ..."
"... It is obviously the response of a belligerent bully who overreacts to the slightest opposition and seeks confrontation for its own sake. Trump's Iran obsession is extremely dangerous for both the U.S. and Iran, and it is poisoning relations with Iran for many years to come. ..."
Golnar Motevalli gives the full context for the Rouhani statement that caused Trump to make
his unhinged threat
earlier this week:
Verbatim excerpts of what Rouhani said on Sunday. The entire statement was almost 2 hrs
long. He didn't say he wants to "launch war", he said opposite but warned of what war would
look like. He said US policy to choke Iran's economy is a US declaration of war against
Iranians: pic.twitter.com/XcirZTWi4d
As I said Sunday
night, it's clear that the statement from Rouhani wasn't a threat against the U.S. It was a
warning not to take aggressive action against Iran. Furthermore, Rouhani is identifying the
current administration policy of trying to strangle Iran's oil exports as a hostile act, a
"declaration of war" by the U.S. against the Iranian people. Trump's hostility to Iran is such
that he treats a verbal rebuke to a destructive policy he initiated as the same as a threat of
attack, and he twists Rouhani's defensive statement into a call for war.
It shouldn't have to be said at this point, but Trump's outburst is not the response of
someone interested in finding a diplomatic solution to tensions between our countries
.
It is obviously the response of a belligerent bully who overreacts to the slightest
opposition and seeks confrontation for its own sake. Trump's Iran obsession is extremely
dangerous for both the U.S. and Iran, and it is poisoning relations with Iran for many years to
come.
China is enjoying this as the Dems distract us without real evidence about Russia collusion
we are being blindsided by them. Funny how Brennan a former communist sympathizer who voted
for Gus Hall in 1976 is crying treason. Wow.
Brennan, who voted for the US Communist Party candidate in the 1976 election, is screaming
the treason hyperbole because the CIA is most likely the origin of the Russia Collusion
farce:
"According to one account, GCHQ's then head, Robert Hannigan, passed material in summer
2016 to the CIA chief, John Brennan. The matter was deemed so sensitive it was handled at
"director level". After an initially slow start, Brennan used GCHQ information and
intelligence from other partners to launch a major inter-agency investigation."
BTW, Hannigan resigned for the usual "family reasons" the Monday after Trump was sworn
in.
It now appears that there were three dossier versions, all coming via different unofficial
channels, outside the intel community channels which was therefore unvetted. Many suspect
they were all from the same source coming in from different angles to create a false
impression of legitimacy.
What we are going to find out when Trump declassifies everything after the mid-term
election, regardless of whether or not the Dems take the House and try to impeach him, is
that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act put in place after the revelations of
COINTELPRO wasn't adequate protection against the serious misuse of power.
The reason Trump won't declassify now is obvious – if you think screams of
interference/obstruction are loud now, just watch after he does that, something which would
harm the Reps in the mid-terms because any revelations buried within would take time to dig
out and would suppressed as much as possible by the incredibly biased media.
The DOJ/FBI stalling in providing the documents demanded by Congress is an obvious
stalling tactic in the hope that the Dems take the house in the mid-terms. If Clinton had won
as everyone expected, we'd have never heard about any of this which is why they thought they
could get away with it.
We're at a point now where it's really difficult to have an intelligent conversation, a
serious discussion, a rational debate about this stuff.
The reason being that the John Brennans of the world and the lib-Dem-media-neocon mob of
which he is a member, which now routinely traffic in hyperventilating accusations of treason,
have forfeited any claim to credibility or respect.
Having concocted the conspiracy-fantasy of Trump being a puppet of Putin and having
contrived a farcical criminal investigation of imaginary "collusion," that same mob staged
the latest ludicrous meltdown -- over Trump's bumbling, stumbling press conference in
Helsinki with the Evil Monster Putin.
The only appropriate response now to people like John Brennan and his cabal of fools is
sarcasm, mockery, and contempt. They are beyond the reach of reason or evidence or facts.
Indeed, they have zero interest in evidence or facts. They simply emote and spew.
The main question in my mind is this: are the John Brennans of the world really stupid
enough to believe their vicious nonsense or are they so hopelessly dishonest and lacking in
conscience that they propagate poisonous falsehoods for the simple reason they know it
advances their political agenda of delegitimizing Trump's presidency.
I'm guessing more the second than the first.
And if in the process, they whip up an atmosphere of venomous hysteria and damage
U.S.-Russia relations to the point where scholars like Stephen Cohen and John Mearsheimer
call the environment as dangerous as that which existed at the time of the U.S.-Soviet Cuban
missile crisis and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves their Doomsday Clock to two
minutes before midnight (as recently happened) well, you gotta break some eggs to make an
omelette, right?
Honest to God, the dimension and character of this vast circus of corruption and lies is
breathtaking. It's downright freaking biblical.
"Fun experiment: of those old enough, how many today who believe the "Trump is a Russian
asset" story, in 2003 believed the Iraq has WMD story? 'Cause the source who lied to you in
2003, the intel community, is your same source today."
Growing up as I did in the Nixon/Vietnam era, I developed a skepticism of the 'official'
story, something that served me well through Iran contra, incubator babies being tossed to
the floor, and WMD's (a skepticism reinforced at the time by Scott Ritter, among others). As
I recall, the WMD story was less a failure of intelligence as much as an administration
insisting on so-called 'stovepiped' intelligence to sell their war to an American public
through a mostly compliant MSM.
Regardless, my conclusion that Trump is a "Russian asset" is a result of my belief that
Trump- who has yet to disclose the financial information that would disprove that belief- is
reliant on Russian money, some or all of it organized crime related, to sustain his 'empire',
and that there is significant overlap between the Russian mob and the Russian government.
His actions as president haven't done anything to dispel me of my belief that he is a
'Russian asset', including his traitorous behavior this past week.
So Iran has no offensive air force or any Nukes but the Israelis with their air superiority and nukes are making Iran - enemy
#1. How very - American - of them.
This is a war propaganda. Plain and simple. Looks like MIC like cancel is destroying this
country like it destroyed the USSR.
Notable quotes:
"... They have completely forgotten the cost of the Civil War. We in Europe have not forgotten the cost of war and are not going there again. Ever. ..."
"... From badmouthing Russia to appointing Russophobes to high office, to imposing sanctions, to illegally seizing Russian diplomatic property, to committing war crimes in Syria, to a provocative military buildup in Europe, to arming the illegitimate Ukrainian "government," etc., presidential poseur Orange Clown has spent 99% of his "presidency" so far antagonizing Russia; apparently trying to provoke some kind of Russian military response. ..."
"... If it was anyone else other than Vladimir Putin calling the shots in Russia, WW3 probably would've happened already. Yet PCR claims Orange Clown wants peace with Russia? ..."
"... Two factions in the Money Party are at war with each other. Neither one is willing to level with the public as to its true aims and motives -- they are fighting viciously but under the bed sheets, which is why the spectacle looks so unhinged and silly. ..."
The reception of the Trump- Putin meeting is breathtaking. I have in my 61 years never
witnessed such a hate and slander in the MSM. I have after this begun to actually dismiss
that Americans are sensible people! They have completely forgotten the cost of the Civil
War. We in Europe have not forgotten the cost of war and are not going there again.
Ever.
The US has become a lunatic asylum with nuclear weapons, never mind Kim Jong Un, look a
squirrel! But the US is a threat to humanity, included it's protegé Israel, the new
Apartheid state.
"Is President Trump A Traitor Because He Wants Peace with Russia?"
Wait; what?
From badmouthing Russia to appointing Russophobes to high office, to imposing
sanctions, to illegally seizing Russian diplomatic property, to committing war crimes in
Syria, to a provocative military buildup in Europe, to arming the illegitimate Ukrainian
"government," etc., presidential poseur Orange Clown has spent 99% of his "presidency" so far
antagonizing Russia; apparently trying to provoke some kind of Russian military
response.
If it was anyone else other than Vladimir Putin calling the shots in Russia, WW3
probably would've happened already. Yet PCR claims Orange Clown wants peace with
Russia?
Note to PCR: It is Vladimir Putin who wants peace, not presidential poseur Orange Clown.
If Orange Clown has had some kind of spiritual epiphany/change of heart, he's going to have
to show good faith by taking some kind of unambiguous action; posturing won't suffice.
There is a lot of truth in what you say, but it does not account for the fight we are
currently witnessing. Two factions in the Money Party are at war with each other. Neither
one is willing to level with the public as to its true aims and motives -- they are fighting
viciously but under the bed sheets, which is why the spectacle looks so unhinged and
silly.
It appears that he is trying to save the US from financial collapse. Hence, he is a traitor
to MIC, particularly to the obscenely greedy Pentagon contractors. The US presidents and
Congress always pandered to MIC first and foremost. He broke (or at least tried to break) the
pattern.
You mean, s/he/it is a self-parody? The US MSM, State Department, Congress, and
Administration all became self-parodies lately. It would have been funny if it weren't so
sad.
"... It isn't a pretty face, but one scarred from a dark past, repackaged now by the frenzy of "resistance." Accusing Donald Trump recklessly, implying he knows more than he lets on, promising redemption: John Brennan is the face of American politics in 2018. ..."
"... But before all that, Brennan lived in a hole about as far down into the deep state as one can dwell while still having eyes that work in the sunlight. He was director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He was Obama's counterterrorism advisor, helping the president decide who to kill every week, including American citizens. He spent 25 years at the CIA, and helped shape the violent policies of the post-9/11 Bush era. He was a fan of torture and extrajudicial killing to the point that a 2012 profile of him was entitled, "The Seven Deadly Sins of John Brennan." Another writer called Brennan "the most lethal bureaucrat of all time, or at least since Henry Kissinger." Today, however, a New York Times ..."
"... On Twitter this week, Brennan cartoonishly declaimed, "Donald Trump's press conference performance in Helsinki rises to and exceeds the threshold of high crimes and misdemeanors. It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump's comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin." ..."
"... Brennan is a man of his times, all bluster and noise, knowing that so long as he says what a significant part of the country apparently believes -- that the president of the United States is under the control of the Kremlin -- he will never be challenged. ..."
"... New York Magazine ..."
"... Only after Clinton lost did it become necessary to create a crisis that might yet be inflated (it wasn't just the Russians, as originally thought, it was Trump working with them) to justify impeachment. Absent that need, Brennan would have disappeared alongside other former CIA directors into academia or the lucrative consulting industry. Instead he's a public figure with a big mouth because he has to be. That mouth has to cover his ass. ..."
"... Brennan is part of the whole-of-government effort to overturn the election. ..."
"... Yet despite all the hard evidence of treason that only Brennan and his supine journalists seem to see, everyone appears resigned to have a colluding Russian agent running the United States. You'd think it would be urgent to close this case. Instead, Brennan admonishes us to wait out an investigative process that's been underway now through two administrations. ..."
"... Is Brennan signaling that there is one step darker to consider? A Reuters commentary observes that "Trump is haunted by the fear that a cabal of national-security officers is conspiring in secret to overthrow him . Trump has made real enemies in the realm of American national security. He has struck blows against their empire. One way or another, the empire will strike back." ..."
"... Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of ..."
He accuses Trump of treason. But what's his bluster really about?
•
It isn't a pretty face, but one scarred from a dark past, repackaged now by the frenzy of
"resistance." Accusing Donald Trump recklessly, implying he knows more than he lets on,
promising redemption: John Brennan is the face of American politics in 2018.
But before all that, Brennan lived in a hole about as far down into the deep state as
one can dwell while still having eyes that work in the sunlight. He was director of the Central
Intelligence Agency. He was Obama's counterterrorism advisor, helping the president decide who
to kill every week, including American citizens. He spent 25 years at the CIA, and helped shape
the violent policies of the post-9/11 Bush era. He was a fan of torture and extrajudicial
killing to the point that a 2012 profile of him was entitled, "The Seven Deadly Sins of John
Brennan." Another writer called Brennan "the most lethal bureaucrat of all time, or at least
since Henry Kissinger." Today, however, a New York Times puff piece sweeps all that
away as a "troubling inheritance."
On Twitter this week, Brennan cartoonishly declaimed, "Donald Trump's press conference
performance in Helsinki rises to and exceeds the threshold of high crimes and misdemeanors. It
was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump's comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the
pocket of Putin."
Because it is 2018, Brennan was never asked to explain exactly how a press conference
exceeds the threshold of high crimes and misdemeanors the Constitution sets for impeachment,
nor was he asked to lay a few cards on the table showing what Putin has on Trump. No,
Brennan is a man of his times, all bluster and noise, knowing that so long as he says what
a significant part of the country apparently believes -- that the president of the United
States is under the control of the Kremlin -- he will never be challenged.
Brennan slithers alongside those like Nancy Pelosi and Cory Booker who said Trump is
controlled by Russia, columnists in the New York Times who called him a traitor, an
article (which is fast becoming the Zapruder film of Russiagate) in New York Magazine
echoing former counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke in speculating that Trump met Putin
as his handler, and another former intelligence officer warning that "we're on the cusp of
losing the constitutional republic forever."
Brennan's bleating has the interesting side effect of directing attention away from who was
watching the front door as the Russians walked in to cause what one MSNBC analyst described as
a mix of Pearl Harbor and Kristallnacht. During the 2016 election, Brennan was head of the CIA.
His evil twin, James Clapper, who also coughs up Trump attacks for nickels these days, was
director of national intelligence. James Comey headed the FBI, following Robert Mueller into
the job. Yet the noise from that crowd has become so loud as to drown out any questions about
where they were when they had the duty to stop the Russians in the first place.
The excuse that "everybody believed Hillary would win" is in itself an example of collusion:
things that now rise to treason, if not acts of war, didn't matter then because Clinton's
victory would sweep them all under the rug. Only after Clinton lost did it become necessary
to create a crisis that might yet be inflated (it wasn't just the Russians, as originally
thought, it was Trump working with them) to justify impeachment. Absent that need, Brennan
would have disappeared alongside other former CIA directors into academia or the lucrative
consulting industry. Instead he's a public figure with a big mouth because he has to be. That
mouth has to cover his ass.
Brennan is part of the whole-of-government effort to overturn the election.
Remember how recounts were called for amid (fake) allegations of vote tampering? Constitutional
scholars proposed various Hail Mary Electoral College scenarios to unseat Trump. Lawsuits
claimed the Emoluments Clause made it illegal for Trump to even assume office. The media set
itself the goal of impeaching the president. On cue, leaks poured out implying the Trump
campaign worked with the Russian government. It is now a rare day when the top stories are not
apocalyptic, rocketed from Raw Story to the Huffington Post to the New York Times .
Brennan, meanwhile, fans the media's flames with a knowing wink that says "You wait and see.
Soon it's Mueller time."
Yet despite all the hard evidence of treason that only Brennan and his supine
journalists seem to see, everyone appears resigned to have a colluding Russian agent running
the United States. You'd think it would be urgent to close this case. Instead, Brennan
admonishes us to wait out an investigative process that's been underway now through two
administrations.
The IRS, meanwhile, has watched Trump for decades (they've seen the tax docs), as have
Democratic and Republican opposition researchers, the New Jersey Gaming Commission, and various
New York City real estate bodies. Multiple KGB/FSB agents have defected and not said a word.
The whole Soviet Union has collapsed since the day that some claim Trump first became a Russian
asset. Why haven't the FBI, CIA, and NSA cottoned to anything in the intervening years? Why are
we waiting on Mueller Year Two?
If Trump is under Russian influence, he is the most dangerous man in American history. So
why isn't Washington on fire? Why hasn't Mueller indicted someone for treason? If this is Pearl
Harbor, why is the investigation moving at the pace of a mortgage application? Why is everyone
allowing a Russian asset placed in charge of the American nuclear arsenal to stay in power even
one more minute?
You'd think Brennan would be saying it is time to postpone chasing the indictments of
Russian military officers that will never see the inside of a courtroom, stop wasting months on
decades-old financial crimes unconnected to the Trump campaign, and quit delaying the real
stuff over a clumsy series of perjury cases. "Patriots: Where are you???" Brennan asked in a
recent tweet. Where indeed?
Is Brennan signaling that there is one step darker to consider? A
Reuters commentary observes that "Trump is haunted by the fear that a cabal of
national-security officers is conspiring in secret to overthrow him . Trump has made real
enemies in the realm of American national security. He has struck blows against their empire.
One way or another, the empire will strike back." James Clapper is confirming reports that
Trump was shown evidence of Putin's election attacks and did nothing. Congressman Steve Cohen
asked, "Where are our military folks? The Commander-in-Chief is in the hands of our enemy!"
Treason, traitor, coup, the empire striking back -- those are just words, Third World stuff,
clickbait, right? So the more pedestrian answer must then be correct. The lessons of Whitewater
and Benghazi learned, maybe the point is not to build an atmosphere of crisis leading to
something undemocratic, but just to have a perpetual investigation, tickled to life as needed
politically.
Because, maybe, deep down, Brennan (Clapper, Hayden, Comey, and Mueller) really do know that
this is all like flying saucers and cell phone cameras. At some point, the whole alien
conspiracy meme fell apart because somehow when everyone had a camera with them 24/7/365, there
were no more sightings and we had to admit that our fears had gotten the best of us. The threat
was inside us all along. It is now, too.
Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author ofWe Meant Well : How I Helped Lose the Battle for the
Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People andHooper's War : A Novel of WWII Japan . Follow him on Twitter
@WeMeantWell.
"... Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, ..."
"... . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com. ..."
Under the Constitution, these are the offenses for which
presidents can be impeached.
And to hear our elites, Donald Trump is guilty of them all.
Trump's refusal to challenge Vladimir Putin's claim at Helsinki that his GRU boys did not hack Hillary Clinton's
campaign has been called treason, a refusal to do his sworn duty to protect and defend the United States, by a former
director of the CIA.
Famed journalists and former high officials of the U.S. government have called Russia's hacking of the DNC "an act of
war" comparable to Pearl Harbor.
The
New York Times
ran a story on the many now charging Trump with treason. Others suggest Putin is
blackmailing Trump, or has him on his payroll, or compromised Trump a long time ago.
Wailed Congressman Steve Cohen: "Where is our military folks? The Commander in Chief is in the hands of our enemy!"
Apparently, some on the left believe we need a military coup to save our democracy.
Not since Robert Welch of the John Birch Society called Dwight Eisenhower a "conscious agent of the Communist
conspiracy" have such charges been hurled at a president. But while the Birchers were a bit outside the mainstream,
today it is the establishment itself bawling "Treason!"
What explains the hysteria?
The worst-case scenario would be that the establishment actually believes the nonsense it is spouting. But that is
hard to credit. Like the boy who cried "Wolf!" they have cried "Fascist!" too many times to be taken seriously.
A month ago, the never-Trumpers were comparing the separation of immigrant kids from detained adults, who brought
them to the U.S. illegally, to FDR's concentration camps for Japanese Americans.
Other commentators equated the separations to what the Nazis did at Auschwitz.
If the establishment truly believed this nonsense, it would be an unacceptable security risk to let them near the
levers of power ever again.
Using Occam's razor, the real explanation for this behavior is the simplest one: America's elites have been driven
over the edge by Trump's successes and their failures to block him.
Trump is deregulating the economy, cutting taxes, appointing record numbers of federal judges, reshaping the Supreme
Court, and using tariffs to cut trade deficits and the bully pulpit to castigate freeloading allies.
Worst of all, Trump clearly intends to carry out his campaign pledge to improve relations with Russia and get along
with Vladimir Putin.
"Over our dead bodies!" the Beltway elite seems to be shouting.
Hence the rhetorical WMDs hurled at Trump: liar, dictator, authoritarian, Putin's poodle, fascist, demagogue,
traitor, Nazi.
Such language approaches incitement to violence. One wonders whether the haters are considering the impact of the
words they so casually use. Some of us yet recall how Dallas was charged with complicity in the death of JFK for slurs
far less toxic than this.
The post-Helsinki hysteria reveals not merely the mindset of the president's enemies, but the depth of their
determination to destroy him.
They intend to break Trump and bring him down, to see him impeached, removed, indicted, and prosecuted, and the
agenda on which he ran and was nominated and elected dumped onto the ash heap of history.
Thursday, Trump indicated that he knows exactly what is afoot, and threw down the gauntlet of defiance: "The Fake
News Media wants so badly to see a major confrontation with Russia, even a confrontation that could lead to war," he
tweeted. "They are pushing so recklessly hard and hate the fact that I'll probably have a good relationship with Putin."
Spot on. Trump is saying: I am going to call off this Cold War II before it breaks out into the hot war that nine
U.S. presidents avoided, despite Soviet provocations far graver than Putin's pilfering of DNC emails showing how Debbie
Wasserman Schultz stuck it to Bernie Sanders.
Then the White House suggested Vlad may be coming to dinner this fall.
Trump is edging toward the defining battle of his presidency: a reshaping of U.S. foreign policy to avoid clashes and
conflicts with Russia and the shedding of Cold War commitments no longer rooted in the national interests of this
country.
Yet should he attempt to carry out his agenda -- to get out of Syria, pull troops from Germany, and take a second look
at NATO's Article 5 commitment to go to war for 29 nations, some of which, like Montenegro, most Americans have never
heard of -- he is headed for the most brutal battle of his presidency.
This Helsinki hysteria is but a taste.
By cheering Brexit, dissing the EU, suggesting NATO is obsolete, departing Syria, trying to get on with Putin, Trump
is threatening the entire U.S. foreign policy establishment with what it fears most: irrelevance.
For if there is no war on, no war imminent, and no war wanted, what does a War Party do?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book,
Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a
President and Divided America Forever
. To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators
writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.
It was a remarkable moment in a remarkable press conference. President Donald Trump had just
finished a controversial summit meeting in Helsinki with his Russian counterpart Vladimir
Putin, and
the two were talking to the media . Jeff Mason, a political affairs reporter with Reuters,
stood up and asked Putin a question pulled straight out of the day's headlines: "Will you
consider extraditing the 12 Russian officials that were indicted last week by a U.S. grand
jury?"
The "12 Russian officials" Mason spoke of were military intelligence officers accused of
carrying out a series of cyberattacks against various American-based computer networks
(including those belonging to the Democratic National Committee), the theft of emails and other
data, and the release of a significant portion of this information to influence the outcome of
the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The names and organizational affiliations of these 12
officers were contained in a detailed 29-page indictment prepared by special
prosecutor Robert Mueller, and subsequently made public by Assistant Attorney General Rob
Rosenstein on July 13 -- a mere three days prior to the Helsinki summit.
Vladimir Putin responded, "We have an existing agreement between the United States of
America and the Russian Federation, an existing treaty, that dates back to 1999, the mutual
assistance on criminal cases. This treaty is in full effect. It works quite efficiently."
Putin then discussed the relationship between this agreement -- the 1999 Mutual Legal Assistance
Treaty -- and the Mueller indictment. "This treaty has specific legal procedures," Putin
noted, that "we can offer the appropriate commission headed by special attorney Mueller. He can
use this treaty as a solid foundation and send a formal and official request to us so that we
would interrogate, we would hold the questioning of these individuals who he believes are privy
to some crimes and our enforcement are perfectly able to do this questioning and send the
appropriate materials to the United States."
In the
uproar that followed the Trump-Putin press conference , the exchange between Mason and
Putin was largely forgotten amidst invective over Trump's seeming public capitulation on the
issue of election interference. "Today's press conference in Helsinki," Senator John McCain
observed afterwards in a typical comment, "was one of the most disgraceful performances by an
American president in memory."
It took an
interview with Putin after the summit concluded , conducted by Fox News's Chris Wallace, to
bring the specific issue of the 12 indicted Russians back to the forefront and give it context.
From Putin's perspective, this indictment and the way it was handled by the United States was a
political act. "It's the internal political games of the United States. Don't make the
relationship between Russia and the United States -- don't hold it hostage of this internal
political struggle. And it's quite clear to me that this is used in the internal political
struggle, and it's nothing to be proud of for American democracy, to use such dirty methods in
the political rivalry."
Regarding the indicted 12, Putin reiterated the points he had made earlier to Jeff Mason.
"We -- with the United States -- we have a treaty for assistance in criminal cases, an existing
treaty that exists from 1999. It's still in force, and it works sufficiently. Why wouldn't
Special Counsel Mueller send us an official request within the framework of this agreement? Our
investigators will be acting in accordance with this treaty. They will question each individual
that the American partners are suspecting of something. Why not a single request was filed?
Nobody sent us a single formal letter, a formal request."
There is no extradition treaty between the U.S. and Russia, which makes all the calls for
Trump to demand the extradition of the 12 Russians little more than a continuation of the
"internal political games" Putin alluded to in his interview. There is, however, the treaty
that Putin referenced at both the press conference and during the Wallace interview.
Signed in Moscow on June 17, 1999, the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty calls for the
"prevention, suppression and investigation of crimes" by both parties "in accordance with the
provisions of this Treaty where the conduct that is the subject of the request constitutes a
crime under the laws of both Parties."
It should be noted that the indicted 12 have not violated any Russian laws. But the Mutual
Legal Assistance Treaty doesn't close the door on cooperation in this matter. Rather, the
treaty notes that "The Requested Party may, in its discretion, also provide legal assistance
where the conduct that is the subject of the request would not constitute a crime under the
laws of the Requested Party."
It specifically precludes the process of cooperating from inferring a right "on the part of
any other persons to obtain evidence, to have evidence excluded, or to impede the execution of
a request." In short, if the United States were to avail itself of the treaty's terms, Russia
would not be able to use its cooperation as a vehicle to disrupt any legal proceedings underway
in the U.S.
The legal assistance that the treaty facilitates is not inconsequential. Through it, the
requesting party can, among other things, obtain testimony and statements from designated
persons; receive documents, records, and other items; and arrange the transfer of persons in
custody for testimony on the territory of the requesting party.
If the indictment of the 12 Russians wasn't the "dirty method" used in a domestic American
"political rivalry" that Putin described, one would imagine that Assistant Attorney General Rob
Rosenstein would have availed himself of the opportunity to gather additional evidence
regarding the alleged crimes. He would also have, at the very least, made a request to have
these officers appear in court in the United States to face the charges put forward in the
indictment. The treaty specifically identifies the attorney general of the United States "or
persons designated by the Attorney General" as the "Central Authority" for treaty
implementation. Given the fact that Jeff Sessions has recused himself from all matters
pertaining to the investigation by the Department of Justice into allegations of Russian
meddling in the 2016 election, the person empowered to act is Rosenstein.
There are several grounds under the treaty for denying requested legal assistance, including
anything that might prejudice "the security or other essential interests of the Requested
Party." However, it also requires that the reasons for the any denial of requested assistance
be put in writing. Moreover, prior to denying a request, the Requested Party "shall consult
with the Central Authority of the Requesting Party to consider whether legal assistance can be
given subject to such conditions as it deems necessary. If the Requesting Party accepts legal
assistance subject to these conditions, it shall comply with the conditions."
By twice raising the treaty in the context of the 12 Russians, Putin has clearly signaled
that Russia would be prepared to proceed along these lines.
If the indictment issued by the Department of Justice is to be taken seriously, then it is
incumbent upon Rosenstein to call Putin's bluff, and submit a detailed request for legal
assistance per the mandate and procedures specified in the treaty -- in short, compel Russia to
either put up or shut up.
Any failure to do so would only confirm Putin's assertion that the indictment was a
political game to undermine the presidency of Donald J. Trump.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former
Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert
Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author ofDeal of the Century: How Iran Blocked the West's Road to
War .
Very cogent analysis. Putin, who's incredibly well briefed, knew exactly what he was
offering, and thought that by doing so, would force the DoJ/Mueller to either take him up on
his offer or otherwise display the overt politicism of the indictments. But the American
anti-Trump mindhive is so completely addled, they of course miss the point entirely. The
absence of reason among the anti-Trump/anti-Russia collective is truly something to behold
– it's scary.
The request V. Putin proposed and Scot Ritter writes about, if send to Russia, would be
equivalent to 'go and whistle' and would be treated the same way the Russians treat the
requests from Poland to return the remains of the Polish plane that crashed in controversial
and strange circumstances near Smolensk on April 10, 2010. They, the Russians, did not return
the remains of the plane up until today and the place where the plane crashed they bulldozed
the ground and paved with very thick layer of concrete.
Such request would only give the Russians propaganda tools to delay and dilute any
responsibility from the Russian side and at the end they would blame the USA for the whole
mess with no end to their investigation, because they would investigate until the US
investigators would drop dead. Anybody who seriously thinks about V.
Putin offer to investigate anything with Russia should first have his head examined by a
very good, objective, and politically neutral head specialist.
"If the indictment issued by the Department of Justice is to be taken seriously, then it is
incumbent upon Rosenstein to call Putin's bluff, and submit a detailed request for legal
assistance per the mandate and procedures specified in the treaty -- in short, compel Russia
to either put up or shut up.
Any failure to do so would only confirm Putin's assertion that the indictment was a
political game to undermine the presidency of Donald J. Trump."
That was one long-winded way of recognizing that Putin just told the US biparty
establishment behind the manufactured "Russia!" hysteria to put up or shut up.
I don't think that Pres Putin has anything to lose here.
"ARTICLE 4 DENIAL OF LEGAL ASSISTANCE
The Central Authority of the Requested Party may deny legal assistance if:
(1) the request relates to a crime under military law that is not a crime under general
criminal law;
(2) the execution of the request would prejudice the security or other essential interests
of the Requested Party; or "whether accurate or not the treaty permits a denial of request,
if said requests threaten Russian security."
Almost by definition, an investigation interrogation by the US of the personnel in
question because said questioning might very well stray into other areas , unrelated to the
hacking charge. Now Pres. Putin has played two cards: a treaty is in place that deals with
criminal matters between the two states and surely must have known that and should have
already made the formal requests in conjunction with the treaty or he didn't know either way,
the rush to embarrass the president may very well backfire. As almost everything about this
investigation has.
Right! That's not going to happen .the DOJ has no proof .their indictment was a ploy to
queer any deal with Russia. Anybody that believes anything the 'intelligence' agencies say,
without proof, is an idiot.
"... Cutting through the crap on foreign policy is something of a Paul family tradition. ..."
"... When Ron Paul suggested on a Republican presidential primary debate stage in 2008 that U.S. foreign policy created " blowback " that led to 9/11, fellow GOP candidate Rudy Giuliani accused Paul of blaming America and defending the attackers. Paul didn't relent: "Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years." ..."
"... The American Conservative ..."
"... There are neocons in both parties who still want Ukraine and Georgia to be in NATO. That's very, very provocative. It has stimulated and encouraged nationalism in Russia. George Kennan predicted this in 1998 when we still had Yeltsin and Russia was coming in our direction. He said, "If you push NATO up against Russia's borders, nationalism will arise and their militarist tendencies will increase, and you may get someone like a Putin," basically. ..."
"... "It's a big mistake for us, not to say that we're morally equivalent or that anything Russia does is justified," Paul told Tapper. "But if we don't understand that everything we do has a reaction, we're not going to be very good at understanding and trying to have peace in our world." ..."
"... "Most Americans are understandably shocked by what they view as an unprecedented attack on our political system," the New York Times ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... Rand Paul said Sunday, "People need to think through these things before they get so eager to rattle their sabers about wanting to have a confrontation with Russia." ..."
"... Jack Hunter is the former political editor of ..."
Ron and Rand Paul Call Out Foreign Policy Hysteria
And like his father, the senator found himself on the wrong end of the media mob this week.
When Mitt Romney called Russia America's "
number
one geopolitical foe
" during the 2012 election campaign, Barack Obama
mocked
him:
"The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back." Vice President Joe Biden
dismissed
Romney as a "Cold War holdover." Hillary Clinton
said
Romney was "looking backward." John Kerry
said
"Mitt Romney talks like he's only seen Russia by watching
Rocky IV
."
But that was then. This week the Cold War seemed to be back in full force for many former Obama supporters, as
President Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the wake of 12 Russian agents
being indicted
for
allegedly meddling in the 2016 election.
In the midst of this hysteria, Senator Rand Paul was
asked
by CNN's Jake
Tapper on Sunday whether he thought Trump should demand that Putin acknowledge Russia's meddling.
"They're not going to admit it in the same way we're not going to admit that we were involved in the Ukrainian
elections or the Russian election," Paul
replied
. "So all countries that can
spy do. All countries that want to interfere in elections and have the ability to, they try." Paul insisted that U.S.
and Russian meddling are not "morally equivalent," but said we must still take into account that both nations do this.
That's when "Rand Paul" began trending on Twitter.
"Rand Paul is on TV delivering line after line of Kremlin narrative, and it is absolutely stunning to watch," read
one tweet
with nearly 5,000 likes. Another
tweet, just as popular,
said
, "Between
McConnell hiding election interference and Rand Paul defending it, looks like Russia's already annexed Kentucky." A Raw
Story headline on Paul's CNN interview read, "
Stunned
Jake Tapper explains why NATO exists to a Russia-defending Rand Paul
."
But was Paul really "defending" Russia? Was he even defending Russian meddling in U.S. elections? Or was he merely
trying to pierce through the hysteria and portray American-Russian relations in a more accurate and comprehensive
context -- something partisans left and right won't do and the mainstream media is too lazy to attempt?
Cutting through the crap on foreign policy is something of a Paul family tradition.
When Ron Paul suggested on a Republican presidential primary debate stage in 2008 that U.S. foreign policy created "
blowback
"
that led to 9/11, fellow GOP candidate Rudy Giuliani accused Paul of blaming America and defending the attackers. Paul
didn't relent: "Have you ever read about the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we've been over there.
We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years."
No one in the GOP wanted to hear what Ron Paul had to say because it challenged and largely rebutted Republicans'
entire political identity at the time. Paul was roundly denounced. FrontPageMag's David Horowitz called him a "
disgrace
."
RedState
banned
all Paul supporters.
The American Conservative
's Jim Antle would
recall
in 2012: "The optics were
poor: a little-known congressman was standing against the GOP frontrunner on an issue where 90 percent of the party
likely disagreed with him . Support for the war was not only nearly unanimous within the GOP, but bipartisan."
Rand Paul now poses a similar challenge to Russia-obsessed Democrats. Contra Jake Tapper sagely explaining "why NATO
exists" to a supposedly ignoramus Paul, as the liberal Raw Story headline framed it, here's what the senator actually
said:
There are neocons in both parties who still want Ukraine and Georgia to be in NATO. That's very, very provocative.
It has stimulated and encouraged nationalism in Russia. George Kennan predicted this in 1998 when we still had
Yeltsin and Russia was coming in our direction. He said, "If you push NATO up against Russia's borders, nationalism
will arise and their militarist tendencies will increase, and you may get someone like a Putin," basically.
Do you think Jake Tapper Googled "George Kennan"? That's about as likely as Giuliani Googling "blowback."
"It's a big mistake for us, not to say that we're morally equivalent or that anything Russia does is justified," Paul
told Tapper. "But if we don't understand that everything we do has a reaction, we're not going to be very good at
understanding and trying to have peace in our world."
As for Russian spying -- was Paul just blindly defending that, too? Or did he make an important point in noting both
sides do it?
"Most Americans are understandably shocked by what they view as an unprecedented attack on our political system," the
New York Times
reported in February. "But intelligence veterans, and scholars who have studied covert
operations, have a different, and quite revealing, view."
The
Times
continued: "'If you ask an intelligence officer, did the Russians break the rules or do something
bizarre, the answer is no, not at all,' said Steven L. Hall, who retired in 2015 after 30 years at the C.I.A., where he
was the chief of Russian operations. The United States 'absolutely' has carried out such election influence operations
historically, he said, 'and I hope we keep doing it.'"
The U.S. will no doubt keep meddling in foreign elections. Russia will do the same, just as it did during the
Obama administration and years prior
. The cries against diplomacy and for war will ebb, flow, flip, and flop,
depending on who sits in the White House and how it makes the screaming partisans feel. Many Democrats who view Trump's
diplomacy with Russia as dangerous would have embraced it (and did) under Obama. Many Republicans who hail Trump's
diplomatic efforts
wouldn't
have done so were he a Democrat. President Hillary Clinton could be having the same meeting with Putin and
most Democrats would be fine with it, Russian meddling or no meddling.
So many
headlines
attempted to portray Paul as the partisan hack on Sunday when the opposite is actually true. It's the left, including
much of the media, that's now turned hawkish towards Russia for largely partisan reasons, while Paul was making the same
realist
foreign policy
arguments
regarding
NATO
and
U.S.-Russia relations
long before the Trump presidency.
Responding to Romney's anti-Russia, anti-Obama comments in 2012, Thomas de Waal, a Russia expert at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace,
told
the
New York Times
, "There's a whole school of thought that Russia is one you need to work with to
solve other problems in the world, rather than being the problem." Rand Paul said Sunday, "People need to think through
these things before they get so eager to rattle their sabers about wanting to have a confrontation with Russia."
But think they won't and sabers they'll rattle, as yesterday's villains become today's heroes and vice versa.
There's the elephant in the room, of course. Nobody seems to want to touch it yet, but everybody knows that
Israeli meddling in US elections puts Russian meddling in the shade. Still, it's fascinating watching the
reporting and waiting to see who will break the silence.
In the meantime, wake me up when there's something
called "the Russia-American Political Action Committee" in DC. Wake me up when US politicians vie to win its
favor, as they vie to win the favor of AIPAC, and win the huge financial contributions that result from getting
its support. Wake me up when Russian oligarchs contribute even a fraction of what Israel donors like Sheldon
Adelson already contribute to US political campaigns – and wake me up when they get results like an American
president moving the US embassy to Jerusalem or an America president sending American troops to stand between
Israel and its enemies Russia may have moved a few thousand votes here or there, but Israel gets American
politicians to send America's children to die in Middle East wars. At the moment, Russia can only dream of
meddling with that degree of success.
Yep – American elections have been corrupted by foreign countries for a long time. Russia's only problem is
that it hasn't learned who to pay off, and how much. Next time Mr. Netanyahu visits Mr. Putin (and he visits
him fairly often), he can give him a few pointers. And then Mr. Putin will be invited to give speeches to joint
sessions of Congress. Just like Mr. Netanyahu. And freshmen US congressmen will be frog-marched to Russia for
instructions, just like they're already frog-marched to Israel.
Russia has been engaging in international espionage dating back at least to Peter the Great. As such, they play
the game as well as, or possibly better, than anyone. They, like we, will do what is necessary-even to the
point of injecting themselves in the internal affairs of another country–if they deem it in their interest to
do so or, as the cliche has it, "in the interest of state". Not very nice but–that's the way the game is
played.
Thank you, Rand Paul and Mr. Hunter, for injecting some much needed sanity into this debate.
There is no need to demonize the Russians. Their country has
national interests and goals. If they are patriots, the Russians will seek to advance those interests and
goals.
We also have interests and goals, and if we are patriots, we seek to advance them (though we disagree on
what our real interests are and what our goals should be).
When our interests concide with that of Russia we collaborate. When they clash, we seek to undermine each
other.
The Russians seem to have been doing it, as their interests now clash with ours. Nothing to be worked out
about. That's how the game is played.
Which does not mean that we should defend ourselves strenuously from such undermining. And the President is
precisely tasked with defending this country and advance its interests. This he seems to be unable to do.
Do not hate the Russians. Do not demonize them. But be aware of what they are doing, because we are NOT in a
Kumbayah moment with them.
Well done, Mr. Hunter. It's a shame that the Pauls' position on foreign policy is not shared by ostensibly
"libertarian" commentators who value DC cocktail parties above all principles.
The left's hatred of Russia goes even deeper than US partisan politics. They hate them because they gave up
their world-wide communism ideology. And they hate them because they are not fully on board with the LGBQTXYZ
movement.
The real problem with Russia is that it exists, and it is too big for us to control. The real problem with
Putin is that he is the first strong leader Russia has had since the fall of the Soviet Union, and he is
messing up our plans for world hegemony.
As one who grew up during the Cold War (the real one) and lived
through the whole thing (the Iron Curtain, the Warsaw Pact, the crushing of Hungary, communists behind every
door and under every bed), I find it very hard to take all the current hysteria about Russia very seriously.
Sane, reasonable comments. Totally agree with your sentiments. Unfortunately, since we live in a
3-ring media circus, so few people will listen or pay heed. In a world possibly even more dangerous than any
time since the Cold War, the act of demonizing one of the two greatest nuclear powers on earth is surely
madness.
CNN etc. headlines are not even thinly veiled editorials against Trump. Not related to just publishing the
news. But telling readers how to think. Mainstream media has an M&M type coating. Remove the outer shell and
you find the good old boys and girls as ever-lurking and ever vigilant Neocon Nation pushing their one and only
agenda on the American people. They are insatiable as long as they do not do the fighting and dying. Stay tough
Trump and realize short of complete capitulation you cannot satisfy these people.
Donald Trump took a step towards peace. Of course, not everyone likes this. As can be seen, Donald Trump has
many enemies, even among Republicans. They want war. These are people dangerous to America and the world.
What is better: peace with Russia, or a global nuclear war?
The Book of Revelation warns: "And another horse, fiery red, came out, and the one who rode it was granted
permission to take peace from the earth, so that people would butcher one another, and he was given a huge
sword." (6:4) "The great sword" – what does it mean?
Jesus gave many important details: "Terrors [φοβητρα] both [τε] and [και] unusual phenomena [σημεια –
unusual occurrences, transcending the common course of nature] from [απ] sky [ουρανου] powerful [μεγαλα] will
be [εσται]." (Luke 21:11)
Some ancient manuscripts contain the words "and frosts" [και χειμωνες] (we call this today "nuclear
winter"), and in Mark 13:8 "and disorders" [και ταραχαι] (in the sense of confusion and chaos). There will be
also significant tremors, food shortages and epidemics along the length and breadth of the regions as a result
of using this weapon.
This weapon will also cause climate change, catastrophic drought and global famine. (cf. Revelation 6:5, 6)
So here we have a complete picture of the consequences of the global nuclear war. Is there any sense in
speeding up this war?
He called out the perfidy and incompetence of American intelligence and foreign policy officials during the
Obama era, as he should have. He wants a productive relationship with a declining nuclear and regional power,
as he should have. Is Putin a nice man? No. But neither is he a pusillanimous Leftist eurotwit.
I'm glad to see adults in the room, at long last. The Sixties are over, baby. Good riddance.
"Of course the Paul's are right as they always are."
Always?
"A number of the newsletters criticized civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., calling him a
pedophile and "lying socialist satyr".[2][15] These articles told readers that Paul had voted against making
Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a federal public holiday, saying "Boy, it sure burns me to have a national
holiday for that pro-communist philanderer, Martin Luther King. I voted against this outrage time and time
again as a Congressman. What an infamy that Ronald Reagan approved it! We can thank him for our annual Hate
Whitey Day."[2][16][17] During the 2008 and 2012 presidential election campaigns, Paul and his supporters said
that the passages denouncing King were not a reflection of Paul's own views because he considers King a
"hero".[18][19][20″
That last sentence is a hoot. Talk about "hysteria", but, go ahead, repeat Paul's lies that he knew nothing
about his own newsletter.
Johann:
"The left's hatred of Russia goes even deeper than US partisan politics. They hate them because they gave up
their world-wide communism ideology. And they hate them because they are not fully on board with the LGBQTXYZ
movement."
Like the NRA, The American Conservative needs to open "The Russian Conservative" chapters in Putin's
conservative Russia to protect Putin's murderous government.
It could be that the "Left", whatever that is in addlepated minds, merely desires a little real politik in
our relations with relations with Putin's Russia.
It's hard to tell the difference between ex-KGB Putin and ex-republicans like Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan.
The latter two make "full of crap" seem mild praise.
Off the top of my head, a few egregious examples in which the US government has "meddled" in other countries
during the last 100 years:
Mexico (Woodrow Wilson had thousands of US troops occupying Mexico until calling
them back to "meddle" in Europe's War to End All Wars, setting the stage for an even worse war 20 years later.)
Russia (Woodrow Wilson used the US military to "meddle" in the Russian revolution after the War to End All
Wars.)
Korea (undeclared war)
Vietnam (undeclared war)
Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Chile, and much of the rest of Central and South America.
Iran (helped overthrow its government in the 1950s and install the Shah of Iran, setting the stage for the
Iranian revolution.)
Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Egypt.
Yemen (huge humanitarian disaster as I write this. US government fully supporting head-chopping Saudi
Arabians in their campaign to starve, sicken and blow to bits hundreds of thousands of people. Support includes
US planes in-flight fueling of Saudi fighter/bomber jets.)
And let us not forget the enormous "meddling" in numerous US government elections and policy debates by . .
. Israel.
"He called out the perfidy and incompetence of American intelligence and
foreign policy officials during the Obama era, as he should have. He wants a productive relationship with a
declining nuclear and regional power, as he should have. Is Putin a nice man? No. But neither is he a
pusillanimous Leftist eurotwit."
It's important to understand what the US intelligence community is calling "interference in our election."
There has been no accusation that the Russians hacked into our electronic voting and changed results. Rather,
they did what we have done in other countries–the Russians ran an influence campaign. They bought ads and
created bots to spread the word. This is so utterly tame . . . there is nothing out of the ordinary US playbook
here.
Hacking the DNC server and revealing underhanded DNC doings? Hey, that's on the DNC for being both venal and
incompetent.
Anybody in 1962 shouting wild paranoid conspiracy theories about
THERE ARE RUSSIAN SPIES EVERYWHERE, THEY'RE TRYING TO TAKE OVER AMERICA
These people in 1962 would be (correctly) dismissed as Right Wing conspiracy kooks, now it's just standard
Lib Dems, RINOs, Neo Conservatives and fake news lying press.
We commissioned this Farstar comics with this theme – I mean like who in 2018 is really scared that Russians
like Anna Kournikova are going to take over America –
Unfortunately, Rand Paul is acting, but not on principle or in good faith. If he really wanted to stand against
manufactured hysteria, he would not accept the US "intelligence" agency claims and refer to their record – e.g.
on Iraq and before regarding stability of the Soviet Union – he would question the staggering difficulties of
attribution and forensics for networked, digital attacks (the main reason why any claims about who hacked whom
have to be read with skepticism), he would point to the corruption of our foreign politics by Saudi and Israeli
interests and money within the Trump-Kushner clan, and both parties, and he would compare the alleged – and
allegedly ineffectual – attempts to influence an already ridiculous election to the very real, pervasive and
corrupting impact of GOP voter disenfranchisement and bipartisan gerrymandering in service of incumbents and
their networks.
Rand Paul is the man who was going to stand against the Haspel appointment. He is a phoney,
but he serves as a weather vane for niche politicians on how the winds are turning.
Nothing about New START, no word about how George Bush made a promise that might have been in bad faith, how
Gorbachev was foolish enough to accept it, and how Bill Clinton broke it across the board, and piled on by
targeting Serbia in the Balkan conflict. Kennan did not refer to the Ukraine on his missive.
If Rand Paul is our last best hope, we are in deep trouble.
Jack Hunter " Senator Rand Paul was asked by CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday whether he thought Trump should
demand that Putin acknowledge Russia's meddling."
(0:01) TAPPER: 48 hours ago the US government, the Trump
administration, said the top Russian military intelligence officers orchestrated a massive hack to affect the
US election. How much do you want President Trump to try to hold Putin accountable for that?
PAUL: I think really we mistake our response if we think it's about accountability from the Russians.
They're another country. They're going to spy on us. They do spy on us. They're going to interfere in our
elections. We also do the same. Dov Levin at Carnegie Mellon studied this over about a 50-year period in the
last century and found 81 times that the US interfered in other countries' elections. So we all do it. What we
need to do is to make sure that our electoral process is protected. And I think because this has gotten
partisan and it's all about partisan politics we have forgotten that really the most important thing is the
integrity of our election. And there are things we can do and things that I've advocated: Making sure it's
decentralized all the way down to the precinct level; making sure we don't store all the data in one place,
even for a state, and that there's a back-up way so that someone in a precinct can say, 'Two thousand people
signed in, this was the vote tally I sent to headquarters.' There's a lot of ways that we can back-up our
election. Advertising, things like that, it's tricky. Can we restrict the Russians? We might be able to in some
ways, but I think at the bottom line we wanted the Russians to admit it. They're not going to admit it in the
same way we're not going to admit that we were involved in the Ukrainian elections or the Russian elections. So
all countries that can spy do. All countries that want to interfere in elections and have the ability to, they
try."
TAPPER: It sounds as though you are saying that the United States has done the equivalent of what the
Russians did in the 2016 election, and it might sound to some viewers that you're offering that statement as an
excuse for what the Russians did.
PAUL: No, what I would say is it's not morally equivalent, but I think in their mind it is. And I think it's
important to know in your adversary's mind the way that they perceive things. I do think that they react to our
interference in both their elections. One of the reasons they really didn't like Hillary Clinton is they found
her responsible for some of the activity by the US in their elections under the Obama administration. So I'm
not saying it's justified
TAPPER: But surely, Senator Paul, the United States has never done what the Russians did.
PAUL: I'm not saying they're equivalent, or morally equivalent, but I am saying that this is the way that
the Russians respond. So if you want to know how we have better diplomacy, or better reactions, we have to know
their response. But it's not just interference in elections that I think has caused this nationalism in Russia.
Also, I think part of the reason is is we promised them when James Baker, at the end when Germany reunified, we
promised them that we wouldn't go one inch eastward of Germany with NATO, and we've crept up on the borders,
and we still have neocons in both parties who want Ukraine and Georgia to be in NATO.
That's very, very provocative and it has stimulated and encouraged nationalism in Russia. George Kennan
predicted this. In 1998 when we still had Yeltsin and Russia was coming in our direction, he said, if you push
NATO up against Russia's borders, nationalism will arise and their militarist tendencies will increase, and you
may get someone like a Putin, basically.
George Kennan predicted the rise of Putin in 1998. And so we have to understand that for every action we
have, there is a reaction. And it's a big mistake for us -- not to say that we're morally equivalent or that
anything that Russia does is justified – but if we don't realize that everything we do has a reaction, we're
not going to be very good at understanding and trying to have peace in the world (3:38)
"... IS THE LEASH NOW OFF THE 'OTHER CIA?' https://southfront.org/is-the-leash-now-off-the-other-cia/ ..."
"... Under Donald Trump, who is on record favoring CIA kidnapping and torture programs, the CIA has been given a green light to carry out "targeted assassinations." ..."
Under Donald Trump, who is on record favoring CIA kidnapping and torture programs, the CIA has been given a green light to
carry out "targeted assassinations."
Although most of these targeted kills have been carried out by drone attacks in Yemen, Afghanistan,
Pakistan and Somalia, where civilian deaths from "collateral damage" are estimated to be well over three hundred, recent events
point to the CIA's return to the "bad old days," when it engaged in a global program of assassinating political leaders.
...Stuxnet, which was thought to be a joint American-Israeli assault on Iran's nuclear program. And there are reports of U.S.
attempts to similarly hamper North Korean missile development. Some consider such direct attacks on other governments to be akin
to acts of war. Would Washington join Moscow in a pledge to become a good cyber citizen?
Few issues generate a bipartisan response in Washington. President Donald Trump's upcoming
summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin is one.
Democrats who once pressed for détente with the Soviet Union act as if Trump will be
giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Neoconservatives and other Republican hawks are equally
horrified, having pressed for something close to war with Moscow since the latter's annexation
of Crimea in 2014. Both sides act as if the Soviet Union has been reborn and Cold War has
restarted.
Russia's critics present a long bill of requirements to be met before they would relax
sanctions or otherwise improve relations. Putin could save time by agreeing to be an American
vassal.
Topping everyone's list is Russian interference in the 2016 election, which was outrageous.
Protecting the integrity of our democratic system is a vital interest, even if the American
people sometimes treat candidates with contempt. Before joining the administration National
Security Adviser John Bolton even called Russian meddling "a casus belli , a true act of
war."
Yet Washington has promiscuously meddled in other nations' elections. Carnegie Mellon's Dov
H. Levin figured that between 1946 and 2000 the U.S. government interfered with 81 foreign
contests, including the 1996 Russian poll. Retired U.S. intelligence officers freely admit that
Washington has routinely sought to influence other nations' elections.
Yes, of course, Americans are the good guys and favor politicians and parties that the other
peoples would vote for if only they better understood their own interests -- as we naturally
do. Unfortunately, foreign governments don't see Uncle Sam as a Vestal Virgin acting on behalf
of mankind. Indeed, Washington typically promotes outcomes more advantageous to, well,
Washington. Perhaps Trump and Putin could make a bilateral commitment to stay out of other
nations' elections.
Another reason to shun Russia, argued Senator Rob Portman, is because "Russia still occupies
Crimea and continues to fuel a violent conflict in eastern Ukraine." Moscow annexed Crimea
after a U.S.-backed street putsch ousted the elected but highly corrupt Ukrainian President
Viktor Yanukovych. The territory historically was Russian, turned over to Ukraine most likely
as part of a political bargain in the power struggle following Joseph Stalin's death. A
majority of Crimeans probably wanted to return to Russia. However, the annexation was
lawless.
Rather like America's dismemberment of Serbia, detaching Kosovo after mighty NATO entered
the final civil war growing out of the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Naturally, the U.S. again had
right on its side -- it always does! -- which obviously negated any obligations created by
international law. Ever-virtuous Washington even ignored the post-victory ethnic cleansing by
Albanian Kosovars
Still, this makes Washington's complaints about Russia seem just a bit hypocritical: do as
we say, not as we do. In August 2008 John McCain expressed outrage over Russia's war with
Georgia, exclaiming: "In the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations." Apparently he
forgot that five years before the U.S. invaded Iraq, with McCain's passionate support. Here,
too, the two presidents could agree to mutual forbearance.
Worse is the conflict in the Donbas, in eastern Ukraine, between the Ukrainian army and
separatists backed by Russia. Casualty estimates vary widely, but are in the thousands. Moscow
successfully weakened Kiev and prevented its accession to NATO. However, that offers neither
legal nor moral justification for underwriting armed revolt.
Alas, the U.S. again comes to Russia with unclean hands. Washington is supporting the brutal
war by Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates against Yemen. Area specialists agree that the
conflict started as just another violent episode in a country which has suffered civil strife
and war for decades. The Houthis, a tribal/ethnic/religious militia, joined with their
long-time enemy, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, to oust his successor, Abdrabbuh Mansur
Hadi. Riyadh and Abu Dhabi attacked to reinstall a pliable regime and win economic control. The
U.S. joined the aggressors . At least Russia could claim national security was at stake,
since it feared Ukraine might join NATO.
The "coalition" attack turned the Yemeni conflict into a sectarian fight, forced the Houthis
to seek Iranian aid, and allowed Tehran to bleed its Gulf rivals at little cost. Human rights
groups agree that the vast majority of civilian deaths and bulk of destruction have been caused
by Saudi and Emirati bombing, with Washington's direct assistance. The humanitarian crisis
includes a massive cholera epidemic. The security consequences include empowering al-Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula. Perhaps the U.S. and Russian governments could commit to jointly forgo
supporting war for frivolous causes.
Human carnage and physical destruction are widespread in Syria. It will take years to
rebuild homes and communities; the hundreds of thousands of dead can never be replaced. Yet
Moscow has gone all out to keep Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power. The Heritage
Foundation's Luke Coffey and Alexis Mrachek demand that Moscow end its support for Assad "and
demonstrate a genuine willingness to work with the international community to bring a political
end to the Syrian civil war." The American Enterprise Institute's Leon Aron urged "a true
Russian withdrawal from Syria, specifically ceding control of the Hmeymim airbase and
dismantling recent expansions to the Tartus naval facility."
But the U.S. is in no position to complain. Washington's intervention has been disastrous,
first discouraging a negotiated settlement, then promoting largely non-existent moderate
insurgents, backing radicals, including the al-Qaeda affiliate (remember 9/11!?) against Assad,
simultaneously allying with Kurds and Turks, and taking over the fight against the Islamic
State even though virtually everyone in the Mideast had reason to oppose the group.
At least Russia, invited by the recognized government, had a reason to be there. Moscow's
alliance with Syria dates back to the Cold War and poses no threat to America, which is allied
with Israel, the Gulf States, Turkey, Jordan, and Egypt. Washington also possesses military
facilities in Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi
Arabia, Turkey, and United Arab Emirates. For most Middle Eastern countries Moscow is primarily
a bargaining chip to extort more benefits from America. Trump could propose that both countries
withdraw from Syria.
Coffey and Mracek also express outrage that Moscow "has weaponized its natural gas exports
to Europe, turning off the tap when countries dare go against its wishes." Russia's customers
should not fear coercion via cut-off. Of course, the U.S. never uses its economic power for
political ends. Other than to routinely impose economic sanctions on a variety of nations on
its naughty list. And to penalize not only American firms, but businesses from every other
nation .
Indeed, the Trump administration is insisting that every company in every country stop doing
business with Iran. The U.S. government will bar violators from the U.S. market or impose
ruinous fines on them. The Trump administration plans to sanction even its European allies,
those most vulnerable to Russian energy politics. Which suggests a modus vivendi that
America's friends likely would applaud: both Washington and Moscow could promise not to take
advantage of other nations' economic vulnerabilities for political ends.
Cyberwar is a variant of economic conflict. Heritage's Mracek cited "the calamitous
cyberattack, NotPetya," as "part of Russia's effort to destabilize Ukraine even further than in
the past." Yes, a criminal act. Of course, much the same could be said of Stuxnet, which was
thought to be a joint American-Israeli assault on Iran's nuclear program. And there are reports
of U.S. attempts to similarly hamper North Korean missile development. Some consider such
direct attacks on other governments to be akin to acts of war. Would Washington join Moscow in
a pledge to become a good cyber citizen?
Virtually everyone challenges Russia on human rights. Moscow falls far short, with Putin's
control of the media, manipulation of the electoral process, and violence against those
perceived as regime enemies. In this regard, at least, America is far better.
But many U.S. allies similarly fail this test. For instance, Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan has created an authoritarian state retaining merely the forms of democracy. Egypt's
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has constructed a tyranny more brutal than that of Hosni
Mubarak. Saudi Arabia's monarchy allows neither religious nor political freedom, and has grown
more repressive under Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman. It is not just Trump who remains
largely silent about such assaults on people's basic liberties. So do many of the president's
critics, who express horror that he would deal with such a man as Putin.
Moscow will not be an easy partner for the U.S. Explaining that "nobody wanted to listen to
us" before he took over, in March Putin declared: "You hear us now!" Compromise is inevitable,
but requires respect for both nations' interests. A starting point could be returning the two
nations' embassies to full strength and addressing arms control, such as the faltering
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and soon-expiring Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. A
larger understanding based on NATO ending alliance expansion in return for Russia withdrawing
from the conflict in the Donbas would be worth pursuing.
Neither the U.S. nor the Russian Federation can afford to allow their relations to
deteriorate into another Cold War. Russia is too important on too many issues, including acting
as a counterweight to China, the most serious geopolitical challenge to the U.S. Hopefully the
upcoming summit will begin the difficult process of rebuilding a working relationship between
Washington and Moscow.
DARAA, Syria – At first glance, all appears calm in this southern Syrian city where
protests first broke out seven years ago. Residents mill around shops in preparation for the
evening Iftar meal when they break their daily fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
But the tension is nonetheless palpable in this now government-controlled city. A few weeks
ago, Russian-brokered reconciliation talks in southern Syria fell apart when Western-backed
militants rejected a negotiated peace.
Whether there will now be a full-on battle for the south or not, visits last week to Syria's
three southern governorates, Daraa, Quneitra, and Suweida, reveal a startling possibility:
al-Qaeda's Syrian franchise -- the Nusra Front -- appears to be deeply entrenched alongside
these U.S.-backed militants in key, strategic towns and villages scattered throughout the
south.
U.S. media and think tanks obfuscate this fact by referring to all opposition fighters as
"rebels" or "moderates." Take a look at their maps and you only see three colors: red for the
Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies, green for opposition forces, black for ISIS.
So then, where is the Nusra Front, long considered by Western pundits to be one of the most
potent fighting forces against the SAA? Have they simply -- and conveniently -- been erased
from the Syrian battle map?
Discussions with Syrian military experts, analysts, and opposition fighters during my trip
revealed that Nusra is alive and kicking in the southern battlefields. The map below
specifically identifies areas in the south controlled by Nusra, but there are many more
locations that do not appear where Nusra is present and shares power with other militants.
Despite its U.S. and UN designation as a terrorist organization, Nusra has been openly
fighting alongside the "Southern Front," a group of 54 opposition militias funded and commanded
by a U.S.-led war room based in Amman, Jordan called the Military Operations Center (MOC).
Specifics about the MOC aren't easy to come by, but sources inside Syria -- both opposition
fighters and Syrian military brass (past and present) -- suggest the command center consists of
the U.S., UK, France, Jordan, Israel, and some Persian Gulf states.
They say the MOC supplies funds, weapons, salaries, intel, and training to the 54 militias,
many of which consist of a mere 200 or so fighters that are further broken down into smaller
groups, some only a few dozen strong.
SAA General Ahmad al-Issa, a commander for the frontline in Daraa, says the MOC is a
U.S.-led operation that controls the movements of Southern Front "terrorists" and is highly
influenced by Israel's strategic goals in the south of Syria -- one of which is to seize
control of its bordering areas to create a "buffer" inside Syrian territories.
How does he know this? Issa says his information comes from a cross-section of sources,
including reconciled/captured militants and intel from the MOC itself. The general cites MOC's
own rulebook for militants as an example of its Israel-centricity: "One, never threaten or
approach any Israeli border in any way. Two, protect the borders with (Israeli-occupied) Golan
so no one can enter Israel."
To illustrate the MOC's control over southern militants, Issa cites further regulations:
"three, never take any military action before clearing with MOC first. Four, if the MOC asks
groups to attack or stop, they must do so."
What happens if these rules are not upheld? "They will get their salaries cut," says
Issa.
The armed opposition groups supported by the MOC are mostly affiliated with the Free Syrian
Army (FSA), itself an ill-defined, highly fungible group of militants who have changed names
and affiliations with frequency during the Syrian conflict.
Over the course of the war, the FSA has fought
alongside the Nusra Front and ISIS -- some have even joined them. Today, despite efforts to
whitewash the FSA and Southern Front as "non-sectarian" and non-extremist , factions
like the Yarmouk Army, Mu'tazz Billah Brigade, Salah al-Din Division, Fajr al-Islam Brigade,
Fallujah al-Houran Brigade, the Bunyan al-Marsous grouping, Saifollah al-Masloul Brigade, and
others are currently occupying keys areas in Daraa in cooperation with the Nusra Front.
None of this is news to American policymakers. Even before the MOC was established in
February 2014, Nusra militants were fronting vital military maneuvers for the FSA. As one Daraa
opposition
activist explains: "The FSA and al-Nusra join together for operations but they have an
agreement to let the FSA lead for public reasons, because they don't want to frighten Jordan or
the West . Operations that were really carried out by al-Nusra are publicly presented by the
FSA as their own."
Efforts to conceal the depth of cooperation between Nusra and the FSA go right to the top.
Says one FSA commander in Daraa: "In many battles, al-Nusra takes part, but we don't tell the
(MOC) operations room about it."
It's highly doubtful that the U.S. military remains unaware of this. The Americans operate
on a "don't ask, don't tell" basis with regard to FSA-Nusra cooperation. In a 2015 interview with this
reporter , CENTCOM spokesman Lieutenant Commander Kyle Raines was quizzed about why
Pentagon-vetted fighters' weapons were showing up in Nusra hands. Raines responded: " We
don't 'command and control' these forces -- we only 'train and enable' them. Who they say
they're allying with, that's their business."
In practice, the U.S. doesn't appear to mind the Nusra affiliation -- regardless of the fact
that the group is a terror organization -- as long as the job gets done.
U.S. arms have been seen in Nusra's possession for many years now, including highly valued
TOW missiles , which were game-changing weapons in the Syrian military theater. When
American weapons end up in al-Qaeda hands during the first or second year of a conflict, one
assumes simple errors in judgment. When the problem persists after seven years, however, it
starts to look like there's a policy in place to look the other way.
It's also not difficult to grasp why U.S. maps patently ignore evidence of Nusra embedded
among U.S.-supported militias. The group, after all, is exempt from ceasefires, viewed as a
fair target for military strikes at all times.
In December 2015, UN
Security Council Resolution 2254 called for "Member States to prevent and suppress
terrorist acts committed specifically by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known
as Da'esh), Al-Nusra Front (ANF), and all other individuals, groups, undertakings, and
entities associated with Al Qaeda or ISIL, and other terrorist groups, as designated by the
Security Council" (emphasis added). Furthermore, the resolution makes clear that ceasefires
"will not apply to offensive or defensive actions against these individuals, groups,
undertakings and entities."
This essentially means that the Syrian army and its allies can tear apart any areas in the
south of Syria where Nusra fighters -- and "entities associated" with it -- are based. In
effect, international law provides a free hand for a Syrian military assault against
U.S.-backed militias co-located with Nusra, and undermines the ability of their foreign
sponsors to take retaliatory measures.
That's why the Nusra Front doesn't show up on U.S. maps.
In an interview last week, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad blamed the sudden breakdown of
southern reconciliation efforts on "Israeli and American interference," which he says "put pressure on the terrorists in that
area in order to prevent reaching any compromise or peaceful resolution."
Today, the Israeli border area with Syria is dotted with
Nusra and ISIS encampments, which Israel clearly
prefers over the Syrian army and its Iranian and Hezbollah allies. The Wall Street
Journal even
reported last year that Israel was secretly providing funding for salaries, food, fuel, and
munitions to militants across its border.
In early June, two former Islamist FSA members (one of them also a former Nusra fighter) in
Beit Jinn -- a strategic area bordering Syria, Lebanon, and Israel -- told me that Israel had
been paying their militia's salaries for a year before a reconciliation deal was struck with
the Syrian government. "Every month Israel would send us $200,000 to keep fighting," one
revealed. "Our leaders were following the outside countries. We were supported by MOC, they
kept supporting us till the last minute," he said.
Earlier that day, in the village of Hadar in the Syrian Golan, members of the Druze
community described a bloody Nusra
attack last November that killed 17: "All the people here saw how Israel helped Nusra
terrorists that day. They covered them with live fire from the hilltops to help Nusra take over
Hadar. And at the end of the fights, Israel takes in the injured Nusra fighters and
provides them with medical services," says Marwan Tawil, a local English teacher.
"The ceasefire line (Syrian-Israeli border) is 65 kilometers between here to Jordan, and
only this area is under the control of the SAA," explains Hadar's mayor. "Sixty kilometers is
with Nusra and Israel and only the other five are under the SAA."
Israel is so heavily vested in keeping Syria and its allies away from its borders, it has
actively
bolstered al-Qaeda and other extremists in Syria's southern theater. As Israeli Defense
Minister Moshe Ya'alon famously explained
in 2016, "In Syria, if the choice is between Iran and the Islamic State, I choose the Islamic
State." To justify their interventions in the battle ahead, the U.S. and Israel claim that
Iranian and Hezbollah forces are present in the south, yet on the ground in Daraa and Quneitra,
there is no visible sight of either.
Multiple sources confirm this in Daraa, and insist that that there are only a handful of
Hezbollah advisors -- not fighters -- in the entire governorate.
So why the spin? "This is a public diplomacy effort to make the West look like they've
forced Iran and Hezbollah out of the south," explains General Issa.
The U.S., Israel, and their allies cannot win this southern fight. They can only prolong the
insecurity for a while before the SAA decides to launch a military campaign against the
54-plus-militias-Nusra occupying the south of Syria. The end result is likely to be a
negotiated settlement peppered with a few "soft battles" to eject the more hardline
militants.
As one SAA soldier on the scene in Daraa tells me: "Fifty-four factions in a small area
shows weakness more than it shows strength." And their cooperation with the Nusra Front just
makes the targets on their backs even larger.
Sharmine Narwani is a commentator and
analyst of Mideast geopolitics based in Beirut.
Credit:
Evan El-Amin/Shutterstock
The United States has adorned its president with extravagance that makes Roman emperors
appear frugal by comparison. And such visible signs of the deification of our president are complemented by legal
doctrines that echo Richard Nixon's once discredited claim to David Frost: "When the president does it, that means it is
not illegal."
These extra-constitutional developments reflect the transformation
of the United States from a republic, whose glory was liberty and whose rule of law was king, to an empire, whose glory
is global dominion and whose president is law. The Constitution's architects would be shocked to learn that contemporary
presidents play prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner to any person on the planet deemed a threat to national
security on the basis of secret, untested evidence known only to the White House.
An empire demands a Caesar and blind obedience from its citizens. World leadership
through the global projection of military force cannot be exercised with checks and balances and a separation of powers
that arrests speed and invites debate. Napoleon lectured: "Nothing in war is more important than unity of command .
Better one bad general than two good ones." And Lord Tennyson, saluting the British Empire, versified in
The Charge of the Light Brigade
:
As justice requires the appearance of justice, a Caesar requires the appearance of a
Caesar. Thus is the president protected by platoons of Secret Service agents. The White House, by closing previously
open avenues through the heart of the capital and shielding the president from citizen detractors, has become a castle.
The White House staff has expanded and aggrandized power at the expense of Cabinet officials confirmed with the advice
and consent of the Senate.
Debate, encouraged by the separation of powers, is superfluous where support for
empire is underwritten by the multi-trillion-dollar military-industrial-counterterrorism complex, as it is in the United
States. The Republican and Democratic parties are unified behind at least seven ongoing unconstitutional presidential
wars and climbing trillion-dollar national security budgets.
Our warfare state has given birth to subsidiary surveillance, crony capitalism, and a
welfare state. Congress and the judicial branch have become largely sound and fury, signifying nothing. The
Constitution's separation of powers is atrophying.
The life of the law is not justice but genuflections to power. It manufactures
doctrines that honor the power principle that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. When the
configuration of power changes, the law adapts accordingly. The adaptations may not be instantaneous, but they are
inexorable. This is not surprising. Judges are not born like Athena from the head of Zeus. They are selected through a
political process that vets them for compatibility with the views of their political benefactors. Benjamin Cardozo
observed in
The Nature of the Judicial
Process
:
"The great tides and
currents which engulf the rest of men do not turn aside in their course and pass the judges by."
The United States has become the largest and most actively garrisoned empire in
history, built up by World War II and the 1991 disintegration of the Soviet Union. Our empire has, among other things,
approximately 800 military bases in more than 70 countries, over 240,000 active duty and reserve troops in at least 172
countries and territories
, de facto
or
de jure
commitments to defend 70
countries, and presidential wars as belligerents or co-belligerents in Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan,
Afghanistan, and against al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The president has by necessity become
a Caesar irrespective of whether the occupant of the White House possesses recessive or dominant genes. The law has
adapted accordingly, destroying the Constitution like a wrecking ball.
At present, the president with impunity initiates war in violation of the Declare War
Clause; kills American citizens in violation of the Due Process Clause; engages in indiscriminate surveillance his own
citizens in violation of the Fourth Amendment; substitutes executive agreements for treaties to circumvent the
requirements of Senate ratifications by two-thirds majorities in violation of the Treaty Clause; substitutes executive
orders for legislation in violation of Article I, section 1; issues presidential signing statements indistinguishable
from line-item vetoes in violation of the Presentment Clause; wields vast standard-less delegations of legislative
authority in violation of the Constitution's separation of powers; brandishes a state secrets privilege to block
judicial redress for unconstitutional executive action in violation of due process; refuses submission to congressional
oversight in violation of the congressional power of inquiry; and declines to defend defensible duly enacted laws in
violation of the Take Care Clause.
The Constitution will be reborn only if the American people reject their Empire in
favor of a republic where individual liberty is the summum bonum. The odds of that happening are not good.
Bruce Fein was associate deputy attorney general and general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission
under President Reagan and counsel to the Joint Congressional Committee on Covert Arms Sales to Iran. He is a partner in
the law firm of Fein & DelValle PLLC.
Anthropologist David Vine spent several years visiting and investigating U.S military bases
abroad. To put it mildly, he disapproves of what he found. In his sweeping critique, Base
Nation , Vine concludes that Washington's extensive network of foreign bases -- he claims
there are about 800 of them -- causes friction with erstwhile American allies, costs way too
much money, underwrites dictatorships, pollutes the environment, and morally compromises the
country. Far from providing an important strategic deterrent, the bases actually undermine our
security. To remedy this immense travesty, Vine calls for Washington to bring the troops back
home.
If nothing else, Base Nation is a timely book. The issue of our expensive foreign
commitments has taken center stage in this presidential election. Vine probably finds it ironic
that most of the criticism is coming from Donald Trump.
Our extensive foreign-base network is probably an issue that we can't ignore for long.
Today, there seems more urgency to look at these long-term base commitments and examine what we
are really getting out of them. So, for raising the issue, I say, "Thank you for your service,
Mr. Vine."
But it is a shame that Base Nation , which could have made a strong contribution to
this debate, ends up making a heavy-handed and somewhat unreliable case against and the U.S.
military and U.S. foreign policy in general. His sweeping indictments detract from the
importance of his initial focus, our overextended base network.
There are some positives. Vine stands on firm ground when he details how inefficient the
base system often is. In fact, this is an issue that the federal government has been
addressing, albeit slowly and haltingly. Budget realities are solving the problem; many bases
are being shuttered and their functions consolidated into others. Vine thinks that overseas
bases cost us at least $71 billion a year; maybe closer to $100-200 billion. In one of the more
persuasive sections of the book, he explains how he made these calculations, which follow to
some extent an important 2013 study from the RAND Corporation. That it is difficult coming up
with any precise figures on overseas base spending suggests that we probably need to take a
harder look at how taxpayer money is being used.
Likewise, Vine raises valid criticisms about how many bases were constructed by either
displacing native populations, as the British did for our benefit at the Indian Ocean atoll
Diego Garcia, or by marginalizing the locals, as we allegedly have done at Okinawa in Japan. He
highlights the environmental damage done by U.S. military ordnance, although I think it unfair
that he ignores the more scrupulous attendance to the environment that we find in today's armed
forces. And Vine is right that having many young and bored men based far from home probably
doesn't elevate the morals of the local, host population.
But Vine simply fails to persuade in other parts of his critique. His fundamental distrust
of the military leads him to accept unquestioningly every dubious charge against it. He also
tends to be less than discriminating in some of his sourcing and characterization of events.
These problems undermine the overall credibility of his reporting.
Part of the problem with Base Nation is definitional. Vine's definition of a base --
"any place, facility or installation used regularly for military purposes, of any kind" -- is
far too broad. Even temporary assignments with host governments get defined as "bases." This
leads him to estimate that there are at minimum 686 bases, with 800 being "a good estimate."
Why the need to inflate the numbers?
Vine's foreign-base maps, though compelling to look at, appear a bit suspect in light of his
expanded definition. What's that big star in Greenland? That's Thule Air Station, a Danish
base, where we have about 100 personnel. And the other one in Ascension Island? That's a small
satellite-monitoring station, run by the British. What's that dot in Cairo? Oh, it's a
medical-research facility. These are hardly the footprints of overweening imperialism.
Likewise, he identifies many bases in Africa. To debunk the official position that we have
one permanent base there -- in Djibouti, rented from the French -- plus a few drone sites, Vine
relies on dodgy research from Nick Turse, a noted anti-military critic who thinks that the
Pentagon runs a hidden African empire.
Along similar lines, Vine believes the U.S. maintains an extensive, secret base system in
Latin America. We have one permanent base in the region, Cuba's Guantanamo Bay (GTMO). Once all
the al-Qaeda prisoners are gone, GTMO's main function will return to fleet training and
disaster response for the Caribbean. In addition, we have one arrangement in Soto Cano Air
Field in Honduras, which hosts a squadron of helicopters engaged in counternarcotic operations.
How does this base destabilize Central America, as Vine suggests? You got me.
Soto Cano is featured in one of the more tendentious chapters, which reveals Vine's method.
In discussing the base, he strongly suggests the U.S. military there conspired with the
Honduran Army during the "coup" against President Manuel Zelaya in 2009. He quotes a local
activist insisting the U.S. was behind the coup, and then leaves it at that. In fact, the U.S.
government firmly opposed removing the anti-American Zelaya, slapped sanctions on Honduras, and
negotiated for months to have Zelaya brought back into Honduras. Suggesting the U.S. military
backed the coup is, well, baseless.
Many of Vine's scattershot charges are of a similar nature. He accuses the U.S. Navy of
being in bed with the mob in Naples because, allegedly, it rents housing from landlords who may
have mob connections. He blames the military for the red-light districts around foreign bases,
like in South Korea, as if it directly created them. In another context, he claims, based on
one professor's opinion, that the U.S. Naval Academy fosters a rampant rape culture, and so
on.
Toward the end of the book, Vine challenges those who believe the bases are providing
valuable deterrence to "prove it." I'm not sure I can prove it to his satisfaction, but
regarding Korean-peninsula security, some experts point to our strong presence there as
deterring both sides from overreacting. And regarding Iraq, it seems evident that leaving
without any U.S. military presence destabilized the country. Many of our operations with
foreign militaries in Africa, Latin America, and southeast Asia have a strong humanitarian
focus. It is disconcerting that he dedicates no space to these important, stabilizing missions
that are often enabled by our forward base deployment.
But Vine never demonstrates his main point: that the bases themselves are destabilizing. The
countries with our largest base presence -- Germany, Italy, South Korea, and Japan -- are all
prosperous, peaceful democracies. As for the local protests at our foreign military bases that
occasionally happen, these seem no more problematic than what occurs, certainly more often, at
our many embassies abroad. Should we withdraw our diplomatic missions too?
As for bases destabilizing the developing world, Vine overplays the U.S.-imperialism angle
and fails to appreciate how much control even a weaker government has over its own sovereignty.
Little Honduras could kick us out of Soto Cano tomorrow; we have an agreement that could end at
any time. Ecuador refused to renew our lease at Manta Air Base in 2008; we left without much
fuss. The Philippines in 1992 changed its constitution to prohibit foreign bases, forcing us to
leave Subic Bay. Now Manila, feeling threatened by China over the South China Sea island
disputes, is inviting us back. The Filipinos mustn't feel our presence too destabilizing.
Given Vine's criticism of our large base footprint, you would think he'd approve of the
Pentagon's recent plans on lowering its profile with its "lily pad" strategy -- bilaterally
negotiated, pre-staged locations that might enable a future deployment. Surely this approach
would alleviate the problems of the large, permanent bases Vine so painstakingly sights? But,
somewhat illogically, he objects to this "light footprint" approach as a new sign of
encroaching imperialism, not of gradual U.S. realignment and withdrawal.
Even if he doesn't make a strong case in Base Nation , in the long run, Vine probably
will get his wish. It is hard to imagine that an extensive military base network in Europe and
East Asia, the outcome of our victory in World War II and justified by Cold War strategy, will
still make sense a few decades down the road. Changes are already in the wind. A new strategy
for U.S. foreign policy and military power projection will doubtless be shaped largely by
budget exigencies and shifts in our allies' regional security priorities.
Michael J. Ard, a former naval officer and U.S. government analyst, works in the
security field and lectures on international security at Rice University.
Our critic seems to have some serious cognitive dissonance going on in his avoidance of
recognizing the imperial project that undergirds circling the world with U.S. military power
projection.
Fran Macadam is right. The bases and the problems they create are incidental to the policy
that engendered. Our nation went from a policy of intermittent imperialism after 1898 to one
of permanent imperialism after 1941.
Unless we ditch the empire and return to our correct status as an independent republic, we
will suffer the fate of all previous empires.
If we grant that our global commitments are burdensome, why not take the argument in a
reasonable direction. As we remember from the days of BRAC, closing bases is like pulling eye
teeth, so let's focus on narrowing this argument down to what may be feasible: End NATO,
remove our unwelcome forces from the Middle East, and shutter the bases where we're not
wanted (e.g. AFRICOM, Okinawa) and where leases are due to expire. We need to walk our
projection back from the borders of China & Russia. Even a minimal plan of this sort
would require a decade to accomplish. Ultimately we need a master, strategic foreign policy
vision that walks back our global projection this debate goes nowhere without that.
Unfortunately neither GOP or Democrat parties offer this vision. No need to wring our hands
over a "Close All the Bases" debate until we're back to Constitutional governance and foreign
policy, and are rid of the military-industrial complex. And the odds of that are ?
Our Founding Fathers never wanted or would have allowed foreign military bases. Thomas
Jefferson was adamantly opposed to building a navy but John Adams built a navy and Jefferson
used it to stop muslim barbarians from enslaving the crews of US merchant ships.
I cannot fathom why the US needs basis throughout the world. Id much rather have a strong
Philipines, Japan and Taiwan for us to partner with than vassal states that spend nothing for
their own defense and put the entire burden the their alliance on the US. How many shades is
that from colonialism or parasitism? Not that far in my book.
Europe is a fine example of parasitism. Today Europe expects its protector to be the US,
it has shifted all its resources to social programs and as a result it cannot even defend its
borders from unarmed migrants much less from a hostile aggressor.
So what is the strategy to contain Russia and China by being in Central Asia, to contain
Europe by constraining it with NATO, to constrain Asia via China, Japan, Philipines, Vietnam,
etc.
Im not a fan. The US is spending so much money maintaining these military alliances and
using US money and jobs to bribe compliance that our nation is going bankrupt and our
infrastructure is 3rd world. If these truly are competitor nations the wiser approach would
be to have a strong 1st world infrastructure, a strong economy, strong education and
employment and expansion into Mexico, Central America and South America. Nowhere else in the
world is a nation capable of dominating an entire continent from aggressor competing nations.
Nowhere else in the world is a nation capable of dominating an entire portion of the globe.
Instead of growing North, Central and South America we are constraining the rest of the
globe. Not only is this fiscally irresponsible but one can only shake a bottle of champagne
for so long and expect the bottle to constrain the carbonation. Eventually the cork will pop
and the declining debtor power will be brought down to size with years of animous for holding
others back.
" causes friction with erstwhile American allies, costs way too much money, underwrites
dictatorships, pollutes the environment, and morally compromises the country."
Nowhere in this article is there mention of what I would hope to be the primary purpose of
a forward base.
Does it truly help the US military defend the US (and I would include projections of power
that deter bad actors)?
If yes, then sod off to the wanker David Vine
Our elites run roughshod over other peoples, and the American people can't constrain them
either. At least we know who the "real" Americans are. L'etat, it is them.
It shouldn't be a surprise that others piggyback on our defense spending. Why would they not?
From our point of view, who pays, says, and since we insist on saying wherever we can, we've
got to pay.
I have frequently wondered how costs of this sort of thing are calculated. Do the taxes
military families pay get deducted from the cost? Given at least some of them would be
unemployed in today's economy, do benefits they would have get deducted? Does the money they
spend in local economies in the US when not deployed get factored in some way? What about the
taxes the corporations which provide goods and services to the military pay, and that their
employees pay? It would seem almost impossible to arrive at an accurate cost figure.
"Does it truly help the US military defend the US (and I would include projections of power
that deter bad actors)?
If yes, then sod off to the wanker David Vine"
Using that logic, you wouldn't mind Russia or China setting up a military base in Mexico
or Cuba to deter the US (a proven 'bad actor') right??
Like a Dos Equis ad, Mexico is "keeping it interesante ." On July 1, Andres Manuel
Lopez Obrador, the veteran left-wing politician known as AMLO,
will likely win Mexico's presidential election , to the horror of policy analysts, U.S.
government officials, and the Mexican business community. As head of the upstart National
Regeneration Movement (MORENA, the Spanish acronym, also means "dark skin"), AMLO pledges to
make Mexico self-sufficient on food, halt foreign investment in the oil industry, and grant
amnesty to drug traffickers. AMLO hates the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) --
although he's promised to stay in it for now -- and "the Wall" even more.
Washington's days of having a predictable and compliant partner in Mexico may be over.
This election is likely to radically transform Mexican politics. MORENA is
surging in the polls and may give AMLO a strong legislative bloc. Nationalist-minded
legislators from other parties could also defect to his agenda. That would cause a major
Mexican political realignment, under which for the next six years it could be governed by a
self-described "revolutionary nationalist" ruling coalition. It makes sense: Mexico's
neoliberal era had to end sooner or later. AMLO's longtime critique of an unfair economy and a
complacent and unresponsive political system has finally resonated.
What accounts for this sudden turnaround? Several factors have aligned in AMLO's favor.
Start with AMLO's opponents, who, in a time of change, represent continuity, splitting the
neoliberal vote in Mexico's "winner-take-all" system. The conservative National Action Party
(PAN), his strongest competitor, diluted its solid brand by running in coalition with two
leftist parties. The ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) selected a well-qualified
former finance minister who is out of his depth as a campaigner. That's left the once-powerful
PRI mailing this campaign in, and AMLO siphoning up its traditional voters.
Insecurity and corruption,
according to polls , are the top issues for Mexican voters, and on these AMLO scores well.
Especially on managing corruption and crime, Mexico's political elite have appeared notoriously
inept. The former head of the state oil company PEMEX, a close ally of President Enrique
Peña Nieto, has been credibly accused of taking up to
$10 million in bribes to approve contracts from the corrupt Brazilian construction company
Odebrecht. Several governors have been indicted for racketeering and graft; one
even went on the lam and was arrested in Guatemala. Recently, Mexico's 12-year campaign to
corral drug trafficking organizations fell apart, and violence skyrocketed. Twenty-eight
thousand Mexicans were murdered last year, and political candidates are being physically
attacked. Meanwhile, drug trafficking gangs ("cartels") are placing parts of the country off
limits.
Then there's President Trump, who has treated Mexico as a problem and not as a partner by
insisting that it fund his humiliating border wall. When asked in 2015 by Wall Street
Journal editors if he thought the U.S. should promote stability and economic growth in
Mexico, he replied, "I don't care about Mexico honestly. I really don't care about Mexico."
Trump has bolstered AMLO's long-held view that Mexico has relied on the United States for too
long. On the campaign trail, AMLO has vowed to put Trump "in his place."
Still, these more immediate causes don't entirely explain AMLO's impending success. At a
deeper level, AMLO seems to be Mexico's answer to Samuel Huntington's key "who are we?"
question on national identity. AMLO's MORENA explicitly seeks to revive the abandoned ideals of
the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920): anti-imperialism, defense of national resources, equality,
and the protection of peasant rights. Tellingly, AMLO cites as his heroes two successful
presidents who propelled Mexico forward: Benito Juarez, the black-clad Zapotec Indian who
defeated the French-backed 19th-century "empire," and Lazaro Cardenas, the former revolutionary
general who nationalized the oil industry and built the modern Mexican state.
Despite his populism, AMLO hasn't always been an outsider. He started his political career
during the 1980s, when the PRI was still was Mexico's governing party. But he soon saw the
changes happening in his rural native state of Tabasco, when the oil boom pushed out the
farming and fishing industry. AMLO dissented from the PRI's decision to liberalize the economy
and joined the opposition in 1988.
Led by Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who was president from 1988 to 1994, the country embarked
on a strict neoliberal development path and internationalist agenda, reversing its program of
statist economics and authoritarian governance. Its ruling politicians sold state industries,
embraced market reforms, let the peso float, and joined the North American Free Trade
Agreement. Over the last several years, Mexico City has even permitted greater American
involvement in its war against drug traffickers. Under Peña Nieto, Mexico finally
allowed its oil industry to permit foreign investment.
In truth, these reforms worked well enough: Mexico democratized and developed into a solidly
middle-income country with steady economic growth. Net immigration into the United States has
come to a halt. Security issues were messy, but unlikely to destabilize the country.
These reforms represented a big win for Washington. If American intervention was needed for
the occasional peso crisis or drug trafficker menace, we were happy to oblige. Mexico made a
difficult partner at times, but on the policy side, it was where Washington wanted it to
be.
But the cost of these changes may have been Mexico's identity, its sense of self. Returning
to Huntington, his "The Clash of
Civilizations?" article described Mexico as a state "torn" between its economic future and
political and cultural past. After a top advisor to President Salinas described the sweeping
changes the government was making, Huntington remarked, "It seems to me that basically you want
to change Mexico from a Latin American country into a North American country." Salinas looked
at him with surprise and exclaimed: "Exactly! That's precisely what we are trying to do, but of
course we could never say so publicly."
AMLO and his followers have brooded about these radical changes for years. To this day, he
refers to the arch-neoliberal Salinas simply as El Innombrable -- he that cannot be
named. Neoliberalism launched AMLO not just on a political career but on a personal crusade to
bring the country back to its former ideals.
When AMLO won the Mexico City mayorship in 2000, he built up a national political base and
became a burr in the saddle of President Vicente Fox, who had embraced the liberal reforms of
the formerly ruling PRI. AMLO criticized Fox relentlessly, and in retaliation, Fox attempted to
have him legally prohibited from running for president in 2006.
This clumsy effort failed, giving AMLO a boost. But he narrowly lost the contest to the
PAN's Felipe Calderon, whose campaign linked AMLO with Venezuela's leftist President Hugo
Chavez. Embittered in defeat, AMLO immediately claimed the voting was rigged against him. AMLO
and his raucous followers held protests for months and even formed a parallel government. He
may have lost in 2006, but he solidified his position as the leader of Mexico's alternative
left.
AMLO's anti-system stance has given weight to the claim that he'd be another Chavez. The
comparison seems invidious, as the late comandante of Venezuela, an avowed Marxist and
coup plotter, crushed democratic institutions, set up a socialist economy, and in general drove
what had been a prosperous South American country into the ground. AMLO, an authentic democrat,
appears less megalomaniacal and more rules-focused, more the romantic reactionary than the
revolutionary radical.
Still, many of the same forces that propelled Chavez are driving AMLO now. Like Chavez, AMLO
is coming to power after a period of neoliberal reform and perceived intractable corruption.
Like Chavez, AMLO enjoys an almost mystical bond with his nation's poorer classes. And very
much like Chavez, AMLO is instinctively, but probably not irreversibly, anti-American in
outlook.
How these characteristics will play out with AMLO in power is hard to predict. The two main
parties won't be behind him, but many of their followers might. All of those alienated by
neoliberalism, the perceived kowtowing to Washington, the surrender of economic resources to
foreign companies and the free market, will flock to his banner. It is remarkable how some
former members of the right-of-center National Action Party and the PRI have backed his
campaign.
Some of AMLO's policy proposals seem less the stuff of hard leftism than nostalgic
nationalism. He focuses heavily on national development for industry and agriculture aimed at
self-reliance and reducing imports. He proposes holding referendums on the enacted legislation,
a move to broaden democracy, which would require constitutional reform. He seeks to raise the
minimum wage, but refreshingly pledges "no new taxes."
AMLO loves to wax nostalgic about Mexico's strong state traditions and will almost certainly
attempt to restore the waning power of the Mexican presidency as an anti-corruption pulpit. In
the tradition of newly inaugurated Mexican presidents, he'll probably look to prosecute a node
of corruption in Mexican society: a prominent businessman or politician, rather than a labor
union like his predecessors.
Much of the progress the United States has made with Mexico on security cooperation will
probably be jeopardized. It's hard to believe that AMLO will endorse the close relations that
the DEA, the Pentagon, and the intelligence community have forged with their Mexican
counterparts in the war on drugs. The extradition of the notorious drug kingpin Joaquin el
Chapo Guzman to the U.S. in 2017 will probably be the high watermark in the relationship. It is
doubtful that AMLO will permit more high-profile extraditions. President Trump's disdain for a
close relationship that has taken us decades to build may come back to haunt us.
But a poor relationship between Washington and Mexico City doesn't have
to be inevitable. Despite the rhetoric, the flamboyant American billionaire has much in
common with the austere Mexican populist. Both countries have too many common interests to go
down separate paths. The question is: does AMLO have to build the bomb to get Trump to care
about Mexico?
Michael J. Ard is a former deputy national intelligence officer for the Western
Hemisphere and the author of"An Eternal Struggle: The Role of the National Action
Party in Mexico's Democratic Transition." He teaches international relations at Rice
University's Master of Global Affairs program.
That's just the thing, AMLO isn't "an authentic democrat." He founded MORENA so he could keep
his presidential aspirations going; he's indistinguishable from the party. After losing in
2006, he notoriously said "to hell with institutions." His followers won't admit this, but
his platform is as diluted as the rest: he's taken in suspects of corruption and has allied
himself with both a very "conservative" party (the small, evangelical PES) and Mexico's hard
leftists.
"... The attributions of attacks to countries are very shaky. Throw in a couple of Cyrillic letters and voilà, you have associated a certain IP address or a certain piece of code with Russia. Somehow these simpleton arguments are uncritically accepted as proofs by computer security professionals the world over, who, of all people, really should know better. It's as if all the supposedly smart cryptographers and programmers are completely oblivious to the concept of manipulation. ..."
Could someone remind me the amount of country's America have invaded since the last world war
30 - 40 , I here'd. Compared to Russia 5-8 ? Russia is in Syria by invitation to deal with
rebels/terrorist's .America is now threatening both. Despite being there to attempt a regime
change. Just who do they think they are ? The sooner they are stopped the better and the
easier.
Russia intervened nowhere; the USSR intervened in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. In 1993,
Yeltsin's cabal intervened in Russia to preserve Bush's and Clinton's New World Order. USSR
was invited into Afghanistan; Outlaw US Empire wasn't. An incomplete list from William Blum's
Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II . A graphic map based on Blum's
book.
Yesterday, Putin met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Unfortunately, the Kremlin's recap of
the meeting's currently incomplete, but what is recorded is instructive:
"Of course, we look at the Russian Federation as a founder of the United Nations and as a
permanent member of the Security Council, but I would say that at the present moment we look
at the Russian Federation as an indispensable element of the creation of a new multipolar
world.
"To be entirely frank, these are not easy times for multilateralism and not easy times for
the UN. And I think that after the Cold War and after a short period of unipolar world we are
still struggling to find a way to have a structured, multipolar world with multilateral
governmental institutions that can work. And this is something that worries me a lot and is
something in which, I believe, the Russian Federation has a unique role to play."
Considering many think Guterres just an agent for the Outlaw US Empire, maybe his cited
words will cause a reassessment. I'd like to know what followed. Apparently there was some
discussion about Korea and the
economic initiatives being openly discussed since RoK President Moon will arrive in
Russia tomorrow.
Lavrov met with Guterres today, and his
opening remarks shine a bit more light on what was discussed:
"As emphasised by President Putin, we have invariably supported, support, and will
continue to support the UN, this unique universal organisation. We think highly of your
intention, Mr Secretary-General, to raise the profile of the United Nations in world affairs,
particularly in settling regional conflicts. As you noted yourself at the meeting in the
Kremlin yesterday, this is largely dependent on the general state of the international system
as a whole and the UN member states' readiness to act collectively, jointly, rather than
unilaterally, and to pursue the goals enshrined in the UN Charter rather than
self-centred,[sic] immediate aims.
"We note that you have consistently advocated the pooling of efforts by major players to
deal with world problems. This is the logic of the UN Charter, specifically its clauses on
the creation and powers of the UN Security Council. I hope that based on the values we share
we will be able to successfully continue cooperation in the interests of solving
international problems."
Lots of emphasis on the absolute necessity of making the UN Charter whole again and not
allowing any one nation to make a mockery of it by pursuing its "self-centered, immediate
aims."
Ben @ 14
Thanks Ben. Yep that's what l thought reality would look like, that's my sanity safe for a
while longer. Remember we are not alone!
Zanon @ 12
That is a perfect example of 'fake news' we can spot it here ! Or are we here now msm!
Pantaraxia @ 20
Wow that doubles what I was already shocked about ! And then of course there's the comercal
operations destablising country's using greed as a weapon. Plus the banks, I'm sure South
Africa would have been a real success if they'd kept the banking curuption out. Time for
immoral capitalism to fall.
Also don't you just hate victim blaming.There that's me done. Grrr
@b: I know you're just one man and can't do everything, but it would be wonderful if you
could cover the history of hacking accusations against Russia. No one lays out a sequence of
events better than you.
Just yesterday, another accusation has been leveled against Russia by the head of
Germany's BfV intelligence agency, Hans-Georg Maassen:
German intelligence sees Russia behind hack of energy firms - media report (Reuters).
It's a serious accusation, and one would expect a serious proof. However, no proof has been
given except that "it fits the Russian modus operandi". Also, the fact that the alleged
attack has been named "Berserk Bear" by some unknown Western analyst. Apparently, that's
enough proof by today's standards.
There is a critical lack of independent thinking and skepticism in the international
computer security circles nowadays. The attributions of attacks to countries are very
shaky. Throw in a couple of Cyrillic letters and voilà, you have associated a certain
IP address or a certain piece of code with Russia. Somehow these simpleton arguments are
uncritically accepted as proofs by computer security professionals the world over, who, of
all people, really should know better. It's as if all the supposedly smart cryptographers and
programmers are completely oblivious to the concept of manipulation.
"... "The good news is the Deep State seems less competent than we originally feared" -Well, obviously; or Hillary would be President NOW ..."
"... The Deep State may not have been very competent ( Gee,whudda surprise!)) but– it's still in place. And that fact alone should make all of us uneasy. ..."
"... I'm satisfied that we have the final word on Clinton's guilt and the special treatment she and her staff were given by criminal investigators who believed she was going to win the election. ..."
"... I think a good book to explain what we are seeing is The Fiefdom Syndrome by Robert Herbold. That highlights how various managers set up their own sub organizations in a groups. It focuses on the corporate model yet it can equally apply to any other human organization. ..."
"... Comey took Lynch completely off the hook. She had not recused herself from the case. Prosecution or not was her decision, not Comey's. And even if she had recused herself, the decision would have gone to Yates. Lynch had no good options. If she had said there were no grounds for prosecution, she would have been crucified for partisanship. If she had decided that Clinton should be prosecuted, all hell would have broken loose. Well, there is no way she would have ever made the decision to prosecute, but point is, Comey took her completely off the hook. No wonder Lynch made no big deal about his "insubordination". ..."
"... there were NO pro-Trump factions inside the Bureau. ..."
"... What anti-Clinton faction? Every one of the five agents identified as sending politically biased communications was anti-Trump. As best I can determine every decision by biased decision makers that Horowitz is baffled by, or reports himself "unpersuaded" by the explanations advanced, was anti-Trump. Even when Strzok writes a text message that Horowitz admits is a smoking gun (~"We'll stop Trump") Horowitz says it's no biggie because other decision-makers were involved, "unbiased" ones like, explicitly, Bill Priestap, he of the procedures-violating spy launch against Trump BEFORE any investigation was opened! ..."
"... The real take away is that the Deep State is a reality, far more entrenched than anyone of us knows. Whether it is particularly competent or not ( compared to what? Government in general? ) is irrelevant. No one of any stature in any part of the government bureaucracy will be held accountable ever. They never are. As soon as the media circus moves on, it will be back to business as usual in DC. ..."
"... Speaking of idiocracy, some personal emails between FBI agents were made public this week with the release of the IG report. They give a glimpse into the infantilisation of our ruling "class". It is clear that fatherlessness and the replacement of education with indoctrination have produced a generation of child-men and child-women who view the State as parent, provider, deity (even as lover – supplier of ideologically acceptable bed-mates). ..."
"... jp: "Hard to see how the FBI's mistakes didn't benefit one candidate over the other." That's the standard line from the Clinton campaign. They believe everything begins and ends with Comey causing her to lose. Of course, they never mention why the FBI was investigating her, personally, and key members of her State Dept. staff, not her campaign by the way. ..."
"... The FBI may have hurt her campaign, but only because they were doing their job, albiet badly. She hurt her campaign infinitely by breaking the law and compromising national security, which required a criminal probe into her lawbreaking. ..."
"... Dave: "Peter and Lisa were 2 cops talking about a criminal." Well, that's one more reason not to trust federal law enforcement. I can cite the criminal statutes Hillary Clinton was being personally investigated for. Can anyone cite any criminal statute that Donald Trump was being personally investigated for at the same time? Was he even being personally investigated? A counterintelligence investigation is not a criminal investigation. ..."
"a chaotic cluster of competing pro- and anti- Clinton/Trump factions inside the Bureau"
Which is what the FBI looked like at the time and over the last two years, the
anti-Clinton faction seeming to be centered in New York, and the anti-Trump faction in, what,
D.C.?
This report merely provides more talking points for politicians. And, talk they will.
IG Michael Horowitz had a specific mandate. It was to investigate "violations of criminal
and civil law." It was not to investigate breaches of protocol and bureaucratic
regulations.
This report makes no allegations of criminal activity. As such, it can only be read as
exonerating those under investigation, of same. The ultimate remedy for "breaches of protocol and bureaucratic regulations" is termination
of employment. And, Comey has already been fired. The rest is irrelevant and/or superfluous.
Agreed. the report sheds light on some truly incompetent (and unprofessional, inappropriate
behavior). Disagree – the 'deep state' is behind this. perhaps the most depressing
aspect of this circus is the realization there was incompetence and malfeasance in the Obama
administration. there was incompetence and malfeasance in the Clinton campaign.
There was incompetence and malfeasance in the DoJ, there was incompetence and malfeasance
in the Trump campaign, and there is a whole lot of incompetence and malfeasance in the
current administration. see where this is going? "malfeasance" recognized and leveraged by
"foreign actors" (some other 'deep state' as it were) demonstrates competence in terms of
their job(s).
I am reminded of the Seinfeld episode in which "Puddy" and "Elaine" meet with a priest to
discuss their relationship and its impact on their eternal lives – with Puddy being
Christian and Elaine not. the priest says, "oh that's easy, you're both going to hell "
"It will be too easy, however, to miss the most important conclusion of the report: there is
no longer a way to claim America's internal intelligence agency, the FBI, did not play a role
in the 2016 election."
SO we are expected to believe the FBI, et. al; never played a role before? Spare me
"The good news is the Deep State seems less competent than we originally feared" -Well, obviously; or Hillary would be President NOW
Way funny, this! And all the time we've been looking for enemies abroad-in this case the
Rooshians-the real enemy was right in our own backyard. The Deep State may not have been very
competent ( Gee,whudda surprise!)) but– it's still in place. And that fact alone should
make all of us uneasy.
If you are going to have a deep state, and in a large nation, it does seem necessary, then it
should be a meritocracy. Clearly the system of recruiting high level officials from certain
Ivy League schools does not result in a meritocracy.
Erik: "It was not to investigate breaches of protocol and bureaucratic regulations."
Well, he did, and thank goodness. I'm satisfied that we have the final word on Clinton's guilt and the special treatment she
and her staff were given by criminal investigators who believed she was going to win the
election.
If that's not political bias, then we need another word for it. Political consideration in
the outcome of a criminal probe.
Think about that if it had been a GOP candidate, what would the progressives be saying
about the same behavior?
I think a good book to explain what we are seeing is The Fiefdom Syndrome by Robert Herbold. That highlights how various managers set up
their own sub organizations in a groups. It focuses on the corporate model yet it can equally
apply to any other human organization.
What I find amusing is the emphasis on texts between Strzok and Page. They sure were sloppy
in using govt cell phones for their texting. However, at the end of the day, their texts were
the equivalent of pillow talk. What's the remedy? Everybody wear a wire to bed to trap people
in the act of gossiping? Does anybody think that these casual conversations go on all the
time. There is no group of people more cynical that law enforcement people.
At the end of the day, people did their jobs and prevented their opinions from the proper
execution of their jobs.
Comey took Lynch completely off the hook. She had not recused herself from the case.
Prosecution or not was her decision, not Comey's. And even if she had recused herself, the
decision would have gone to Yates. Lynch had no good options. If she had said there were no
grounds for prosecution, she would have been crucified for partisanship. If she had decided
that Clinton should be prosecuted, all hell would have broken loose. Well, there is no way
she would have ever made the decision to prosecute, but point is, Comey took her completely
off the hook. No wonder Lynch made no big deal about his "insubordination".
H. Clinton squirreled away over 30 thousand emails into a private server. I am reliably
informed that if any other federal employee pulled a move like that they would have been
fired, with loss of pension and possible jail time in as much as this is grand jury fodder.
Not ol' Hillary though.
"There is only to argue which side they favored and whether they meddled via clumsiness, as a
coordinated action, or as a chaotic cluster of competing pro- and anti- Clinton/Trump
factions inside the Bureau. "
More fake news – there were NO pro-Trump factions inside the Bureau.
Michael Kenny
June 15, 2018 at 11:29 am
The important point is that Trump has no need to worry about any of this if he really is as
innocent as he claims. In fact, infiltrated informers, wiretaps etc. are a godsend to Trump
if he's innocent because they prove that innocence. Thus, Trump's making such a fuss about
these things is a tacit admission of guilt.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
Yes, of course. Because if someone spied on you looking for a crime of which you were
innocent, you'd be totally ok with it and would keep quiet. Only someone who's guilty of a
crime would speak up being spied upon.
"There is only to argue whether they meddled via clumsiness, as a coordinated action, or as a
chaotic cluster of competing pro- and anti- Clinton/Trump factions inside the Bureau."
What anti-Clinton faction? Every one of the five agents identified as sending politically
biased communications was anti-Trump. As best I can determine every decision by biased
decision makers that Horowitz is baffled by, or reports himself "unpersuaded" by the
explanations advanced, was anti-Trump. Even when Strzok writes a text message that Horowitz
admits is a smoking gun (~"We'll stop Trump") Horowitz says it's no biggie because other
decision-makers were involved, "unbiased" ones like, explicitly, Bill Priestap, he of the
procedures-violating spy launch against Trump BEFORE any investigation was opened!
To believe Horowitz' conclusions about lack of bias in decision making you have to be as
willfully reluctant to connect the dots as he is. And I'm not, nor should you be.
The real take away is that the Deep State is a reality, far more entrenched than anyone of us
knows. Whether it is particularly competent or not ( compared to what? Government in general?
) is irrelevant. No one of any stature in any part of the government bureaucracy will be held
accountable ever. They never are. As soon as the media circus moves on, it will be back to
business as usual in DC.
Those Russians are so clever. They trained agents for a lifetime to master accents of rural
Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin then duped the bible thumping gun lovers into rejecting her
highness Hillary. The immense Russian powers are extraordinary when one considers the Russian
economy is smaller than Texas.
But seriously, we had eight years of a Democratic president and people had enough and
chose a Republican even though he was outspent. That is the consistent pattern. After Trump
another Democrat will move into the White House.
Speaking of idiocracy, some personal emails between FBI agents were made public this week
with the release of the IG report.
They give a glimpse into the infantilisation of our ruling "class". It is clear that
fatherlessness and the replacement of education with indoctrination have produced a
generation of child-men and child-women who view the State as parent, provider, deity (even
as lover – supplier of ideologically acceptable bed-mates).
A cosmic ignorance radiates from these email exchanges. These agents appear to have been
dropped here from another planet. They not only seem to have been disconnected from or to
have forgotten the Civilisation that gave birth to the society in which they live, but they
seem never to have had any knowledge or awareness of it in the first place.
(Reading between the lines, deducing their "principles" from their mentality, one could
confidently conclude that these adolescents truly believe that State is God and Marx is His
prophet.)
They're going to get away with it with no adequately serious repercussions meaning they're
competent enough, aren't they? That also means they won't be properly deterred and will
simply do it better next time.
jp: "Hard to see how the FBI's mistakes didn't benefit one candidate over the other." That's the standard line from the Clinton campaign. They believe everything begins and
ends with Comey causing her to lose. Of course, they never mention why the FBI was investigating her, personally, and key
members of her State Dept. staff, not her campaign by the way.
The FBI may have hurt her campaign, but only because they were doing their job, albiet
badly. She hurt her campaign infinitely by breaking the law and compromising national security,
which required a criminal probe into her lawbreaking.
If you're going to fault the FBI, you can't then not fault Secretary Clinton. The two go
hand-in-hand, and she comes first in the chain of event.
Case closed. Though she didn't get her just desserts in court, at least she received
political justice. 🙂
Dave: "Peter and Lisa were 2 cops talking about a criminal." Well, that's one more reason not to trust federal law enforcement. I can cite the criminal statutes Hillary Clinton was being personally investigated
for. Can anyone cite any criminal statute that Donald Trump was being personally investigated
for at the same time? Was he even being personally investigated? A counterintelligence investigation is not a criminal investigation.
"... It wasn't just bad intelligence, it was consistently purposeful bad intelligence. The consequences have been dire for the world, and our country as well. The Russians in that period never represented a serious military threat even to the continent of Europe, far less the US. ..."
"... You are correct. The forever wars are just one of the ways to bleed the Middle Class dry. The media propaganda and rule by the 10% can't let the suckers know what is really going on. There are always enough men to man the colonial wars but they are unwinnable unless the whole nation is involved. ..."
"... Then behind the scenes Obama did very little to back up his speeches with actions as he went with the flow. ..."
"... Obama had two groups to satisfy, the populace and the elite. The populace got empty words, the elite got what they wanted. ..."
"... The MSM is waging a propaganda campaign at every level completely obscuring the truth. And the politicians play the fear card at every level. I don't believe any of us is in "happy compliance" at the airport. I for one, grind my teeth and cuss out the crooked corporations (including that bastard "skull" Chertoff who personally benefited from the x-ray screening machines) that reap a bundle of money from the so called screening and invasive body searches. Travel has become something to dread. ..."
"... The officer corps might be an opponent but I think that America has been badly served by them due to how officers are selected & trained and who makes it to the top. The only time they balk is when some idiot in Washington pushes them to fight the Russians or the Chinese. And most people don't really care in any case so long as the US wins. Out of sight, out of mind as they say. ..."
"... It's harder and harder to sell these military actions to the public. What are we in Korea and Japan for? To contain China? If you ask most people, they'll probably tell you that China won, or at very least our bosses are in league with their bosses. ..."
"... The Borg moves without regard to public sentiment, so we have to replace politicians with those who'll bring it to heel. That's a death sentence, but I feel like enough people have the guts to try and make it happen. ..."
"... *sigh* someone please trot out that Goering quote again: To the extent that public opinion matters, public opinion is easy to arrange. ..."
"... I don't mean to suggest that there isn't a solid electoral reason to have nice vague policies, not least because a campaign against foreign wars would be an excellent way for the left to make common cause with some parts of the right, such as the paleoconservatives and isolationists. ..."
"... It did for Russia. There is now an ongoing civil war on its border in Ukraine. NATO went to war with Serbia in the later 1990's. The breakup of the Atlantic Alliance will splinter Europe. Humans being humans. The strong will try to steal from the weak. ..."
"... The old adage that our country rallies around a war president is no longer operative IMHO. In a nation tired of perpetual war, the commander-in-chief would get at best a short-term surge in public approval by opening up a new battle zone, before slipping precipitously in the polls. Why on earth have the Democrats eagerly embraced the role of the war party, while our country literally crumbles for lack of public investment? Could there be a more effective losing strategy? ..."
"... Why on earth have the Democrats eagerly embraced the role of the war party, while our country literally crumbles for lack of public investment? Could there be a more effective losing strategy? ..."
"... Those are their constituents: beltway bandits, private contractors, public/private partnerships, insurance companies, arms companies, private equity firms, military contractors, and whatever other combinations you want to come up with. ..."
"... I remember when Tim Kaine gleefully suggested that we needed an "intelligence surge" to protect the country. I almost gagged. It was a not so subtle message of "prepare for the handouts to the private military contractor industry". ..."
"... How does positioning 2,000 – 4,000 US troops in Syria fit into your "Trump is a peace-maker" narrative? How about the comment Wednesday that the US will attack Syrian forces if they attack Sunni jihadis (er "moderate rebels") in SW Syria? ..."
"... How about us aiding and abetting a famine in Yemen that could kills tens of thousands? ..."
"... I think you are attributing a sentiment to juliania that her comment does not actually contain. She doesn't say Trump is a peace-maker, she says he was far in front of Bernie in using "anti-war rhetoric as a strategy." The example of Nixon doing the same thing indicates that juliania is well aware that strategic rhetoric and actual decisions are not the same thing. ..."
"... I know a fair number of Trump voters, and my read is similar to juliania's: Trump's anti-war rhetoric was a big draw for a lot of people, and helped many be able to hold their nose and vote for him. Understanding this and commenting on it does not make one a Trump supporter, obviously, or indicate that one puts any credence in his dovish rhetoric. ..."
"... You might be correct and my apologies to juliania if I misread her post. I have heard so much of the "Trump is fighting [the deep state, Wall Street, the neocons]" on other blogs that I am a bit hypersensitive and go off on a rant when I see or perceive that argument. From my perspective, Trump is doing everything in his power to entrench Wall Street, the neocons, etc. ..."
"... The war in Yemen is to secure the Saudi monarchy and our interest in their vast reserves of oil and gas. ..."
"... Are militarism* and democracy compatible? I'm not so sure they are. ..."
"... A lot depends on how you define "democracy", "will of the people" etc.. What the role of "finance" in a context of "capitalism" and "democracy" should be, e.g., citizens united(note orwellian language) may be considered a " reason why they would not be compatible" and even antithetical. ..."
"... America itself is the most destabilizing force on the planet. i would love to see what America leaving the world to its' own devices would look like. Like Weimar/Nazi Germany, nothing good comes from these kind of "American Values." ..."
"... The military is A-ok with Trump and this is what seems to matter. The roar of hysteria from the media over Trump first 2-3 months in office died down considerably when he showed a willingness to engage in a show of force by striking Syria (remember when he was so concerned about the welfare of children?) ..."
"... Only a *faction" of the security establishment is anti-Trump because he is skeptical of *neoliberal* globalism. ..."
"... Meanwhile, the Prez who can't seem to enact *anything* to make lives better for the people who put him in office, is magically able to enact the agenda of the 1%. This repeat of the 1% 's manipulations is one I can do without. ..."
"... Regarding the question posed by this post I think there is very little evidence of an anti-war "fever" and even if there were, and if it were projected into the streets and/or ballot box, I am pessimistic that it could have any effect on the U.S. government of today. I don't think the U.S. government cares what the American people think or feel about anything -- except of course as those cares and feelings affect the mechanisms of control through the propaganda pushed through our media, the levels of surveillance and suppression, and the increased viciousness of our "laws" and their enforcement. ..."
"... I believe the U.S. government is run by several powerful and competing interests. So I think I'll ask a different question -- though in the same vein as that posed by the title of this post. Are those interests who compete with the interests of the MIC and Spook Industrial Complex (SIC) beginning to see the futility and stupidity of our endless wars? ..."
"... "Peaceniks are Kremlin stooges!" It's depressing when you can predict the media's response six months in advance. ..."
Is anti-war fever building in the U.S.? One would not think so given all the signs -- apparent public apathy toward multiple military
involvements, happy compliance with "security" at the increasingly painful airport, lack of protests and so on.
Yet there are two signs I'd like to put forward as indicating a growing willingness to forgo foreign "entanglements" (undeclared
wars), springing either from a weariness with them, a nascent abhorrence of them, or a desire to focus U.S. dollars on U.S. domestic
solutions, like the
hugely popular Medicare for All . (Click to see just how popular Medicare for All, called "Medicare Buy-In" at the link, is across
party lines.)
The first sign is Bernie Sanders, the most popular politician in America and by far its most popular senator, making statements
like these in the speech linked and discussed in the video at the top
of this piece. For example, at 9:00 in the clip, Sanders says (emphasis his):
SANDERS: In other words, what we have seen in time and time again, disasters occur when administrations, Democrat and Republican,
mislead Congress and the American people. And when Congress fails to do its constitutional job in terms of asking the questions
of whether or not we should be in a war. And I think we need to ask that very hard question today.
And here is the point that I hope the American people are asking themselves. Is the war on terror, a perpetual, never-ending
war, necessary to keep us safe?
I personally believe we have become far too comfortable with the United States engaging in military interventions all over
the world. We have now been in Afghanistan for 17 years. We have been in Iraq for 15 years. We are occupying a portion of Syria,
and this administration has indicated that it may broaden that mission even more.
We are waging a secretive drone war in at least five countries. Our forces, right now, as we speak, are supporting a Saudi-led
war in Yemen which has killed thousands of civilians and has created the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet today.
Talk like this is anathema in our militarized state, comments usually relegated to the fringes of public discourse. For Sanders
to say this (and similarly anathemic remarks elsewhere in the speech) certainly denotes a shift, especially since Sanders during
the campaign was not considered strong on foreign policy, especially progressive (non-orthodox) foreign policy.
As Jimmy Dore said in reply to the last sentence quoted above, "It's not Syria? Can you [say] "stop the butcher" is the worst?
No. Turns out what we're doing is the 'worst humanitarian crisis in the world today,' committing siege warfare in Yemen, which
is a war crime. And we're doing it, with Saudi Arabia."
Sanders also says we're "fighting terror" in 76 countries. Let that sink in, as Sanders wishes it to -- we're engaged in military
conflict in 76 countries, almost a third
of the nations in the world. I'm not sure many in the lay public appreciate the importance, or the likely consequences, of that
surprising fact. (For one example of those consequences, consider that foreign wars often
come home .)
Elsewhere in the video Dore asks, "Do you see Chuck Shumer saying our wars have had 'dire consequences'?" Sanders, it seems to
me, is launching a toe-to-toe battle with what right-wingers have lately been calling the American "deep state" and I've been calling
the security establishment.
The second sign comes from Donald Trump during the campaign. This isn't just Sanders going out on a limb -- taking a flier,
as it were -- on a deeply unpopular position. Consider how often Donald Trump, the campaign version, made similar statements:
He also famously
said this about NATO and its mission:
What I'm saying is NATO is obsolete. NATO is -- is obsolete and it's extremely expensive for the United States, disproportionately
so. And we should readjust NATO.
If the U.S. security establishment is working to get rid of Trump, to take him out by whatever means necessary, campaign
statements like that would be one of many reasons.
If Americans Could Vote Against the Forever War, Would They Do It?
I recently
noted how different the outcomes are when the public indicates policy preferences with their votes versus polling data. DC politicians
of both parties ignore polling with impunity. Votes, on the other hand, especially in party primaries, can force change -- witness
the Trump nomination and the Sanders (stolen) near-nomination.
In some ways, small but not insignificant, the 2016 election was a test of the anti-war waters, with Trump asking questions about
the need and mission of NATO, for example, that haven't been asked in over a generation, and Clinton, the proud choice of the neocon
left and right, in strong
disagreement .
It's too much or too early to say that Trump's public pullback from U.S. hegemony helped his election, though that's entirely
possible. But it's certainly true that his anti-Forever War sentiments did not hurt him in any noticeable way.
I'll go further: If Sanders runs in 2020 and adds anti-war messaging to his program, we'll certainly see the title question tested.
If the U.S. security establishment is working to get rid of Trump, to take him out by whatever means necessary, campaign
statements like that would be one of many reasons.
Bernie had better watch his back then. Make sure no one associated with him has any contact with any Russians or Iranians or
whatever.
The "security establishment/Blob" no coubt has already filled its supply chain with anti-Bernie Bernays-caliber ordnance, ready
to deploy. I don't doubt that there are plenty of James Earl Rays out there, happy to be the ones who will "rid the Blob of this
troublesome politician." Just remember that Bernie has a summer house, and his wife was president of a failed college, and he's
a GD Socialist, for Jeebus' sake!
There's far less than six degrees of separation between any one person and someone who is Russian or Chinese or Iranian or
whatever. Even two degrees of separation is enough for a headline these days.
Districts with military casualties correlate to Trump votes. I'd would be nice to see Sanders do a Town Hall on the empire,
in six months or so when this speech has time to sink in, in one such district.
Yes. Sanders is going to have to pull off a communicative high wire act bridging relatively acceptable criticism of "unnecessary
and expensive foreign entanglements" to hinting at the idea that the US citizens have to understand the expansive pressures that
flow from capitalism and the MIC. I've appreciated the regular links here to American Conservative and Unz articles. They are
valuable reminders that some on the Right aren't in complete denial, at least about the MIC.
One scenario would see a revival of the terms of discussion that briefly saw daylight in at least the late 1940s, when state
planners openly linked a "defensive" military posture with a need for markets. It would at least get the cards out on the table
and assist in clarifying how world politics isn't just a matter of great and secondary powers inevitably pushing each other around.
The idea of Realpolitik is a fundamental and fatal ground of reification.
Presidential ambitions aside, it would be a good idea to pressure trump's crew that are plotting to attack Iran. Plus, any
chance to push back against the awful Dem leadership is also a positive. We need to see more grassroots pushback against that
leadership. Sanders is the best around at generating that grassroots pushback.
Bernie makes many salient points on the Military Industrial Complex in a floor speech concerning the Defense Dept. budget bill.
I especially like the part where he is trying to add an amendment that would limit the compensation of CEOs of defense contractors
to no more than the Secretary of Defense ($205,000). This speech will not make him any friends among the military corporate contractors.
(26 min.)
We are in the world's most favorable geopolitical position. We have the Atlantic to the east, the Pacific to the West, Canada
to the North, and Mexico to the South. We have enough nukes to blow up the world many times over. I don't know why we don't don't
treat the entire imperial enterprise as a sunk cost and get out, starting with the Middle East (and by get out, I mean cut off
all funding, too).
The Taliban announced the three-day halt to hostilities earlier this month, days after a unilateral ceasefire lasting until
Wednesday was ordered by the government.
It is the Taliban's first ceasefire since the government they ran was toppled by the 2001 US-led invasion.
I don't know if it's Trump or it's just coincidence. But peace has broken out in Korea for hte first time in decades, and now
peace has broken out in Afghanistan for the first time in decades.
You should take a look at The Threat by Andrew Cockburn. Fairly exhaustive detail about how Russian military
might was inflated, in the 70s and 80s, in virtually every possible way. From badly coordinated civil defense, to the complete
inreadiness of its airforce, to the caste system pervading the army that had reduced morale to almost nothing, the overall picture
is pretty stunning, compared to the magnitude of the threat that was presented to the US public.
It wasn't just bad intelligence, it was consistently purposeful bad intelligence. The consequences have been dire for the
world, and our country as well. The Russians in that period never represented a serious military threat even to the continent
of Europe, far less the US. Nor do they now, spending less than a tenth on their military than the US. The 80 billion dollar
incease in the US military budget this year was more than the entire Russian military budget. Meanwhile,our own bases
encompass the globe, and we wage war and threaten genocide wherever we choose.
The facts are abundantly clear, that our own military represents by far the greatest threat to human life on this
planet.
I want to tell you, that you and I and everyone in this damned country, we are not just the most lied to people in the world.
We're arguably the most lied to people in history, at least if you consider the number and frequency of lies. It's a wonder we
get anything right at all! I encourage you to read more, and read more widely, and to start at a position of distrust, with any
foreign policy reporting that isn't based on first hand knowledge.
I am heartened by the position Bernie is taking, even as I disagree with him on the Russia hysteria and wonder at some of his
qualifications like "blunder" to describe out and out imperialism. We need to start somewhere, and why not start with "let the
people and the people's representatives decide when we use our military"?
I know many progressives on the left have questioned Bernie's foreign policy positions and for not going far enough in opposing
our imperial wars. Personally, I think Bernie knows exactly how stupid, immoral, illegal, and costly our wars are, especially
as it "crowds out spending" on his favored domestic policies. Bernie is also smart enough to know how he would be attacked by
our right-wing corporate media and the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex if he were too outspoken. So, he tempers his
statements, not just because his domestic agenda is most important to him, but also because he knows attacking our militarized
foreign policy will not play well with the working class base he needs to appeal to. Unlike Obama who played up his anti-Iraq
War vote, only to expand our wars across the Middle East and Africa (after collecting his Nobel Peace Prize), Bernie is holding
his cards closer to the vest.
> play well with the working class base he needs to appeal to
I think the working class in the flyover states is ready to hear that the endless war needs to end. It's tricky message to
convey, because "Are you saying my child died in vain?" But Trump saying Iraq was a strategic blunder went over very well, and
military casualties correlate with Trump votes . I think Sanders (or his as-yet-unknown successor) must deliver that
message, but it's going to be tricky, if only because it will smash an enormous number of rice bowls in the national security
and political classes (which overlap). Maybe we could move all the uniform-worshippers to an island, give them a few billion dollars,
and let them play war games among themselves. Cheap at twice the price.
UPDATE I would bet "addiction" would work as a trope in the flyover states; "the war machine is a needle in America's arm"
is the concept. Especially because
veterans are prone to opioid addiction . Again, the rhetoric would be tricky to avoid blaming victims or "hating the troops,"
but I think there's good messaging to be found here. (People do horrid things when trapped in addictive systems. That's why they
seek cure )
Sanders needs to protect the people who are part of the 95% who work for the military industrial complex. He does this not
by raising welfare (which Americans find humiliating), not by only giving extensive retraining benefits, (which in an opportunity
starved country like America, will only lead to work stints at an Amazon Warehouse) but by repurposing the capitol and retraining
the working people to issues that must be addressed for the future, such as energy sustainability or infrastructure that can resist
increasingly severe climate chaos. Furthermore, he must announce and do both simultaneously, probably via an MMT program and raising
Taxes on rhe elite 2% and via transaction taxes on all capitol outflow from the USA.
Stopping the war machine, but putting people out of work, will never be acceptable to those who work for the war machine or
the friends and family of those people.
You are correct. The forever wars are just one of the ways to bleed the Middle Class dry. The media propaganda and rule
by the 10% can't let the suckers know what is really going on. There are always enough men to man the colonial wars but they are
unwinnable unless the whole nation is involved.
The Bolshevik Revolution and the Bonus Army were within living memory of WWII leaders. The new global aristocracy has lost
all history and doesn't perceive the inevitable consequences of inequality. My personal opinion was that for Marshall and Truman
one of the reasons for the use of atomic weapons on Japan was that they did not want millions of combat tested soldiers traveling
across the USA by train with the ultimate destination a number of deadly invasions of the Japanese Islands. Each worse than Okinawa.
They were afraid of what the soldiers would do. This is also the reason why these Vets got a generous GI Bill.
You reminded me of Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq. She protesteted at the GWB TX compound if you recall and remains
an activist to this day. I can't speak for her but it seems to me like she understands that her son should not have died to further
this ugly, pointless war.
I can't begin to understand the pain of losing a child, spouse, parent, etc., but I can wrap my head around it enough that
I don't want anyone to experience it. And I have no doubt that facing the true causes of the war would make the pain worse. But
every time I hear this nonsense about how some poor kid "didn't die in vain" in VietRaq, I want to scream "yes they did! Now what
are we going to do to stop it from happening again???".
The tropes of "supporting the troops", yellow ribbons, "they are protecting us", etc. just keeps the propaganda ballon inflated.
Here is how I support the troops: I'm against war.
This reminds me of Forest Gump where some well meaning hippies call Forest Gump a baby killer. The peace activists must refrain
from blaming and shaming soldiers as a group; specfic criminals (such as those who committed crimes at my lai) should investigated,
shamed and punished, the whistleblowers should be greatly honoured, and soldiers ad a group should be respected and not blamed
for going to war, as indeed many do not know the truth for why the war was fought. On the other hand, politicians, lobby groups,
and venal media and intelligence agencies should be exorciated for the lies that they believe or spread, as indeed it should be
their business to try to discern the truth.
Hence it was very admirable when members of the Mossad leaked out facts that Iran was not pursuing development of the Nuclear
bomb, even while Netanyahoo was pursuing a media blitz to justify greater economic and ultimately military aggression against
Iran
Who is "blaming and shaming" anyone? I'm saying that I agree with this mother who lost her child that we should be extremely
skeptical about the motivation for war of any kind. And the lack of skepticism (expressed or not) impedes any real movement away
from war without end.
The Sheehans are real people who lost a son and brother. Forest Gump is just some character from a dumb movie. Good grief.
I think that you can respect the sacrifice and commitment of people who sign up to fight for their country while still criticizing
the uses that leaders have chosen to put them to. In fact I think that makes the message stronger: the willingness of our friends,
family, children etc. to sign up to fight and die for America places a duty and obligation on our leaders to ensure they are deployed
wisely and for the betterment of America and the world. Those leaders – the ones we elected – have failed in that trust, and continue
to fail. Our military friends and family haven't let us down – we've let them down, by not holding our government accountable.
It's time we changed that!
"The rally featured a pointed anti-war speech from Obama, then a fairly anonymous state lawmaker, who deemed the impending
Iraq engagement 'a dumb war.'"
The political entertainer Obama gave a number of speeches advocating transparency in government, advocating for financial reform
and even mentioned "we tortured some folks" decrying torture.
Then behind the scenes Obama did very little to back up his speeches with actions as he went with the flow.
Obama's Illinois anti-war speech served him well, as he could milk this "anti-war" stance for years while running military
actions as President.
Obama had two groups to satisfy, the populace and the elite. The populace got empty words, the elite got what they wanted.
Bernie Sanders actually DID vote against the Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq
Sadly, there is no contemporaneous transcript*
or recording . I remember the 2008 controversy vividly, because the Obama campaign released a campaign ad that purported to
be Obama delivering the Chicago 2002 speech, but it quickly emerged that he had re-recorded it for the campaign (see the link).
I think we're more than being lied to. The MSM is waging a propaganda campaign at every level completely obscuring the
truth. And the politicians play the fear card at every level. I don't believe any of us is in "happy compliance" at the airport.
I for one, grind my teeth and cuss out the crooked corporations (including that bastard "skull" Chertoff who personally benefited
from the x-ray screening machines) that reap a bundle of money from the so called screening and invasive body searches. Travel
has become something to dread.
You can tell a lot about a country's intent by the design of the army they assemble. Here is a deep technical description about
the new army the Russians are putting together. Hint: it is not designed to attack.
"The decision to create a tank army (armoured corps in Western terminology) is an indication that Russia really does fear attack
from the west and is preparing to defend itself against it. In short, Russia has finally come to the conclusion that NATO's aggression
means it has to prepare for a big war."
Interesting technical take on the whole thing. Worth a read.
Well, Russia could probably triumph over the austerity-racked countries of the EU, with the possible exception of France. But
it wouldn't be able to hold much for long if it had to occupy anything. And it would take a mauling in the process, a mauling
that would be prohibitively expensive to repair. The modern Russian military simply isn't organized in a fashion that is conducive
to large scale conquest. It has exactly one fully integrated, combined arms unit suitable for full-scale armored warfrare, the
1st Guards Tank Army, which was reactivated in 2014.
The nightmare visions of armor pouring through the Fulda Gap were basically always delusional. In 2018 they're downright laughable.
I don't think that the US can stop at this point. As an example, the one time the people were asked if they wanted to bomb
Syria the answer was a definite 'no' so the next time they never even bothered asking them. There is far too much money, power
and prestige at stake too consider stopping.
The officer corps might be an opponent but I think that America has been badly served by them due to how officers are selected
& trained and who makes it to the top. The only time they balk is when some idiot in Washington pushes them to fight the Russians
or the Chinese. And most people don't really care in any case so long as the US wins. Out of sight, out of mind as they say.
America is more likely to get single-payer health than for the US armed forces to pull back as any suggestion of the later
brings charges of being 'unpatriotic'. At least with single-payer health you only get charged with being a 'socialist'. Know a
good place to start? The US Special Operations Command has about 70,000 people in it and they want more. The US would be better
served by cutting this force in half and giving their jobs back to regular formations.
These are the people that want constant deployments in more and more countries hence cutting them back would be a good idea.
I expect things to go along until one day the US armed forces will be sent into a war where they will take casualties not seen
since the bad days on 'Nam. Then there will be the devil to pay and him out to lunch.
It's harder and harder to sell these military actions to the public. What are we in Korea and Japan for? To contain China?
If you ask most people, they'll probably tell you that China won, or at very least our bosses are in league with their bosses.
The Borg moves without regard to public sentiment, so we have to replace politicians with those who'll bring it to heel.
That's a death sentence, but I feel like enough people have the guts to try and make it happen.
One issue I have right now with 'anti-War' is that to be 'anti' is one thing, but to make serious arguments you have to be
able to present arguments about what you are actually 'for'. For example, if the US were to suddenly withdraw from the eastern
Pacific, the effect could be highly destabilising and could actually increase the chance of war. These are questions that need
to be answered.
Just to take one example of I think a positive idea – there is research
here which argues that the 'optimum' nuclear deterrent is less
than 100 warheads. This is of course a difficult argument to put into political play, but its important I think to put the militarists
on the back foot in order to make arguments for withdrawal from empire and peace mainstream.
I would bet that most people think that being anti-war encompasses the following:
-being for peace
-being for stability
-being for more social spending instead of military spending
-being for fewer civilians being killed
-being for fewer military deaths
Is that enough to meet your ridiculous threshold for 'serious arguments?'
you're being cavalier. PK makes a great point, and your vague and oyerly broad "fors" remind me of many arguments regarding
the 2016 election. The democrat side (Brock and CTR et al) couldn't say what they were for outside of abstract bernaysian generalities.
If you want to convince people (and I have this difficulty, as do I'm sure most of the readers here, trying to get dems off of
the russia russia russia putins bitch train)
You really need to focus on slow walking through complicated and dangerous waters, and just shut up sometimes when certain
people are just not going to listen, but if you can get that one cogent, not hysterical argument into the minds of the people
you want to convince, then you have a chance to stem the tide. Read some of the fantastic commentary regarding brexit from our
european commenters as an example of what works in discourse, and how to puts facts on the ground in a way people can relate to.
> You really need to focus on slow walking through complicated and dangerous waters . Read some of the fantastic commentary
regarding brexit from our european commenters as an example of what works in discourse, and how to puts facts on the ground in
a way people can relate to.
That's a cogent argument. I don't mean to imply in my comments that "getting out" will be easy. ("You must do it, Catullus,
you must do it. You must do it whether it can be done or not.")
We might begin by renaming the "Department of Defense" to the "Department of War," just to be truthful, and then ask ourselves
what kind of wars we want to fight. And I think most people would be very willing to cross anything that looked like Iraq off
the list, followed (it is to be hoped) with a willingness to rethink self-licking ice cream cones as our industrial policy. In
a way, the project would have the same feel as my hobbyhorse, gutting the administrative layers of the universities as not central
to mission.
Thanks tegnost. I don't mean to suggest that there isn't a solid electoral reason to have nice vague policies, not least
because a campaign against foreign wars would be an excellent way for the left to make common cause with some parts of the right,
such as the paleoconservatives and isolationists.
The problem as I see it with policies 'against' something is that you end up a little like Five Star in Italy – having gotten
into power on opposing everything bad about Italy, they are now facing a 'now what' moment, and are seemingly clueless about what
to do. As usual, the right makes the running.
The war-mongers will always find "serious arguments" for why we musn't end the American empire. Their arguments will be nuanced
and filled with details that would take the average citizen months, if not years, to verify and analyze. When the best minds in
the American empire can fail to forsee the fall of the Soviet Union or the response to their coup on Chavez, why should we put
credence in their "serious" analyses?
Meanwhile, the case against war is a simple and easily verifiable. "My son is dead." "My friend came home a broken person."
etc. Telling poor Americans that their family members need to keep dying because allowing them to come home would, maybe, make
war more likely in a country they've only seen on a map is an argument not likely to find much traction. It is also, in my mind,
ethically vapid -- an argument that presses for a guaranteed evil as a means of avoiding a possible evil.
Trying to forsee the outcome of major (or even minor) changes to a system as complex as the American empire is a sucker's game.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is likely a sucker themselves. In situations of such complexity, the only way forward is the ontological
one. All teleology is sheer fantasy. We should act, therefore, not on the basis of what we think will happen as a result of our
actions, but rather on the basis of what the just thing to do is. You can't base your actions on ends (as in "the ends justify
the means") because the situation is so complex that there is no way to credibly predict the ends that any action might lead to.
IMHO, the ethical policy is to bring 'em home. All of 'em. Let them protect our country, as they've sworn to do. Let us put
them to work rebuilding our infrastructure, assisting those who need it, and making the country better than it is, rather than
filling it up with more walking wounded from our endless imperial adventuring.
It did for Russia. There is now an ongoing civil war on its border in Ukraine. NATO went to war with Serbia in the later
1990's. The breakup of the Atlantic Alliance will splinter Europe. Humans being humans. The strong will try to steal from the
weak.
The question is how to restore the West's middle class. Without a middle class; revolts, religious and ethnic wars will inevitable
break out all over. The unrest right now is due to democracy not being compatible with globalization.
It was not just Bush who told lies to justify an invasion of Iraq. Members of Congress and the press did as well. Sen. Biden,
the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee then, would only allow pro-war people to testify to his committee. At the
time a lobbyist told me that the leadership of the Democratic party had decided to promote this war. They felt this would remove
this issue from the next election, which would then focus on economic issues that would play to their strength.
Thanks for this. Another reason to break up the MIC is all the money that would be freed up for health care, infrastructure
and the country's many other needs. Perhaps Sanders now realizes that the balance in USG priorities needs to be restored and he
is making an economic, and not just humanitarian argument.
As for Trump, it's just possible he meant what he said about NATO and all the rest. If one believes his real priorities are
his family and business it's hard to see what he gets out of perpetual war. That's more Obama and Hillary's bag.
Which doesn't make the above true. But we should at least entertain the possibility that it could be true.
As one who could never bring himself to vote for Trump (or for Clinton, for that matter), let me make a counter-intuitive prediction.
If Trump allows the MIC to goad him into starting a new war with Iran, he will lose if he decides to run again.
If, on the other hand, he starts no new war against Iran or any other country that does not threaten us militarily, then he
will be re-elected should he decide to go for another term.
The old adage that our country rallies around a war president is no longer operative IMHO. In a nation tired of perpetual
war, the commander-in-chief would get at best a short-term surge in public approval by opening up a new battle zone, before slipping
precipitously in the polls. Why on earth have the Democrats eagerly embraced the role of the war party, while our country literally
crumbles for lack of public investment? Could there be a more effective losing strategy?
Why on earth have the Democrats eagerly embraced the role of the war party, while our country literally crumbles for lack
of public investment? Could there be a more effective losing strategy?
They do it for the money, pretty much everyone in congress is a millionaire, including the ones who were not millionaires when
they got elected hmmmmmm .
Those are their constituents: beltway bandits, private contractors, public/private partnerships, insurance companies, arms
companies, private equity firms, military contractors, and whatever other combinations you want to come up with.
I remember when Tim Kaine gleefully suggested that we needed an "intelligence surge" to protect the country. I almost gagged.
It was a not so subtle message of "prepare for the handouts to the private military contractor industry".
> Another reason to break up the MIC is all the money that would be freed up for health care, infrastructure and the country's
many other needs
Since Federal taxes don't fund Federal spending, the connection between gutting the MIC and more money for health care is not
direct.
However, if you think in terms of real resources , the effect is as you say. (The same reasoning applies to finance,
where enormous salaries sucked in the best talent that might otherwise have been put to non-parasitical purposes.)
Mt is not yet sellable to the public, will take years. Best story is that foreign wars strip resources from local spending
and jobs, which is also what most pols seem to think. Bills should be presented as less for mil and mor for infra. Starve mic
You don't have to go back to the last campaign to see anti-war rhetoric as a strategy. Trump is already, in his meeting with
Kim, starting the ball rolling. (Moon of Alabama.com has a good recent post on the subject). Sorry Bernie, you are late to the
party, too late. Reminds me a bit of 1968. Nixon got in promising to end that war (which he didn't.) But it is good to see anti-war
stuff going mainstream at last. May it bear fruit this time around!
And yes, Gaius Publius, anti-war statements Trump made during his first campaign DID make a huge difference. They won him the
presidency, in my opinion.
How does positioning 2,000 – 4,000 US troops in Syria fit into your "Trump is a peace-maker" narrative? How about the comment
Wednesday that the US will attack Syrian forces if they attack Sunni jihadis (er "moderate rebels") in SW Syria?
How about us aiding and abetting a famine in Yemen that could kills tens of thousands?
Is setting us on a potential course for war with Iran further evidence of your "dovish" Trump?
I think you are attributing a sentiment to juliania that her comment does not actually contain. She doesn't say Trump is
a peace-maker, she says he was far in front of Bernie in using "anti-war rhetoric as a strategy." The example of Nixon doing the
same thing indicates that juliania is well aware that strategic rhetoric and actual decisions are not the same thing.
I know a fair number of Trump voters, and my read is similar to juliania's: Trump's anti-war rhetoric was a big draw for
a lot of people, and helped many be able to hold their nose and vote for him. Understanding this and commenting on it does not
make one a Trump supporter, obviously, or indicate that one puts any credence in his dovish rhetoric.
You might be correct and my apologies to juliania if I misread her post. I have heard so much of the "Trump is fighting
[the deep state, Wall Street, the neocons]" on other blogs that I am a bit hypersensitive and go off on a rant when I see or perceive
that argument. From my perspective, Trump is doing everything in his power to entrench Wall Street, the neocons, etc.
I was also receptive to the idea that Trump might be less hawkish than HRC (although I did not vote for him) but have now been
thoroughly disabused of that notion.
SW Syria does not have Kurds active, so these are Sunni jihadi-lites. They are however not HTS, which we re-branded from Al-Nusra
and had been classified as an Al Qaeda affiliate at one time. Of course we are framing it as a de-escalation zone; others call
it a jihadi base.
The war in Yemen is to secure the Saudi monarchy and our interest in their vast reserves of oil and gas. The war in
Syria is to secure our preferred pipeline feeding the EU. Our entrenched position surrounding Iran is no accident – we are an
existential threat to Iran and intend to remain that way. If China discovered a giant oil field under its western desert we'd
be there too. One rationale for all this control freakery is that we think we can maintain our "capitalist" economy, our silly
pretenses about a free market, etc. But Karma is the real truth-teller here: Free markets do not work. So it follows logically
that privatization also does not work. And to continue, at some point, forced capitalism fails. Markets fail. Profit seeking could
be the thing that brings it all down. It's a strangely comforting thought because it leaves us with a clear vision of what not
to do anymore. Unfortunately, people are not angels. If we attempt to invoke the ghost of John Foster Dulles and not engage in
little wars but just sell arms to every tin pot dictator it will be worse chaos than it is now. And worse still, chaos in a time
of environmental devastation. The only good option is the Mr. Scrooge option. Instead of arms and WMD and fascist control for
the sake of preventing uprisings, we should skip the fascist control part and directly mainline the resources to make civilization
thrive. Since that's definitely not capitalism, we'll have to think up a new ism.
Yes, let's devote enormous real resources to fabricating bespoke military aircraft that catch fire on the runway. Meanwhile,
we don't have any machine shops anymore .
> I have the feeling that Sanders here is reacting to all the ex-CIA (but not 100% ex) candidates taking over the D Party.
That is an excellent point. (I don't think it's just CIA, though; it's CIA and military personnel generally.* That's why I
voted against ranked Jared Golden low, because Golden (like Seth Moulton in MA) fits that template, which is vile.
UPDATE * "Professional authoritarians," we might call them. That would fit all this neatly into Thomas Frank's framework.
People ask if capitalism and democracy are compatible, and I think they are, at least I don't see any inherent reason why they
would not be compatible.
Another question: Are militarism* and democracy compatible? I'm not so sure they are.
Ancient Athens was on some level democratic, and the populist party typically favored war and expansion. E.g.Pericles and the
peloponesian war come to mind. By contrast, the aristocratic parties were generally less in favor of military adventurism.
However, a constitutional republic is not compatible with empire.
The link between populism and war featured prominently in "Electing to fight. Why emerging democracies go to war" This is a
fairly obscure book (one review in Amazon), but – by a wide margin – the best book I have ever read about politics or political
science. The last 100 pages are cliff notes versions of the politics underlying the start of many wars; the first 150 pages are
a really dense read.
A lot depends on how you define "democracy", "will of the people" etc.. What the role of "finance" in a context of "capitalism"
and "democracy" should be, e.g., citizens united(note orwellian language) may be considered a " reason why they would not be compatible"
and even antithetical. Noting that "militarism" depends on public funding, where should the power to influence this funding
be? Neo-cons, dominated by militarists, and neo-liberals, dominated by de-regulated banksters, may not be the same but certainly
seem like symbionts in the context of 326MM people.
America itself is the most destabilizing force on the planet. i would love to see what America leaving the world to its'
own devices would look like. Like Weimar/Nazi Germany, nothing good comes from these kind of "American Values."
the Ugly American is what American Values signify, and mostly always have. America is the most destabilizing force i ever read
of or heard of. Americans have just taken the Nazi theme of One People, One Land and One Leader on a Global scope. and it ain't
good. Either do as America tells you, or we will bring American Democracy to your country.
Maybe there's hope, as Caitlyn Johnstone implies in her last essay, i sure doubt it, though, as long as America/the Empire
continues to destabilize not just the Pacific but everywhere else in the world. Why does anything think the South/Central Americans
come to America. The American Empire has screwed up the Western Hemisphere so badly, these "refugees hope to escape from the American
made Plantations the Western Hemisphere has been carved into. These immigrants are just part of the blowback from the American
Way.
also makes me wonder if the Europeans don't understand why there are refugees coming through Greece and via boats, primarily
to Italy. dont they see it's America's Wars in MENA that are causing this "invasion." gosh, what a black and white cause and effect.
Germany needs workers due to the low birth rate. so, open the doors to the chaos America has made in the Middle East, and voila,
cheap labor and departure from an America made hell in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Palestine, Algeria, the whole "New American Century"
Project the Neocons have us in and paying for.
Doesn't the average European see how American and Apartheid Israeli support for forces like the Taliban, Al Queda, Wahabbism,
and the ongoing media censored Yemeni/Palestinian Holocaust, wars of profit, i.e. created the refugess that are streaming into
Europe. Maybe the Europeans are also stymied by the Rich who keep the wars going and the Media who profit off the death of the
"deplorables" who no longer "matter."
i know in America most Americans are ignorant due to total control of the Media and the "narrative" that controls what can
be said. Americans have no shame when it comes to getting what they want, politically. no enough blowback. no sense of connection
between here and there or anywhere outside the Media Narrative.
as a bumper sticker from long ago said, "if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." The Empire will not give up
until it can't go on.
Thanks for calling attention to this. I noticed the same thing immediately, and I gave the remainder of the article less credence
because of it. A true leftie knows the difference between Improved Medicare for All and a Medicare buy-in program.
To me, making the argument that one must be 'for' something is simply a way to dismiss whatever the 'anti' side represents,
whether or not PK meant to be dismissive.
And it reminds me of the efforts to impede and dismiss the anti-war or occupy-type movement outright – "what, you people don't
have any policies (and nothing for us to analyze to death and criticize??) !!!! How dare you speak up about something!!! Go away
until you go to Harvard and produce a few papers. Until then, your silly notions mean nothing to us!!" and the underlying elitism
of the concept.
So, that is what I am reminded of, again, whether or not PK meant it that way.
(Before reading the comments) "If Americans Could Vote Against the Forever War, Would They Do It?"
Sadly, I think the answer is no, mainly because Americans do not vote based on foreign policy unless it "comes home," eg in
the form of body bags – a lot of them. The "wasted money" argument, which brings it home, might be the most effective; that's
a pitfall of MMT. Of course, as a practical matter there's a POLITICAL choice between guns and butter, whether or not the economics
is valid.
In those remarks, Sanders is filling in the gaping hole in his resume. It may be an indication that he plans to run in 2020.
Finally: I question whether the 2016 nomination was actually "stolen." Certainly there was a good deal of cheating by the party,
but I'm not convinced it was decisive (there's no way to be sure). The actual votes ran about 47% for Sanders, and that's including
Oregon and California. I think that reflects the actual nature of the Democratic Party.
The reason is that its membership has been falling, if not plummeting, at the same time that its policies have become more
and more right-wing. Affiliation, which is a poll result, is down near 30%; I suspect registrations have fallen, too, but I haven't
seen numbers. Given the variations in state law, registrations aren't very indicative. All that means that the remaining party
members are a remnant that has been selected for conservatism. The primary vote reflects that. (This doesn't change the argument
that the Dems knowingly chose their weaker candidate; it just means that the voters did, too.)
The military is A-ok with Trump and this is what seems to matter. The roar of hysteria from the media over Trump first
2-3 months in office died down considerably when he showed a willingness to engage in a show of force by striking Syria (remember
when he was so concerned about the welfare of children?)
Only a *faction" of the security establishment is anti-Trump because he is skeptical of *neoliberal* globalism. However
this faction is doing a great job of re-enacting the framework used to deny/disrupt/disable during the Clinton administration:
scandals and selective corruption investigations. This serves a purpose: to martyr the Prez with the constituents who *should*
be holding the Prez accountable on lack of follow through and betrayal of promises made on the camapign trail.
Trump voters can't make him hold himaccountable; they are too busy feeling he has been victimized -- and many Trump voters
are victims, so the identification is real.
Meanwhile, the Prez who can't seem to enact *anything* to make lives better for the people who put him in office, is magically
able to enact the agenda of the 1%. This repeat of the 1% 's manipulations is one I can do without.
Regarding the question posed by this post I think there is very little evidence of an anti-war "fever" and even if there
were, and if it were projected into the streets and/or ballot box, I am pessimistic that it could have any effect on the U.S.
government of today. I don't think the U.S. government cares what the American people think or feel about anything -- except of
course as those cares and feelings affect the mechanisms of control through the propaganda pushed through our media, the levels
of surveillance and suppression, and the increased viciousness of our "laws" and their enforcement.
I believe the U.S. government is run by several powerful and competing interests. So I think I'll ask a different question
-- though in the same vein as that posed by the title of this post. Are those interests who compete with the interests of the
MIC and Spook Industrial Complex (SIC) beginning to see the futility and stupidity of our endless wars? Are those interests
growing anxious at enriching their share of the pie by shoving aside the budget gluttons feasting on war? Are any of those interests
whose long-term, and often short-term interests are damaged by endless wars and their ongoing deconstruction of American Empire
finally growing weary of how those wars undermine the American Empire? War may be a racket but the burning of bridges and collapse
of Empire isn't a racket I would hope even the most clueless of our masters will continue to tolerate. Have the MIC and SIC assumed
power?
"... By the way, the US provides 22% of NATO funding, a formula which is based on population. Thus, if the European members increased their contributions to NATO, the US contribution would also rise! ..."
"... Donald Trump will remain exasperated because he is fighting the good fight but not really understanding who his adversary's are. ..."
"... Foreign countries aren't taking advantage of the USA. American industrialists are taking advantage of the USA. Why does Apple make its iPhones in China? Why does Ford build so many of its SUVs in Mexico? Not because of the decisions those countries have made. It's because of the decisions American industrial leaders have made. ..."
"... The USA has a trade surplus with Canada. Trump lied about that. ..."
At the G-7 summit in Canada, President Donald Trump described America as "the piggy bank
that everybody is robbing."
After he left Quebec, his director of Trade and Industrial Policy, Peter Navarro, added a
few parting words for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: "There's a special place in hell for any
foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then
tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door. And that's what weak, dishonest Justin
Trudeau did. And that comes right from Air Force One."
In Singapore, Trump tweeted more about that piggy bank: "Why should I, as President of the
United States, allow countries to continue to make Massive Trade Surpluses, as they have for
decades [while] the U.S. pays close to the entire cost of NATO-protecting many of these same
countries that rip us off on Trade?"
To understand what drives Trump, and explains his exasperation and anger, these remarks are
a good place to begin.
Our elites see America as an "indispensable nation," the premiere world power whose ordained
duty it is to defend democracy, stand up to dictators and aggressors, and uphold a liberal
world order.
They see U.S. wealth and power as splendid tools that fate has given them to shape the
future of the planet.
Trump sees America as a nation being milked by allies who free-ride on our defense efforts
as they engage in trade practices that enrich their own peoples at America's expense.
Where our elites live to play masters of the universe, Trump sees a world laughing behind
America's back, while allies exploit our magnanimity and idealism for their own national
ends.
The numbers are impossible to refute and hard to explain.
Last year, the EU had a $151 billion trade surplus with the U.S. China ran a $376 billion
trade surplus with the U.S., the largest in history. The world sold us $796 billion more in
goods than we sold to the world.
A nation that spends more than it takes in from taxes, and consumes more of the world's
goods than it produces itself for export, year in and year out, is a nation on the way
down.
We are emulating our British cousins of the 19th century.
Trump understands that this situation is not sustainable. His strength is that the people
are still with him on putting America first.
Yet he faces some serious obstacles.
What is his strategy for turning a $796 billion trade deficit into a surplus? Is he prepared
to impose the tariffs and import restrictions that would be required to turn America from the
greatest trade-deficit nation in history to a trade-surplus nation, as we were up until the
mid-1970s?
Americans are indeed carrying the lion's share of the load of the defense of the West, and
of fighting the terrorists and radical Islamists of the Middle East, and of protecting South
Korea and Japan.
But if our NATO and Asian allies refuse to make the increases in defense he demands, is
Trump really willing to cancel our treaty commitments, walk away from our war guarantees, and
let these nations face Russia and China on their own? Could he cut that umbilical cord?
Ike's secretary of state John Foster Dulles spoke of conducting an "agonizing reappraisal"
of U.S. commitments to defend NATO allies if they did not contribute more money and troops.
Dulles died in 1959, and that reappraisal, threatened 60 years ago, never happened. Indeed,
when the Cold War ended, our NATO allies cut defense spending again. Yet we are still
subsidizing NATO in Europe and have taken on even more allies since the Soviet Empire fell.
If Europe refuses to invest the money in defense that Trump demands, or accept the tariffs
America needs to reduce and erase its trade deficits, what does he do? Is he prepared to shut
U.S. bases and pull U.S. troops out of the Baltic republics, Poland, and Germany, and let the
Europeans face Vladimir Putin and Russia themselves?
This is not an academic question. For the crunch that was inevitable when Trump was elected
seems at hand.
Trump promised to negotiate with Putin and improve relations with Russia. He promised to
force our NATO allies to undertake more of their own defense. He pledged to get out and stay
out of Mideast wars and begin to slash the trade deficits that we have run with the world.
That's what America voted for.
Now, after 500 days, he faces formidable opposition to these defining goals of his campaign,
even within his own party.
Putin remains a pariah on Capitol Hill. Our allies are rejecting the tariffs Trump has
imposed and threatening retaliation. Free-trade Republicans reject tariffs that might raise the
cost of the items U.S. companies make abroad and then ships back to the United States.
The decisive battles between Trumpian nationalism and globalism remain ahead of us. Trump's
critical tests have yet to come.
And our exasperated president senses this.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles
That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. To find out more about Patrick
Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators
website at www.creators.com.
America spends 3 times as much on defense as its allies because it is addicted to military
spending. The solution is not to pressure other countries to acquire the same addiction. The
solution is for America cut its own military spending.
This is just another example of America trying to "export" its domestic issues. Quit
blaming foreigners and deal with your issues.
"A nation that spends more than it takes in from taxes, and consumes more of the world's
goods than it produces itself for export, year in and year out, is a nation on the way down.
We are emulating our British cousins of the 19th century." never imagined I'd say this, but
you are absolutely correct. of course you neglect to acknowledge, Trump himself is an "elite"
and a "globalist". the fact his "game" is real estate, as opposed to governance is more of a
semantic distinction than ideological. debt-fueled consumerism drives real estate just as it
drives globalism. this is nothing new. add to this the pathological narcissism and the
ability to leverage moral bankruptcy as he has the tax codes and bankruptcy laws, and voila,
just another globalist in populist clothing. as I have maintained all along, he is not so
much anti-establishment as he is an establishment of one – he simply thrives in a
different type of swamp and favors a smaller oligarchy/plutocracy. and of course, there is
the big news out of Singapore/Korea, but again, much of the 'spin' or upside cited in a
denuclearized Korean peninsula involves the opportunity for North Korea to join the
globalists at the globalists' table. one can only wonder if there will be Ivanka's handbags
will be made in Panmunjom, and if Kim Jong Un will stay at the Trump hotel in DC? either way,
you are correct he is the candidate the American people, and the globalists "elected".
One problem with Trump's rant: the US enjoys a small trade surplus with Canada.
Would someone please get this president some hard facts and drill him on them for however
long it takes top get them fixed in his mind before he goes off half-cocked with any more
nonsense?
As always, Mr Buchanan sets out his personal agenda and then claims that Trump promised to
implement it if elected. The more Trump backs away from globalised free trade (if that's what
he's really doing), the more that suits the EU. The "core value" of the EU is a large
internal market protected by a high tariff wall. Globalization was rammed down an unwilling
EU's throat by the US in the Reagan years and only the British elite ever really believed in
it. As for NATO, nobody now believes that the US will honor its commitments, no matter how
much Europe pays, so logically, the European members are concentrating their additional
expenditure on an independent European defense system, which, needless to say, the US is
trying to obstruct.
By the way, the US provides 22% of NATO funding, a formula which is based
on population. Thus, if the European members increased their contributions to NATO, the US
contribution would also rise!
Donald Trump will remain exasperated because he is fighting the good fight but not really
understanding who his adversary's are.
Foreign countries aren't taking advantage of the USA. American industrialists are taking
advantage of the USA. Why does Apple make its iPhones in China? Why does Ford build so many
of its SUVs in Mexico? Not because of the decisions those countries have made. It's because
of the decisions American industrial leaders have made.
Secondly, there is absolutely no threat to NATO from Russia or Putin. Europe could slash
its already meager defense budget with only beneficial consequences. The same with Japan and
S. Korea. None of these countries need US military help. There are no real military threats
to these countries. US military spending has never been about defending other countries. It
is about enriching the shareholders of American military contractors.
So here is the real world: The United States has established a "liberal rules-based global
order" that allows wealthy American and European commercial interests to benefit mightily
from trade, and property and resource control in foreign countries. And this order is
maintained by US military power. That is why the US is "the one indispensable nation". We are
the nation that is allowed to break the order, to be the bully, in order for the rules-based
order to even exist. That's why we are beating up on countries that try to live outside of
this order like Iran, NK, Venezuela, Russia and everyone else who don't fall in line.
So Donald Trump is fighting against the power elite of the United States, he just doesn't
understand that. He is fighting against the most powerful people in the world, people who are
well represented by both political parties. He can win this fight if he lets the average
American on to this reality. And then leads them properly to a better, more balanced world.
But I suspect that he would be assassinated if he tried.
In re NATO and other oversea DOD spending, the old saying "who pays, says" has a corollary.
Who wants to say has to pay. The US, since WWII, has wanted, insisted, on being in charge of
everything we touch. This costs a lot, not to mention it often doesn't work the way we want.
It would be easy enough to stop spending all this money. The Pentagon and the
military-industrial complex would have a conniption and those whose defense bills we've been
paying would complain to high heaven, but Trump seems intent on trashing all those alliances
anyway and also on spending more money on defense than even the Pentagon thinks they need.
Trade deficits don't work the way you think they work. In todays economy the traditional
measures of deficits don't actually tell us much about what is going on.
Do you know what China does with that $350b trade surplus? A huge percentage of it is
rolled back immediately into US Treasury bonds because we are the only issuer of credit in
sufficient amounts and of suitable stability for them to buy. All of that deficit spending
Trump and the Republicans in congress passed last year is being financed by the very trade
imbalance that Trump is trying to eliminate.
But trade imbalances really don't tell us much about the flow of money. Most of the
imbalance is created by US companies that have built factories in China to sell goods back to
the US, then repatriate money back to the US in the form of dividends or stock buy backs
(which are not counted in the trade balance at all).
At best trade balances tell us very little meaningful about what is really going on, but
can be wildly deceptive. At worst they are an easy tool, for demogogs who have zero
understanding of what is going on, to inflame other uninformed people to justify trade
wars.
Interesting the things that Buchanan ignores (on purpose?). The USA has a trade surplus with
Canada. Trump lied about that. There's nothing wrong with the USA spending less money to defend other countries. Trump
doesn't have to insult our allies to do that.
"Trump understands that this situation is not sustainable."
You give him more credit than he deserves. What he does understand is that while we're
being the world's piggy bank, the American taxpayer is being the Military-Industrial
Complex's piggy-bank and that's just fine with him. As it is with most members of
Congress.
" our NATO allies cut defense spending again. Yet we are still subsidizing NATO in Europe "
Mr. Buchanan, like Trump, does not understand how NATO is funded. All NATO members have
been paying their dues. In fact, many pay a greater proportion relative to GDP per capita
than the U.S. does. Defense budgets are a different matter entirely.
This entire article seems to reduce complex issues into simple arithmetic. Economics and job
creation is about much more than balance of payments both the author and the US president
don't seem to realise this. Very shallow article.
America has a trade surplus with Canada, but seems determined to rub it in.
Some background. As the glaciers retreated south at the end of the ice age, they scraped
away Canada's topsoil and deposited it in America. Rural Canada has little arable areas; it's
beef and dairy by necessity. Costs are high and there are ten Americans to every Canadian
hence the subsidy. America subsidizes it's agriculture $55 billion annually.
Great, if we're upset about having to protect our allies in the Pacific, let's change the
Japanese constitution to allow them to have a real military again to defend themselves and
give the South Koreans nukes to balance out the power situation between them and the Norks/
Chinese. (Why is it so little is ever said about China being a nuclear power?) This whole
fantasy of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula is so naive it's laughable. If nukes
exist, there will never be any permanent guarantee of anything, and other countries will just
keep getting the bomb without our permission, like Pakistan and China. The genie is out of
the bottle, so time to be brutally realistic about what we face and what can be done. We can
whine all we want to about how it's not our responsibility, but then we expect other
countries to be hobbled and still somehow face enemy powers.
Lets take a look at the growing list of nations shifting to the right (nationalism and
populism)
-The Czech, Slovak and Slovenia Republics Poland, Hungary, Switzerland, the US.
Nations shifting this year to the right (nationalism and populism)
-Austria, Bavaria and Italy
Nations leaning to the right and leaning toward joining the VISEGRAD
-Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia and Greece
AS YOU CAN SEE THE PILLARS OF MARXIST / SOCIALIST / COMMUNIST OPEN BORDERS EUROPE/EU ARE
BEING TAKEN DOWN. THE FIGHT WILL BE WITH FRANCE, GERMANY, BELGIUM, NETHERLANDS, BRITAIN,
SWEDEN AND THE UNELECTED EU SUPERSTATE. RIGHT NOW THE FIGHT IS WITH THE POOR SOUTHERN AND
EASTERN EUROPEAN INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS BUT EVENTUALLY IT WILL REACH A TIPPING POINT WHERE IT
BECOMES AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT BUT ITS ONLY AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT FOR THE LEFT AS THE EU
REACHES THE TIPPING POINT AND THE POWER SHIFTS TO THE RIGHT.
He was brilliant, but his vanity turned him into a reckless alarmist and a pro-Israeli
partisan.
I encountered the late Bernard Lewis (1916-2018) during the 1990s culture
wars, when historians and educators met full-frontal multiculturalism, a thematic force
beginning to reshape U.S. and world history curricula in schools and colleges.
The two of us shared early, firsthand experience with Islamist disinformation campaigns on
and off campus. Using sympathetic academics, curriculum officers, and educational publishers as
tools, Muslim activists were seeking to rewrite Islamic history in textbooks and state and
national standards.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, created in 1994, was complaining of anti-Muslim
"bigotry," "racial profiling," "institutional racism," and "fear-mongering," while trying to
popularize the word "Islamophobia," and stoking the spirit of ethnic injustice and prejudice in
Washington politics.
Lewis and I were of different generations, he a charming academic magnifico long associated
with Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study. He had just retired from
teaching and was widely regarded as the nation's most influential scholar of Islam. "Islam has
Allah," he said sardonically at the time. "We've got multiculturalism."
Long before I met him, Lewis had alerted those who were listening to rising friction between
the Islamic world and the West. This was, in his mind, the outcome of Islam's centuries-long
decline and failure to embrace modernity. In thinking this way, Lewis had earned the fury of
the professor and Palestinian activist Edward Said at Columbia University, who wrote
Orientalism in 1978.
Said's influential book cast previous Western studies of the Near and Middle East as
Eurocentric, romantic, prejudiced, and racist. For Said, orientalism was an intellectual means
to justify Western conquest and empire. Bernard Lewis's outlook epitomized this approach and
interpretation. Said's line of thought profoundly influenced his undergraduate student Barack
Obama, and would have an immense impact on Obama's Mideast strategies and geopolitics as
president.
For some years, Lewis had warned of the ancient feuds between the West and Islam: in 1990
he'd
forecast a coming "clash of civilizations" in Atlantic magazine, a phrase
subsequently popularized by Harvard professor Samuel E. Huntington.
Throughout his long career, Lewis warned that Western guilt over its conquests and past was
not collateral. "In the Muslim world there are no such inhibitions," Lewis once observed. "They
are very conscious of their identity. They know who they are and what they are and what they
want, a quality which we seem to have lost to a very large extent. This is a source of strength
in the one, of weakness in the other."
Other examples of Lewis's controversial, persuasive observations include:
During the run up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Lewis suddenly gained immense political
influence, love-bombed by White House neocons Richard Cheney, Richard Perle, and other
policymakers to a degree that preyed on the old man's vanity and love of the spotlight.
Anti-war feeling in official Washington then was unpopular. Among Republicans and Democrats
alike, to assert that Israel and oil were parts of the equation appeared uncouth. Insisted the
neocons and White House: the aim of the war was to bring democratic government and regional
order to the Mideast. Rescued from despotism, Iraqis would cheer invasion, Lewis and his allies
claimed, as Afghanis welcomed relief from Taliban fundamentalists.
In 2004 the Wall Street Journal devised
what it called a Lewis Doctrine, which it defined as "seeding democracy in failed Mideast
states to defang terrorism." The Journal clarified that the Lewis Doctrine "in effect,
had become U.S. policy" in 2001. The article also revealed that Lewis had long been politically
involved with Israel and a confidant of successive Israeli prime ministers, including Ariel
Sharon.
"Though never debated in Congress or sanctified by presidential decree, Mr. Lewis's
diagnosis of the Muslim world's malaise, and his call for a U.S. military invasion to seed
democracy in the Mideast, have helped define the boldest shift in U.S. foreign policy in 50
years. The occupation of Iraq is putting the doctrine to the test," the Journal
proclaimed.
And so it has gone. After 15 years of many hard-to-follow shifts in policy and force, with
vast human and materiel costs, some analysts look upon U.S. policy in Iraq and the Mideast as a
geopolitical disaster, still in shambles and not soon to improve.
In other eyes Lewis stands guilty of devising a sophistic rationale to advance Israel's
security at the expense of U.S. national interests. In 2006, Stephen M. Walt and John J. Mearsheimer
accused Lewis of consciously providing intellectual varnish to an Israel-centered policy
group inside the George W. Bush administration that was taking charge of Mideast policies. The
same year, Lewis's reckless alarmism on Iranian nukes on behalf of Israeli interests drew
wide ridicule and contempt.
A committed Zionist, Lewis conceived of Israel as an essential part of Western civilization
and an island of freedom in the Mideast. Though, acutely aware of Islam's nature and history,
he must have had doubts about the capacity to impose democracy through force. Later, he stated
unconvincingly that he had opposed the invasion of Iraq, but the facts of the matter point in
another direction.
Lewis thus leaves a mixed legacy. It is a shame that he shelved his learned critiques and
compromised his scholarly stature late in life to pursue situational geopolitics. With his role
as a government advisor before the Iraq war, academic Arabists widely took to calling Lewis
"the Great Satan," whereas Edward Said's favored position in academic circles is almost
uncontested.
Yet few dispute that Lewis was profoundly knowledgeable of his subject. His view that
Islamic fundamentalism fails all liberal tests of toleration, cross-cultural cooperation,
gender equality, gay rights, and freedom of conscience still holds. Most Islamic authorities
consider separation of church and state either absurd or evil. They seek to punish free
inquiry, blasphemy, and apostasy. Moreover, it is their obligation to do so under holy law.
Wearing multicultural blinders, contemporary European and American progressives pretend none of
this is so. As has been demonstrated since 2015, Europe provides opportunities for territorial
expansion, as do open-borders politics in the U.S. and Canada.
In 1990, long before his Washington adventures, Lewis wrote in the American Scholar
, "We live in a time when great efforts are being made to falsify the record of the past and to
make history a tool of propaganda; when governments, religious movements, political parties,
and sectional groups of every kind are busy rewriting history as they would wish it to have
been."
On and off campus, Islamists today use Western progressive politics and ecumenical dreams to
further their holy struggle.
Lewis would point out that this force is completely understandable; in fact, it is a sacred
duty. What would disturb him more is that in the name of diversity, Western intellectuals and
journalists, government and corporate officials, and even military generals have eagerly
cooperated.
This article is exactly what this so-called intellectual Lewis is:
opinion.
All that's said by this Lewis guy is his opinion and his goal was hatred of Islam, therefore,
he wanted it to then have people follow along with hatred for arabs and Palestinians.
This was, of course, because then, people would keep supporting Israel!
How 'bout that?
Who are we kidding?
When talking about the history of this nation or that religion, Lewis offers mostly his
opinion and takes whatever event out of context to try to prove all this anti-Islam
rubbish. There are nations that have a majority of people of the Moslem religion, that have
different systems of government and so, we have free voting, and had for decades, in Turkey,
Pakistan, Iran, Lebanon and so on.
Pakistan and Turkey had female Prime Ministers decade ago how 'bout that! And so did
Indonesia, the nation most populated by Moslems, in the word, and so did Senegal, in
Africa.
These nations are thousands of miles apart, with different languages and cultures.
What is not pointed out, but I will, since I know, is that whenever there was turmoil in an
election in a mostly Moslem populated nation, why it was the meddling by the U.S. covertly
and with bribes and trouble making.
Like when the CIA did that in Iran in 1953 after a fellow, Mosaddegh was freely elected and
he was stopped and the dictator Shah was put in.
The U.S. constantly either installed or supported anti-democratic leaders in the Middle East
and Asia.
By the way, that's how you put the subject of Edward Said- that he was a professor and a
Palestinian activist? That's it?
How come you didn't tell us readers that he is a Christian?
Lewis knows no more about the makings, origins or history of religions that do many dozens of
thousands of professors in the U.S. alone.
But, he has been is given a lot of media, and still is, because he is liked by the neo-cons.
Also, I know more than Lewis did.
dig what I'm saying
"In 2004 the Wall Street Journal devised what it called a Lewis Doctrine, which it defined
as "seeding democracy in failed Mideast states to defang terrorism." The Journal clarified
that the Lewis Doctrine "in effect, had become U.S. policy" in 2001. The article also
revealed that Lewis had long been politically involved with Israel and a confidant of
successive Israeli prime ministers, including Ariel Sharon."
In laymen's terms, Lewis was an Israeli operative working the academic beat. His American
citizenship meant about as much to him as his earlier British citizenship had, a matter of
convenience, nothing more. Stripped of the spurious Ivy League gloss, his "scholarship" was
tendentious; it served to advance a political agenda and was consistently tainted by his
entanglements with politicians and political institutions. Circa 2018 it reads as badly
dated, often wrong, and generally wrong-headed.
I see he died a few weeks ago. Good riddance. "Intellectual father of the Iraq War" isn't
the epitaph of a decent human being.
The consensus I'm aware of is that Obama's foreign policy was just a continuation of the
foreign policy pursued by Bush during his second term. How does Obama continuing the foreign
policy positions of Bush, who was influenced by Lewis, indicate that Obama's views on the
middle east were influenced by Said? It should similarly be noted that while academics are
practically universal in siding with Said over Lewis, they did not universally support him
against other orientalists. While I'm likely butchering his claims, I seem to recall that
Robert Irwin criticized Said's Orientalism for focusing too much on Bernard Lewis, ignoring
the work of German orientalists who would complicate Said's claims about the West's portrayal
of the middle east.
I admire his spirited defense of the Western canon in literature and culture based upon
Judeo-Christian values. But he lost me when he joined forces with the campaign to blacklist
Professors John Meanshimer and Steven Walt with their book The Israel Lobby. The book
originally was an article that was expanded into their book. But because of the blacklist
against them, they coildn't ge their critique published in America and had to go to The
London Review of Books. And of course the article was smeared as anti-Semitic because it was
critical of the Israeli lobby (namely AIPAC) and its influence over our foreign policy.
"He was brilliant, but his vanity turned him into a reckless alarmist and a pro-Israeli
partisan."
*****************
I'm missing how vanity & supporting Israel are connected?
Islamic "fundamentalism" was rare and insignificant until we funded it, armed it, and trained
it. Our purpose was not to defang Islam but to superfang it, so we could have a new enemy to
justify ever-increasing budgets and power for Deepstate.
Now that we've switched back to Russia as the official enemy, our focus on Islam is
fading.
Saying that Lewis fell prey to vanity is easier than saying he, like the rest of the neocons,
was a hypocritical ethnic chauvinist.
In other words:
"Ethnic chauvinism is a sin and a great evil, or evidence of dangerous mental illness,
except for the Zionists who you need to support uncritically and unconditionally."
One thing to remember about zionists is that many of the christian ones are expecting to
trigger the second coming once certain things come to pass and this includes geography in
that region. I grew up with that. Anyway, to them it's not reckless, it's speeding the
prophecy along to its rightful end.
Lewis' so-called analysis and historiography was politicized and deeply flawed, so much so
that he showed himself to be a bigot against Arabs and Armenians – he was a scholar of
Turkish history, who had been, wined, dined, bought and sold, and corrupted by the Turkish
and Israeli governments to serves as their genocide denialist- and of Islam, and anything
else Middle Eastern, that did not serve Israel's interests. He offered himself to the neocons
as a willing academic and did much damage by 'legitimizing' their bogus 'war on terror'.
He should not be allowed to rest in peace or escape accountability in the judgment of
history.
i guess is the question . . . to decipher the depth and scope that islam poses to the US.
There are just not that many non-Muslims shooting people over cartoons, and insults in the
name of god. I have some very fine relational dynamics with muslims, but on occasion, i can't
help but wonder which one is going take me out because i don't use the term honorable when I
say mohammed's name.
The Nt doesn't even advocate throwing stones at people who steal my coat, I am supposed to
offer up the other.
Islamic "fundamentalism" was rare and insignificant until we funded it, armed it, and
trained it.
Islamic fundamentalism blighted and extinguished the lives of millions of Armenians,
Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and others in the first half of the 20th century, long before dumb
Westerners funded it or armed it. The fact that people in the West are clueless about this
history does not mean it did not happen.
Obama had an English class with Said as an undergrad at Columbia. So did Leon Wieseltier
years earlier, as did many other Columbia students. Interestingly enough, Wiesaltier remained
an aggressive zionist. The claim that Said had any effect upon Obama's foreign policy ideas;
policies; or actions is profoundly silly.
To support your claim that "Said's line of thought profoundly influenced his undergraduate
student Barack Obama, and would have an immense impact on Obama's Mideast strategies and
geopolitics as president," you need a great deal more evidence. Currently, you have none.
Islamic fundamentalism was created and funded by Israel and the US to compete with the then
Marxist PLO and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.You thought Marxist terrorism was
problematic,look at Islamic terrorism.
"... Just because a country is democratic doesn't mean it is self-governing, as America is quickly discovering. ..."
"... John Adams warned that democracy "soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide." ..."
"... James Madison was equally concerned with the pernicious consequences of large-scale democracy, arguing that democracies "have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." ..."
"... Even George Washington had his doubts about whether democracy was consistent with wise government. Democracies are slow to correct their errors, and those who try to guide the public down a wise course frequently become the object of popular hatred ..."
"... What we've got now is the tyranny of the ..."
"... minority . It is not "the people" who govern the nation. Instead, the state is run by permanent civil servants, largely unaccountable to any popular control, and professional politicians who are usually hand-picked by party insiders (Hillary over Bernie, anyone?). This has made it such that the actual 2016 election was more akin to ratifying a foregone conclusion than a substantive choice over the direction of future policy. ..."
"... If you're a student of politics, you've probably heard of the iron law of oligarchy . The phrase was coined by Robert Michels, an early 20th-century social scientist, in his landmark study of political parties. The iron law of oligarchy is simple: minorities rule majorities, because the former are organized and the latter are not. This is true even within democratic institutions. As power was concentrated in the federal government, the complexity of the tasks confronting civil servants and legislators greatly increased. This required a durable, hierarchical set of institutions for coordinating the behavior of political insiders. Durability enabled political insiders to coordinate their plans across time, which was particularly useful in avoiding the pesky constraints posed by regular elections. Hierarchy enabled political insiders to coordinate plans across space, making a permanently larger government both more feasible and more attractive for elites. The result, in retrospect, was predictable: a massive executive branch bureaucracy that's now largely autonomous, and a permissive Congress that's more than happy to serve as an institutionalized rubber stamp. ..."
"... One of the cruel ironies of the political status quo is that democracy is unquestioningly associated with self-governance, yet in practice, the more democratic a polity grows, the less self-governing it remains. ..."
Just because a country is democratic doesn't mean it is self-governing, as America is
quickly discovering.
Something has gone wrong with America's political institutions. While the United States is,
on the whole, competently governed, there are massive problems lurking just beneath the
surface. This became obvious during the 2016 presidential election. Each party's nominee was
odious to a large segment of the public; the only difference seemed to be whether it was an
odious insurgent or an odious careerist. Almost two years on, things show little signs of
improving.
What's to blame? One promising, though unpopular, answer is: democracy itself. When
individuals act collectively in large groups and are not held responsible for the consequences
of their behavior, decisions are unlikely to be reasonable or prudent. This design flaw in
popular government was recognized by several Founding Fathers. John Adams warned that
democracy "soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not
commit suicide."
James Madison was equally concerned with the pernicious consequences of large-scale
democracy, arguing that democracies "have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention;
have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in
general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
Even George Washington had his doubts about whether democracy was consistent with wise
government. Democracies are slow to correct their errors, and those who try to guide the public
down a wise course frequently become the object of popular hatred : "It is one of the
evils of democratical governments, that the people, not always seeing and frequently misled,
must often feel before they can act right; but then evil of this nature seldom fail to work
their own cure," Washington wrote. "It is to be lamented, nevertheless, that the remedies are
so slow, and that those, who may wish to apply them seasonably are not attended to before they
suffer in person, in interest and in reputation."
Given these opinions, it is unsurprising that the U.S. Constitution contains so many other
mechanisms for ensuring responsible government. Separation of powers and checks and balances
are necessary to protect the people from themselves. To the extent our political institutions
are deteriorating, the Founders' first instinct would be to look for constitutional changes,
whether formal or informal, that have expanded the scope of democracy and entrusted to the
electorate greater power than they can safely wield, and reverse them.
This theory is simple, elegant, and appealing. But it's missing a crucial detail.
American government is largely insulated from the tyranny of the majority. But at least
since the New Deal, we've gone too far in the opposite direction. What we've got now is the
tyranny of theminority . It is not "the people" who govern the nation.
Instead, the state is run by permanent civil servants, largely unaccountable to any popular
control, and professional politicians who are usually hand-picked by party insiders (Hillary
over Bernie, anyone?). This has made it such that the actual 2016 election was more akin to
ratifying a foregone conclusion than a substantive choice over the direction of future
policy.
But now we confront a puzzle: the rise of the permanent government did coincide with
increased democratization. The administrative-managerial state, and its enablers in Congress,
followed from creative reinterpretations of the Constitution that allowed voters to make
decisions that the Ninth and Tenth amendments -- far and away the most ignored portion of the
Bill of Rights -- should have forestalled. As it turns out, not only are both of these
observations correct, they are causally related . Increasing the scope of popular
government results in the loss of popular control.
If you're a student of politics, you've probably heard of the iron law of
oligarchy . The phrase was coined by Robert Michels, an early 20th-century social
scientist, in his landmark study of political parties. The iron law of oligarchy is simple:
minorities rule majorities, because the former are organized and the latter are not. This is
true even within democratic institutions. As power was concentrated in the federal government,
the complexity of the tasks confronting civil servants and legislators greatly increased. This
required a durable, hierarchical set of institutions for coordinating the behavior of political
insiders. Durability enabled political insiders to coordinate their plans across time, which
was particularly useful in avoiding the pesky constraints posed by regular elections. Hierarchy
enabled political insiders to coordinate plans across space, making a permanently larger
government both more feasible and more attractive for elites. The result, in retrospect, was
predictable: a massive executive branch bureaucracy that's now largely autonomous, and a
permissive Congress that's more than happy to serve as an institutionalized rubber
stamp.
The larger the electorate, and the more questions the electorate is asked to decide, the
more important it is for the people who actually govern to take advantage of economies of scale
in government. If the federal government were kept small and simple, there would be little need
for a behemoth public sector. Developing durable and hierarchical procedures for organizing
political projects would be unfeasible for citizen-statesmen. But those same procedures become
essential for technocratic experts and career politicians.
One of the cruel ironies of the political status quo is that democracy is
unquestioningly associated with self-governance, yet in practice, the more democratic a polity
grows, the less self-governing it remains. This is why an upsurge of populism won't cure
what ails the body politic. It will either provoke the permanent and unaccountable government
into tightening its grip, or those who actually hold the power will fan the flames of popular
discontent, channeling that energy towards their continued growth and entrenchment. We have
enough knowledge to make the diagnosis, but not to prescribe the treatment. Perhaps there is
some comfort in knowing what political health looks like. G.K. Chesterton said it best in his
insight about the relationship between democracy and self-governance:
The democratic contention is that government is not something analogous to playing the
church organ, painting on vellum, discovering the North Pole (that insidious habit), looping
the loop, being Astronomer Royal, and so on. For these things we do not wish a man to do at
all unless he does them well. It is, on the contrary, a thing analogous to writing one's own
love-letters or blowing one's own nose. These things we want a man to do for himself, even if
he does them badly . In short, the democratic faith is this: that the most terribly important
things must be left to ordinary men themselves
The first step towards renewed self-governance must be to reject the false dichotomy between
populism and oligarchy. A sober assessment shows that they are one in the same.
Alexander William Salter is an assistant professor in the Rawls College of Business at
Texas Tech University. He is also the Comparative Economics Research Fellow at TTU's Free
Market Institute. See more at his website: www.awsalter.com .
This was going fine until the author decided to blame civil servants for our nation's
problems. How about an electoral system that denies majority rule? A Congress that routinely
votes against things the vast majority want? A system that vastly overpriveleges corporations
and hands them billions while inequality grows to the point where the UN warns that our
country resembles a third world kleptocracy? Nope, sez this guy. It's just because there are
too many bureaucrats.
He avoids the 17th amendment which was one of the barriers to the mob, and the 19th that
removed the power of individual states to set the terms of suffrage.
Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Katy Stanton could simply have moved to Wyoming.
It might be useful to only have property taxpayers vote.
And the problem is the left. When voters rejected Gay Marriage (57% in California!) or benefits
for illegals, unelected and unaccountable judges reversed the popular will.
I find your use of the word populism interesting. Inasmuch the word is generally used when the
decisions of the populace is different from that which the technocrats or oligarchs would have
made for them. The author being part of the technocratic elite thinks that he and his ilk know
best. This entire article is just a lot of arguments in support of this false and self serving
idea.
Making the federal government "small" will not solve the problems the author describes or
really alludes to. The power vacum left by a receding federal government will just be occupied
by an unaccountable corporate sector. The recent dismantling of Toys R Us by a spawn of Bain
Capital is the most recent manifestation of the twisted and pathological thought process that
calls itself "free market capitalism." A small federal government did not end child labor,
fight the Depression, win WW II or pioneer space exploration. Conservatives love the mythology
of a government "beast" that must be decapitated so that "Liberty" may reign. There are far
more dangerous forces at work in American society that inhibit liberty and tax our personal
treasuries than the federal government.
1) The US is not and never has been a ' democracy ' It is a Democratic Republic ' which is not
the same as a ' democracy ' ( one person -- one vote period ) of which there is only one in the
entire world . Switzerland
2) A large part of what has brought us to this point is the worn out well past its sell by
Electoral College which not only no longer serves its intended purpose .
3) But the major reason why we're here to put it bluntly is the ' Collective Stupidity of
America ' we've volitionally become : addled by celebrity , addicted to entertainment and
consumed by conspiracy theory rather than researching the facts
It's time to end the pretension that we live in a democracy. It maybe useful to claim so
when the US is trying to open markets or control resources in 3rd world countries. It's at that
time that we're 'spreading democracy'. Instead it's like spreading manure.
The managerial state arose to quell the threat of class warfare. Ironically those who sought to
organize the proletariat under a vision of class-based empowerment clamored for the same. The
response over time was fighting fire with fire as the cliche goes becoming what the opposition
has sought but only in a modified form.
If we were able to devise a way for distributive justice apart from building a bloated
bureaucracy then perhaps this emergence of oligarchy could have been averted. What
alternative(s) exist for an equitable distribution of wealth and income to ameliorate poverty?
Openly competitive (so-called) markets? And the charity of faith-based communities? I think
not.
Democracy, like all systems requires maintenace. Bernard Shaw said that the flaw of pragmatism
is that any system that is not completely idiotic will work PROVIDED THAT SOMEONE PUT EFFORT IN
MAKING IT WORK.
We have come to think that Democracy is in automatic pilot, and does not require effort of
our part See how many do not bother to vote or to inform themselves.
Democracy is a fine, shiny package with two caveats in it "Batteries not included" And "Some
assembly required" FAilure to heed those leads to disaster.
I see where you are coming from, but I must disagree. We don't have a democracy in any real
way, so how can it have failed?
Despite massive propaganda of commission and omission, the majority of the American people
don't want to waste trillions of dollars on endless pointless oversees wars. The public be
damned: Trump was quickly beaten into submission and we are back to the status quo. The public
doesn't want to give trillions of dollars to Wall Street while starving Main Street of capital.
The public doesn't want an abusively high rate of immigration whose sole purpose is to flood
the market for labor, driving wages down and profits up. And so on.
Oswald Spengler was right. " in actuality the freedom of public opinion involves the
preparation of public opinion, which costs money; and the freedom of the press brings with it
the question of possession of the press, which again is a matter of money; and with the
franchise comes electioneering, in which he who pays the piper calls the tune."
"If the federal government were kept small and simple, there would be little need for a
behemoth public sector. Developing durable and hierarchical procedures for organizing political
projects would be unfeasible for citizen-statesmen. But those same procedures become essential
for technocratic experts and career politicians."
True, but this implies retarding government power as is will lead to an ultimate solution.
It will not. The sober truth is that a massive centralized national government has been
inevitable since the onset of the second world war or even beforehand with American
intervention in the colonoal Phillippines and the Great War. Becoming an empire requires
extensive power grabbing and becoming and maintaining a position as a world power requires
constant flexing of that power. Maintaining such a large population, military, and foreign
corps requires the massive public-works projects you speak of in order to keep the population
content and foreign powers in check. Failure to do so leads to chaos and tragic disaster that
would lead to such a nation a collapse in all existing institutions due to overcumbersome
responsibilities. These cannot be left to the provinces/states due to the massive amounts of
resources required to maintain such imperial ambitions along with the cold reality of state
infighting and possible seperatist leanings.
If one wishes to end the power of the federal government as is, the goal is not to merely
seek reform. The goal is to dismantle the empire; destroy the military might, isolate certain
diplomatic relations, reduce rates of overseas trade and reduce the economy as a whole, and
then finally disband and/or drastically reduce public security institutions such as the FBI,
CIA, and their affiliates. As you well know, elites and the greater public alike consider these
anathema.
However, if you wish to rush to this goal, keep in mind that dismantling the American empire
will not necessarily lead to the end of oppression and world peace even in the short term. A
power vacuum will open that the other world powers such as the Russian Federation and the PRC
will rush to fill up. As long as the world remains so interconnected and imperialist ambitions
are maintained by old and new world powers, even the smallest and most directly democratic
states will not be able to become self-governing for long.
Well, when, statistically speaking, half of the population has an IQ of less than 100 (probably
more than half now that USA has been invaded by the Third World) then a great number of people
are uninformed and easily manipulated voters. That is one of the great fallacies of democracy.
In an era when the word "democracy" is regarded as one of our deities to worship, this article
is a breath of fresh air. Notice how we accuse the Russians of trying to undermine our hallowed
"democracy." We really don't know what we mean when we use the term democracy, but it is a
shibboleth that has a good, comforting sound. And this idea that we could extend our
"democracy" by increasing the number of voters shows that we don't understand much at all.
Brilliant insights.
I believe we are prisoners of so-called "democracy"
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
July 13, 2017
The Prisoners of "Democracy"
Screwing the masses was the forte of the political establishment. It did not really matter
which political party was in power, or what name it went under, they all had one ruling
instinct, tax, tax, and more taxes. These rapacious politicians had an endless appetite for
taxes, and also an appetite for giving themselves huge raises, pension plans, expenses, and all
kinds of entitlements. In fact one of them famously said, "He was entitled to his
entitlements." Public office was a path to more, and more largesse all paid for by the
compulsory taxes of the masses that were the prisoners of "democracy."
[read more at link below] http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-prisoners-of-democracy.html
America had dramatically changed since John F. Kennedy seduced voters with the promises of
the New Frontier. A young family, the campaign jingles, the embrace of television, and the
prospect of America's first Catholic president injected a sense of patriotic adrenaline into
the 1960 campaign. There were "high hopes" for Jack and a sense of cultural validation for
Catholics who remembered Al Smith's failed presidential bid in 1928. In 1960, the Everly
Brothers and Bobby Darin crooned through the radio, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird
proved a national sensation, and Americans flocked to movies like Spartacus in
magnificent downtown theaters.
But the frivolity and innocence, however illusory, were shattered on November 22, 1963.
Kennedy's assassination violently shifted America's cultural fault lines. One afternoon
accelerated the nation's sociological maladies, intensified its political divisions, and
evaporated its black-and-white contentment. Americans proceeded on a Technicolor path of
disruption, one that had transformed the nation by the time of Bobby's announcement on March
16, 1968. It was that year when The Doors and Cream blasted from transistor radios, John
Updike's Couples landed on the cover of Time , and 2001: A Space Odyssey
played in new suburban cinemas. The country had experienced a dervish frenzy, and Bobby was
fully aware of his nation's turbulent course.
The country was rocked by young students protesting a worsening war in Vietnam. Racial
tension exploded and riots destroyed urban neighborhoods. America's political evolution forever
altered its electoral geography. Bobby was embarking on a remarkable campaign that challenged
the incumbent president, a man he despised for many years. But the source of this strife
stemmed from the White House years of Bobby's brother. "While he defined his vision more
concretely and compellingly than Jack had -- from ending a disastrous war and addressing the
crisis in the cities to removing a sadly out-of-touch president -- he failed to point out that
the war, the festering ghettos, and Lyndon Johnson were all part of Jack Kennedy's legacy,"
wrote Larry Tye in his biography of Bobby.
For the 1968 primary, Kennedy metamorphosed into a liberal figure with an economic populist
message. Kennedy's belated entry turned into an audacious crusade, with the candidate
addressing racial injustice, income inequality, and the failure of Vietnam. He balanced this
message with themes touching upon free enterprise and law and order. Kennedy hoped to appeal to
minorities and working-class whites. He quickly became a messianic figure, and the press
embellished his New Democrat image. By late March, Johnson announced that he would not seek
reelection during a televised address. Through his departure, Johnson worked to maintain
control of the party machine by supporting Hubert Humphrey, his devoted Vice President. But in
the following weeks, Kennedy built momentum as he challenged McCarthy in states like Indiana
and Nebraska. His performance in both states, where anti-Catholic sentiments lingered,
testified to Kennedy's favorable electoral position.
In April 4, Kennedy learned that the Rev. King had been assassinated. He relayed the civil
rights leader's death in a black neighborhood in Indianapolis. His words helped spare
Indianapolis from the riots that erupted in cities across the country, ultimately leading to
nearly 40 people killed and over 2,000 injured. MLK's assassination served as an unsettling
reminder to Kennedy's family, friends, campaign aides, and traveling press. During Kennedy's
first campaign stop in Kansas, the press corps stopped at a restaurant where the legendary
columnist Jimmy Breslin asked, "Do you think this guy has the stuff to go all the way?"
"Yes, of course he has the stuff to go all the way," replied Newsweek's John J.
Lindsay. "But he's not going to go all the way. The reason is that somebody is going to shoot
him. I know it and you know it. Just as sure as we're sitting here somebody is going to shoot
him. He's out there now waiting for him. And, please God, I don't think we'll have a country
after it."
Despite what happened in 1963, the Secret Service had yet to provide protection of
presidential and vice presidential candidates and nominees during the 1964 election or the 1968
primary. But all the signs were there that Kennedy needed protection. The frenzied crowds
increased in size, taking a physical toll on the candidate. In one instance, "he was pulled so
hard that he tumbled into the car door, splitting his lip and breaking a front tooth that
required capping," writes Nye. "He ended up on a regimen of vitamins and antibiotics to fight
fatigue and infection For most politicians, the challenge was to attract crowds; for Bobby, it
was to survive them." In California, just 82 days after his announcement, Kennedy met the fate
that so many feared.
♦♦♦
Bobby Kennedy was a complicated figure from a family that continues to engage America's
imagination. In his autobiography, the novelist Philip Roth, who recently passed away,
reflected on Kennedy's assassination:
He was by no means a political figure constructed on anything other than the human
scale, and so, the night of his assassination and for days afterward, one felt witness to the
violent cutting down not of a monumental force for justice and social change like King or the
powerful embodiment of a people's massive misfortunes or a titan of religious potency but
rather of a rival -- of a vital, imperfect, high-strung, egotistical, rivalrous, talented
brother, who could be just as nasty as he was decent. The murder of a boyish politician of
forty-two, a man so nakedly ambitious and virile, was a crime against ordinary human hope as
well as against the claims of robust, independent appetite and, coming after the murders of
President Kennedy at forty-six and Martin Luther King at thirty-nine, evoked the simplest,
most familiar forms of despair.
For those schoolchildren and their parents in June 1968, Kennedy's campaign offered a sense
of nostalgia. They remembered the exuberance of his brother's campaign, the optimism of his
administration, and the possibilities of the 1960s. For the nation's large ethnic Catholic
voting bloc, another Kennedy reminded them of that feeling of validation in the 1960 election.
Of course, it had been a tumultuous decade for these voters. They lived in cities that had
precipitously declined since JFK's campaign visits in 1960. Railroad stations ended passenger
service, theaters closed, factories shuttered, and new highways offered an exodus to suburbia.
As Catholics, they prayed for the conversion of Russia, adapted to Vatican II reforms, and
adjusted to new parishes in the developing outskirts. Young draftees were shipped off to a
catastrophic war, which only intensified their feelings of disillusionment. Their
disenchantment raised questions about their sustained support for Democrats. Kennedy may have
proved formidable for Nixon in the general election, but the Catholic vote was increasingly up
for grabs.
Pat Buchanan understood this electoral opportunity for Republicans. In a 1971 memo, Buchanan
argued that Catholics were the largest bloc of available Democratic voters for the GOP: "The
fellows who join the K.of C. (Knights of Columbus), who make mass and communion every morning,
who go on retreats, who join the Holy Name society, who fight against abortion in their
legislatures, who send their kids to Catholic schools, who work on assembly lines and live in
Polish, Irish, Italian and Catholic communities or who have headed to the suburbs -- these are
the majority of Catholics; they are where our voters are."
In subsequent presidential elections, Catholic voters flocked to Democrats and Republicans.
Their electoral preferences were driven by the issues of the moment and often by location. The
geographical divide of our politics has only intensified. The 2016 presidential election
encapsulated this trend. Voters in Appalachia and the Rust Belt overwhelmingly supported Donald
Trump that year. Many of these voters previously supported Obama in both 2008 and 2012. In
1968, these voters likely appreciated Kennedy's campaign message. But the tragedy of the nation
is now a loss of optimism -- the belief that tomorrow will be a better day. Americans are
overwhelmed by ideological tension and socio-economic angst. The prosperity enjoyed by large
metropolitan regions has not spilled over into the heartland. There is no nostalgia for 1968
because countless Americans understand that the nation has failed to address income inequality,
job displacement, urban decline, and mass poverty. It was so long ago, but America did lose its
innocence on November 22, 1963. Bobby Kennedy's death in 1968 served as a reminder that it
would never return.
Charles F, McElwee III is a writer based in northeastern Pennsylvania. Follow him on
Twitter at @CFMcElwee
.
"... Northern Observer, someday Israel will go the way of Rhodesia if it's lucky. Many believe Israel orchestrated JFK's death; he insisted on inspecting Dimona for nuclear weapon development. ..."
"... If you look at actual evidence in the case you would understand that Sirhan did not and could not have killed Sen. Kennedy. Just look at autopsy report and it says he was killed by bullets fired and virtual point blank range from below and the back of the head. In addition, sound analysis proves that there were 13 shots fired but the alleged murder weapon only held 8 shots. So let's stop this charade. ..."
More troublingly, Robert Kennedy's death occurred within five years of his elder brother's,
and under similar circumstances. It is important to recall how unprecedented their deaths were
to the generation who witnessed them. If time has removed the shock of the assassinations of
the Kennedy brothers, it should not obscure just how anomalous they are. Bad luck may be part
of the mythos of the Kennedy family, but lightning does not strike the same place twice, and
political assassinations are exceedingly rare in American history. Both Kennedy brothers hurled
themselves into the most tumultuous and divisive issues of their time -- Israeli nationalism
and anti-communism -- and both appeared to have paid a heavy price.
In the first place, I don't think that failure of Robert Kennedy had anything to do with a
substantial limitation of the liberal world view, but with another concept, or argument:
The end cannot justify the means because it is the mean, which is a process, which
conditionates the end, in itself only an outcome.
Robert Kennedy supported violence made by the Zionist movement, turned into a State, and
if you ask me, it was that violence which -no pun intended- backfired against him.
Now, about the out balance between loyalty and allegiance homeland/nation, I think it
should be looked at from Sirhan perspective. Yes, he had escaped from what, in his
perspective, was zionist persecution, just to end in a country where that persecution was
supported actively by some high profile politicians. I am not going to say that murder is
right, but some how it had to feel for him as if that anti palestinian israely persecution
had reappeared very near to his home.
From that point of view, he wasn't a refuge anymore; the country where he was living had
become an acomplice of that persecution.
Maybe, if Robert Kennedy had considered a less bellicist way to support Israel, like
sending military support without delivering neither the means nor the command decissions to
the government of Israel, but keeping it in the hand of the U.S., who knows.
This article doesn't quite try to justify Oswald's or Sirhan's actions. But it places them
firmly in a political context rather than a criminal one.
It also suggests that JFK and RFK both went too far – that they "hurled themselves
into the most tumultuous and divisive issues of their time" and thus bear a degree of
responsibility for their own fates.
If we want to debate the merits of arming Israel, or undermining Cuba, then let's have
that debate. But this is altogether the wrong way to frame it. I, for one, don't ever want
the Overton window on such issues to be shifted by the acts, or even the potential acts, of
an assassin.
Israel twice begged Jordan not to join the war that it was already fighting with Egypt and
Syria – a war of aggression and genocide, where Nasser boasted of the impending total
destruction of Israel, Egyptian state media spoke of a road from Tel Aviv to Cairo paved in
Jewish skulls, and Israel's rabbinate consecrated national parks in case they had to be used
for Jewish mass graves.
Sirhan Sirhan's entire identity was wrapped up in the frustrated need for Jewish servitude
and inferiority, the bitterness that a second Holocaust had failed. He was exactly like the
Klan cops in Philadelphia, Mississippi, murdering Freedom Riders who tried to deprive them of
their most cherished resource: assured superiority over their traditional designated victim
group.
Hinted at but ignored is another aspect by which 1968 presaged 2018. In 1968 Bobby Kennedy
waited until after Gene McCarthy had challenged LBJ and LBJ had withdrawn from the race
before entering. For many (most?) McCarthy backers, Kennedy was an opportunistic, privileged
spoiler. In the same way, many of Bernie Sanders' supporters looked upon Hillary Clinton as
the privileged spoiler of a Democratic Party establishment that had tried and failed to move
the party to the right. The McGovern was followed by Carter, who was followed by Mondale, who
was followed by Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama, and Hillary. For Democrats, then, it's
been fifty years of struggling to find a center, a struggle Republicans pretty much found in
Ronald Reagan.
John Wilkes Booth was wrapped up in bitterness, defeat & a warped loyalty to his
homeland, too.
It's interesting I guess to examine assassins' motives, but to what point?
Northern Observer, someday Israel will go the way of Rhodesia if it's lucky.
Many believe Israel orchestrated JFK's death; he insisted on inspecting Dimona for nuclear
weapon development.
Let the many who criticize TAC for not printing pro Israeli essays read this one. Also, read
the numerous blogs supporting this thrust. The "small nation" phrase was a tip-off to the
author's loyalties. I think this article is more worthy of the New York Times. Let us not
forget June 8, 1967, is another anniversary, when the sophisticated and unmarked aircraft and
PT boats using napalm of the author's "small nation" attacked the USS Liberty in
international water, with complete disregard to the ship's American markings and large US
flag. http://www.gtr5.com/ This event
received scant coverage on P19 of the aforementioned NYT. "Small nation"; indeed!
The only way one can defend Israel's apartheid policies is by demonizing all of their
victims.
Sirhan Sirhan is Jordanian – a nation that was invented specifically to be an
apartheid state with no Jews at all, forever closed to Jewish inhabitation or immigration.
That is his view of normalcy. I'm sorry it's also yours.
This is pure bunk. The idea that Sirhan Sirhan was the assassin of RFK has been categorically
disproven by the analysis of the fatal bullets, which none of came from Sirhan's gun. And RFKs friends and close advisors all knew that he had no love for Israel. Whatever he
said in support of Israel was for the media purposes only.
Having worked in Jordan and watched Israelis do business and as tourists (Jewish shrines)
there, I saw and heard no antisemitism. From my perspective, there seemed to be a positive
relationship. Elat and Aqaba are like sister cities. In fact, there seemed to be high-level
cooperation. Keep looking you will find bigotry to justify your positions.
I completely agree with Steve Naidamast. This article is indeed "pure bunk" because Sirhan
Sirhan is a side story. That's why this article, with such an angle, should simply never have
been published.
If you look at actual evidence in the case you would understand that Sirhan did not and
could not have killed Sen. Kennedy. Just look at autopsy report and it says he was killed by
bullets fired and virtual point blank range from below and the back of the head. In addition,
sound analysis proves that there were 13 shots fired but the alleged murder weapon only held
8 shots. So let's stop this charade.
TTT -- yo weren't just talking about Sirhan. I wasn't talking about him at all. I have no
sympathy for people who practice terrorism, whether it is done by Palestinians, Jordanians,
or the IDF.
"... Thucydides tells us that war changes the meaning of words . Social media demonstrated this maxim several years ago when " mil-splaining " military-related holidays was all the rage. ..."
"... Increasingly civilians see " soldiers as symbols that allow them to feel good about themselves, and the country" -- but many also see OxyContin that way. ..."
"... A strategy is needed that's rooted in serious analysis of American interests and strengths and a realistic assessment of the world. For nearly a generation, we have failed to align ends, ways, and means . Like " The Weary Titan ," America finds itself unable (or unwilling) to adapt to a changing world. ..."
"... What do we have to show for our expenditures? A divided country, financially exhausted while waging war across the globe against an elusive enemy -- who is, frankly, not a threat remotely approaching the resources we have aligned against him. Beyond the material costs, there's the social. Our military has become a syncretic religion, enjoying the support but not due consideration of the nation. This situation is genuinely tragic . ..."
"... The reason US acts like an empire is because she *IS* an empire. ..."
"... It recently dawned on me that the US' empire status solidified during and after WWII is the biggest reason why it's so easy for America to wage prolonged, deep-involvement wars. NATO, overseas bases, freedom of navigation, etc. ..."
"... But let's be honest: when we "killed" the draft we killed, in part, what is called social cohesion in this country. ..."
"... "This Memorial Day, don't cringe when someone says "Thank you for your service" and proceed to correct them." ..."
"... U.S. policy of perpetual war has been well established since 9/11. Everyone who joins the military is well aware of the job description (kill and destroy) and has free will. ..."
"... The U.S. military is currently providing refueling, logistics and intelligence support to the odious Saudis as they pulverize Yemen to smithereens and starve the population. And those American service people are "defending our freedoms" by doing so? ..."
"... The reason these episodes of introspection are called for is because of the massive propaganda machine (Pentagon, Corporate, MSM) of Military Exceptionalism that is the architect of the pathological incongruence. ..."
"... The 'military-civilian' divide, as the author stated it, is as much a product of a media that no longer holds policymakers accountable for seemingly endless military engagements and, the true effect that our endless military engagements are having on the very fabric of our society and on those engaged in them. ..."
"... With a volunteer military that effectively is at the disposal of whoever happens to be in office, no grass-roots opposition movement to hold politicians accountable, and 95 percent of the population untouched by war, the most veterans will receive is a "thank you for your service" as we go on with our daily lives. ..."
"... In my opinion, Demanding answers and justifications for sending people into harms way is the best expression of respect for our military personnel. ..."
"... " instead of asking 'what' we need to break the stalemate in Afghanistan, could ask 'why' there is a stalemate at all -- and whether American forces can truly ameliorate the structural, cultural, and historical obstacles to achieving desired ends there." ..."
"... Be aware that when you ask why, many people (including, sadly, many veterans) will consider this questioning of government foreign policy as a species of treason. Once, while on active duty with the US Army (1970), I suggested to a fellow officer that sending US troops to fight in Vietnam might not be in nation interest. I was immediately and vigorously condemned as a communist, a fascist, and a traitor. ..."
"... According to this reasoning, once the first soldier dies in battle, any criticism of the war denigrates the sacrifice of the deceased. So, we must continue to pile up the dead to justify those who have already died. This is part of the mechanism of war, and is an important reason why it is always easier to start a war than to stop one. ..."
Thucydides tells us that war
changes the meaning of words . Social media demonstrated this maxim several years ago when
" mil-splaining
" military-related holidays was all the rage. From memes outlining the differences between
Veterans, Armed Forces, and Memorial Day, to Fourth of July "safe space" declarations seemingly
applied to all vets, the trend was everywhere. Thankfully, it seems now to have passed.
Memorial Day is, of course, for remembering the fallen, those who died in service to the
nation. Veterans and their families remember their loved ones in ways they deem appropriate,
and the state remembers, too, in a somber, serious manner.
This remembrance should in no way preclude the typical family barbecue and other customs
associated with the traditional beginning of summer. National holidays are for remembering and
celebrating, not guilt. Shaming those who fail to celebrate a holiday according to one's
expectations is a bit like non-Christians feeling shame for skipping church: it shouldn't
matter because the day means different things to different people. Having a day on the calendar
demonstrates the national consensus about honoring sacrifice; anything more than that is a slow
walk towards superficiality. President Bush stopped golfing during the Iraq war, but it didn't
stop him from continuing it.
Instead, Memorial Day should engender conversation about our military and the gulf between
those who serve and those who don't. The conversation shouldn't just be the military talking at
civilians; it must be reciprocal. Increasingly civilians see " soldiers as symbols
that allow them to feel good about themselves, and the country" --
but many also see OxyContin that way. This situation is lamentable because the
aforementioned "mil-splaining" could only occur in a country so profoundly divided from its
military as to misunderstand basic concepts such as the purpose of holidays. It's also striking
how the most outspoken so-called "patriots" often
have little connection to that which they so outlandishly support. Our "thank you for your
service" culture is anathema to well-functioning civil-military relations.
The public owes its military more consideration, particularly in how the armed forces are
deployed across the globe. Part of this is empathy:
stop treating military members as an abstraction , as something that exists only to serve a
national or increasingly political purpose. Our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines are
deserving of praise and support -- especially considering the burden they've carried -- but
what they need more is an engaged public, one that's even willing to
scrutinize the military . Because scrutiny necessitates engagement and hopefully
understanding and reform.
But the civil-military divide goes
both ways. Military members and veterans owe the public a better relationship as well. This
Memorial Day, don't cringe when someone says "Thank you for your service" and proceed to
correct them. Open a dialogue: you might
build a real connection . Better yet, volunteer to speak at a school or church: partly to
explain your service, sure, but more so to show that military personnel are people, too, not
just
distant abstractions . Veterans are spread across the county and better able to interact
with civilians than our largely cloistered active duty force. They shouldn't go to schools,
churches, and civic organizations for the inevitable praise. They should go to educate, nurture
relationships, and chip away at the civil-military divide.
Perhaps by questioning the fundamentals -- the "why" instead of the so often discussed
"what" in military operations -- the public would be in a better position to demand action from
a Congress that, heretofore, has largely abdicated serious oversight of foreign policy. Perhaps
the public, instead of asking "what" we need to break the
stalemate in Afghanistan , could ask "why" there is a stalemate at all -- and whether
American forces can truly ameliorate the structural, cultural, and historical obstacles to
achieving desired ends there.
A strategy is needed that's rooted in serious analysis of American interests and
strengths and a realistic assessment of the world. For nearly a generation, we
have failed to align ends, ways, and means . Like "
The Weary Titan ," America finds itself unable (or unwilling) to adapt to a changing
world. Consumed by domestic strife and the emergence of nationalism
, American foreign policy has wandered fecklessly since the end of the Cold War. While we can
strike anywhere, this
capability is wasted in search of a lasting peace.
What do we have to show for our expenditures? A divided country, financially exhausted
while waging war across the globe against an elusive enemy -- who is, frankly, not a threat
remotely approaching the resources we have aligned against him. Beyond the material costs,
there's the social. Our military has become a syncretic religion, enjoying the support but not
due consideration of the nation. This situation is
genuinely tragic .
For America to dig its way out of its domestic and foreign troubles it must start with
sobering analysis. For the civil-military dialogue, Memorial Day is as good a place to begin as
any day. So this weekend, civilians should move beyond "Thank you for your service" and ask a
vet about his or her service and lost comrades. Veterans, don't expect praise and don't
lecture; speak with honesty and empathy, talk about what you've done and the conditions you've
seen. You might be surprised what we can learn from each other.
John Q. Bolton is an Army officer who recently returned from Afghanistan. An Army
aviator (AH-64D/E), he is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a 2005 graduate of West
Point. The views presented here are his alone and not representative of the U.S. Army, the
Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.
12 Responses to On Memorial Day,
Getting Beyond 'Thank You For Your Service'
(This reply was intended for an older article
"http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-deep-unfairness-of-americas-all-volunteer-force"
from 2017 but since the topics are kind of related, so )
The reason US acts like an empire is because she *IS* an empire.
It recently dawned on me that the US' empire status solidified during and after WWII
is the biggest reason why it's so easy for America to wage prolonged, deep-involvement wars.
NATO, overseas bases, freedom of navigation, etc. Scrapping/re-constituting these
frameworks would put the US on par with most other countries on earth sporting home-bound
defense forces. Congressional authority/oversight would be reinvigorated, and acting under
the auspices of the UN becomes a procedural impairment (sovereignty concerns and selfishness
notwithstanding). A practical start would be lobbying for more base closures abroad, for
those who feel strongly about this.
But there is a danger: nature abhors a vacuum.
The other thing, I am definitely for professionalism in militaries. Better to have one
dedicated soldier than three squirmish kids dragged into the mud.
Seems to me a universal draft would be the best way to say thank you. Under that scenario
most wars would be avoided or resolved quickly as the cost would be political defeat. An all
volunteer/mercenary force is blatantly unfair as virtually no kids of the wealthy fight,
prohibitively expensive, as recruiting and retaining soldiers in these times is an uphill
challenge, and dangerous as it encourages needless risk since only a tiny percentage of the
voting population pay the price
Sir: Thank you for your timely comments. I am a USN veteran and fully support the idea that
communication has to be a two-way street between civilians and our military women and men.
But let's be honest: when we "killed" the draft we killed, in part, what is called social
cohesion in this country. Not having common experiences makes us all more foreign to one
another which leads to isolation and platitudes such as "Thank you for your service." I have
heard that comment many times, too, and after a while it comes across as: "better you than
me." I know I am being cynical but I am also only human .
Re: "This Memorial Day, don't cringe when someone says "Thank you for your service" and
proceed to correct them."
U.S. policy of perpetual war has been well established since 9/11. Everyone who joins
the military is well aware of the job description (kill and destroy) and has free
will.
Thanking someone for signing up for the War Machine to wreck havoc on natives thousands of
miles from American shores makes little sense.
The U.S. military is currently providing refueling, logistics and intelligence support
to the odious Saudis as they pulverize Yemen to smithereens and starve the population. And
those American service people are "defending our freedoms" by doing so?
The U.S. military slaughters the Syrian army operating in their own country and we are
supposed to thank them for "their service"? Military drone drivers who slaughter Yemeni
wedding parties from comfortable installations in Florida and the operators on U.S. Navy
ships who launch missiles into Syria based on bogus False Flag scenarios are "Warrior
Heroes"?
The veterans we should be thanking are the ones who realized early on that they were being
played for chumps by the war-mongers and got out. If John Q. Bolton has that understanding,
why hasn't he gotten out?
The real "heroes" in America are the young people who get real jobs in the real economy
providing real value to their fellow citizens.
The reason these episodes of introspection are called for is because of the massive
propaganda machine (Pentagon, Corporate, MSM) of Military Exceptionalism that is the
architect of the pathological incongruence.
This is an excellent article. Memorial Day should call upon all Americans to ask some
essential questions.
As an aside, The Washington Post ran an article today about the funeral of Spec. Conde who
recently was killed in Afghanistan. The article spoke of Spec. Conde's motivations for
serving, the events that led to his death, the funeral service, and the effect that his death
at age 21 had and will have on his family and those who knew and loved him.
What struck me most about the article was how remote the funeral service and the family's
grief seem from the rest of what is taking place in America. For example, there was an
oblique reference to a funeral detail for a veteran who committed suicide that apparently no
one attended.
The 'military-civilian' divide, as the author stated it, is as much a product of a
media that no longer holds policymakers accountable for seemingly endless military
engagements and, the true effect that our endless military engagements are having on the very
fabric of our society and on those engaged in them.
The vast majority of the American public go about their daily lives, seemingly insulated
from the effects of our endless engagements. For example, Spec. Conde's death in Afghanistan
did not even make the front page of our major media when it first happened. The death of four
soldiers in Niger has faded from view.
With a volunteer military that effectively is at the disposal of whoever happens to be
in office, no grass-roots opposition movement to hold politicians accountable, and 95 percent
of the population untouched by war, the most veterans will receive is a "thank you for your
service" as we go on with our daily lives.
Thank you, Sir, for articulating my position. In 7 Second Soundbite format, "I Support the
Troops, not the Policy that put them in harms way."
The military should never be deployed for political purposes. As a nation, we have willfully
refused to learn anything from the lessons of Korea and Viet Nam.
Military service preserves the Ultimate Expression of America, "Question Authority!" (I
recognize the Irony of suppressing it within it's ranks.) In my opinion, Demanding
answers and justifications for sending people into harms way is the best expression of
respect for our military personnel.
Accept Officer Bolton's challenge. When you see me kneeling at the National Anthem, ask me
why. [The Answer: I do it to show respect for those that have fallen at the hands of those
who oppose the Values embodied in the American Flag.]
" instead of asking 'what' we need to break the stalemate in Afghanistan, could ask 'why'
there is a stalemate at all -- and whether American forces can truly ameliorate the
structural, cultural, and historical obstacles to achieving desired ends there."
Be aware that when you ask why, many people (including, sadly, many veterans) will
consider this questioning of government foreign policy as a species of treason. Once, while
on active duty with the US Army (1970), I suggested to a fellow officer that sending US
troops to fight in Vietnam might not be in nation interest. I was immediately and vigorously
condemned as a communist, a fascist, and a traitor.
According to this reasoning, once the first soldier dies in battle, any criticism of
the war denigrates the sacrifice of the deceased. So, we must continue to pile up the dead to
justify those who have already died. This is part of the mechanism of war, and is an
important reason why it is always easier to start a war than to stop one.
Perhaps we need "our leaders" to do some war "Service."
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
March 9, 2009
"Should We Have War Games for the World's Leaders"?
Yesterday's enemies are today's friends and today's friends are tomorrow's enemies, such
is the way of the world, and wars of the world. All these wars cause enormous bloodshed,
destruction and suffering to those affected. Therefore, would it not be much simpler to have
war games for all of the world's leaders and elites every few years? We have Olympic Games
every four years where the world's athletes from different countries compete. And many of
these countries are hostile to each other, yet they participate in the Olympics. So if
enemies can participate for sport, why not for war games? How could this be arranged? All the
leaders and elites of the world would have to lead by example, instead of leading from their
political platforms, palaces and offshore tax havens, while the ordinary people have to do
the dirty work in wars. The world's leaders and elites would all be in the front lines first.
A venue could be arranged in a deserted area and the people of the world could watch via
satellite TV their courageous leaders and other elites leading the charge in the war games
.
[read more at link below] http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2009/03/should-we-have-war-games-for-worlds.html
Powerful is the man who, with a short series of tweets, can single-handedly send the bluest
of the blue-chip stocks into a headlong tumble. For better or for worse, the current occupant
of the Oval Office is one such man, tapping into his power with the following missive that
crossed the Twitter transom on the morning of March 29:
I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election. Unlike others, they pay
little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery
Boy (causing tremendous loss to the U.S.), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of
business!
Over the next few trading days, with four subsequent tweets peppered in, Amazon's stock
dropped by more than $75 a share, losing a market value of nearly $40 billion. Card
carrying-members of the Resistance and Never Trump brigade quickly portrayed the president's
scorn as the latest evidence of his "soft totalitarianism" and general disdain for the First
Amendment and the free press. They noted that Amazon's CEO and founder, Jeff Bezos, owns the
Washington Post -- a leading "perpetrator" of what Trump has called the "opposition
party" and "fake news."
Concerns of politically motivated impropriety are not without merit. Trump has repeatedly
proven himself unworthy of the benefit of the doubt. As presidential candidate and commander in
chief, he has demonstrated an eagerness to use his Twitter account as a bully pulpit in his
petty brawls with lawmakers, media personalities, and anyone else who might draw his ire.
And yet, ulterior motives though there may be, knee-jerk dismissals of the president's
attack are short-sighted. The president's bluster in this instance is rooted in reality.
Indeed, contra the libertarian ethos that Amazon and its leader purport to embody, the
company has not emerged as one of history's preeminent corporate juggernauts through thrift and
elbow grease alone. Although the company's harshest critics must concede that Amazon is the
world's most consistently competent corporation -- replete with innovation and ingenuity -- the
company's unprecedented growth would not be possible without two key ingredients: corporate
welfare and tax avoidance.
Amazon has long benefitted from the procurement of taxpayer-funded subsidies, emerging in
recent years as the leading recipient of corporate welfare. According to Good Jobs First, a
Washington, D.C., organization dedicated to corporate and government accountability, Amazon
has, since 2000, received more than $1.39 billion in state and local tax breaks and subsidies
for construction of its vast network of warehouses and data centers.
These private-public "partnership" deals are perhaps best illustrated by the sweepstakes for
Amazon's second headquarters. Touted as the economic development opportunity of the century,
the chosen destination will reap the benefits of 50,000 "high-paying" jobs and $5 billion in
construction spending. The possibility of securing an economic development package of this
magnitude elicited proposals from 238 North American cities and regions, fomenting what some
have called a "bidding war" between mayors, governors, and county executives desperate for
economic invigoration.
After a first round deadline of October 19, the pool of applicants was, in mid-January,
whittled down to a list of 20. As expected, each finalist offered incentive packages worth more
than a billion dollars, with Montgomery County, Maryland, ($8.5 billion) and Newark, New
Jersey, ($7 billion) offering the most eye-popping bundles. Proposals utilized a wide array of
state and local economic development programs: property tax discounts, infrastructure
subsidies, and, in the case of Chicago's proposal, an incentive known as a "personal income-tax
diversion." Worth up to $1.32 billion, Amazon employees would still pay their income taxes in
full -- but instead of Illinois receiving the money, the tax payments would be funneled
directly into the pockets of Amazon itself.
While critics condemn the ostentatious bids of Maryland and New Jersey and decry the
"creative" gimmicks of cities such as Chicago, they are equally worried about the details -- or
lack thereof -- of the proposals from the other finalists. Despite demands for transparency
from local community leaders and journalists, only a handful of cities have released the
details of their bids in full, while six finalists -- Indianapolis, Dallas, Northern Virginia,
Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and Raleigh, North Carolina -- have refused to release any of
the details from their first-round bids. Viewing themselves as players in a zero-sum game of
high-stakes poker, they claim that there is little to gain, but a lot to lose, in making their
proposals public.
Such secrecy has, in the second round of bidding, become the rule more than the exception.
Although he owns a newspaper with the slogan "Democracy Dies in Darkness," Bezos has required
state and local officials involved in negotiations to sign non-disclosure agreements. With the
opportunity to revisit and revise their bids (i.e., increase their dollar value), the
transition from public spectacle to backroom dealing introduces yet another cause for concern.
If the finalists don't apprise citizens of their bids' details, the citizens can't weigh the
costs and benefits and determine whether inviting the company into their midst will be a net
positive or net negative.
Amazon's pursuit of public tithes and offerings is matched by its relentless obsession with
avoiding taxes. Employing a legion of accountants and lawyers, the company has become a master
at navigating the tax code and exploiting every loophole. Illegality is not the issue here but
rather a tax system that allows mammoth corporations to operate with huge tax advantages not
available to mom-and-pop shops on Main Street.
Of course Amazon isn't unique in its desire to avoid the taxman. It is, however, unrivaled
in its ability to do so. Last fall's debate concerning the merits of lowering the corporate tax
rate from 35 percent to 20 percent was, for Amazon, a moot point. In the five years from 2012
to 2016, Amazon paid an effective federal income tax rate of only 11.4 percent.
The company fared even better in 2017. Despite posting a $5.6 billion profit, Amazon didn't
pay a single cent in federal taxes, according to a recent report from the Institute on Taxation
and Economic Policy. What's more, Amazon projects it will receive an additional $789 million in
kickbacks from last year's tax reform bill.
Even by the standards of mammoth corporations, this is impressive. By way of comparison,
Walmart -- no stranger to corporate welfare and tax avoidance -- has paid $64 billion in
corporate income tax since 2008. Amazon? Just $1.4 billion.
Amazon's tax-avoidance success can be attributed to two things: avoiding the collection of
sales taxes and stashing profits in overseas tax havens. The IRS estimates that Amazon has
dodged more than $1.5 billion in taxes by funneling the patents of its intellectual property
behind the walls of its European headquarters city, Luxembourg -- a widely used corporate tax
haven. Again, nothing illegal here, but there's something wrong with a tax system that allows
it.
From day one, Amazon's business model involved legally avoiding any obligation to collect
sales taxes, and then using the subsequent pricing advantage to gain market share. It did this
by first locating its warehouses in very few states, most of which did not have a sales tax. It
then shipped its goods to customers that resided in other states that did have sales tax. This
game plan allowed Amazon to avoid what is known as "nexus" in sales-tax states, meaning that
those states could not compel it to collect the tax -- a two to 10 percent competitive
advantage over its brick-and-mortar counterparts.
Amazon exploited this tax advantage for years until state legislatures -- realizing how much
revenue they were losing -- gradually began passing legislation requiring Internet retailers to
collect sales taxes for items purchased by their citizens. In 2012, having already benefited
from this competitive advantage for more than a decade and a half, Bezos -- under the pretense
of a "level playing field" -- began advocating for federal legislation that would require
Internet retailers to collect sales tax. No such legislation has been passed.
And despite Bezos's carefully calculated public relations posturing, Amazon's advantage over
brick-and-mortar retailers persists: not only does Amazon not collect city and county sales
taxes (where applicable) but it also doesn't, with few exceptions, collect sales tax on items
sold by third-party distributors on Amazon Marketplace -- sales that account for more than half
of Amazon's sales.
It is difficult to overstate how instrumental tax breaks and tax avoidance have been in
Amazon's unprecedented growth. As Bezos made clear in his first letter to shareholders in 1997,
Amazon's business plan is predicated on amassing long-term market share in lieu of short-term
profits. As a result, the company operates on razor-thin margins in some retail categories,
while actually taking losses in others.
Amazon has not squandered these competitive advantages. Half of online retail purchases are
made through Amazon, and more than half of American households are enrolled in the Amazon Prime
program -- a subscription service that engenders platform loyalty and leads to increases in
consumer spending.
In fact, Amazon's ascent and tactics have led an increasing number of public policy experts
to call for a renewed enforcement of America's antitrust laws. The concern is that Amazon has
used its market power to crush smaller competitors with a swath of anti-competitive practices,
including predatory pricing and market power advantages stemming from Amazon Marketplace --
Amazon's vast sales platform for third-party retailers.
Such practices may be a boon for consumers and Amazon stockholders, the reasoning goes, but
they are only possible because Amazon uses economic power to squeeze its retail partners on
pricing at various points in the production line, which harms the health of many other
businesses. In fact, some suggest this bullying tendency calls to mind the actions of John D.
Rockefeller in his dealings with railroad companies at the turn of the last century.
These monopolistic practices have squeezed local, state, and federal revenue streams in two
ways. Not only do these governments forego the collection of needed tax revenue but Amazon's
rise has also knocked out many brick-and-mortar competitors that previously had provided
streams of tax revenue. By wooing Amazon with taxpayer-funded subsidies and other giveaways,
government leaders are, in a very real sense, funding the destruction of their own tax base.
There is little evidence that such taxpayer-funded inducements have resulted in a net positive
to the states and localities doling out the subsidies.
By forsaking the tenets of free market orthodoxy, forgoing the collection of much-needed tax
revenue, and giving big businesses major competitive advantages, state and local governments
have generated increasing controversy and political enmity from both ends of the political
spectrum. And yet, though bipartisan accusations of crony capitalism and corporate welfare
abound, such opposition does little to dissuade state and local governments from loosening the
public purse strings in their efforts to woo big corporations such as Amazon.
Daniel Kishi is associate editor of The American Conservative. Follow him on
Twitter:@DanielMKishi .
These findings reminded me of the suggestion in Patrick Deneen's recently released
Why Liberalism Failed that the political ideology of liberalism drives us apart, making us more lonely and polarized
than ever. As Christine Emba
writes in her Washington Post review of Deneen's book:
As liberalism has progressed, it has done so by ever more efficiently liberating each individual from "particular places,
relationships, memberships, and even identities-unless they have been chosen, are worn lightly, and can be revised or
abandoned at will." In the process, it has scoured anything that could hold stable meaning and connection from our modern
landscape-culture has been disintegrated, family bonds devalued, connections to the past cut off, an understanding of the
common good all but disappeared.
likbez
Our political differences are strengthening, with an increasing number of urban Americans moving further left and more than
half of rural voters (54 percent)
There is actually no way to move to the left in the two party system installed in the USA. The Democratic Party is just another
neoliberal party. Bill Clinton sold it to Wall Street long ago.
Neoliberalism uses identity wedge to split the voters into various groups which in turn are corralled into two camps representing
on the federal level two almost identical militaristic, oligarchical parties to eliminate any threat to the status quo.
And they do very skillfully and successfully. Trump is just a minor deviation from the rule (or like Obama is the confirmation
of the rule "change we can believe in" so to speak). And he did capitulate to neocons just two months after inauguration. While
he was from the very beginning a "bastard neoliberal" -- neoliberal that denies the value of implicit coercion of neoliberal globalization
in favor of open bullying of trade partners. Kind of "neoliberalism for a single exceptional country."
The current catfight between different oligarchic groups for power (Russiagate vs. Spygate ) might well be just a smoke screen
for the coming crisis of neoliberalism in the USA, which is unable to lift the standard of living of the lower 80% of population,
and neoliberal propaganda after 40 or so years lost its power, much like communist propaganda in the same time frame.
The tenacity with which Clinton-Obama wing of Democratic Party wants Trump to be removed is just a testament of the political
power of neoliberals and neocons in the USA as they are merged with the "deep state." No deviations from the party line are allowed.
Mark Karlin: How much money has gone to the U.S. war on terror and what has been the impact of this expenditure?
Tom Engelhardt: The best figure I've seen on this comes from the Watson Institute's Costs of War Project at Brown University and
it's a staggering
$5.6 trillion , including certain future costs to care for this country's war vets. President Trump himself, with his usual sense
of accuracy, has inflated that number even more, regularly speaking of
$7
trillion being lost somewhere in our never-ending wars in the Greater Middle East. One of these days, he's going to turn out
to be right.
As for the impact of such an expenditure in the regions where these wars continue to be fought, largely nonstop, since they were
launched against a tiny group of jihadis just after September 11, 2001, it would certainly include: the spread of terror outfits
across the Middle East, parts of Asia, and Africa; the creation -- in a region previously autocratic but relatively calm -- of a
striking range of failed or failing states, of major cities that have been turned into absolute
rubble (with
no money in sight for serious
reconstruction), of internally
displaced people and waves of refugees at levels
that now match the moment after World War II, when significant parts of the planet were in ruins; and that's just to start down
a list of the true costs of our wars.
At home, in a far quieter way, the impact has been similar. Just imagine, for instance, what our American world would have been
like if any significant part of the funds that went into our fruitless, still spreading, now nameless conflicts had been spent on
America's crumbling infrastructure , instead of on the rise
of the national security state as the unofficial fourth branch of government. (At TomDispatch , Pentagon expert William Hartung
has estimated that approximately $1 trillion annually goes into that security state and, in the age of Trump, that figure is
again on the rise.)
Part of the trouble assessing the "impact" here in the U.S. is that, in this era of public demobilization in terms of our wars,
people are encouraged not to think about them at all and they've gotten remarkably little attention. So sorting out exactly how they've
come home -- other than completely obvious developments like the
militarization
of the police, the
flying of surveillance drones in our airspace, and so on -- is hard. Most people, for instance, don't grasp something I've long
written about at TomDispatch : that Donald Trump would have been inconceivable as president without those disastrous wars, those
trillions squandered on them and on the military that's fought them, and that certainly qualifies as "impact" enough.
What makes the U.S. pretension to empire different from previous empires?
As a start, it's worth mentioning that Americans generally don't even think of ourselves as an "empire." Yes, since the Soviet
Union imploded in 1991, our politicians and pundits have proudly called this country the "last" or "lone" superpower and the world's
most "exceptional" or "indispensable" nation, but an empire? No. You need to go someplace off the mainstream grid -- Truthout or
TomDispatch , for instance -- to find anyone talking about us in those terms.
That said, I think that two things have made us different, imperially speaking. The first was that post-1991 sense of ourselves
as the ultimate winner of a vast imperial contest, a kind of arms race of many that had gone on since European ships armed with cannon
had first broken into the world in perhaps the fifteenth century and began to conquer much of it. In that post-Soviet moment of triumphalism,
of what seemed to the top dogs in Washington like the ultimate win, a forever victory, there was indeed a sense that there had never
been and never would be a power like us. That inflated sense of our imperial self was what sent the geopolitical dreamers of the
George W. Bush administration off to, in essence, create a Pax Americana first in the Greater Middle East and then perhaps the world
in a fashion never before imagined, one that, they were convinced, would put the Roman and British imperial moments to shame. And
we all know, with the invasion of Iraq, just where that's ended up.
In the years since they launched that ultimate imperial venture in a cloud of hubris, the most striking difference I can see with
previous empires is that never has a great power still in something close to its imperial prime proven quite so incapable of applying
its military and political might in a way that would successfully advance its aims. It has instead found itself overmatched by underwhelming
enemy forces and incapable of producing any results other than destruction and further fragmentation across staggeringly large parts
of the planet.
Finally, of course, there's climate change -- that is, for the first time in the history of empires, the very well-being of the
planet itself is at stake. The game has, so to speak, changed, even if relatively few here have noticed.
Why do you refer to the U.S. as an "empire of chaos"?
This answer follows directly from the last two. The United States is now visibly a force for chaos across significant parts of
the planet. Just look, for instance, at the cities -- from
Marawi in the Philippines to
Mosul and
Ramadi
in Iraq,
Raqqa and
Aleppo
in Syria,
Sirte in Libya, and so on -- that have literally been -- a word I
want to bring into
the language -- rubblized, largely by American bombing (though with a helping hand recently from the bomb makers of the Islamic State).
Historically, in the imperial ages that preceded this one, such power, while regularly applied brutally and devastatingly, could
also be a way of imposing a grim version of order on conquered and colonized areas. No longer, it seems. We're now on a planet that
simply doesn't accept military-first conquest and occupation, no matter the guise under which it arrives (including the spread of
"democracy"). So beware the unleashing modern military power. It turns out to contain within it striking disintegrative forces on
a planet that can ill afford such chaos.
You also refer to Washington D.C. as a "permanent war capital" with the generals in ascension under Trump. What does that represent
for the war footing of the U.S.?
Well, it's obvious in a way. Washington is now indeed a war capital because the Bush administration launched not just a local
response to a relatively small group of jihadis in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, but what its top officials called a "Global War
on Terror" -- creating possibly the worst acronym in history: GWOT. And then they instantly began insisting that it could be applied
to at least 60 countries supposedly harboring terror
groups. That was 2001 and, of course, though the name and acronym were dropped, the war they launched has never ended. In those years,
the military, the country's (count 'em)
17
major intelligence agencies, and the
warrior
corporations of the military-industrial complex have achieved a kind of clout never before seen in the nation's capital. Their
rise has really been a bipartisan affair in a city otherwise riven by politics as each party tries to outdo the other in promoting
the financing of the national security state. At a moment when putting money into just about anything else that would provide security
to Americans (think health care) is always a desperate struggle, funding the Pentagon and the rest of the national security state
continues to be a given. That's what it means to be in a "permanent war capital."
In addition, with Donald Trump, the generals of America's losing wars have gained a kind of prominence in Washington that was
unknown in a previously civilian capital. The head of the Defense Department, the White House chief of staff, and (until recently
when he was succeeded by an even more militaristic civilian) the national security advisor were all generals of those wars -- positions
that, in the past, with rare exceptions, were considered civilian ones. In this sense, Donald Trump was less making history with
the men he liked to refer to as "
my generals " than channeling it.
What is the role of bombing in the U.S. war-making machine?
It's worth remembering, as I've written in the past, that from the beginning the war on terror has been, above all (and despite
full-scale invasions and occupations using hundreds of thousands of U.S. ground troops), an
air war . It started that way. On September 11, 2001, after all, al-Qaeda sent its air force (four hijacked passenger jets) and
its precision weaponry (19 suicidal hijackers) against a set of iconic buildings in the U.S. Those strikes -- only one of them failed
when the passengers on a single jet fought back and it crashed in a field in Pennsylvania -- may represent the most successful use
of strategic bombing (that is, air power aimed at the civilian population of, and morale in, an enemy country) in history. At the
cost of a mere $400,000 to $500,000 , Osama
bin Laden began an air war of provocation that has never ended.
The U.S. has been bombing, missiling, and
drone-assassinating ever since. Last year, for instance, U.S. planes dropped an estimated
20,000 bombs just on the Syrian city
of
Raqqa , the former "capital" of the Islamic State, leaving next to nothing standing. Since the first American planes began dropping
bombs (and cluster munitions ) in
Afghanistan in October 2001, the U.S. Air Force has been in the skies ceaselessly -- skies by the way over countries and groups that
lack any defenses against air attacks whatsoever. And, of course, it's been a kind of rolling disaster of destruction that has left
the equivalent of World Trade Center tower after tower of dead civilians in those lands. In other words, though no one in Washington
would ever say such a thing, U.S. air power has functionally been doing Osama bin Laden's job for him, conducting not so much a war
on terror as a strange kind of war for terror, one that only promotes the conditions in which it thrives best.
What role did the end of the draft play in enabling an unrestrained U.S. empire of war?
It may have been the crucial moment in the whole process. It was, of course, the decision of then-president Richard Nixon in
January 1973 , in
response to a country swept by a powerful antiwar movement and a military in near rebellion as the Vietnam War began to wind down.
The draft was ended, the all-volunteer military begun, and the American people were largely separated from the wars being fought
in their name. They were, as I said above, demobilized. Though at the time, the U.S. military high command was doubtful about the
move, it proved highly successful in freeing them to fight the endless wars of the twenty-first century, now being referred to by
some in the Pentagon (according to the Washington Post ) not as "permanent wars" or even, as General David Petraeus put it, a "
generational struggle
," but as "
infinite war ."
I've lived through
two periods of public war mobilization in my lifetime: the World War II era, in which I was born and in which the American people
mobilized to support a global war against fascism in every way imaginable, and the Vietnam War, in which Americans (like me as a
young man) mobilized against an American war. But who in those years ever imagined that Americans might fight their wars (unsuccessfully)
to the end of time without most citizens paying the slightest attention? That's why I've called the losing generals of our endless
war on terror (and, in a sense, the rest of us as well) " Nixon's
children ."
17 major intelligence agencies. For fuck's sake! It's not seventeen – it is SIXTEEN! ;-)
Looney
P.S. I hate re-posting shit or using the same joke twice, but THIS is worth re-posting (from January 13, 2017): U.S. intelligence agencies contend that Moscow waged a multifaceted campaign of hacking and other actions All Democrats, from our own MDB to Hillary and 0bama, have been citing the "
17 intelligence agencies
" that agree with their ridiculous claims.
Here's the list of "The Magnificent Seventeen", but (spoiler alert!) there are actually only SIXTEEN INTEL AGENCIES, but who
counts? The highlighted agencies have nothing to do with Hacking, Elections, Golden Showers, or whatever sick lies the Libtards
have come up with.
Each Agency's responsibilities are very clearly defined by Law and 13 out of the "17 agencies" have absolutely nothing to do
with the DNC, Wikileaks, Elections, Hillary's e-mails, the Clinton Foundation, the Russian Hacking, etc.
Twenty-Fifth Air Force - Air Force Intel only
Intelligence and Security Command (US Army) – Army Intel only
Central Intelligence Agency is prohibited by Law to conduct any activities within the US!!!
Coast Guard Intelligence – Coast Guard, really?
Defense Intelligence Agency – Military Intel only
Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (Dept. of Energy) – Nukes, Nuclear Plants
Office of Intelligence and Analysis (Homeland Security)
Bureau of Intelligence and Research - State Dept. Intel
Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (Treasury) – Treasury and Hacking/Elections? Hmm
Office of National Security Intelligence (DEA) – Drug Enforcement, really?
Intelligence Branch, FBI (DOJ)
Marine Corps Intelligence Activity - Marine Corps Intel only
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (Dept. of Defense) – Satellites, Aerial Intel
National Reconnaissance Office (Dept. of Defense) – Defense Recon Only
NSA
Office of Naval Intelligence Navy Defense – Navy only
On the rare occasions when the US halfheartedly admits that, somehow, mistakes might have been made, it cannot evade employing
important US citizenish "core values" like hypocricy and psychological projection.
Four days ago an outstanding example of this type of embarrassment,
Russia's Moral Hypocrisy , was posted by Colonel
James McDonough, US Army attaché to Poland. Its urgent bleatings display the inadequacy and extremely low level of cohesion to
which US propaganda has fallen. The short version: the US fights for all good against all bad, and the Russians disagree because
they are very bad and also mean people.
Two days ago, Colonel Cassad posted a response to McDonough's piece which skewered it like a kebab. Using a
nota bene format, each point is considered and then crushed
into a paste. Even via the Yandex machine translation, the well-deserved kicking to the curb comes through loud and clear.
Wars are always about money and control. The war machine supports so many jobs in the US from shipyards to consulting. It's
a way to pump cash into a system that essentially died after the 2001 crash.
During a memorial day conversation today, "But you live in the evil empire and reap the benefits, why are you complaining about
the democrats. Can't you see the black mark on your soul is more important because you support the Empire on either side of the
so called two party system."
More divide & conquer BS the commies are belching now that they've been caught "red handed".
If it was a family member resolve yourself that you will have to just deal with it. If only a friend or acquaintance, resolve
yourself that there may come a time in the not to distant future you will have to slit their throat lest they slit yours.
Morbid as it maybe, nmewn is still correct. It's kinda like the saying, " Two people can keep a secret, as long as one of them
is dead." You cannot truly depend on or trust anyone, except yourself. And often times family can be worse than friends.
Well, what do want me to say?...lol...I know we're all thinking the same thing, we've all had the very same conversations with
these assholes whether friends or family. They are unreachable.
Hey, don't kill the guy pointing out the elephant in the middle of the room ;-)
It's not sixteen either, it was three ...the CIA ( Brennan ) the FBI ( Comey at the time) and the NSA which in my opinion was
in a go-along-to-get-along position. Seventeen was a lie when Hillary first uttered it. "The [intelligence community assessment] was a coordinated product from three agencies: CIA, NSA and the FBI, not all 17 components
of the intelligence community," said former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper during a congressional
hearing in May. "Those three under the aegis of my former office."
He spoke the truth (that time) probably not wanting another perjury charge ;-)
It's the attitude. The American political leaders have this idea of righteousness and exceptionalism. They think they'll go
around the world telling everyone else what to do. I've got two words for them - Fuck-off:
This article could have been written by a second-year political science undergraduate at a U.S. public university. This adds
a sum total of zero to the public understanding of the rise of American imperialism.
To state the obvious; the CIA has deeply humiliated the American people in their attempt to tie the American people to be responsible
for the CIA's crimes against humanity across the world.
The CIA appears to be the world's greatest threat to peace and prosperity. It is the penultimate terrorist organization, being
the direct or indirect creator of all other terrorist organizations. It also appears to be the world's penultimate illegal drug
smuggler and pusher making all other illegal drug trading possible and instigating the horrors of addiction and suffering around
the world.
If I believed that the CIA was working in any way on behalf of the US government and the American people then it would be sad
and shameful indeed. However, it is my belief that the CIA instead was captured long ago, as was the secret military operations
and now works for a hidden power that wants to dominate or failing that, destroy humanity.
It's those Select Highly Compartmentalized Criminal Pure Evil Rogue Elements at the Deep State Top that have had control since
the JFK Execution that have entrenched themselves for decades & refuse to relinquish Control.
The Agency is Cancer. There should be no question about the CIA's future in the US.
Dissolved & dishonored. Its members locked away or punished for Treason. Their reputation is so bad and has been for so long,
that the fact that you joined them should be enough to justify arrest and Execution for Treason, Crimes Against Humanity & Crimes
Against The American People.
The author seems comfortable finding fault with Bush and Trump but can't muster up a criticism of Obama (the Cal Ripken of
presidential war mongers), Clinton, Holder, et al.
What a dichotomy. On the one hand, America self-righteously proclaiming it is the one protecting everyone's freedom, while
at the same time making war and spying and oppressing others. On the other hand, seems like America is at war with everyone to
have such a large military and 17 spy agencies, and more people in prison than any other country in the world. Really sounds like
America has got some serious problems.
Note, a majority of the Muslims living close to Iraq still held a positive view of the U.S. even after the 1990-1991 attack
on Iraq. And after 12 years of starvation sanctions, even denying Iraq baby formula with the claim that it "can be used to make
weapons". And after the UK and US bombing Iraq on average once a week for those 12 years, targeting water refineries so Iraqis
had to drink dirty water, and power plants so there was no air conditioning in the blistering summer heat. Causing the death of
half a million children, as confirmed by the U.S. ambassador to the UN, which State Secretary Madeleine Albright said was "worth
it".
Even after that mass murder, 60% of Gulf residents were generally positive toward the U.S.
"Clash of cultures," right? There wasn't much Islamism at all, except the anger directed at thieving puppet rulers installed
after the European empires withdrew. Arabs, who were mostly secular, had always loved the U.S. as an anti-imperialist country.
Thus they couldn't understand when the U.S. backed the Zio invasion of Palestine. And then started sanctioning and attacking every
Middle Eastern nation that supported the Palestinians.
The U.S. used to have many "Arabist" diplomats, those who wanted to work with Arab nationalists, especially against the Soviets.
But the pro-Arab diplomats were sidelined by the media-backed neocon line, where everything was about who were for or against
the Palestinians. Saddam Hussein in Iraq had been secular and pro-American, but he gave money to the families of Palestinian suicide
bombers - these families saw their homes razed with all their possessions, with just an hour's notice, by the Israelis. For the
crime of giving these destitute people some money, all of Iraq was targeted.
No wonder the Arabs started hating the U.S. Still even after the Iraq invasion in 2003, most Arabs just want to be left alone
by the U.S. But that is not allowed. Arab nationalism was destroyed in favor of puppet regimes.
"... Exactly right Sam. 'It's the oligarchs, stupid" should be our slogan. To keep us focused on the real source of most of our problems. ..."
"... Memorial ceremonies and flag waving allow the rich dictators to demand loyalty to themselves in the name of the principles they have overthrown. The rich despise America's principles and spit upon the Constitution. ..."
"... Actually, there are a lot of evil empires. History has a long list too. The natural state of man is to create evil abusive murderous empires which kill as many people as they can. "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his." George S. Patton ..."
"... The National Security State is a protection racket for western oligarchy. All the romanticism that surrounds Memorial Day is just to keep the sentimental mythology in tact. Of course, 911 and the GWOT was used to reinforce the troops as national heroes mindset. ..."
"... Americans are that classic example of lab mice being used to form the predetermined outcome of the experimentation. We Americans should just look up and wave and give our controllers the finger, as we all smile and go in the other direction. Joe ..."
As much as I admire and respect Ray McGovern – he and other veterans must understand
that suggesting the best leaders in our government would be those with a military background
is disappointing. I would rather NOT have those types calling the shots. Look what it's got
us?
Cindy reminded me of a quote (whose origin I forget): 'War undoes a mother's work." All
power to Cindy Sheehan and all the peace seekers out there. #WomenMarch4Peace
mike k , May 28, 2018 at 5:47 pm
What if Memorial Day was an occasion to remember all the horrific crimes of our nation,
and vow to atone for them? Instead of a day to worship and kiss the militarist boot that is
grinding our culture into the dirt.
KiwiAntz , May 28, 2018 at 6:20 pm
It's not that America hates peace, they hate, not being able make a profit from War? Peace
& it implies means the MIC is obsolete & no longer needed so no more trillions off
dollars wasted on stupid Wars & Militarily hardware? Just imagine all that wasted money
being put to better use in America, such as on social programs & providing universal
healthcare, free college education for America's youth, infrastructure spending & other
things? That's the unfortunate thing about funding this bloated killing machine called the
MIC?
Send "our leaders" to the front lines of war.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
March 9, 2009
"Should We Have War Games for the World's Leaders"?
Yesterday's enemies are today's friends and today's friends are tomorrow's enemies, such
is the way of the world, and wars of the world. All these wars cause enormous bloodshed,
destruction and suffering to those affected. Therefore, would it not be much simpler to have
war games for all of the world's leaders and elites every few years? We have Olympic Games
every four years where the world's athletes from different countries compete. And many of
these countries are hostile to each other, yet they participate in the Olympics. So if
enemies can participate for sport, why not for war games?
[read more at link below] http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2009/03/should-we-have-war-games-for-worlds.html
Jeff , May 28, 2018 at 12:38 pm
As with everybody else, I'll say this is a great piece because it is. Nominally speaking,
I would be left with little to say. But I have one little comment to augment what Ray has
said. We are frequently told that our military "protects our freedom" and when you say
something that somebody doesn't like, they'll say "thank a vet for your freedom to say
something like that." Pfui.
The military hasn't "protected our freedom" in a very long time.
Protecting our freedom implies that it is under attack from some external group with capable
of being an existential threat to the existence of the United States.
The last time that
happened was WWII. Not one single country we've attacked since then has had a snowball's
chance in hell of bringing the US to its knees and please note that no country has actually
attacked us. As for the "thank a vet for your freedom to say nasty things about the
government", the military doesn't protect us from our own government. The government is
supposed to protect our constitutional guarantees. They've been doing a shitty job ever since
9/11.
Sam F , May 28, 2018 at 12:05 pm
Afghanistan has been a wonderful test of the corrupt former democracy of the US. The
"graveyard of empires" is of no value to anyone, but sought by all empires solely because
they fear that Russia might want it.
Britain invaded Afghanistan and failed three times in the 19th century, each campaign a
"surge" from the last, their oligarchy afraid of a "threat" to "their" India, of an invasion
by Russia. In two centuries that never happened, but they still claim this.
The US warmongers seek Afghanistan to harass Russia, block the Asian road project, harass
Pakistan, harass Iran for the zionists, or get opium revenue to their secret gangs. These
projects are all unconstitutional, genocidal, and damaging to US security.
America is history's largest example of the destruction of democracy by unregulated economic
power, the dictatorship of oligarchy. Their political tyrants create foreign monsters to pose
as protectors and accuse their moral superiors of disloyalty. Their mass media sells wars to
those angry at the misfortunes brought upon them by the rich, as the means to symbolic
personal triumph by killing all who disagree.
The ruined "American Century" can be saved only by a humanitarian vision, and if the people
cannot depose US oligarchy so as to rise to that vision, the US must hide in shame from the
enemies its selfishness has made, ruined by isolation and embargo. No one will miss the US
when it has collapsed into permanent disgrace.
Wake up, America! We are slaves until the oligarchy is destroyed.
mike k , May 28, 2018 at 4:02 pm
Exactly right Sam. 'It's the oligarchs, stupid" should be our slogan. To keep us focused
on the real source of most of our problems.
Sam F , May 28, 2018 at 6:20 pm
Thank you, Mike. It is hard to recommend solutions when focused upon the problems of
oligarchy, without advising people to shake their cage or use extreme measures, but we have
seen good ideas here, and the vision is certainly needed.
John , May 28, 2018 at 9:57 pm
The only thing wrong with your post is the claim "The "graveyard of empires" is of no
value to anyone".
Afghanistan is first, geographically positioned so that many pipelines are planned to run
through it.
Also, Afghanistan is very mineral-rich, including and especially in Lithium – which is
needed for batteries for everything from consumer electronics to electric cars.
Ray McGovern is a national treasure, and so is Cindy Sheehan. They are 2 of the
all-too-few voices willing to stand against the horrific military industrial machine. Just
imagine how much courage it took both of them to do what they did back in 2004, at the height
of the jingoistic blood-lust fest the neocons created in the wake of 9/11. I have watched and
read the work of both of these amazingly courageous people over the course of 15 years or so,
and what strikes me as tragic is that there are still so many who buy into the 'patriotism'
b.s. and are willing to sacrifice their own children to senseless wars.
Anon , May 28, 2018 at 10:17 am
Memorial ceremonies and flag waving allow the rich dictators to demand loyalty to
themselves in the name of the principles they have overthrown. The rich despise America's
principles and spit upon the Constitution.
Soldiers are the fools of rich dictators and they know it, hoping to escape war and retire.
They have no honor.
Flag-wavers are cowardly imbeciles destroying America because they have no principles. They
are traitors.
vinnieoh , May 28, 2018 at 10:15 am
Since CN decided to re-cycle this piece (that is not a complaint against its quality,)
I'll post this as evidence that ordinary little citizens can have more knowledge, common
sense, and morality than our ruling class.
From: lawrences
To:
Subject: The impending war against Iraq
Date: Tuesday, October 29, 2002 12:43 PM
Dear Sir:
Although I am a resident of Ohio, I am contacting you because you have proven to be a man
of honor and reason and a powerful force in the U.S. Senate. I am strongly opposed to the
impending war in the Middle East, and have already expressed these views to the senators from
Ohio, but I believe that if anybody can mobilize opposition to this impending disaster, it
may be you. I listened to your comments prior to the non-debate concerning the Resolution to
authorize the use of force, and I agree that the real consequences of this conflict were not
addressed at all.
This conflict is worse than folly. I believe that at the very least: the situation in the
Middle East will be much worse and not better; world opinion will solidify against Americans
and American policies; terrorist organizations and activities will be strengthened, not
weakened; we will be bankrupted into the unforeseeable future. At the worst, this act of
aggression could plunge humanity into global conflict the likes of which previous human
experience will not have prepared us. Lest these concerns seem selfish and self-centered, I
do not wish to again see American sons and daughters slaughter innocent civilians from the
safety of our high-tech weaponry, and all for the true purpose of expanding the corporate
oligarchy.
Now is not the time to remain silent for the purpose of political expediency. While
representative democracy still exists between these shores it is time to rein in a chief
executive and his cabal who are apparently in the throes of a consuming blood-lust. I have
considered myself and have voted Democrat all of my life (I'm 50 years old), and I must say
that I am disgusted that most of the elected Democrats in Washington have been struck mute on
this issue. No reasonable person who is fully contemplating the consequences of what is about
to happen could come to the conclusion that any good is going to come from this. I believe,
despite the gaudy and superficial manifestations of popular American culture, that this
country is populated by reasonable people, and our elected representatives should consider
the consequences of remaining mute and cowardly as George II leads us into a national
disgrace and disaster.
History, if indeed there be anyone left to record it, will justly lay the blame for this
catastrophe at our feet. Please sir, I implore you, do everything in your power to stop this
from happening.
A sincere Veteran, American, and a Human Being,
Vince Lawrence
email: *********@***.net
"Happy" Memorial Day. One last thought. Kind of paraphrases what Ray was trying to say,
and they are my own words that I decided on, several years into the criminal invasion of
Iraq: One can not earn honor and glory for one's self by prosecuting an illegal and immoral
policy.
Is this perhaps one of many reasons for the high suicide rate of GWOT veterans?
Sam F , May 28, 2018 at 11:05 am
With the endless "marches of folly" of our dictatorship of rich traitors, Memorial Day has
become a flag-waving psyop for a "national religion" of lies and bullying that sacrifices
poverty [sicken] draft animals to the ideological fantasies of opportunist demagogues. Their fake
praise for "the fallen" and disgusting lies about the motives and effects of their constant
genocides and subversions betray their deliberate murder of US citizens and foreign innocents
to get money, public office, and promotions. The families of those sacrificed should denounce
rather than legitimize these schemes of murder by corrupt politicians.
Dorothy Hoobler , May 28, 2018 at 10:12 am
A great article! Another extraordinary quality about Cindy Sheehan was and is that she saw
the tragedy for the mother's of Iraq was as real as her own. Very few people have that sense
of common humanity – certainly none of our politicians.
mike k , May 28, 2018 at 7:39 am
The United States of America is the Evil Empire on this planet. One of the most evil
groups in this Empire of Evil is the military. Young people are trained to kill and brutalize
others, then celebrated as heroes – just as ruthless hit men are celebrated and honored
by the Mafia. The worst among us are put forward as the best. Noble words are turned into
lies in the mouths of our politicians and media propagandists.
CitizenOne , May 28, 2018 at 10:16 am
Actually, there are a lot of evil empires. History has a long list too. The natural state
of man is to create evil abusive murderous empires which kill as many people as they can. "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for
his."
George S. Patton
The problem comes not from war itself but from the ultimate reason for the war. Some wars
like WWII were necessary because the all too real possibility that Germany would come to
dominate Europe and Japan would dominate the Pacific. It was a classical war fought purely
for economic gain by the Axis powers. Also it was classical since it was a war waged by
governments and heads of state. Hence when it was over those nations unconditionally
surrendered and the war ended.
Fast forward to later years and many still question the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan,
Iraq, Syria and Libya.
The reasons become complex for these wars and the outcomes less certain than the clear
victory in WWII. We lost Vietnam and all the hype about dominoes and evil empires didn't
happen. We won Iraq but that outcome created ISIS which we later funded to attack Syria. Is
this what we expect our leaders to do?
Another example is the Iran Coup d'etat where we installed a dictator to counter Iran's
nationalizing the oil companies. This led to the student uprising, the hostage crisis and our
long cold war with Iran. We had an October Surprise when we found out that Iran Contra went
back to before the Reagan Election and there is evidence that George Bush was personally
negotiating terms with the Iranians in order to prolong thir captivity until after the
election. It seems to me that secretly dealing with a foreign enemy nation that is holding US
citizens hostage to prolong their captivity for political gains fits the definition of high
crimes and misdemeanors.
Why don't hold leaders accountable under the law?
George Bush went on to be the international spokesperson for The Carlyle Group perhaps the
largest private arms dealers on the planet. All of the investors in the Carlyle Group became
insanely wealthy after 9/11. Their basic investment strategy was to buy up depressed military
defense contractor stocks which fell after the Berlin Wall came down knowing that those
stocks would go up if there were another conflict. What about the moral conflict of their
investment strategy especially since major shareholders were also in key positions to be able
to influence foreign policy?
It seems fairly obvious that when federal intelligence agencies fail to react to foreign
nationals learning to fly with no desire to go to landing school there was at least willful
ignorance regarding the plans of Osama. The reasons for recent wars seems entirely too
conflicted. Just like the classical wars of the past, today's wars are still being waged by
the leaders of nations for economic gain.
Are our troops to blame? Absolutely not. They are young, idealistic and loyal. They
believe in America and are willing to fight for our freedom. They are to be honored on this
day for their sacrifice.
On the other hand, the leaders who are making a killing behind the scenes while ginning up
wars for profit wherever they can need to be held accountable for their actions and at least
a shred of acknowledgement by the "liberal" media needs to reach peoples ears.
We can honor the dead for their sacrifice but we need to honor the living by preventing
their lives being lost in the quest for money.
CitizenOne , May 28, 2018 at 10:17 am
Here is a link to the Carlyle Group a few documentaries.
Great little essay CitizenOne. You give a valuable lesson in the art of 'buying low and
selling high, and damn those who don't agree'. We are witnessing what you get from an all for
profit military. Take the profit out of war, and you will end all war. Joe
John , May 28, 2018 at 10:11 pm
I really have to wonder why the Carlyle Group is not better known.
An arms dealing consortium started by the Bush and Bin Laden Family, that JUST HAPPENED to be
meeting in NYC on Sept 11, 2001, for a super-early morning meeting, in a conference room with
a panoramic view of the Twin Towers No, nothing suspicious there .
Sam F , May 28, 2018 at 10:50 am
Yes, in the military "young people are trained to kill and brutalize others, then
celebrated as heroes."
Also true as Citizen says that many are "young, idealistic and loyal willing to fight for our
freedom."
But no one not paid to recite propaganda would think that the US has been fighting for its
freedom, and no one who pays attention thinks that it is fighting for anything positive. So
the military above age 20-25 just don't question the obvious lies, due to their ulterior
motives. Those who agree with the foreign policies of US warmongers don't believe in the
principles of America, only its dictators' ideology of lies and killing for profit. The
majority are simply forced to go along with the dictators like everyone else.
CitizenOne , May 28, 2018 at 1:05 pm
But fighting for our freedom is exactly what the propaganda preaches. Like Orwell's
"nineteen eighty-four", the citizens of Oceania are taught to hate Emmanuel Goldstein and the
enemy states Eastasia and Eurasia. Perhaps the most disturbing part is that you never really
know if Big Brother or Emmanuel Goldstein even exist. It could be that these are fictional
straw men that serve the purpose of the state to control the masses. Either way, real or not,
it is the same issue to be handled by the state. It is all fake news all the time in
Oceania.
I'm not selling the volunteers who sign up short. I do not believe they join the military
(for the most part) so they can become legal mafia wise guys. Obviously and especially given
the recent trends to use contractors (mercenaries and soldiers of fortune) there is some of
that going on.
Let's face facts. Propaganda works. At least PT Barnum was correct when he said you can
fool most of the people most of the time.
I don't know any parents who wish their children in the military would bring home lots of
money they got pilfering corpses. However I do know that governments wage wars to bring home
lots of money by pilfering other nations.
This point is key. Blaming servicemen and women for the foreign policy decisions of our
government is ludicrous as is any suggestion they should take the "high ground". In the
military you follow orders; period.
On the other hand we should never allow those who want to squash criticism of our
government to use the false argument that in so doing, the critics of the government are
dishonoring the folks that sacrificed for the nation. That is the false patriotism used by
totalitarian nations to silence debate while conducting immoral and unethical deeds. As
Samuel Johnson said in 1775, "(false) Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel"
Sam F , May 28, 2018 at 2:32 pm
Indeed there is diversity among volunteers, perhaps even as mercenaries. One certainly
does not wish to unfairly criticize the volunteer with good intentions. But I see thuggish
teams here who often fired guns at our charity to "defend the town" (their thug tribe
subset), who apparently learned "skills" in the military. So it seems that many sign up for
the opportunity to kill for the tribe, looking for any excuse to vent their anger at unknown
processes. They are looking for an imaginary enemy just as much as the demagogues who
"defend" us in Washington.
Truthful and thoughtful people like Ray know the truth of this and all wars but they, like
Ralph Nader, will never be guests on any corporate T.V. shows, nor will any of the swamp
creatures dare to debate them in public, as they could not defend the lies they perpetrate
for profit. The insanity of our foreign policy has miseducated the general public to the
point of insanity. I always get the usual zombie phrase of "Thank you for your service" and
the bewildered look when I say that I didn't serve, I was used. They usually never approach
me again and look at me as some sort of creature because I don't see the world through their
eyes but they look thru the glass darkly. I have no idea how we are going to make them see
the truth of this tragic farce and inhumanity. we destroy the world and ourselves with the
illusions that pass as truth. I guess I just want to know the truth when I die! They will
never see the fact that all are connected as well as every particle in the universe, one and
the same, that is the mystery of it all that the sages tried to get people to understand. God
in you, you are god and everyone else is also. Not separate! You can connect to the sacred my
understanding this. Thank you Ray, for being who you are and for having the courage to speak
the truth, with much love, Jack Williams.
RickD , May 28, 2018 at 7:35 am
As a fellow veteran I echo and support your eloquent words.
War is a profit center, the cause is generally linked to corporate desire for capturing
markets and an ever increasing need for more and more profits.
That wars endure is directly linked to the vast amounts spent on the MIC as well, and not the
needs of our nation as a whole.
CitizenOne , May 28, 2018 at 1:18 pm
I agree. Well said.
Add Noam Chomsky ("Evil Noam") to the list of banned interviewees. After years of cold
shoulders, he got his shot on PBS but at the last minute the higher-ups at PBS decided to
pull the plug so there was just 5 minutes of radio silence. He is the man America loves to
hate. The most dangerous liberal in America etc
Amazing how the "liberal" press fails to connect with him despite his best efforts.
CitizenOne , May 28, 2018 at 1:19 pm
Here is a link to The "Evil Gnome" Chomsky. BTW, I think he would fit right in here.
Chomsky is most emphatically not a "Liberal".
He is very openly a Libertarian Socialist.
RnM , May 28, 2018 at 5:18 am
It's very disconcerting how Memorial Day has, in this topsy-turvey culture has become a
celebration of the type of denial and forgetting that Ray McGovern so eloquently describes.
Thanks, Ray for again upholding the spirits of the American Revolution, and the Civil War for
us, and to name the names of certain betrayers of the Americans who may or may not have
chosen wisely (Who can really say about the origins of any one individual's choices?)
Myself, I boycott cookouts and partying the last weekend in May, and buy an artificial poppy
instead from a disabled Vet It's a time for remembering and committing to put those memories
toward sanity (i. e., not repeating the same futile actions).
Realist , May 28, 2018 at 1:52 am
Not to sound callous, but without forced conscription, nobody joins the military against
their free will. Unless they spent their formative years under a rock, or possess an IQ in
the low double digits, they ought to know from just casual exposure to the media, school
books, zines and even graphic novels that America is not under any real threat from any other
country or combination of countries on the face of the earth. Yes, the propaganda is
pervasive, but it's patently transparent, just like the politicians who hypocritically sell
it; like Trump telling one narrative on Monday and a diametrically opposite story on Tuesday.
No one in authority has any credibility any longer.
The grunts ought to know that they join the American service to exert the power and
influence of the empire into every far corner of the globe through use of lethal force with
extreme prejudice. Our American "heroes" get to do all their killing "over there," on the
other side of the planet, never here in any actual defense of their "homeland." They are not
accurately described as "defenders" or "warriors" or any other lauditory appellation. Rather,
they are raiders, conquerors, conquistadors, or legionnaires. When they attack they put the
"Blitzkrieg" to shame with the obscene kill ratios their space-age weapons allow against
thoroughly outclassed relatively primitive countries that have never left their own borders,
let alone fired a shot at America. Our troopers stomp 10,000 miles to go shoot fish in a
barrel, only they are human beings, not fish or turkeys, which would be another apt analogy
for what the U.S. military specializes in. They have massacred millions from Viet Nam to
Yugoslavia to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen and made untold more homeless
refugees, and their apologists want the world to feel sorry and shed crocodile tears for the
few thousand of them who randomly died because someone effed up while they were following
immoral and illegal orders. Many of those were accidentally killed by their own comrades and
subsequently lied about by the government and its media mouthpieces.
The only pity I feel for these hired killers is the way they were recruited: being plucked
by means of bribes and false promises from a disintegrating working class deliberately
sabotaged by the economic policies of its own government. For them the army takes the place
of a job and a living wage. For children of the disappearing middle class, enlisting is their
last hope to cover some college tuition, if they finish their hitch alive. I wouldn't say
either of these groups is eager to do the dirty work the chain of command has in store for
them. Even the kids from the hood can mostly see through the trickery and hypocrisy. They
know they won't be defending Compton, Overtown, the Lower Ninth Ward or West Garfield Park
from any Jihadis. Those fish aren't biting as frequently any more, so the feds have to
recruit numerous immigrants in return for promises of citizenship rather than deportation.
The other thing they now do is to hire mercenaries–"independent
contractors"–which used to be against American law not that long ago, but now makes up
nearly half the manpower in hotbeds like Iraq and Syria. The next logical step for our great
and powerful empire will be to establish an equivalent of the old French Foreign Legion, in
which dregs from all over the planet are employed in the armed service of American empire or
maybe ISIS and Daesh already qualify for that role? Do our hired terrorists get medical and
retirement benefits? Probably ahead of taxpayers once AmGov starts prioritizing to save money
under its new constitution.
Did that sound disrespectful? What is to be respected about a society that allows its
leadership to scoop up dispensable citizens to use as cannon fodder in the service of an
empire that kills and thieves wantonly to benefit only a tiny fraction of those at the very
tip of the pyramid?
LarcoMarco , May 28, 2018 at 4:08 am
"Not to sound callous, but without forced conscription, nobody joins the military against
their free will. Unless they spent their formative years under a rock, or possess an IQ in
the low double digits"
Most Americans of fighting age, I believe, consider military enlistment far beneath them.
So, I am totally mystified when I read about polls that reveal the military is the profession
Americans hold in the highest esteem.
Realist , May 28, 2018 at 8:14 am
I think that most also believe genocidal wars of aggression are not exactly moral or in
the interests of the country or themselves. They've got better things to do with their lives
than throw them away killing people who did nothing inimical to our country on the other side
of the world. They may spout patriotic platitudes about the military because they are
expected under serious social pressure and they don't want the hassle of a public
argument.
The second line of my text that you included within your quotes is not a dependent clause
to the first sentence. It is part of the next sentence: an adverbial clause modifying "they
ought to know that America is not under any real threat " which is the main declarative
statement. I'd rather not be misunderstood.
Skip Scott , May 28, 2018 at 11:16 am
I think the biggest problem is that neither our children, nor the vast majority of the
citizenry, are taught any critical thinking skills. It is all about image. Teenage boys fall
for anything that paints them as macho men. The 1986 movie Top Gun was all about recruiting
teenage boys who wanted to be macho men to be our new generation of cannon fodder in our "all
volunteer" armed forces and, as HW said, "to kick the Vietnam syndrome once and for all".
I really do pity these kids as victims as much as those they are sent to kill. I am
reminded of Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" when the Ghost of Christmas Present reveals the two
children beneath his robe, who are ignorance and want. "but mostly beware this boy, for on
his forehead I see that which is written "doom" "
Skip I'll go along with that considering to how many of my generation found themselves
standing in a rice paddy with bullets whistling by, until they finally realized that that
John Wayne image was just a movie. Joe
Sam F , May 28, 2018 at 10:32 am
I think that you both agree, and I agree with you both. The polls are deceptions of the
MIC.
Realist , May 28, 2018 at 4:36 pm
Yes, and I realise that most Americans, being herd animals who don't do nuance, would tell
most of us here to "go back to Russia" for the remarks we've posted, even though they really
don't want the lives of their friends and relatives wasted in wars of conquest.
Cindy Sheehan is right not to let that go.
I had at least six classmates killed in Nam. They've been dead much longer than they
lived, the first one buying the farm in January of 1966.
Lois Gagnon , May 28, 2018 at 9:22 pm
Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be soldiers. I raised my boys to be pro-peace. When
the recruiters started calling in their senior year of high school, they were prepared to
resist. It galled me that they had to register for the draft at all.
The National Security State is a protection racket for western oligarchy. All the
romanticism that surrounds Memorial Day is just to keep the sentimental mythology in tact. Of
course, 911 and the GWOT was used to reinforce the troops as national heroes mindset.
As you say, if you are even casually paying attention, you know what the real aim of US
militarism is. There's a lot of active denial going on. The truth is just so damn ugly, most
folks would rather avoid it even when their own kids get taken down by it. We are a sad
spectacle of a country right now.
John , May 28, 2018 at 10:23 pm
My dad was a vet who was scarred by 'Nam.
When the army recruiter called me, I told him "Your motto is, 'be all that you can be in the
army'. Well, if all you are capable of is is allowed by the army, then it would probably be
better for you to go get killed in war and weed out the gene pool."
I was 17 at the time, it was the best I could come up with off the time of my head.
Ray misses a point or two, especially important with the rise of alt-right types with
Trump in office. We as a nation must NEVER forget that Memorial Day was founded to remember Union dead from
the Civil War.
Consortiumnews.com , May 28, 2018 at 5:53 am
This is a reprint of a piece Ray wrote in May 2015. It focuses on the Bush and Obama
administrations.
Strngr - Tgthr , May 28, 2018 at 12:43 am
How to Honor Memorial Day? (hmmm omg) With who is in office what is there to be proud of?
(Stalingrad?) Articles like this go back and forth between Presidents like Bush (akk: Cheney)
& Obama, I suppose to be politically correct in the wrong way. But all one has to do is
look at HISTORY and just see what party is the party of war and PEACE. If anyone thinks Obama
would have invaded Iraq in the first place after 9-11 – it is not even an argument. He
would not even fire missles in to Syria. (Don't do stupid stuff was his way.) And so eight
years after don't do stupid stuff we have a guy who can't wait to drop a H-Bomb someplace to
make his mark on histiory. Great, lets be thankful. I guess he will drop it wherever Putin
and Juliana Assange want it.
LarcoMarco , May 28, 2018 at 4:16 am
Obama lost his balls when his version of John Bolton, Killary, sawed them off. Then she
cooked up false intelligence, a la Dumbya, which led to Libya's dismemberment under Obomber's
passive watch.
Lois Gagnon , May 28, 2018 at 9:27 pm
Funny how Dembots always attempt to brush the destruction of Libya under the rug as if the
people who perished there and continue to suffer and die as a result of Killary's
warmongering never existed.
John , May 28, 2018 at 10:40 pm
Democrats the party of peace?
You mean like in the former Yugoslavia?
Libya?
Vietnam?
Yemen?
Heck, your hero the Queen of Chaos is on video pimping the war in Iraq!
The Dims have forced almost all of the anti-war people out! (Cynthia McKinney, Dennis
Kucinich, etc)
The parties of peace are the Greens and Libertarians. If you vote for EITHER Dimocraps or
Repugnicans, you are actively supporting wars of aggression.
Even in your own delusional rhetoric, you engage in sabre-rattling against Russia (the ONE
good thing that Trump had going for him in his campaign was detente with Russia, but the
Dims, with their histrionic unhinged ranting about the thoroughly discredited "Russia Hacked
The Elections" nonsense – which Ray McGovern has written about rather extensively) and
you point at Assange, who is a hero who has NEVER been shown to print incorrect information,
unlike anyone in the Dim party, as if, by telling UNDENIABLE TRUTH, he is somehow a bad
guy.
As far as Obama's claim to "not do stupid stuff", it is well documented that, under his
administration, a Nazi-led coup in Ukraine was fomented, Al-Queida was armed and trained in
Syria, arms funding for Israel was INCREASED after they carried out grave war crimes (which
meet the Geneva Convention definition of Genocide), Libya was decimated (based on lies), etc
ad nauseum.
Is David Brock still sending out paychecks?
Joe Tedesky , May 27, 2018 at 11:33 pm
Ray thanks for this important article, as your struggling with it paid off.
Now I'm not one to rain on anybody's parade, but I have a hard time reconciling people's
true patriotism while we all stand for the National Anthem at sporting events, or other
events where our flag is honored. Not to judge anyone's admiration of our country, but with
all of the honoring of our military, and with jets flying over the ball yard, I find these
over produced displays of patriotism to be a bit over the top. Like, do these people not know
that our country is feared by the majority of the world's population, and that this fear is
based on a real life deadly everyday reality? Don't these taxpayers, who complain all the
time about paying high or any taxes at all realize that this military spending our country is
doing, is a debt trap just waiting to gobble up what's left of the American treasure if there
still is any treasure left? Or are the joyous fans just glad that they didn't, or don't have
to serve in our ever active military? Why can't these cheering patriots see through the many
lies about war, that this country's leaders have lead us to time and time again? Ask a red,
white, and blue, sports fan when was the last time America won a war . then listen to their
silence, and watch the contortions in their face muscles twitch. At this point you may wish
to leave these patriots alone, for the confusion over your questioning all of this military
madness may make them slash out at you.
Not only has America gone a step to far with its for profit war machine, but it's war
propaganda has been so packaged as to make it, one hellva commercial grade product. And in
America isn't that's what it's all about packaging a fantastically shinny beautifully made
profitable product.
RnM , May 28, 2018 at 5:37 am
Joe --
Your comment is a apt distillation of the fruits of the purposeful dumbing down of the US.
I'd put the latest push (by Dubya) squarely in the lap of the Bushes.
Joe Tedesky , May 28, 2018 at 9:21 am
Americans are that classic example of lab mice being used to form the predetermined
outcome of the experimentation. We Americans should just look up and wave and give our
controllers the finger, as we all smile and go in the other direction. Joe
Memorial Day should be a time of sober reflection on war's horrible costs, not a moment to
glorify war. But many politicians and pundits can't resist the opportunity...
Originally published on 5/24/2015
How best to show respect for the U.S. troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and for their
families on Memorial Day?
Simple: Avoid euphemisms like "the fallen" and expose the lies about what a great idea it
was to start those wars in the first place and then to "surge" tens of thousands of more troops
into those fools' errands.
First, let's be clear on at least this much: the 4,500 U.S. troops killed in Iraq so far and
the 2,350 killed in Afghanistan [by May 2015] did not "fall." They were wasted on no-win
battlefields by politicians and generals cheered on by neocon pundits and mainstream
"journalists" almost none of whom gave a rat's patootie about the real-life-and-death troops.
They were throwaway soldiers.
And, as for the "successful surges," they were just P.R. devices to buy some "decent
intervals" for the architects of these wars and their boosters to get space between themselves
and the disastrous endings while pretending that those defeats were really "victories
squandered" all at the "acceptable" price of about 1,000 dead U.S. soldiers each and many times
that in dead Iraqis and Afghans.
Memorial Day should be a time for honesty about what enabled the killing and maiming of so
many U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and the
senior military brass simply took full advantage of a poverty draft that gives upper-class sons
and daughters the equivalent of exemptions, vaccinating them against the disease of war.
What drives me up the wall is the oft-heard, dismissive comment about troop casualties from
well-heeled Americans: "Well, they volunteered, didn't they?" Under the universal draft in
effect during Vietnam, far fewer were immune from service, even though the well-connected could
still game the system to avoid serving. Vice Presidents Dick Cheney and Joe Biden, for example,
each managed to pile up five exemptions. This means, of course, that they brought zero military
experience to the job; and this, in turn, may explain a whole lot -- particularly given their
bosses' own lack of military experience.
The grim truth is that many of the crëme de la crëme of today's Official
Washington don't know many military grunts, at least not intimately as close family or friends.
They may bump into some on the campaign trail or in an airport and mumble something like,
"thank you for your service." But these sons and daughters of working-class communities from
America's cities and heartland are mostly abstractions to the powerful, exclamation points at
the end of some ideological debate demonstrating which speaker is "tougher," who's more ready
to use military force, who will come out on top during a talk show appearance or at a
think-tank conference or on the floor of Congress.
Sharing the Burden?
We should be honest about this reality, especially on Memorial Day. Pretending that the
burden of war has been equitably shared, and worse still that those killed died for a "noble
cause," as President George W. Bush liked to claim, does no honor to the thousands of U.S.
troops killed and the tens of thousands maimed. It dishonors them. Worse, it all too often
succeeds in infantilizing bereaved family members who cannot bring themselves to believe their
government lied.
Who can blame parents for preferring to live the fiction that their sons and daughters were
heroes who wittingly and willingly made the "ultimate sacrifice," dying for a "noble cause,"
especially when this fiction is frequently foisted on them by well-meaning but naive clergy at
funerals. For many it is impossible to live with the reality that a son or daughter died in
vain. Far easier to buy into the official story and to leave clergy unchallenged as they gild
the lilies around coffins and gravesites.
Not so for some courageous parents. Cindy Sheehan, for example, whose son Casey Sheehan was
killed on April 4, 2004, in the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, demonstrated uncommon grit when
she led hundreds of friends to Crawford to lay siege to the Texas White House during the summer
of 2005 trying to get Bush to explain what "noble cause" Casey died for. She never got an
answer. There is none.
But there are very few, like Cindy Sheehan, able to overcome a natural human resistance to
the thought that their sons and daughters died for a lie and then to challenge that lie. These
few stalwarts make themselves face this harsh reality, the knowledge that the children whom
they raised and sacrificed so much for were, in turn, sacrificed on the altar of political
expediency, that their precious children were bit players in some ideological fantasy or pawns
in a game of career maneuvering.
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is said to have described the military
disdainfully as "just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." Whether or
not those were his exact words, his policies and behavior certainly betrayed that attitude. It
certainly seems to have prevailed among top American-flag-on-lapel-wearing officials of the
Bush and Obama administrations, including armchair and field-chair generals whose sense of
decency is blinded by the prospect of a shiny new star on their shoulders, if they just follow
orders and send young soldiers into battle.
This bitter truth should raise its ugly head on Memorial Day but rarely does. It can be
gleaned only with great difficulty from the mainstream media, since the media honchos continue
to play an indispensable role in the smoke-and-mirrors dishonesty that hides their own guilt in
helping Establishment Washington push "the fallen" from life to death.
We must judge the actions of our political and military leaders not by the pious words they
will utter Monday in mourning those who "fell" far from the generals' cushy safe seats in the
Pentagon or somewhat closer to the comfy beds in air-conditioned field headquarters where a
lucky general might be comforted in the arms of an admiring and enterprising biographer.
Many of the high-and-mighty delivering the approved speeches on Monday will glibly refer to
and mourn "the fallen." None are likely to mention the culpable policymakers and complicit
generals who added to the fresh graves at Arlington National Cemetery and around the
country.
Words, after all, are cheap; words about "the fallen" are dirt cheap especially from the
lips of politicians and pundits with no personal experience of war. The families of those
sacrificed in Iraq and Afghanistan should not have to bear that indignity.
'Successful
Surges'
The so-called "surges" of troops into Iraq and Afghanistan were particularly gross examples
of the way our soldiers have been played as pawns. Since the usual suspects are again coming
out the woodwork of neocon think tanks to press for yet another "surge" in Iraq, some
historical perspective should help.
Take, for example, the well-known and speciously glorified first "surge;" the one Bush
resorted to in sending over 30,000 additional troops into Iraq in early 2007; and the
not-to-be-outdone Obama "surge" of 30,000 into Afghanistan in early 2010. These marches of
folly were the direct result of decisions by George W. Bush and Barack Obama to prioritize
political expediency over the lives of U.S. troops.
Taking cynical advantage of the poverty draft, they let foot soldiers pay the "ultimate"
price. That price was 1,000 U.S. troops killed in each of the two "surges."
And the results? The returns are in. The bloody chaos these days in Iraq and the faltering
war in Afghanistan were entirely predictable. They were indeed predicted by those of us able to
spread some truth around via the Internet, while being mostly blacklisted by the fawning
corporate media.
Yet, because the "successful surge" myth was so beloved in Official Washington, saving some
face for the politicians and pundits who embraced and spread the lies that justified and
sustained especially the Iraq War, the myth has become something of a touchstone for everyone
aspiring to higher office or seeking a higher-paying gig in the mainstream media.
Campaigning in New Hampshire, [then] presidential aspirant Jeb Bush gave a short history
lesson about his big brother's attack on Iraq. Referring to the so-called Islamic State, Bush
said, "ISIS didn't exist when my brother was president. Al-Qaeda in Iraq was wiped out the
surge created a fragile but stable Iraq. "
But suffice it to say that Jeb Bush is distorting the history and should be ashamed. The
truth is that al-Qaeda did not exist in Iraq before his brother launched an unprovoked invasion
in 2003. "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" arose as a direct result of Bush's war and occupation. Amid the
bloody chaos, AQI's leader, a Jordanian named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, pioneered a particularly
brutal form of terrorism, relishing videotaped decapitation of prisoners.
Zarqawi was eventually hunted down and killed not during the celebrated "surge" but in June
2006, months before Bush's "surge" began. The so-called Sunni Awakening, essentially the buying
off of many Sunni tribal leaders, also predated the "surge." And the relative reduction in the
Iraq War's slaughter after the 2007 "surge" was mostly the result of the ethnic cleansing of
Baghdad from a predominantly Sunni to a Shia city, tearing the fabric of Baghdad in two, and
creating physical space that made it more difficult for the two bitter enemies to attack each
other. In addition, Iran used its influence with the Shia to rein in their extremely violent
militias.
Though weakened by Zarqawi's death and the Sunni Awakening, AQI did not disappear, as Jeb
Bush would like you to believe. It remained active and when Saudi Arabia and the Sunni gulf
states took aim at the secular regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria AQI joined with other
al-Qaeda affiliates, such as the Nusra Front, to spread their horrors across Syria. AQI
rebranded itself "the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" or simply "the Islamic State."
The Islamic State split off from al-Qaeda over strategy but the various jihadist armies,
including al-Qaeda's Nusra Front, [then] seized wide swaths of territory in Syria -- and the
Islamic State returned with a vengeance to Iraq, grabbing major cities such as Mosul and
Ramadi.
Jeb Bush doesn't like to unspool all this history. He and other Iraq War backers prefer to
pretend that the "surge" in Iraq had won the war and Obama threw the "victory" away by
following through on George W. Bush's withdrawal agreement with Maliki.
But the crisis in Syria and Iraq is among the fateful consequences of the U.S./UK attack 12
years ago and particularly of the "surge" of 2007, which contributed greatly to Sunni-Shia
violence, the opposite of what George W. Bush professed was the objective of the "surge," to
enable Iraq's religious sects to reconcile.
Reconciliation, however, always took a back seat to the real purpose of the "surge" buying
time so Bush and Cheney could slip out of Washington in 2009 without having an obvious military
defeat hanging around their necks and putting a huge stain on their legacies.
Cheney and Bush: Reframed the history. (White House photo)
The political manipulation of the Iraq "surge" allowed Bush, Cheney and their allies to
reframe the historical debate and shift the blame for the defeat onto Obama, recognizing that
1,000 more dead U.S. soldiers was a small price to pay for protecting the "Bush brand." Now,
Bush's younger brother can cheerily march off to the campaign trail for 2016 pointing to the
carcass of the Iraqi albatross hung around Obama's shoulders.
Rout at Ramadi
Less than a year after U.S.-trained and -equipped Iraqi forces ran away from the northern
Iraqi city of Mosul, leaving the area and lots of U.S. arms and equipment to ISIS, something
similar happened at Ramadi, the capital of the western province of Anbar. Despite heavy U.S.
air strikes on ISIS, American-backed Iraqi security forces fled Ramadi, which is only 70 miles
west of Baghdad, after a lightning assault by ISIS forces.
The ability of ISIS to strike just about everywhere in the area is reminiscent of the Tet
offensive of January-February 1968 in Vietnam, which persuaded President Lyndon Johnson that
that particular war was unwinnable. If there are materials left over in Saigon for reinforcing
helicopter landing pads on the tops of buildings, it is not too early to bring them to
Baghdad's Green Zone, on the chance that U.S. embassy buildings may have a call for such
materials in the not-too-distant future.
The headlong Iraqi government retreat from Ramadi had scarcely ended when Sen. John McCain,
(R-AZ), described the fall of the city as "terribly significant" which is correct adding that
more U.S. troops may be needed which is insane. His appeal for more troops neatly fit one
proverbial definition of insanity (attributed or misattributed to Albert Einstein): "doing the
same thing over and over again [like every eight years?] but expecting different results."
As Jeb Bush was singing the praises of his brother's "surge" in Iraq, McCain and his Senate
colleague Lindsey Graham were publicly calling for a new "surge" of U.S. troops into Iraq. The
senators urged President Obama to do what George W. Bush did in 2007 replace the U.S. military
leadership and dispatch additional troops to Iraq.
But Washington Post pundit David Ignatius, even though a fan of the earlier two surges, was
not yet on board for this one. Ignatius warned in a column that Washington should not abandon
its current strategy:
"This is still Iraq's war, not America's. But President Barack Obama must reassure Prime
Minister Haider al-Abadi that the U.S. has his back, and at the same time give him a reality
check: If al-Abadi and his Shiite allies don't do more to empower Sunnis, his country will
splinter. Ramadi is a precursor, of either a turnaround by al-Abadi's forces, or an Iraqi
defeat."
Ignatius's urgent tone was warranted. But what he suggests is precisely what the U.S. made a
lame attempt to do with then-Prime Minister Maliki in early 2007. Yet, Bush squandered U.S.
leverage by sending 30,000 troops to show he "had Maliki's back," freeing Maliki to accelerate
his attempts to marginalize, rather than accommodate, Sunni interests.
Perhaps Ignatius now remembers how the "surge" he championed in 2007 greatly exacerbated
tensions between Shia and Sunni contributing to the chaos now prevailing in Iraq and spreading
across Syria and elsewhere. But Ignatius is well connected and a bellwether; if he ends up
advocating another "surge," take shelter.
Keane and Kagan Ask For a Mulligan
Jeb Bush: Sung his brother's praises. (Sun City Center, Florida, on May 9, 2006. White House
photo by Eric Draper)
The architects of Bush's 2007 "surge" of 30,000 troops into Iraq, former Army General Jack
Keane and American Enterprise Institute neocon strategist Frederick Kagan, in testimony to the
Senate Armed Services Committee, warned strongly that, without a "surge" of some 15,000 to
20,000 U.S. troops, ISIS would win in Iraq.
"We are losing this war," warned Keane, who previously served as Vice Chief of Staff of the
Army. "ISIS is on the offense, with the ability to attack at will, anyplace, anytime. Air power
will not defeat ISIS." Keane stressed that the U.S. and its allies have "no ground force, which
is the defeat mechanism."
Not given to understatement, Kagan called ISIS "one of the most evil organizations that has
ever existed. This is not a group that maybe we can negotiate with down the road someday. This
is a group that is committed to the destruction of everything decent in the world." He called
for "15-20,000 U.S. troops on the ground to provide the necessary enablers, advisers and so
forth," and added: "Anything less than that is simply unserious."
(By the way, Frederick Kagan is the brother of neocon-star Robert Kagan, whose Project for
the New American Century began pushing for the invasion of Iraq in 1998 and finally got its way
in 2003. Robert Kagan is the husband of Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs
Victoria Nuland, who oversaw the 2014 coup that brought "regime change" and bloody chaos to
Ukraine. The Ukraine crisis also prompted Robert Kagan to urge a major increase in U.S.
military spending. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com's " A Family Business
of Perpetual War. "] )
What is perhaps most striking, however, is the casualness with which the likes of Frederick
Kagan , Jack Keane, and other Iraq War enthusiasts advocated dispatching tens of thousands of
U.S. soldiers to fight and die in what would almost certainly be another futile undertaking.
You might even wonder why people like Kagan are invited to testify before Congress given their
abysmal records.
But that would miss the true charm of the Iraq "surge" in 2007 and its significance in
salvaging the reputations of folks like Kagan, not to mention George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
From their perspective, the "surge" was a great success. Bush and Cheney could swagger from the
West Wing into the western sunset on Jan. 20, 2009.
As author Steve Coll has put it, "The decision [to surge] at a minimum guaranteed that his
[Bush's] presidency would not end with a defeat in history's eyes. By committing to the surge
[the President] was certain to at least achieve a stalemate."
According to Bob Woodward, Bush told key Republicans in late 2005 that he would not withdraw
from Iraq, "even if Laura and [first-dog] Barney are the only ones supporting me." Woodward
made it clear that Bush was well aware in fall 2006 that the U.S. was losing. Suddenly, with
some fancy footwork, it became Laura, Barney and new Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen.
David Petraeus along with 30,000 more U.S. soldiers making sure that the short-term fix was
in.
The fact that about 1,000 U.S. soldiers returned in caskets was the principal price paid for
that short-term "surge" fix. Their "ultimate sacrifice" will be mourned by their friends,
families and countrymen on Memorial Day even as many of the same politicians and pundits will
be casually pontificating about dispatching more young men and women as cannon fodder into the
same misguided war.
[President Donald Trump has continued the U.S.'s longest war (Afghanistan), sending
additional troops and dropping a massive bomb as well as missiles from drones. In Syria he has
ordered two missile strikes and condoned multiple air strikes from Israel. Here's hoping, on
this Memorial Day 2018, that he turns his back on his war-mongering national security adviser,
forges ahead
with a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jung-Un rather than toy with the lives of 30,000
U.S. soldiers in Korea, and halts the juggernaut rolling downhill toward war with Iran.]
It was difficult drafting this downer, this historical counter-narrative, on the eve of
Memorial Day. It seems to me necessary, though, to expose the dramatis personae who played such
key roles in getting more and more people killed. Sad to say, none of the high officials
mentioned here, as well as those on the relevant Congressional committees, were affected in any
immediate way by the carnage in Ramadi, Tikrit or outside the gate to the Green Zone in
Baghdad.
And perhaps that's one of the key points here. It is not most of us, but rather our soldiers
and the soldiers and civilians of Iraq, Afghanistan and God knows where else who are Lazarus at
the gate. And, as Benjamin Franklin once said, "Justice will not be served until those who are
unaffected are as outraged as those who are."
There are, in my judgment, three great novels that explore American military life in the
twentieth century. They are, in order of publication, Guard of Honor (1948) by James
Gould Cozzens, From Here To Eternity (1951) by James Jones, and The Sand Pebbles
(1962) by Richard McKenna.
The first is a book about airmen, set at a stateside air base during World War II. The
second is a soldier's story, its setting Schofield Barracks in the territory of Hawaii on the
eve of Pearl Harbor. In The Sand Pebbles, the focus is on sailors. It takes place in
China during the 1920s when U.S. Navy gunboats patrolled the Yangtze River and its
tributaries.
As far as I can tell, none of the three enjoys much of a following today. Despite winning
the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Guard of Honor has all but vanished. To the extent that
the other two retain any cultural salience, they do so as movies, superb in the case of From
Here to Eternity , colorful but mediocre in the case of The Sand Pebbles.
Yet for any American seeking an intimate account of military service, all three novels
remain worth reading. Times change, as do uniforms, weapons, and tactics, but certain
fundamentals of military life endure. Leaders and led see matters differently, nurse different
expectations, and respond to different motivations. The perspective back at higher headquarters
(or up on the bridge) differs from the way things look to those dealing with the challenges of
a typical duty day. The biggest difference of all is between inside and outside -- between
those in uniform and the civilians who necessarily inhabit another world. Each in his own way,
Cozzens, Jones, and McKenna unpack those differences with sensitivity and insight.
Of the three, McKenna's novel in particular deserves revival, not only because of its
impressive literary qualities, but because the story it tells has renewed relevance to the
present day. It's a story about the role that foreign powers, including the United States,
played in the emergence of modern China.
Prompted in part by the ostensible North Korean threat, but more broadly by the ongoing rise
of China and uncertainty about China's ultimate ambitions, the American military establishment
will almost inevitably be directing more of its attention toward East Asia in the coming years.
To be sure, the conflict formerly known as the Global War on Terrorism continues and appears
unlikely to conclude anytime soon. Yet the character of that conflict is changing. Having come
up short in its efforts to pacify the Islamic world, the United States is increasingly inclined
to rely on proxies, generously supported by air power, to carry on the jihadist fight in
preference to committing large numbers of U.S. troops. Almost imperceptibly, East Asia is
encroaching upon and will eventually eclipse the Greater Middle East in the Pentagon's
hierarchy of strategic priorities.
It's this reshuffling of Pentagon priorities that endows The Sand Pebbles with
renewed significance. If past is prologue, McKenna's fictionalized account of actual events
that occurred 90 years ago involving U.S. forces in China should provide context for anyone
intent on employing American military power to check China today.
Of course, the armed forces of the United States have a long history of involvement in East
Asia. Ever since 1898, when it liberated, occupied, and subsequently annexed the Philippines,
the United States has maintained an enduring military presence in that part of the world.
To the extent that Americans are even dimly aware of what that presence has entailed, they
probably think in terms of three 20th-century Asian wars: the first in the 1940s against Japan;
the second during the 1950s in Korea; the third from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s in
Vietnam. In each, whether as ally or adversary, China figured prominently.
Yet even before the attack on Pearl Harbor initiated the first of those wars, U.S. air,
land, and naval forces had been active in and around China. Dreams of gaining access to a
lucrative "China Market" numbered among the factors that persuaded the United States to annex
the Philippines in the first place. In 1900, U.S. troops participated in the China Relief
Expedition, a multilateral intervention mounted to suppress the so-called Boxer Rebellion,
which sought to expel foreigners and end outside interference in Chinese affairs. The mission
succeeded and the U.S. military stayed on. Army and Marine Corps units established garrisons in
"treaty ports" such as Shanghai and Tientsin.
Decades earlier, the U.S. Navy had begun making periodic forays into China's inland
waterways. In the early 20th century, employing small shallow-draft vessels captured from Spain
in 1898, this presence became increasingly formalized. As American commercial and missionary
interests in China grew, the Navy inaugurated what it called the Yangtze Patrol, with Congress
appropriating funds to construct a flotilla of purpose-built gunboats for patrolling the river
and its tributaries. Under the direction of COMYANGPAT back in Shanghai, small warships flying
the Stars-and-Stripes sailed up and down the Yangtze's immense length to "protect American
lives and property."
This is the story that McKenna, himself a YANGPAT veteran, recounts, focusing on a single
fictional ship the U.S.S. San Pablo. Known as "Sand Pebbles," the few dozen sailors
comprising the San Pablo's crew are all lifers. A rough bunch, their interests rarely
extend beyond drinking and whoring. In 1920s China, an American sailor's modest paycheck
provides ample funds for both pursuits.
Even afloat, life for the Sand Pebbles is more than agreeable. Onboard the San Pablo,
an unofficial second crew consisting of local Chinese -- "contractors," we would call them
today -- does the dirty work and the heavy lifting. The Americans stay topside, performing
routines and rituals meant to convey an image of power and dominance.
San Pablo is a puny and lightly armed ship. Yet it exists to convey a big impression,
thereby sustaining the privileged position that the United States and the other imperial powers
enjoyed in China.
The revolutionary turmoil engulfing China in the 1920s necessarily challenged this
proposition. Nationalist fervor gripped large parts of the population. Imperial privilege
stoked popular resentment, which made San Pablo 's position increasingly untenable, even
if the Sand Pebbles themselves were blind to what was coming. That their own eminently
comfortable circumstances might be at risk was literally unimaginable.
McKenna's narrative describes how the world of the Sand Pebbles fell apart. His nominal
protagonist is Jake Holman, a machinist mate with a mystical relationship to machinery. Jake
loathes the spit-and-polish routine topside and wants nothing more than to remain below decks
in the engine compartment, performing duties that on San Pablo white American sailors
have long since ceased to do. In the eyes of his shipmates, therefore, Jake represents a threat
to the division of labor that underwrites their comforts.
The ship's captain, one of only two commissioned officers assigned to San Pablo,
likewise sees Jake as a threat to the status quo. To my mind, Lieutenant Collins is McKenna's
most intriguing creation and the novel's true focal point. Although the Sand Pebbles are
oblivious to how they may figure in some larger picture, for Collins the larger picture is a
continuing preoccupation. He sees his little ship, the entire U.S. Navy, America's providential
purpose, and the fate of Western civilization as all of a piece. Serious, sober, and dutiful,
he is also something of a fanatic.
Collins dimly perceives that powerful forces within China pose a direct threat not only to
the existing U.S. position there, but to his own worldview. Yet he considers the prospect of
accommodating those forces as not only intolerable, but inconceivable. So in the book's
culminating episode he leads Jake and several other Sand Pebbles on a symbolic but utterly
futile gesture of resistance. Fancying that he is thereby salvaging his ship's honor (and his
own as well), he succeeds merely in killing his own men.
I interpret McKenna as suggesting that there is no honor in denying reality. Only waste and
needless sacrifice result. Today a national security establishment as blind to reality as
Lieutenant Collins presides over futile gestures far more costly than those inflicted upon the
Sand Pebbles. It's not fiction and it's happening right before our eyes.
So skip the movie. But read McKenna's book. And then reflect on its relevance to the present
day.
"... Despite receiving all this government money, Musk's company has not shown demonstrable results. Yesterday, Bloomberg released a story under the headline "Tesla Doesn't Burn Fuel, It Burns Cash," detailing how the company spends $6,500 a minute and may run out of money by the end of the year. Just weeks ago, Moody's downgraded Tesla's credit rating due to its seeming inability to meet deadlines. Mr. Musk's estimate of producing 20,000 vehicles in December, for instance, turned into just over 2,400 in the entire fourth quarter. ..."
"... Norm Singleton is the chairman of Campaign for Liberty. ..."
Anyone familiar with the hit sitcom Seinfeld knows that Cosmo Kramer, the
rambunctious, eccentric neighbor of Jerry Seinfeld, had a lot of big ideas. From make-your-own-pizza parlors to
tie dispensers to the
infamous " mansierre
," Kramer was -- in his own mind -- a world-changing revolutionary.
Of course, aside from one notable exception ( the Regis Philbin-approved pop-out coffee table
book ), none of his ideas ever panned out. But lack of achievement is exactly what viewers
expected every week. The whole fun of Kramer was his dream-big mentality and the impracticality
that came with it.
No one on the show was senseless enough to support Kramer in his work. In fact, in one
episode, Leland fired
him even though he did not hold any standing position. Kramer couldn't even keep a job at a bagel store for
longer than a few days. It was his friends' open refrigerators that provided him with the life
support he needed to continue dreaming and inventing.
This comedy sitcom case study is ironically much more sensible than what occurs in real
life. There are plenty of Cosmo Kramers out in the world today with ideas that are even more
ambitious than anything Kramerica Industries could have
formulated. The only difference is that these individuals have armies of lobbyists that can
convince our spendthrift government to finance their ideas, even though they have yet to pass
any free-market smell tests.
Perhaps the most recent example of such a politically astute, Kramer-like figure is Elon
Musk. This larger-than-life media personality plans to do everything from sending men to the
moon and Mars, to creating a 700-miles-per-hour tunnel transportation system, to turbocharging
human brains by implanting computers.
All of these are excellent ideas, to be sure, but ones that bear significant amounts of
risk. Unfortunately, Mr. Musk does not seem willing to bear all the risk himself. His business
model revolves around hiring experts to navigate the waters of the Washington swamp to discover
ways to make the American people pick up the tab.
Take Tesla, for example. The car company was created to bring electric vehicles to the
general public en masse -- a mission that oddly requires over $1
million in lobbying expenditures annually. As a result, the cars are financed by over $280
million in federal tax incentives, including a $7,500 federal tax break, and tens of millions
more in state rebates and development fees.
Despite receiving all this government money, Musk's company has not shown demonstrable
results. Yesterday, Bloomberg released a story under the headline "Tesla Doesn't Burn
Fuel, It Burns Cash," detailing how the company spends $6,500 a minute and may run out of money
by the end of the year. Just weeks ago, Moody's
downgraded Tesla's credit rating due to its seeming inability to meet deadlines. Mr. Musk's
estimate of producing 20,000 vehicles in
December, for instance, turned into just over 2,400 in the entire fourth quarter.
It is no wonder that when these government subsidies die, electric vehicle sales plummet.
Three years ago, sales sunk by
more than 80 percent in the state of Georgia when the $5,000 state tax credit phased out.
Last year, sales declined by
60 percent when its EV tax breaks sharply fell. These empirical case studies do not paint a
positive picture of Tesla's future, especially given that its federal tax break is expected to phase out
sometime this year. Perhaps funding Kramer's big ball of oil in the name of alleviating
the world's spillage problems would have been just as, if not more, fruitful.
SpaceX is no better. Roughly 85 percent of its contracts come directly from the federal
government. The aerospace manufacturer hit a
then-personal record of $2 million in annual lobbying spending not long ago as it continued
its quest to conquer the stars. New York magazine once asked
"Are Elon Musk's Aggressive Lobbyists Bad for Silicon Valley? " but without them the
government-dependent company might not even exist.
SpaceX has already received roughly
$15 billion in subsidy guarantees from Texas, and despite
meeting just one sixth of the hiring goals it promised, it is requesting
$5 million more . Similarly, even though SpaceX has already received over $70 million from
the federal government to develop its BFR, the company would
like more on that front as well.
Meanwhile, just last week, NASA's Office of Inspector General found that SpaceX has raised the cost of some
launches by over 50 percent due to having "a better understanding of the costs involved after
several years of experience with cargo resupply missions." This new development means that the
government's deal -- already diluted by costly rocket failures -- continues to get worse and
worse.
And don't even get me started on SolarCity, Mr. Musk's solar panel company, which has still
not turned an annual profit despite receiving over $490
million in grants from the Treasury Department over the years and the government covering
30 percent of its installation costs.
As a free market capitalist, I am rooting for Mr. Musk to pull it together and succeed. But
I don't want the federal government to waste any more of Americans' hard-earned cash to make it
happen.
We will never know what the well-intentioned Cosmo Kramer could have accomplished had Jerry
and the rest of the gang cut him off from their refrigerators, homes, and other welfare as a
means of forcing him to follow through with his goals. However, we can still explore how taking
away such measures of comfort will affect Elon Musk's motivation and decision-making.
Ironically, it just may be the recipe for success that the ambitious CEO needs.
Norm Singleton is the chairman of Campaign for Liberty.
There are legitimate questions to ask regarding tesla, but SpaceX is a whole other issue.
Pretty much every rocket manufacturer gets massive government subsidies. SpaceX is not the
first and probably not the last. but their increase in price is still cost competitive
compared to other manufacturers.
Ford Says Farewell
America's most iconic automaker plans to drive almost all of their passenger sedans into the sunset by 2020.
By
Telly Davidson
•
May 16, 2018
1959 Ford Country Squire Station Wagon Advertisement Life Magazine November 10 1958
By SenseiAlan /Flickr/CreativeCommons
Ford Motor Company recently dropped a bombshell -- one that would have been largely
unthinkable before the Great Recession. FoMoCo announced that it would be phasing out virtually all passenger cars built
for the U.S./Canadian market (they will continue in Europe) by 2020, except for the upcoming Focus Active and
always-popular Mustang -- a move all the more grim in that it was founding father Henry Ford that pioneered the mass-market
sedan for both America and the world.
The Focus will be first to go this month, followed by the Taurus next March and the
Fiesta in May 2019.
Ford Motor Company was always the Eve to General Motors' Adam in Detroit, not only
making cars (and profits) by the trunkload, but leading the league in midcentury style. The "Jackie Kennedy"
Lincoln
Continental Town Car
.
The Thunderbird
. But during the "Big
Government" era of unapologetically high property taxes and ballooning environmental regulations, Ford suffered its
first postwar crash. Amid the 1975 fuel shortages, Congress passed -- and Detroit's own liberal Republican stalwart Gerald
Ford (despite some quibbles and misgivings) signed -- the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Act (CAFÉ), which started off by
requiring an 18 mpg standard by the 1978 model year (1975 models were around 13 mpg by average.) The standard would
rise to 19 mpg in 1979, 20 in 1980, and then not one but
two
mileage points per year through 1984 -- with massive, multi-million-dollar IRS and court-imposed fines if a manufacturer
was found to be non-compliant.
Like a small-town mayor futilely trying to resist a federal court order, Ford mocked
GM's newly streamlined "large" cars when they debuted for 1977 (GM had been planning to go on a diet even before CAFÉ,
and had vastly more R&D money than Ford or Chrysler). Ads noted that Ford's family-priced LTD sedan was now the same
length as a "downsized" (but still gargantuan by today's standards) new '77 Cadillac. Cynically, both Ford and Chrysler
made no secret of the fact that their 1978 model full-size cars would be the last of their kind (Cadillac also let
everyone know that their big 1978 Eldorado was heading for the exit door), encouraging not only the "buy it while you
still can!" panic buying of the hyperinflationary late '70s -- but also as good as telling customers that next year's
forcibly-downsized models would be decidedly inferior. Lincoln gave its Town Car and Mark V one last victory lap before
they went, and Ford also renewed the Mark V's shorter-wheelbase platform-mates the Thunderbird and Mercury Cougar for
1979. Still fuming at the imminent loss of their league-leaders, Ford so grossly overproduced for 1979 that Lincoln had
a backlog of 210 days' worth of cars by July of 1979,
effectively
giving them a 1980 model year.
Not surprisingly, the downsized 1979 Ford (and Chrysler) "full size" sedans initially
bombed -- sales declined drastically for the '79 LTD and Mercury Grand Marquis, and went off a cliff in 1980. And while the
Mark VI "only" fell by half of its 1979 numbers, the Town Car went off Thelma and Louise's cliff -- barely managing
one-third of its '79 numbers.
And all this was just a sampling of what became arguably the biggest one-year
euthanasia in Ford history, as the 1980 Ford Granada and Mercury Monarch (and their upscale twin, the luxury Lincoln
Versailles), and the iconic Pinto/Bobcat were all put to sleep at year's end. All but the Granada were canceled
outright, in nameplate as well as body style, with the Granada barely hanging on as a thinly-disguised Fairmont (Ford's
first big downsizing-era success, which kept the lights on at Dearborn during the 12-15 percent interest rate era from
1978 to 1983.)
Now the plot thickens. The first downsizing era was complete, but the second one, to
bring things into compliance for 1984-85 (and what Detroit assumed would be even more draconian) standards, was now
underway. Ford suffered catastrophic losses in 1980-82, and Chrysler had to beg a stern President Carter for a
too-big-to-fail bailout in 1979-80 to avoid bankruptcy, as they frantically redesigned their slow-selling car lines yet
again.
But out of this "Big Government" intrusion came the impetus to design what became
Ford's biggest successes in the mid-to-late 80s and early 90s -- the 1983-88 and 1989-97 Thunderbird, the 1984-94 Ford
Tempo, and the 1986-95 Ford Taurus. (Already their 1981-90 Escort flirted with #1 bestseller status in recessionary
1982.) Meanwhile, arch-competitor GM euthanized all but the station wagons and the Chevy Caprice sedan (which lasted
until 1990) of their full-size 1977 lines in spring 1984. The cars GM replaced them with were engineering marvels
(except when it came to reliability, perhaps) of front-wheel-drive, V6-powered efficiency -- but as folksinger Malvina
Reynolds might have said, they all looked ticky-tacky and they all looked the same. GM suffered its largest decade-loss
in its then-history during the '80s, according to auto historian Paul Niedemeyer.
But just as it had in 1978, Ford held out -- and this time, the move paid off. As
Presidents Reagan and Bush Sr. began relaxing CAFE laws (or at least refusing to raise the standards dramatically), the
"downsized" big cars of the first wave of downsizing that still remained in production began selling like
hotcakes -- especially to Greatest and Silent Generation traditionalists who wanted cars that reminded them of the
unapologetic luxury they drove in the 70s, when they were at the height of their earning power and still healthy. The
1991 LTD/Marquis looked much the same as they did in 1979, and the Town Car of 1989 (and its closest competitor, the '89
Chrysler Fifth Avenue) were virtual reruns of 1980. And the Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham (the only other GM survivor of
1984-85's "second downsizing") was still wearing its chrome-finned, formal-roofed, stately 1977 body all the way into
1992, with only a couple of reshaped-sheetmetal facelifts in between.
But Boomers had already been converted during the energy-conscious '70s to efficient
Japanese (and soon, Korean) cars. (Their Gen-X and Millennial children also would have no qualms at all about buying
"foreign.") By the late 80s and 90s, the Japanese were second to none in reliability, and rising suns like Hyundai and
Kia began offering league-leading, bumper-to-bumper warranties. As the
Roger &
Me
era of globalization took hold, even the saltiest WWII and Korea veterans
who were left began seriously considering Japanese and Korean autos -- given that the Asian automakers were consciously
building plants in the U.S. and Canada to erase the stigma of buying foreign (and head off potential tariffs), while the
allegedly "all American" Big 3 were sending jobs by the thousand to Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, and eventually China.
The one big exception, however, was American trucks and vans -- including that ultimate
"soccer moms" symbol, the "minivan" (introduced by Chrysler in 1984 and Ford in 1985) and the luxury SUV. Because even
the biggest global-warming advocates and environmentalists had to concede that a civilized society needed ambulances,
hearses, construction, repair, and delivery trucks, and so forth, trucks were held to a significantly lower MPG
standard.
Conscious of his fellow Yuppies (and not wanting to be a gloomy Debbie Down-size-er
like Jimmy Carter), Bill Clinton said "No way!" to raising CAFE standards, much less cracking down hard on American-made
trucks, vans, Jeeps, and SUVs that were all the rage (and already paying the Big Three's bills) in the late '90s. And
naturally, Texas oilman George W. Bush (with his bestie, "Kenny-Boy" Lay of Enron) and Dick "Halliburton" Cheney barely
even touched fuel standards. The CAFÉ standard never rose above 27.5 mpg for passenger cars from 1985 all the way
through 2010 -- a full 25 years.
By 2010, the US auto industry was in the worst shape since the Great Depression, if
not the Carter years. GM was pulling itself out of bankruptcy, and cancelled their Saturn and Pontiac brands on
Halloween 2010 (Oldsmobile had been the first to the cemetery in the relatively prosperous June of 2004). Chrysler had
long ago put Plymouth and what was left of AMC/Eagle to sleep, and was even more bankrupt than GM. The only real
survivor was, ironically, Ford, thanks to its European partnerships and its red-hot truck/SUV presence, and the
ever-popular Mustang. (The Focus, Taurus, and Fusion were still doing well, although largely behind the Japanese and
Korean majors.) The Town Car (whose body dated to 1998) and Crown Victoria (which went back to 1991-92) finally died in
early 2012, after shutting down production at the end of August 2011. And though the iconic Lincoln Continental was
revived for 2017, it has largely failed to meet expectations.
So this was your life, Ford Motor Company. You invented the modern working-class
hero's sedan with the Model T, you survived and thrived as arguably midcentury middle-class America's most iconic
automaker, you stumbled badly and nearly OD'ed on gasoline and outdated styling through the last days of disco, but woke
up with Morning in America. "Big Gov'mint" forced you -- kicking and screaming -- to innovate in ways you didn't want to, but
that kept you alive during that time. And then, when deregulation happened, and the focus became trucks/minivans/SUVs
that didn't need year-to-year changes to stay popular, you had to play it as it laid.
Fare thee well, Ford sedans and wagons. It wouldn't have been the same without ya.
If oil prices his $100 a barrel as Citi is predicting next year (side effect of Trump's Iran move), this could
turn out badly for Ford.
I hope I have purchased my last gas car – a Prius Prime – a year ago. I am in my
later 60's and I like long range trips. At 50 mpg+ on gas, I will be able to afford to drive it when I am
retired. And for my about town commuting and short trips, I am averaging over 130 mpg – relying mostly upon the
battery. With luck, it will last until I am not up for long haul trips.
I hope to buy a fully self driving electric car in 4 years when I have finished paying off the Prius. My
wife is directionally challenged and we are likely to be somewhat rural, making Uber-like services less able.
In the mean time, she drives her 10 year old Toyota corolla, which gets quite good mileage.
I have driven gas guzzlers in my time, but given the amount I drive, I have decided to optimize my cars for
reliability and mileage. The Prius replaces a Suburu Forester that got ~ 23 mpg. It had over 230,000 miles on
it before it sustained enough damage from road debris that it wasn't worth repairing.
I don't need another suv or pickup, the kids are finally moving out.
Former NSA and CIA head Michael Hayden's new book The Assault on Intelligence: American
National Security in an Age of Lies wants to be the manifesto behind an intelligence
community coup. It ends up reading like outtakes from Dr. Strangelove .
Trump cannot discern truth from falsehood, Hayden says, and is the product of too much
fact-free thinking, especially on social media ("computational propaganda" where people can
"publish without credentials") where lies are deployed by the Russians to destroy the United
States. Instead Hayden calls for artificial intelligence and a media truth-rating system to
"purify our discourse" and help "defend it against inauthentic stimulation."
Hayden believes in the "fragility of civilization" as clearly as he believes there is a
"FOX/Trump/RT" alliance in place to exploit it. Under Trump, "post-truth is pre-fascism, and to
abandon facts is to abandon freedom." Hayden claims Trump has a "glandular aversion" to even
thinking about how "Russia has been actively seeking to damage the fabric of American
democracy."
Salvation, it would seem, depends on the intelligence community. Hayden makes clear,
ominously quoting conversations with anonymous IC officers, that no one else is protecting
America from these online threats to our precious bodily fluids .
He warns that "the structures we rely on to prevent civil war and societal collapse are
under stress." The IC on the other hand "pursues Enlightenment values [and] is essential
not just to American safety but to American liberty."
Hayden recalls how he reminded a lad fresh to the IC to "protect yourself. And above all
protect the institution. American still needs it." He has a bit of advice about the CIA: "We
are accustomed to relying on their truth to protect us from foreign enemies. Now we may need
their truth to save us from ourselves." The relationship between Trump and the IC, Hayden
threatens, is "contentious, divisive, and unpredictable" in these "uncharted waters for the
Republic."
Simply put, Hayden's book is blowing 10 dog whistles at once. Arise ye patriots [of
neoliberalism] of Langley and Fort Meade!
Yet for all his emphasis on truth, Hayden is curiously lax in presenting actual evidence of
the apocalypse. You are left to believe because Hayden says you must: paternalism at its best.
Plus, to disbelieve is to side with Putin. The best we get are executive summary-like
statements along the lines of "There is clear evidence of what I would call convergence, the
convergence of a mutually reinforcing swirl of Presidential tweets and statements, Russian
influenced social media, alt right websites and talk radio, Russian 'white' press like RT and
even mainstream U.S. media like Fox News."
With that established, Hayden informs us that when the IC tried to warn Trump of the Russian
plot, he "rejected a fact-based intel assessment because it was inconsistent with a preexisting
world view or because it was politically inconvenient, the stuff of ideological
authoritarianism not pragmatic democracy." Comrade, er, Candidate Trump, says Hayden
matter-of-factly, "did sound a lot like Vladimir Putin." The two men, he declaims, are "Russian
soulmates."
Hayden figures that if you've read this far into his polemic, he might as well just splurge
the rest of his notes on you. Trump is "uninformed, lazy, dishonest, off the charts, rejects
the premise objective reality even existed." He's fueled by Russian money (no evidence of this
is presented in the book, Hayden says, because it's hidden in the tax returns, as if Line 42 on
Trump's 1040 would read "Putin Black Funds $5 mil," and the IRS, which does have the returns,
overlooked that).
Trump is an "unwitting agent" of Putin, which Hayden tells us in Russian is polezni
durak , so you can see he knows his Cold War lingo. We hear how Wikileaks worked with the
Russkies, how Trump Jr. worked with the Russkies, how the Russkies wormed their way into Tower
so they could see the Big Board, how the whole brouhaha over #TakeAKnee was Russian meddling,
and how Jill Stein existed to "bleed off votes from Clinton" -- every Mueller fan-fiction trope
tumbling from the pages like crumbs left over from an earlier reader.
That's why The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies
reads like as a polemic. But it also fails as a book.
There are pages of filler, jumbled blog post-like chapters about substate actors and global
tectonics. Hayden writes in a recognizable style that might be called Bad Military, where
everything must eventually be tied to some Big Idea, preferably with classical references
Googled-up to add gravitas.
So it is not enough for Hayden to state Trump is a liar. He has to blame Trump for usurping
the entire body of Western thought: "We are in a post-truth world, a world in which decisions
are far more based upon emotion and preference. And that's an overturning of the Western way of
thought since the Enlightenment." Bad things are Hobbesian; good things Jeffersonian,
Madisonian, or Hamiltonian. People Hayden agrees with get adjectival modifiers before their
names: the perceptive scholar ____, the iconic journalist ____, the legendary case officer
____. It makes for tiresome reading, like it's Sunday night edging 4 a.m. and you still have
nine undergrad papers on the causes of the Civil War to grade.
Hayden is openly contemptuous of the American people, seeing them as brutes who need to be
led around, either by the Russians, as he sees it now, or by the IC, as he wishes it to be.
Proof of how dumb we are? Hayden cites a poll showing 83 percent of Republicans and 27 percent
of Democrats don't believe the IC analysis that Russia meddled in the 2016 election when they
damn well should. Further proof? Russian bots at work on Twitter influencing conservative minds
by using the hashtags #God and #Benghazi.
In our odd times, Hayden is a Hero of the Resistance. Seemingly forgotten is that, as head
of the NSA, he implemented blanket surveillance of American citizens in a rape of the Fourth
Amendment, itself a product of the Enlightenment, justifying his unconstitutional actions with
a mishmash of post-truth platitudes and still-secret legal findings. Hayden also supported
torture during the War on Terror, but whatever.
This book-length swipe right for the IC leaves out the slam dunk work those agencies did on
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Any concern about political motives inside the IC is swept
away as "baseless." Gina
Haspel , who oversaw the torture program, is an "inspired choice" to head CIA. Hayden
writes for the rubes, proclaiming that the IC produces facts when in reality even good intel
can only be assessments and ambiguous conclusions.
That people so readily overlook Hayden's sins simply because he rolls off snark against
Trump speaks to our naiveté. That men like Hayden retain their security clearances while
serving as authors and paid commentators to outlets like CNN speaks to how deep the roots of
the Deep State reach. That some troubled Jack D. Ripper squirreled inside the IC might
take this pablum seriously is frightening.
Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of We Meant Well : How I Helped Lose the Battle for the
Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People and Hooper's War : A Novel of WWII Japan. Follow him on Twitter
@WeMeantWell .
He's not blinded by hate. If you actually read the book, he describes his issues with Obama,
Clinton and everyone else. The fact remains he outlined the truth: Trump is a bumbling fool
who cannot distinguish truth fro fiction and is the most corrupt president ever to inhabit
the oval office, and has no idea what he's doing.
This interesting article states:
Gina Haspel, who oversaw the torture program, is an 'inspired choice' to head CIA. Really, torture is used by gangsters and other underworld villains. Therefore, I ask based
on the evidence against governments. "Are We Seeing Government by Gangsters"?
http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2018/03/are-we-seeing-government-by-gangsters.html
The guy sounds like a certain Senator from Wisconsin:
"The reason why we find ourselves in a position of impotency is not because the enemy has
sent men to invade our shores, but rather because of the traitorous actions of those who have
had all the benefits that the wealthiest nation on earth has had to offer – the finest
homes, the finest college educations, and the finest jobs in Government we can give."
Peter Van Buren reminds us all: "Seemingly forgotten is that, as head of the NSA, he
implemented blanket surveillance of American citizens in a rape of the Fourth Amendment "
The 4th Amendment to the US Constitution:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but
upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place
to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Barker points out that Marx was correct that "capitalism has an inbuilt tendency to destroy
itself." I would add that Marx's view that capitalism was heretofore the most revolutionary
force in human history is also true. From the Communist
Manifesto :
The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part.
The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal,
patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that
bound man to his "natural superiors", and has left remaining no other nexus between man and
man than naked self-interest, than callous "cash payment". It has drowned the most heavenly
ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in
the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value,
and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single,
unconscionable freedom -- Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and
political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.
The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up
to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the
man of science, into its paid wage labourers.
The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the
family relation to a mere money relation.
The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigour in the
Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most
slothful indolence. It has been the first to show what man's activity can bring about. It has
accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic
cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations
and crusades.
The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of
production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of
society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary,
the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising
of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty
and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen
relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away,
all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into
air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his
real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.
The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the
entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish
connexions everywhere.
You see what he means here. Capitalism -- for Marx, the merchant class (the "bourgeoisie")
were the carriers of capitalism -- turns everything into a market. Capitalism is a
revolutionary force that disrupts and desacralizes all things. All that talk in The Benedict Option about "liquid modernity"? That's based in Marx, actually.
Zygmunt Bauman, the late sociologist from whom I took the idea, was a Marxist.
Look, most of us conservatives in the West are to some degree supporters of the free market.
What we missed for a very long time was that it is hard to support a fully free market while at
the same time expecting our social institutions -- the family, the church, and so forth -- to
remain stable. This is an insight of Marx's that we conservatives -- and even conservative
Christians -- ought to absorb. I write about this a lot, though not in specific Marxist
terms.
The thing is, Christian Democratic parties throughout Western Europe have largely absorbed
this truth. Catholic social teaching is based in these insights as well. They aren't
necessarily against the free market, but rather say that the market must be tempered
for the common good.
That wasn't Marx's view, obviously. Marx thought the free market was itself wicked, and
ought to be totally controlled by the state. We know where that all ended up: with a hundred
million dead, and entire economies and societies destroyed.
But we can agree that Marx was right to diagnose the revolutionary nature of capitalism, if
catastrophically wrong about the cure for capitalism's excesses. If that was as far as Jason
Barker went, that would be fine. But he doesn't -- and this is the warning. Barker
continues:
The key factor in Marx's intellectual legacy in our present-day society is not
"philosophy" but "critique," or what he described in 1843 as "the ruthless criticism of all
that exists: ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and
in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be." "The
philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it," he
wrote in 1845.
Racial and sexual oppression have been added to the dynamic of class exploitation. Social
justice movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, owe something of an unspoken debt to
Marx through their unapologetic targeting of the "eternal truths" of our age. Such movements
recognize, as did Marx, that the ideas that rule every society are those of its ruling class
and that overturning those ideas is fundamental to true revolutionary progress.
We have become used to the go-getting mantra that to effect social change we first have to
change ourselves. But enlightened or rational thinking is not enough, since the norms of
thinking are already skewed by the structures of male privilege and social hierarchy, even
down to the language we use. Changing those norms entails changing the very foundations of
society.
There it is, reader. There is the "cultural Marxism" that you hear so much about, and that
so many on the left deny. It is in the Marxist principle that there is no such thing as truth;
there is only power.
Lenin understood this well. This is the meaning of his famous dictum, "Who, whom?" In Lenin's view,
co-existence with capitalism was not possible. The only question was whether or not the
communists will smash the capitalists first, or the other way around. One way of interpreting
this is to say that the moral value of an action depends on who is doing it to
whom .
This is why it is pointless for us conservatives and old-school liberals to stand around
identifying contradictions and hypocrisies in how the progressives behave. They don't care!
They aren't trying to apply universal standards of justice. They believe that "universal
standards of justice" is a cant phrase to disguise white heterosexist patriarchal supremacy.
They believe that justice is achieving power for their group, and therefore disempowering other
groups. This is why it's not racist, in their view, to favor non-whites over whites in the
distribution of power. This is why they don't consider it unfair to discriminate against men,
heterosexuals, and other out-groups.
They will use things like "dialogue" as a tactic to serve the long-term strategy of
acquiring total power. Resisting them on liberal grounds is like bringing a knife to a gun
fight. The neoreactionaries have seen this clearly, while conservatives like me, who can't
quite let go of old-fashioned liberalism, have resisted it.
I have resisted it because I really would like to live in a world where we can negotiate our
differences while allowing individuals and groups maximum autonomy in the private sphere. I
want to be left alone, and want to leave others alone. This, I fear, is a pipe dream. Absent a
shared cultural ethos, I can't see how this is possible. I hate to say it -- seriously, I do --
but I think that today's conservatives (including me) are going to end up as neoreactionaries,
just as today's old-school liberals are going to end up as progressives, because the forces
pulling us to these extremes are stronger than any centrism.
For example, check this out:
I'm running into irreligious people who think that a religious person violating their
deeply held principles is just a matter of choice, that they don't truly have any genuine
beliefs.
We can't even converse any more b/c we're not speaking the same language.
This is our country -- and this is the danger we religious people are facing, and are going
to face much more intensely. Many non-religious people simply cannot understand why we see the
world the way we do, and assume that it can only be out of irrationality and bigotry.
I invite you to read
this blog post from three years ago, based on my interview with "Prof. Kingsfield", a
closeted Christian teaching at an elite law school. This excerpt:
"Alasdair Macintyre is right," he said. "It's like a nuclear bomb went off, but in slow
motion." What he meant by this is that our culture has lost the ability to reason together,
because too many of us want and believe radically incompatible things.
But only one side has the power. When I asked Kingsfield what most people outside elite
legal and academic circles don't understand about the way elites think, he said "there's this
radical incomprehension of religion."
"They think religion is all about being happy-clappy and nice, or should be, so they don't
see any legitimate grounds for the clash," he said. "They make so many errors, but they don't
want to listen."
To elites in his circles, Kingsfield continued, "at best religion is something consenting
adult should do behind closed doors. They don't really understand that there's a link between
Sister Helen Prejean's faith and the work she does on the death penalty. There's a lot of
looking down on flyover country, one middle America.
"The sad thing," he said, "is that the old ways of aspiring to truth, seeing all knowledge
as part of learning about the nature of reality, they don't hold. It's all about power.
They've got cultural power, and think they should use it for good, but their idea of good is
not anchored in anything. They've got a lot of power in courts and in politics and in
education. Their job is to challenge people to think critically, but thinking critically
means thinking like them. They really do think that they know so much more than anybody did
before, and there is no point in listening to anybody else, because they have all the
answers, and believe that they are good."
This is a small part of a larger struggle.
Many on the left deny that cultural Marxism exists, but you have in The New York
Times a column by a Marxist professor saying that yes it does, and it's a good thing, too.
His final line:
On that basis, we are destined to keep citing him and testing his ideas until the kind of
society that he struggled to bring about, and that increasing numbers of us now desire, is
finally realized.
Marx didn't come from nowhere. The world of 1848 (when the Communist Manifesto appeared) is
a lot like our own world; re-read the section above from that document and see how familiar it
sounds. He was more or less right in his diagnosis of the revolutionary nature of capitalism,
but his materialism and its relationship to human nature was catastrophically wrong. His
thought may have resulted in mass murder, but it is clearly not dead; it is simply turned
against culture, not the means of production.
Therefore, I'll end here with this excerpt from Carlo Lancellotti's recent
Commonweal essay about Marx, culture, and Catholicism. Excerpt:
Contra the "Catholic Left," which tended to regard Marx's atheism as accidental, and tried
to rescue his socio-political analysis from his religious views, Del Noce concluded that what
Marx proposed was not just a new theory of history or a new program of political economy, but
a new anthropology , one completely different from the Christian tradition. (Louis
Dupré had made a similar argument in the pages of Commonweal ; see "Marx and Religion: An
Impossible Marriage," April 26, 1968.) Marx viewed humans as "social beings" entirely
determined by historical and material circumstances rather than by their relationship with
God. He viewed human reason as purely instrumental -- a tool of production and social
organization rather than the capacity to contemplate the truth and participate in the divine
wisdom. Finally, Marx viewed liberation as the fruit of political action, not as a personal
process of conversion aided by grace. Marxist politics was not guided by fixed and absolute
ethical principles, because ethics, along with philosophy, was absorbed into politics. Del
Noce concluded that there was no way to rescue Marx's politics from his atheism, which had as
much to do with his view of man as with his view of God.
Nonetheless, after World War II Marxism experienced a resurgence in Western Europe, not
only among intellectuals and politicians but also in mainstream culture. But Del Noce noticed
that at the same time society was moving in a very different direction from what Marx had
predicted: capitalism kept expanding, people were eagerly embracing consumerism, and the
prospect of a Communist revolution seemed more and more remote. To Del Noce, this
simultaneous success and defeat of Marxism pointed to a deep contradiction. On the
one hand, Marx had taught historical materialism, the doctrine that metaphysical and ethical
ideas are just ideological covers for economic and political interests. On the other hand, he
had prophesied that the expansion of capitalism would inevitably lead to revolution, followed
by the "new man," the "classless society," the "reign of freedom." But what if the revolution
did not arrive, if the "new man" never materialized?
In that case, Del Noce realized, Marxist historical materialism would degenerate into a
form of radical relativism -- into the idea that philosophical and moral concepts are just
reflections of historical and economic circumstances and have no permanent validity. This
would have to include the concept of injustice, without which a critique of capitalism would
be hard, if not impossible, to uphold. A post-Marxist culture -- one that kept Marx's radical
materialism and denial of religious transcendence, while dispensing with his confident
predictions about the self-destruction of capitalism -- would naturally tend to be
radically bourgeois. By that, Del Noce meant a society that views "everything as an
object of trade" and "as an instrument" to be used in the pursuit of individualized
"well-being." Such bourgeois society would be highly individualistic, because it could not
recognize any cultural or religious "common good." In the Communist Manifesto, Marx
and Engels described the power of the bourgeois worldview to dissolve all cultural and
religious allegiances into a universal market. Now, ironically, Marxist ideas (which Del Noce
viewed as a much larger and more influential phenomenon than political Marxism in a strict
sense) had helped bring that process to completion. At a conference in Rome in 1968, Del Noce
looked back at recent history and concluded that the post-Marxist culture would be "a society
that accepts all of Marxism's negations against contemplative thought, religion, and
metaphysics; that accepts, therefore, the Marxist reduction of ideas to instruments of
production. But which, on the other hand, rejects the revolutionary-messianic aspects of
Marxism, and thus all the religious elements that remain within the revolutionary idea. In
this regard, it truly represents the bourgeois spirit in its pure state, the bourgeois spirit
triumphant over its two traditional adversaries, transcendent religion and revolutionary
thought."
If Del Noce is correct, we may not have to worry about the cultural Marxists of our time
taking total power, as consumer capitalism and its comforts will compromise their revolutionary
spirit. When and if university presidents start kicking these bumptious brats out of college,
the revolution will sputter like Occupy Wall Street did. But before it's all over, they may end
up destroying the institutions and ways of life that make life stable and meaningful. Then
again, unrestrained capitalism has done the same thing. The problem with Marxism is that it
burns the boats so that nobody can return, and calls the resulting fire enlightenment.
The warning is twofold: First, that cultural Marxism is a real thing willing and capable of
doing real damage, and that you cannot negotiate with these people; and second, that unless
capitalists figure out how to ameliorate the excesses of market and technological change on
society, they are tempting fate, just as their 19th and early 20th century forebears did.
UPDATE: Reader Dave:
The bigger problem with the NYT piece that you either missed or didn't feel added to your
thesis is the irony that Marx's critiques are seen as a good and carrying that forward
cultural Marxist critiques are good, unless you are critiquing those critiques. You aren't
allowed to critique arguments from BLM or La Raza or LGBTQXYZ groups or etc because taking a
critical eye to those groups is just hateful bigoted nonsense. Never mind that those groups'
manifestos generally don't hold up to scrutiny, just accept it as a means to an end (even if
that end isn't really where we should like to be). In a world where there is no objective
truth and all individuals' "truths" are valid there is no basis culture or society. But you
can't bring that up, lest you be labeled an insensitive bigot who should be burned at the
stake. My guess is if Marx were revived today he would be ashamed more of the intellectual
rot his philosophy has spawned than he would over the millions of innocents dead.
Significantly left of center, "hard left", may only describe 20-25% of the U.S.
population, but in certain geographic areas, they control virtually all of the political
levers of government. Seattle for instance.
Seattle. Right. The domain of corporate liberalism on steroids. Hard left. Uh-huh. I won't
ask what you've been smoking, because I think its congenital.
should read "Goldman bankers aren't interested in funding class consciousness"
Much better and more accurate than removing "not" from the original. Thank you.
Marx was a smart guy, but too smart. It was really really weird the older I got and the more
I found out about recurring class struggles and sometimes riots and even revolutions, again
and again, in ancient Greece and Rome. There's so much documentation, over centuries, that it
seems pretty obvious to me that there's nothing significantly new about Marxism at all, it's
just a slightly more complex manifestation of a permanent phenomenon: inequality. Can
anything be done about it? Nothing, you just have to idealize "equality" and KNOW inequality.
CitizenOne April 23, 2018 at 11:23 pm I dug this up based on the article which is pertinent.
It is the basis for propaganda in WWI:
We do not want war.
The opposite party alone is guilty of war.
The enemy is the face of the devil.
We defend a noble cause, not our own interest.
The enemy systematically commits cruelties; our mishaps are involuntary.
The enemy uses forbidden weapons.
We suffer small losses, those of the enemy are enormous.
Artists and intellectuals back our cause.
Our cause is sacred.
All who doubt our propaganda, are traitors.
So let's translate this into modern language.
We do not want war. Translation: "We want War"
The opposite party alone is guilty of war. Translation: We are guilty of Preemptive War"
The enemy is the face of the devil. Translation: "We demonize the enemy as the Devil. The
enemy is the Devil (Putin)"
We defend a noble cause, not our own interest. Translation: "We are in it purely for our
self interest. Oil, Gas, Mineral resources, Mining, Banking etc. We are in it for our own
interest"
The enemy systematically commits cruelties; our mishaps are involuntary. Translation: "Our
actions are our own of our own volition. We create and hide atrocities and cruelties by us and
exemplify and magnify cruelties by our enemy"
The enemy uses forbidden weapons. Translation: We can attack our enemies at will because
they have weapons of mass dwstruction"
We suffer small losses, those of the enemy are enormous. Translation: "Our weapons are
superior"
Artists and intellectuals back our cause. Translation: "The Liberals back our cause for
War"
Our cause is sacred. Translation: "The Conservatives back our cause for War"
All who doubt our propaganda, are traitors. Translation: "Everyone who doubts the main
stream propaganda is a Traitor"
Donald Trump beware, there is a band of oligarchs waiting to pin you as a Traitor for
doubting the propaganda.
I say keep on keeping on with your attacks on the intelligence agencies who have signed onto
and have in fact created all of the fake news against our newly appointed enemy in Russia that
seeks to create a new yet old enemy by resurrecting the old Cold War and turn it into a new
Cold war. They should be shuttered and discredited for their lies which have seduced the
Congress on both sides of the aisle to sanction Russia and enact laws preventing the President
from refusing the compulsions of the Congress to engage in acts of war with an unproven enemy.
Perhaps there is a Russian Bear like the one predicted by Reagan with his "Bear in the Woods"
campaign created by the Reagan conservatives.
"... The U.S. military presence in Syria is illegal, and the same would be true of any occupying force provided by U.S. clients. Instead of looking for a substitute occupation force or maintaining one of our own, the U.S. should accept that controlling any part of Syria is not worth the costs and risks that go along with it. ..."
The Trump administration is struggling to assemble a coalition of Arab military forces to
replace U.S. troops battling Islamic State militants in eastern Syria, a roadblock that could
indefinitely delay President Trump's goal of pulling American forces out of the country, U.S.
officials said.
Allies in the region are deeply skeptical about sending their troops -- and many are even
reluctant to contribute funds -- to help stabilize cities and towns liberated from Islamic
State, according to senior U.S. officials, if the United States intends to pull out, as Trump
has threatened.
It comes as no surprise that these governments have no interest in taking Trump up on this
offer. Each of them has other more pressing concerns than policing parts of Syria, some have no
interest in opposing the Syrian government, all of them are ill-equipped for the task at hand,
and it would be a terrible mistake to invite these governments to occupy Syrian territory in
any case. That doesn't mean that the U.S. has to keep its forces in Syria, but it should remind
us how useless our clients are to the U.S.
The U.S. military presence in Syria is illegal, and the same would be true of any
occupying force provided by U.S. clients. Instead of looking for a substitute occupation force
or maintaining one of our own, the U.S. should accept that controlling any part of Syria is not
worth the costs and risks that go along with it. The U.S. has no business fighting in
Syria, and it has no authority to keep its forces there, so a complete withdrawal from Syria is
the only appropriate and legal course of action open to the U.S.
"... However the declining U.S. with massive debt, a hollowed out manufacturing capability, an unsustainable health care model and a Ponzi scheme financial engineering Levithan that generates nothing of actual tangible value is still a very dangerous animal. ..."
"... Because it still has only superior capability, it's War Machine. And the big danger to the planet is the parasitic and deluded Power Elite franchise in Washington that militarizes EVERY element of foreign policy activity. The U.S. response to concerted and coordinated economic activity by China and its Eurasian partners can only be war-mongering. Because other than that, the U.S. will have no other leverage. ..."
Remove the North Korea crisis from Asia and the Trump administration has the needed
bandwidth to contain Beijing's aspirations.
Fat chance. China will continue with its BRI and AIIB initiatives. It will continue to
lash-up with Russia and its EAEU to create a pan-Eurasian economic architecture in which the
U.S. is largely economically irrelevant. Especially when hard asset pricing is decoupled from
the dollar.
And China now has a huge supply of highly trained (many in the U.S.) scientists and
engineers. Russia and Europe also have highly skilled technologists making Eurasia
self-sufficient in both natural resources and technology development.
The U.S. will be eventually shut out. Because dealing with the Global Cop Gorilla in any
context is more trouble than it's worth.
However the declining U.S. with massive debt, a hollowed out manufacturing capability, an
unsustainable health care model and a Ponzi scheme financial engineering Levithan that
generates nothing of actual tangible value is still a very dangerous animal.
Because it still has only superior capability, it's War Machine. And the big danger to the
planet is the parasitic and deluded Power Elite franchise in Washington that militarizes
EVERY element of foreign policy activity. The U.S. response to concerted and coordinated
economic activity by China and its Eurasian partners can only be war-mongering. Because other
than that, the U.S. will have no other leverage.
The U.S. driven into the ditch by the Power Elite Parasites and Neocon War-mongers will
get its clocked cleaned in the next 10 years no matter what. North Korea is merely background
noise.
If you ever wanted a condensed example of the kind of blithe solipsism and wish-thinking that
passes for thinking among our "international relations" "scholars", I don't think you could
do much worse than this silly paragraph:
In many respects, nothing should scare China more, as America, and specifically the
Trump administration, has never been fully capable of taking on the challenges presented by
Beijing thanks to Pyongyang and its growing nuclear arsenal. China has taken full advantage
of Washington's wandering eye, putting itself in position to dominate the South China Sea,
further subjugate Taiwan, and try to develop a stronger position in the East China
Sea.
All you saps who think that China's greater prominence might be a consequence of its
culture, its history, its recent extraordinary economic growth -- wrong! Turns out it all
hangs on North Korea and its mighty Brooklyn-size GDP! And that means .
Remove the North Korea crisis from Asia and the Trump administration has the needed
bandwidth to contain Beijing's aspirations.
All this, and daffodils will cover the meadows again, once Pyonyang comes around, gets its
mind right. Simple!
It should surprise absolutely nobody that the guy who wrote this inanity is behind "The
National Interest", which daily publishes all kinds of sophistry generally aimed at getting
Americans to wade into the "crisis" du jour . Sooner or later Trump will be a bad
memory, but Kazianis and his ilk will still be there, as firmly embedded in the Beltway veins
as any tick.
"... "Since the WTO was created in the mid-90s, the U.S. has run $12 trillion in trade deficits, and among the organization's biggest beneficiaries -- the EU." ..."
"Together," President Macron instructed President Trump, "we can resist the rise of
aggressive nationalisms that deny our history and divide the world."
In an address before Congress on Wednesday, France's Macron denounced "extreme nationalism,"
invoked the UN, NATO, WTO, and Paris climate accord, and implored Trump's America to come home
to the New World Order.
"The United States is the one who invented this multilateralism," Macron went on, "you are
the one now who has to help preserve and reinvent it."
His visit was hailed and his views cheered, but on reflection, the ideas of Emmanuel Macron
seem to be less about tomorrow than yesterday.
For the world he celebrates is receding into history.
The America of 2018 is coming to see NATO as having evolved into an endless U.S. commitment
to go to war with Russia on behalf of a rich Europe that resolutely refuses to provide for its
own defense.
Since the WTO was created in the mid-90s, the U.S. has run $12 trillion in trade deficits,
and among the organization's biggest beneficiaries -- the EU.
Under the Paris climate accord, environmental restrictions are put upon the United States
from which China is exempt.
As for the UN, is that sinkhole of anti-Americanism, the General Assembly, really worth the
scores of billions we have plunged into it?
"Aggressive nationalism" is a term that might well fit Napoleon Bonaparte, whose Arc de
Triomphe sits on the Champs-Elysees. But does it really fit the Hungarians, Poles, Brits,
Scots, Catalans, and other indigenous peoples of Europe who are now using democratic methods
and means to preserve their national homes?
And the United States would seem an odd place to go about venting on "aggressive
nationalisms that deny our history."
Did Macron not learn at the Lycee Henri IV in Paris or the Ecole Nationale d'Administration
how the Americans acquired all that land?
General Washington, at whose Mount Vernon home Macron dined, was a nationalist who fought
for six years to sever America's ties to the nation under which he was born.
How does Macron think Andrew Jackson acquired Florida from Spain, Sam Houston acquired Texas
from Mexico, and Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor acquired the Southwest? By bartering?
Aggressive nationalism is a good synonym for the Manifest Destiny of a republic that went
about relieving Spain of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.
How does Macron think the "New World" was conquered and colonized if not by aggressive
British, French, and Spanish nationalists determined to impose their rule upon weaker
indigenous tribes?
Was it not nationalism that broke up the USSR into 15 nations?
Was not the Zionist movement that resurrected Israel in 1948, and in 1967 captured the West
Bank and then annexed East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, a manifestation of aggressive
nationalism?
Macron is an echo of George H.W. Bush who in Kiev in 1991 warned Ukrainians against the
"suicidal nationalism" of declaring independence from the Russian Federation.
"Aggressive nationalisms divide the world," warns Macron.
Well, yes, they do, which is why we have now 194 members of the U.N., rather than the
original 50. Is this a problem?
"Together," said Macron, "we will build a new, strong multilateralism that defends pluralism
and democracy in the face of ill winds."
Macron belongs to a political class that sees open borders and free trade thickening and
tightening the ties of dependency, and eventually creating a One Europe whose destiny his crowd
will forever control.
But if his idea of pluralism is multiracial, multiethnic, and multicultural nations, with a
multilateral EU overlord, he is describing a future that tens of millions of Europeans believe
means the deaths of the nations that give meaning to their lives.
And they will not go gently into that good night.
In America, too, millions have come to recognize that there is a method to the seeming
madness of open borders. Name of the game: dispossessing the deplorables of the country they
love.
With open borders and mass migration of over a million people a year into the USA, almost
all of them from third-world countries that vote 70 to 90 percent Democratic, the left is
foreclosing the future. They're converting the greatest country of the West into what Teddy
Roosevelt called a "polyglot boarding house for the world." And in that boarding house the left
will have a lock on the presidency.
With the collaboration of co-conspirators in the media, progressives throw a cloak of
altruism over the cynical seizure of permanent power.
For, as the millions of immigrants here legally and illegally register, and the vote is
extended to prison inmates, ex-cons, and 16-year-olds, the political complexion of America will
come to resemble San Francisco.
End goal: ensure that what happened in 2016, when the nation rose up and threw out a
despised establishment, never happens again.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles
That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. To find out more about Patrick
Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators
website at www.creators.com.
Let's remember, it was nationalism that led German, Japan and Italy into the two world wars.
Like everything, nationalism is not absolutely good or absolutely bad.
European nationalism that led them to colonize other weaker countries was not a good
thing. Nationalism that led the colonized countries to fight for independence was a good
thing.
The current rising of nationalism is not a good thing because it is often bound up with
white nationalism, a belief that the non-whites are inferior people undeserving of care and
happiness.
While I understand the anxiety of White people for losing their power of dominance,
multiculturalism is a future that can't be rolled back no matter how much they long for the
past white homogeneity. Because technology that made our world smaller and flatter can't be
uninvented.
I agree the West can't absorb all the immigrants who want to find new life in the West.
The solution is not to shun the immigrants and pretend they don't exist. The solution is to
acknowledge their suffering and their need for a stable home and help them build that at
their home countries.
Biologically, it is known that our genes get stronger with more diversity, that community
gets weaker with too much in breeding. So is our strength as a people, culturally,
philosophically, spiritually and creatively.
Another nice notion on the mis/abuse of the world nationalism from Mr. Buchanan. From a
Central European perspective, however Macron's alleged multilateralism as presented in
Washington is just a pretence peddled for the media – teaming up with Angela Merkel
(more specifically, with Germany's economic strength), Macron pretty much insists on reining
in the rebellious Visegrad 4 politically, without the slightest interest in reaching a
mutually beneficial compromise with them.
Pat points to Macron's globalist trade babble to Congress answers:
"Since the WTO was created in the mid-90s, the U.S. has run $12 trillion in trade
deficits, and among the organization's biggest beneficiaries -- the EU."
President Trump's economic nationalist/fair trade agenda can fix this problem.
It strikes me that both France and Germany have large enough populations, economies and
technical know-how to produce effective modern fighting forces. Second, given the size of EU,
it is clear that the EU, if it could get its act together, would be capable of projecting
force in the world on an equal playing field with the United States.
The European Leaders appeals to Trump to pursue European interests in American foreign
policy are simply pathetic. If Europe has foreign interests, they will only be able to
protect and insure them if they retake their sovereignty and independence on the world
stage.
Europe can, and I suspect Europe will, because their problem is not just Trump and whether
he is impeached or re-elected, it is that European interests are being held hostage to the
American Electorate, which can and will return a Cowboy to the Presidency long after Trump is
gone.
I don't see how, given the developments with the Iran Deal, as well as other frictions,
that the NATO alliance can remain standing. None of the above reflections are particularly
ideological, and it seems impossible that Merkel and Macron couldn't entertain such
thoughts.
Europe can, and inevitably will, declare independence from the Americans, and I see NATO
unraveling and a new dawn of European "multilateralism" taking its place.
Nationalism and Multiculturalism cannot coexist separately, they're in tendsion as we all try
to balance the scales.
Without the benefit of nationalism, the Koreas would not have done what they just did. My
own "ethnic people" are the minority of 1.2 million Hungarians who live in Romania, who have
lived there for centuries and will not leave their homeland except many of them do, like my
parents did, and many of my other relatives and friends–the number was 1.5 million not
too long ago, and I was estimating 1.8, but man, we are dwindling. Only 1.2 million! That
shocks me. Nationalism keeps us alive. But if that's all we had, then the Romanians would be
totally nationalistic too, and they will forcefully seek to curtail minority rights,
language, culture, and slowly choke us out. That's the nationalist philosophy on
minorities.
That's your philosophy, and you're saying what will happen here is liberals will slowly
turn the country into San Francisco. You make the same error as my friend in another thread.
You cannot compare a city and its politics to a province or a country, or to any territory
that contains vast farmlands.
Pat, you are saying that it's possible for the entire Byzantine Empire to take on the
precise political complexion of the walled city of Constantinople. That city cannot feed
itself, it's not a self-contained social or political entity.
The roiling cities of San Francisco/Bay Area and glorious Constantinople are and were
completely and totally dependent on the countryside, and thus, on the politics the rurals
tend to practice. The rurals need to feel the effects of city politics too.
No city anywhere is self-contained, and most cities are more liberal than their
hinterlands, so should we do away with cities?
You can see it as symbiotic or some kind of yin and yang tension, however you prefer. But
one is good and the other is evil? I don't buy that.
I'm pretty sure I should say ALL cities are more liberal then the surrounding countrysides
which feed them. After all, the city is really just the most commonly known major local
market, which the villages eventually form organically. One village in particular stands out,
and the neighbors start flocking more and more to its market, some decide to move there and
contribute even more to the good energy, and voila, the first city is soon born.
Then it takes on pride, and starts thinking it's superior to the "rubes." It isn't. I was
lucky enough to get my foundations in a village, I know its incredible efficiency and
_conservative_ values and lifestyle, but trust me, there's plenty of drunkenness and scandal,
even among the sainted rubes who raised me.
Keep slapping down the cities, Pat, but don't exaggerate the threat, no self-supporting
society on Earth could live the way those freaks live in San Francisco, or Constantinople,
that's a fact.
My apologies, I know I go on a little long sometimes:
I am an American now, and America is my "us," I don't have mixed political allegiances,
just cultural ones. I don't live in my original homeland anymore. The choice to leave wasn't
mine, though.
If I had a choice to leave my country of origin, the land I was raised in and find
familiar–and I have been in America since age twelve, so I do see it as home and very
familiar–I would be daunted. Speaking as an average American adult, I know that moving
to another English-speaking and equally advanced country is complicated enough for the
average American. Imagine uprooting and going to a foreign land whose language you don't know
yet, where everything is a lot more expensive. Try getting a job there. Let's say you have no
college degree. Try it. I wouldn't want to.
Immigrants are tough as nails, I'm sorry to say. You have no chance against them,
actually. You cannot even conceive of the willpower and trials by fire. Most people quite
understandably can't fathom it, unless they actually try it or see it with their own
eyes.
"... But even before that there was the first Iraq war in 1991, justified in part by the story of Iraqi soldiers reportedly dumping babies out of incubators to die in a Kuwaiti hospital. The 15-year-old daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador cleverly lied to a set-up congressional committee. The Christian Science Monitor ..."
Official Washington and those associated with it have misrepresented the facts numerous
times in the service of military actions that might not otherwise have taken place. In the
Middle East, these interventions have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Arab civilians,
brought chaos to Iraq and Libya, and led to the expulsion of a million Christians from
communities where they have lived since biblical times.
The most famous of these episodes, of course, was the U.S. government's assurance to the
world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, which formed the basis for the 2003
U.S. invasion of Iraq. The government also insisted Saddam had ties to al-Qaeda, bolstering the
call to war. Of course neither was true.
But even before that there was the first Iraq war in 1991, justified in part by the story of
Iraqi soldiers reportedly dumping babies out of incubators to die in a Kuwaiti hospital. The
15-year-old daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador cleverly lied to a set-up congressional
committee. The Christian Science Monitor
detailed this bizarre episode in 2002.
There were also the lies about the Iraqi army being
poised to invade Saudi Arabia. That was the ostensible reason for the U.S. sending troops
to Kuwait -- to defend Saudi Arabia. Writing in the the Los
Angeles Times in 2003, Independent Institute fellow Victor Marshall pointed out that
neither the CIA nor the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency viewed an Iraqi attack on Saudi
Arabia as probable, and said the administration's Iraqi troop estimates were "grossly
exaggerated." In fact, the administration's claim that it had aerial photographs proving its
assertions was never verified because, as we later learned, the photos never existed. The
Christian
Science Monitor also reported on this in 2002 ahead of the second Iraq war.
America attacked Iraq in 1991, bombing and destroying that nation's irrigation, sanitation,
and electricity plants. (See here regarding Washington's knowledge of and
planning for the horrific mass contamination of Iraqi drinking water.) Then we blockaded
reconstruction supplies for nine years while some half-million children died of disease and
starvation. We blamed it all on Saddam, although we controlled Iraq's money flows through the
UN food-for-oil program. Fortunately, we have a rare admission by Madeleine Albright on 60
Minutes about what was done.
Before that, there was the Kosovo war when America attacked Serbia on the basis of
lies that 100,000 Kosovans had been
massacred by Serbs in suppressing their civil war. This led to massive American bombing,
brutally
destroying much of that nation's civilian infrastructure and factories, including most of
the bridges in the country, and all but one of those over the Danube River. The Americans
imposed peace, then expelled most Serbs out of their former province. Subsequently there was
the mass destruction of hundreds of ancient Christian churches and the creation of a European
enclave now filled with Saudi money that sponsors Wahhabi education, with its rote memorization
of the Koran and its 13th-century hatred of Christians.
More recently there was the British, French, and American attack on Libya in response to
lies that Moammar Gaddafi was planning to massacre civilians in Benghazi. The U.S. destroyed
his armed forces and helped to overthrow him. Widespread looting of his weaponry subsequently
filled black markets in Asia and Africa and contributed to the ability of Boko Haram terrorists to sow chaos in
Nigeria and parts of Northern Africa. Masses of African refugees have been flooding Western
Europe ever since, traveling through Libya. Some of those weapons also made their way into the
hands of the Islamic State, which overran parts of Iraq and Syria.
Most recently we had cable news inundating us with stories of a new poison gas attack in
Syria. The "news" came from rebel sources. TheAmerican Conservative
has published a detailed analysis by former arms inspector Scott Ritter questioning the
evidence, or lack of it, that the Assad regime initiated the attack. The former British
ambassador to Syria also cast doubts on the poison gas attack and its sources from rebel
organizations.
It doesn't make sense that Assad would use poison gas just as Trump was saying that he
wanted to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. It does make sense for the rebels to have staged a
set up to get America to stay and attack Assad. This happened before in the summer of 2014 when
President Obama nearly went to war over similar accusations. Only after asking Congress to vote
on the matter did he decide against the attack because Congress wasn't interested. Some
congressmen's mail was running 100-to-one against bombing. It was a welcome reminder of why
Washington doesn't want actual votes on starting wars: because most Americans don't want more
Washington wars.
After all the hundreds of thousands of innocents abroad killed by America and the human
misery caused because of clever U.S. and foreign manipulations, one would think we might pause
before attacking Syria and running the risk of killing Russians who are advising the Syrians.
That could ignite an entirely new kind of war with a nuclear-armed Russia -- all without
congressional approval.
Obama, whose policies were predicated on the view that Assad must go, seemed to think
Syrians would live happily after in some magically sprouting democracy. To believe this one
would have to ignore the prior examples of Iraq and Libya. Nor do these war party advocates
seem in the least concerned about the 10 percent of Syria's population who are Christians, many
of whom would surely by massacred after any overthrow of Assad.
Further, the so-called Free Syrian
Army is a hodgepodge of rebel groups that include many Islamist radicals. With funding from
fundamentalist Saudis and Turkey, they took over from more liberal forces early on. It's worth
noting also that Turkey provided the black market for ISIS to sell Syria's captured oil.
Going back a hundred years there were the clever British lies that helped coax America into
joining the Allies in World War I. England controlled the trans-Atlantic cables and most of our
"news" about the war. That intervention resulted in the Treaty of Versailles instead of a
compromise peace between Germany and England/France that would have prevented the wreckage of
Europe out of which came the rise of communism and Nazism.
For an analysis of the risks of accidental nuclear war, see my 2017 January
Publisher's Report , in which I once wrote about how Osama bin Laden's ultimate aim was to
get Russia and America to destroy each other. It still could happen, triggered by false
atrocity stories, cable TV's 24-hour hyping of any and every threat, and Washington's
propensity to believe lies -- and sometimes perpetrate them -- to promote wars.
Jon Basil Utley is publisher of The American Conservative .
Lies can be fun, especially the ones I tell myself, and they're also a lot of fun to
discover, just like your lies. The worst bummer, however, is that the lies we tell each other
very quickly do get tiresome and repetitive, if not downright frustrating:
"Oh My God, It's Still The Same Lies. That Makes It Worse."
Apparently–and this is tragic–it looks like we're just too selfish to come up
with new ones: Say what, you want me to lie the country into war in some fascinating novel
way, just for your entertainment? I don't think so. It's easier to stick to the routine, and
I'm lazy, so I'll just do as you do, I'll keep telling you the same old lies, which explains
why you are bored as well–meanwhile, I spend my quality time investigating all the ways
I hide things from myself.
Wars are little more than armed robberies on an industrial scale.
Wars are begun, to take what belongs to someone else.
The sheer magnitude of a crime transforms it into heroic achievement – at least, in
historical perspective, for the winners, as long as they retain power. In the long run, the
consequences are malignantly pernicious.
The United States isn't being manipulated into war.
The only manipulation is of American public opinion- fortunately for the War Party,i.e. the
US government, there's enough blind nationalism & tribal loyalty on both sides of the
political divide for their propaganda to (usually) succeed.
Look at any public figure. Their salary is less than $190K. BUT, They are worth $10 Million
or more. That is why we go to war. Foreign influence (Saudi and Israel) as well as the
Military Industrial Complex. (Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, )Our Leaders are paid off!
Now that the war profiteering classes and their retainee camp followers are running into the
problem that more and more citizens are prepared to doubt, if not outright dismiss – if
just on principle – their claims and anonymous trickyleaks regarding "secret evidence"
and elusive "proof", the Democratic Party has become an eager handmaiden to the neolibcon con
of projecting all that justified and overdue doubt and dissent – distrust to
unaccountable power – and the citizens' frustration with their corrupt representative
and dysfunctional institutions – on, you know it Russia!
So now that we stop accepting government claims by default – something no reasonable
citizen should ever do, on principle – we are denounced as "gullible" –
projection at its best – and as "useful idiots" of some Kremlin mirage that happens to
be a mirror image of our own government's betrayals at its worst. Once dissent has been
"discredited" by claiming it could not possible have any other cause except uninformed and
misled voters – see the published responses to Sanders and Trump supporters – and
could, of course, not have any merit, the next step is to make sure that our "democracy" is
safeguarded even more against "populists" – those that speak truth to power, not those
that lie blatantly to claim power for themselves – and the unruly mob in the streets
that questions the establishment, the wholly owned elites, and the oligarchic owners of our
very own autocratic franchise.
That is the progression – from being lied into war, whether we believe the BS or
not, to being denounced as useful idiots or traitors if we dare to doubt the BS we are being
fed, to being disenfranchised under the pretext of protecting the franchise.
The biggest obstacle to establishing a precedents under international law to obtain UN
General Assembly consensus for intervention in the inner affairs of a nation- in response
crimes committed by the government of that nation – is the US, because the US has acted
as a rogue nation for decades, and has eroded the international order to the point where the
"allied" governments of Germany and other EU states think nothing of "supporting" those acts
of aggression, and post-colonial wannabe powers like the UK and France have joined the US
"coalition of the willing". That "international order" will fall unless the US finally leads
by example and commits itself to uphold the UN Charter – and its own Constitution
– in letter and spirit. Until then, there is nothing we can do to help those that
suffer under the yoke of what are, under our current international order, legitimate
governments of sovereign nation.
The US cannot assert and pursue primacy and unipolar super-sovereignty over every other
nation on this planet and at the same time claim to uphold the principles of sovereign
states, and nobody will be able to redefine or constrain the rule of sovereign states within
the existing international order as long as what little order we have claim to is being set
aside and ignored wholesale by any nation that can get away with it, with the US and the
so-called "West" in the lead.
We cannot lie our way to life, liberty and justice, not for ourselves, and certainly not
on behalf of others, especially if we do not hesitate at all to make those we claim to help
and "protect" pay the ultimate price for our acts of aggression. These are indeed the most
dishonest and offensive words in the English language: "We are from the US government, and we
are here to help." The "responsibility to protect" is nothing but another attempt to address
the necessity to pretend.
"because most Americans don't want more Washington wars."
I wish this was true. But I doubt it. The citizens must be held partially responsible for our
era of permanent war.
" most Americans don't want more Washington wars."
Actually, most Americans don't care, really. Oh, you ask one if he likes war, and he will
say, "No". But ask him if Uncle Joe should lose his job at Boeing, and what will he say?
Wars are, of course, a jobs program on a massive scale. And if some dark-skinned civilians
die, Americans aren't concerned.
My own theory of hawkishness is that voters are much more comfortable with putting
national defense in the hands of someone far more hawkish then themselves, than in the hands
of someone slightly less hawkish.
See, for example, how people who theoretically wan lower taxes, smaller government, and a
balanced budget, keep electing GOP leadership that always attacks their Democratic opponents
on gutting defense spending (even when defense spending has been going up), and always
equates larger DOD budgets with more "security" for Americans.
Until voters are willing to accept a US President saying "bad stuff happens in other parts
of the world – we can't control everything" we'll keep getting more and more wars.
"because most Americans don't want more Washington wars."
I wish this was true. But I doubt it. The citizens must be held partially responsible for our
era of permanent war."
I've found my elderly mother is very enthusiastic about our overseas wars. I believe it is
because she somehow projects America's ability to bully the rest of the world onto herself.
She is a small woman and she recently purchased a pickup. She raves about how she can
tailgate people and they will get out of her way.
" my elderly mother is a small woman and she recently purchased a pickup. She raves about how
she can tailgate people and they will get out of her way."
What a great country! Where else do you have elderly drivers with poor eyesight and slow
reflexes trying to navigate 5000 pound trucks while harassing other drivers at 50mph?
"Where else do you have elderly drivers with poor eyesight and slow reflexes trying to
navigate 5000 pound trucks while harassing other drivers at 50mph?"
I can say from experience and the related stories of others, one very recent and sad
--
cyclists don't stand a chance.
-- -- -- -- -- -
"Until voters are willing to accept a US President saying "bad stuff happens in other
parts of the world – we can't control everything" we'll keep getting more and more
wars."
World gone wrong when we agree -- things must be really be SNAFU.
Echoing Professor Nerd & balconesfault & Kent. It's certainly true that Lockheed
Martin, the Israel lobby, our Saudi "friends", et al have a ton of influence, and use
it for ends that I'd call malign. But for at least the last 20 years we've been living in a
world in which it's effortless to find information contrary to the latest war marketing PR
campaign. When Bush the Lesser was getting ready for his war, did any of his
hysterical claims last even a week before it was discredited? But off to war we went.
It'd be nice if we could blame all of our lousy decisions on those wily Zionists and Arabs
and Russians, but the causes seem to lie a little closer to home .
"... The common good "cannot be reduced to the goods of individual private parties, and cannot be deduced from them. Just as the sum of the parts does not make up the whole, in the same way the sum of private interests may sometimes work even against itself it is the state that represents the common good." Isn't this something we can learn from in the West today? ..."
"... Russia's "[Christian] Orthodox spirit and the ethic of solidarity ..."
"... Like the Catholic Church, the Russian Orthodox Church has recently forged its own Social Concept of the ROC, which fleshes out this call for fairness as an aspect of human dignity. ..."
"... The City of Man ..."
"... Among Russia's virtues, it must be emphasized, is a far greater freedom of speech than it is typically given credit for. Russian participants in the Kaliningrad conference demonstrated a boldness of imagination, a variety and depth of thought on alternate futures for their country that is by no means always evident in political speech even in the United States. ..."
"... The author would like to thank Dr. Adrian Walker, Matthew Cooper and especially Dr. Matthew Dal Santo for their valuable suggestions and comments on an earlier draft. ..."
"... Paul Grenier is an essayist and translator who writes regularly on political-philosophical issues. ..."
A
staunchly traditional society grapples with modernity's disruptions, seeking conservatisms far
beyond Putinism.
It's a truism that America is a liberal place. Americans emphasize the importance of the
individual and tend to reject notions of hierarchy and authority. Russia by contrast is known
to be a more conservative society, one where the interests of the group come ahead of those of
the individual; and where, for centuries, respect for hierarchy and authority has usually been
the norm.
All the same, the "news" of Russia's return to conservatism has hit many observers in the
West like the proverbial ton of bricks. The typical response has been to
blame the Russian president for steering Russia away from the liberal path, the path of
becoming a "
normal country" with "Western values."
Others have sought to understand Russian political culture on its own terms. A recent
analysis ("The New Eurasians," Times Literary Supplement , May 13, 2015) stands out
from the crowd by making a serious effort to read present-day Russian conservatism in its
historical context. Lesley Chamberlain dismisses the glib reduction of Russia to its
present-day leader. Russia, she writes, is not ruled by Vladimir Putin: to the contrary, "the
power that rules Russia is tradition." Far from it being the case that a benighted Russian
public is being led to conservatism artificially by its government, the reverse is the case:
the vast majority of Russians, perhaps eighty percent "are intensely conservative."
Like most in the commentariat, Chamberlain finds cause for alarm in Russia's return to type.
She worries about a Russia seeking to create "an alternative version of the contemporary
Christian, or post-Christian, world, contiguous with but distinct from the West."
Chamberlain reduces today's incarnation of Russian conservatism to the more or less vague
bundle of geographic and neo-imperial notions that goes by the name Eurasianism, often linked
with the name of Alexander Dugin.
To be sure, anti-Western Eurasianism is part of contemporary Russian conservatism.
But it is only one part. Excessive focus on this angle has created the impression that
Dugin-esque Eurasianism is the only game in town when it comes to Russian conservatism. It
isn't. It's not even the only version of what might be called the 'Russian national greatness'
school of conservatism.
If we wish to understand Russia in something like its true complexity, we have to take the
trouble to listen to it, to let it speak in its own voice instead of constantly projecting onto
it all our own worst fears. Precisely because Eurasianism has already hogged all the attention,
I won't deal with it here.
... ... ...
Liberal Conservatism
Some participants straddled several categories of conservatism at once. In other cases, for
example that of the above-mentioned Makarenko, their thought fit neatly within a single
category -- in his case, that of liberal conservatism.
For Makarenko, modern Russian political practice has far too utilitarian an attitude toward
rule of law and democracy. If it can be demonstrated that the latter support state sovereignty,
then all is well and good; but whenever either are perceived as a threat to the state -- then
democracy and rule of law are always the ones that have to suffer. From his perspective, Russia
would do better to learn from Burke, who looked not so much to the sovereignty of the
state as to the sovereignty of the parliament .
Matveichev, no doubt the most eclectic thinker in the group, on certain subjects occupied
the liberal end of the spectrum. For example, in an essay on corruption and the state, he
approvingly cites the work of Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto to make the point that rule
of law -- as it is practiced, nota bene , in the United States -- is the sine qua
non of economic prosperity. What I found fascinating about Matveichev's position is that
he then takes his argument in a Hegelian and Platonic direction.
It is the state -- not the market on its own -- that provides these all important
forms , and bad as the corruption of state institutions may be, a bad form is
nonetheless better than no form at all -- including for business. The common good "cannot
be reduced to the goods of individual private parties, and cannot be deduced from them. Just as
the sum of the parts does not make up the whole, in the same way the sum of private interests
may sometimes work even against itself it is the state that represents the common good." Isn't
this something we can learn from in the West today?
Left Conservatism
The "left conservatives" at the conference -- represented most prominently by Dr. Alexander
Schipkov, an expert on Church-state relations -- are critical of liberal capitalism
and indeed are also critical of the current Russian state to the extent that its "conservatism"
is reducible merely to "family values" without including the all-important component of
economic fairness. His views are close to that of Catholic Distributists as well as to those of
"radical orthodox" theologians like William Cavanaugh and John Milbank.
According to Schipkov, Russians of various backgrounds (left and right, secular and
religious, red and white) need to forge a common ethic. But in truth, Russia already
has such an ethic, one that unifies all the disparate phases in its often tragic and
contradictory history. Consciously playing off of Weber, Schipkov refers to Russia's
"[Christian] Orthodox spirit and the ethic of solidarity ." In a fascinating essay on
this same subject, Schipkov makes clear that his concept of solidarity owes much to the
writings of the early 20th century German philosopher Max Scheler, who likewise had such a big
impact on the thought of Pope John Paul II.
Though the Russian Church continues to play a defining role in the ethical formation of the
nation -- no other pre-1917 institution, after all, still exists -- over time it will be
replaced by other institutions, according to Schipkov. Like the Catholic Church, the
Russian Orthodox Church has recently forged its own Social Concept of the ROC, which fleshes
out this call for fairness as an aspect of human dignity.
Creative Conservatism
Because it tends to evoke the disastrous social and economic effects of "liberalisation"
during the 1990s, the term "liberal" has become something of a swear word in today's Russia.
But what, exactly, does this much reviled "liberalism" consist in? In my own presentation
(English translation forthcoming at SolidarityHall.org ) I suggested that Russians need to define
liberalism -- and conservatism -- more carefully, while distinguishing both from their
ideological perversions.
To his credit, Oleg Matveichev has taken the trouble to craft a precise definition of the
liberal doctrine of human nature in terms worthy of a Pierre Manent ( The City of Man
). According to Matveichev, liberalism reconceives the very essence of man as freedom,
self-sufficiency, and self-definition. Seen through this liberal prism, the goal of our
existence becomes self-emancipation from the chains of the past and the dead weight of
tradition.
Having redefined the meaning of history, Matveichev continues, the "liberals" then set about
condemning those who would thwart its "progress," dismissing them as "conservatives" and
"reactionaries." Is it not time, Matveichev asks, to throw off the chains of this label
invented for us by our adversaries? Why define ourselves as mere "conservatives"? Why not
creatively reimagine an alternative 'meaning of history" ourselves?
Can conservatism be "creative?" And if so, how? Mikhail Remizov, president of the National
Strategy Institute, answered, in effect, "how can it be anything else?" Critics on the left
sometimes attack conservatism by saying, that conservatives do not preserve tradition, they
invent it. Remizov dismisses the implied insult, because it demonstrates a misunderstanding of
how traditions work: (re)invention " is the normal, creative approach to tradition." Remizov
agrees with Hans-Georg Gadamer that sharply contrasting tradition and modernity is a silly and
flat-footed way of looking at tradition, because the latter is always in any case a complex
creative task of making adjustments and dialectical zig-zags. Such an understanding of culture
and tradition as creativity fits, of course, quite nicely with the philosophy of
Nicholas Berdyaev. It is hard to think of another thinker for whom creativity plays a more
central role.
Alexei Kozyrev, associate dean of the philosophy department at Moscow State University,
illustrated the same creative conservative principle when he spoke of the Russian Orthodox
Church's Social Concept. The task of modern man, according to that document, is to find
creative ways to retrieve the thought of the Church Fathers, for example that of Gregory of
Nyssa, who counseled demonstrating our human dignity "not by domination of the natural world
but by caring for and preserving it." The Social Concept likewise calls for defending the
dignity of the unborn embryo and of the mentally ill. Here, in an unexpected twist, the Western
environmental movement meets the pro-Life movement, challenging perhaps our own ideological
boundaries.
... ...
Dialogue with Russia?
Lesley Chamberlain claimed that Russia is not a puzzle. In fact that is precisely what it
is. As should be clear even from the above very partial survey, Russian conservatism, like
Russia itself, embraces a contradictory collection of flaws and virtues. Both the flaws and the
virtues are large.
Among Russia's virtues, it must be emphasized, is a far greater freedom of speech than
it is typically given credit for. Russian participants in the Kaliningrad conference
demonstrated a boldness of imagination, a variety and depth of thought on alternate futures for
their country that is by no means always evident in political speech even in the United
States.
For Western liberals, it is tempting to present Russian conservatism as always intrinsically
dangerous. But I believe the loss is ours. Russian conservatism -- or at any rate important
elements of it -- contains something potentially valuable to the West as it seeks to forge a
strategy for dealing with the growing disorder in the world. What justifies engagement with
Russia is before all else its ability to contribute to solving the problem that all of us face:
how to devise a softer version of western modernity, one which allows for the preservation of
tradition while simultaneously retaining what is most valuable in the liberal
tradition.
The author would like to thank Dr. Adrian Walker, Matthew Cooper and especially Dr.
Matthew Dal Santo for their valuable suggestions and comments on an earlier draft.
Paul Grenier is an essayist and translator who writes regularly on
political-philosophical issues.
The presumption amongst Russian conservatives is not that Russia is perfect as it is but
that Russia's foundational values are good. This is something they have in common with
American conservatives, British Conservatives like Peter Hitchens, and probably most
conservatives in most societies. They would also lament their social ills.
I am not going to accuse you of not having read the article, but that comment of yours
could easily have been made by someone who simply read the title and jumped to the comments
section.
The author's point on free speech is an important one – there is a lot of very deep and
open discussion in Russia at the moment about the country's direction (including even
television debates with ten times the intellectual content of what we find in the States).
Putinism is not a clear ideological system, and for the most part there is no official
orthodoxy being pressed on scholars or the public, many currents exist. Most of the major
viable currents, as this article suggests, are variants of conservatism; Western-style
liberal democracy has (at the moment) lost nearly all it's appeal to the intelligentsia and
the average person alike.
Re: Jon F's comment – unfortunately, in my view he is right. We shouldn't believe
that Russia is a place of thriving family values simply because they say it more often and
louder. Statistics are not the best way to see this – I personally believe (from
experience in the capital and the provinces) that if Russians divorce less, they cheat more.
If they have fewer abortions, they have more children born into undesirable childhoods.
Russian conservatism does have its virtues and the country must to admire, but respect for
women and children are far from a given.
The tendency to see Russia in black/white only, with a pre-imposed bias is no different than
the tendency to see the US (and sometimes the west) and its values in similar manichean
perspectives. Adding depth and colour to the other takes work, and especially the willingness
to empathise, even for a little while, in order to gain more understanding, before employing
a critical eye. And from this perspective I think the article does a good job.
W. Burns: I don't recall that specific issue raised at the conference, but the Revolution and
subsequent experience is much debated, including in other writings by the participants, e.g.
by Shchipkov (his preferred spelling btw, not my Schipkov), whose take is much like that of
Berdyaev: the communist experience is in partial continuity with aspects of Russia's
tradition, e.g. of economic 'fairness' (equalizing plots on the peasant commune, etc.) and
privileging the group over the individual. I started with the analysis by L. Chamberlain in
part because her wide lens-perspective helps make sense of that experience.
David Naas and Cornel Lencar: I wish there were more who shared your perspective. Thanks.
Regarding Russian values vs. practice, aspirations vs. real-world problems. Who among us is
without sin? Is U.S. practice so pristine that we should disdain talking to the Russian side?
That is the material point.
Since the conference I have continued reading the work of these (and other conference)
attendees meant for a Russian audience. They are very, very far from smug about their
internal problems; quite the contrary.
Dave P.: As far as I know, the conference Proceedings so far are only in Russian, but there
are pretty detailed English-language abstracts. Try contacting ISEPR (their site, ISEPR.ru,
also has an English-language version).
Unlike almost every modern book in the self-help genre, happiness is a not a major theme here, and to Peterson it is not
necessarily even a primary goal.
His book in part is about accepting the ubiquity of human suffering. No wonder reviewers don't get it.
Notable quotes:
"... Pain is its one incontrovertible fact (he remarks at one point that it is a miracle that anything in the world gets done at all: such is the ubiquity of human suffering) ..."
"... You will suffer. Accept that, and shift your focus to the one thing that is within your control: your attitude. ..."
His book in part is about accepting the ubiquity of human suffering. No wonder reviewers
don't get it.
"Aphorisms," wrote James Geary, "are like particle accelerators for the
mind." When particles collide inside an accelerator, new ones are formed as the energy of the
crash is converted into matter. Inside an aphorism, it is minds that collide, and what spins
out is that most slippery of things, wisdom.
... ... ...
These reviewers have done a disservice to their readers. In large measure, they have failed
to engage with a work that is complex, challenging, and novel. Peterson is sketching out a
draft for how we can survive, look in the mirror, and deal with psychological pain.
To understand his message, the first task is not to be distracted by the title or genre, and
look for the metaphorical glue that binds it all together. 12 Rules sets out an
interesting and complex model for humanity, and it really has nothing to do with petting a cat
or taking your tablets or being kind to lobsters. It is about strength, courage,
responsibility, and suffering, but it is deep and difficult, and it is not easy to pigeonhole.
In a sense, 12 Rules contains a number of hidden structures and hidden processes, and
confusingly, these are not always made explicit in the text.
The first of these is Deep Time.
We are biological creatures, evolved beings who can only be truly understood through a model
that encapsulates the notion of geological time. The concept of Deep Time is very recent: just
a few generations ago science thought that the earth was a few thousand years old. The
realization that the planet has been around for billions of years and that life itself not much
younger has brought about a shift in the story of ourselves and our place in the world. We are
the products of processes that are old, old, old. We stretch back across unfathomable reaches,
incomprehensible spans, but we carry that history within us.
... ... ..
Unlike almost every modern book in the self-help genre, happiness is a not a major theme
here, and to Peterson it is not necessarily even a primary goal. Like Freud, Peterson sees life
as suffering. Pain is its one incontrovertible fact (he remarks at one point that it is a
miracle that anything in the world gets done at all: such is the ubiquity of human suffering). 12 Rules is not about the pursuit of pleasure, and indeed parts of his message are
pure Stoicism. Resistance to life's depredations is futile. You will suffer. Accept that, and
shift your focus to the one thing that is within your control: your attitude.
...
His much-derided directive to "tidy your room" makes sense at every level. Indeed, if your room
is too big, start with "tidy your desk," and then move forward. Find meaning in the tiniest
acts of kindness, and push on from there. Concede the transience of pleasure and the
inevitability of death. This isn't happiness, but it is a step closer to the Good Life, and
contra the reviewers, readers are responding. Active, purposeful "Being in the World" is the
dominant theme, and much of the book is taken up with exploring the whys and wherefores of
this. Courage and strength and kindness, yes, to be sure, but importantly, courage "in spite
of" and kindness "in spite of."
Following Carl Rogers, meaning is to be found in active
engagement in a wondrous and hazardous world, and here there is no shirking the "hazardous." It
seems to me that Peterson is calling for a return to ataraxia , that imperturbability
and equanimity that has been out of fashion amongst the intelligentsia (at least in the West)
for a century or more.
The underlying political philosophy is conservative, without question. As Christian Gonzalez
identified in TheAmerican Conservative , Peterson's closest contemporary
equivalent is Roger Scruton. "We have learned to live together and organize our complex
societies slowly and incrementally, over vast stretches of time," he writes, "and we do not
understand with sufficient exactitude why what we are doing works."
Peterson on the American
culture wars sounds like Scruton on the English Common Law: we are "from the soil," we need
time, it is senseless to break what we barely understand. Each person's private trouble cannot
be solved by a social revolution, because revolutions are destabilizing and dangerous. Those
left-leaning critics who see "just another reactionary" have failed to understand the
complexity. What permeates this project is an implicit biopsychosocial model of the
human condition (Peterson spares the reader that dread term but it is the only description I
know for his integrative model).
... ... ...
Tim Rogers is a consultant psychiatrist in Edinburgh. He's written for Encounter
magazine, and has published in both Quillette and Areo .
Trump became a despicable warmonger. That true. And undisputable after the recent attack on
Syria ("operation Stormy Daniels"). But was it War Party that coerced him or were other processes
involved?
The main weakness of Buchanan hypothecs is that it is unclear wether Trump was coerced by War
Party, or he was "Republican Obama" from the very beginning performing classic "bait and switch"
operation on gullible electorate (as in "change we can believe in") . The second hypothesis is
now strong then the fist and supported by more fact. just look at the "troika" of
Haley-Bolton-Pompeo -- all three were voluntarily selected by the President and all three are
rabid neocons. So it looks liek no or little coercion from the War Party was necessary.
Notable quotes:
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Defense Secretary James Mattis called the U.S.-British-French attack a "one-shot" deal. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson appears to agree: "The rest of the Syrian war must proceed as it will." ..."
"... Clearly, with the U.S. fighting in six countries, Commander in Chief Trump does not want any new wars, or to widen any existing wars in the Middle East. But he is being pushed into becoming a war president to advance the agenda of foreign policy elites who, almost to a man, opposed his election. ..."
"... We have a reluctant president being pushed into a war he does not want to fight. This is a formula for a strategic disaster not unlike Vietnam or George W. Bush's war to strip Iraq of nonexistent WMDs. ..."
"... The assumption of the War Party seems to be that if we launch larger and more lethal strikes in Syria, inflicting casualties on Russians, Iranians, Hezbollah, and the Syrian army, they will yield to our demands. ..."
"... As for Trump's statement Friday, "No amount of American blood and treasure can produce lasting peace in the Middle East," the Washington Post ..."
April
16, 2018, 9:55 PM "Ten days ago, President Trump was saying 'the United States should
withdraw from Syria.' We convinced him it was necessary to stay."
Thus boasted French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday, adding, "We convinced him it was
necessary to stay for the long term."
Is the U.S. indeed in the Syrian Civil War "for the long term"?
If so, who made that fateful decision for this republic?
U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley confirmed Sunday there would be no drawdown of the 2,000 U.S.
troops in Syria, until three objectives were reached. We must fully defeat ISIS, ensure
chemical weapons will not again be used by Bashar al-Assad and maintain the ability to watch
Iran.
Translation: whatever Trump says, America is not coming out of Syria. We are going deeper
in. Trump's commitment to extricate us from these bankrupting and blood-soaked Middle East wars
and to seek a new rapprochement with Russia is "inoperative."
The War Party that Trump routed in the primaries is capturing and crafting his foreign
policy. Monday's Wall Street Journal editorial page fairly blossomed with war
plans:
The better U.S. strategy is to turn Syria into the Ayatollah's Vietnam. Only when Russia
and Iran began to pay a larger price in Syria will they have any incentive to negotiate an
end to the war or even contemplate a peace based on dividing the country into ethnic-based
enclaves.
Apparently, we are to bleed Syria, Russia, Hezbollah, and Iran until they cannot stand the
pain and submit to subdividing Syria the way we want.
But suppose that, as in our Civil War of 1861-1865, the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, and
the Chinese Civil War of 1945-1949, Assad and his Russian, Iranian, and Shiite militia allies
go all out to win and reunite the nation.
Suppose they choose to fight to consolidate the victory they have won after seven years of
war. Where do we find the troops to take back the territory our rebels lost? Or do we just bomb
mercilessly?
The British and French say they will back us in future attacks if chemical weapons are used,
but they are not plunging into Syria.
Defense Secretary James Mattis called the U.S.-British-French attack a "one-shot" deal.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson appears to agree: "The rest of the Syrian war must
proceed as it will."
The Journal 's op-ed page Monday was turned over to former U.S. ambassador to Syria
Ryan Crocker and Brookings Institute senior fellow Michael O'Hanlon: "Next time the U.S. could
up the ante, going after military command and control, political leadership, and perhaps even
Assad himself. The U.S. could also pledge to take out much of his air force. Targets within
Iran should not be off limits."
And when did Congress authorize U.S. acts of war against Syria, its air force, or political
leadership? When did Congress authorize the killing of the president of Syria whose country has
not attacked us?
Can the U.S. also attack Iran and kill the ayatollah without consulting Congress?
Clearly, with the U.S. fighting in six countries, Commander in Chief Trump does not want
any new wars, or to widen any existing wars in the Middle East. But he is being pushed into
becoming a war president to advance the agenda of foreign policy elites who, almost to a man,
opposed his election.
We have a reluctant president being pushed into a war he does not want to fight. This is
a formula for a strategic disaster not unlike Vietnam or George W. Bush's war to strip Iraq of
nonexistent WMDs.
The assumption of the War Party seems to be that if we launch larger and more lethal
strikes in Syria, inflicting casualties on Russians, Iranians, Hezbollah, and the Syrian army,
they will yield to our demands.
But where is the evidence for this?
What reason is there to believe these forces will surrender what they have paid in blood to
win? And if they choose to fight and widen the war to the larger Middle East, are we prepared
for that?
As for Trump's statement Friday, "No amount of American blood and treasure can produce
lasting peace in the Middle East," the Washington Post on Sunday dismissed this as
"fatalistic" and "misguided." We have a vital interest, says the Post , in preventing
Iran from establishing a "land corridor" across Syria.
Yet consider how Iran acquired this "land corridor." The Shiites in 1979 overthrew a shah
our CIA installed in 1953. The Shiites control Iraq because President Bush invaded and
overthrew Saddam and his Sunni Baath Party, disbanded his Sunni-led army, and let the Shiite
majority take control of the country. The Shiites are dominant in Lebanon because they rose up
and ran out the Israelis, who invaded in 1982 to run out the PLO.
How many American dead will it take to reverse this history?
How long will we have to stay in the Middle East to assure the permanent hegemony of Sunni
over Shiite?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles
That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. To find out more about Patrick
Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators
website at www.creators.com.
"... "This is clientism," the senior military officer with whom I spoke explains. "All of these guys have served together and trust each other. And, you know, this is the way it works. The U.S. Central Command has the Middle East as a client and the European Command has the Europeans and Turkey as clients. But if you take a look at Mattis and the people around him, well, you know, it's all Centcom. ..."
"... Erdogan emphasized three growing concerns he has that America's temporary and "transactional" support for the YPG is becoming permanent. This same official went on to note that, in his opinion, it's not a coincidence that Trump floated the idea of withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria ("I want to get out," he said. "I want to bring our troops home") -- a suggestion that did not go over well with Centcom partisans at the Pentagon. ..."
In fact, just how "ugly" the relationship has become is fast becoming a matter of public
debate. During his March visit, Scaparrotti appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee
to give testimony on the challenges facing his command. While most members focused on Russia
and cyberwar issues, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine explored the U.S.-Turkey dust-up, hinting that
it might be time for the U.S. to dampen its YPG ties. Scaparrotti didn't disagree, while
soft-pedaling the disagreements over the issue that he's had with Votel and Centcom. "Where do
we want to be in a year, two years and five years?" he asked. "With a close NATO ally like
Turkey, we know that we want to maintain and strengthen our relationship. So that's the
long-term objective and if we look at the long-term objective, it can begin to inform what
we're doing today with respect to NATO." The senior military officer with whom I spoke proved a
willing translator: "What Scaparrotti is saying is that the real marriage here is between the
U.S. and Turkey. The YPG is just a fling."
But convincing James Mattis of that is proving difficult, in part because Scaparrotti is
outgunned. Every defense secretary surrounds himself with people he can count on and who he
listens to. But for Mattis almost all of them have had experience in the Middle East -- and at
Centcom. There's Mattis himself (a former Centcom commander), JCS Chairman Joseph Dunford (who
served with Mattis in Iraq), Joint Staff Director Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie, Jr. (a
Marine who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq), retired Rear Admiral Kevin M. Sweeney (the
former Centcom executive officer), Rear Admiral Craig S. Faller (a Mattis advisor, and a Navy
commander during both the Afghan and Iraq wars), and current Centcom commander General Joseph
Votel -- the former commander of the U.S. Special Operation Command ("a trigger puller," as he
was described to me by a currently serving officer). Votel is the most outspoken YPG supporter
of any of them, and because he's the combatant commander, his support carries weight.
"This is clientism," the senior military officer with whom I spoke explains. "All of
these guys have served together and trust each other. And, you know, this is the way it works.
The U.S. Central Command has the Middle East as a client and the European Command has the
Europeans and Turkey as clients. But if you take a look at Mattis and the people around him,
well, you know, it's all Centcom. So Scaparrotti is worried, and he ought to be. We don't
want to be sitting around 30 years from now reading historical pieces with titles like 'Who
Lost Turkey?'"
Even someone as careful in his public utterances as Admiral James Stavridis, who once held
Scaparrotti's command and is now the dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University, is
raising concerns. While he waves off the "who lost Turkey" formulation as "a trope that is
moving around the Internet," he told me in an email exchange that "it would be a mistake of
epic proportions to allow Turkey to drift out of the transatlantic orbit" -- a repeat of the
warning issued by Scaparrotti to Mattis in March. But like Scaparrotti, Staviridis is
slow-rolling his disagreement. "This is a distinction without a difference," the senior officer
and NATO partisan with whom we spoke says. "By drifting out of NATO, Stavridis means leaving.
He's as worried as anyone else."
Concerns over Turkey are probably a surprise in the White House, given its almost daily
crisis over the looming Russia-gate investigation, but they shouldn't be. The president has had
extended telephone exchanges with Turkish President Tayyip Erodogan twice in the last three
weeks. While the White House has refused to give details of these conversations, the Turkish
official with whom we spoke told TAC that in both conversations (on March 23 and again
on April 11), Erdogan emphasized three growing concerns he has that America's temporary and
"transactional" support for the YPG is becoming permanent. This same official went on to note
that, in his opinion, it's not a coincidence that Trump floated the idea of withdrawing U.S.
troops from Syria ("I want to get out," he said. "I want to bring our troops home") -- a
suggestion that did not go over well with Centcom partisans at the Pentagon.
On April 3, the same day Trump issued his let's-get-out statement, Joseph Votel and Brett
McGurk appeared at the U.S. Institute of Peace, arguing that the U.S. needed to stay in. "The
hard part, I think, is in front of us," Votel said, "and that is stabilizing these areas,
consolidating our gains, getting back to their homes. There is a military role in this," he
went on to say. "Certainly in the stabilization phase."
The Votel appearance was exasperating for those worried about NATO's future, and for those
concerned that the endless conflicts in the region are draining the defense budget of badly
needed funds to rebuild U.S. military readiness. For them, a group that now includes a growing
number of very senior and influential military officers, "stabilization" is not only a codeword
for "nation building," it signals support for a mission that is endangering the future of NATO,
the institution that has guaranteed peace in Europe for three generations.
"It's not worth it," the senior military commander who spoke with TAC concludes. "On
top of everything else, it puts us on the wrong side of the political equation. This whole
thing about how the enemy of my enemy is my friend is a bunch of bullshit. The enemy of my
enemy is now making an enemy of our friend. I don't know who we think we're fooling, but it
sure as hell isn't Turkey. And it isn't the American people either."
Mark Perry is a foreign policy analyst, a contributing editor to The American
Conservative, and the author of The
Pentagon's Wars (2017).
"Monica styles"... Trump is fighting fore survival with Tomahawks trying to solve his problem
with junfoism.
Notable quotes:
"... "[I]f this president can decide unilaterally to bomb Syria, I worry that he can make the same decision about North Korea or Iran or other nations. And these decisions are not supposed to be made without consultation and voting by Congress." Unfortunately, Congressional leaders have shown no signs of wanting to hold a debate or have a vote before the attack takes place. ..."
"... The Trump administration has not offered a public legal justification for last year's strikes, and it seems unlikely to offer one this time. That is probably because there is no plausible interpretation of the law that permits the president to initiate hostilities against foreign governments on his own when the U.S. has not been attacked. ..."
"... Daniel Larison is a senior editor at ..."
"... where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in the ..."
"... Front Porch Republic, and ..."
"... . He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago. Follow him on Twitter . ..."
One year since the U.S. illegally launched 59 cruise missiles at Syrian government forces in
response to an alleged chemical weapons attack, the Trump administration is preparing to take
similar military action despite an increased risk of escalation that could lead to the start of
a wider war.
The U.S., France, and Britain have been
preparing to strike the Syrian government over the last several days, and Syria's Russian
patron has threatened the "gravest consequences" in response to an attack. Russia didn't
respond to last year's one-off airstrikes, but Moscow isn't likely to tolerate a larger U.S.
attack carried out with other governments. Syria's government and its allies seem more willing
to
fight back than they were a year ago, and that should give the Trump administration and our
European allies pause. There is a greater risk of great power conflict erupting in Syria than
there has been at any time since the end of the Cold War, and if Russian military personnel are
killed by U.S. or allied strikes there is no telling how quickly things could deteriorate there
and in other parts of the world.
President Trump's public statements have strongly suggested that an attack will be happening
soon, going so far as to
taunt Russia on Twitter that they should "get ready" for the "new" and "smart" missiles
that the U.S. would be using. Some members of Congress have insisted that the president lacks
the legal authority to launch an attack on Syria without their authorization. As Sen. Tim Kaine
(D-Virginia)
put it , "[I]f this president can decide unilaterally to bomb Syria, I worry that he
can make the same decision about North Korea or Iran or other nations. And these decisions are
not supposed to be made without consultation and voting by Congress." Unfortunately,
Congressional leaders have shown no signs of wanting to hold a debate or have a vote before the
attack takes place.
The Trump administration has not offered a public legal justification for last year's
strikes, and it seems unlikely to offer one this time. That is probably because there is no
plausible interpretation of the law that permits the president to initiate hostilities against
foreign governments on his own when the U.S. has not been attacked. There is no provision
in international law that allows a U.S. attack on another government without explicit Security
Council authorization, and we know that this authorization that will never be forthcoming in
this case because of Russia's veto. While the attack is being sold as the enforcement of a norm
against chemical weapons use, it isn't possible to uphold an international norm while violating
the most fundamental rule of international law.
To date, the U.S. and its allies have presented no definitive evidence to support their
claims against the Syrian government. It is entirely plausible that the Syrian government is
guilty of using chlorine or sarin against its enemies and the civilian population, but there
has been no real effort on the part of the U.S. and its allies to prove their accusation before
deciding to act as executioners. Regardless, the U.S. and its allies have no authority to
punish the Syrian government, and in doing so they may do significant harm to international
peace and security.
A U.S.-led attack on the Syrian government could lead to war with Russia or Iran or both at
once, and there is also a danger that it could help set off a war between Israel and Iran.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
said earlier this week that Israel would not "allow" an Iranian military presence to be
established in Syria. The prime minister's threat came on the heels of Israeli strikes inside
Syria that reportedly killed seven Iranians serving alongside the Syrian regime's forces. Iran
has threatened retaliation for the attack, and it has the ability through Hizbullah to make
good on that threat if Israel carries out additional strikes. Israel might use a U.S.-led
attack on Iran's allies in Syria as an excuse to strike more Iranian targets, and Iran might
then respond in kind with missile attacks on Israel. Lebanese, Syrian, and Israeli civilians
would all suffer if that happened, and it would make an already chaotic international situation
even worse.
It is a measure of how divorced from U.S. and allied security our Syria policy has become
that our government is seriously preparing to launch another illegal attack on a government
that hasn't attacked us and doesn't threaten us or our allies. Attacking the Syrian government
won't make the U.S. or any other country more secure, and it will likely weaken the government
just enough to prolong Syria's civil war and add to the suffering of the civilian population.
It is a perfect example of a military intervention that is being done for its own sake with no
connection to any discernible interests or strategy. No one stands to gain from such an attack
except for the ideologues that have incessantly demanded deeper U.S. involvement in Syria for
the last six years.
Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC, where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published
in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, Front Porch Republic, and
The Week . He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago. Follow him on
Twitter .
"... Cohen acknowledged that he paid porn star "Stormy Daniels" $130,000 two weeks before the 2016 election in exchange for her staying silent about her 2006 affair with Trump. No one pays for silence unless there is something to hide. The payment was made 10 years after the alleged dalliance. ..."
"... The obvious purpose was to influence the outcome of the election by concealing damaging information about Mr. Trump's character. That made Mr. Cohen's payment an undisclosed campaign "contribution" to Mr. Trump vastly exceeding the individual statutory limit of $2,700. ..."
"... Maybe you should have picked an example where the defendant wasn't acquitted. It's easy to see how an expansive definition of the term "campaign contribution" could be dangerous. ..."
So what of these charges against Cohen and could they really hurt the president?
Federal election laws define a campaign contribution as "anything of value given to
influence a Federal election." It is common knowledge that Mr. Cohen acknowledged that he paid
porn star "Stormy Daniels" $130,000 two weeks before the 2016 election in exchange for her
staying silent about her 2006 affair with Trump. No one pays for silence unless there is
something to hide. The payment was made 10 years after the alleged dalliance.
The obvious
purpose was to influence the outcome of the election by concealing damaging information about
Mr. Trump's character. That made Mr. Cohen's payment an undisclosed campaign "contribution" to
Mr. Trump
vastly exceeding the individual statutory limit of $2,700.
Similarly, Democrat John Edwards was prosecuted (later acquitted) for soliciting and
spending nearly $1 million in his 2008 presidential campaign to conceal his affair with Rielle
Hunter, so this is not a crime normally brushed under the rug. The public record also
establishes probable cause to believe Cohen was behind the payment of $150,000 to Playboy Bunny
Karen McDougall to kill her story about a protracted extramarital relationship with Mr. Trump
that could have torpedoed his presidential ambitions. The question remains, of course, how much
this will implicate and hurt Trump, who has denied the affair with Daniels and any other
"wrongdoing." Cohen said he paid Daniels out of his own pocket and was not reimbursed by Trump
or the campaign.
John Edwards was acquited on one charge and a mistrial on five others w/o retrial. So there
was no conviction there, these actions are not business as usual, and the DOJ lesson from
that case should have been to cease such abusive prosecutorial misconduct, not to repeat it.
These examples show why campaign finance restrictions are an unconstitutional burden on
freedom of association. Trump is a rich man, so could afford to pay the hush money if he
believed it necessary without it being a crime. As it appears, Cohen believed it important to
pay w/o asking Trump, thinking he's helping a friend. Now what of Edwards? Maybe Edwards
couldn't afford to pay hush money, so he needed and solicited help from friends. By making it
a crime for friends to help him, the law favors rich candidates like Trump that can afford to
do things others can't without breaking the law.
There is zero chance of a jury conviction here, so DOJ shouldn't have pursued it given the
incendiary effect of conducting raids on someone's attorney. Furthermore, there's zero chance
of Muller getting jury convictions on the pile of horse manure prosecutions he's pursuing.
The only convictions Muller is getting is from people buckling under the fiduciary extortion
inherent in his tactics and copping a plea even though a jury would never convict them.
Similarly, Democrat John Edwards was prosecuted for soliciting and spending nearly $1
million in his 2008 presidential campaign to conceal his affair with Rielle Hunter, so this
is not a crime normally brushed under the rug.
Maybe you should have picked an example where the defendant wasn't acquitted. It's
easy to see how an expansive definition of the term "campaign contribution" could be
dangerous.
President Trump, Vice President Pence, and Defense
Secretary Mattis. (DoD) On Sunday, President Trump
announced his intention to make those responsible for an alleged chemical weapons attack on
Douma, including the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian allies, pay a "big price"
for their continued disregard for international law. The next day U.S. Ambassador to the United
Nations Nikki Haley declared
that "The United States is determined to see the monster who dropped chemical weapons on
the Syrian people held to account."
President
Trump reinforced his call for action on Monday, noting that the United States would not sit
back in the face of the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syria. "It will be met, and it will
be met forcefully," the president said, adding that those responsible for the attack will be
held accountable, whether it was Syria, Russia, Iran or "all of them together."
Trump noted that a decision to use military force would be made "over the next 24 to 48
hours."
The pronouncements of imminent military action by the United States are not made in a
vacuum. Russia, which has considerable military forces deployed inside Syria, including
advanced military aircraft and anti-aircraft missile batteries,
has rejected the allegations of chemical weapons use by Syria as a "fabrication," and
promised that any attack on Syria would result in "serious repercussions." Russian forces
inside Syria have reportedly been placed on "full alert" as American naval
vessels capable of launching cruise missiles have arrived off the Syrian coast.
The United States and Russia appear to be heading toward a direct military confrontation
that, depending on the level of force used and the number, if any, casualties incurred by
either side, carries with it the risk of a broader conflict. While Russian (and Syrian) claims
of innocence regarding the alleged chemical weapons attack cannot be accepted at face value,
the fact that the United States has not backed up its own claims with anything other than a
recitation of accusations made by rebel groups opposed to the regime of Bashar al-Assad is
problematic insofar as it shows a rush to judgement on matters of war. Given the potentially
devastating consequences of any U.S.-Russian military clash over Syria, it would be better for
all parties involved to wait for a full and thorough investigation of the alleged attack before
any final decision on the use of force in response is made.
There are two versions of what happened in Douma, a suburb of Damascus home to between
80,000 and 150,000 people. The one relied upon by the United States is provided by rebel forces
opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. According to the Violations Documentation Center (VDC), a non-profit organization
comprised of various Syrian opposition groups funded by the Asfari Foundation and George Soros' Open Societies Foundation , at
approximately
12 p.m. the Syrian Air Force attacked the vicinity of the Saada Bakery using munitions
believed to contain "poisonous gas." The VDC cited eyewitness accounts from members of the
Syrian Civil Defense, or "White
Helmets," who described the smell of chlorine and the presence of numerous bodies assessed
to have succumbed from gas sourced to a Syrian "rocket." Later, at 7 p.m., a second air strike
struck an area near Martyr's Square, again using munitions assessed by eyewitnesses to contain
"poisonous gas." Doctors from the Syrian
American Medical Society (SAMS) described symptoms that indicated that a nerve agent had
been used. Images of victims in the locations allegedly attacked were released by a
rebel-affiliated social media entity known as the "Douma Revolution" and the "White
Helmets."
Douma is part of a larger district known as Eastern Ghouta which has, since 2012, been under
the control of various militant organizations opposed to the regime of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad. In early February 2018, the Syrian Army, supported by the Russian Air Force, began
operations to recapture the Eastern Ghouta district. The joint Syrian-Russian offensive was as
brutal as it was effective -- by March, Eastern Ghouta had been split into three pockets of
resistance at a cost of more than 1,600 civilian dead. Two of the pockets capitulated under
terms which had the opposition fighters and their families evacuated to rebel-held territory in
the northern Syrian province of Idlib. Only Douma held out, where Salafist fighters from the
"Army of Islam" (Jaish al-Islam) refused to surrender. On April 5, the situation had
deteriorated inside Douma to the point that the rebel defenders had agreed to negotiations that
would lead to their evacuation of Douma; the very next day, however, these discussions had
broken down, and the Syrian military resumed its offensive. The air attacks described by the
VDC occurred on the second day of the resumption of hostilities.
There is a competing
narrative , however, provided by the Russian government and those sympathetic to its
position. After the breakdown of negotiations between the Douma rebels and the Russian
government on April 6, the story goes, the Syrian government offensive to liberate Douma
resumed. The Douma rebels, faced with imminent defeat, fabricated the allegations of a chemical
attack. Russia had warned of such a
provocation back in March 2018, claiming the rebels were working in coordination with the
United States to create the conditions for a massive American air attack against Syrian
government infrastructure.
Shortly after the Syrian government resumed its offensive against Douma (and after the
opposition forces publicized their allegations of Syrian government chemical weapons attacks),
the rebel resistance inside Douma collapsed, with the fighters agreeing to be evacuated to
Idlib. The
Russian military was able to dispatch units to the sites of the alleged chemical weapons
attacks and conduct a survey. According to the state-run Russian news, no evidence of a
chemical weapons attack was discovered. Representatives of the Syrian Red Crescent who claim to have
worked in Douma stated that they have seen no evidence of any chemical weapons use there,
either.
Beyond providing a competing narrative, however, Russia has offered to
open up Douma to inspectors from the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons , or OPCW, for
a full investigation. This offer was
echoed by the Syrian government , which extended an official invitation for the OPCW to
come to Douma. On April 10, the
OPCW announced that it would be dispatching an inspection team "shortly" to carry out this
work. The forensic technical investigatory capabilities of an OPCW inspection team are such
that it would be able to detect the presence of any chemical agent used in Douma. While the
investigation itself would take days to conduct and weeks to process, its conclusions would,
under these circumstances, be conclusive as to the presence of any prohibited substance.
One major drawback to any OPCW investigation is its inability to assess responsibility for
the presence of any banned substances detected. In prior investigations inside Syria, the OPCW
was able to operate as part of the United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism
(JIM) , an entity specifically empowered by Security Council resolution to make such
determinations. The
mandate of the JIM was not extended , however, after Russia expressed its displeasure over
what it deemed to be the inaccurate and politicized findings regarding previous allegations of
chemical weapons use by the Syrian government. The United States has submitted a resolution to
the Security Council demanding that a new investigatory body be formed that would be able to
provide attribution for any chemical weapons attack inside Syria; whether Russia would veto
such a resolution or allow it to be passed has yet to be seen.
The bottom line, however, is that the United States is threatening to go to war in Syria
over allegations of chemical weapons usage for which no factual evidence has been provided.
This act is occurring even as the possibility remains that verifiable forensic investigations
would, at a minimum, confirm the presence of chemical weapons (thereby contradicting the
Russian claims that no such evidence was detected by its troops), and if the Security Council
passes a resolution allowing for a properly mandated investigation team, actual attribution
could be assigned.
Moreover, President Trump's rush to judgment on Syrian guilt is being done in a highly
politicized environment, coming as it does on the heels of
an FBI raid on the offices of the president's personal attorney . In times such as this, a
president is often attracted by the prospect of "looking presidential" in order to offset
personal problems (one only need to look at President Clinton's decision in August 1998 , at
the height of the Lewinsky scandal, to launch cruise missile attacks on Afghanistan and
Sudan.)
If America is to place its military in harm's way, it needs to be in support of a cause
worthy of the sacrifice being asked of those who serve. Giving the OPCW time to carry out its
investigation in Syria would allow a fact-based case to be made whether military force was
justified or not, as well as support a determination of whether or not the risks associated
with the use of force were warranted. Pulling the trigger void of such information, especially
when Trump is distracted by personal political issues, is not something the American people,
nor their representatives in Congress, should tolerate.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former
Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert
Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author ofDeal of the Century: How Iran Blocked the West's Road to
War .
The president also faced unsurprising pushback
from his national security team, forcing him to clarify this week that the 2,000 troops there
now will stay only until the mission to defeat ISIS, which is "coming to a rapid end," is
finished. Of course his military advisors and many of his aides disagree.
A Pentagon spokesman has warned that ISIS is looking for " any opportunity to regain momentum
." Anonymous military officers speak of fumbling the ball "
on the two yard line ." Officials tell reporters that while the group is "almost completely
defeated," a string of renewed ISIS attacks could signal a resurgence.
Regardless of the outcome in Washington, Trump's instincts on Syria deserve discussion.
Unlike Afghanistan and Iraq, the operation in Syria has cost us very little blood and
treasure, at least so far. Special operations forces (SOF) and "other government agencies" ably
partnered with our largely Kurdish proxies to break the back of ISIS's nascent state. The
group's conventional military power has been destroyed. Howev er menacing officials make it
sound, it's been estimated that the Islamic State has fewer than 1,000 fighters left on the
battlefield. Mosul, its largest city, was retaken by Iraqi security forces, while its de facto
capital Raqqa was conquered by the Kurds. Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor are back in government hands.
Areas of ISIS control are tough to
even find on a map of the Syrian conflict.
For all these successes, however, we have been walking a knife's edge in Syria ever since
openly intervening there in 2014. Deconfliction with Russia has not been flawless: Turkey shot
down a Russian plane in 2015 and U.S. firepower reportedly killed hundreds of Russian
mercenaries earlier this year. That knife's edge has only gotten sharper over the past two
months, as Turkish troops invaded the Afrin region of northern Syria. Turkey's "Operation Olive
Branch" exposed the elephant in the room: America's only successful proxy, the Syrian Kurds,
are linked to Turkey's PKK, which Turkey, the European Union, and the U.S. have declared a
terrorist group. Our NATO ally is now openly at war with our Kurdish partner, as American
advisors do their best to stay off the frontline. In 2008, Vice President-Elect Joe Biden
bluntly told Afghanistan's Hamid Karzai: "Pakistan is 50 times
more important for the United States than Afghanistan." The same obvious wisdom applies in
spades to Turkey and Syria respectively.
What of the Kurds? If recent reports are to be believed, American Special Forces are
incensed they are being told to abandon a valiant, reliable battlefield ally. Squeezed
between a revanchist Turkey and a stabilized Syrian state, Syria's Kurds are not likely to keep
their independent project of Rojava. The United States declined to intervene to protect Iraq's
Kurds last year, when Iraqi forces quickly seized the Kurdish "Jerusalem," oil-rich Kirkuk,
after an abortive independence referendum. To pretend we have a greater will or ability to
protect Syria's Kurds is folly.
The Kurds should ask Vietnam's Montagnards how they fared as an American proxy, or question
the Palestinians about what they've gained from an American mediator .
Loathe though we may be to admit it, America has been a fickle friend for the majority of small
nations and peoples that have looked to her as a protector. Even many of our Afghan
interpreters who served in American uniforms and cashed American paychecks have been
abandoned to their enemies . Like a serial philanderer we can pretend that this time will
be different, but the reality is that America seldom has the patience or stomach for sustained
non-existential military intervention outside our hemisphere, particularly when casualties
mount. The victims of pretending otherwise are seldom Americans; they are Vietnamese, Somalis,
Iraqi Marsh Arabs, and many others. The current state of political polarization in Washington
and the primacy of the 24-hour news cycle have only hardened this long-standing reality.
Left to their own devices, Syria's Kurds can probably work out a modus vivendi with Assad's
government, which has other battles to fight and foreign backers of its own who would like to
draw down their commitments. Battles between the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces and
Assad's Syrian Arab Army have been few. Turkey has tolerated a Kurdish autonomous region on its
border with Iraq -- but it will not do so with Kurds who remain affiliated with the PKK.
Regardless of Rojava's fate, ISIS may well regenerate. It already has the local ties and
financial network
to thrive as an insurgency in western Iraq. That, however, is a governance and security problem
for Iraqis and Syrians, not Americans. The United States maintains an unparalleled ability to
project military power and destroy targets around the world, both with standoff firepower and
by putting troops into battle via air and sea. Should ISIS or another Salafist successor build
any real base of power again in the Levant we can rapidly deploy combat power to destroy it.
But staying there any longer remains a fool's errand.
Gil Barndollar served as a Marine infantry officer from 2009 to 2016. His writing has
appeared in the Marine Corps Gazette , the Journal of Military Operations , and the Michigan
War Studies Review .
"I don't like "abandoning an ally" like this, but that alliance was never going to be long
lasting, and the Kurds have to have known that."
Yes. As a parting gesture, we could round up some of the louder-mouthed neocons and ship
them over to "independent Kurdistan" to spend a few quiet hours with their erstwhile heroes.
Let the Kurds vent their entirely understandable anger out on those who lied to and
manipulated them with the same glib ease that they once lied to America about Iraq's
WMDs.
'Mosul, its largest city, was retaken by Iraqi security forces, while its de facto capital
Raqqa was conquered by the Kurds. Palmyra and Deir ez-Zor are back in government hands.'
I'd like to correct a couple of things, ISIS was destroyed in Syria, by the Syrian Arab
Army, and by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. Mosuls and Raqqa were not 'retaken' or 'conquered'.
They were utterly destroyed by aerial bombardment, which is about the only thing we are good
at doing.
"... Trump's statement is a particularly stupid piece of revisionism on his part. Trump was opposed to Obama's threatened attack in 2013 , and then as president Trump ordered an illegal military attack on the Syrian government one year ago to punish it for an alleged chemical weapons attack. ..."
"... The danger in having an ongoing illegal military presence in Syria is that it exposes U.S. forces to unacceptable and unnecessary risks and creates the possibility of escalation with the Syrian government and its allies. If Trump orders another illegal attack on the Syrian government or the forces of any of its supporters, it could easily trigger a larger conflict. Russia has given an explicit warning against a U.S. attack this time, saying that it could trigger "the gravest consequences." Even if it doesn't lead to a larger conflict with a nuclear-armed major power, it isn't worth taking the risk for the sake of policing the conduct of a foreign civil war. ..."
"... If Trump were really interested in extricating the U.S. from war in Syria, he would not be engaged in mindless saber-rattling against the Syrian government and its allies. Unfortunately, Trump's bellicosity always seems to take over in these situations. That is what we get from Trump's anti-restraint foreign policy. ..."
"... But the odd thing is, the most stable and invested country in the region is Iran. Crazy as it might sound to an Iran-hater-dead-ender, the country we should be chatting with about Syria is Iran. If we genuinely cared about anything humanitarian. The two countries with the most likely influence over Bashar with the aim of mitigating his violence would likely be Iran and Russia. If we wanted to actually accomplish something we could quietly and diplomatically arrange that chat and encourage some beneficial influence there. ..."
"... If Assad is really the brute that the West portrays him to be he would have been toppled by now. That the Syrian population by and large has stood by him in 6 years of war should tell you something. I make a point to get most of the news about Syria from Christian organisations who live there – and they are all unequivocal. They are now beyond livid of what the US and its allies has allowed and even facilitated to happen there. Tthankfully for them they still have the Syrian Arab Army and Russia to protect them unlike their brethren in Iraq, one of the oldest Christian communities in existence which has been practically wiped out thanks to America's intervention. ..."
"... Clinton ignored the Russian objections to the West's unilateral recognition of Balkan breakaways. Bush, Saakashvili and the usual entourage of the neocon meddler travelling circus that nowadays haunts the Ukraine dismissed both the Russian warnings and the Russian military response. The result was utter failure. ..."
"... Putin might never see an opportunity for a similarly deadly and promising "play" in the circle jerk of Syria free-for-all invasions – Gulf states, Turkey, US, Israel – but if he should ever see an opening, I would expect him to seek another object lesson. His hand might not be strong, but he appears to play it well. ..."
"... Meanwhile, the Kurdish YPG and Syrian government troops ally against NATO partner Turkey, and the US military has repeatedly attacked Syrian regular military and boasts – by leak – about massacring Russian "private military contractors". ..."
"... Iran demonstrated in Iraq that US ineptitude combined with impunitivism provides many openings to stabilize, in a sense, the region. ..."
Trump's statement is a particularly stupid piece of revisionism on his part. Trump was
opposed to
Obama's threatened attack in 2013 , and then as president Trump ordered an illegal military
attack on the Syrian government one year ago to punish it for an alleged chemical weapons
attack. He had no authority to do this, the attack was a flagrant breach of the U.N. Charter,
and it apparently failed to discourage the Syrian government from carrying out similar attacks
later on. The president ordered the "unbelievably small attack" that Obama administration
threatened to launch in 2013, and it made no meaningful difference to the course of the war or
the regime's behavior.
Trump tweeted out earlierin the day that
"President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price to pay."
He didn't say what that "big price" was or how it will be "paid," but the fact that he thinks
it is a good idea to make threats against the Syrian government's patrons bodes ill for the
future of U.S. policy in Syria. The foreign policy establishment was beside itself last week
when they thought that Trump wanted to withdraw from Syria, but they should be much more
worried that he will launch an illegal attack and plunge the U.S. in even deeper.
The danger in having an ongoing illegal military presence in Syria is that it exposes
U.S. forces to unacceptable and unnecessary risks and creates the possibility of escalation
with the Syrian government and its allies. If Trump orders another illegal attack on the Syrian
government or the forces of any of its supporters, it could easily trigger a larger conflict.
Russia has given an explicit warning against a U.S.
attack this time, saying that it could trigger "the gravest consequences." Even if it doesn't
lead to a larger conflict with a nuclear-armed major power, it isn't worth taking the risk for
the sake of policing the conduct of a foreign civil war.
If Trump were really interested in extricating the U.S. from war in Syria, he would not be
engaged in mindless saber-rattling against the Syrian government and its allies. Unfortunately,
Trump's bellicosity always seems to take over in these situations. That is what we get from
Trump's anti-restraint foreign policy.
It's true that I'm no genius, but after reading as much as I can and thinking it over I still
don't know who is the right horse to back, or what is the right side to be on in Syria. Assad
is a brute, Isis are brutes, the other parties of opposition are useless, and etc., and none
of it has anything to do with us anyway. To Daniel's point, we're keeping an army hanging
around in a volatile and illegal situation for no discernible point.
Except to hate Iran.
The longterm on Syria doesn't look good for anyone. I'm guessing, because of his long
history of ignorance and incoherence, Trump has no plan.
But the odd thing is, the most stable and invested country in the region is Iran.
Crazy as it might sound to an Iran-hater-dead-ender, the country we should be chatting with
about Syria is Iran. If we genuinely cared about anything humanitarian. The two countries
with the most likely influence over Bashar with the aim of mitigating his violence would
likely be Iran and Russia. If we wanted to actually accomplish something we could quietly and
diplomatically arrange that chat and encourage some beneficial influence there.
If Assad is really the brute that the West portrays him to be he would have been
toppled by now. That the Syrian population by and large has stood by him in 6 years of war
should tell you something. I make a point to get most of the news about Syria from Christian
organisations who live there – and they are all unequivocal. They are now beyond livid
of what the US and its allies has allowed and even facilitated to happen there. Tthankfully
for them they still have the Syrian Arab Army and Russia to protect them unlike their
brethren in Iraq, one of the oldest Christian communities in existence which has been
practically wiped out thanks to America's intervention.
"If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line "
Interesting view. Obama imagined he drew a "red line" that Assad was not to cross, and
allegedly did. Trump's tongue apparently wore a Freudian slip when he rubi-conned this phrase
into twitter.
To make this a turn worthy of Croesumpus, let us just say that if Trump crosses that red
line of his own, a great war criminal will be destroyed.
"In early March 2008, Abkhazia and South Ossetia submitted formal requests for their
recognition to Russia's parliament shortly after the West's recognition of Kosovo to which
Russia was opposed. [The] Russian ambassador to NATO, warned that Georgia's NATO membership
aspirations would cause Russia to support the independence of Abkhazia and South
Ossetia."
Clinton ignored the Russian objections to the West's unilateral recognition of Balkan
breakaways. Bush, Saakashvili and the usual entourage of the neocon meddler travelling circus
that nowadays haunts the Ukraine dismissed both the Russian warnings and the Russian military
response. The result was utter failure.
Putin might never see an opportunity for a similarly deadly and promising "play" in the
circle jerk of Syria free-for-all invasions – Gulf states, Turkey, US, Israel –
but if he should ever see an opening, I would expect him to seek another object lesson. His
hand might not be strong, but he appears to play it well.
Meanwhile, the Kurdish YPG and Syrian government troops ally against NATO partner
Turkey, and the US military has repeatedly attacked Syrian regular military and boasts
– by leak – about massacring Russian "private military contractors".
Iran demonstrated in Iraq that US ineptitude combined with impunitivism provides many
openings to stabilize, in a sense, the region.
Trump doesn't have any instincts. He's just playing the old DC game. Pretend that you want to
do something, then act shocked after you didn't do it. Each party plays the game against the
other party, each house of Congress plays the game against the other house, Presidents play
it against Congress and the "courts".
===
This game wouldn't work in real life.
Example:
I shout to everyone in the house, "I'm going to the store to get groceries."
One hour later, after sitting in the living room watching TV, making no move toward the
car, I shout again:
"See what happens? I tried, but these evil other-party spirits wouldn't let me. You need
to vote these evil other-party spirits out of the house so we can have food!"
Huh you elect someone who says his military strategy will always be "listen to the Generals",
and are then surprised when the Generals want to keep fighting?
Of course Trump will accede. He has no coherent and consistent policy just Fox News
buzzwords spinning in his head. Now add John Bolton as his guiding light.
Mr. Buchanan is correct the U.S. is: "in a country where we have no right to be "
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -
The U.S. is in Syria illegally, and what is even worse it is reportedly supporting
terrorists.
This is surely a crime, yet no charges have been laid. Why?
"Under U.S. law it is illegal for any American to provide money or assistance to al-Qaeda,
ISIS or other terrorist groups. If you or I gave money, weapons or support to al-Qaeda or
ISIS, we would be thrown in jail. Yet the U.S. government has been violating this law for
years, quietly supporting allies and partners of al-Qaeda, ISIL, Jabhat Fateh al Sham and
other terrorist groups with money, weapons, and intelligence support, in their fight to
overthrow the Syrian government.[i] Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, December 8, 2016,Press Release.
https://gabbard.house.gov/news/press-releases/video-rep-tulsi-gabbard-introduces-legislation-stop-arming-terrorists
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -
Much more evidence on this and other matters at link below. http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2016/10/the-evidence-of-planning-of-wars.html
The important point in Syria is that Putin is irreversibly bogged down there. He sinks or
swims with Assad, which means, sooner or later, sinks. He's a sitting duck who can do nothing
but sit there and wait until the US chooses to attack him. So there's no harm in leaving him
to stew. John Bolton's bête noire has always been Iran, which is supposed to be Putin's
ally. Going after Iran will put Putin on the spot. He has to decide whether to back his
"ally" or leave Iran in the lurch. Thus, putting Syria on the back burner and concentrating
on Iran forces Putin either to discredit himself by abandoning his "ally" or to bog himself
down in yet another conflict. Heads, Ukraine wins, tails, Putin loses!
"Yes, folks, your tax dollars are going to support Islamist crazies in Syria. The same
people who attacked Paris are being aided and abetted by the US – and if that isn't a
criminal act, then there is no justice in this world." Justin Raimondo, November 25, 2015 http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2015/11/24/turkeys-stab-in-the-back/
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
The USA has hundreds of military bases overseas. We should close most of them. Trump is
saying the right thing, unfortunately, we all know he doesn't follow through (that NRA thing,
that DACA thing, that wall thing, that coal thing, that lock-her-up thing, etc. etc).
It seems that the failure in Syria is related to the classical policy verse strategy
conflict. The military is once again put in a difficult position when the civilian leadership
tries to use a military solution to solve a diplomatic problem. The military was given the
task to destroy ISIS but that goal will be impossible without Turkey's cooperation and the
leader of that country has chosen a path toward appeasement by the United States or
confrontation.
There seems to be credible evidence of Turkey's support for ISIS in the flow of combatants
and military logistics into Syria as well as profiting from the sale and transport of ISIS
controlled Syrian oil through Turkey. Now we are seeing Turkey invading Syria and ethnically
cleansing our Kurdish allies from Syria's Northern Boarder. We still don't know what the
Obama/Clinton CIA and State Department was up to in Benghazi, but it did seem to involve the
flow of arms from Libya, and I have read reports that members of the Turkish government were
meeting with the killed ambassador before the attack.
In Syria is appears that the Assad, Iranian and Russian alliance was more focused upon the
rebels attempting to overthrow the government; rather than destroying ISIS. Once the United
States leaves there may be greater tolerance for ISIS as long as the government is not
threatened and ISIS may even be allowed to join that alliance to get some revenge against the
Kurds who were allied with the U.S.
We saw the recent Russian test of US resolve using mercenaries with disastrous
consequences. As long as the US remains in Syria there will be similar tests and what if is
Turkey decides to test the resolve of US forces?
Our NATO partner Turkey seems to have become more of an enemy than a friend, and also more
of a liability than an asset. Removing U.S. military assets from Turkey may be prudent,
followed by its expulsion from NATO. Expelling Turkish citizens from other NATO countries and
economic sanctions may be another strategy to make Turkey reconsider its continued
belligerence.
I don't recall anyone forcing Trump to appoint to top positions people who flat out refuse
his orders and block him from carrying out policy he campaigned on. There is a limit on how
much sincerity you can attribute to a man who says one thing, does the exact opposite, and
defend him as fighting some Don Quixotic struggle tilting at windmills.
Twelve days
after 9/11, on the night of September 23, 2001, the CIA's Islamabad station chief, Robert Grenier, received a telephone
call from his boss, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet. "Listen, Bob," Tenet said, "we're meeting tomorrow at
Camp David to discuss our war strategy in Afghanistan. How should we begin? What targets do we hit? How do we sequence our
actions?"
Grenier later wrote in his book,
88 Days to
Kandahar
, that while he was surprised by the call he'd been thinking about these
same questions -- "mulling them over and over and over," as he later told me -- so he was ready. President George Bush's address
to the U.S. Congress just a few days before, Grenier told Tenet, was a good start: demand that Afghanistan's Taliban ruler,
Mullah Omar, turn bin Laden over to the United States. If he refused, the U.S. should launch a campaign to oust him.
Grenier had thought through the plan, but before going into its details with Tenet he abruptly stopped the conversation.
"Mr. Director," he said, "this isn't going to work. I need to write this all down clearly." Tenet agreed.
Grenier set to work, and over the next three hours he laid out the battle for
Afghanistan. Included in the paper was a detailed program of how the CIA could deploy undercover teams to recruit bin
Laden's enemies among Afghanistan's northern Tajik and Uzbek tribes (an uneasy coalition of ethnic militias operating as
the Northern Alliance), supply them with cash and weapons, and use them in a rolling offensive that would oust the Taliban
in Kabul. With U.S. help, which included deploying American Special Forces teams (under CIA leadership) coupled with
American airpower, the Northern Alliance (more properly, the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan) would
start from its Panjshir Valley enclave in Afghanistan's far northeast and, recruiting support from anti-Taliban forces
along the way, roll all the way into Kabul.
Grenier gave the eight-page draft paper to his staff to review, then sent it to Tenet in
Washington, who passed it through the deputies committee (the second-in-command of each of the major national security
agencies), then presented it to Bush. "I regard that cable," Grenier wrote, "as the best three hours of work I ever did in
my twenty-seven-year career."
Three days after the Tenet-Grenier telephone conversation, on September 26, the CIA
landed a covert-operations team in Afghanistan to recruit local allies in the hunt for bin Laden. The quick action was
impressive, but then events slowed to a crawl. It wasn't until October 20 that the first U.S. Special Forces team linked up
with anti-Taliban rebels, and it took another week for U.S. units to land in strength. But by early November al Qaeda was
on the run and the Taliban's grip on the country was slipping away. On November 13, militias of the Northern Alliance
seized Kabul. The Taliban was defeated, its badly mauled units fleeing south and east (its last bastion, in the south, fell
on December 6), and into nearby Pakistan, while what remained of al Qaeda holed up in a series of cave complexes in the
Spin Ghar mountain range of eastern Afghanistan.
By almost any measure, the CIA-led anti-al Qaeda and anti-Taliban offensive (dubbed
Operation Enduring Freedom by George Bush) marked a decisive victory in the war on terror. The U.S. had set out a plan,
marshaled the forces to carry it out, and then seen it to completion.
But this triumph came with problems. The first was that the offensive was hampered by
Washington infighting that pitted the CIA against a puzzlingly recalcitrant U.S. military and a carping Donald Rumsfeld,
who questioned George Tenet's leadership of the effort. This bureaucratic squabbling, focused on just who was responsible
for what (and who exactly was running the Afghanistan war), would remain a hallmark of American efforts well into the Obama
administration. The second problem was that Afghanistan's southern Pashtun tribes were only marginally included in the
effort, and they remained suspicious of their northern non-Pashtun counterparts. The mistrust, CIA officers believed, would
almost certainly plant the seeds of an endless inter-tribal Afghan conflict, embroiling the United States in an effort to
prop up an unpopular Kabul government. The third problem was Pakistan -- or, more precisely, Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence agency, the ISI, and the ISI's "Directorate S," responsible for covertly supplying, training, and arming
Pakistan's Islamist allies, including the Pashtun-dominated Taliban.
♦♦♦
The intractability of these variables, and America's 17-year effort (sometimes focused
but often feckless) to resolve them, form the basis of Steve Coll's
Directorate S
,
a thick but eminently readable account of America's Afghanistan misadventure. While
Directorate S
stands alone as a comprehensive
exposition of the Afghanistan conflict dating from 9/11, it's actually a follow-on of
Ghost Wars
, Coll's Pulitzer Prize-winning 2004
narrative of America's efforts to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan following their invasion in December 1979. Given the
breadth of Coll's dual treatments and the depth of his research, it's likely that these books will remain the standard
exposition of the period for years to come.
While the focus of
Directorate S
is on Pakistan and its shady intelligence services, each of the obstacles that confronted the United States in Afghanistan
from the moment the Taliban abandoned Kabul is embraced in detail. These obstacles included America's post-9/11 attention
deficit disorder (the pivot away from al Qaeda to Iraq was being considered in Washington even as the Northern Alliance
cleared the Afghan capital) and the deeply embedded antipathy toward the new Kabul government among Pakistani-supported
southern tribesman. Thus, after the United States ousted al Qaeda and its Taliban supporters, it embarked on a program to
strengthen the new Kabul government, anointing Hamid Karzai as Afghanistan's president and pledging billions in
reconstruction aid. And so, or so it seemed, everything had gone as planned. The Taliban was routed; al Qaeda was on the
run; a new anti-terrorism government was in place in Kabul; and the United States had signed Pakistan on as a willing
accomplice. On May 1, 2003, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld declared an end to major combat operations in Afghanistan. The war
was over. Won.
But of course it wasn't.
Coll's account provides a disturbing catalogue of the U.S. mistakes in the wake of the
Taliban defeat. Almost all of them are well known: Hamid Karzai, the consensus choice of a grand assembly (a loya jirga) as
Afghanistan's interim president, proved to be a weak leader. The monies appropriated for Afghanistan's postwar
reconstruction were woefully inadequate for the task -- "laughable," as one U.S. official put it. American soldiers
responsible for countering the Taliban's return (and hunting al Qaeda terrorist cells) were thinly and poorly deployed
(and, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, of secondary importance in the Pentagon). Tentative Taliban efforts to engage the
United States in political talks were summarily and unwisely spurned. Allegations of prisoner abuse at U.S. detention
facilities consistently undermined U.S. legitimacy. American funds were funneled into Afghan ministries laced with corrupt
officials. Afghani poppy production increased, despite faint-hearted U.S. eradication efforts. And U.S. counter-terrorism
actions proved ham-handed and caused preventable civilian casualties, pushing Afghanis into a resurgent anti-Kabul
resistance.
More crucially, Pakistan's unstinting support for America's Afghanistan efforts proved to
be anything but unstinting. The reason for this was not only entirely predictable but was actually the unintended result of
the American victory. When the Northern Alliance and U.S. airpower pushed what remained of the Taliban (along with the
remnants of al Qaeda) out of Afghanistan, they pushed them into Pakistan, creating conditions that, as Coll tells us,
"deepened resentment among Pakistan's generals, who would come to see their country's rising violence as a price of
American folly . . ." Put simply, for the United States to seal the Operation Enduring Freedom victory, it had to ensure
that its effects did not spill over into the one nation that could ensure that its victory would, in fact, be enduring.
That didn't happen. The result was that the Taliban was able to rebuild and rearm its networks not only in Pakistan, and
under the eyes of the ISI, but also in Afghanistan.
It might have been otherwise. During a series of discussions I had about America's
intervention in Afghanistan in the months immediately following 9/11, a number of currently serving and former senior U.S.
officials told me they believed that, given enough time, the Taliban might well have handed bin Laden over to the
Americans, obviating the need for a full-on invasion. One of these officials was Milton Bearden, a famed CIA officer (his
close friends refer to him as "Uncle Milty") who, during his time as a station chief in Pakistan, had helped to head up the
CIA's war against the Soviets in the mid 1980s.
♦♦♦
After 9/11, Bearden recharged his Pakistan and Afghanistan networks in an effort to
convince the Taliban that turning bin Laden over to the Americans was a better option than the one they were facing. All
the while, Bearden kept senior U.S. officials apprised of what he was doing, even as he was attempting to head off their
rush to war. Bearden told me that, while his efforts had not reached fruition by the time the Bush White House had decided
on a course of action, he believes the United States had not fully explored all of its options -- or thought through the
long-term impact of its intervention. "I don't know what would have happened, I don't know," he says wistfully, "but I
think we have a handhold in history. We should have seen what was coming." He notes that Alexander the Great "took one look
at Afghanistan's mountains and decided against it. He thought his whole army could get swallowed up in there, and he wasn't
going to take that chance. So, well, you tell me if I'm wrong, but Alexander was no slouch, right?"
Not everyone agrees with this, of course. The dissenters include Robert Grenier, the
first drafter of what became the American war plan. Taliban leader Mullah Omar, he told me, was committed to his pledge to
protect Osama bin Laden; he viewed it as a blood oath that could not be broken. Moreover, argues Grenier, "Omar viewed
himself as a kind of world historical figure, a person on whom the axis of history would turn." One result was that he
believed his fight against the Americans would be epochal.
That said, Grenier believes America's foray into Afghanistan, and the mistakes that
followed, might at least have been dampened by a more diligent focus on the inherent divisions of Afghan society. "We [at
the CIA]," he told me several months ago, "were very aware that the march of the Northern Alliance into Kabul would likely
create real difficulties in the south. And we tried to slow it, precisely for this reason. But events overtook us, and it
just wasn't possible. So, yes, things might have been otherwise, but in truth we just don't know."
The value in Coll's
Directorate S
comes not from the elegant telling of a story not fully known, but from the dawning realization that Afghanistan is the
kind of lock for which there is no key. There is no reason to believe that a different outcome would have ensued if other
events had intruded -- for example, more personnel, money, focused diplomacy, or robust and disciplined enemy-defeating and
nation building; or that our war there and the occupation that followed would have yielded the same results that we
realized in, say, Japan after 1945. The real hubris here is not that we tried and failed but that we thought we could
actually succeed. Afghanistan is simply not that kind of place.
There is a term of art for this in the military, which found its first usage in Iraq in
2009, when U.S. commanders adopted it as an appreciation of what could and could not be accomplished. Instead of focusing
on defeating corruption, inefficiency, disunity, and poor leadership, the focus shifted almost exclusively to dampening
violence, to keeping the doors to Iraq open even as its factions battled for its control. More importantly, the adoption of
the phrase marked the abandonment of high expectations and an embrace of realism. The United States would have to yield the
business of replicating a Western-style democracy on the banks of the Euphrates. That goal, if it was going to be
accomplished at all, would have to be realized by the Iraqis.
Analyst Anthony Cordesman, one of America's premier military thinkers, adopted the phrase
and applied to Afghanistan in 2012 in an essay he entitled, "Time to Focus on 'Afghan Good Enough.'" His plan was simply
stated but had all the elegance of actually working: keep the Taliban out of Kabul and the major cities, preserve the
central and provincial government even in the face of endemic corruption, and work to provide security to large numbers of
Afghanis. Cordesman conceded that this was not the kind of victory that Americans had hoped for on September 12. And it was
difficult to describe the outcome as even vaguely passable -- or "good." But it was far better than adopting goals that could
not be realized or embracing an illusion that disappeared even as it was grasped. For the time being at least, it would
have to be "good enough."
Mark Perry is a foreign policy analyst, a contributing editor to
The American Conservative
and the author of
The Pentagon's Wars
.
Robert Jervis and Mira Rapp-Hooper
warn about the dangers that come from misperception on both sides of the standoff with
North Korea:
If any U.S. strategy toward North Korea is to have a chance of succeeding (or even of just
averting catastrophe), it must be guided by an accurate sense of how Kim's regime thinks,
what it values, and how it judges its options. Washington must understand not just North
Korean objectives but also how North Korean officials understand U.S. objectives and whether
they consider U.S. statements credible.
Unfortunately, the U.S. is remarkably bad at understanding these things accurately. This is
not just a Trump administration failing. Most American politicians and policymakers routinely
misjudge the intentions and goals of our adversaries, and they often invent a fantasy version
of the regime in question that leads them astray again and again. One reason for this is that
it is simply easier to project our assumptions about what a regime must want than it is to make
the effort to see things as they do. Another reason is that many of our politicians and
policymakers mistakenly think that if they try to understand an adversary's views that must
somehow mean that they sympathize with the adversary or condone its behavior. Instead of trying
to know their enemy, our leaders would prefer not to for fear of being "tainted" by the
experience. This lack of knowledge is compounded in some cases by the absence of normal
diplomatic relations with the adversary. Our leaders are encouraged to take this self-defeating
approach to international problems by a political culture that rewards the people that strike
tough-sounding-but-ignorant poses about a problem and marginalizes those that seek to
understand it as fully as possible.
The first step in correcting these failings is to accept that some of these regimes regard
the U.S. as an "existential threat" and therefore view all U.S. actions with at least much
suspicion and fear as our government views theirs. The next step would be to recognize that the
main goal of any regime is its own preservation. We should be very wary of any explanation of
their actions that claims that an adversary is irrationally suicidal. Another step would be to
acknowledge that regime behavior that we regard as purely aggressive is very often the result
of the adversary's belief that it needs to deter our aggression against them. Our politicians
often talk about North Korea threatening the entire world with its nuclear weapons, but this
misses that in their relative isolation and paranoia the North Korean regime sees the rest of
the world, and especially the U.S., as a threat that needs to be defended against. Recognizing
these things doesn't make their acquisition of nuclear weapons desirable and it doesn't mean
that we approve of it, but it does make it understandable.
Our government's frequent inability to understand how an adversary thinks and what an
adversary wants is usually bound up with our government's overestimation of its own power and a
denial of the other state's agency. If many of our policymakers invent a fantasy version of the
regime to serve as a foil, they come up with unrealistic demands that they think the U.S. can
force the adversary to accept. Because we fail to understand what the adversary is trying to
do, we make demands that we ought to know will never be accepted. Because our government fails
to take the other side's agency into account, our policies are often crafted solely to punish
and compel and rarely to give them an incentive to cooperate or compromise. We then claim to be
surprised when this approach yields only intransigence and more of the behavior that we want
the other state to stop.
Why do you think it would be absurd to think our highest government officials are that
ignorant? Did our Presidents, who never have to prove merit, only popularity, ever appoint
people based on reliably tested knowledge of their field? No. They tend to appoint their
cabinet based on political calculation. Sometimes political calculation will raise up
knowledgeable people, more often not.
Welp, this is certainly a different kettle of fish from WWII, where the US government hired
ethnologists like Ruth Benedict to analyze Japanese culture and thought patterns (resulting
in her book "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword.")
I really believe it would be absurd to think our highest government officials are that
ignorant
Our highest officials are by design more ignorant than the rank and file. During the Iraq
war aftermath, Arabic speakers were actively rejected from jobs within the Coalition
Provisional Authority, because it was assumed their knowledge of the region would prejudice
them against the W adninistration's vision for the Middle East, and they didn't want nay
sayers telling them what they didn't want to hear.
This mindset is persistent, especially in republican administrations, and mirrors the
Soviet Union -- people are selected on the basis of their willingness to toe the ideological
line rather than their expertise.
They are not ignorant, the politicians support these policies because their donors benefit..
They have sold out to greed over country.. I assume that some do it for the easy wealth that
can be had, some of the wealthy ones for fame and never losing elections, but they have their
reasons, our country is not high on that list.
The one exception to this would be Obama's approach to Iran. He had no illusions about the
mullahs and IRGC, but he knew that it was simply impossible to perpetually diplomatically
isolate and militarily surround a nation of 80 million in its own region. The nuke deal was a
tradeoff – Iran gives up its nukes in exchange for being reintegrated with the world.
Of course, this is the last thing that Israel or Saudi Arabia want.
Knowledge of History and Language would help enormously, but the US is so arrogant it expects
other countries to merely accept US assertions and to speak in English, on the basis of its
supposed Exceptionalism.
The Never Trump cabal can now claim total victory. Unsuccessful at preventing Trump from
winning the nomination or the general election, they have instead co-opted his presidency for
their own policies and programs.
With the nomination of John Bolton, Never Trump interventionists have installed one of the
unrepentant architects of the catastrophic Iraq War to head the National Security Council.
In recent months, ignoring and rejecting his own party's convention platform, Trump has
agreed to send lethal weapons to Ukraine. Besides accelerating the deaths of Ukrainians and
ethnic Russians while laying waste to the civilian population of the Donbas, what advantage to
the people of the United States does this military escalation provide?
Last summer, in one of the strangest speeches in American history, President Trump announced
he would surge troop levels in Afghanistan -- and then in the same breath admitted it was a
mistake and something he didn't really want to do. That should show the conflict here: Trump's
instincts versus the establishment sorts around him.
Never Trumpers are not so secretly celebrating. They got the president they thought they
didn't want. And now, pretending they still don't want him, they can hardly believe their good
fortune.
Achieving their foreign policy goals is just the icing on the cake. They also got the
president to implement the entire Wall Street agenda: lowering taxes on the super rich;
advancing huge subsidies to the medical insurance industry; keeping the Export-Import Bank
funded; re-authorizing the ivory trade; shrinking the size of national monuments so that
multi-national corporations can turn our wilderness areas into strip mines and clear-cut
wastelands.
Then, just this week, in a reckless act of generational theft, Trump endorsed the second
biggest budget in U.S. history, caving in to every demand and desire of the UniParty and the K
Street lobbyists whom they serve.
In the 18th century, the cry went "Millions for defense, but not one penny for tribute!"
Trump's cry is "Billions for defense, but not one penny for a wall!"
Trump justifies his signature on the omnibus bill by claiming it was necessary for national
security. But that claim rings hollow when comparatively little is allocated for the protection
of America's own borders and the defense of its homeland. Americans intuitively know that the
real danger to their safety is not along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border; it's along the
U.S.-Mexico border. But Trump's own laudable instincts have been neutered by the globalist,
interventionist generals and policy wonks who now populate powerful positions at the White
House and the departments of State and Defense.
Many reading this might now protest: what's wrong with passing the omnibus? Isn't it
providing the funds necessary for making America great again? But Donald Trump did not run for
office on a platform of bloating spending; he ran on opposition to massive debt increases and
specifically to many of the programs they pay for. The budget can be summed up in a paraphrase
of a Broadway musical hit tune: whatever crony wants, crony gets.
Has there been a fiercer critic of the Iraq war than Donald Trump? Yet he promotes to the
head of the NSC perhaps that conflict's most vociferous apologist. Trump promised he would end
the wars of choice, that he would refrain from taking sides in other nation's internal
conflicts. He called for a reasonable rapprochement with Russia with the goal of making America
and Americans safer. He specifically said he would wind down the military commitment in
Afghanistan as quickly and safely as possible.
His only bellicose pledge concerned ISIS, which he promised to destroy. As we have seen,
that was one of the few promises he kept. In most other policy areas he has reversed his
campaign pledges. His foreign policy is no longer America First; it's evolved into the same,
old, dangerous, meddling, interventionist program of the last quarter century. Trump has
deepened U.S. involvement in Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, and Afghanistan without clearly defining
the missions, the goals, and the risks. If voters had wanted this, they would have elected
Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump.
Yet of all the betrayals, the war on nature is the most grievous and shocking. As someone
who supported Trump from day one in June 2015, who has seen virtually every one of his
speeches, interviews, and tweets, I cannot recall a single word about the national parks or
monuments.
Had Trump forecast during the campaign how he would govern on environmental issues, would he
have been elected? Could those narrow margins of victory in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin,
and Iowa have gone the other way? With his appointment of Ryan Zinke to the Department of the
Interior, Trump needlessly and recklessly alienated tens of thousands of voters who might
otherwise have supported him and who may indeed have voted for him in 2016. Although its hard
to discern exactly why the president's poll numbers are as low as they are, it would be a
mistake to discount the animus engendered by the unexpected assault on wilderness, open space,
endangered species, and America's magnificent national monuments.
The only national monument that Trump has failed to shrink is the Beltway swamp. In fact,
judging from the continuing spread of McMansions in Potomac, Maryland and Falls Church,
Virginia, he has effectively widened its borders. It's as if the chants from all those packed
stadiums during that long ago presidential campaign were "Fill that swamp! Fill that
swamp!"
It is now abundantly clear why the Never Trumpers are tittering over their cocktails. Trump
has staffed most departments of his government with establishment cronies and neoconservative
zealots. He now presides over the implementation of their agenda. In effect, we're
getting a variation on what could be called the third Bush presidency -- minus the decorum.
Trump's is also the all-talk presidency: talk tough on illegal immigration, but fail to
build the wall; talk tough on sanctuary cities, but fail to cut federal subsidies; talk tough
on illegal immigration, then push for the biggest amnesty since 1986; talk tough against the
Export-Import Bank, then fund it; talk tough on Obamacare, then fund big insurance to keep the
subsidies flowing; talk tough on reducing taxes, then screw millions of homeowners across
America by actually raising their taxes; talk tough on trade, then tiptoe around
Mexico and Canada on everything that really matters; talk tough on the deficit, then sign the
second biggest boondoggle spending bill in U.S. history.
Still, it cannot be denied: President Trump has accomplished much -- for the establishment
and their K Street lobbyists. They write the bills, Paul Ryan guides them through the House
amendment-free, and Trump signs them in to law.
For those who packed those campaign rallies, who wore those red "Make America Great Again"
caps, and for the rest of us mere plebs, Donald Trump's presidency is best summed up by The
Bard: "Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
Ron Maxwell wrote and directed the Civil War motion-pictures Gettysburg ,
Gods & Generals , and Copperhead .
"... Still, George McGovern was a humble man who carried the burden, and honor, of his military service with grace. Though proud of his service, he was never constrained by it. When he saw a foolish war, an immoral war -- like Vietnam -- he stood ready to dissent. He was an unapologetic liberal and unwavering in his antiwar stance. These days, his kind is an endangered species on Capitol Hill and in the Democratic National Committee. McGovern died in 2012. His party, and the United States, are lesser for his absence. ..."
"... Today's Democrats are mostly avid hawks, probably to the right of Richard Nixon on foreign policy. ..."
"... Heck, even Gen. David "Generational War" Petraeus , once found himself in some hot water when -- in a rare moment of candor -- he admitted that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of US favoritism for Israel." Translation: US policy toward Israel (and, no doubt, the foolhardy 2003 invasion of Iraq) make American soldiers less safe. ..."
"... So does the basic post-9/11 American policy of sovereignty violation and expansive military intervention whenever and wherever Washington feels like it -- so long as it's in the name of fighting (you guessed it) "terrorism." ..."
"... George McGovern -- a true patriot, a man who knew war but loved peace -- wouldn't recognize the likes of Klobuchar, Clinton, Schumer and company. He'd be rightfully embarrassed by their supplication to the national warfare state. ..."
"... In 1972, McGovern's presidential campaign (as, to some extent, Bernie's did) reached out to impassioned youth in the "New Left," and formed a rainbow coalition with African-Americans and other minority groups. His Democrats were no longer the party of Cold War consensus, no longer the party of LBJ and Vietnam. No, McGovern's signature issue was peace, and opposition to that disastrous war. ..."
"... His campaign distributed pins and T-shirts bearing white doves . Could you even imagine a mainstream Democrat getting within 1,000 meters of such a symbol today? Of course not. ..."
He knew war well -- well enough to know he hated it.
George McGovern was a senator from South Dakota, and he was a Democrat true liberals could admire. Though remembered as a staunch
liberal and foreign policy dove, McGovern was no stranger to combat. He
flew 35 missions
as a B-24 pilot in Italy during World War II. He even earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for executing a heroic emergency crash
landing after his bomber was damaged by German anti-aircraft fire.
Still, George McGovern was a humble man who carried the burden, and honor, of his military service with grace. Though proud
of his service, he was never constrained by it. When he saw a foolish war, an immoral war -- like Vietnam -- he stood ready to dissent.
He was an unapologetic liberal and unwavering in his antiwar stance. These days, his kind is an endangered species on Capitol Hill
and in the Democratic National Committee. McGovern died in 2012. His party, and the United States, are lesser for his absence.
Today's Democrats are mostly avid hawks, probably to the right of Richard Nixon on foreign policy. They dutifully
voted for Bush's Iraq war . Then, they won back
the White House and promptly expanded an unwinnable Afghan
war . Soon, they again lost the presidency -- to a reality TV star -- and raised hardly a peep as Donald Trump expanded
America's aimless wars
into the realm of the absurd.
I've long known this, but most liberals -- deeply ensconced (or distracted) by hyper-identity politics -- hardly notice. Still,
every once in a while something reminds me of how lost the Democrats truly are.
I nearly spit up my food the other day. Watching on C-SPAN as Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., gleefully
attended a panel at the
American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference, I couldn't help but wonder what has happened to the Democratic Party.
The worst part is I like her, mostly. Look, I agree with Sen. Klobuchar on most domestic issues: health care, taxes and
more. But she -- a supposed liberal -- and her mainstream Democratic colleagues are complicit in the perpetuation of America's warfare
state and neo-imperial interventionism. Sen. Klobuchar and other Democrats' reflexive support for Israel is but a symptom of a larger
disease in the party -- tacit militarism.
AIPAC is a lobbying clique almost as savvy and definitely as effective as the NRA. Its meetings -- well attended by mainstream
Democrats and Republicans alike -- serve as little more than an opportunity for Washington pols to kiss Benjamin Netanyahu's ring
and swear fealty to Israel. Most of the time, participants don't dare utter the word "Palestinian." That'd be untoward -- Palestinians
are the unacknowledged
elephants in the room .
The far right-wing Israeli government of Netanyahu, who is little more than a co-conspirator and enabler for America's failed
project in the Middle East, should be the last group "liberals" pander to. That said, the state of Israel is a fact. Its people --
just like the Palestinians -- deserve security and liberty. Love it or hate it, Israel will continue to exist. The question is: Can
Israel remain both exclusively Jewish and democratic? I'm less certain about that. For 50 years now, the Israeli military has divided,
occupied and enabled the illegal settlement of sovereign
Palestinian territory , keeping Arabs in limbo without citizenship or meaningful civil rights.
This is, so far as international law is concerned, a war crime. As such, unflinching American support for Israeli policy irreversibly
damages the U.S. military's reputation on the "Arab street." I've seen it firsthand. In Iraq and Afghanistan, hundreds and thousands
of miles away from Jerusalem, captured prisoners and hospitable families alike constantly pointed to unfettered US support for Israel
and the plight of Palestinians when answering that naive and ubiquitous American question: "Why do they hate us?"
Heck, even
Gen. David
"Generational War" Petraeus , once found himself in
some hot water when
-- in a rare moment of candor -- he admitted that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception
of US favoritism for Israel." Translation: US policy toward Israel (and, no doubt, the foolhardy 2003 invasion of Iraq) make American
soldiers less safe.
So does the basic post-9/11 American policy of sovereignty violation and expansive military intervention whenever and wherever
Washington feels like it -- so long as it's in the name of fighting (you guessed it) "terrorism." So, which "liberals" are raising
hell and ringing the alarm bells for their constituents about Israeli occupation and America's strategic overreach? Sen. Klobuchar?
Hardly. She, and all but four Democrats, voted for
the latest bloated Pentagon budget with few questions asked. Almost as many Republicans voted against the bill. So, which is
the antiwar party these days? It's hard to know.
Besides, the Dems mustered fewer than 30 votes in support of the
Rand Paul amendment and
his modest call to repeal and replace America's outdated, vague Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). All Sen. Paul,
a libertarian Republican, wanted to do was force a vote -- in six months -- to revisit the AUMF. This wasn't radical stuff by any
means. The failure of Paul's amendment, when paired with the absolute dearth of Democratic dissent on contemporary foreign policy,
proves one thing conclusively: There is no longer an antiwar constituency in a major American political party. The two-party system
has failed what's left of the antiwar movement.
By no means is Amy Klobuchar alone in her forever-war complicity. Long before she graced the halls of the Senate, her prominent
precursors -- Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer (to name just a few) --
rubber-stamped a war of aggression in Iraq and
mostly acquiesced as one president after another (including Barack Obama) gradually expanded America's post-9/11 wars. When will
it end? No one knows, really, but so far, the US military has deployed advisers or commandos to
70 percent
of the world's countries and is actively
bombing at least seven . That's the problem with waging clandestine wars with professional soldiers while asking nothing of an
apathetic public: These conflicts tend to grow and grow, until, one day -- which passed long ago -- hardly anyone realizes we're
now at war with most everyone.
So where are the doves now? On the fringe, that's where. Screaming from the distant corners of the libertarian right and extreme
left. No one cares, no one is listening, and they can hardly get a hearing on either MSNBC or Fox. It's the one thing both networks
agree on: endless, unquestioned war. Hooray for 21st century bipartisanship.
Still, Americans deserve more from the Democrats, once (however briefly) the party of McGovern. These days, the Dems hate Trump
more than they like anything. To be a principled national party, they've got to be more than just anti-Trump. They need to provide
a substantive alternative and present a better foreign policy offer. How about a do-less strategy: For starters, some modesty and
prudent caution would go a long way.
George McGovern -- a true patriot, a man who knew war but loved peace -- wouldn't recognize the likes of Klobuchar, Clinton,
Schumer and company. He'd be rightfully embarrassed by their supplication to the national warfare state.
In 1972, McGovern's presidential campaign (as, to some extent, Bernie's did) reached out to impassioned youth in the "New
Left," and formed a rainbow coalition with African-Americans and other minority groups. His Democrats were no longer the party of
Cold War consensus, no longer the party of LBJ and Vietnam. No, McGovern's signature issue was peace, and opposition to that disastrous
war.
His campaign distributed pins and T-shirts bearing
white doves . Could you even imagine a mainstream Democrat getting within 1,000 meters of such a symbol today? Of course not.
Today's Dems are too frightened, fearful of being labeled "soft" (note the sexual innuendo) on "terror," and have thus ceded foreign
policy preeminence to the unhinged, uber-hawk Republicans. We live, today, with the results of that cowardly concession.
The thing about McGovern is that he lost the 1972 election, by a landslide. And maybe that's the point. Today's Democrats would
rather win than be right. Somewhere along the way, they lost their souls. Worse still, they aren't any good at winning, either.
Sure, they and everybody else "support the troops." Essentially, that means the Dems will at least fight for veterans' health
care and immigration rights when vets return from battle. That's admirable enough. What they won't countenance, or even consider,
is a more comprehensive, and ethical, solution: to end these aimless wars and stop making new veterans that need "saving."
Major Danny Sjursen, anAntiwar.comregular, is a U.S. Army
officer and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has written
a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War,Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians,
and the Myth of the Surge. He lives with his wife and four sons in Lawrence, Kansas. Follow him on Twitter at@SkepticalVetand check out his new podcast"Fortress on a Hill,"co-hosted with fellow vet Chris 'Henri' Henrikson.
[ Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an unofficial capacity, and do not reflect
the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]
"... Tyranny Comes Home: The Domestic Fate of U.S. Militarism, Christopher J. Coyne and Abigail R. Hall, Stanford University Press 2018, 280 pages ..."
Millennials and members of Generation Z have spent much of if not their entire lives at war.
As I've noted in these
pages and elsewhere , the
Afghan conflict is now in its 17th year, with
more than 6,000 days having gone by, making it the longest war in American history. I was
12 years old when that war began in 2001; I'm now a month out from my 29th birthday. Beginning
next year, the newly enlisted 18-year-olds who are deployed to Afghanistan will be younger than
the war they are fighting.
The Iraq war began in 2003, saw a major troop withdrawal in 2011, and then was re-escalated
by former President Obama in 2014. American forces remain there today to aid in the fight
against the Islamic State, despite an agreement
with the Iraqis that was supposed to begin a troop drawdown. An American-led regime change
intervention turned Libya into a failed state. And we have blanketed countries such as Pakistan
and Yemen with drone warfare, so much so that
drones now haunt their citizens' dreams . U.S. Special Forces were on
the ground conducting activities in 149 countries as of 2017.
This kind of foreign policy adventurism is hardly unique to the present day. America has
been aggressively deploying its military on foreign soil since the late 19th century. As
Stephen Kinzer shows in his book Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to
Iraq, we got our foot in the door of the regime change business all the way
back in 1893 with our acquisition of Hawaii.
Living in a post-9/11 world has shattered any inclination to view domestic life as separate
from and unaffected by foreign policy, particularly since the 2013 publication of classified
NSA documents leaked to the press by Edward Snowden. Snowden's revelations threw back the
curtain on an omnipresent surveillance apparatus under which very few aspects of our digital
lives were left unmonitored -- all in the name of national security and the global war on
terror.
The Snowden leaks demonstrate how an adventurous foreign policy can have negative
consequences for liberty at home. Now, political economists Christopher Coyne and Abigail Hall
have documented this phenomenon in their important new book, Tyranny Comes Home: The Domestic Fate of U.S. Militarism .
In their words, "coercive foreign intervention creates opportunities to develop and refine
methods and technologies of social control."
Coyne and Hall, economists at George Mason University and the University of Tampa
respectively, introduce a concept for understanding this phenomenon called the "boomerang
effect." It works like this: the constraints on the activities of the U.S. government in the
realm of foreign policy are generally weak, which enables those involved in foreign
interventions to engage in practices abroad that would meet some institutional resistance on
the home front. Eventually, though, interventions end, the interveners come home, and the
practices employed on foreign soil are imported for use against the domestic population.
This importation happens along three separate channels. First, there is the development of
human capital -- the skills, knowledge, and other characteristics that contribute to one's
productive capacity. All companies, organizations, and agencies have goals they seek to
accomplish, so they hire people with the right kind of human capital to execute said goals.
Foreign intervention is no different.
Among the characteristics necessary for interveners include extreme confidence in their
ability to solve complex problems in other countries, a sense of superiority and righteousness,
comfort with pushing the ethical envelope, limited compassion and sympathy for the targeted
population, and the association of state order with control. Interventionists, as Coyne and
Hall put it, treat "society as a grand science project that can be rationalized and improved on
by enlightened and well-intentioned engineers."
The second phase occurs when the interventionists come home. Some may retire, but many go to
work in various public- and private-sector jobs. The skills and mentalities that served them
well abroad don't disappear, so they begin employing their unique human capital domestically.
Those who land in the public sector are able to influence domestic policy, where they see
threats to liberty becoming manifest. Because of the relative lack of constraints when
operating in a foreign theater, tactics that would otherwise cross the line domestically are
seen as standard operating procedure.
Finally, physical capital plays a significant role in bringing methods of foreign
intervention back home. Technological innovation "allows governments to use lower-cost methods
of social control with a greater reach." The federal government spends billions annually on
research and development, which buys a variety of different capabilities. These technologies,
many originally intended for foreign populations, can be used domestically. One example the
authors point to are the surveillance methods originally used in the Iraq war that found their
way to the Baltimore Police Department for routine use.
The implication of the boomerang effect for policing doesn't end with surveillance. It can
also help explain police militarization, the origins of which lie in the foreign interventions
of the Progressive Era, specifically in the Philippines.
In the wake of the Spanish-American War, Spain ceded its colonial territories to the United
States. This led to the Philippine-American War, a bloody conflict
that directly and indirectly caused the deaths of 200,000 Filipino civilians, and which
ended in 1902.
As veterans returned home from the Philippines, many sought careers in law enforcement where
they were able to implement practices inspired by their days in the military. The effect of
this was to "establish precedents whereby military personnel and tactics not only would be
considered legitimate but welcomed" by police administrations. Police militarization wouldn't
kick into high gear until the latter half of the 20th century, with the introduction of SWAT
teams and the federalization of law enforcement during the LBJ and Nixon years. The men behind
the development of SWAT were veterans of the Vietnam War.
What ultimately creates the conditions for this boomerang effect to take place? One factor,
Coyne and Hall argue, is fear. Fear and crisis, both perceived and real, creates "space for
government to expand the scope of its powers and adopt the techniques of state-produced social
control that it has developed and honed abroad." Fear can lead people to seek assurances from
authorities, which goads them into tolerating and even demanding expansions of state powers --
powers that in less fearful times they would not accept.
Once accumulated, that power becomes a normal part of life, and isn't easily given up, as
the great economic historian Robert Higgs shows in his classic work Crisis and Leviathan . Anyone who has gone through airport
security over the last 17 years understands this, as the fear of terror attacks after 9/11 has
led to ratcheted up airline security measures by the TSA. This has resulted in some fairly
egregious violations of person and privacy, despite very
little evidence that they work.
Coyne's and Hall's book is a great, conceptually holistic investigation into how the state
can threaten our liberty. Economists regularly recognize the unintended consequences of
domestic policy; Coyne and Hall have explained the unintended consequences of foreign policy,
and their costs. It's particularly timely, as President Trump's tenure has seen decision-making
authority at the Pentagon pushed down the chain of command, leaving the United States'
war-making capabilities even less accountable and transparent. This book is an incisive
elucidation of what writer Randolph Bourne recognized a century ago and of which we could use a
perpetual reminder: war truly is the health of the state.
Jerrod A. Laber is a writer and Free Society Fellow with Young Voices. He is a
contributor to the Washington Examiner , and his work has appeared in Real Clear
Defense , Quillette , and the Columbus Dispatch , among others.
Journalists are always "soldiers of the party". You just need to understand what party.
Notable quotes:
"... 'Fair and balanced' was a mid-20th century marketing tool and really, a confabulation of the times. ..."
"... The great Joseph Pulitzer largely founded his namesake prize for the same motives as Alfred Nobel, when the latter tried to make up for the incalculable injuries and deaths caused by the explosives he invented by endowing a Peace Prize. Pulitzer was attempting to atone for the "yellow journalism" sins of his own papers -- and even more, those of his arch rival, William Randolph "Citizen Kane" Hearst -- when he launched the prize that bears his name. ..."
"... To put it bluntly, as Frances McDormand's professor-mother in Almost Famous might have said, "Objective Journalism" was as much a marketing tool as anything else. It took off not because news neutrality was always enshrined in American journalistic ethics, but because of how rare it actually was. ..."
"... the Ochs-Sulzbergers of New York, the Meyer-Grahams of Washington, and the Chandlers of Los Angeles -- made a conscious decision to brand their newspapers as being truly fair and balanced to differentiate them from the competition. ..."
"... And even then, "objectivity" only went as far as the eyes and ears of the beholder. ..."
"... National Review ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Whether it's MSNBC on the left or Fox News on the right, the editorial decisions of how to spin a piece, where and how often to broadcast it, what kind of panelists you invite to "debate" a story, which anchors should be promoted and which ones will forever remain mere worker bees -- all these decisions are anything but "objective" or "unbiased." ..."
'Fair and balanced' was a mid-20th century marketing tool and really, a confabulation of the times.
"The Yellow Press", by L. M. Glackens, portrays newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst as a jester distributing sensational stories
in 1910. (Library of Congress/Public Domain) What the Greatest, Silent, and Boomer generations always regarded as the ideal of "objective
journalism" was actually the exception, not the rule. That was true from the time of Gutenberg until that of Franklin Roosevelt.
The great Joseph Pulitzer largely founded his namesake prize for the same motives as Alfred Nobel, when the latter tried to
make up for the incalculable injuries and deaths caused by the explosives he invented by endowing a Peace Prize. Pulitzer was attempting
to atone for the "yellow journalism" sins of his own papers -- and even more, those of his arch rival, William Randolph "Citizen
Kane" Hearst -- when he launched the prize that bears his name.
And if Pulitzer repented of his past, Hearst never did -- he went full speed ahead well into the 1920s and beyond, normalizing
Nazi science,
openly endorsing eugenics and white superiority, and promoting "Birth of a Nation"-like racism against African Americans, Latinos,
and Native Americans. His dehumanizing attacks against so-called
sneaking and treacherous "Japs" and "Chinks" -- well before Pearl Harbor, the Korean War, and communist China -- were even uglier.
To put it bluntly, as Frances McDormand's professor-mother in Almost Famous might have said, "Objective Journalism"
was as much a marketing tool as anything else. It took off not because news neutrality was always enshrined in American journalistic
ethics, but because of how rare it actually was. High-minded notions of "fairness" and "objective journalism" came to
the print media largely because the visionary first families of the papers that finally succeeded the Hearsts and Pulitzers in clout
and cache -- the Ochs-Sulzbergers of New York, the Meyer-Grahams of Washington, and the Chandlers of Los Angeles -- made a conscious
decision to brand their newspapers as being truly fair and balanced to differentiate them from the competition.
Meanwhile, the broadcast media (which didn't exist until the rise of radio and "talking pictures" in the late 1920s, followed
by TV after World War II) labored under the New Deal's famed Fairness Doctrine.
And even then, "objectivity" only went as far as the eyes and ears of the beholder. The fairness flag was fraying when
Spiro Agnew and Pat Buchanan took "liberal media elites" to task a generation ago during the Vietnam and civil rights era, while
Tom Wolfe made good, unclean fun out of the "radical chic" conceits of Manhattan and Hollywood limousine liberals.
What today's controversies illustrate is that a so-called "Fairness Doctrine" and "objective" newspaper reporting could only have
existed in a conformist Mad Men world where societal norms of what was (and wasn't) acceptable in the postwar Great Society
operated by consensus. That is to say, an America where moderate, respectable, white male centrist Republicans like Thomas Dewey,
Dwight Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefeller, and Gerald Ford "debated" moderate, respectable, white male centrist Democrats like Harry
Truman, Adlai Stevenson, Hubert Humphrey, and Jimmy Carter.
Now contrast that with today. On November 25, the New York Times made a now-notorious attempt to
understand the Nazi next door,
running a profile of young suburban white supremacist, Tony Hovater. Transgender social media superstar Charlotte Clymer spoke for
her fellow liberals when she savagely satirized the Times with a
tweet-storm that included things like:
Bob is a vegan. He believes we should protect the environment. He likes "Big Bang Theory". He pays taxes. He served in the
military.
He's a serial killer who has tortured and murdered 14 people. He dissolved their bodies in acid at a remote site. He made
them beg for their lives as he tortured them.
He attends PTA meetings. He DVR's episodes of his wife's fave shows when she's late at work.
The moral of the fable being (as Miss Clymer put it): "Bob is a mass-murdering f***head. STOP GIVING BOB NUANCE!"
When the Times followed their neo-Nazi profile by turning an entire op-ed column over to Donald Trump supporters in mid-January,
the Resistance went to red alert. And after Ross Douthat penned a column in defense of (Jewish) anti-immigration hardliner Stephen
Miller on Holocaust Memorial Day in January,
they went full DEFCON.
"F*** you @nytimes for publishing this article on #HolocaustMemorialDay from me & from those in my family whose voices were silenced
during the Holocaust. Shame on you!" said Nadine Vander Velde on Twitter. London left-wing journalist Sarah Kendzior agreed that
"The NYT is now a white supremacist paper. The multiple Nazi puff pieces, constant pro-Trump PR, and praise for Miller on today of
all days is not exceptional – it's [now] the guiding ideology of the paper."
And the current furor over The Atlantic
's hiring of National Review firebrand Kevin D. Williamson only underscores that it isn't just campus leftists or Tea Partiers
who are hitting the censor button.
But revealingly, it wasn't just the usual left-wing snowflakes who have needed a trigger warning of late. Just six weeks into
the new year, the Washington Post and CNN ran a series of tabloidy, Inside Edition -style stories glamorizing Kim Yo-jong,
the sister of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. The Washington Post even went so far as to call Ms. Yo-jong North Korea's
answer to Ivanka Trump (just ignore the fact she is the DPRK's assistant head of the Ministry of Propaganda and Agitation). That
led Bethany Mandel of the New York Post to wonder
what
was up with all the "perverse fawning over brutal Kim Jong-un's sister at the Olympics?"
Additionally, some of the most provocative critiques of "journalistic objectivity" have come from liberal polemicists like Matt
Taibbi and Sam Adler-Bell, who argue that before we go on blathering about untrammeled First Amendment freedom and "objectivity,"
the first question that must be asked is who has the balance of power and whose hands are on deck in the editing room. (And they're
not wrong to ask that question -- it was the same one that Pat Buchanan asked 50 years ago and Ann Coulter asked 20 years ago from
the opposite side of the newsroom.)
Whether it's MSNBC on the left or Fox News on the right, the editorial decisions of how to spin a piece, where and how often
to broadcast it, what kind of panelists you invite to "debate" a story, which anchors should be promoted and which ones will forever
remain mere worker bees -- all these decisions are anything but "objective" or "unbiased."
Let's face it: the supposedly more civilized, serious ecosystem of the pre-social media past would come across to identity-conscious
Millennials today as nothing more than stale white bread dominated by stale white men. Even among the campus leftists who protest
and violently riot to shut down and silence "hate speech," most of them would probably rather live in a world where Steve Bannon
and Richard Spencer anchored the nightly news on one channel -- so long as there was a hijab-wearing Muslim or a transgendered man
on another, equally highly-rated one.
What would be totally unacceptable to today's young consumer is any kind of return to the mid-century world where "the
news" was whatever Ben Bradlee, Johnny Apple, Robert Novak, and The Chancellor/Brinkley Nightly News said it was -- in essence,
the world where Punch Sulzberger, Otis Chandler, Dan Rather, Peter Jennings, and Tom Brokaw white-mansplained "facts" through their
own elite establishment filters, de facto ignoring everyone else.
Meanwhile, the beat goes on. From the left, conservative Sinclair Media
is accused of "forcing" its local anchors to read "pro-Trump propaganda." The Nation stalwart Eric Alterman
says that "When one side is
fascist, there's no need to show Both Sides." As for the right -- just ask your Fox-watching or Limbaugh-listening friends and families
what they think of the "mainstream media," the "Communist News Network," or the "opinion cartel."
The great Joan Didion once said "We tell ourselves stories in order to live." Maybe "objective journalism" was always just a little
social white lie we in the media told ourselves to make ourselves feel better -- fairer, kinder, gentler, more "professional." But
if there's one lesson that Barack Obama, the Tea Party, Bernie Sanders, Antifa, Donald Trump, and the Great Recession have taught
us over the past decade, it isn't just that the mythical "center" will no longer hold. It's that there may no longer be a center
for any of us to hold on to.
Telly Davidson is the author of a new book on the politics and pop culture of the '90s,Culture War : How the 90's Made Us Who We Are Today (Like it Or Not). He has written on culture for ATTN, FrumForum, All About Jazz, FilmStew, and Guitar Player ,andworked
on the Emmy-nominated PBS series "Pioneers of Television."
For the time being, Trump's lack of impulse control and self-discipline may frustrate his
strongman tendencies at home, but that's cold comfort, given the damage he can do with U.S.
military might. In "the most powerful office in the world,"
impulsive, ignorant incompetence can be just as dangerous as sinister purpose -- but it
represents a different set of threats than the ones that most concern Frum.
"Trumpocracy has left Americans less safe against foreign dangers," Frum charges, by which
he seems to mean mainly Russian cybermeddling. He spends an order of magnitude more time on
that subject than on the foreign dangers Trump has gratuitously stoked with brinksmanship on
North Korea.
In the near term, what's to be most feared is the president lumbering into a major conflict
with either (or both?) of the two remaining "Axis
of Evil" members. Uncertain plans for a North Korean summit aside, that risk may be
increasing. As the New York Times 's Maggie Haberman recently explained , Trump "was
terrified of the job the first six months, and now feels like he has a command of it" -- a
terrifying thought in itself. Newly emboldened, the president wants unrepentant uber-hawks John
Bolton and Mike Pompeo for national security advisor and secretary of state, respectively. "Let
Trump be Trump" looks a lot like letting Trump be Bush-era Frum .
In fairness, Frum does seem queasy about all this, but he's
awkwardly positioned to sound the alarm. The author who declared that it's
"victory or holocaust" in the war on terror and lauded George W. Bush as The Right
Man may not be the right man to guide us through the particular dangers of this moment
in history.
We may yet avoid a disaster on the scale of the Iraq war, aided by what Frum terms "the
surge in civic spirit that has moved Americans since the ominous night of November 8, 2016" --
or God's special affection for fools, drunks, and the United States of America. Perhaps, in
hindsight, the Trump years will look more like a Great Beclowning than a Long National
Nightmare. If so, we may look back on this period and say, as "43" apparently did of Trump's
First Inaugural: "that was
some weird shit " -- and give thanks that Trump wasn't as competent as Bush.
The rule No.1: do not buy cheap routers. Do not use routers which are supplied for free by
your ISP. Buy only from proven companies with good security record. To use your own firewall (a
small linux server is OK) is a must in the current circumstances
There is no special value in Kaspersky anti-virus software. all such products can be used as
a backdoor in your computer (for example via update mechanism). Using complex and opaque software
actually makes Windows less secure not more secure. Periodic (say, daily) reinstallation from
trusted image is probably a better way, especially if Windows is really minimized and does not
contain third party software that has it's own update mechanisms or such mechanism are
blocked.
But attacks on routers is a new fashion and should be taken very seriously as most people pay
no attention to this crucial part of their business or home network. In any case a separate
firmware is needed after Internet router which now is not that expensive (a decent box can be
bought for around $300. For those who know Unix/Linux see for example Firewall Micro Appliance
or QOTOM
(both can be used of pfSense or your custom Linux solution) For those who don't see, for example,
Zyxel [USG40] ZyWALL (USG) UTM Firewall
Notable quotes:
"... Further findings suggest that Slingshot had common code with only two other known pieces of software, both malwares, which were attributed to the NSA and CIA, respectively, by analysts. Though various U.S. agencies are all denying comment, things are clearly pointing uncomfortably in their direction. ..."
"... Malware is not a precision munition, it hits wide targets and spreads out to bystanders. This is particularly disturbing to note if, as some reports are indicating, this malware was Pentagon in origin. ..."
Slingshot . The
malware targeted Latvian-made Internet routers popular in the
Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia.
Kaspersky's reports reveal that the malware had been active since at least 2012, and
speculates that it was government-made, owing to its sophistication and its use of novel
techniques rarely seen elsewhere.
Those investigating the matter further have drawn the conclusion that Slingshot was
developed by the U.S. government, with some reports quoting former
officials as connecting it to the Pentagon's JSOC special forces. For those following the
cyber security and malware sphere, this is a huge revelation, putting the U.S. government in
the hot seat for deploying cyber attacks that harm a much greater range of innocent users
beyond their intended targets.
Kaspersky's own findings note that the code was written in English, using a driver flaw to
allow the implanting of various types of spyware. Among those mentioned by Moscow-based
Kaspersky was an implant named "GOLLUM," which notably was mentioned in
one of the leaked Edward Snowden documents .
Further findings suggest that Slingshot had common code with only two other known pieces
of software, both malwares, which were attributed to the NSA and CIA, respectively, by
analysts. Though various U.S. agencies are all denying comment, things are clearly pointing
uncomfortably in their direction.
Cyberscoop
, one of the first news outlets to break the story, reported a mixed reaction among officials.
Some noted that Kaspersky Labs was simply doing what a security company is supposed to do.
Others, however, were less agreeable, suggesting it was an intentional attempt by Kaspersky to
undermine U.S. security.
The argument, as far as it goes, is that given the ostensible target areas -- the Middle
East, North Africa, Afghanistan -- Kaspersky should have concluded it was related to the War on
Terror and sat on their findings. The Trump administration already views Kaspersky as a sort of
hostile actor --
banning the use of Kaspersky products by any government or civilian federal contractor in
December, citing Kremlin influence (a charge that has been vehemently denied by the company).
This just gives them more justification for seeing Kaspersky as an adversary in the space.
Unfortunately for the Russian company, some American retailers have even followed suit,
pulling the software from the shelves on the grounds that it's Russian, and that therefore
suspect.
There has been no clear evidence that Kaspersky's software was serving as a backdoor for
Russian intelligence, though it was reported last fall that sensitive documents were stolen
from a National Security Agency (NSA) contractor's laptop via
its Kaspersky-made antivirus software . In a statement at the time, the company said,
"Kaspersky Lab has never helped, nor will help, any government in the world with its
cyberespionage efforts." Turns out that Israeli spies, spying on the Russian spies, disclosed
the intrusion to U.S. officials.
Kaspersky has consistently ranked near the top of antivirus ratings from virtually all
third-party reviewers. The company has sold its products to nearly 400 million users worldwide,
with 60 percent in the U.S. and Western Europe. Until now, Kaspersky was being used by several
major agencies in the federal government, including the State Department and Department of
Defense.
Ironically, this new Slingshot issue itself appears just to be a testament to how well the
company's security works at digging up extremely dangerous malware. It also underscores the
uneasy reality that the U.S. has been engaging in its own brand of cyber warfare all along.
Any claims that a specific piece of U.S. malware -- in this case, Slingshot -- was targeting
only al-Qaeda or ISIS bad guys is disingenuous as well. The exploit on routers is hitting an
entire region,
infecting an untold number of innocent people . Internet cafés are said to have been
hit in this, meaning everyone going into the cafes is at risk.
Malware is not a precision munition, it hits wide targets and spreads out to bystanders.
This is particularly disturbing to note if, as some reports are indicating, this malware was
Pentagon in origin.
U.S. civilian government surveillance is already doing great harm to general Internet
security, and does so by remaining in denial about the balance of good to harm that is being
done. The U.S. military, by contrast, has shown its willingness to inflict major harm on
innocents in pursuit of any war goal. As they start hitting regions with malware, all bets are
off on how far it will spread.
Security companies like Kaspersky Labs only afford the private user limited protection from
all of this malware, because they're constantly playing catch-up, finding new variants and new
exploits that the various pieces of software are using. Slingshot, for instance,
went undetected for six solid years .
The discovery means fixes can finally be implemented for the routers and the computers.
Novel exploits like this are rarely a one-time fix, however, as a slew of similar exploits from
other sources tend to crop up after one gets taken out. It's a never-ending battle.
In August, President Trump made U.S. Cyber Command
a formal military command , reflecting the growing view of the Internet as a military
objective. Much as America's other battlefields result in collateral damage on the ground, the
cyberwar is going to have a deleterious impact on day-to-day life in cyberspace. The big
questions are how bad things will get, and how quickly.
Jason Ditz is news editor at Antiwar.com , a nonprofit organization dedicated to the cause of
non-interventionism. In addition to TAC, his work has appeared in Forbes, Toronto Star,
Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Daily Caller, Washington Times and Detroit Free
Press.
"... Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, ..."
"... . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com. ..."
Consider. To cut through the Russophobia rampant here, Trump decided to make
a direct phone call to Vladimir Putin. And in that call, Trump, like Angela Merkel,
congratulated Putin on his re-election victory.
Instantly, the briefing paper for the president's call was leaked to the Post . In
bold letters it read "DO NOT CONGRATULATE."
Whereupon the Beltway went ballistic.
How could Trump congratulate Putin, whose election was a sham? Why did he not charge Putin
with the Salisbury poisoning? Why did he not denounce Putin for interfering with "our
democracy"?
Amazing. A disloyal White House staffer betrays his trust and leaks a confidential paper to
sabotage the foreign policy of a duly elected president, and he is celebrated in this capital
city.
If you wish to see the deep state at work, this is it: anti-Trump journalists using First
Amendment immunities to collude with and cover up the identities of bureaucratic snakes out to
damage or destroy a president they despise. No wonder democracy is a declining stock
worldwide.
And, yes, they give out Pulitzers for criminal collusion like this.
The New York Times got a Pulitzer and the Post got a Hollywood movie
starring Meryl Streep for publishing stolen secret papers from the Pentagon of JFK and LBJ --
to sabotage the Vietnam War policy of Richard Nixon.
Why? Because the hated Nixon was succeeding in extricating us with honor from a war that the
presidents for whom the Times and Post hauled water could not win or end.
Not only have journalists given up any pretense of neutrality in this campaign to bring down
the president, ex-national security officers of the highest rank are starting to sound like
resisters.
Ex-CIA director John Brennan openly speculated Tuesday that the president may have been
compromised by Moscow and become an asset of the Kremlin.
"I think he's afraid of the president of Russia," Brennan said of Trump and Putin. "The
Russians, I think, have had long experience with Mr. Trump and may have things they could
expose."
If Brennan has evidence Trump is compromised, he should relay it to Robert Mueller. If he
does not, this is speculation of an especially ugly variety for someone once entrusted with
America's highest secrets.
What's going on in this city is an American version of the "color revolutions" we have
employed to knock over governments in places like Georgia and Ukraine.
The goal is to break Trump's presidency, remove him, discredit his election as contaminated
by Kremlin collusion, upend the democratic verdict of 2016, and ash-can Trump's agenda of
populist conservatism. Then America can return to the open borders, free trade,
democracy-crusading Bushite globalism beloved by our Beltway elites.
Trump, in a way, is the indispensable man of the populist right.
In the 2016 primaries, no other Republican candidate shared his determination to secure the
border, bring back manufacturing, or end the endless wars in the Middle East that have so bled
and bankrupted our nation.
Whether the Assads rule in Damascus, the Chinese fortify Scarborough Shoal, or the Taliban
return to Kabul, none are existential threats to the United States.
But if the borders of our country are not secured, as Reagan warned, in a generation,
America will not even be a country.
Trump seems now to recognize that the special counsel's office of Robert Mueller, which this
city sees as the instrument of its deliverance, is a mortal threat to his presidency.
Mueller's team wishes to do to Trump what Archibald Cox's team sought to do to Nixon: drive
him out of office or set him up for the kill by a Democratic Congress in 2019.
Trump appears to recognize that the struggle with Mueller is now a political struggle -- to
the death.
Hence Trump's hiring of Joe diGenova and the departure of John Dowd from his legal team. In
the elegant phrase of Michael Corleone, diGenova is a wartime consigliere.
He believes Trump is the target of a conspiracy, under which Jim Comey's FBI put in the fix
to prevent Hillary's prosecution and then fabricated a crime of collusion with Russia to take
down the new president the American people had elected.
The Trump White House is behaving as if it were the prospective target of a coup d'etat. And
it is not wrong for them to think so.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, Nixon's White House Wars: The
Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever . To find out more
about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the
Creators website at www.creators.com.
First of all British did have the poison they detected. Otherwise they would be unable to
detect "Novichok" (if there was such substance and this is not just a myth).
Notable quotes:
"... Pat asks, Cui bono? I would say rogue players in the deep state right here in the US along with their brethren in the military/industrial/intelligence complex. ..."
"... Of course, that makes me a conspiracy theorist. But I actually saw war as a young man based upon lies. By the way, in the lead-up to the illegal invasion of Iraq, I told people at work that this war would eventually rival the military blunder in Vietnam. The propaganda reminded me so much of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. They all laughed at me and essentially said I was an old Vietnam veteran living in the past. They aren't laughing now. ..."
I served as a medical corpsman in Vietnam and ever since then I have been a card-carrying
skeptic of my own country. But I saw the human face of a war based upon lies and propaganda
that became the worst foreign policy debacle in our nation's history. If we would get into a
shooting war over this affair, we would have to bring back the draft to prosecute this war
against Russia. Then the proverbial "merde" would definitely hit the fan.
And when Kim Sung Un assassinated his half-brother in Malaysia, the VX nerve agent was used.
The UK invented this agent in the 1950s at its government laboratory. But not one nation blamed
Great Britain as the culprit.
Pat asks, Cui bono? I would say rogue players in the deep state right here in the US
along with their brethren in the military/industrial/intelligence complex.
Of course, that makes me a conspiracy theorist. But I actually saw war as a young man
based upon lies. By the way, in the lead-up to the illegal invasion of Iraq, I told people at
work that this war would eventually rival the military blunder in Vietnam. The propaganda
reminded me so much of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. They all laughed at me and essentially
said I was an old Vietnam veteran living in the past. They aren't laughing now.
"... It says that the United States is always virtuous even when it tortures, when it bombs towns, villages, cities in the name of "freedom or installs dictators, military governments, trains torturers, and, yes, rapes and loots in the name of "democracy." ..."
American Exceptionalism is perhaps the most toxic ideology since Nazism and Stalinism. It says that the United States is
always virtuous even when it tortures, when it bombs towns, villages, cities in the name of "freedom or installs dictators,
military governments, trains torturers, and, yes, rapes and loots in the name of "democracy."
At least this appointment along with the election of Trump shows the true face of the
United States in international affairs. When we face the fact we are (a) an oligarchy and (b)
a brutal Empire we might have a chance to return to something more human. Few readers, even
of TAC, will want to look at our recent history of stunning brutality and lack of interest in
even being in the neighborhood of following international law.
The Secretary of Defense has
written to Congressional leaders to express his opposition to S.J.Res. 54, the resolution
that would end U.S. involvement in the war on Yemen:
In a letter sent to congressional leaders Wednesday and obtained by The Washington Post,
Mattis wrote that restricting military support the United States is providing to the
Saudi-led coalition "could increase civilian casualties, jeopardize cooperation with our
partners on counterterrorism, and reduce our influence with the Saudis -- all of which would
further exacerbate the situation and humanitarian crisis."
He urged Congress not to impose restrictions on the "noncombat," "limited U.S. military
support" being provided to Saudi Arabia, which is "engaging in operations in its legitimate
exercise of self-defense."
The Pentagon has been putting forward very weak legal
arguments against S.J.Res. 54, and Mattis'
statement of the policy arguments against the resolution are not any better. The Saudi-led
coalition would have great difficulty continuing their war without U.S. military assistance.
U.S. refueling allows coalition planes to carry out more attacks than they otherwise could, so
it is extremely unlikely that ending it could possibly result in more civilian casualties than
the bombing campaign causes now. Mattis is taking for granted that U.S. military assistance
somehow makes coalition bombing more accurate and less likely to result in civilian casualties,
but that is hard to credit when coalition forces routinely target civilian structures on
purpose and when the military
admits that it doesn't keep track of what happens after it refuels coalition planes.
Secretary Mattis says that cutting off support could jeopardize cooperation on
counter-terrorism, but the flip side of this is that continuing to enable the Saudi-led war
creates the conditions for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the local ISIS affiliate to
flourish. The coalition's war has made AQAP stronger than it was before, and AQAP members have
sometimes even fought alongside coalition forces on the ground. Instead of worrying about
whether the U.S. is jeopardizing cooperation with these states, we should be asking whether
that cooperation is worth very much in Yemen.
He claims that the Saudis and their allies are engaged in "a legitimate exercise of
self-defense," and this is simply not true. The Saudis and their allies were not attacked and
were not threatened with attack prior to their intervention. Saudi territory now comes under
attack because the coalition has been bombing Yemen for years, but that doesn't make continuing
the war self-defense. If an aggressor launches an attack against a neighboring country, it is
the neighbor that is engaged in self-defense against the state(s) attacking them.
Mattis also warns that ending support for the Saudi-led coalition would have other
undesirable consequences:
As Mattis put it in his letter to congressional leaders Wednesday, "withdrawing U.S.
support would embolden Iran to increase its support to the Houthis, enabling further
ballistic missile strikes on Saudi Arabia and threatening vital shipping lanes in the Red
Sea, thereby raising the risk of a regional conflict."
These claims also don't hold water. Iranian support for the Houthis remains limited, but it
has increased as a direct result of the war. The longer that the war goes on, the greater the
incentive the Houthis and Iran will have to cooperate. The absurdity of this intervention is
that it was dishonestly sold as a war against Iranian "expansionism" and yet it has done more
to aid Iran than anything Iran's government could have done on its own. Missile strikes on
Saudi Arabia wouldn't be happening if the Saudis and their allies weren't regularly bombing
Yemeni cities. If the coalition halted its bombing, the missile strikes would almost certainly
cease as well. Continuing the war is a guarantee that those attacks will continue, and U.S.
military assistance ensures that the war will continue. Every reason Mattis gives here for
continuing U.S. support for the war is actually a reason to end it.
Shipping lanes weren't threatened before the intervention and won't be threatened after it
ends. Yemenis have every incentive to leave shipping lanes alone, since these are their
country's lifeline. Meanwhile, the cruel coalition blockade is slowly starving millions of
Yemenis to death by keeping out essential commercial goods from the main ports that serve the
vast majority of the population. Mattis is warning about potential threats to shipping from
Yemen while completely ignoring that the main cause of the humanitarian disaster is the
interruption of commercial shipping into Yemen by the Saudi-led blockade. The regional conflict
that Mattis warns about is already here. It is called the Saudi-led war on Yemen. If one wants
to prevent the region from being destabilized further, one would want to put an end to that war
as quickly as possible.
Mattis mentions that the U.S. role in the war is a "noncombat" and "limited" one, but for
the purposes of the debate on Sanders-Lee resolution that is irrelevant. It doesn't matter that
the military assistance the U.S. is providing doesn't put Americans in combat. That is not the
only way that U.S. forces can be introduced into hostilities. According to the War Powers Resolution
, the U.S. has introduced its armed forces into hostilities under these circumstances:
For purposes of this joint resolution, the term "introduction of United States Armed
Forces" includes the assignment of member of such armed forces to command, coordinate,
participate in the movement of, or accompany [bold mine-DL] the regular or irregular military
forces of any foreign country or government when such military forces are engaged, or there
exists an imminent threat that such forces will become engaged, in hostilities.
Any fair reading of this definition has to apply to the regular U.S. refueling of coalition
planes that are engaged in an ongoing bombing campaign. The U.S. is obviously participating in
the "movement" of coalition forces when it provides their planes with fuel. Indeed, our forces
are making the movement of their forces possible through refueling. U.S. involvement in the war
on Yemen clearly counts as introducing U.S. forces into hostilities under the WPR, and neither
administration has sought or received authorization to do this. No president is permitted to do
this unless there is "(1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a
national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or
its armed forces." There has obviously been no action from Congress that authorizes this, and
there is certainly no emergency or attack that justifies it. U.S. involvement in the war on
Yemen is illegal, and the Senate should pass S.J.Res. 54 to end it.
"Mattis wrote that restricting military support the United States is providing to the
Saudi-led coalition "could increase civilian casualties, jeopardize cooperation with our
partners on counterterrorism, and reduce our influence with the Saudis -- all of which would
further exacerbate the situation and humanitarian crisis.""
Wow. So MBS is blackmailing us. He's threatening to kill more civilians, to stop
anti-terror cooperation, and to shut us out of other Saudi regional security decisions if we
don't help him starve and wreck Yemen.
Maybe the situation is a little clearer, but how can anyone take Trump seriously after
this embarrassing confession by Mattis?
We may assume that Trump has no self-respect, but doesn't he have any respect for his
office? Is he really going to let this disgusting little torture freak jerk him around like
this? When it implicates all Americans in Saudi war crimes?
Re: "Mattis' Weak Case for Supporting the War on Yemen"
Unfortunately, in this day of warped Military Exceptionalism as the civic religion, a
4-Star pedigree fronting weak arguments makes them essentially unassailable. No matter how
immoral, idiotic or costly to the taxpayers.
Mad Dog Mattis got a free ride with his logically incoherent, hyper-belligerent
pronouncements related to the National Security Strategy. Expect no different response to his
perverse rationalizations of the Yemen catastrophe.
Generals and Admirals now pop off stupid and dangerous opinions right and left and are
never challenged by an MSM that is bedazzled by anyone wearing stars on their shoulders.
Mattis' case for Yemen is not only weak, it's pathetic. Too bad the co-opted and seduced
MSM will never suggest that to the public at large deluded by the omnipresent propaganda of
the National Security State.
Nothing will change until the undeserved fawning adoration of the War Machine Elite is
substantially attenuated.
The neocons will stop at nothing to bring down anyone they suspect of threatening Israel or
U.S. military hegemony in the Middle East.
First, they lied about WMDs in Iraq and started a completely illegal war, killing millions
and devastating that country for generations. That led directly to the creation of ISIS and
the havoc it has wrought on both Iraq and Syria (and increasingly in other countries).
Then under Obama and Sec. Clinton, they allowed the military takeover of Egypt by the
murderous and oppressive El-Sisi and launched an aggressive war of regime change in Libya,
throwing both North African countries into turmoil.
Then they supported the brutal and savage ongoing Saudi war against Yemen to curb
non-existent Iranian influence, followed by politically isolating Qatar for its supposed
chumminess with Iran.
The neocons will do absolutely anything to bring down the Iranian regime, no matter how
many foreign and American lives and destroyed to achieve that end.
The details of Mattis' letter of indulgence do not matter as much as the fact that he is
willing to defend the indefensible. Even if his professed concerns were not only genuine, but
actually reflected reality, he also has to know better than anybody else within the
administration about the consequences of the US-backed Saudi/UAE invasion of Yemen.
Mattis has joined Graham and Albright in the "worth it" campaign to sustain and extend
perfectly predictable atrocities.
If he wants to make the case that we cannot accept uncertainty with respect to an alleged
Iranian aggression towards Saudi Arabia – and with even more unlikely acquiescence by
the Houthi to let Iran use them the way the US uses the Kurds – or even assuming that
Mattis wants to misrepresent possible Houthi blowback against Saudi Arabia as "Iranian" just
for convenience – then it should be clear that he is claimng we can easily accept
uncertainty with respect to Yemeni blowback against the US – blowback that he also uses
to justify the US campaign inside Yemen, and that fueled Obama's pathological obsession with
ideological cleansing in Yemen and other prospective "safe harbors".
Mattis is proving the validity of the actual Powell Doctrine – if you join it, you
own it – both with respect to US co-belligerence in Yemen, and with respect to Mattis
personally. He is also proving the observation that anybody who is willing to join an
administration as criminal as that of Bush, Obama or Trump is unlikely to do any good –
by their voluntary association they have irredeemably tainted themselves.
We do not want to get in the middle of this Sunni vs. Shiite war. The Saudis want to destroy
the Shiites in Yemen and we are fools at best and criminals at worst to help them. The people
of Yemen are no threat to the US and for theAmerican Government to cooperate with the Saudis
in the murderof Yemeni women and children is revolting.
Americans have heard for years that supporting "democracy" and popular uprisings throughout
the Middle East are in our national interests, the basis being that oppressed people are more
likely to resort to terrorism.
Yet in the cases of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and now Yemen popular revolutions of Shias
demanding equal rights are actually deemed a threat to our national security.
The neocons have gotten so deep in the Gulf/Israel v. Iran conflict that they're not even
keeping to the ostensible reasons for interventionism.
"All my life I have been fighting against the spirit of narrowness and violence,
arrogance, intolerance in its absolute, merciless consistency. I have also worked to
overcome this spirit with its evil consequences, such as nationalism in excess, racial
persecution, and materialism. In regards to this, the National Socialists are correct in
killing me.
I have striven to make its consequences milder for its victims and to prepare the way for
a change. In that, my conscience drove me – and in the end, that is a man's duty."
Helmuth James Graf von Moltke,
Executed in Plötzensee Prison on 23 January 1945
"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to
speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
Executed in Flossenbürg Camp on 9 April 1945
As journalist activist Carl von Ossietzky put it, 'we cannot hope to affect the conscience of
the world when our own conscience is asleep.'
Heroic virtue shines across the vast seas of history like beacons to those in the troubled
waters of general deception.
"... We are at a dangerous crossroads in our history. ..."
"... The dangers of a Third World War are routinely obfuscated by the media. A world of fantasy permeates the mainstream media which tacitly upholds the conduct of nuclear war as a peace-making endeavor. ..."
"... "Fake News" has become "Real News". ..."
"... And "Real News" by the independent online media is now tagged as Russian propaganda. ..."
"... In turn, the independent media (including Global Research) is the object of censorship via the search engines and social media. ..."
"... What we are dealing with is a War against the Truth. Objective reporting on the dangers of a Third World war is being suppressed. Why? ..."
"... The future of humanity is at stake. The danger of nuclear annihilation is not front-page news. ..."
"... The unfolding consensus among Pentagon war planners is that a Third World War is "Winnable". ..."
"... Concepts are turned upside down. Political insanity prevails. ..."
"... Author's note: the later part of this article entitled The Road Ahead was first formulated in 2010. ..."
The dangers of a Third World War are routinely obfuscated by the media. A world of
fantasy permeates the mainstream media which tacitly upholds the conduct of nuclear war as a
peace-making endeavor.
World War III is terminal. Albert Einstein understood the perils of nuclear war and the
extinction of life on earth, which has already started with the radioactive contamination
resulting from depleted uranium, not to mention Fukushima.
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be
fought with sticks and stones."
The media, the intellectuals, the scientists and the politicians, in chorus, obfuscate the
untold truth, namely that war using nuclear warheads destroys humanity.
"Fake News" has become "Real News".
And "Real News" by the independent online media is now tagged as Russian
propaganda.
In turn, the independent media (including Global Research) is the object of censorship
via the search engines and social media.
What we are dealing with is a War against the Truth. Objective reporting on the dangers
of a Third World war is being suppressed. Why?
The future of humanity is at stake. The danger of nuclear annihilation is not front-page
news.
The unfolding consensus among Pentagon war planners is that a Third World War is
"Winnable".
Nuclear War as an "Instrument of Peace"
Concepts are turned upside down. Political insanity prevails.
A diabolical discourse is unfolding. The so-called "more usable" tactical nuclear weapons
(B61-11, B61-12) with an explosive capacity between one third and twelve times a Hiroshima bomb
are heralded (by scientific opinion on contract to the Pentagon) as "peace-making" bombs,
"harmless to the surrounding civilian population because the explosion is underground".
These are the weapons which are contemplated for use against North Korea (or Iran) in what
is described by the Pentagon as "a bloody nose operation", with limited civilian casualties.
And the corporate media applauds.
Fake News : these nuclear bombs are WMD. The "Bloody Nose" ("safe for civilians") Concept is
"Fake News"
Lest we forget, when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima (see image below),
100,000 people died within the first seven seconds following the explosion. Needless to say,
today's nuclear weapons are far more advanced than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in
August 1945.
When war becomes peace, the world is turned upside down. Conceptualization is no longer
possible. Insanity prevails. The institutions of government are criminalized and so is the
media.
The Pentagon and NATO are beating the drums of war. What is at stake is a Worldwide media
disinformation campaign in support of a Third World War, which almost inevitably would lead to
nuclear annihilation.
In the words of Fidel Castro: " In a nuclear war the "collateral damage" would be the life
of all humanity".
"The use of nuclear weapons in a new war would mean the end of humanity.
Today there is an imminent risk of war with the use of that kind of weapon and I don't
harbour the least doubt t hat an attack by the United States and Israel against the Islamic
Republic of Iran would inevitably evolve towards a global nuclear conflict.
There would be "collateral damage", as the American political and military leaders always
affirm, to justify the deaths of innocent people.
In a nuclear war the "collateral damage" would be the life of all humanity.
Let us have the courage to proclaim that all nuclear or conventional weapons, everything
that is used to make war, must disappear!" ( Complete text and video
recording , October 2010 Interview with Fidel Castro by Michel Chossudovsky)
When the lie becomes the truth there is no turning backwards.
When war is upheld as a humanitarian endeavor endorsed by the self proclaimed international
community, pacifism and the antiwar movement are criminalized. yet it should be noted that in
the course of the last 15 years, the anti-war movement has largely become defunct, civil
society organizations have been coopted.
How do we reverse the tide: a cohesive grassroots counter-propaganda campaign
The Road Ahead
There are no easy solutions. What is required is t he development of a broad based
grassroots network which seeks to disable patterns of authority and decision making pertaining
to war. This is by no means an easy and straightforward undertaking.
This network would be established nationally and internationally at all levels in society,
towns and villages, work places, parishes. Trade unions, farmers organizations, professional
associations, business associations, student unions, veterans associations, church groups would
be called upon to integrate the antiwar organizational structure. Of crucial importance, this
movement should extend into the Armed Forces as a means to breaking the legitimacy of war among
service men and women.
The first task would be to disable war propaganda through an effective campaign against
media disinformation. (including support of the online independent and alternative media).
The corporate media would be directly challenged, leading to boycotts of major news outlets,
which are responsible for channelling disinformation into the news chain. This endeavor would
require a parallel process at the grass roots level, of sensitizing and educating fellow
citizens on the nature of the war and the global crisis, as well as effectively "spreading the
word" through advanced networking, through alternative media outlets on the internet, etc. It
would also require a broad based campaign against the search engines involved in media
censorship on behalf of the Pentagon.
The creation of such a movement, which forcefully challenges the legitimacy of the
structures of political authority, is no easy task. It would require a degree of solidarity,
unity and commitment unparalleled in World history. It would require breaking down political
and ideological barriers within society and acting with a single voice . It would also require
eventually unseating the war criminals, and indicting them for war crimes.
Abandon the Battlefield: Refuse to Fight
The military oath taken at the time of induction demands unbending support and allegiance to
the US Constitution, while also demanding that US troops obey orders from their President and
Commander in Chief:
"I,____________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the
Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear
true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of
the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the
regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God"
The President and Commander in Chief has blatantly violated all tenets of domestic and
international law. So that making an oath to "obey orders from the President" is tantamount to
violating rather than defending the US Constitution.
"The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) 809.ART.90 (20), makes it clear that military
personnel need to obey the "lawful command of his superior officer," 891.ART.91 (2), the
"lawful order of a warrant officer", 892.ART.92 (1) the "lawful general order", 892.ART.92
(2) "lawful order". In each case, military personnel have an obligation and a duty to only
obey Lawful orders and indeed have an obligation to disobey Unlawful orders, including orders
by the president that do not comply with the UCMJ. The moral and legal obligation is to the
U.S. Constitution and not to those who would issue unlawful orders, especially if those
orders are in direct violation of the Constitution and the UCMJ." (Lawrence Mosqueda, An
Advisory to US Troops A Duty to Disobey All Unlawful Orders,
The Commander in Chief is a war criminal. According to Principle 6 of the Nuremberg
Charter:
"The fact that a person [e.g. Coalition troops] acted pursuant to order of his Government
or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a
moral choice was in fact possible to him."
Let us make that "moral choice" possible, to enlisted American, British, Canadian and
US-NATO Coalition servicemen and women.
Disobey unlawful orders! Abandon the battlefield! Refuse to fight in a war which blatantly
violates international law and the US Constitution!
But this is not a choice which enlisted men and women can make individually.
It is a collective and societal choice, which requires an organizational structure.
Across the land in the US, Britain, Canada and in all coalition countries, the new anti-war
movement must assist enlisted men and women to make that moral choice possible, to abandon the
battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now in Syria and Yemen.
This will not be an easy task. Committees at local levels must be set up across the United
States, Canada, Britain, Italy, Japan and other countries, which have troops engaged in US led
military operations.
We call upon veterans' associations and local communities to support this process.
This movement needs to dismantle the disinformation campaign. It must effectively reverse
the indoctrination of coalition troops, who are led to believe that they are fighting "a just
war": "a war against terrorists", a war against the Russians, who are threatening the security
of America.
The legitimacy of the US military authority must be broken.
What has to be achieved:
Reveal the criminal nature of this military project,
Break once and for all the lies and falsehoods which sustain the "political consensus" in
favor of a pre-emptive nuclear war.
Undermine war propaganda, reveal the media lies, reverse the tide of disinformation, wage
a consistent campaign against the corporate media
Break the legitimacy of the war-mongers in high office.
Dismantle the US sponsored military adventure and its corporate sponsors.
Bring Home the Troops
Repeal the illusion that the State is committed to protecting its citizens.
Expose the "fake crises" such as the global flu pandemic as a means to distract public
opinion from the dangers of a global war.
Uphold 9/11 Truth. Reveal the falsehoods behind 9/11 which are used to justify the Middle
East Central Asian war under the banner of the "Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT)
Expose how a profit driven war serves the vested interests of the banks, the defense
contractors, the oil giants, the media giants and the biotech conglomerates
Challenge the corporate media which deliberately obfuscates the causes and consequences
of this war,
Reveal and take cognizance of the unspoken and tragic outcome of a war waged with nuclear
weapons.
Call for the Dismantling of NATO
Implement the prosecution of war criminals in high office
Close down the weapons assembly plants and implement the foreclosure of major weapons
producers
Close down all US military bases in the US and around the World
Develop an antiwar movement within the Armed Forces and establish bridges between the
Armed Forces and the civilian antiwar movement
Forcefully pressure governments of both NATO and non-NATO countries to withdraw from the
US led global military agenda.
Develop a consistent antiwar movement in Israel. Inform the citizens of Israel of the
likely consequences of a US-NATO-Israeli attack on Iran.
Confront Target the pro-war lobby groups including the pro-Israeli groups in the US
Dismantle the homeland security state, call for the repeal of the PATRIOT
legislation
Call for the removal of the military from civilian law enforcement. Call for the
enforcement of the Posse Comitatus Act
Call for the demilitarization of outer space and the repeal of Star Wars
People across the land, nationally and internationally, must mobilize against this
diabolical military agenda, the authority of the State and its officials must be forcefully
challenged.
This war can be prevented if people forcefully confront their governments, pressure their
elected representatives, organize at the local level in towns, villages and municipalities,
spread the word, inform their fellow citizens on the implications of a nuclear war, initiate
debate and discussion within the armed forces.
What is required is the development of a broad and well organized grassroots antiwar network
which challenges the structures of power and authority, the nature of the economic system, the
vast amounts of money used to fund the war, the shear size of the so-called defense
industry.
What is required is a mass movement of people which forcefully challenges the legitimacy of
war, a global people's movement which criminalizes war.
What is needed is to break the conspiracy of silence, expose the media lies and
distortions, confront the criminal nature of the US Administration and of those governments
which support it, its war agenda as well as its so-called "Homeland Security agenda" which has
already defined the contours of a police State.
The World is at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. The US has
embarked on a military adventure, "a long war", which threatens the future of humanity.
It is essential to bring the US war project to the forefront of political debate,
particularly in North America and Western Europe. Political and military leaders who are
opposed to the war must take a firm stance, from within their respective institutions. Citizens
must take a stance individually and collectively against war.
We call upon people across the land, in North America, Western Europe, Israel, The Arab
World, Turkey and around the world to rise up against this military project, against their
governments which are supportive of US-NATO led wars, against the corporate media which serves
to camouflage the devastating impacts of modern warfare.
The military agenda supports a profit driven destructive global economic system which
impoverishes large sectors of the world population.
This war is sheer madness.
The Lie must be exposed for what it is and what it does.
It sanctions the indiscriminate killing of men, women and children.
It destroys families and people. It destroys the commitment of people towards their fellow
human beings.
It prevents people from expressing their solidarity for those who suffer. It upholds war and
the police state as the sole avenue.
It destroys both nationalism and internationalism.
Breaking the lie means breaking a criminal project of global destruction, in which the quest
for profit is the overriding force.
This profit driven military agenda destroys human values and transforms people into
unconscious zombies.
Let us reverse the tide.
Challenge the war criminals in high office and the powerful corporate lobby groups which
support them.
Break the American inquisition.
Undermine the US-NATO-Israel military crusade.
Close down the weapons factories and the military bases.
Bring home the troops.
Members of the armed forces should disobey orders and refuse to participate in a criminal
war.
"... Jones proceeds to suggest the Tuesday hearing is an important step in the effort to wake up Americans who will spread the word that Congress is "brain dead" concerning its constitutional responsibility in regard to war. ..."
According to the Congressional Research Service, the 2001 AUMF has been cited as statutory
authority for unclassified military or related actions at least 41 times in 18 countries. Both
President George W. Bush and President Obama used it, and now President Trump is following the
same path.
That is a portion of the cogent analysis Reps Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Justin Amash
(R-MI) offer in their Wednesday The Hill editorial explaining why they support repealing the AUMF
that has facilitated members of the United States Congress abdicating their authority over US
wars and three presidents exercising unrestrained use of military force abroad. The editorial
came the day after Lee and Amash
hosted a joint hearing of the United States House of Representatives Progressive Caucus and
Liberty Caucus focused on exploring repealing the AUMF.
Watch here the Progressive
Caucus and Liberty Caucus' fascinating hearing. The hearing includes testimony of Michael
McPhearson from Veterans from Peace, Daniel L. Davis from Defense Priorities, and Rita Siemion
from Human Rights First, as well as statements and questions from Reps. Lee, Amash, Walter Jones
(R-NC), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), Thomas Massie (R-NC), Jan Schakowski (D-IL), Jim Jordan
(R-OH). Mark Sanford (R-SC), Warren Davidson (R-OH), Jim McGovern (D-MA), and Dave Brat
(R-VA).
We'll see if the bipartisan movement in the House for a repeal of the 2001 AUMF ultimately
gains enough support to force a debate and vote on the House floor. Over the years, House Speaker
Paul Ryan (R-WI) and his predecessor
John Boehner (R-OH) have ducked their constitutional responsibility by withstanding pressure
from members to hold such a debate and vote.
During the hearing, Jones frankly addressed Ryan and Boehner's responsibility for preventing a
House floor debate and vote on the AUMF. "The one man blocking this debate is Paul Ryan,"
declared Jones. Jones elaborates:
The speaker of the House has the authority to order the committees of jurisdiction to mark up a
new AUMF. We have written letters individually and also in a bipartisan way; we still have not
had a debate. We started that request under John Boehner -- no debate.
Jones proceeds to suggest the Tuesday hearing is an important step in the effort to wake
up Americans who will spread the word that Congress is "brain dead" concerning its constitutional
responsibility in regard to war.
Jones and Massie are members of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Advisory
Board.
Republicans have revealed that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) treats
Americans not as citizens, but as subjects to spy on. I'd expect nothing less from a Court
created and perpetuated by George W. Bush and his Republicans.
But, what do you know? Following Barack Obama's lead, President Donald Trump and his
Republicans have renewed FISA Section 702, which, in fact, has facilitated the usurpations the
same representatives are currently denouncing.
Also in contravention of a quaint constitutional relic called the Fourth Amendment is
Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Mueller has taken possession of "many tens of thousands of
emails from President Donald Trump's transition team." There is no limit, seemingly, to the
power of the special counsel.
Look, we're living in a post-Constitutional
America. Complaints about the damage done to our "democracy" by outsiders are worse than
silly. Such damage pales compared to what we Americans have done to a compact rooted in the
consent of the governed and the drastically limited and delimited powers of those who
govern.
In other words, a republic. Ours was never a country conceived as a democracy.
To arrive at a democracy, we Americans destroyed a republic.
The destruction is on display daily.
Pray tell where-oh-where in the US Constitution does it say that anyone crossing over into
the US may demand and get an abortion? But apparently, this is settled law -- a universally
upheld right, irrespective of whose property and territory it impinges.
The only aspect our clodhopper media -- left and right -- deign to debate in such
abortion-tourism cases is the interloper's global reproductive rights. So, if abortion is a
service Americans must render to the world, why not the right to a colonoscopy or a
facelift?
Cannabis: The reason it's notin the Constitution is because letting states and
individuals decide is in the Constitution. That thing of beauty is called the Tenth
Amendment:
" The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it
to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
That's right. In American federalism, the rights of the individual were meant to be secured
through strict limits imposed on the power of the central government by a Bill of Rights and
the division of authority between autonomous states and a federal government. Yet on cannabis,
the meager constitutional devolution of power away from the Federales and to states
and individuals Republicans have reversed. Some are even prattling about a constitutional
cannabis amendment, as if there's a need for further "constitutional" centralization of
authority.
After 230 years of just such "constitutional" consolidation, it's safe to say that the
original Constitution is a dead letter; that the natural- and common law traditions, once
lodestars for lawmakers, have been buried under the rubble of legislation and statute that
would fill an entire building floor. However much one shovels the muck of lawmaking aside,
natural justice and the Founders' original intent remain buried too deep to exhume.
Consider: America's Constitution makers bequeathed a central government of delegated and
enumerated powers. The Constitution gives Congress only some eighteen specific legislative
powers. Nowhere among these powers is Social Security, civil rights (predicated as they are on
grotesque violations of property rights), Medicare, Medicaid, and the elaborate public works
sprung from the General Welfare and Interstate Commerce Clauses.
The welfare clause stipulates that "Congress will have the power to provide for the general
welfare." And even though the general clause is followed by a detailed enumeration of the
limited powers so delegated; our overlords, over decades of dirigisme , have taken Article I,
Section 8 to mean that government can pick The People's pockets for any perceivable purpose and
project. Witness a judiciary of scurrilous statists that had even found in the Constitution a
mandate to compel commerce by forcing individual Americans to purchase health insurance on
pains of a fine, an act of force President Trump has mercifully repealed.
A few more observations, with which Ms. Mercer should agree:
The invertebrate Congress has been a weak link in the Constitutional system, deferring in
the last 50 years to the judiciary in matters of domestic policy and to the executive in
matters of foreign policy, most obviously war.
Turning the Constitution into a mystical, living document speaking through robed priests
has served to trash it.
The loss of the States' authority was gradual, but amending the Constitution to have
voters directly elect senators looks in retrospect like a key step in the national
government's arrogation of authority.
The world's gaudiest whorehouse is also wide open for business with foreign interests. And
why not? If Uncle Sam is trying to run the world, then shouldn't everyone in the Empire be
allowed to participate in the democracy?
" treats Americans not as citizens, but as subjects to spy on."
To be correct, the US government considers its subjects to be chattels property. For my
part, the US is my crazy ex-girlfriend, who always wants to know where I'm going, who I'm
seeing, what I'm doing, and who annually wants a full accounting of every Dollar, Pound, Euro
and ounce I earn, spend or hold.
"... Bannon is almost universally loathed by the Washington press corps, and not just for his politics. When he was the CEO of the pro-Trump Breitbart website, he competed with traditional media outlets, and he has often mercilessly attacked and ridiculed them. ..."
"... The animosity towards Bannon reached new heights last month, when he incautiously told the New York Times that "the media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while." He also said the media was "the opposition party" to the Trump administration. To the Washington media, those are truly fighting words. ..."
"... Bannon's comments were outrageous, but they are hardly new. In 2009, President Obama's White House communications director, Anita Dunn, sought to restrict Fox News' access to the White House. She even said, "We're going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent." The media's outrage over that remark was restrained, to say the least. ..."
"... Reporters and pundits are also stepping up the effort to portray Bannon as the puppet master in the White House. Last week, MSNBC's Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski said, "Legitimate media are getting word that Steve Bannon is the last guy in the room, in the evening especially, and he's pulling the strings." Her co-host, Joe Scarborough, agreed that Bannon's role should be "investigated." ..."
"... I'm all for figuring out who the powers behind the curtain are in the White House, but we saw precious little interest in that during the Obama administration. ..."
"... Liberal writer Steven Brill wrote a 2015 book, America's Bitter Pill , in which he slammed "incompetence in the White House" for the catastrophic launch of Obamacare. "Never [has there] been a group of people who more incompetently launched something," he told NPR's Terry Gross, who interviewed him about the book. He laid much of the blame at Jarrett's doorstep. "The people in the administration who knew it was going wrong went to the president directly with memos, in person, to his chief of staff," he said. "The president was protected, mostly by Valerie Jarrett, from doing anything. . . . He didn't know what was going on in the single most important initiative of his administration." How important was Jarrett inside the Obama White House? Brill interviewed the president about the struggles of Obamacare and reported Obama's conclusion: "At this point, I am not so interested in Monday-morning quarterbacking the past." ..."
"... five of the highest-ranking Obama officials had told him that "as a practical matter . . . Jarrett was the real chief of staff on any issues that she wanted to weigh in on, and she jealously protected that position by making sure the president never gave anyone else too much power." When Brill asked the president about these aides' assessment of Jarrett, Obama "declined comment," Brill wrote in his book. That, in and of itself, was an answer. Would that Jarrett had received as much media scrutiny of her role in eight years under Obama as Bannon has in less than four weeks. ..."
"... I've had my disagreements with Bannon, whose apocalyptic views on some issues I don't share. Ronald Reagan once said that if someone in Washington agrees with you 80 percent of the time, he is an ally, not an enemy. I'd guess Bannon wouldn't agree with that sentiment. ..."
Bannon is almost universally loathed by the Washington press corps, and not just for his politics. When he was the
CEO of the pro-Trump Breitbart website, he competed with traditional media outlets, and he has often mercilessly attacked
and ridiculed them.
The animosity towards Bannon reached new heights last month, when he incautiously told the New York Times that "the media
should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while." He also said the media was "the opposition
party" to the Trump administration. To the Washington media, those are truly fighting words.
Joel Simon, of the Committee to Protect Journalists, told CNN that "this kind of speech not [only] undermines the work of the
media in this country, it emboldens autocratic leaders around the world." Jacob Weisberg, the head of the Slate Group, tweeted that
Bannon's comment was terrifying and "tyrannical."
Bannon's comments were outrageous, but they are hardly new. In 2009, President Obama's White House communications director,
Anita Dunn, sought to restrict Fox News' access to the White House. She even said, "We're going to treat them the way we would treat
an opponent." The media's outrage over that remark was restrained, to say the least.
Ever since Bannon's outburst, you can hear the media gears meshing in the effort to undermine him. In TV green rooms and at Washington
parties, I've heard journalists say outright that it's time to get him. Time magazine put a sinister-looking Bannon on its
cover, describing him as "The Great Manipulator." Walter Isaacson, a former managing editor of Time , boasted to MSNBC that
the image was in keeping with a tradition of controversial covers that put leaders in their place. "Likewise, putting [former White
House aide] Mike Deaver on the cover, the brains behind Ronald Reagan, that ended up bringing down Reagan," he told the hosts of
Morning Joe . "So you've got to have these checks and balances, whether it's the judiciary or the press."
Reporters and pundits are also stepping up the effort to portray Bannon as the puppet master in the White House. Last week,
MSNBC's Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski said, "Legitimate media are getting word that Steve Bannon is the last guy in
the room, in the evening especially, and he's pulling the strings." Her co-host, Joe Scarborough, agreed that Bannon's role should
be "investigated."
I'm all for figuring out who the powers behind the curtain are in the White House, but we saw precious little interest in
that during the Obama administration.
It wasn't until four years after the passage of Obamacare that a journalist reported on just how powerful White House counselor
Valerie Jarrett had been in its flawed implementation. Liberal writer Steven Brill wrote a 2015 book, America's Bitter Pill
, in which he slammed "incompetence in the White House" for the catastrophic launch of Obamacare. "Never [has there] been a group
of people who more incompetently launched something," he told NPR's Terry Gross, who interviewed him about the book. He laid much
of the blame at Jarrett's doorstep. "The people in the administration who knew it was going wrong went to the president directly
with memos, in person, to his chief of staff," he said. "The president was protected, mostly by Valerie Jarrett, from doing anything.
. . . He didn't know what was going on in the single most important initiative of his administration." How important was Jarrett
inside the Obama White House? Brill interviewed the president about the struggles of Obamacare and reported Obama's conclusion: "At
this point, I am not so interested in Monday-morning quarterbacking the past."
Brill then bluntly told the president that five of the highest-ranking Obama officials had told him that "as a practical matter
. . . Jarrett was the real chief of staff on any issues that she wanted to weigh in on, and she jealously protected that position
by making sure the president never gave anyone else too much power." When Brill asked the president about these aides' assessment
of Jarrett, Obama "declined comment," Brill wrote in his book. That, in and of itself, was an answer. Would that Jarrett had received
as much media scrutiny of her role in eight years under Obama as Bannon has in less than four weeks.
I've had my disagreements with Bannon, whose apocalyptic views on some issues I don't share. Ronald Reagan once said that
if someone in Washington agrees with you 80 percent of the time, he is an ally, not an enemy. I'd guess Bannon wouldn't agree with
that sentiment.
But the media's effort to turn Bannon into an enemy of the people is veering into hysterical character assassination. The Sunday
print edition of the New York Times ran an astonishing 1,500-word story headlined: "Fascists Too Lax for a Philosopher Cited
by Bannon." (The online headline now reads, "Steve Bannon Cited Italian Thinker Who Inspired Fascists.") The Times based this
headline on what it admits was "a passing reference" in
a speech by Bannon at a Vatican conference in 2014 . In that speech, Bannon made a single mention of Julius Evola, an obscure
Italian philosopher who opposed modernity and cozied up to Mussolini's Italian Fascists.
"... Bannon is almost universally loathed by the Washington press corps, and not just for his politics. When he was the CEO of the pro-Trump Breitbart website, he competed with traditional media outlets, and he has often mercilessly attacked and ridiculed them. ..."
"... The animosity towards Bannon reached new heights last month, when he incautiously told the New York Times that "the media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while." He also said the media was "the opposition party" to the Trump administration. To the Washington media, those are truly fighting words. ..."
"... Bannon's comments were outrageous, but they are hardly new. In 2009, President Obama's White House communications director, Anita Dunn, sought to restrict Fox News' access to the White House. She even said, "We're going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent." The media's outrage over that remark was restrained, to say the least. ..."
"... Reporters and pundits are also stepping up the effort to portray Bannon as the puppet master in the White House. Last week, MSNBC's Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski said, "Legitimate media are getting word that Steve Bannon is the last guy in the room, in the evening especially, and he's pulling the strings." Her co-host, Joe Scarborough, agreed that Bannon's role should be "investigated." ..."
"... I'm all for figuring out who the powers behind the curtain are in the White House, but we saw precious little interest in that during the Obama administration. ..."
"... Liberal writer Steven Brill wrote a 2015 book, America's Bitter Pill , in which he slammed "incompetence in the White House" for the catastrophic launch of Obamacare. "Never [has there] been a group of people who more incompetently launched something," he told NPR's Terry Gross, who interviewed him about the book. He laid much of the blame at Jarrett's doorstep. "The people in the administration who knew it was going wrong went to the president directly with memos, in person, to his chief of staff," he said. "The president was protected, mostly by Valerie Jarrett, from doing anything. . . . He didn't know what was going on in the single most important initiative of his administration." How important was Jarrett inside the Obama White House? Brill interviewed the president about the struggles of Obamacare and reported Obama's conclusion: "At this point, I am not so interested in Monday-morning quarterbacking the past." ..."
"... five of the highest-ranking Obama officials had told him that "as a practical matter . . . Jarrett was the real chief of staff on any issues that she wanted to weigh in on, and she jealously protected that position by making sure the president never gave anyone else too much power." When Brill asked the president about these aides' assessment of Jarrett, Obama "declined comment," Brill wrote in his book. That, in and of itself, was an answer. Would that Jarrett had received as much media scrutiny of her role in eight years under Obama as Bannon has in less than four weeks. ..."
"... I've had my disagreements with Bannon, whose apocalyptic views on some issues I don't share. Ronald Reagan once said that if someone in Washington agrees with you 80 percent of the time, he is an ally, not an enemy. I'd guess Bannon wouldn't agree with that sentiment. ..."
Bannon is almost universally loathed by the Washington press corps, and not just for his politics. When he was the
CEO of the pro-Trump Breitbart website, he competed with traditional media outlets, and he has often mercilessly attacked
and ridiculed them.
The animosity towards Bannon reached new heights last month, when he incautiously told the New York Times that "the media
should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while." He also said the media was "the opposition
party" to the Trump administration. To the Washington media, those are truly fighting words.
Joel Simon, of the Committee to Protect Journalists, told CNN that "this kind of speech not [only] undermines the work of the
media in this country, it emboldens autocratic leaders around the world." Jacob Weisberg, the head of the Slate Group, tweeted that
Bannon's comment was terrifying and "tyrannical."
Bannon's comments were outrageous, but they are hardly new. In 2009, President Obama's White House communications director,
Anita Dunn, sought to restrict Fox News' access to the White House. She even said, "We're going to treat them the way we would treat
an opponent." The media's outrage over that remark was restrained, to say the least.
Ever since Bannon's outburst, you can hear the media gears meshing in the effort to undermine him. In TV green rooms and at Washington
parties, I've heard journalists say outright that it's time to get him. Time magazine put a sinister-looking Bannon on its
cover, describing him as "The Great Manipulator." Walter Isaacson, a former managing editor of Time , boasted to MSNBC that
the image was in keeping with a tradition of controversial covers that put leaders in their place. "Likewise, putting [former White
House aide] Mike Deaver on the cover, the brains behind Ronald Reagan, that ended up bringing down Reagan," he told the hosts of
Morning Joe . "So you've got to have these checks and balances, whether it's the judiciary or the press."
Reporters and pundits are also stepping up the effort to portray Bannon as the puppet master in the White House. Last week,
MSNBC's Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski said, "Legitimate media are getting word that Steve Bannon is the last guy in
the room, in the evening especially, and he's pulling the strings." Her co-host, Joe Scarborough, agreed that Bannon's role should
be "investigated."
I'm all for figuring out who the powers behind the curtain are in the White House, but we saw precious little interest in
that during the Obama administration.
It wasn't until four years after the passage of Obamacare that a journalist reported on just how powerful White House counselor
Valerie Jarrett had been in its flawed implementation. Liberal writer Steven Brill wrote a 2015 book, America's Bitter Pill
, in which he slammed "incompetence in the White House" for the catastrophic launch of Obamacare. "Never [has there] been a group
of people who more incompetently launched something," he told NPR's Terry Gross, who interviewed him about the book. He laid much
of the blame at Jarrett's doorstep. "The people in the administration who knew it was going wrong went to the president directly
with memos, in person, to his chief of staff," he said. "The president was protected, mostly by Valerie Jarrett, from doing anything.
. . . He didn't know what was going on in the single most important initiative of his administration." How important was Jarrett
inside the Obama White House? Brill interviewed the president about the struggles of Obamacare and reported Obama's conclusion: "At
this point, I am not so interested in Monday-morning quarterbacking the past."
Brill then bluntly told the president that five of the highest-ranking Obama officials had told him that "as a practical matter
. . . Jarrett was the real chief of staff on any issues that she wanted to weigh in on, and she jealously protected that position
by making sure the president never gave anyone else too much power." When Brill asked the president about these aides' assessment
of Jarrett, Obama "declined comment," Brill wrote in his book. That, in and of itself, was an answer. Would that Jarrett had received
as much media scrutiny of her role in eight years under Obama as Bannon has in less than four weeks.
I've had my disagreements with Bannon, whose apocalyptic views on some issues I don't share. Ronald Reagan once said that
if someone in Washington agrees with you 80 percent of the time, he is an ally, not an enemy. I'd guess Bannon wouldn't agree with
that sentiment.
But the media's effort to turn Bannon into an enemy of the people is veering into hysterical character assassination. The Sunday
print edition of the New York Times ran an astonishing 1,500-word story headlined: "Fascists Too Lax for a Philosopher Cited
by Bannon." (The online headline now reads, "Steve Bannon Cited Italian Thinker Who Inspired Fascists.") The Times based this
headline on what it admits was "a passing reference" in
a speech by Bannon at a Vatican conference in 2014 . In that speech, Bannon made a single mention of Julius Evola, an obscure
Italian philosopher who opposed modernity and cozied up to Mussolini's Italian Fascists.
@Paul Well, the
real enemy of the people are the real terrorists behind the scenes. Those who planned the
9/11 false flag. Those who sent the Anthrax letters to resisting congress members. Those who
pre-planned the wars of aggression in the whole middle east.
So any appeal to the "White House" is almost pointless since the White House is one
element of the power structure captured by the war-criminal lunatics.
To change something people in the US should at first stop buying their war criminal lying
mass media.
Then they should stop supporting ANY foreign intervention by the US and should stop
believing any of the preposterous lies released by the media, the state dept., or any other
neocon outlet.
Actually Trump was probably elected because he said he was anti-intervention and
anti-media. But did it help?
The US needs mass resistance (demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, non-participation,
sit-ins, grass-root information, or whatever) against their neocon/zionist/mafia/cia power
groups or nothing will change.
We need demonstrations against NATO, against war, against false flag terrorism, against
using terrorists as secret armies, against war propaganda!
B.t.w. Iran has always been one of the main goals. Think of it: Why did the US attack
Afghanistan and Iraq? What have those two countries in common? (Hint: a look on the map helps
to answer this question.) I am beginning to get interested in why some people are sure 9/11
was a false flag affair covered up by a lot of lies. So may I try my opening question on you.
How much, if any of it, have you read of the official 9/11 commission report?
Essentially CIA dictates the US foreign policy. The tail is wagging the dog. The current Russophobia hysteria mean
additional billions for CIA and FBI. As simple as that.
The article contain some important observation about self-sustaining nature of the US
militarism. It is able to create new threats and new insurgencies almost at will via CIA activities.
The key problem is that wars are highly profitable for important part of the ruling elite,
especially representing finance and military industrial complex. Also now part of the US
ruling elite now consists of "colonial administrators" which are directly interested in maintaining
and expanding the US empire. This is trap from which nation might not be able to escape.
Notable quotes:
"... The U.S. government may pretend to respect a "rules-based" global order, but the only rule Washington seems to follow is "might makes right" -- and the CIA has long served as a chief instigator and enforcer, writes Nicolas J.S. Davies. ..."
"... Once the CIA went to work in Vietnam to undermine the 1954 Geneva Accords and the planned reunification of North and South through a free and fair election in 1956, the die was cast. ..."
"... No U.S. president could extricate the U.S. from Vietnam without exposing the limits of what U.S. military force could achieve, betraying widely held national myths and the powerful interests that sustained and profited from them. ..."
"... The critical "lesson of Vietnam" was summed up by Richard Barnet in his 1972 book Roots of War . "At the very moment that the number one nation has perfected the science of killing," Barnet wrote, "It has become an impractical means of political domination." ..."
"... Even the senior officer corps of the U.S. military saw it that way, since many of them had survived the horrors of Vietnam as junior officers. The CIA could still wreak havoc in Latin America and elsewhere, but the full destructive force of the U.S. military was not unleashed again until the invasion of Panama in 1989 and the First Gulf War in 1991. ..."
"... Half a century after Vietnam, we have tragically come full circle. With the CIA's politicized intelligence running wild in Washington and its covert operations spreading violence and chaos across every continent, President Trump faces the same pressures to maintain his own and his country's credibility as Johnson and Nixon did. ..."
"... Trump is facing these questions, not just in one country, Vietnam, but in dozens of countries across the world, and the interests perpetuating and fueling this cycle of crisis and war have only become more entrenched over time, as President Eisenhower warned that they would, despite the end of the Cold War and, until now, the lack of any actual military threat to the United States. ..."
"... 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. Fletcher Prouty's book, The Secret Team: The CIA and its Allies in Control of the United States and the World , was suppressed when it was first published in 1973. Thousands of copies disappeared from bookstores and libraries, and a mysterious Army Colonel bought the entire shipment of 3,500 copies the publisher sent to Australia. But Prouty's book was republished in 2011, and it is a timely account of the role of the CIA in U.S. policy. ..."
"... The main purpose of the CIA, as Prouty saw it, is to create such pretexts for war. ..."
"... 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 war, and that is what they have done for 70 years. ..."
"... Prouty 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. ..."
"... Many retired intelligence officers, such as Ray McGovern and the members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), saw the merging of clandestine operations with intelligence analysis in one agency as corrupting the objective analysis they tried to provide to policymakers. They formed VIPS in 2003 in response to the fabrication of politicized intelligence that provided false pretexts for the U.S. to invade and destroy Iraq. ..."
"... But Fletcher Prouty was even more disturbed by the way that the CIA uses clandestine operations to trigger coups, wars and chaos. The civil and proxy war in Syria is a perfect example of what Prouty meant ..."
"... The role of U.S. "counterterrorism" operations in fueling armed resistance and terrorism, and the absence of any plan to reduce the asymmetric violence unleashed by the "global war on terror," would be no surprise to Fletcher Prouty. As he explained, such clandestine operations always take on a life of their own that is unrelated, and often counter-productive, to any rational U.S. policy objective. ..."
"... This is a textbook CIA operation on the same model as Vietnam in the late 1950s and early 60s. The CIA uses U.S. special forces and training missions to launch covert and proxy military operations that drive local populations into armed resistance groups, and then uses the presence of those armed resistance groups to justify ever-escalating U.S. military involvement. This is Vietnam redux on a continental scale. ..."
"... China is already too big and powerful for the U.S. to apply what is known as the Ledeen doctrine named for neoconservative theorist and intelligence operative Michael Ledeen who 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." ..."
"... As long as the CIA and the U.S. military keep plunging the scapegoats for our failed policies into economic crisis, violence and chaos, the United States and the United Kingdom can remain the safe havens of the world's wealth, islands of privilege and excess amidst the storms they unleash on others. ..."
"... But if that is the only "significant national objective" driving these policies, it is surely about time for the 99 percent of Americans who reap no benefit from these murderous schemes to stop the CIA and its allies before they completely wreck the already damaged and fragile world in which we all must live, Americans and foreigners alike. ..."
"... Douglas Valentine has probably studied the CIA in more depth than any other American journalist, beginning with his book on The Phoenix Program in Vietnam. He has written a new book titled The CIA as Organized Crime : How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World, in which he brings Fletcher Prouty's analysis right up to the present day, describing the CIA's role in our current wars and the many ways it infiltrates, manipulates and controls U.S. policy. ..."
"... In Venezuela, the CIA and the right-wing opposition are following the same strategy that President Nixon ordered the CIA to inflict on Chile, to "make the economy scream" in preparation for the 1973 coup. ..."
"... The U.S. willingness to scrap the Agreed Framework in 2003, the breakdown of the Six Party Talks in 2009 and the U.S. refusal to acknowledge that its own military actions and threats create legitimate defense concerns for North Korea have driven the North Koreans into a corner from which they see a credible nuclear deterrent as their only chance to avoid mass destruction. ..."
"... Obama's charm offensive invigorated old and new military alliances with the U.K., France and the Arab monarchies, and he quietly ran up the most expensive military budge t of any president since World War Two. ..."
"... Throughout history, serial aggression has nearly always provoked increasingly united opposition, as peace-loving countries and people have reluctantly summoned the courage to stand up to an aggressor. France under Napoleon and Hitler's Germany also regarded themselves as exceptional, and in their own ways they were. But in the end, their belief in their exceptionalism led them on to defeat and destruction. ..."
The U.S. government may pretend to respect a "rules-based" global order, but the only rule Washington
seems to follow is "might makes right" -- and the CIA has long served as a chief instigator and enforcer,
writes Nicolas J.S. Davies.
As the recent PBS documentary on the American War in Vietnam acknowledged, few American officials
ever believed that the United States could win the war, neither those advising Johnson as he committed
hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops, nor those advising Nixon as he escalated a brutal aerial bombardment
that had already killed millions of people.
As conversations tape-recorded in the White House reveal, and as other writers have documented,
the reasons for wading into the Big Muddy, as
Pete Seeger satirized it
, and then pushing on regardless, all came down to "credibility": the domestic political credibility
of the politicians involved and America's international credibility as a military power.
Once the CIA went to work in Vietnam to undermine the
1954 Geneva Accords
and the planned reunification of North and South through a free and fair election in 1956, the die
was cast. The CIA's support for the repressive
Diem regime and its successors
ensured an ever-escalating war, as the South rose in rebellion, supported by the North. No U.S. president
could extricate the U.S. from Vietnam without exposing the limits of what U.S. military force could
achieve, betraying widely held national myths and the powerful interests that sustained and profited
from them.
The critical "lesson of Vietnam" was summed up by Richard Barnet in his 1972 book
Roots
of War . "At the very moment that the number one nation has perfected the science of killing,"
Barnet wrote, "It has become an impractical means of political domination."
Even the senior officer corps of the U.S. military saw it that way, since many of them had survived
the horrors of Vietnam as junior officers. The CIA could still wreak havoc in Latin America and elsewhere,
but the full destructive force of the U.S. military was not unleashed again until the invasion of
Panama in 1989 and the First Gulf War in 1991.
Half a century after Vietnam, we have tragically come full circle. With the CIA's politicized
intelligence running wild in Washington and its covert operations spreading violence and chaos across
every continent, President Trump faces the same pressures to maintain his own and his country's credibility
as Johnson and Nixon did. His predictable response has been to escalate ongoing wars in Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and West Africa, and to threaten new ones against North Korea, Iran and
Venezuela.
Trump is facing these questions, not just in one country, Vietnam, but in dozens of countries
across the world, and the interests perpetuating and fueling this cycle of crisis and war have only
become more entrenched over time, as
President Eisenhower warned that they would, despite the end of the Cold War and, until now,
the lack of any actual military threat to the United States.
Ironically but predictably, the U.S.'s aggressive and illegal war policy has finally provoked
a real military threat to the U.S., albeit one that has emerged only in response to U.S. war plans.
As I explained in a recent article , North Korea's discovery in 2016 of a U.S. plan to assassinate
its president, Kim Jong Un, and launch a Second Korean War has triggered a crash program to develop
long-range ballistic missiles that could give North Korea a viable nuclear deterrent and prevent
a U.S. attack. But the North Koreans will not feel safe from attack until their leaders and ours
are sure that their missiles can deliver a nuclear strike against the U.S. mainland.
The CIA's Pretexts for War
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. Fletcher Prouty's book,
The Secret Team: The CIA and its Allies in Control of the United States and the World ,
was suppressed when it was first published in 1973. Thousands of copies disappeared from bookstores
and libraries, and a mysterious Army Colonel bought the entire shipment of 3,500 copies the publisher
sent to Australia. But Prouty's book was republished in 2011, and it is a timely account of the role
of the CIA in U.S. policy.
Prouty surprisingly described the role of the CIA as a response by powerful people and interests
to the abolition of the U.S. Department of War and the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947.
Once the role of the U.S. military was redefined as one of defense, in line with the United Nations
Charter's
prohibition against the threat or use of military force in 1945 and similar moves by other military
powers, it would require some kind of crisis or threat to justify using military force in the future,
both legally and politically. The main purpose of the CIA, as Prouty saw it, is to create such
pretexts for war.
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 war, and that is what they have done for 70 years.
Prouty 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.
Many retired intelligence officers, such as Ray McGovern and the members of Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), saw the merging of clandestine operations with intelligence analysis
in one agency as corrupting the objective analysis they tried to provide to policymakers. They formed
VIPS in 2003 in response to the fabrication of politicized intelligence that provided false pretexts
for the U.S. to invade and destroy Iraq.
CIA in Syria and Africa
But Fletcher Prouty was even more disturbed by the way that the CIA uses clandestine operations
to trigger coups, wars and chaos. The civil and proxy war in Syria is a perfect example of what Prouty
meant. In late 2011, after destroying Libya and aiding in the torture-murder of Muammar Gaddafi,
the CIA and its allies began
flying fighters
and weapons from Libya to Turkey and infiltrating them into Syria. Then, working with Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, Turkey, Croatia and other allies, this operation poured
thousands of tons of weapons across Syria's borders to ignite and fuel a full-scale civil war.
Once these covert operations were under way, they ran wild until they had unleashed a savage Al
Qaeda affiliate in Syria (Jabhat al-Nusra, now rebranded as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham), spawned the even
more savage "Islamic State," triggered
the heaviest
and
probably the deadliest U.S. bombing campaign since Vietnam and drawn Russia, Iran, Turkey, Israel,
Jordan, Hezbollah, Kurdish militias and almost every state or armed group in the Middle East into
the chaos of Syria's civil war.
Meanwhile, as Al Qaeda and Islamic State have expanded their operations across Africa, the U.N.
has published a report titled
Journey to Extremismin Africa: Drivers, Incentives and the Tipping Point for Recruitment
, based on 500 interviews with African militants. This study has found that the kind of special operations
and training missions the CIA and AFRICOM are conducting and supporting in Africa are in fact the
critical "tipping point" that drives Africans to join militant groups like Al Qaeda, Al-Shabab and
Boko Haram.
The report found that government action, such as the killing or detention of friends or family,
was the "tipping point" that drove 71 percent of African militants interviewed to join armed groups,
and that this was a more important factor than religious ideology.
The conclusions of Journey to Extremism in Africa confirm the findings of other similar
studies. The Center for Civilians in Conflict interviewed 250 civilians who joined armed groups in
Bosnia, Somalia, Gaza and Libya for its 2015 study,
The People's Perspectives: Civilian Involvement in Armed Conflict . The study
found that the most common motivation for civilians to join armed groups was simply to protect themselves
or their families.
The role of U.S. "counterterrorism" operations in fueling armed resistance and terrorism, and
the absence of any plan to reduce the asymmetric violence unleashed by the "global war on terror,"
would be no surprise to Fletcher Prouty. As he explained, such clandestine operations always take
on a life of their own that is unrelated, and often counter-productive, to any rational U.S. policy
objective.
"The more intimate one becomes with this activity," Prouty wrote, "The more one begins to realize
that such operations are rarely, if ever, initiated from an intent to become involved in pursuit
of some national objective in the first place."
The U.S. justifies the deployment of 6,000 U.S. special forces and military trainers to
53 of the 54 countries in Africa as a response to terrorism. But the U.N.'s Journey to Extremism
in Africa study makes it clear that the U.S. militarization of Africa is in fact the "tipping
point" that is driving Africans across the continent to join armed resistance groups in the first
place.
This is a textbook CIA operation on the same model as Vietnam in the late 1950s and early
60s. The CIA uses U.S. special forces and training missions to launch covert and proxy military operations
that drive local populations into armed resistance groups, and then uses the presence of those armed
resistance groups to justify ever-escalating U.S. military involvement. This is Vietnam redux on
a continental scale.
Taking on China
What seems to really be driving the CIA's militarization of U.S. policy in Africa is China's growing
influence on the continent. As Steve Bannon put it in an
interview with the Economist in August, "Let's go screw up One Belt One Road."
China is already too big and powerful for the U.S. to apply what is known as the Ledeen doctrine
named for neoconservative theorist and intelligence operative Michael Ledeen who 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."
China is too powerful and armed with nuclear weapons. So, in this case, the CIA's job would be
to spread violence and chaos to disrupt Chinese trade and investment, and to make African governments
increasingly dependent on U.S. military aid to fight the militant groups spawned and endlessly regenerated
by U.S.-led "counterterrorism" operations.
Neither Ledeen nor Bannon pretend that such policies are designed to build more prosperous or
viable societies in the Middle East or Africa, let alone to benefit their people. They both know
very well what Richard Barnet already understood 45 years ago, that America's unprecedented investment
in weapons, war and CIA covert operations are only good for one thing: to kill people and destroy
infrastructure, reducing cities to rubble, societies to chaos and the desperate survivors to poverty
and displacement.
As long as the CIA and the U.S. military keep plunging the scapegoats for our failed policies
into economic crisis, violence and chaos, the United States and the United Kingdom can remain the
safe havens of the world's wealth, islands of privilege and excess amidst the storms they unleash
on others.
But if that is the only "significant national objective" driving these policies, it is surely
about time for the 99 percent of Americans who reap no benefit from these murderous schemes to stop
the CIA and its allies before they completely wreck the already damaged and fragile world in which
we all must live, Americans and foreigners alike.
Douglas Valentine has probably studied the CIA in more depth than any other American journalist,
beginning with his book on
The Phoenix Program in Vietnam. He has written a new book titled
The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World, in which he brings Fletcher Prouty's
analysis right up to the present day, describing the CIA's role in our current wars and the many
ways it infiltrates, manipulates and controls U.S. policy.
The Three Scapegoats
In
Trump's speech to the U.N. General Assembly, he named North Korea, Iran and Venezuela as his
prime targets for destabilization, economic warfare and, ultimately, the overthrow of their governments,
whether by coup d'etat or the mass destruction of their civilian population and infrastructure.
But Trump's choice of scapegoats for America's failures was obviously not based on a rational reassessment
of foreign policy priorities by the new administration. It was only a tired rehashing of the CIA's
unfinished business with two-thirds of Bush's "axis of evil" and Bush White House official
Elliott Abrams'
failed 2002 coup in Caracas, now laced with explicit and illegal threats of aggression.
How Trump and the CIA plan to sacrifice their three scapegoats for America's failures remains
to be seen. This is not 2001, when the world stood silent at the U.S. bombardment and invasion of
Afghanistan after September 11th. It is more like 2003, when the U.S. destruction of Iraq split the
Atlantic alliance and alienated most of the world. It is certainly not 2011, after Obama's global
charm offensive had rebuilt U.S. alliances and provided cover for French President Sarkozy, British
Prime Minister Cameron, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Arab royals to destroy Libya,
once ranked by the U.N. as the
most developed country
in Africa , now mired in intractable chaos.
In 2017, a U.S. attack on any one of Trump's scapegoats would isolate the United States from many
of its allies and undermine its standing in the world in far-reaching ways that might be more permanent
and harder to repair than the invasion and destruction of Iraq.
In Venezuela, the CIA and the right-wing opposition are following the same strategy that President
Nixon ordered the CIA to inflict on Chile, to
"make the economy
scream" in preparation for the 1973 coup. But the
solid victory of Venezuela's
ruling Socialist Party in recent nationwide gubernatorial elections, despite a long and deep
economic crisis, reveals little public support for the CIA's puppets in Venezuela.
The CIA has successfully discredited the Venezuelan government through economic warfare, increasingly
violent right-wing street protests and a global propaganda campaign. But the CIA has stupidly hitched
its wagon to an extreme right-wing, upper-class opposition that has no credibility with most of the
Venezuelan public, who still turn out for the Socialists at the polls. A CIA coup or U.S. military
intervention would meet fierce public resistance and damage U.S. relations all over Latin America.
Boxing In North Korea
A U.S. aerial bombardment or "preemptive strike" on North Korea could quickly escalate into a
war between the U.S. and China, which has reiterated
its commitment to North
Korea's defense if North Korea is attacked. We do not know exactly what was in the
U.S. war plan discovered by North Korea, so neither can we know how North Korea and China could
respond if the U.S. pressed ahead with it.
Most analysts have long concluded that any U.S. attack on North Korea would be met with a North
Korean artillery and missile barrage that would inflict unacceptable civilian casualties on Seoul,
a metropolitan area of 26 million people, three times the population of New York City. Seoul is only
35 miles from the frontier with North Korea, placing it within range of a huge array of North Korean
weapons. What was already a no-win calculus is now compounded by the possibility that North Korea
could respond with nuclear weapons, turning any prospect of a U.S. attack into an even worse nightmare.
U.S. mismanagement of its relations with North Korea should be an object lesson for its relations
with Iran, graphically demonstrating the advantages of diplomacy, talks and agreements over threats
of war. Under the
Agreed Framework
signed in 1994, North Korea stopped work on two much larger nuclear reactors than the small experimental
one operating at Yongbyong since 1986, which only produces 6 kg of plutonium per year, enough for
one nuclear bomb.
The lesson of Bush's Iraq invasion in 2003 after Saddam Hussein had complied with demands that
he destroy Iraq's stockpiles of chemical weapons and shut down a nascent nuclear program was not
lost on North Korea. Not only did the invasion lay waste to large sections of Iraq with hundreds
of thousands of dead but Hussein himself was hunted down and condemned to death by hanging.
Still, after North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon in 2006, even its small experimental
reactor was shut down as a result of the
"Six Party Talks" in
2007, all the fuel rods were removed and placed under supervision of the International Atomic Energy
Agency, and the cooling tower of the reactor was demolished in 2008.
But then, as relations deteriorated, North Korea conducted a second nuclear weapon test and again
began reprocessing spent fuel rods to recover plutonium for use in nuclear weapons.
North Korea has now conducted six nuclear weapons tests. The explosions in
the first five tests increased gradually up to 15-25 kilotons, about the yield of the bombs the
U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but estimates for the yield of the 2017 test range
from 110
to 250 kilotons , comparable
to a small hydrogen bomb.
The even greater danger in a new war in Korea is that the U.S. could unleash part of its arsenal
of
4,000 more powerful weapons (100 to 1,200 kilotons), which could kill millions of people and
devastate and poison the region, or even the world, for years to come.
The U.S. willingness to scrap the Agreed Framework in 2003, the breakdown of the Six Party Talks
in 2009 and the U.S. refusal to acknowledge that its own military actions and threats create legitimate
defense concerns for North Korea have driven the North Koreans into a corner from which they see
a credible nuclear deterrent as their only chance to avoid mass destruction.
China has proposed a
reasonable framework for diplomacy to address the concerns of both sides, but the U.S. insists
on maintaining its propaganda narratives that all the fault lies with North Korea and that it has
some kind of "military solution" to the crisis.
This may be the most dangerous idea we have heard from U.S. policymakers since the end of the
Cold War, but it is the logical culmination of a
systematic normalization of deviant and illegal U.S. war-making that has already cost millions
of lives in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan. As historian Gabriel Kolko
wrote in Century of War in 1994, "options and decisions that are intrinsically dangerous
and irrational become not merely plausible but the only form of reasoning about war and diplomacy
that is possible in official circles."
Demonizing Iran
The idea that Iran has ever had a nuclear weapons program is seriously contested by the IAEA,
which has examined every allegation presented by the CIA and other Western "intelligence" agencies
as well as Israel. Former IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei revealed many details of this wild
goose chase in his 2011 memoir,
Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times .
When the CIA and its partners reluctantly acknowledged the IAEA's conclusions in a 2007 National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE), ElBaradei issued
a press release confirming that, "the agency has no concrete evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons
program or undeclared nuclear facilities in Iran."
Since 2007, the IAEA has resolved all its outstanding concerns with Iran. It has verified that
dual-use technologies that Iran imported before 2003 were in fact used for other purposes, and it
has exposed the mysterious "laptop documents" that appeared to show Iranian plans for a nuclear weapon
as forgeries. Gareth Porter thoroughly explored all these questions and allegations and the history
of mistrust that fueled them in his 2014 book,
Manufactured
Crisis: the Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare , which I highly recommend.
But, in the parallel Bizarro world of U.S. politics, hopelessly poisoned by the CIA's
endless disinformation campaigns, Hillary Clinton could repeatedly take false credit for disarming
Iran during her presidential campaign, and neither Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump nor any corporate
media interviewer dared to challenge her claims.
"When President Obama took office, Iran was racing toward a nuclear bomb," Clinton fantasized
in a
prominent foreign policy speech on June 2, 2016, claiming that her brutal sanctions policy "brought
Iran to the table."
In fact, as Trita Parsi documented in his 2012 book,
A Single
Roll of the Dice: Obama's Diplomacy With Iran , the Iranians were ready, not just
to "come to the table," but to sign a comprehensive agreement based on a U.S. proposal brokered by
Turkey and Brazil in 2010. But, in a classic case of "tail wags dog," the U.S. then rejected its
own proposal because it would have undercut support for tighter sanctions in the U.N. Security Council.
In other words, Clinton's sanctions policy did not "bring Iran to the table", but prevented the U.S.
from coming to the table itself.
As a senior State Department official told Trita Parsi, the real problem with U.S. diplomacy with
Iran when Clinton was at the State Department was that the U.S. would not take "Yes" for an answer.
Trump's ham-fisted decertification of Iran's compliance with the JCPOA is right out of Clinton's
playbook, and it demonstrates that the CIA is still determined to use Iran as a scapegoat for America's
failures in the Middle East.
The spurious claim that Iran is the world's greatest sponsor of terrorism is another CIA canard
reinforced by endless repetition. It is true that Iran supports and supplies weapons to Hezbollah
and Hamas, which are both listed as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government. But they are
mainly defensive resistance groups that defend Lebanon and Gaza respectively against invasions and
attacks by Israel.
Shifting attention away from Al Qaeda, Islamic State, the
Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and other groups that actually commit terrorist crimes around the
world might just seem like a case of the CIA "taking its eyes off the ball," if it wasn't so transparently
timed to frame Iran with new accusations now that the manufactured crisis of the nuclear scare has
run its course.
What the Future Holds
Barack Obama's most consequential international achievement may have been the triumph of symbolism
over substance behind which he expanded and escalated the so-called "war on terror," with a vast
expansion of covert operations and proxy wars that eventually triggered the
heaviest U.S.
aerial bombardments since Vietnam in Iraq and Syria.
Obama's charm offensive invigorated old and new military alliances with the U.K., France and
the Arab monarchies, and he quietly ran up the
most expensive military budget of any president since World War Two.
But Obama's expansion of the "war on terror" under cover of his deceptive global public relations
campaign created many more problems than it solved, and Trump and his advisers are woefully ill-equipped
to solve any of them. Trump's expressed desire to place America first and to resist foreign entanglements
is hopelessly at odds with his aggressive, bullying approach to every foreign policy problem.
If the U.S. could threaten and fight its way to a resolution of any of its international problems,
it would have done so already. That is exactly what it has been trying to do since the 1990s, behind
both the swagger and bluster of Bush and Trump and the deceptive charm of Clinton and Obama: a "good
cop – bad cop" routine that should no longer fool anyone anywhere.
But as Lyndon Johnson found as he waded deeper and deeper into the Big Muddy in Vietnam, lying
to the public about unwinnable wars does not make them any more winnable. It just gets more people
killed and makes it harder and harder to ever tell the public the truth.
In unwinnable wars based on lies, the "credibility" problem only gets more complicated, as new
lies require new scapegoats and convoluted narratives to explain away graveyards filled by old lies.
Obama's cynical global charm offensive bought the "war on terror" another eight years, but that only
allowed the CIA to drag the U.S. into more trouble and spread its chaos to more places around the
world.
Meanwhile, Russian President Putin is winning hearts and minds in capitals around the world by
calling for a recommitment to the
rule of international
law , which
prohibits
the threat or use of military force except in self-defense. Every new U.S. threat or act of aggression
will only make Putin's case more persuasive, not least to important U.S. allies like South Korea,
Germany and other members of the European Union, whose complicity in U.S. aggression has until now
helped to give it a false veneer of political legitimacy.
Throughout history, serial aggression has nearly always provoked increasingly united opposition,
as peace-loving countries and people have reluctantly summoned the courage to stand up to an aggressor.
France under Napoleon and Hitler's Germany also regarded themselves as exceptional, and in their
own ways they were. But in the end, their belief in their exceptionalism led them on to defeat and
destruction.
Americans had better hope that we are not so exceptional, and that the world will find a diplomatic
rather than a military "solution" to its American problem. Our chances of survival would improve
a great deal if American officials and politicians would finally start to act like something other
than putty in the hands of the CIA
Nicolas J. S. Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction
of Iraq . He also wrote the chapters on "Obama at War" in Grading the 44th President: a Report Card
on Barack Obama's First Term as a Progressive Leader .
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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