Anti-Americanism (anti-American sentiment), is a term used to describe opposition or hostility to the American empire including
but not limited to the culture and aggressive foreign policies of the United States. In practice this broad range of attitudes and actions
critical of, or opposed to the United States intervantions in other countries and maintaining military bases in more then 400 locations
around the globe( American Empire).
Anti-Americanism also has some set of stereotypes,
prejudices and
criticisms towards Americans, American culture, and/or major
US corporation, often including a pointed politically and economically based criticism. Especially wit the criticism of neoliberalism,
as the USA is the center of global neoliberal empire.
It is closely connects with Neocolonialismwhich is a predominant USA policy toward
developing nations, especially nations with natural resources. In such cases the USA intervention is often masked by
"exporting democracy scam" -- promoting democracy as
a smoke screen of imperial ambitions.
Whether sentiment hostile to the United States reflects reasoned evaluation of specific policies and administrations or a prejudiced
belief system is another aspect of this phenomena. Increases in perceived anti-American attitudes strongly correlate with the
USA particular policies or actions in the region, such as the Syria, Libya and Iraq wars. For this
reason, critics sometimes argue the label is a
propaganda term and attempt to censure the United States for its neolinialism
as irrational as all powerful states behave in the same way.
Another part of anti-Americanism is connected with the USA support of Isreal.
In all cases the key constituent of anti-Americanism is the opposition to the "hegemonic" US foreign policy, especially military
interventions in various parts of the globe. That includes wars, covert operations, attempts to stage "color revolutions" as well as
hypocritical usage of democracy as a new Christianity for the new series of
Crusades to overthrow governments that Washington does not like
(while having deep friendship and "special relations" with Saudi Arabia, Israel and similar states).
While I agree with 99% of your post, there is one point that I think needs to be keeping
in mind. While the populace of this particular manure-hole certainly has its equal share of
dumb creatures, the people running things cannot be so easily dismissed. The problem as I see
it is they have a great deal of a certain kind of intelligence, as someone said "smart, but
not wise". They are educated, but insane. The cream of the crop that has gone sour. In my
travels I would often ask people what they actually thought of "Americans". An Indonesian man
responded " soft, but cunning. You have to be careful around them."
If these cunning, insane, power hungry creatures were simply dumb and not truly evil, we
might be in less of a shit show (nod to psychohistorian) than we are.
After 20 years of regular interaction with Amerikastanis online and in real life, I have
realised that they live in a parallel universe in which Hollywood is the arbiter of truth.
They genuinely believe that anything they choose to imagine is the truth just because they
imagine it.
A couple of days ago when the Imperialist States admitted its "Russia Bounty" story was
concocted, the people who had shrieked to the skies about it last year had a chance to
apologise. Did they? They ignored it. It did not happen because they chose to believe it
didn't.
Edited for clarity; racial slurs are removed... Paradoxically recently due to summer riots
the attitude toward Zionism among the US public slightly improved, as least as far as domestic
policies are concerted...
American Renaissance has done important work, but it is ultimately useless because it
pulls its punches or willfully misses what should be the main target: Zionist Supremacist
Power. Take Jared Taylor's commentary of the US military in the video below. It's pure
Pat-Condell. He blames everything but will not name the power behind the mess. Shhhh about
the Zionists.
https://www.bitchute.com/embed/03vYmvgpmBQi/
At this point, why should Taylor lament that Mexican-American soldiers proudly display the
Mexican flag? Why not, when the US flag represents nothing abroad but 'twerking', Zionist
supremacism, Wars for Israel, mindless animus toward Russia, ridiculous paranoia about China,
nonstop hatred toward Iran, complete nonsense about Venezuela, BLM stupidity, and global
dissemination of globo-homo ludicrousness? Americanism meant something when
Anglo-Americans(and those properly Anglo-Americanized) ruled the nation with pride and
confidence. Then, Americanism was based on the Great Compromise: A move toward a more
merit-and-rule-based on the part of Anglo-Americans who took the land from the Indians,
brought blacks in chains, and encouraged mass-immigration to develop the land. In return,
non-Anglos would acknowledge the Anglo-foundation of America and try to be Good Americans.
That compromise is no longer relevant because the US is now totally Zionist-supremacist,
meaning the New Americanism is predicated on just about everyone and everything revolving
around the question of "Is it great for Zionists?" If Zionists want it, they get it
eventually. No wonder the First and Second Amendments are now hanging by a thread. Zionists
don't like the Constitution now that they got total power.
Other than Zionists, Jared Taylor should be blaming his own Wasp kind. Why did they hand
over power to the Zionists almost completely? That was the beginning of much of the rot
since. Taylor bitches about blacks, Mexicans, and etc. not being properly patriotic in the
new order, but who created the new order? Zionists spearheaded the making of New America, but
Wasps just played along. If Wasps are such worthless cucks to Zionists, why should it be
surprising that nonwhites would no longer respect whites? Of course, given that most
nonwhites would find it odd if Zionists told them, "Americanism = Zionist Greatness",
Zionists encourage the next-best-thing, which is anti-whiteness or 'scapewhiting'(scapegoat
whitey for everything), as it unites all nonwhites with Zionists in the War on Whiteness. War
on Whiteness or WOW is great for Zionists as it morally shames and paralyzes whites into
having no pride and prestige, which translates into having no will and agency. Filled with
shame and 'white guilt', whites become mired in mode of redemption, the terms of which are
decided by Zionists who advise Total Support for Zion, More Wars for Israel, More Diversity,
and More Globo-Homo(proxy of Zionist Power).
The source of the problem is the Zionist-White relations. When whites handed over power to
Zionists, Zionists made the key decisions, and those have been premised on
whatever-necessary-to-secure-Zionist-power. #1 priority for Zionists is then White
Submissivism to Zionist Supremacism. If Taylor will not discuss Zionist Power, it's like
complaining about the smoke without mentioning the fire. Also, does it make sense for whites
to bleat about blacks, browns, yellows, and etc. when whites themselves cravenly collaborate
with Zionist Power? Whites, especially the elites, don't stand for what is good for America
as a whole. They suck up to Zionists and support Zionist identity & Zionism. When whites
act like that, why should nonwhites be good American patriots? Whites have led the way in
betraying the original Americanism. In some ways, nonwhites, such as blacks into black power
and Mexican-Americans into Mexican pride, are more admirable because, at the very least, they
are tribal-patriotic about their own kind. In contrast, whites have betrayed both White Power
and Traditional Americanism. They are now allergic to anything white-and-positive but also
utterly lack a general sense of Americanism. White 'liberals' love to virtue-signal by
supporting blacks, diversity, & globo-homo, AND white 'conservatives' love to cuck-signal
by waving the Israeli Flag & yapping about how Israel is "America's best, greatest,
closest, and dearest ally." Both groups fail at simple generic patriotism based on rules and
principles. For white 'liberals', blacks are higher than other groups, and for white
'conservatives' it's Zionists-uber-alles.
In the current order, Zionists encourage nonwhites to wave their own identitarian flag
AGAINST whiteness while encouraging whites to wave the Zionist flag. In a way, one might say
this Zionist strategy is foolish. After all, if nonwhites are made to be anti-white and if
whiteness is made to be synonymous with support-for-Israel and praise-of-Zionists, might it
not lead to nonwhites being anti-Israel and anti-Zionist as well? After all, if whiteness =
love-for-Zionists whereas non-whiteness = anti-whiteness, wouldn't it lead to non-whiteness =
anti-Zionistness since whiteness is so closely associated with cucking to Zionists?
Zionists bank on two factors in this strategy. They figure (1) nonwhites are too dumb to
connect the dots or (2) even if nonwhites connected the dots and became more critical of
Israel & Zionist Power on account of whiteness = support-for-Zion, it will draw whites
even closer to Zion as white-knight-defenders of Israel against the rising tide of darkies.
We see scenario 2 play out with both Mitt Romney and Jared Taylor. They hope that powerful
Zionists will like them more if they stand with Zionists against the 'antisemitic'
darkies.
It's like Zionists encourage Ilhan Omar to be anti-white while white conzos beat their
chests as noble defenders of Zionists from 'Anti-Semites'.
Many great observations tonight, but all, beg the question; How do we change a nation
state that has so thoroughly morphed into an advertising and marketing phony, aided and
abetted by so many deluded morons?
This is interesting. Apparently both the Russians and the Chinese have concluded that
Biden intends to use "CornPop" faux-macho posturing as his foreign policy, and they have both
decided that "f**k that, let's nip this in the bud".
Because it looks like they have decided they have had a gut-full of US "exceptionalism"
and are quite determined to say so. To anyone, but especially to the Americans.
Going to be a lot of very confused people at Foggy Bottom. They may never have experienced
this degree of contempt before.
I about fell on the floor when I read Blinken's words, my first thought being "this klutz
has zero knowledge of history since 1588 and just admitted as much. In China, Blinken would
never achieve any position of power.
The decadence of the Outlaw US Empire's government is like so many prions turning brain
tissue into a swiss-cheese-like mass and then boasting about how finely tuned are its
cognitive abilities. And when Harris is installed, we'll have a genuine novice in charge--The
Blind leading the Blind.
It's no wonder the Chinese sought an audience with Lavrov ASAP.
The Americans have completely lost the culture of negotiation. If there are no elementary
human manners, then what kind of agreements can we talk about? A sad picture. And
dangerous. A madman with nuclear weapons (and chemical weapons, by the way) is not the best
option for a reliable negotiating partner.
Are you gonna believe what I tell you or are you gonna believe what you see, comes to mind.
I believe what I see and I don't see the USA doing any bridge building, even in its own
country where bridge infrastructure is in serious decay.
I repeat: These are not normal people in charge. They have lost their minds.
Maybe once a long time ago the USA diplomatic corp was supported by elected officials that
set out to make allies based on mutual respect. But those days are long gone. The only
bridges the USA builds is munition supply channels, be it by air or by sea. They destroy
physical and metaphorical bridges in every nation they occupy.
The USA builds walls and barriers and obstruction: at home at the Mexican border, in the
capital state, by economic sanctions illegally applied throughout the world, by destroying
its home regulatory system to keep poisoned citizens from seeking judicial or regulatory
redress for pollution and human suffering.
I see a mendacious, failed state surrounding its elected officials and financial
institutions and even suburbs with walls and barriers. Then they attack people who criticise
them in moderately peaceful ways. That is who they are, that is what I see.
"... Then the exceptionalist-triumphalist power inevitably runs off-the-rails, and -- especially when it feels threatened or insecure -- lashes out in fits of aggressive military, economic, religious, or racial chauvinism. This cycle tends to replay again and again until the empire collapses, usually through some combination of external power displacement and internal exhaustion or collapse. ..."
Exceptionalism, triumphalism, chauvinism. These characteristics define most empires, including, like it or not, these
United
States . The sequence matters. A people and national government that fancies itself exceptional -- an example for the rest of
the world -- is apt to assert itself militarily, economically, and culturally around the globe. If that self-righteous state happens
to possess prodigious power, as the U.S. has since the Second World War, then any perceived success will lead to a sense of triumphalism,
and thus put into motion a feedback loop whereby national "achievement" justifies and validates that conception of exceptionalism.
Then the exceptionalist-triumphalist power inevitably runs off-the-rails, and -- especially when it feels threatened or insecure
-- lashes out in fits of aggressive military, economic, religious, or racial chauvinism. This cycle tends to replay again and again
until the empire collapses, usually through some combination of external power
displacement and internal exhaustion or collapse.
Such imperial hyper-powers, particularly in their late-stages, often employ foot soldiers across vast swathes of the planet, and
eventually either lose control of their actions or aren't concerned with their resultant atrocities in the first place. On that,
the jury is perhaps still out. Regardless, the discomfiting fact is that by nearly any measure, the United States today coheres,
to a remarkable degree, with each and every one of these tenets of empire evolution. This includes, despite the hysterical denials
of sitting political and Pentagon leaders, the troubling truth that American soldiers and intelligence agents have committed war
crimes across the Greater Middle East since 9/11 on a not so trivial number of occasions. These law of war violations also occurred
during the Cold War generation -- notably in Korea and Vietnam -- and the one consistent strain has been the almost complete inability
or unwillingness of the U.S. Government to hold perpetrators, and their enabling commanders, accountable.
Enter the International Criminal Court (ICC). First
proposed , conceptually, in 1919 (and again in 1937, 1948, and 1971), in response to massive war crimes and human rights violations
of the two world wars, the Hague-headquartered court finally opened for business in 2002. With more than 120 signatory member states
(though not, any longer, the U.S.) the ICC has the jurisdiction to prosecute international violations including "genocide, crimes
against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression." A compliment, rather than a replacement, to sovereign national justice
systems, the ICC is designed to be the "court of
last resort," obliged to exercise jurisdiction only when a nation's courts prove unwilling or unable to prosecute such crimes.
All of which sounds both admirable and unthreatening (at least to reasonably well-behaved states with accountable, responsive
justice systems), but to the contemporary American imperial hyper-power, the very existence of the ICC is viewed as a mortal threat.
Matters demonstrably came to a head this past week when an ICC appeals court
reversed a lower-level decision and allowed its special prosecutor -- whose visa Washington has already revoked -- to simply
open an official investigation into alleged war crimes committed in Afghanistan by all three major parties to the conflict:
the Taliban, U.S., and U.S.-backed Kabul-based Afghan government. This decidedly mild decision, which only allows a multi-directional
inquiry , unleashed an immediate firestorm in Washington.
The reflexive reactions and responses of current and former Trump officials was both instructive and totally in line with decades
worth of bipartisan U.S. disavowal of the very notion of international norms and standards. Trump's recent hawkish national security
adviser, John Bolton -- now an MSNBC-DNC
darling for his apparent critique
of the president in a new memoir -- has spearheaded opposition to the ICC since its inception, has
asserted that the ICC is "illegitimate," and that the U.S. Government "will not sit quietly," if "the court comes after us."
After the most recent ruling, Secretary of State (and former director of the very CIA that is likely to be implicated in said war
crimes investigation) Mike Pompeo
declared the ruling a "truly breathtaking action by an unaccountable, political institution masquerading as a legal body," adding,
threateningly, that "we will take all necessary measures to protect our citizens from this renegade, unlawful, so-called court."
On that latter point, Pompeo is neither wrong, nor espousing a policy -- no matter how aggressive or rejectionist -- unique to
Donald Trump's administration. Here, a brief bit of all but forgotten history is in order. In 1998, the UN General Assembly
voted 120-7 to establish the
ICC. The United States, in good company with a gaggle of criminally compromised states -- China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Yemen, and
Qatar -- voted against the measure. Two years later, however, President Bill Clinton unenthusiastically
signed onto this foundational
Rome
Statute , but with some dubiousness and the requisite American exceptionalist caveat that he "will not, and do not recommend
that my successor, submit the treaty to the Senate for advice and consent until our fundamental concerns are satisfied."
Then came the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This tragedy turned (for then ascendant neoconservatives)
opportunity for expanded U.S. military global
assertiveness, ensured that Clinton's successor -- one George W. Bush -- wouldn't even consider ICC treaty submission to the Senate.
Rather, in May 2002, Bush
sent a note to the UN Secretary General informing him that the most powerful and influential country in the world no longer intended
to ratify the Rome Statute or recognize any obligations to the ICC (which officially
opened for business only two months later
). Never simply a morality tale of Republican villainy, Bush's disavowal didn't explain the half of it.
Far more disturbingly, a stunningly euphemistic
American Service-members' Protection Act
of 2001 amendment, first introduced just 15 days after the
9/11 attacks, to the Supplemental Appropriations Act for Further Recovery From and Response to Terrorist Attacks on the United States,
was already under consideration in Congress. With broad bipartisan majorities, that legislation -- which authorized the U.S. president
to use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned
by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court" -- passed in the
House a couple weeks after Bush sent his note
to the UN, and the Senate just two weeks later.
President Bush then signed this authorization for, up to and including military, force into law on August 2, 2002. Much of the world
was appalled and international human rights organizations took to – quite appropriately – calling it the "
Hague Invasion Act ." It remains
in force today.
The timeline is instructive and itself tells a vital part of the story. Democrats and Republicans alike had chosen to "preempt"
-- an internationally prohibited precedent that Bush would
later invoke to invade Iraq -- the not yet in force ICC with this bill. They did so, I'd assert, because they knew a salient dirty
secret: the U.S. was about to unleash martial fury across the Greater Middle East. In the process, inevitably, American troopers
and intelligence spooks would push the limits of acceptable wartime behavior, and thus be vulnerable to international prosecution
by the soon effective ICC.
This was unacceptable for an exceptionalist, triumphalist nation, about to undertake chauvinist actions the world over. That unilateral,
world-order-be-damned national position held, and still holds, sway in the intervening 18 years. So, for all the Trump administration's
coarse obtuseness in response to the opening of the latest ICC Afghan investigation, this is, at root, not (as the mainstream media
will inevitably now claim) a Donald phenomenon.Three administrations, and multiple guard-changing Congresses, chose to not to touch
the infamous Hague Invasion Act or realign the U.S. with the ICC or the spirit (or even the pretense) of international law.
The cast of elite characters, many still politically influential, who voted for the Hague Invasion Act is nothing short of astounding.
The bill passed the House by a margin of 280-138, and counted
such "yea" votes as House Intelligence Committee Chair -- top Trump opponent and Russiagate investigator -- Democrat Adam Schiff.
Notably, especially in this ongoing electoral cycle, then Vermont Representative Bernie Sanders opposed the measure.In the
Senate , an even larger portion of Democrats joined current Speaker Mitch McConnell (and most of his Republican caucus), to vote
for the Act. These included such past and present notables as former Secretaries of State John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, current
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and, then Foreign Relations Committee Chair, and now Democratic presidential frontrunner, Joe Biden.
His vote, naturally, should come as scant surprise since even in early Senate committee
hearings four years
earlier, ranking minority member Biden was at best tepid, and at worst quite skeptical of the ICC – even finding unlikely points
of agreement with the later Hague Invasion Bill's sponsor, and longtime unilateralist hawk, Republican Senator Jesse Helms.
Still, the swift, frenetic response of senior Trump officials to ICC decision is telling. I suspect that Pompeo and Bolton know
the inconvenient truth – that U.S. national security forces have committed crimes in Afghanistan (and elsewhere) and that
the U.S. Government hasn't ever truly held these select perpetrators sufficiently accountable. Contra Pompeo, Bolton, and other Trump
officials' ardent public assertions, the U.S. military and intelligence community are, in fact – due to being demonstrably "unwilling
or unable to prosecute such [war] crimes" – the perfect candidates for ICC investigation, and if evidentiary appropriate,
prosecution. The U.S. has a historically abysmal
record either of
restraining or punishing wartime violations.
The rarely recounted
record is an extensive as it is appalling:
After U.S. Air Force pilots and U.S. Army soldiers strafed and gunned down some 400 Korean refugees (most women, children,
and old men) hiding under a bridge at No
Gun Ri over the course of four days in 1950, there was no criminal investigation when the military determined the killings
represented naught but an "unfortunate tragedy inherent to war."
When, after a two-year coverup, the journalist Seymour Hersh brought to light the blatant execution of at least 504 civilians
in the hamlet of My Lai , South Vietnam, just six
soldiers were charged, and only one – Lieutenant William Calley – convicted. Though countless victims were beheaded, scalped,
or had their throats slit in an orgy of violence, even Calley's original life sentence was repeatedly reduced by senior generals
until he was ultimately granted clemency by President Richard Nixon. Convicted by jury of military officer peers of personally
killing at least 22 civilians, Calley served only five months in detention and some three years under house arrest.
Later in the Vietnam War, when Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Herbert
blew the whistle on
endemic torture among some U.S. troops, and a subsequent investigation uncovered 141 confirmed incidents of prisoner abuse, not
a single criminal charge was filed and only three soldiers were administratively fined or reduced in rank. The only significant
punishment meted out was leveled at Herbert -- recipient of four Silver Stars and three Bronze Stars, who was also shot 10 ten
times and bayonet thrice -- when his reputation and career were ruined in retaliation.
When allegations of systemic prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib Prison were reported by Major General Antonio Taguba, and
simultaneously uncovered by the very same Seymour Hersh, not a single soldier above the rank of staff sergeant faced charges.
Taguba, incidentally, did suffer
-- his career unceremoniously curtailed in the wake of threats, intimidation, and harassment by the senior army commander
in Iraq (General John Abizaid) and the then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Finally, and perhaps most relevant to the current ICC investigatory backlash, after an American AC-130 gunship unloaded on
a civilian hospital (by definition, a war crime) repeatedly for 30-60 minutes and killed 42 doctors, patients, and staff members,
the top theater commander, General John Campbell, and then Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter
changed
their stories four times in four days without ever fully explicating what exactly caused the massacre. An official military
probe – instructively, the generals always investigate themselves in these matters – found no criminal culpability, and, while
Campbell's nominal boss, General Joseph Votel, claimed to have administratively disciplined sixteen soldiers and officers, the
names of those personnel – and he details of their punishment – were never released.
Add to that the disconcerting fact that the U.S. crossed a rather macabre
tipping
point in 2019, whereby, for the first time, the American military and its Afghan allies killed more civilians than the Taliban,
and this brings us full circle to an alarming present reality. The very figures who championed and supported the wildly chauvinistic
"Hague Invasion" Act seem set to hold sway over, and in Biden's case serve as candidate for, the Democratic Party.In November, that
faction will likely, then face off against a Trump team that vehemently opposes even a basic investigation into alleged American
criminal misbehavior in the Afghan theater of its ongoing forever wars.
All of which demonstrates, once and for all, that human rights, and international law or norms were never of genuine interest
to the United States. None of this will play well on the "Arab," or even broader global, "Street," and will – just like U.S. abuses
at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo – actually
increase worldwide "terrorism"
and anti-Americanism. None of which matters to, or greatly concerns, a Washington elite lacking even a modicum of self-awareness.
Because empires, like the United States, which peddle in exceptionalism, triumphalism, and chauvinism are, historically, the world's
true rogue states
.
Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army officer and a contributing editor at antiwar.com
. His work has appeared in the LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill, Salon, Truthdig, Tom Dispatch, among other publications.
He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point.
He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers,
Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . His forthcoming book, Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War is
now available for
pre-order . Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet . Check out
his professional website for contact info, scheduling speeches, and/or access
to the full corpus of his writing and media appearances.
Re: "...Thus, six years ago, in 2014, we spoke about this issue when we discussed the
theme The World Order: New Rules or a Game Without Rules. So, what is happening now?
Regrettably, the game without rules is becoming increasingly horrifying and sometimes
seems to be a fait accompli."
Putin said this virtually in the same breath directly after his previous paragraph you
excerpted where he speaks of the serious ongoing challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.
What that says to me is that he is hinting with his trademark subtlety that he thinks the
CV pandemic may not be a naturally arising event. In other words, a plandemic.
Yes, that's the ongoing rhetorical battle between the Collectivist nations who uphold the
sanctity of International Law and the Neoliberal Nations controlled by Financial Parasites
that can't survive under a functional International Law System. That distinction is
constantly becoming clearer particularly to those residing within the Neoliberal nations as
they watch their lives being destroyed. IMO, we're on the cusp of entering the most critical
decade of this century which will determine humanity's condition when 2101 is reached.
The Russians ( Putin / Lavrov) say ever so politely that the US is not
agreement-capable.
I add that the US ( politicians, Wall Streeters, MSM, think tanks ) are:
not truth-capable;
not ethics-capable;
not shame-capable;
not honour-capable.
What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul? He turns into a
ghoul without a soul, says I, a devil without human-ness! How dare they call us deplorables
when they are the despicables?
Putin proposed, "exchanging guarantees of non-interference in each other's internal
affairs, including electoral processes, including using information and communication
technologies and high-tech methods."..
####
That is some excellently timed next level trolling from Pootie-McPoot-Face.
Of course the USA will never agree to such a proposal, because (a) it does not regard its
meddling as 'interference' but as the bringing of the gift of freedom, (b) it stands on its
absolute right of judgment as to what is a situation that requires more democracy and what is
not, and (c) it probably knows at some level that Russia did not meddle in the US elections,
and that it would therefore in that case be constraining its own behavior in exchange for
nothing.
But then, when refused – I imagine the US will try to extract something from the
offer, such as "A-HA!! So you ADMIT to meddling in our elections!! – Russia can
obviously claim, "Well, we tried."
Roger Thornhill 2 hours ago If I recall correctly, Obama gave the Russians all of 48 hours
to leave their consulate in San Francisco, which had been occupied since the 19th Century. This
was around Christmas time in 2016. So I don't find this particularly surprising. Two days to
have the diplomats, staff, and families completely out of the country.
Does Cancel Culture intersect with Woke? The former's not mentioned in
this fascinating essay , but the latter is and appears to deserve some unpacking beyond
what Crooke provides.
As for the letter, it's way overdue by 40+ years. I recall reading Bloom's The Closing
of the American Mind and Christopher Lasch's Culture of Narcissism where they say
much the same.
What's most irksome are the lies that now substitute for discourse--Trump or someone from
his admin lies, then the WaPost, NY Times, MSNBC, Fox, and others fire back with their lies.
And to top everything off--There's ZERO accountability: people who merit "canceling" continue
to lie and commit massive fraud.
The Chinese and Russian Foreign Ministers just jointly agreed in a rare published account
of their phone conversation that the Outlaw US Empire " has lost its sense of reason,
morality and credibility .
Yes, they were specifically referring to the government, but I'd include the Empire's
institutions as well. In the face of that reality, the letter is worse than a joke.
I like this article, it says it all. I have also long harbored a theory that the US
intelligence are behind most of the worlds financial cyber-crime, systematically fleecing the
world to fund their many many operations around the world. They have the tech with Windows
back-doors, the motivation to hide 'off the book' operations and a proven lack of morals as
demonstrated during the Iran–Contra affair, many years ago. but what do I know. As Bill
Maher says, 'I can't prove it but I know it's true'.
John Ervin , Jul 16, 2020 11:59 PM Reply to
voxpox
The USA foreign policy shows a penchant for amoral deceptiveness of ALL other countries,
even best allies, chronically.
So that gives heft to Bill Maher's maxim. Perennial treaty busters and oath breakers, why would anyone trust? Fool me once etc.
That's at the core of my take on all USA has said about C-19(84). Been there, done that,
with 100 other false flags, always the same tune.
The boy who cried wolf: Uncle Scam. Always proven false after all the marbles are stolen. Or at some point down the road. If
not, it shall be, like the JFK fiasco. Like the lone holdout among nations on the Napalm Ban,
or sole rogue to drop an A bomb (75th Anniversary of that cowardly Holocaust coming up in a
few weeks.)
Lone, lone, lone. A sad little homeboy in the Land of the Lone Gunman. So many, though. Too many, for the
world's good .
~~~~~~~~~
Don't take it from me, though, I'm a total patriot, really, compared to Mr. Gonzo, Hunter
S. Thompson:
"America just a nation of 200 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy
guns and no qualms at all about using them on anybody else in the world who tries to make us
uncomfortable."
Hunter always said it like it is, at least at yhr time he saw it, he rode with the Hell's
Angels and wrote the 1st book about them, and wasn't much shy about calling a spade a
spade.
And. Like my own old man: another highly assisted apparent suicide.
"The World Cannot Breathe!" Squashed By The U.S. - A Country Built On Genocide And Slavery
More than two centuries of lies are now getting exposed. Bizarre tales about freedom and
democracy are collapsing like houses of cards.
One man's death triggers an avalanche of rage in those who for years, decades and
centuries, have been humiliated, ruined, and exterminated.
It always happens just like this throughout the history of humankind – one single
death, one single "last drop", an occurrence that triggers an entire chain of events, and
suddenly nothing is the same, anymore. Nothing can be the same. What seemed to be
unimaginable just yesterday, becomes "the new normal" literally overnight.
*
For more than two centuries, the country which calls itself the pinnacle of freedom, has
been in fact the absolute opposite of that; the epicenter of brutality and terror.
From its birth, in order to 'clear the space' for its brutal, ruthless European settlers,
it systematically liquidated the local population of the continent, during what could easily
be described as one of the more outrageous genocides in the human history.
When whites wanted land, they took it. In North America, or anywhere in the world. In what
is now the United States of America, millions of "natives" were murdered, infected with
deadly diseases on purpose, or exterminated in various different ways. The great majority of
the original and rightful owners of the land, vanished. The rest were locked up in
"reservations".
Simultaneously, the "Land Of The Free" thrived on slavery. European colonialist powers
literally hunted down human beings all over the African continent, stuffing them, like
animals, into ships, in order to satisfy demand for free labor on the plantations of North
and South America. European colonialist, hand in hand, cooperated, in committing crimes, in
all parts of the world.
What really is the United States? Is anyone asking, searching for its roots? What about
this; a simple, honest answer: The United States is essentially the beefy offspring of
European colonialist culture, of its exceptionalism, racism and barbarity.
Again, simple facts: huge parts of the United States were constructed on slavery. Slaves
were humiliated, raped, tortured, murdered. Oh, what a monstrous way to write the first
chapters of the country's history!
The United States, a country of liberty and freedom? For whom? Seriously! For Christian
whites?
How twisted the narrative is! No wonder our humanity has become so perverse, so immoral,
so lost and confused, after being shaped by a narrative which has been fabricated by a
country that exterminated the great majority of its own native sons and daughters, while
getting insanely rich thanks to unimaginable theft, mass-murder, slavery and later –
the semi-slavery of the savage corporate dictatorship!
The endemic, institutionalized brutality at home eventually spilled over to all parts of
the planet. Now, for many decades, the United Stated has treated the entire world as full of
its personal multitude of slaves. What does it offer to all of us: constant wars,
occupations, punitive expeditions, coups, regular assassinations of progressive leaders, as
well as thorough corporate plunder. Hundreds of millions of people have been sacrificed on
the grotesque U.S. altar of "freedom" and "democracy".
Freedom and democracy, really?
Or perhaps just genocide, slavery, fear and the violation of all those wonderful and
natural human dreams, and of human dignity?
Burn Amerikastan burn. It's beautiful watching you burn
You who had your knee on our necks and killed us as the world looked on.
You who broke into our countries on false pretences, you who killed wives in front of
husbands, fathers in front of daughters, you who said it was your right to do so,
You who stole our resources, you who watched without words
You who claimed you were Exceptional
The world sees you for what you are
Now you burn.
Burn Amerikastan burn.
In the name of the children of Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Donbass, Yemen,
Afghanistan
@Fiendly Neighbourhood Terrorist You missed out the Serbs.
'Bombed back to the Stoneage' by direction of Bill Clinton and by the butcher of WACO.
Breaking international law by the stealing of Kosovo and handing it to a bunch of radical
islamists – the KLA – thousands of whom have been fighting for ISIS.
Kosovo is Serbia.
They will get it back.
[Hide MORE]
United Nations reports a death toll of 100,000 people!!!!!!!!!!!!! in that nation's
ongoing war
Additional 131 ,000 people !!!!!!!!!!!! dying from hunger, disease and a lack of
medical care.
Since then, 3.65 million people have been internally displaced
The worst cholera outbreak ever recorded has infected 2.26 million !!!!!! and cost
nearly 4,000 lives (Even so this number is just the official account.)
Attacks on hospitals, clinics by Saudis & Co. have led to the closure of more than half
of Yemen's prewar facilities.
The policies of the USA and much of the entire WEST are deeply implicated in Yemen's
suffering, through the sale of billions of dollars in munitions to Saudi Arabia and other
countries that have intervened in the civil war.
"If Trump sent in military troops on his own the press would call it
unconstitutional."
Since when has the constitution or any law – or anyone citing them – been an
obstacle to the evil orange clown?
If he can commit war crimes in Syria and illegally seize Syrian oilfields and seize
Russian and Venezuelan diplomatic property, etc., he can send in military troops or whatever
he feels like doing. He was accused of abusing his office and acquitted. He can do whatever
he pleases.
Wednesday, July 10, 2019Non-Agreement Capable, Or Agreement Incapable, Or...
Agreement-unworthy, or.... I didn't find many English-language report on Putin's last week
interview on this issue:
We knew this all along, didn't we? It is not just about personalities, however
repulsive in his narcissism and lack of statesmanship Obama was. It is systemic, no matter who
comes to power to the Oval Office--it will make no difference. No difference, whatsoever. What
is known as US power (political) elite has been on the downward spiral for some time and, in
some sense, the whole Epstein
affair with serious pedophilia charges, not to mention an unspeakable slap on the wrist in
which this well-connected pervert was let go ten years ago, is just one of many indications of
a complete moral and cognitive decomposition of this so called "elite" which continues to
provide one after another specimens of human depravity. Remarkably, as much as I always feel
nauseated when seeing GOPers, it is impossible to hide the fact that Epstein's clients in their
majority are mostly associated with putrid creatures from the so called "left", with Bill
Clinton featuring prominently in the company of this pervert.
There were some attempts to even conceive a possibility of somehow "progressives" and
"conservatives" getting together in their condemnation of this heinous crime (yeah, yeah, I
know, Presumption of Innocence).
Doesn't it sound wonderful, warm and fuzzy, or too good to be true? It sure does,
because, as much as most American elite "conservatives" are not really conservatives, what
passes as "progressive" in the United States is PRIMARILY based on sexual deviancy, including
implicit promotion of pedophilia by "intellectual class", and "environmental" agenda, period!
Everything else is secondary. Those who think that actual conservatism (not a caricature it is
known in the United States) has anything to discuss with the so called "progressives"--they
unwittingly support this very "progressive" cause which, in its very many manifestations, is a
realization of the worst kind of suppression of many millennia old natural, including
biological, order of things and, in the end, elimination of normality as such--a future even
Orwell would have had difficulty describing.
Of course, Pinkerton gets some flashes of common sense, when states that:
Most likely, a true solution will have "conservative" elements, as in social and cultural
norming, and "liberal" elements, as in higher taxes on city slickers coupled with conscious
economic development for the proletarians and for the heartland. Only with these economic and
governmental changes can we be sure that it's possible to have a nice life in Anytown, safely
far away from beguiling pleasuredomes.
Well, he puts it very crudely, but I see where he is at least trying to get it
from. I will add, until nation, as in American nation, recognizes itself as a nation, as people
who have common history, culture and mission, thus, inevitably producing this aforementioned
healthy social and cultural norming--no amount of wishful thinking or social-economic
doctrine-mongering will help. There is no United States without European-keen, white Christian,
heterosexual folk, both with acutely developed sense of both masculinity and femininity,
period. But this is precisely the state of the affairs which American "progressives" are
fighting against; this is the state of the affairs which they must destroy be that by
imposition of suffocating political correctness, the insanity of multi-gender and LGBT
totalitarianism, or by criminal opening of the borders to anyone, who, in the end, will vote
for the Democratic Party. You cannot negotiate with such people. In the end, WHO is going to
negotiate? A cowardly, utterly corrupt, current GOPers and geriatric remnants of Holy
Reaganites? Really? Ask how many of them are Mossad assets and are in the pockets of rich
Israeli-firsters and Gulfies?
True "Left" economics, which seeks more just distribution (not re-distribution) of wealth,
based on a fusion of economic models and types of property, cannot exist within cultural
liberal paradigm of "privileged" minorities, be them racial or sexual ones, aided by massive
grievance-generating machine--it is not going to last. Both economic and social normality can
exist ONLY within cohesive nation and that, due to activity on both nominal sides (in reality
it is the same) of American political spectrum, has been utterly destroyed. The mechanism of
this destruction is rather simple and it comes down, in the end, to the, pardon my French,
number of ass-holes populating unit-volume (density, that is) of political space in America. It
goes without saying that such a density in the US reached deadly toxic levels, and Russiagate
coup, Epstein's Affair, or the parade of POTUSes with the maturity levels of high school kids
are just numerous partial manifestations of what one can characterize as the end of the rope.
After all, who would be making any agreements with representatives of the system which is
rotting and decomposing?
Paul Craig Roberts penned today a good piece: The
Obituary for Western Civilization Can Now be Written . I have to disagree somewhat with
PCR's one assertion:
Europeans Are as Dumbshit as Americans
I would pause a little here. Yes and no. Here is Colonel Wilkerson who talks about
both wealth (starts roughly at 14:00) and about other very important strategic and operational
fact: overwhelming majority of weapons on hands today are among those who either support Trump
openly or simply had it with system in general.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/kZA2yIFkhKg/0.jpg
And here is the issue: my bets are on people with military backgrounds, who had first hand
experience with military organization (standard manuals, combat manuals et al) and have
operational and command experience in their conflict with American Social Justice Warriors (you
know--"progressives") and other openly terrorist "progressive" organizations such as Antifa. At
least ruined Portland started to do something
about it . Is there any real left left in the US? And I don't mean this a-hole Bernie
Sanders.
And here is my rephrasing of Tolstoy's conclusion to War and Peace: there are too many
ass-holes in American politics today , very many of them being so called "progressives"
. This number must be reduced by all legal means today, and if American ass-holes can
work together terrorizing majority of good, not ass-hole people, what's precluding those good
people to work together? Nothing, except for the rotting corpse of GOP which had audacity to
call itself "conservative". If not, all is lost and we do not want to live in the world which
will come. And the guns will start speaking. UPDATE : 07/11/19
Oh goody, do they read me or is it one of those moments when, in Lenin's description of
Revolutionary Situation, economic slogans transform into political ones? Evidently Catholic
Conservative Michael Warren speaks in unison with Lenin and me, with both me and Warren
certainly not being Marxists or "communists". Here is what Warren has to say today:
It is a very loaded statement. It is also not an incorrect one. It is also
relevant to what I preach for years, decades really, that history of the so called "communism"
in USSR was a conservative history--a transition from depravity and corruption of Russian
Imperial "elites" to what resulted in the mutated nationalism of sorts in late 1930s and led to
the defeat of Nazism, historically unprecedented restoration of the destroyed country and then
breaking out into space. But that is a separate story--in USSR, as it is the case in Russia
today, sexual perversion and deviancy are not looked at lightly. Nor are, in general, "liberal
values" which are precisely designed to end up with the legitimization of pedophilia--a long
held, and hidden, desire of Western
"elites" . Guess why such an obsession with, realistically, literary mediocrity of
Nabokov's Lolita by Western moneyed and "intellectual" class. Who in their own mind,
unless one is a forensic psychiatrist or detective, would be interested in such a topic, not to
mention writing a book on it, not to mention a variety of Hollywood and, in general, Western
cinematography artsy class making scores of Lolita movies? Each time I read Lolita, in
both Russian and English, I felt an urgent desire to take a shower after reading this
concoction. I guess, I am not "sophisticated" enough to recognize appeals of this type of
"art". As Warren notes:
Yes: those passions are legitimate. We should feel contempt for our leaders when we
discover that two presidents cavorted with Epstein, almost certainly aware that he preyed on
minors. We should feel disgust at the
mere possibility that Pope Francis rehabilitated Theodore McCarrick. And we should be
furious that these injustices haven't even come close to being properly redressed. This is
how revolutions are born. America is reaching the point where, 200 years ago, a couple French
peasants begin eyeing the Bastille. The question is, can conservatives channel that outrage
into serious reform before it's too late? Can we call out the fetid, decadent elites within our
own ranks ? Are we prepared to hold our own "faves" to account -- even Trump himself?
Alas, it's only a matter of time until we find out.
In this, I, essentially an atheist, and a conservative Catholic, are speaking in
the same voice.
The Trump administration has been desperately trying to kill the nuclear deal for the last two years after reneging on it. Now
they will try to kill it by
pretending to
be part of it again:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is preparing a legal argument that the United States remains a participant in the Iran nuclear
accord that President Trump has renounced, part of an intricate strategy to pressure the United Nations Security Council to extend
an arms embargo on Tehran or see far more stringent sanctions reimposed on the country.
The administration's latest destructive ploy won't find any support on the Security Council. There is nothing "intricate" about
this idea. It is a crude, heavy-handed attempt to employ the JCPOA's own provisions to destroy it. It is just the latest in a series
of administration moves that tries to have things both ways. They want to renege on U.S. commitments while still refusing to allow
Iran to benefit from the agreement, and they ultimately hope to make things difficult enough for Iran that their government chooses
to give up on the agreement. It reeks of bad faith and contempt for international law, and all other governments will be able to
see right through it. Some of our European allies have already said as much:
European diplomats who have learned of the effort maintain that Mr. Trump and Mr. Pompeo are selectively choosing whether
they are still in the agreement to fit their agenda.
It is significant that the Trump administration feels compelled to go through this charade after telling everyone for years that
the U.S. is no longer in the deal. Until now, Trump administration officials have been unwavering in saying that the U.S. is out
of the deal and can't be considered a participant in it:
Can't wait to see the tortured memo out of State/L claiming that somehow the U.S. is still a participant in the JCPOA. The
May 8, 2018 announcement is literally titled "Ceasing U.S. Participation in the JCPOA ."
https://t.co/I5t8LaC7dN
"... I guess when an administration has shown over and over again that it does not respect, international law, domestic law, the US constitution, logic, meaning or the English Language then it can say anything and do anything. ..."
"... The power of the United States is rapidly fading. The country is on the eve of a massive social crisis, as its ruling class fails even to understand the extent of the system's failure. ..."
"... Israel is nobody's real need. Zionism is a philosophical oddity stranded by the tides of history, a mid Victorian nonsense entirely composed of racism and silly ideas about human inequality. ..."
... is that akin to the portion of a George Carlin comedy sketch ?
"From 1778 to 1871, the United States government
entered into more than 500 treaties with
the Native American tribes; all of these treaties have since been violated
in some way or outright broken by the US government,
while at least one treaty was violated
or broken by Native American tribes."
The EU rapprochement with Iran is all about the huge market the EU wants. Their interest in
the JCPOA was always about Iran developing, and the EU benefiting for its trade and
investment potential.
Crippling Iran again with snapback sanctions certainly would end Iran-EU relations for a
decade or longer.
With the EU economy in the toilet due to the pandemic, now more than ever the EU needs
Iran free of sanctions, not laden with crippling new ones.
Only one country benefits from the economic strangulation of Iran--Israel.
In these times of memory holes, sometimes it pays to remember:
As much as I'd like to be optimistic that justice might actually be served for both
Epstein and his myriad clients/co-conspirators, I think the powers-that-be will again
squash this - or liquidate Epstein - before things get out of hand for them.
The American justice system has been corrupted in much the same way the political
system has been, and it's primary objective is to protect the rulers from the common
folk, not to actually deliver true justice.
I'll watch with anticipation, but I haven't had any satisfaction from either a
political or justice perspective since at least the 2000 coup d'etat, so I won't hold my
breath this time.
Economist Michael Hudson explains how American imperialism has created a global free lunch,
where the US makes foreign countries pay for its wars, and even their own military
occupation.
This is part of Tom's description of the Article on Pompeo, Esper and the gang of 1986
(west pointers). They are well embedded. In fact, one class from West Point, that of 1986, from which both Secretary of Defense
Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo graduated, is essentially everywhere in a
distinctly militarized (if still officially civilian) and wildly hawkish Washington in the
Trumpian moment.
In case you missed it the first time, I repeat this link from the beginning of April,
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176686/tomgram%3A_danny_sjursen%2C_trump%27s_own_military_mafia_/
-----------------
Red Ryder | Apr 27 2020 17:07 utc | 14
One addition there. The EU lost "market share" in Iran due to US sanctions. (As
they did with Russia). What they would like to do is to get it back. (France was one
of the bigger losers)
Before any aggression, the United States want Iran to be hermetically sealed with sanction
just like Iraq was before our invasion. Everybody knows the US's intentions because we've
seen it before. There will be NO domestic support for war on Iran as Americans die due to
no public healthcare and massive unemployment and poverty. Iran and the Middle East view a
war on Iran as an Israeli wet dream. Israel is viewed as the intellectual author of
aggression against Iran, and Iran will respond appropriately. So, is AIPAC willing to get
Israel destroyed? Is AIPAC on a suicide mission? Looks that way.
Israel and Saudi Arabia are de facto allies aiming to carve up the entire Middle East
between them. Forget about Sunni / Shia / Hebrew, that is a manufactured excuse to war for
resources (oil first, then water).
Proof? Mutual "enemies" (oil-rich Iran and Syria, which is the nexus for pipelines) and
mutual ally (Uncle Sam). Also not a single complaint from Israel over the $100b US-Saudi
Arms deal. As to Palestine, that is a human rights issue and has no weight because water is
not recognized as a strategic resource (yet).
I guess when an administration has shown over and over again that it does not respect,
international law, domestic law, the US constitution, logic, meaning or the English
Language then it can say anything and do anything.
"The Iranians are not helping the Palestinians one iota. They are splitting the
opposition."
Glasshopper@29
Whoever has been helping Hezbollah has been helping the Palestinians. And whoever has
been holding Syria together, despite the pressure of the imperialists and their sunni-state
puppets, has also been helping the Palestinians by bringing some kind of balance into
regional power calculations.
It is imperative that Iran continues not only to provide political support to the
Palestinian cause but to democratise the Gulf, to the extent of bringing about the demise
of the autocracies, and the Arabian world generally.
Israel has already exerted its maximum influence. The power of the United States is
rapidly fading. The country is on the eve of a massive social crisis, as its ruling class
fails even to understand the extent of the system's failure. (There will be no war to
divert attention from the crisis.) And Israel will be left to solve its own problems as its
'allies' find themselves increasingly pre-occupied with real problems.
Supporting Israel and building it up as an imperialist base has been part of an era in
which the empire was hegemonic and thus able to define international events in terms of
domestic politics.
That era has ended. The USA is still powerful but it is no longer anything more than one
of the major participants in geopolitical competition. Even to maintain its position it is
going to have to do, what other powers have done and concentrate its resources on its real
needs.
Israel is nobody's real need. Zionism is a philosophical oddity stranded by the
tides of history, a mid Victorian nonsense entirely composed of racism and silly ideas
about human inequality. Israel has one choice, to divest itself of its fascist
government and its fascistic culture and seek accommodation within the neighbourhood or to
wither away as its population emigrates leaving only the committed fascists to play with
Armageddon.
Long before that happens the imperialists will have taken its weapons away from it.
It may very well be the case that the ordinary Iranian is no more committed to fighting
on behalf of Palestinians than the average American is committed to risking all, or
anything, for the sake of Israel. But Iran's commitment to Palestine is a powerful
political statement and one that counters the divisive tactics of the wahhabis and their
imperial friends. Iran has taken up the mantle that Nasser briefly wore, in the vanguard of
a muslim and Arab nationalist movement. This makes it very difficult for the sunni tyrants
actually to commit forces to defend Israel or attack Iran. Their duplicity is a measure of
their own weakness.
Does anyone imagine that the pro-Israeli policies pursued by the Sauds are actually
popular? The Gulf and Saudi policies of sucking up to Israel are far more damaging to them
than Iran's stance is to it.
The United States announced its withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA), also known as the "Iran nuclear deal" or the "Iran deal", on May 8, 2018.
This document discusses the legal rationale for the US withdrawal from tje JCPOA in
detail:
Iran should sign a peace deal with the Israelis.
Posted by: Glasshopper | Apr 27 2020 16:42 utc | 8
Some people should stick to what they do well, like hopping on glass. A simple
observation: peace deal with "the Israelis" is not possible. Gulfie princes tried. No
cigar. They genuinely tried to be nice with Israel, out of "anti-Semitic delusion that Jews
control USA". I conjecture that Glasshopper made a similar assumption -- why would Iran
consider a "peace deal with the Israelis" if its direct conflict is with USA (and the
Gulfies)? How it would help them unless "Jews control USA"?
As a mental experiment, let Grasshopper sketch a putative "deal with Israelis". Kushner
plan?
@70 BraveNewWorld, you haven't added up the numbers correctly. Take China, Russia and Iran
out of the equation leaves you with five (including the EU as a whole, which is not a
given). Take the USA out as well and it doesn't matter how sycophantic the Europeans are,
Pompeo can only muster four votes.
And he needs five to refer the issue to the UNSC.
That's why Pompous wants to waddle his way back in: no matter which way he looks at
this, without the USA sitting at the table he is one-short.
Actually, I've just read the JCPOA and UNSC Resolution 2231 and neither has any mention of
a "majority vote" requirement for a referral to the UNSC for a vote on "snapping back"
sanctions. It appears that any one JCPOA participant can refer the issue of alleged
non-compliance to the UNSC, provided that they first exhaust the Joint Commission dispute
mechanism.
But I do note this in the JCPOA (my bold): "Upon receipt of the notification from the
complaining participant, as described above, including a description of the good-faith
efforts the participant made to exhaust the dispute resolution process specified in this
JCPOA , the UN Security Council, in accordance with its procedures, shall vote on a
resolution to continue the sanctions lifting"
Seems to me that there is a procedural "out" there for the UN Secretariat i.e. it may
use that highlighted section to decide that the participant is a vexatious litigant whose
participation in the Joint Commission was not in good faith, ergo, the UN can refuse to
even take receipt of the complaint.
Everything else then becomes moot.
The USA would raise merry-hell, sure, it would. But that would be no more outrageous a
ploy by the UN than was the USA's own argument that it can have its cake and eat it
too.
After all, if a participant to the JCPOA referred its complaint to the UNSC without
first going through the Joint Commission then it is a given that the UNSC is under no
obligation to receive that complaint. No question.
So why can't the UNSC also refuse to accept a complaint when it is clear that the
complainant has not gone through the Joint Commission process in "good faith"?
One for the lawyers and ambassadors to argue, I would suggest, but it is not a given
that the USA can ram this through even if everyone were to agree that it were still a
participant in the JCPOA.
@61 Arch: "This document discusses the legal rationale for the US withdrawal from tje JCPOA
in detail"
Arch, the crux of that CRS legal paper boils down to this:
.."under current domestic law, the President may possess authority to terminate U.S.
participation in the JCPOA and to re-impose U.S. sanctions on Iran, either through
executive order or by declining to renew statutory waivers"..
All the other fluff in that paper is inconsequential compared to this question posed by
that quote: can the US claim to be half-pregnant?
I suspect not.
Note that at the time the CRS paper was written (May 2018) it did have a valid point
i.e. while Trump *had* refused to re-certify Iranian compliance, he had *not* reimposed US
sanctions on Iran, and so the CRS paper could credibly argue that Trump wasn't pregnant, he
just talking dirty to the Congress.
But that was then, and this is now, and - as b points out - Executive Order 13846 is the
smoking gun because in it Trump is OFFICIALLY stating that he has decided to " cease the
participation of the United States in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action ".
That EO is clearly the killing blow to Pompeo's nonsense, and even the CRS legal paper
you linked to would agree.
As I see it, the historical problem with European fascism has been that when push comes to
shove the knife comes out and its either give in to enforced collaboration or take a
stabbing, it's your choice. Even if that means helping murder millions of your neighbours
or being murdered. As Celan said "Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland."
The US has been enforcing a morally sanitised Disney Adult version of this old world
order since at least the 2003 Supreme Crime of Aggression against Iraq. Sooner or later as
this global pandemic, political, and financial crisis unfolds, the US leaders will be
forced to choose whether or not the UN is a viable vehicle through which to continue the
elite lunatic project for planetary full spectrum dominance of 21st C financial and
military affairs.
So I reckon the Pentagon at some point either gets to finally execute the long awaited
'Operation Conquer Persia' or the politicians and their chickenhawk ideologues will back
off again and continue the death by a thousand cuts of the last 40 years. I'd probably bet
the latter but that's the trouble with genuine psychopaths, push comes to shove they will
go for it if they think they'll get away with it.
This last 2 decades has been like watching a reality TV series about a fat drunken
psychopath with a bloody knife going around and stabbing people at a party, but now the
psycho is starting to stagger and everyone in the house is watchful trying to keep their
distance. House rules are that anyone starts an actual fight to the death with the psycho
then everyone dies!
I more or less trust that if we ever get there, a multipolar world order won't collapse
into outright fascism but we're closer to collapse every year, especially from this year
on, and most especially in the Persian Gulf.
In current US political system, it is not necessary to propose a valid claim, or proposal
or argument - they intend to act from a position of authority. They know where you live.
Well they signed the agreement with the Taliban and two days later the DOD was bombing
them again so who knows what happens there.
Trump has declared all sorts of deals that ultimately turned into puffs of smoke -- the
non-deal with North Korea comes to mind. I consider pulling out of the TPP and tariffs
against China more indicative of bucking the consensus, but those can be reversed by Trump or
any other president whenever they feel like it.
Iran hawks never talk about diplomacy except as a way to discredit it.
Notable quotes:
"... And even if Iran were to accept and proceed comply in good faith, just as Iran complied scrupulously with the JCPOA, what's to prevent any US administration from tearing up that "new deal" and demanding more? ..."
Daniel
Larison Two Iran hawks from the Senate, Bob Menendez and Lindse Graham, are
proposing a "new deal" that is guaranteed to be a non-starter with Iran:
Essentially, their idea is that the United States would offer a new nuclear deal to both
Iran and the gulf states at the same time. The first part would be an agreement to ensure
that Iran and the gulf states have access to nuclear fuel for civilian energy purposes,
guaranteed by the international community in perpetuity. In exchange, both Iran and the gulf
states would swear off nuclear fuel enrichment inside their own countries forever.
Iran is never going to accept any agreement that requires them to give up domestic
enrichment. As far as they are concerned, they are entitled to this under the Non-Proliferation
Treaty, and they regard it as a matter of their national rights that they keep it. Insisting on
"zero enrichment" is what made it impossible to reach an agreement with Iran for the better
part of a decade, and it was only when the Obama administration understood this and compromised
to allow Iran to enrich under tight restrictions that the negotiations could move forward.
Demanding "zero enrichment" today in 2020 amounts to rejecting that compromise and returning to
a bankrupt approach that drove Iran to build tens of thousands of centrifuges. As a proposal
for negotiations, it is dead on arrival, and Menendez and Graham must know that. Iran hawks
never talk about diplomacy except as a way to discredit it. They want to make a bogus offer in
the hopes that it will be rejected so that they can use the rejection to justify more
aggressive measures.
The identity of the authors of the plan is a giveaway that the offer is not a serious
diplomatic proposal. Graham is one of the most incorrigible hard-liners on Iran, and Menendez
is probably the most hawkish Democratic senator in office today. Among other things, Menendez
has been a
booster of the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), the deranged cult of Iranian exiles
that has been buying the support of American politicians and officials for years. Graham has
never seen a diplomatic agreement that he didn't want to destroy. When hard-liners talk about
making a "deal," they always mean that they want to demand the other side's surrender.
Another giveaway that this is not a serious proposal is the fact that they want this
imaginary agreement submitted as a treaty:
That final deal would be designated as a treaty, ratified by the U.S. Senate, to give Iran
confidence that a new president won't just pull out (like President Trump did on President
Barack Obama's nuclear deal).
This is silly for many reasons. The Senate doesn't ratify treaties nowadays, so any "new
deal" submitted as a treaty would never be ratified. As the current president has shown, it
doesn't matter if a treaty has been ratified by the Senate. Presidents can and do withdraw from
ratified treaties if they want to, and the fact that it is a ratified treaty doesn't prevent
them from doing this. Bush pulled out of the ABM Treaty, which was ratified
88-2 in 1972. Trump withdrew from the INF Treaty just last year. The INF Treaty had been
ratified with a
93-5 vote. The hawkish complaint that the JCPOA wasn't submitted as a treaty was, as usual,
made in bad faith. There was no chance that the JCPOA would have been ratified, and even if it
had been that ratification would not have protected it from being tossed aside by Trump.
Insisting on making any new agreement a treaty is just another way of announcing that they have
no interest in a diplomatic solution.
Menendez and Graham want to make the obstacles to diplomacy so great that negotiations
between the U.S. and Iran can't resume. It isn't a serious proposal, and it shouldn't be taken
seriously.
And even if Iran were to accept and proceed comply in good faith, just as Iran complied
scrupulously with the JCPOA, what's to prevent any US administration from tearing up that
"new deal" and demanding more?
A cynical school of thought holds that one reason America makes borders so unpleasant is to deter US
citizens from traveling so as to preserve our sense of exceptionalism in the face of countervailing
evidence. For instance, one colleague, a former city planner, came back from a vacation in the south of
France and raved about how terrific the roads were. The Gilet Janues would assure him that in rural areas,
they were neglected, but my contact's point was that even in affluent parts of the US, you couldn't find
ones on a par with the ones he drove on his holiday. And I suspect that even the roads that are impediments
to safe, fast driving in the depopulating parts of France
are still better than those in Michigan
.
But America is slipping even further. It used to be that it would come up short in infrastructure and
social well being indicators compared to most European countries. We now have readers who are looking at
what they see in the better parts of the developing world and are finding America coming up short.
Costa Rica has admittedly long been depicted as the Switzerland of Central America. It has become more
and more popular with expats for at least the last 15 years. I visited there briefly on a client project in
1997. While the downtown section of San José looked worn, even there, the people on the street were neatly
if modestly dressed. And when you went out to the suburbs, the country looked comfortable to prosperous, and
it seemed as if citizens made an effort to keep their neighborhoods well kept, even in non-tourist sections.
Oh, and the food was terrific, particularly the fish.
A more recent sighting from Eureka Springs:
Just returned from deep southern rural Costa Rica to rural N.W. Arkansas. Peace and quiet almost
everywhere I go now. Unless it's my own noise (music) which could not bother another.
The entire trip was quite the reminder of just how third world we the peeps are nowadays.
Internet was so much better there. No satellite dishes, except as modifications to them for use as
roadside trash receptacles. Still no rural wired net in the U.S.. Cell signals were strong everywhere,
yet I never saw people glued to a phone.
Public trans, brand new buses all up and down the countryside. Even many miles down dirt roads.
Fantastic bus stops. No such thing as public transit in rural U.S.
A lot of people drive efficient 150cc motorcycles. The large bus stops seem intentionally oversized by
design to co-serve as a place to pull under during rain. How civilized.
Grocery stores with real food everywhere. No chain stores best I can tell. Unless in larger cities.
And a shockingly smaller amount of trash packaging. I would say for the same amount of weekly grocery
consumption I generate at least three if not five times more trash in the U.S. Seemingly every few
hundred people, never more than a mile, usually much less, have a store with produce and meats. I'm seven
miles from a dollar store, two more miles to actual groceries. About the same population density in both
places.
And then there is health care for all vs give me all you got, we don't give a fk.
Don't know but would wager their water tests much better across the board as well. Nobody consumes
plastic water bottles. Even very remote beaches had little shards of plastic all along the water line
though. No escaping it.
Schools did not look like prison at all. Kids were kids, with cookie stands, a work ethic, bicycles,
laughter, no apparent phones, lots of soccer, some dirt on their fingers and toes. And laughter.
Poor to middle working class people did not look miserable, unhealthy, guarded and or afraid.
The chickens, dogs and cats were abundant though not overly so, well fed, healthy, roaming free.
Police were calm, not dressed to kill with body language fitting the peace officer description. CR has
no military.
We have a choice and we are making so many bad ones. I feel like so many of my fellow US citizens
don't get this fact. And it's a shortcoming of Sanders types by failing to paint this vision/picture.
Even they are trapped in the downward spiral, knowing no other way from experience.
And Expat2uruguay seems to have adapted well to her big relocation. Ironically her big lament seems to be
the cuisine isn't terribly inspired and fish is hard to come by, but other advantages of living there seem
to more than make up for it. From a recent report:
Since relocating to Uruguay I was diagnosed with Stage 2B breast cancer. There was no bill whatsoever
for the surgery. The entire cost of my entire treatment, including my monthly membership fee of $60 a
month, was under $2,700.
That total includes 16 months of the monthly fee and all of my treatments, including six months of
chemotherapy, 6 weeks of daily radiation, co-pays for medications and tests, $7 co-pays for doctor
visits, and additional testing and consultation for heart damage caused by the chemotherapy. I also had a
couple of problems during the chemotherapy that required visits to the emergency room, a four day
hospital stay because of ultra-low defenses, and consultation in my home a couple times. They did a
really good job, and they're very good at cancer treatment here.
But the very best thing about Uruguay is the peacefulness, the tranquility, the laid-back approach to
life. My stress levels are way down from when I lived in the US.
Several factors are likely at work. One is, as we've pointed out from the very outset of this site, that
unequal societies are unhappy and unhealthy societies. Even those at the top pay a longevity cost due to
having shallower social networks, having a nagging awareness that most if not all of their supposed friends
would dump them if they took a serious income hit (can't mix with the same crowd if you can't fly private
class, can't support the right charities, can't throw posh parties) and having to think about or even
building panic rooms.
Another is the precarity even at high but below top 1% levels: job insecurity, the difficulty of getting
kids into good colleges and then paying for it when they do, along with attempting to save enough for
retirement. Even with steering clear of costly divorces and medical emergencies, the supposed basics of a
middle or upper middle income lifestyle add up in light of escalating medical, education, and housing costs.
And then some feel they are entitled to or need to give their kids perks in line with their self image of
their status, like fancy vacations.
And we don't need to elaborate on how hard it is for people who are struggling to get by. But it's not
hard to see that the status and sometimes money anxiety at the top too readily translates into abuses of
those further down the food chain to buck up their faltering sense of power and self worth. Anglo-style
capitalism is often mean-spirited and that tendency seems particularly strong now.
Specifically, which developing countries that readers know well give the US a lifestyle run for the
money? And I don't mean for for US expats bearing strong dollars but for ordinary people. And where do they
fall short?
You need to be cautious sometimes in interpreting how life is in other countries. I've known people who
moved to very orderly, prosperous countries like Japan, South Korea, Germany, Austria etc., and loved the
first year or so and would rave about it, but would gradually become, if not disenchanted, but a little more
aware as they became familiar of negative undercurrents – there always seems to be a price to be paid for
having a very law abiding, neat orderly society. Likewise, moving to poorer, but more cheerful countries
like Thailand or the Philippines, or perhaps Portugal/Greece also (for those people willing to learn the
language and go deeper into the society, there is a downward curve as they discover the downside to the laid
back attitudes and constant sunshine.
There is also the simple advantage of laggards – they can learn from other countries mistakes and skip a
generation of technology. I recall foreign visitors to Ireland in the early 1990's raving about how good the
phone system was. There was no magic to it – Ireland simply had fallen well behind, but invested in what was
then the most up to date proven digital system in the late 1980's, without having to go through the process
of an incremental upgrade. You find this in a lot of developing countries – I remember being amazed when
travelling in Tibet about 15 years ago that there was near perfect mobile phone signals even in very remote
areas. It was simply that it was cheaper for the Chinese to extend mobile masts before land lines, so it
made sense to roll out a remote network, when in other more 'advanced' nations your signal died as soon as
you hit some hills. Sometimes, economically, there is an advantage to just using old established infrastrure
(decades old airports, etc), which function adequately, rather than spending billions on brand new
facilities which can only be built with significant opportunity cost.
Anyway, having said all that, as a regular visitor to the US I've frequently been struck by just how poor
the infrastructure can be, even in high tech places like New York. I don't think the trek out to JFK from
Manhattan would be considered acceptable in any other major world city. And poor areas of the US do have a
sort of shabbiness you don't see even in many countries that are unambiguously much poorer (much of Asia,
for example). J.K Galbraith of course explained the reason for all this many decades ago when he wrote about
private splendour and public squalor.
>and loved the first year or so and would rave about it, but would gradually become, if not
disenchanted, but a little more aware
There's a rule of thumb for this, you must know as any expat will rattle it off for you:
1) The first year you love it beyond all words
2) The second year you hate everything with the heat of a thousand suns.
3) The third year on, it's just where you live.
After WW2, Australia encouraged British people to emigrate out to here. It was called the Ten Pond
Pom scheme as these emigrants would pay ten pounds but if they did not like it could return home while
paying their own fares. But they had to be here a minimum of two years in order to get a ticket home
free.
The British picked up a reputation as whingers as they said that this was not how things were done
in England or that is not what we believe back home. Come the two year mark, many left to go back to
the UK as they thought the place would be just like England but with more sun.
Funny thing was a very large section of them would after returning home start to remember why they
left post-war Britain. Then they would work hard to save up their money to pay the full fare out to
Australia for themselves and their families. The numbers were large enough to be a noticeable
phenomena.
I very much liked Sydney the two years I lived there. But I didn't succeed in getting permanent
residence, so perhaps I had not quite settled psychologically.
Plus Australia and Canada are American-tolerant and require less adaptation than any other
countries.
Not my experience (and I lived in four different countries on average 10 years each, and spent
enough time in a couple of others to know more than a "tourist") – for me, it's always "place where
you live" with advantages and disadvantages. Each place I lived in was special in its own way – and
had some significant problems (often well hidden from an occasional traveller).
What I did see and considered interesting is that after the fall of communist regimes quite a few
emigrants went home – and about half of those emigrated again within few years.
The 'advantage of laggards' is fairly well documented in the history of technology and especially of
telecoms. If something sort of works where you are, you tend to keep using it, while laggards who never
got the last generation of tech might pick up a cheaper-better-faster option that doesn't rely on
existing infrastructure.
Do you remember the transitions from 1G to 2G to 3G cellphones? How that might have affected you
depends on where you were based at the time; basically America did terribly with 2G infrastructure and
adoption (remember when Americans had to pay for inbound calls??) whereas Europe handled it much better
and thus gave birth to the SMS cultural/linguistic explosion, but then America's bad experience with 2G
spurred them to embrace 3G.
Electronic health records are another example the US began adoption a long, long time ago – the most
dominant US health records provider (Epic) was founded in the 1970s, and this is part of why the US has
the worst electronic health records in the world. I was at a digital health event a few years ago where
someone explained to the audience how EHR works in Zambia, and that it was stunningly superior to any
American system.
And people get REALLY confused about this. They assume that because a country is 'developed' or 'hi
tech' it must have some kind of first-mover advantage, whereas in many cases existing infrastructure
forms a stultifying status quo that impedes further development. It's really hard to get your average
American to accept that the countries in Asia that they like to look down upon have much better
internet/telecoms and industrial tech than America does. I am forever fascinated to watch this
technological leapfrogging happen, and I live in hope that the renewables boom leads to a wave of tech we
haven't yet dreamed of emerging in Africa & other places that aren't yet choked by an anticompetitive
status quo.
A big reason I've been living in Europe these last 25 years is because of my experience traveling in
Andalucía while living a comfortable life with a well-paying job in Silicon Valley. While not developing
world by any common definition, this area is and was relatively poor and unemployment hovered around 20%
unemployment and yet somehow people were always out enjoying the evening at bars (not to get drunk, but
simply to socialize). Little evidence of homelessness. I lived in Spain for a number of years after/because
of that experience. A friend from the US who frequently travels to Spain for work confirms he's never seen
such road quality even in the poorest regions. I can attest that, for health care, I never saw a bill. The
one time I ventured out of the gov network for a 2nd opinion from a private neurologist, the private expert
confirmed the gov't doctor's diagnosis – in fact they knew each other and each respected the other's work.
Just hope you to enjoy it! I can endorse all that you wrote. This is not to say there are of course
lot of problems and things badly done. There is in place a push for privatization like elsewhere in the
EU. I knew the guy that many years ago was responsible for developing infrastructure foe primary
attention in health care in Andalusia and they did a good job.
Perhaps you can confirm this, but a doctor friend who briefly worked in Spain told me that the
reason healthcare in Andalucia is so good is that it is in effect subsidised by northern European
retirees. German and Dutch systems are happy to pay (lower) Andalucian prices for retired people in
the South of Spain, while the local system uses the money to make a better system for everyone. I've
never heard any traveller I know say anything bad about southern Spanish health care.
I don't know about this. In the early 80s, with good old days PSOE governing, is when the
primary attention was designed and it was done quite well. That is what I can say first hand
because I met people involved and heard good critics by outsiders. When you have public servants
who are capable and want to do things correctly
When I'm told "I haven't met my deductible or that a procedure isn't covered" I get down on my knees
and thank God I'm an American.
This is what freedom feels like!
Taiwan. Cost.of living is generally cheap unless you're buying property, which can get pricey. But, rent
is generally low, food is very low and mostly healthy (they dont put much sugar in their stuff compared to
America), healthcare isn't free for non-citz but still stupid cheap compared to America and top quality,
crime is very low (second lowest crime rate in the world after Japan) and you get to experience real Chinese
culture instead of PRC propaganda. I could go on but those are the highlights for me. I view it as a truly
civilized society, although it no doubt has it's own problems. I encourage everyone i know to visit.
I cycled a little around Taiwan 10 years ago – it is a very well functioning country, very safe and
friendly with quite a distinct culture somewhere between China and Japan (lots of Japanese retirees go to
Taiwan). Public transport is excellent, the cities have good facilities and there are lovely surf beaches
in the south – the mountains are amazing, especially when you have cheap hot spring resorts everywhere.
The only negative is that probably because of their history many Taiwanese are super sensitive of
anything that could be construed as criticism (even jokes). Oh, and that the towns and cities are
incredibly ugly, even by most Asian standards. So much was just thrown up during the years of expansion,
it will take a generation or two to make things a little better.
They do have some infrastructure problems though, mainly because of their location right in the path
of some of the worst storms the Pacific can throw at any island – entire main roads get completely washed
away very regularly.
The National Palace Museum is one of the great cultural treasures of the world and better than the
British Museum in my opinion. A must see option for anyone visiting Taipei.
I've been here for 30 years. Your broad strokes are largely correct but leave out a lot of fine
detail. One small point is sugar:
Taiwanese puts TONS of sugar in drinks -- coffee, tea, all the traditional summer drinks, snacks/chips
of any kind. When you go to a 500cc place for a drink, they even have a chart so you can choose how much
sugar you want -- regular (= high), medium, and low (30% of the normal).
Coffee or tea at 7-11 and Family Mart is always powdered and includes powdered creamer and sugar.
As for food, Taiwanese LOVE garlic and leeks and are not averse to throwing in a lot of salt. Not to
mention the cooking oil -- lard or vegetable -- that remains on anything that's been stir fried.
And Taiwanese LOVE deep fried food, traditional as well as MacDonald's.
As for "real Chinese culture," watch out for that since many Taiwanese do NOT consider themselves
Chinese, and many Chinese (PRC) and overseas Chinese look down on Taiwanese as somewhat low class.
This isn't something new. The American people have been fed propaganda for decades to make them believe
America was exceptional. It was the bed rock of our Imperialism. If you lookout at measures of well being,
America was always down on the list in every category. About the only thing we led in was military spending.
American exceptionalism was used as a tool to justify our bad behavior all over the planet. Our government
is the biggest terror organization on the planet. We have killed or injured millions of people. All in the
name of spreading democracy, something we actually don't have.
>America makes borders so unpleasant is to deter US citizens from traveling
And if you do escape, and if you do bring back stories of how much better so many things are in said
other country, you are lectured to as how the US "protects their freedom" and if it wasn't for the fruits of
your labor being mostly directed into trying to get the F35 to work that other country* would certainly have
already been completely overrun by Communists! So shutupshutupshutup.
An American friend and former colleague, now a UK citizen and regulator, amused us with a story of how
she was harangued at JFK for no longer living in the US when she began travelling on her UK passport.
A friend of mine, a business man, has always problems at JFK because his surname coincides with
that of a Colombian drug dealer. He is always directed to a room and stays there for hours until they
let him free (always equals two times to my knowledge).
My wife and I got lectured several years ago coming through Atlanta from Europe to visit family in
the states by the homeland Security agent. My wife hadn't renewed her green card and was travelling on
her Canadian passport. She has Polish/Canadian citizenship. I had to really bite down hard on my lip
during the lecture because I did not want to miss our connecting flight. I told the agent since we
were not planning to move back to the US, there was no need to waste so much money on renewing the
card. Finally, I asked: are Canadian passport holders still allowed to enter the country? And if so,
can we go now?
The worst border crossings are always upon entering the States. The pointless shouting and general
vacuousness of the security – certain indications that you're back among the Free – are comical to a
point, until one sees how intimidated the Fins or whoever you flew in with are by this uncivilized
chaos. I've apologized more than once on behalf of my country to a nice, non-English speaking
non-terrorist being pointlessly harrassed by 'security'.
US Customs were always terrible. When I was a kid, we'd go down to the recently named JFK
airport and watch the customs lines from the glassed in gallery above. I remember one agent finding
some liqueur chocolates and jumping up and down on them. I didn't know adults did stuff like that.
Alternate experience mine:
While in Lebanon and Syria in 2004, bought a kilo of zatar, had it wrapped in multiple layers of
plastic to preserve it, stuffed it in luggage and forgot about it. Upon returning to the states,
went thru customs in SF. Agent said "what ya got in the bags?" We said "nothin". He said "open
up anyway" so I did. When he got to the bottom and found the (forgotten) spice he pulled it out
and looked at me, and I laughed, and told him what it was. He said "Yeah, whatever", put it back
in the bag and sent us on our way
I grimace when I hear that we are part of a "free world". Ever since 9/11 there have so many curbs on
our freedom and the mass surveillance by the 3 letter agencies and corporations make a mockery of the
term.
Thank you for publishing this delightful article. What a shame that most U.S citizens get their
conceptualization of the rest of the world from MSM. A friend lived and worked in various parts of Africa
for years; he told me that when he announced plans to return *home*, his African companions asked him
"why? its SO DANGEROUS THERE!!!"
My sister's companion-with family in Israel- describes our local ( in upper Northeast U.S.) hospitals as:
like something from a 3rd world country
There is nothing like immersion to generate understanding and appreciation for other places, people, and
lifestyles.
I had drinks with a US professor from Iowa last week and he expressed how surprised and impressed he
was with Canadians' interest in and knowledge of US and world affairs. I gave him a version of Trudeau
pere's line -- "when you are the mouse sleeping alongside an elephant, it behooves you to pay attention to
every twitch "
Many years ago a public radio station here in Hawaii would broadcast a Canadian radio show "As It
Happens". I was struck that the host could (say) mention the name of a politician or government
official and just assume that the audience knew who they were. Of course I don't know who the target
audience in Canada would have been, but very few broadcasts in the U.S. can count on their audience
being that well informed
Other countries have to pay attention to what goes on in the USA, as the saying goes, when the
USA sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. I recall being impressed in Jamaica with how
knowledgeable some local people were about world events, people were pretty up-to-date about
African politics, US politics, etc.
Berlin, Germany – not exactly developing world. Met a German woman while backpacking in SE Asia in '95,
came here in '96, been here ever since, got German citizenship (along with US) in 2017.
Berlin is a bit like NYC in that each city is special, and neither is a particularly representative
sample of what the rest of the country is like. So with that caveat: The stress level here seems much lower
than in the US; there's great public transport, perhaps the world's strongest privacy and employee-rights
laws and not much fear of violence (from fellow citizens or police). And there is no reason for anyone to
lack health insurance: everything is covered, with extremely small out-of-pocket expenses and health care is
excellent.
That said, neoliberalism's ravages can be felt here, too: wages have been stagnant for 20+ yrs and German
politicians are obsessed with "das schwarze Null" (literally, "the black zero"; i.e. "being in the black" or
"getting out of the red"). Rents have skyrocketed and not nearly enough affordable/govt housing has been
built in the past 20+ yrs.
Among the people I know/deal with, precarity seems basically non-existent, perhaps as a result of
everyone knowing that govt welfare/etc. – from which people can live without fear of homelessness, losing
their health insurance or going hungry – is available as a last resort, though the housing situation is
getting quite precarious.
All in all, I'm very happy and grateful to be able to live here. As a freelancer, I don't benefit from
it, but I still think vacation policy here is fantastic: all employees get at least 4 wks off in total
(everyone I know gets at least 5 wks) + each employee is entitled to take a 3-wk-long vacation.
Unfortunately, there is enough misery in Germany to even have a weekly tv-series about it Armut in
Deutschland = Poverty in Germany divided in the all too common categories: Old people poverty, Child
poverty, Working poor etc.
Another thought, when discussing poverty it is really important to consider that the psychology
(seeing that you cannot afford anything) and physiology (not affording good food so you get fat from
salt, fat, sugar-based food from Lidl) of poverty is relative: you compare yourself with the people that
you are surrounded by and purchasing power is relative to the country where you live.
I was in a very non touristy part of Jamaica last year. The roads were pretty poor, with sections washed
out. I would say the overall quality of roads was lower than the USA. In fact they were so bad, bit of
plastic started falling off my rented car.
However, people were much happier. Just for starters, the rental agency was completely fine with a few
bits of plastic that shook loose. No problem!
The food was fantastic, and inexpensive. The market in the local town just sold meat without any
refrigeration. This is Jamaica, it was hot. Yet the market smelled fresh, the meat looked amazing, it was
clean. Everything just moves so quickly there seems to be no time for stuff to go off. The veggies were
amazing and plentiful.
The school children seemed to wear uniforms. They hung out together. They socialized and talked and well
seemed like children. Engaged and full of life.
There was a funeral in a building near by us, and they chanted and sung all night until sun up. That
meant it was a little loud (as out place didn't have any glass in the windows). It was sometime haunting,
sometimes joyful, but people really celebrated the life that had passed.
The younger people, say less than 30, were all very tall. It seems like nutrition and health must have
improved a lot over the last 30-40 years, as the old were much shorter.
So I wouldn't call it first world by any stretch, but you could do much much worse in many parts of the USA.
I witnessed a funeral in Belize and was similar experience. On the other side of the road some guys
having fun playing soccer barefooted. Mosquitoes make Belize the hell if not in the shore where wind
keeps them apart.
I spent a lot of time in Jamaica in the late 80s and early 90s. It was life-changing for me in that I
was not a particularly happy person at that time, and it was the first time I had spent time in a
so-called 3rd world or developing country. I met people in Jamaica who had nothing compared to most
Americans, but they were happier than I was. This even though I was on top of the food chain, being a
white American male. It made me rethink a lot of stuff. I agree about the food there, I loved it, and the
people too.
There is a dark side to Jamaica however, which you will come upon if you stay there for a longer
amount of time. I don't know what part of JA you were in, perhaps a small town or in the countryside? It
can be very pleasant in the country, but I spent a lot of time in Kingston, and there is some of the
worst poverty in the hemisphere there. Better than Haiti and some other places, but still pretty harsh.
Lots of unwed teenage pregnancies (younger teens), with the fathers MIA. A lot of homophobia and macho
attitudes. Politics can become violent. There are also some serious environmental issues, and climate
change will not be kind to the West Indies.
I was vacationing and stayed in the blue mountains away from Kingston or tourists. I have heard
Kingston can be rough, and crime can be a problem in other big cities. The biggest touristy place we
spent any time in was Port Antonio, and I never felt unsafe or threatened there. I didn't even see
that many tourists there but we were off season.
I have a passing familiarity with Colombia of late. Although the minimum wage is low, employers are
required to provide such benefits as vacation, sick leave and payments into the pension system. In addition,
workers are eligible to visit special holiday facilities for recreation and relaxation. Unlike in my US
city, in which public transportation is infrequent and inconvenient, Medellin has an overhead heavy rail
system. There is a public healthcare system, which is good at covering basic needs, and a private one which,
while less affordable for ordinary people, is of European standards of quality. Although admittedly the
country has been wracked by violence in past years and there's still much inequality, people are happy and
friendly.
Note: my Colombian in the family approved this message.
Peru is an amazing country: beautiful scenery, amazing food, inexpensive, and nice people. I
sprained my ankle last year in Lima and deliberately found the most expensive clinic in Lima to treat
it. English-speaking doctor, full x-rays, medication and foot bandage put on by the doctor herself.
Total: $200 US.
Pro tip: get your prescription glasses in Arrequipa. There's at least 500 optical stores in the
historic center. Super cheap.
I have another friend who relocated to Ecuador along with his girlfriend. He's a retired
optometrist and gives away hundreds of reading glasses to the locals, who much appreciate them.
Regarding highway infra, in the PNW at least any new improved road gets tolled so that it is actually
made for the people who can pay the tolls. I'm certain this makes zero tax amazon happy
Oh Look!
https://thetollroads.com/help/faq/469
two tiered society Interstates limited to self driving delivery/important people in 3 2
The interstate toll lanes on I-405 are terribly undemocratic. Regular working commuters who can't
afford the toll passes are forced into three over-crowded lanes, while in the two left toll lanes the BMW
& Lexus drivers zip on by. I'm guessing a bunch of the wealthy tech people east of Lake Washington used
their clout to get that accomplished.
I spent some time in Costa Rica. Everybody seemed quite happy. The impression that I had was its
government actually liked its people and was not afraid of them. The people seemed to return the sentiment.
Costa Rica has the highest level of education and lowest birthrate in Central America; no standing
military since 1948. Not a cheap country to live in anymore, compared to the rest of Central and South
America, and rampant theft problems (probably because of very light penalties for such), but on the
whole, you could do a lot worse.
Mauritius, whence my parents came, is worth considering. The standard of living is good for most people,
especially if qualified or with particular manual skills. The average salary is nearing USD12k pa.
Public services are well funded by the government and free at the point of delivery.
It's interesting to observe how many migrants who are not francophone and do not specialise in the
island's four pillars, financial services, textiles / light manufacturing, tourism and agriculture
(including power generation by sugar mills) are now making the island their home, not just for a secondment
of some years. I have come across Italian jockeys and tilers, doctors and teachers, IT specialists, hotel
managers and other staff from around the world.
There's a good mix of accommodation. One need not live in a gated community. These were in the main
designed to part South Africans and even French from their money, a ploy that appears to be working such is
the amount of construction that would not look out of place in the south of France or US sun belt. The
island is safe.
Myjobs.mu lists vacancies.
The Rev Kev has visited the island and can provide further insight.
Thank you for the shout out Colonel. I must admit that I visited Mauritius during my salad years some
forty years ago so I will try to recreate my impressions from that distant era. After spending several
weeks in the waning apartheid days of South Africa, I found Mauritius exotic to say the least. Whereas
the cultural boundaries of SA were fairly firm, I found Mauritius to have a kaleidoscope of different
cultural elements such as English, French, Indian and Creole and you would never know what part you would
encounter next. The parts I saw in my brief time were of great beauty and I remember thinking that it
would take months to explore all the different parts there.
You should return and compare how things have changed. Also, please visit Rodrigues, the one of the
world's least known islands and a delight.
The island really took off in the 1980s, once the generation that led the island to independence
was turfed out in a landslide and the IMF bitter medicine of 1979 had been overcome.
The island has become more cosmopolitan since. One example is the 10K plus South Africans on the
island. Afrikaans is often spoken on the west coast.
Unfortunately, the environmental decay is also plain for all to see.
Tho easily discernable, I hesitate a bit to name what has become the truest home I've known, as I can
recall what Prague was like 20 years ago compared to the mini-Paris it became after tourists got ahold of it
(major crime increase, higher costs of living, general succumbing to the european monoculture, as has
happened throughout europe).
In any event, life is better (to my taste) outside NATO-aligned countries & the Schengen zone. Glad that
the military jets I hear and see are Russian, as is the base. I was stunned when first arriving to see
children happy, safe, walking the streets of their city without a need for adult accompaniment. In fact, the
children and elderly people here restore my faith in humanity. When the initial newness wears off after a
year or so, it just gets better in terms of comprehending the culture and enjoying the people, along with
seeing the problems more clearly. I lived for extended periods in Germany, Portugal, Denmark too, enjoyed
each place (far and away higher quality of genuine living than in the US), but indeed there is a certain
pretension to false happiness there, no need for that here, as the wheels came off long ago, thus humor,
family, friendship and other pillars for endurance are stronger, softer, more genuine.
On occasion, I've done some teaching here (ain't never been no trust-fund traveler, pshaw!), and students
(good Syrians and Iranians in the mix with the sweet locals) are shocked when I answer their questions
honestly about how America treats its elderly, how much education costs, gun violence, police brutality, the
general state of the family, etc.
There is a difficulty in getting paid fairly, tho that's largely nothing new comparatively. One must
write or edit an article or 2 each month for a company based outside the local economy if one hopes to
sustain oneself; I've been fortunate in this regard. An average person here relies on their family; all work
together to survive. Conditions can be spartan (tho again, compared to what?), but the things that make one
endure and appreciate the substance of life are in no short supply.
And the food is off the charts – affordable and healthy, as it should be everywhere.
Literature and traditional music are living currency here, as is respect in general. May it always be so.
I'm curious as to your feelings about Portugal, as we have considered it as a place to live. I've had
a lot of friends visit, but don't know anyone who has lived there for an extended period.
My feelings of profound love for Portugal and the Portuguese are of course difficult to summarize,
but suffice to say I preferred it to Germany or Denmark, tho it didn't quite suit me as well as
Armenia does. The primary ways I relate to a country initially are through its literary and musical
traditions, and the Portuguese soul's expressions are deeply beautiful, poetic, and retained.
I spent two years there, in Sintra and in Porto. Sintra is paradisiacal, Porto a hidden gem
becoming increasingly well-known. Drawbacks for me were the same as in all Europe: a political bent
toward following their NATO masters/western propaganda/Hollywood, and, on the street level, more crime
(tho not too bad) and agressive drug dealers, things you just don't see in Yerevan (and used to not
see in Prague). But on the whole, many friends became like family there, it's less expensive than the
mainstream hubs of Europe, and the Moorish impact, coupled with modern migration from north Africa,
results in a vivacity and a fluid, positive moroseness I'd not experienced before. The microclimates
are dynamically diverse and well worth experiencing. Certain flowers and mountain mists never
evaporate from the mind.
Plenty of retirees from wealthier countries set themselves up there quite comfortably, but those
people are rarely part of my experience.
Having a decent grasp of Spanish, I was surprised it lent itself to a less intuitive grasp of
Portuguese than I imagined it would. Both languages are beautiful, with Portuguese being softer
in an expressively melodic way.
And yes, I agree, the politeness, dignity, ease-in-the-body qualities found in people there
is, in my experience, second only to the grace that operates as the norm for conduct here in
Armenia. Many similarities between the two – the unbreakable importance of the family, the style
and role of humor, the rightful place literature and music inhabit in one's soul and
disposition, etc. My Portuguese friends felt at home here, as if meeting heretofore unknown
cousins for the first time.
Nothing against Spain, tho – it was my first love and destination. Catalonia. But yes, in
general, interactions were more formal and businesslike there, less relaxed than when inside the
generous, creative calm (including explosive boisterousness!) of Portuguese.
We visited the southern coast of Portugal last year to explore the idea of moving there. It was not
a success: too many Brit expats, more expensive than we'd been told, and the real estate market is
completely crazy. The country itself merits a look.
Indeed, the Alentejo has become overblown, party central, prime strips for the elite, etc. If
one can brave the less glamorous climes, such as Sintra's winters of cold rain and bonechilling
fog, there are delicacies to be enjoyed at half the cost, in the north as well. I look forward to
returning many times.
I'm recalling Jerez, now, up-north mountain-land with its own unique mythology, where local
drivers (on fine if narrow roads) have more frequent trouble encountering a bull or flocks upon
flocks of chickens than oncoming automotive traffic. I think one bull drove us backward for half a
kilometer.
"They hate us for our freedoms"
; to be strip searched at the airport, toasted with the
skin cancer X-ray machine, have our devices downloaded, license plates scanned on the way home, the data
sold to an advertiser, to have to pay mandatory fraudulent medical "insurance," borrow money at 29% to pay
for medical needs, lose our homes to other scams, have to compete in the job market with imported peons,
that we subsidize with tax dollars, then see over half of our tax dollars go to losing wars and to subsidize
billion dollar corporations and then be told it's
to protect us against the "terrorists".
Still a pretty good country and the only one we have, so it's worth fighting for.
I have lived in Uruguay for 4 years now. The things that are much better here than in California are
public transportation, internet service, culture, and small business penetration. I can walk a half a block
to a small store that's open several hours a day. I can walk 4 blocks to a store that's open 12 hours a day.
I can walk ten blocks to a full-on mall with a large grocery store. There's also one or more bakeries,
butchers, vegetable sellers, hardware stores, barbers/hair stylists, and restaurants galore within a
quarter-mile radius. And I live in a quiet neighborhood! Oh, there are also three fantastic beaches within a
20 minute walk of my house. I love my location!
Society here is very laid-back, parents are indulgent of their children and it is legal to drink alcohol
and smoke marijuana in the public places and streets, But don't drink and drive, there is no legal limit,
aka zero tolerance. Yet culture is vibrant here. There's an excellent music scene with lots of low-cost or
free live music. Jazz, blues, and electronica are surprisingly popular. There are people who play music on
the bus for donations, and not just guitar players, but also saxophone players, operatic singers, rappers,
violinists, and accordion players. There are people that meet weekly in the downtown area to dance tango on
the sidewalk. There are almost weekly practices all over the city of Candombe, which involves large groups
of synchronized dancers and drummers parading through the streets for an hour or two. There are so many
beautiful parks large and small all over the city where lovers kiss, families play and groups of friends
drink mate or beer and often smoke marijuana. There are 50 museums in Montevideo, and at least 35 of them
are free. The ones that cost money are less than $10 and usually include a tour. There are ballets,
symphonies and lots of theaters, all of which are very inexpensive. They love sports here and are quite
interested in maintaining physical fitness. Lots of soccer balls getting kicked, volleyball games on the
beach and bicyclist and runners on the Rambla. The Rambla! It's a UNESCO world heritage site that goes for
20 miles along the beach, a wide paved Boardwalk that is very popular when the weather is nice, especially
during sunsets. Full disclosure, the beach is for a river, a really huge river – You can't even see the
other side. On the other side of the river is Buenos Aires, just in case you get a hankering for a big city.
Or you could travel a few hours to Punta Del Este, playground of the Rich and Famous.
But Uruguay is relatively expensive, the most expensive country in South America. This is not a place
where you're going to come and live like a king among the peasants. The prices in restaurants and grocery
stores are similar to the prices I paid in Sacramento, California. But the wages here are much less. So this
is a good place if you can get your income from somewhere else As a retired person or a remote teleworker.
But, oddly, even though the locals here struggle with the difference between wages and prices, it's quite
common for them to have second houses along the coast that they go to during their frequent vacations. It's
also typical to employ a house cleaner.
Uruguay is a small country, with three million people and half of them live in the capital city of
Montevideo. Because of this, nearly everyone here knows everyone else. Uruguay is the safest country in
South America with the largest middle class and least income inequality, along with being the most stable
economically and politically. People here enjoy discussing politics, and voting in elections is mandatory.
But what about the downsides? There are some. First off, you're not going to be able to order a bunch of
stuff on Amazon. In fact, you're going to have to give up on finding many of the spices and foods and little
trinkets that you're used to acquiring in the US. Consumers beware! Also, flights back to the US or
destinations outside of South America are very expensive. And, because it's so laid back, it's difficult to
find good workers on household projects or to get good service in a restaurant or at a public counter. You
just have to be really patient. Finally, the sidewalks are a mess! Since each resident is responsible for
the sidewalk in front of their own house or business, sometimes they can get be a bit dangerous if you don't
watch your step. You wouldn't want to scoot around on one of those elderly mobility scooters here! And then
there's the dog poop and the trash Oh, well, no place is perfect!
I'm sorry, this is so long, I usually don't talk much about my life here, especially on Facebook, because
I don't want to cause resentment and look like I'm bragging, but today I'm making an exception, obviously.
(By the way, I'm happy to host visitors, In fact, I let couchsurfers stay in my home for free.)
Central México. Year 4. In spite of the crime I like it here and would not go back to the US. The culture
is rich and deep, and the aesthetic is quite refined. The food! The amazing natural beauty. And the colors!
And the biodiversity! There is a balanced perspective on life, not the despair or rage that increasingly
underly US culture. I live simply and modestly, and find my Social Security can almost pay all of my monthly
expenses. My stress levels have dropped tremendously and my BP is at levels I haven't seen in 40 years.
Quite honestly, I'm ramping up my Spanish so I can pass my citizenship test and may renounce my US
citizenship because I am fed up with having my hard earned $$ underwrite corporate welfare and killing
people. I've embraced México as my home and am grateful to have been welcomed in return. Coming here is far
and away one of the best things I've ever done.
After his famous rant about people coming to the U.S. from "shit-hole" countries in Africa and other
developing countries, Trump asked why more people from, say Norway, were not emigrating to the U.S. I may
have missed it, but I don't remember any politician or anyone with a public voice telling him, "Look, Mr.
President, compared to the other two dozen or so advanced industrial countries the United States is a
shit-hole country".
Bulgaria, observations from one of the two big cities on the Black Sea coast:
– excellent bus service across the city, from airport to industrial zone; articulated airconditioned busses,
everyone uses them, young people read books while riding, space for mothers to latch strollers, doors are
wide and steps low so mothers in fact prefer the bus to using personal vehicle
– municipal children's kitchen: delivers free to a local distribution booth 2 meals 5 times a week at very
low cost by local standards, or free for families with large number of children 1-3yrs. The meals are
home-cooked level, tasty and healthy, delivered in your own glassware (like used pickle jars for example –
simple!) – so no throwaway plastic. Ive tried private kitchens, quality was lower and cost 2-3 times higher
– a very large city park along the beach starting just off downtown – one of the best things in the whole
country actually: it's everyone's family playground – old and young, there is a new public pool, carnival
booths, restaurants, fish stands, icecream stands, open air theater, public hall overlooking the beach,
restaurant and club on the beach – for the wide public, not exclusive, in the evening young and old dress up
and take walks leasurely and just talk and hang out
– the city is dense and everything is walking distance, within a 20 min walk you will pass by every service
that a life needs, from a hospital to police to stadium and trainstation and cobler, not to mention stores
and restaurants
Downsides:
– like Uruguay and other similarly positioned countries, incomes of working people are generally low for the
local living costs. However most people own a home (I think ~80% or even more) – and with low birthrates
many inherit more than one funcitonal home – so that helps a lot. For someone on a US SS check, average I
think ~$1300 a month, is plenty for TWO. Local professionals earning the equivalent of $40-50k a year,
especially a 2 such income households, live a higher and less stressful standard of living than any tech
professional I know in coastal US (not to mention 4 weeks mandatory paid time off).
– lots of professionals – doctors particularly – leave for Western EU countries where they earn more,
particularly specialists; for GP's though, staying can be much better as they still make a decent living and
only refer people for anything more serious than a cold
In general, I think Bulgaria is good for retired expats if you pick a good spot like the city I
described, unless you have a serious health issue which requires specialists, and those may not be available
in Bulgaria. But even for things like stents, even cardiac surgery, MRI scans, those are done now and by
doctors who specialized or were educated in the UK, Germany or the like – so the issue is more general
infrastructure and availability, rather than quality (cost is a fraction of US costs, even paying out of
pocket)
Appreciate this account. The 'bus-culture' sounds similar to Yerevan's; it makes public transport
truly a pleasurable part of one's day (tho we do have the dreaded, indefatigable marshrutkas – are they
used in Bulgaria?).
The municipal children's kitchen! I wonder why there isn't something comparable here, tho I've seen
scant evidence of anyone going hungry. One always shares with one's neighbors: part of the built-in,
practiced and practical ethic.
I was pretty impressed with the infrastructure I saw in China 20 years ago. Brand-new airports and train
stations, good new highways mostly, although I saw some failed projects on the island of Hainan, where the
roads were like a bad roller coaster, it seemed like a proper bed was not laid down before paving. (I was
told that the guys who built those roads had skimmed off the highway budget to line their own pockets, and
were later shot for doing so.)
Malaysia looked good too when we were there for 10 days, and inexpensive. Most Malaysians speak English
which is nice for visitors, and they have one of the best retirement visa progams.
Thailand's infrastructure is getting better all the time, we were there for more of 2012, and the way you
could cheaply get around Bangkok amazed me. A city of 11,000,000 people, but most of the public transport
was very well integrated – airports, buses, elevated rail and subways all connect with each other.
What struck me about most of the "developing" nations I've visited was that the quality of life seemed
higher than the US, as far as access to good food, general happiness of the people, and access to decent
health care, especially in Malaysia and Thailand. I saw some eye specialists in Thailand and was very
impressed with them. We ate from street vendors all the time in Thailand and were never sick from the food,
which was remarkably fresh. The air pollution in Chiang Mai and Bangkok is a problem however.
We are seriously considering leaving the USA should things go badly in the upcoming election, we're
considering Mexico, Ecuador etc and also SE Asia, although the latter is awfully far from friends and
family.
Very interesting topic, but it's also very large so the below comments are brief and therefore
overgeneralized, apols in advance. My own area is Southeast Asia, where I've lived for much of the last 30
years, but I get the sense that the below obtains in much of the world .
1. (Caucasian) expats remain a privileged class, even in Singapore which is now significantly more
advanced than the US across the board, economically and socially. On the other hand, you're a guest in all
these countries, there on sufferance. Any rights of property or residency you may enjoy largely come via
your employer/business, or from a local spouse. While this may seem trite, it's important: an expat life
just isn't that of the locals, even Westernized local elites, and even when you're married in and living
simply as some retirees do.
2. ASEAN countries are all *very* unequal societies by Western standards/ideals. Even Singapore, which
provides excellent public services to all citizens, also relies heavily on a low cost migrant labor force
(on weekends you see Tamil laborers in the parks flirting with Filipina housemaids). These migrants make far
better money than at home and thus remain docile, but also have no path at all to residency status unless
they can marry in. Foreign helpers are also becoming common in Thailand.
3. In the other countries, as a local friend put it, 'either you have servants (5 – 15%) or you are one
(the rest)'. Having a maid/cook and in trafficky places a driver/errand boy gives a family a fundamentally
different daily life not comparable to the modern West. Labor laws are rarely enforced on locals (expats
need to take care, you are sheep for shearing)
4. Most non-Western societies assume that successful individuals in all classes subsidize their less
successful relatives, via remittance or inheritance. State safety nets consist of primary education and
basic health care, which are basically free but very patchy in covering special needs (that's cash).
5. As in the West, a stable income is as or more important than a high income; it's hard to put down
roots or plan for the future without that. In most of ASEAN, c.USD 3500 a month still buys a comfortable
life for a family: a townhouse with aircon, a number of motorbikes and many of the same Chinese consumer
gadgets Americans have, as well as the aforementioned domestic servants. But, see next .
6. To me, social mobility appears quite low. It's hard for the broad peasant/servant class to ascend to
the middle class, even via police or military. Foreign workers support their extended families and build a
house in their home village; they rarely start their own businesses with savings.
Again, overgeneralizing but it seems most of the ASEAN 'middle class' (the 5-15% PMC) are (grand)children
of:
(a) the officials who took over from the colonialists, or (b) mercantile families, predominantly ethnic
Chinese.
Thus, that 10% also draws on some kind of inherited income / family support on top of their salaries to
maintain their lifestyles, cover emergencies and ensure their own kids can obtain the needed credentials to
keep themselves in the PMC.
Anyway, I hope this is useful context for this rich topic. Again, a broad brush, YMMV.
In most of ASEAN, c.USD 3500 a month still buys a comfortable life for a family
Very comfortable, I'm sure. $42k a year is more that millions of Americans earn. Singapore is probably
the most expensive SE Asian country.
What struck me about living and travelling in SE Asia was realizing how Americans are being ripped off
in comparison to many other parts of the world. In Chiang Mai, we were paying $200 a month for a clean
studio apartment with no real kitchen (rent included decent internet and all utilities), $20 a month for
cell phone service, and about $20 a day on eating out (for two people). Transportation was also
inexpensive. After seven months of living so cheaply, when we came back to the US it felt like we were
hemorrhaging money as soon as we hit the airport.
My wife is refusing to buy anything right now. We got back from staying in Europe and she is
shocked at how expensive everything is here. For us it started at the Hilton in the airport as we had
a very early departure time to flyout. It was a splash of cold water.
Yep. I have a musician friend who did an artist-in-residence gig for 6 months in Germany with
his wife & two kids joining him. He said the same thing (they live in NYC). He also said not only
were groceries cheaper, they were better quality as well.
The article is about developing countries and France is developed, not developing. Weather has huge
impact on roads and comparing roads in south of France to Michigan is not a fair comparison. I have driven
through France extensively and the roads are good but parts of the US and Canada has much better roads. I
would say Arizona or Utah has waaaaaay better roads than any part of France, especially the north.
Operant word: "developing". AKA a region experiencing the upswing. Shiny new industries, new
infrastructure, new institutions. Growth. All nations have a finite socio-political lifespan before
re-configuration; the US is no exception. Idealism's parametric in America-2020 is at a nadir compared to
the fire-eyed certainty of magistrates in Colonial America-1620. The waterwheel of fortune is philosophy's
consolation: rise-up on its spokes if you like but do not complain when you plunge back down into the
depths. The tragedy is also the hope: bad times always pass, as do the good times. Rinse-repeat-return to
the wilderness. -- Answering the question, Ahmedabad, Gujurat has great food but prohibits alcohol.
This country has spent its productive energy producing MBA's who specialize in sucking money from people.
It has a political system based on bribery and is no longer a "nation of laws". Given the non-response to
the 2008 crash, the surprise may be it is not in worse shape.
Costa Rica is the one country in South/Central America that was spared CIA "help", presumably because
they don't have a military. This is what South America would look like if the U.S. left them alone.
The U.S. probably has the solutions to its problems, but people with solutions, such as college
professors, are excluded from government decision making. In my experience, average people tend to be
smarter then the geniuses on the boob tube and in Washington.
I don't know what the big problem is with public colleges. You can get a good education at a public
college.
Is there anyone here who has anything to say about living in Chile ? I visited Chile back in 2007 and
enjoyed myself. I spent most of my time in Santiago
and was impressed by it being clean, a nice subway
and interesting architecture.
I am three years into my escape from the US. 50 countries of wandering in three years. I cannot, for the
life of me, imagine why I would go back to the open-air prison of the US.
Quality of life in places as diverse as Plovdiv, Bulgaria; Penang, Malaysia; Brno, Czechia; Kanazawa,
Japan; Kunming, China; are literally off the charts for half the cost.
The other thing I'd add: the wife and I made $480k per year in our last few years. A decent middle-class
income in Manhattan.
After taxes and various contributions to Fed-pumped Ponzis and 'healthcare' our net take home was around
$240k per year.
All so we could be good goys and pay another 5k a month for a shitty 1-bedroom condo with hollow doors
and ride a piss-smelling subway up to offices we sat in meetings for 6 of our 10 daily hours and then fake
pointless outrage over whatever new political offense the dear leaders had perpetrated over $17 cocktails
and then come home and fall asleep to Netflix and sleeping pills.
Outside the US, we've maxed our income to 220k total (all untaxed), so we're only down 20k or so from our
Manhattan highs. And we can do this from anywhere we have an internet connection. We interact with locals.
We eat staggeringly good food. When we get bored we hop a plane and fly somewhere new.
I'm 40. Maybe at 50 this will all grow tiring, but I doubt it.
I assume Norbert Wiener is your "nom de plume" or are you related to the Norbert Wiener?
This is what we are finding. You can go to almost anywhere out of America and live for much less with
much better food, life style, and people seem much better adjusted. Hell even London seems cheap in many
ways when you consider the quality of what you are getting.
Thank you for another good article. What strikes me is that so many automatically go to, or
refer to, Mr Putin as the voice of reason these days and not Washington DC or any NATO
country. I never thought that I will live to see the US become less trusted than our old
enemy, the commies. BUT, as I say in my books, the Russia of today is not the USSR at all.
Anyway, for those interested in interesting military history, I recently discovered this
myself, see https://www.georgemjames.com/blog/the-fuhrers-commando-order-origins.
I wanted to post on the open thread but got busy and forgot. GMJ.
US Vice President Mike Pence used his speech at the Holocaust memorial last week to bang a
war drum at Iran. It revealed a deplorable lack of dignity and understanding of the event,
despite Pence's efforts to appear solemn. But not only that. It showed too how out of touch the
United States – at least its political leadership – is with the rest of the world
and a growing collective concern among others to ensure international peace.
Maybe that's why Britain's Prince Charles appeared to snub Pence, declining to shake his
hand while attending the commemoration of the Holocaust and 75th anniversary of the liberation
of Auschwitz. Charles warmly greeted other dignitaries, including Russian President Vladimir
Putin and France's Emmanuel Macron. It was curious how he blanked Pence.
But there again, maybe not that curious.
Pence and the Trump administration seem to be hellbent on starting a war with Iran. A war
that would engulf the entire Middle East and possibly ignite a world conflagration.
Washington's wanton threats of violence against Iran and its recent assassination of one of
Iran's top military leaders stands as a shocking repudiation of international law and the UN
Charter. It's the kind of conduct more akin to an organized crime syndicate rather than a
supposedly democratic state.
The UN Charter was created in 1945 in the aftermath of the Second World War precisely to
prevent repetition of the worst conflagration in history and all its barbaric crimes, including
the Nazi Holocaust. Over 5o million people died in that war, and nearly half of them belonged
to the Soviet Union.
The prevention of war is surely the most onerous responsibility of the UN Security Council.
Yet the United States is the one power that routinely ignores international law and the UN
Charter to unilaterally launch wars or military interventions. Washington's threats against
Iran are, unfortunately, nothing new. This is standard American practice.
Putin, Macron, Prince Charles and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier all invoked the
need for collective commitment to international law and peace. They implied that such a
commitment was the best way to honour those who were killed in the Holocaust and the Second
World War; the surest way to prevent the barbarity of fascist ideology and persecution ever to
be repeated.
Those speakers one after another denounced the ideology of demonizing others which fuels
hatred and wars. How pertinent is that to the way Washington routinely demonizes other nations
and foreign leaders?
In sharp contrast, when the American vice president made his address, his apparent solemnity
was contradicted by a
blood-curdling call to arms against Iran , which he accused of being the "leading state
purveyor of anti-semitism". Pence urged the whole world "to stand strong against the Islamic
Republic of Iran", spoken as if he was spitting out the words like venom.
There is little doubt that Pence was formulating a rationale for military confrontation with
Iran. That has been the consistent policy of the Trump administration over the past three
years.
It was no surprise that Pence's speech was in sync with the usual bellicose rhetoric from
Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu towards Iran. But what was arresting was just how out of sync
Pence and the Trump administration are with the rest the world.
That's what is perplexing about many American politicians. They seem ignorant of history
(Pence gave no acknowledgement to the Soviet soldiers who liberated Auschwitz and other death
camps); they are consumed by self-righteousness and arrogance like a puritan preacher without
an ounce of humanity.
Anyone who reflects on the horror of war would surely be advocating the respect of and
adherence to international law, commitment to peace, and the earnest pursuit of dialogue and
partnership among nations.
Russia's Putin has repeatedly called for the members of the UN Security Council to urgently
get together in order to guarantee a multilateral commitment to peace. Putin has also
repeatedly appealed to the United States to get serious about negotiating renewed arms control
treaties. Washington has ignored those latter calls.
Mike Pence's menacing words and attitude at the Holocaust memorial showed a disturbing and
pernicious disconnect with the need for preventing war and genocide. It was a disgraceful
dishonouring of victims.
Out of sync with the world, the US has returned to the ashes and lawlessness of 1945.
U.S. President Donald Trump wants to destroy the nuclear agreement with Iran. He has
threatened the EU-3 poodles in Germany, Britain and France
with a 25% tariff on their car exports to the U.S. unless they end their role in the
JCPOA deal.
In their usual gutlessness the Europeans gave in to the blackmail. They
triggered the Dispute Resolution Mechanism of the deal. The mechanism foresees two 15
day periods of negotiations and a five day decision period after which any of the involved
countries can escalate the issues to the UN Security Council. The reference to the UNSC
would then lead to an automatic reactivation or "snapback" of those UN sanction against
Iran that existed before the nuclear deal was signed.
Iran is now countering the European move. Its Foreign Minister Javad Zarif
announced that Iran may leave the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
(NPT) if any of the European countries escalates the issue to the UNSC:
Zarif said that Iran is following up the late decision by European states to trigger the
Dispute Resolution Mechanism in the context of the JCPOA, adding that Tehran officially
started the discussion on the mechanism on May 8, 2018 when the US withdrew from the
deal.
He underlined that Iran sent three letters dated May 10, August 26 and November 2018
to the then EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, announcing in the latter that
Iran had officially triggered and ended the dispute resolution mechanism and thus would
begin reducing its commitments to the JCPOA.
However, Iran gave a seven-month opportunity to the European Union before it began
reducing its commitments in May 8, 2019 which had operational effects two months later,
according to Zarif.
Iran's top diplomat said that the country's five steps in compliance reduction would
have no similar follow-ups, but Europeans' measure to refer the case to the United
Nations Security Council may be followed by Tehran's decision to leave NPT as stated in
President Hassan Rouhani's May 2018 letter to other parties to the deal.
He stressed that all the steps are reversible if the European parties to the JCPOA
restore their obligations under the deal.
The Europeans certainly do not want Iran to leave the NPT. But as they are cowards and
likely to continue to submit themselves to Trump's blackmail that is what they will end up
with. Britain is the most likely country to move the issue to the UNSC as it is in urgent
need of a trade deal with the U.S. after leaving the EU. Cooke has piece at Strategic
Culture on Wurmser who may be the strategist behind Trump admin moves on Iran. Adds to this
piece by b.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/01/20/many-matryoska-dolls-america-way-imagining-iran/
"Well (big surprise), Wurmser has now been at work as the author of how to 'implode' and
destroy Iran. And his insight? "A targeted strike on someone like Soleimani"; split the
Iranian leadership into warring factions; cut an open wound into the flesh of Iran's
domestic legitimacy; put a finger into that open wound, and twist it; disrupt – and
pretend that the U.S. sides with the Iranian people, against its government."
Overall, the strategy looks to be aimed at weakening and disrupting Iran and removing
its allies in the region from the game before US strikes begin.
The downing of the Uki plane and Trump Pompeo immediately saying they were with the
Iranian people would fit very well into this strategy though it is not mentioned by
Crooke.
The Europeans certainly do not want Iran to leave the NPT. But as they are cowards and
likely to continue to submit themselves to Trump's blackmail that is what they will end
up with. Britain is the most likely country to move the issue to the UNSC as it is in
urgent need of a trade deal with the U.S. after leaving the EU.
We shouldn't humanize entire nations when analyzing geopolitics.
The Europeans are simply aware of the objective fact they are de facto occupied
countries thanks to the many de facto American bases scattered around Western and Central
Europe (Germany being the country with the most American bases in the world). They obey the
USA for the simple fact they are occupied by the USA.
That's why some neocarolingians/European nationalists mainly from Germany, France and
the Benelux (e.g. Macron, Juncker) avidly defend the creation of an European Army. You
don't need to be a geopolitics genius to infer the grave consequences such move would have
to the European peoples' welfare.
As long as NATO exists, Western Europe will remain firmly in American hands.
Besides, there's also the ideological factor.
Many Europeans still see today the USA as their "most illustrious child", their
continuation as the Western Civilization's center. New York is the new Paris+London. They
see themselves as the dwarf countries they really are and rationalize that, ultimately, it
is better to live under the hegemony of another Western nation than under the hegemony of
the "yellows" (i.e. Chinese) or the "slavics" (i.e. Russia). They really see themselves as
a true North Atlantic family, which share the same race and the same cultural values.
These Atlanticists are specially numerous in the UK, which is not surprising, given its
geographic location and the fact that it was indeed the country that founded the USA.
Of course Iran and what happens in Iraq are joined at the hip...
Professor Maranadi>
"Seyed Mohammad Marandi
@s_m_marandi
·
10m
Many believe an economic crisis lies ahead of the US & the timing of the crash will
determine the fate of Trump's re-election bid. However, another threat looms. If the US
fails to swiftly comply with Iraqi demands to end the occupation, the resistance will
become very violent."
and in Germany?
USA warnen: "Unmittelbar bevorstehender Angriff auf US-Militärs in Deutschland".
RT/D
"Pulling back" may suit the Clowns, but agreement requires more than that if there's to
be no child.
The Clowns are not contract capable. The only "deal" is for the imperial forces to leave
the ME... the only deal is action....Of one sort or another. The clowns imagine a glorious
victory over smoking ruins.
Fatwa or not, Iran must have the bomb, for the same reason NoKo had to build it. It's the
only way to lance the boil and move on from under the incessant threats from the United
States. We won't let up, even if it takes 100 years, and they have to know this. They do
have the engineering know how to do it; now they must, but they will have to be discrete
and stockpile enough 90% U235, then fiddle around with the details involved in assembling a
staged device with enough yield so it's understood by all. I expect this whole process will
now move forward.
One is reminded of Austria-Hungary's ultimatum to Serbia in 1914: "As the German ambassador
to Vienna reported to his government on July 14, the [note] to Serbia is being composed so
that the possibility of its being accepted is practically excluded." As Churchill wrote at
the time: "it seemed absolutely impossible that any State in the world could accept it, or
that any acceptance, however abject, would satisfy the aggressor."
Many people refer to the European countries as 'occupied' (vk) and that is the reason they
submit to American policy. I don't believe that is the case. The number of troops is far
too small to 'occupy' a country that was resisting an occupation. Those troops were there
as a 'trigger' to initiate a conflict with the Soviet Union if it invaded Europe. These
days they are just there as some kind of vestigial legacy, and don't really mean anything.
The US exercises its control over the EU and elsewhere through its control of international
finance and trade. This system benefits the elite of those countries that are part of the
'empire', so has substantial support from influential people inside those countries. Unless
and until there is some groundswell of support among the peoples of those countries to
change that system, they will continue to be an obedient part of the US empire.
It's not even clear that resistance isn't futile. Those countries that want to maintain
independence like Russia, China, Iran, Turkey (?), India (?) also have a strong internal
attraction to Western 'culture'. As much as some denigrate that culture as shallow,
materialistic, and worthless, it seems to have a very universal attraction around the
World, particularly among the young. There are a lot of people everywhere that would like
to be a part of a global empire, with a hedonistic Western-style culture. Sad, but
true.
I tend to agree with comments here saying Iran needs to make bomb.
North Korea proved that truth 100%. No amount of agreements or "guarantees" with usual
lying suspects will provide security to Iran - only hard cold nuclear deterrence will.
This time, now, Iran has enough conventional & asymmetrical firepower to deter its
enemies long enough for it to develop nukes (few years?).
It already has proven means to deliver warheads, now it needs them.
I strongly concur with several other commentators here. Iran should immediately commence
enriching uranium to weapons grade levels and assemble at least 10-20 nuclear warheads ASAP
if they ever hope to remain an intact, non-US/Israeli dominated country.
The US understands ONLY raw power and who it perceives has it (Israel, North
Korea..etc.), and who doesn't (Libya, Syria, Iraq..etc.).
The NPT "Treaty" is nothing more than a cabal of nuclear armed countries attempting to
cartel who's allowed to posses a nuclear weapons arsenal and all the rest of the world
countries that's ultimately at their mercy.
"So, what does Iran actually gain by leaving the NPT?"
For one thing, it means they won't have to violate that treaty and international law if
they decide to take steps that wouldn't be allowed under the NPT terms. It's easy to look
at the lawless rogue US regime and forget this, but: some countries actually do try to have
some semblance of abiding by and respecting treaties and the rule of law.
I am always taken aback when people compare unsavory characters to members of the
primate family. Please do not engage in "zoomorphism." And I am dead fucking serious.
Animals do not deserve to be denigrated in such a way. Keep your insults grounded in the
human sphere.
The U.S. has already used that tactic of insisting on concessions known to be unacceptable
to the other side with the intention of causing war at least twice: to Japan in 1941 and to
Yugoslavia before the Kosovo War.
Does Iran really need a nuke? They have proven they can hit a US base and Saudi oil
infrastructure. It is believed they already have.... or at least have the capability of
mining the Strait of Hormuz. If the global financial elite can't get oil out of the gulf...
what happens to the global economy? My guess is it would implode. Isn't this the real and
only reason the US hasn't bombed Iran back to the stone age yet? They already have
deterrence. The US claims about restoring deterrence was just the projection of sociopaths
and psychopaths.
re:Cornelius von Hamb | Jan 20 2020 19:59 utc | 14
"For one thing, it means they won't have to violate that treaty and international law if
they decide to take steps that wouldn't be allowed under the NPT terms."
Iran says it won't develop nuclear weapons (anti Islamic), so what steps could they
possibly be not wanting to rule out?
The state of the JCPOA today bears a lot on Trump's negotiations with North Korea.
Kim Un Jung has be spooked by Bolton comparing North Korea's fate to Libya and by the ease
with which US withdrew from the JCPOA. Negotiations have halted.
Trump needs to show that he is serious with deals that he guaranties will be binding the
partners more seriously than the flawed JCPOA.
Iran has only one choice: Press Europe to take a stand against the USA, (which will
probably not happen) then pull out officially from the JCPOA that has become a liability
with no advantages and calls for re-negotiation. Trump will certainly jump in and will try
to get the best deal possible by squeezing Iran on its regional role. Yet he can't have too
excessive demands as he wants to make a similar deal with North Korea.
Iran could ask for withholding sanctions during negotiations. It could take years to
finalize the deal. In the meantime the regional situation could change greatly
That seems to be the only path for Iran.
According to what is said here, the US is still afraid of attacking Iran, and is going for
internal disruption, and sanctions. So what's new? It's been the same policy for forty
years. The fact that Trump doesn't like long-term wars, and will only go for a big bang
without consequences, is neither here nor there.
Rouhani and his team, including Zarif, seem to me pretty bright, and capable of coping
with the politics. Relighting nuclear refinement is essentially a political move.
Again, find it hard to believe that they are in fact such quisling sycophants to the
US.
Suspect they rely on Trump to provide cover for the fact that they (like him) are beholden
to higher powers.
The USE of WMDs is haram.
Words mean things B, much as the PC police have twisted their meanings,and even fatwas can
be reversed.
The frantic efforts to corral the USSRs nukes were never anything like 100% effective,500+
warheads and tonnes of
plutonium were NEVER accounted for from the KNOWN inventory,who knows what the unknown
inventory was ?
Generals of Rocket Forces had to eat,and there were willing buyers for their only
wares.
A CIA assessment I was made privy to,the old boys network for an opinion from outside,
claimed the Iranians did not have the ability to keep those warheads in working order,which
begs a question,how many ?
I told my old schoolmate they were wrong in their assessment, they've had the capability
since the Shahs nuclear program.I know Iran very well,worked and lived there ,during the
Shah times.
The US has turned into such a fake bullshit nation that nothing the people say who run the
place can be trusted. It is totally a Masonic land where money is God and the decent people
are exploited and oppressed. Free speech and democracy are only kosher if the issue is
something like Pooper-Scooper Enforcement Officer with no real money or power involved,
unless of course there is an impressive uniform which goes with the position.
The brainwashed masses are presently transfixed to their TV's watching the theatre of the
fake-impeachment pageant unfold, dutifully believing it is all real. All the performers strut
about keeping to their carefully-scripted lines. Like the establishment-hatched fake
Russia-bashing campaign, it is all theater. With the impeachment drama intended the polarize
the entire nation, the people are once-again being caresully herded into their red and blue
stalls in ensure nothing really populist, and not controlled by the establishment cabal
running things, gets off of the ground. the entire performance will be so carefully
choreographed, on a pro and anti Trump basis that it will also ensure that whomever the
ruling cabal anoints will be chosen for the top puppet job.
Like in the US midterm elections in 2018, issues involving US foreign policy were mum. In
the coming presidential election, Americans will see no real difference in the leading
contenders' position regarding foreign affairs, which most Americans in any case now believe
should be left to the military and the agencies who know best how to protect and advance
their interests. Once again, any real discussion or debate on foreign policy during the
coming election campaign will be taboo, and with the careful censorship of the alternate
media, and with no real protest from the American people, who in fact become willing
accomplices to any further unjust wars and atrocities their so-called "free" nation
commits.
Americans are brought up on Hollywood imagery, life-styles and fantasy. The corporate
media and entertainment industry is so pervasive that most of the people cannot discern the
difference between fantasy and reality, and as result of their constantly-fed addiction, they
now demand more and more theatre and even wars to satisfy their cravings. A false-flag
attack, 9/11, on their own people coming from their diabolical "owners", results in being no
more than a thrilling performance to make life seem more real. If there was any reality to
the people they would long ago have arrested the thousands of insider perps involved,
(especially deep-state ones in and out of the US), and long ago they would hung everyone of
them.
I would put it a bit differently. Trump's erraticness is a strong signal he fits to a pattern the Russians have used to depict
the US: "not agreement capable". That's what I meant by he selects for weak partners. His negotiating style signals that he is
a bad faith actor. Who would put up with that unless you had to, or you could somehow build that into your price?
I have no idea who your mythical Russians are. I know two people who did business in Russia before things got stupid and they
never had problems with getting paid. Did you also miss that "Russians" have bought so much real estate in London that they mainly
don't live in that you could drop a neutron bomb in the better parts of Chelsea and South Kensington and not kill anyone?
Pray tell, how could they acquire high end property if they are such cheats?
"It is politically important: Russia has paid off the USSR's debt to a country that no longer exists," said Mr Yuri Yudenkov,
a professor at the Russian University of Economics and Public Administration. "This is very important in terms of reputation:
the ability to repay on time, the responsibility," he told AFP.
It would have been very easy for Russia to say it cannot be held responsible for USSR's debts, especially in this case where
debt is to a non-existent entity.
In Syria, the Department of Defense was supporting one group of pet jihadis. The CIA was supporting a different group of pet
jihadis.
At times the two groups of pet jihadis were actively fighting each other. I am not sure how the DoD and CIA felt about their
respective pet jihadis fighting each other. However they felt, they kept right on arming and supporting their respective
groups ...
North Korea's cavalier rejection of its NPT membership in 2003 is
a prime example , but many saw it as a case not applicable to most member states. However,
more recently,
Saudi Arabia , and
Turkey and
Iran (which, after the killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, is looking for new ways to
upset Washington), have gone so far as ti layout terms under which they would leave the treaty
and even obtain nuclear weapons, statements without precedent in the treaty's history.
A number of otherwise respectable member countries, such as South Korea , also have
political parties in their legislatures that advocate treaty withdrawal and acquisition of
nuclear weapons.
We have to take seriously the possibility that -- without international action to arrest
this tendency -- the already frayed bonds that tie countries to the NPT and the pledge not to
acquire nuclear weapons may not hold. This would presage a world with many more nuclear states
and a vastly increased risk of nuclear use.
Victor Gilinsky is program advisor for the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
(NPEC) in Arlington, Virginia. He served on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission under Presidents
Ford, Carter, and Reagan. Henry Sokolski is executive director of NPEC and the author of
Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear
Future (second edition 2019). He served as deputy for nonproliferation policy in the office
of the U.S. secretary of defense in the Cheney Pentagon.
Britain and the EU powers fear Washington's ever-escalating aggression against Iran will
spark an all-out war that will redound against their own imperialist interests, even if it
doesn't immediately draw in Russia and China. A war would send oil prices soaring, roil the
European economy, spark another massive refugee crisis and further radicalize a growing working
class counter-offensive.
No doubt Pompeo and others have told the Europeans that if they want to restrain Trump,
avert a major conflagration and retain influence in the Middle East, they must rally behind
Washington and its maximum pressure campaign.
To these dubious incentives, the Trump administration added a trade war threat, according to
a report published yesterday by the Washington Post under the title, "Days before
Europeans warned Iran of nuclear deal violations, Trump secretly threatened to impose 25
percent tariff on European autos if they didn't."
Why, after so many assurances to the contrary, have the three European Iran's Nuclear Deal
Partner's – Germany, France, the UK – decided to go after Iran, to follow the US
dictate again?
The short answer is because the cowards. They have zero backbone to stand up against the US
hegemony, because they are afraid to be sanctioned – as Trump indicated if they were to
honor the" Nuclear Deal". Iran is absolutely in their right to progressively increase uranium
enrichment, especially since the US dropped out unilaterally, without any specific reasons,
other than on Netanyahu's orders – of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA),
also called Iran's Nuclear Deal.
Just a few days ago Ms. Angela Merkel met with President Putin in Moscow, and BOTH pledged
in front of a huge press crowd that the Nuclear Deal must stay, must be maintained and
validated.
And now, because of Trump's Barbarian threats, trade threats on Europe – an increase
of up to 25% import taxes on European cars – and wanting a new deal with Iran, whatever
that means, they, the Europeans – the three Nuclear Deal partners, back down. Why not
call Trump's bluff? As China did. This Barbarian Kingpin is lashing around his deathbed with
tariffs and sanctions, it is only a sign of weakness, a sign of slowly but surely disappearing
in the – hopefully – bottomless abyss.
This threesome is a bunch of shameless and hopeless cowards. They have not realized yet that
the west, starting with the US empire, is passé. It's a sinking ship. It's high time for
Iran to orient herself towards the east. Iran is already a Middle-Eastern key hub for the
Chinese Belt and Road initiative (BRI), or the New Silk road. Iran can do without Europe; and
the US needs Europe more than vice-versa. But the 'chickens' haven't noticed that yet.
On the behest of Washington, the Trump clown, they, Germany, France and the UK, want to
start an official dispute process, bringing Iran back to where it was before the Nuclear Deal,
and reinstating all the UN sanctions of before the signature of the deal in July 2015. And this
despite the fact that Iran has adhered to their part of the deal by 100%, as several times
attested to by the Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna. Can you imagine what these abhorrent
Europeans are about to do?
This reminds of how Europe pilfered, robbed and raped Africa and the rest of the now called
developing world, for hundreds of years. No ethics, no qualms, just sheer egocentricity and
cowardice. The European Barbarians and those on the other side of the Atlantic deserve each
other. And they deserve disappearing in the same bottomless pit.
Iran may consider three ideas:
1) Call the European bluff. Let them start the dispute process – and let them drive it
all the way to the UN Security Council. Their spineless British Brother in Crime, BoJo, also
called the British Prime-Minister, Boris Johnson, will do the job for them, bringing the case
"Iran Nuclear Deal – and Sanctions" to the UN Security Council – where it will
fail, because Russia and China will not approve the motion.
2) Much more important, Dear Friends in Iran – do not trust the Europeans for even
one iota ! – They have proven time and again that they are not trustworthy. They
buckle under every time Trump is breaking wind – and
3) Dedollarize your economy even faster – move as far as possible away from the west
– join the Eastern economy, that controls at least one third of the world's GDP. You are
doing already a lot in this direction – but faster. Join the SCO – the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization, comprising half of Mother Earth's population; ditch the dollar and
the SWIFT payment system, join instead the Chinese Interbank Payment System (CIPS) – and
be free of the sanction-prone western monetary system. Eastern monetary transactions are
blocking out western dollar-based sanctions. Already your hydrocarbon trades with China,
Russia, India and others are not carried out in US dollars, but in local currencies, Chinese
yuans, Russian rubles and Indian rupees.
True – Iran will have to confront Iran-internally the western (NATO) and CIA trained,
funded and bought Atlantists, the Fifth Columnists. They are the ones that create constant
virulently violent unrest in the cities of Iran; they are trained – and paid for –
to bring about Regime Change. That's what Russia and China and Venezuela and Cuba are also
confronted with. They, the Fifth Columnists have to be eradicated. It's a challenge, but it
should be doable.
Follow the Ayatollah's route. He is on the right track – looking East.
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. After working for over 30 years
with the World Bank he penned Implosion
, an economic thriller, based on his first-hand experience. Exclusively for the online magazine
" New Eastern Outlook. "
For some years Washington, an implacable enemy of Moscow, has been getting less and less
predictable. Lavrov and Kerry spend hours
locked up negotiating a deal in Syria ;
within a week the US military attacks a Syrian Army unit; "by mistake" . Who's in charge?
Now with the murder of Soleimani, possibly on a Washington-approved peace mission, Washington
has moved to another level of lawlessness and is exploring the next depth as it defies
Baghdad's order to get out. A pirate power. The outside problems for Moscow aren't getting
smaller, are they? Washington is certainly
недоговороспособны
– it's impossible to make an agreement with it and, if you should think you have done so,
it will break it. A dangerous, uncontrollable madman, staggering around blowing everything up
– is any foreign leader now to be assumed to be on Washington's murder list? Surviving
its decay is a big job indeed. The problems are getting bigger in the Final Days of the
Imperium Americanum.
"World War III is not going to happen because World War III already happened and the global
capitalist empire won. [Where is the "capitalism"?] Take a look at these NATO maps (make sure
to explore all the various missions). Then take a look at this Smithsonian map of where the
U.S. military is "combating terrorism." And there are plenty of other maps you can google.
What you will be looking at is the global capitalist empire. Not the American empire, the
global capitalist empire.
If that sounds like a distinction without a difference well, it kind of is, and it kind of
isn't. What I mean by that is that it isn't America (i.e., America the nation-state, which
most Americans still believe they live in) that is militarily occupying much of the planet,
making a mockery of international law, bombing and invading other countries, and
assassinating heads of state and military officers with complete impunity.
Or, rather, sure,
it is America but America is not America."
Does the United States's withdrawal from the JCPOA constitute non-compliance, or not? If so,
does their non-compliance constitute breach of contract, or not?
The U.S. effort to coerce European foreign policy through tariffs, a move one European
official equated to "extortion," represents a new level of hardball tactics with the United
States' oldest allies, underscoring the extraordinary tumult in the transatlantic
relationship.
...
U.S. officials conveyed the threat directly to officials in London, Berlin and Paris rather
than through their embassies in Washington, said a senior European official, who like
others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations.
Yes the US extorted their own "allies" to get them to betray Iran and destroy their own
reputations. I must say the one thing i begrudgingly like about Trump is his honest upfront
thuggist actions. After the backroom betrayals of Obama bush clinton merkel and the rest its
almost refreshingly honest. Also i can think of no quicker way of destroying the US empire
than by threatening your own allies the MIC must be desperate to start a new never ending
war, although perhaps they should be careful of what they wish for
Trumps calculations were (obviously) right. EU would have never risked a massive economic
crisis because of a breakdown in US-EU trade by siding with Iran.
Sadly, they are doing what every other country would do in this position to protect their own
self percieved national interests.
Like China,India and Russia too now more and more totally abiding by sanctions and in case
of China winding down oil trade even more.
In this time of lurking economic crisis, US sanctions could cripple Europe from one day to
the next. With our countries also being on the edge of social unrest, and mass conflict
between elites and people, a massive economic crisis would bring everything tumbling
down.
This is the sad reality. Risking the sure economic meltdown to save an already lost Iran
deal would trade the social and economic welbeing of their voters for Iran. The deal has been
lost ever since Trump annouced his opposition. This is the reality. Triggering a crisis on
the back of its own voters without a real chance to save that deal would have been an empty
gesture anyway.
Realpolitik.
Good thing is Merkel seems to have had a great day with Putin. EU will silently learn from
this and warm ties with Russia. If not for its people, for its business.
The deal was a good idea, but it always was destined to end like this. Iran will go
nuclear, and the US and Isreal will have "no alternative" for shooting war. If they dare
now.
Paragragh 14 of the UNSC resolution is worth thinking about.
"14. Affirms that the application of the provisions of previous resolutions pursuant to
paragraph 12 do not apply with retroactive effect to contracts signed between any party and
Iran or Iranian individuals and entities prior to the date of application, provided that the
activities contemplated under and execution of such contracts are consistent with the JCPOA,
this resolution and the previous resolutions;"
To date, only Russia and China are holding up their ends of the deal. Iran, sticking to
the deal is on the losing side as it has no trade with the EU yet it still must stay within
the provisions of the deal. I believe there were clauses on what Iran could do if other
parties were not upholding their end.
The nuke deal is dead and Iran knows it. Under Paragragh 14, Russia China can sign up to all
deals allowed under the resolution and when snapback provisions occur, Iran Russia china can
still operate contracts it has signed before sanctions reinstated. This way, Iran gets the
benefits of trade and investment with China and Russia that could not have occurred before
the nuke deal, but at the same time, Iran will no longer be bound by the deal.
China signed up a huge oil deal with Iran not long back. Russia have also been signing a good
number of contracts. None of these will be effected by UNSC sanction.
Overall, the nuke deal was a win for Iran. Pity the US and Euro's have reneged, but still,
a win for Iran.
Does the United States's withdrawal from the JCPOA constitute non-compliance, or not? If so,
does their non-compliance constitute breach of contract, or not?
Now Peter, do you really think the Outlaw US Empire or its poodles will abide by contract
law in general and the JCPOA contract law specifically?
IMO, the JCPOA's outcome is becoming similar to the outcome of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
in that it bought time and showed who's the true aggressor. I recall writing the Eurasians
need to behave as if they're at war with the EU-3 and their master--and that includes the
Eurasian nations who so far aren't too much affected by the fallout from the JCPOA's
failure.
What has me curious is the nature of the talks between Iran and Qatar.
Piotr Berman , Jan 15 2020 3:11 utc |
119Jackrabbit , Jan 15 2020
3:12 utc |
120
Peter AU1 @114
= Under Paragragh 14, Russia China can sign up to all deals allowed under the resolution
and when snapback provisions occur, Iran Russia china can still operate contracts it has
signed before sanctions reinstated.
Not sure about that. Paragraph 14 has this constraining language:
... provided that the activities contemplated under and execution of such contracts are
consistent with the JCPOA, this resolution and the previous resolutions.
My reading of this phrase is that he word "and" implies that the contracts must
satisfy provisions of ALL of these.
Put another way: When the snap back occurs, then contracts signed are exempt except
that they must comply with the provisions that are snapped back (AND) the JCPOA, AND this
resolution!?!?
Yes, it seems nonsensical. But how else can one interpret the "and"?
= Overall, the nuke deal was a win for Iran.
It was a 'win' for both sides.
I've always believed that USA entered into the JCPOA to buy time because Syrian "regime
change" was taking longer than expected. I've read many times that neocons and/or neocon
sympathizers believed that "Damascus is on the road" to Tehran."
USA-Israel want to fight Iran before it gets a bomb. Iran bought time to prepare for that
fight.
The EU cannot lead in anything - it is a completely owned and operated US tool. It is a big
zero in providing humanity any help with the big problem of our time: the 'indispensable and
exceptional' supremacist US. by: AriusArmenian @ 15
evilempire @ 74 <= I agree the Iranians probably did not shoot down the 737.. I posted
to MOA a link to a presstv article, headlined no missile hit the passenger liner, and the
link even said --its official.. within a short few minutes after tha, the pressTV link
disappeared and PressTV replaced it with a new story , Iranians admit they had mistakenly
shot down the PS752 taking off from Tehran. This suggest either a military coup in Iran, or
Iraq double crossed Iran. killed in Iraq by Trump were the leaders of the Shia religious arm
(IRCG leaders )
The unusually harsh words and expression in anger by Khomeini, said he would severely
punish those 8 persons responsible for the mistake, <= non characteristic of Khomeini ,
suggesting a trusted friend let him down; the two arms of the Military may be at war with
each other and Trump was helping the Iranian Military (eliminate the upper leadership of the
Revolutionary guard)? Today's JCOPA by the European powers issue suggest insiders have been
at work all weekend. Russia and China silence all fit betrayal. Have the two separate
branches of Iran military been at odds with each?
Imagine the White house wiping out Qaseum Soleimani and other IRCG members drawn on false
pretense into Iraq.?
here is Bs report on the matter
The Iranian Armed Forces General Staff just admitted (in Farsi, English translation) that its
air defenses inadvertently shot down the Ukrainian flight PS 752 shortly after it took off on
January 8 in Tehran :
2- In early hours after the missile attack [on US' Ain al-Assad base in Iraq], the
military flights of the US' terrorist forces had increased around the country. The Iranian
defence units received news of witnessing flying targets moving towards Iran's strategic
centres, and then several targets were observed in some [Iranian] radars, which incited
further sensitivity at the Air Defence units.
3- Under such sensitive and critical circumstances, the Ukrainian airline's Flight PS752 took
off from Imam Khomeini Airport, and when turning around, it approached a sensitive military
site of the IRGC, taking the shape and altitude of a hostile target. In such conditions, due
to human error and in an unintentional move, the airplane was hit [by the Air Defence], which
caused the martyrdom of a number of our compatriots and the deaths of several foreign
nationals.
4- The General Staff of the Armed Forces offers condolences and expresses sympathy with
the bereaved families of the Iranian and foreign victims, and apologizes for the human error.
It also gives full assurances that it will make major revision in the operational procedures
of its armed forces in order to make impossible the recurrence of such errors. It will also
immediately hand over the culprits to the Judicial Organization of the Armed Forces for
prosecution.
The Pentagon had claimed that Iran shot down the airliner but the evidence it presented
was flimsy and not sufficient as the U.S. tends to spread disinformation about Iran.
The Associated Press errs when it says that the move was "stoked by the American drone
strike on Jan. 3 that killed top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani". The move was stoked five
days earlier when the U.S. killed 31 Iraqi security forces near the Syrian border despite the
demands by the Iraqi prime minister and president not to do so. It was further stoked when
the U.S. assassinated Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes, the deputy commander of the Popular Militia
Forces and a national hero in Iraq.b at 19:09 UTC | Comments (150)
The State Department issued a rather aggressive response to Abdul-Mahdi's request:b at
19:09 UTC | Comments (150)
Very interesting post. something is up Thanks.
Posted by: DontBelieveEitherPr. | Jan 15 2020 2:14 utc | 113
thanks, yes, the US economic power directly and indirectly via economic laws or
extra-territorial sanctions. A company simply cannot make a deal with Iran if it doesn't want
to be ruined by US legal means. Sad, but true.
Iranian frozen assets in international accounts are calculated to be worth between $100
billion[1][2] and $120 billion.[3][4] Almost $1.973 billion of Iran's assets are frozen in
the United States.[5] According to the Congressional Research Service, in addition to the
money locked up in foreign bank accounts, Iran's frozen assets include real estate and other
property. The estimated value of Iran's real estate in the U.S. and their accumulated rent is
$50 million.[1] Besides the assets frozen in the U.S., some parts of Iran's assets are frozen
around the world by the United Nations.[1]
***********
Now I will have to cry myself to sleep. Trump, such a poor man...
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 15 2020 3:11 utc | 119
Yes, I am getting tired of that meme too. The poor helpless king of the world, if only he
could do what he wants ... if only he could "drain the swamp"
He promised to abolish the JCPOA, he suggested he would deal with the increase of Iran's
power in the region and he promised to restore US and military power to it's old (lost) world
domination. A world domination Russia and China would need to deal with too:
He already promised he would abolish JCPOA during his 2016 election campaign. And he
promised to not only make both the American economy and military strong again. So America can
exert at least as much power as it did under the great Ronald Reagan.
Secondly, we have to rebuild our military and our economy. The Russians and Chinese
have rapidly expanded their military capability, but look at what's happened to us. Our
nuclear weapons arsenal, our ultimate deterrent, has been allowed to atrophy and is
desperately in need of modernization and renewal. And it has to happen immediately. Our
active duty armed forces have shrunk from 2 million in 1991 to about 1.3 million today.
The Navy has shrunk from over 500 ships to 272 ships during this same period of time. The Air
Force is about one-third smaller than 1991. Pilots flying B-52s in combat missions today.
These planes are older than virtually everybody in this room.
And what are we doing about this? President Obama has proposed a 2017 defense budget
that in real dollars, cuts nearly 25 percent from what we were spending in 2011. Our military
is depleted and we're asking our generals and military leaders to worry about global
warming.
We will spend what we need to rebuild our military. It is the cheapest, single
investment we can make. We will develop, build and purchase the best equipment known to
mankind. Our military dominance must be unquestioned, and I mean unquestioned, by anybody
and everybody.
Mao | Jan 15 2020 4:19 utc | 124
Current Europe is a selling girl of imperialism.
Indeed! The western band of galoots are captives of their white skin color...
Very unbecoming to the rest of the non-white world = majority.
Fortunately, many of us see past our skin colors, whatever that may be...
We will spend what we need to rebuild our military. It is the cheapest, single investment we
can make. We will develop, build and purchase the best equipment known to mankind. Our
military dominance must be unquestioned, and I mean unquestioned, by anybody and everybody.
Posted by: moon | Jan 15 2020 4:58 utc | 125
Oh, we'll spend the money alright; for more of the inferior, junk, weaponry already in our
arsenals.
Planes that can't fly in the rain, aircraft carriers that can't be commisioned, and battle
rifles (that's a misnomer; the M-14 was the last U.S. battle rifle) (M-4 & M-16) that are
unreliable in intense combat situations. The M-16 should have been replaced during the Viet
Nam war...
But there it still is; almost 60 years later...
Personally I thought the cartoon was pretty good. The artist even thought that the detail
of the dogs' ass holes was important enough to include. Notably none of them have any
external genitalia, hence "bitches" also being accurate. I bet if we could see the rendition
from the other side, Israel's face would be hideous despite the appealing rear view!
This is a repeat of the EU3 negotiations with Iran that ended with a EU3 deal offered to Iran
that experts called "a lot of pretty wrappig around an empty box" because as it turned out,
the EU3 had been promising the US that they would not recognize Iran's right to enrichment
contrary to what they were telling the Iranians as part of the EU3's effort to drag out
Iran's suspension of enrichment.
The result was that Khatami was embarrassed and Ahmadinejad was elected, as Jack Straw said
later:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/us-scuppered-deal-with-iran-in-2005-says-then-british-foreign-minister/
So again the Eu is playing the good cop to the US bad cop, and they keep goalposts
moving
This has been a consistent pattern going back years.
All along Iran has been making better compromise offers than the JCPOA only to see the
goalposts moved because this conflict was never really about nukes just as the invasion of
Iraq was not about WMDs, all that is just a pretext for a policy of imposed
regime-change.
NOTE That the Obama administration itself said that the JCPOA is "non-binding" funny how
Iran is accused of "breaching" or "violating" it yet Trump is only said to have "abandoned"
or even "withdrawn" from the deal
"President Rohani represent's the interests of the bourgeoisie in Tehran and Esfahan,
merchants oriented toward international trade and hard hit by US sanctions. Sheikh Rohani is
a long time friend of the US deep state: he was the first Iranian contact between the Reagan
administration and Israel during the Iran-contra affair in 1985. It was he who introduced
Hashem Rafsanjani to Oliver North's men, allowing him to buy arms, to become
commander-in-chief of the armies and incidentally the richest man in the country, and the
president of the Islamic Republic."
Thierry Meyssan. Voltairenet. org.
Wednesday morning, my first read before b's M. O. A. is Thierry. Really folks, it is
indespensible. One can support the I. R. I.,but still reserve criticism of the domestic
politics of Iran.
Outside the West, people don't see any difference between Europe and the USA. So it is known
that which ever direction the US takes, Europe will follow. Both the USA and Europe are
Israeli colonies. So unless Israel objects whatever the US does would always be the Eurooean
policy.
Annex B, paragraph 5 allows Iran to purchase weapons from Russia (for example...) after 5
years from signing of the Agreement in 2015.
So 2020 for weapons.
This is why Russia is so insistent the agreement holds together for the 5 years, at least.
If it doesn't, due to this action by Germany etc, then they can't sell to Iran as all old
sanctions will 'snap back'.
(Other restrictions are lifted on longer time frames, 8 and 10 years. Also, other matters
remain open forever until security council agrees the nuclear proliferation issue in Iran is
dead and buried.)
V , Jan 15 2020 9:05 utc |
142Russ , Jan 15
2020 11:08 utc |
143
powerandpeople 138 says:
Annex B, paragraph 5 allows Iran to purchase weapons from Russia (for example...) after
5 years from signing of the Agreement in 2015.
So 2020 for weapons.
This is why Russia is so insistent the agreement holds together for the 5 years, at
least. If it doesn't, due to this action by Germany etc, then they can't sell to Iran as all
old sanctions will 'snap back'.
There's an example of how appeasement and idiot-legality are way past their expiration
date. It's clear the UN itself, like all other existing international bodies, has been fully
weaponized with Russia the ultimate target.
In the process of "first they came for Irak, then they came for Libya [with the full
consent of Russia and China]...now they're coming for Irak again and for Iran....", well
obviously Russia is the one they'll ultimately be coming for.
It really is time to hang together or hang separately. Although Russia should remain
cautious about direct military stand-offs, it's definitely way past time to start openly
challenging and flouting war-by-sanctions, and to start constructing international bodies
alternative to the UN and other imperial weapons.
As for fighting within the UN, someone earlier said Russia and China wouldn't be able to
prevent the "snap-back" of UN sanctions on Iran. Why not? I'm not asking for a
technical-legalistic answer, but a power-based answer. Self-evidently the "legality" ship has
sunk, and anyone who still makes a fetish of it is fighting with one hand tied behind one's
back.
I don't say gratuitously flout legality; certainly there's great propaganda value in
seeming to adhere to international law in the face of the open lawlessness of the US. But
where it comes to critical battles like getting Iran out from under the sanctions, in the
process dealing a blow to the alleged impregnability of the sanctions weapon, the most
important thing is the real result.
Trump has in fact done more to ensure that Iran will have a nuclear weapon than any other
president through his abrupt withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA)
and his assassination of Soleimani..
Trump has in fact done more to ensure that Iran will have a nuclear weapon than any other
president through his abrupt withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA)
and his assassination of Soleimani..
Russ
Russia and I think China are working towards a multi-polar world order based on international
law.
Russia is pushing this vision and to pull other countries in, it has to walk the talk.
PR information warfare play a big part in state decisions. As we have seen from the Uki plane
shootdown Euro's beginning the process to trigger snapback, A small anti Iran block sprang to
life (UK, Canada, Ukraine, Afghanistan and Sweden) that will be great PR for the US in its
anti Iran crusade.
As I put in another comment, everyone likes a winner
I also recommend the short piece by Patrick Armstrong posted by moon up there.
I've been of the opinion from the beginning of this that the main reason Russia &
China have not leapt to the aid of Iran is that Iran does not need or want them to, yet at
least. Crooke's mention of the attack on the Saudi oil facilities is a connection that needs
to be made, that was not a fluke.
But it's a very "asymmetric" situation, as Crooke points out. Interesting times.
And each consequence leads to yet another consequence. But world leaders do not recognize
where this path is leading humanity. If they did they might be able to stop – or
perhaps not. They delude themselves to the real destination of the journey. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Indeed they were, and now we know it was just a charade. Triggering the Dispute Resolution
Mechanism on basis intel supplied by Bibi is a ruse to replace the JCPOA. Where have we heard
this before? Oh, Iran is less than a year from getting the nuclear bomb.
On Tuesday, Britain, France and Germany launched the 2015 Iran nuclear deal's dispute
resolution mechanism, which they said was partly prompted by concerns that Tehran might be
less than a year away from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has rejected a proposal for a new "Trump deal" to resolve
a nuclear spat as a "strange" offer, pointing the finger at the US President over his
failure to deliver on promises.
"This Mr. Prime Minister in London, I don't know how he thinks. He says let's put
aside the nuclear deal and put the Trump plan in action. If you take the wrong step, it
will be to your detriment. Pick the right path. The right path is to return to the nuclear
deal", Rouhani said on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged Trump to replace the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), also known as the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with his own
new pact to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. The US president responded by
tweeting that he agreed with Johnson on a "Trump deal".
Zarif Says 'It Depends on Europe' if JCPOA Remains After Dispute Resolution Mechanism
Activation. [.]
my apologies if anyone's brought this already, but the plot now thickens. a commenter at the
site at which i cross-post brought this to my attention on my 'iran makes arrests over
accidental downing of Ukrainian airliner'.
it's a tweet leading to new york times coverage of a 'Exclusive: Security camera footage
verified by the New York Times confirms that 2 missiles, fired 30 seconds apart from an
Iranian military site, hit the Ukrainian plane'
i'd used a free click to pull text, including:
"The new video was uploaded to YouTube by an Iranian user around 2 a.m. on Tuesday.
The date visible on the footage is "2019-10-17," not Jan. 8, the day the plane was downed. We
believe this is because the camera system is using a Persian calendar, not a Gregorian one.
Jan. 8 converts to the 18th of Dey, the 10th month in the Persian calendar. Digitally that
would display as 2019-10-18 in the video. One theory is that the discrepancy of one day can
be explained by a difference between Persian and Gregorian leap years or months." "
but it's everywhere already, set in stone, the WSJ news coverage included:
"The video was verified by Storyful, a social-media-intelligence company owned by News
Corp, parent of Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones. It raises new questions about how
forthcoming Iranian authorities were when, after three days of denial, they admitted they had
mistakenly struck the Ukraine International Airlines flight without mentioning a second
missile."
the video obviously bring up a dozen more questions, including what it shows, where, when,
etc., but corporate coverage assures us that 'iran has lied about the airliner thrice now:
evil iran'.
wait for even more sanctions, more assassinations.
What bothers me about this entire thread is no one can see either a way to end the
suppression every player on the field has been subjected to by the private mobsters. . War
whether by WMDs or Sanctions. produces the same, millions will die and nothing will alter the
possession of power, and the abuse of the masses, by the few.
The thesis "the nation state system is the structure that allows the mobsters (private
bankers, private corporations, and privateers) to control sufficient authority to rule the
world". Without strength from deadly force, and authority from engineered consent, ruling the
world is difficult.
No one has found a way to pin the maker of wrongdoing chaos button, or convicted criminal
button on the private mobsters. As the private mobsters dance, and side step their positions
between the 206 or so nation states, they avoid being boxed up, and they install their
puppets in every place they land. It is the puppets who deliver to the international arenas
the voting power that allow the private mobsters to control conflict outcomes; and puppets
in-service-to the private mobsters oversee and manage the regional and local political and
economic domains. In such a situation, the law becomes progressively more suppressive; it
produces a hierarchy of relative power and the hierarchy allows to order the nation states
relative to their power in the hierarchy. The world might even be safer without any
government at all than to allow itself to be victimized by the private mobster use of the
nation state system. Clearly the mightier the actor in the system, the less the system can or
will hold the mighty actor to conform to the rule of law. So the rule of law suppresses the
little guy and enhances the big guy.. If there were no nation state system, there would not
be any push button suppression.
There has to be an answer.. that is not war or decimation of more humanity.
The only goal of Europe in sticking to the JPCoA when Trump walks out is to keep Tehran from
developping its nuke while excruciating sanctions hinder all normal life. Regime change is
still the goal, be it at the expense of european trade.
Think of NorthStream, or of the two-state fiction in Palestine where " there's no one to
broke peace with ".
There has to be an answer.. that is not war or decimation of more humanity.
Posted by: snake | Jan 15 2020 14:26 utc | 155
One lesson from history is that it is important that those big shots just beneath the
ultimate societal power be held to the strictest standards: The law applies to you too, big
shot. Clovis effectively adhered to this principle many centuries ago. Putin by reining in
the worst of the oligarchs operated in tune with this principle.
The prevailing principle in the West is that oligarchs, the mighty, etc are above the law,
while in the US for example swat teams kill pets that bark at their door-smashing arrival at
the homes of the little people, and those who invest in private prisons feast financially on
slave labor by millions of plebeians 'plea bargained' into servitude.
Oh, Iran is less than a year from getting the nuclear bomb.
Since Bibi, Trump and the rest of Iran's enemies and their indoctrinated populations have
been saying this for years it's time for Iran to just get on with it and pull out all stops
in putting several together to be used as an option of last resort. But they should make no
public confirmation, like Israel. If the warmongering US wants a war they and their allies
(and their populations would then be aware of the consequences and would force them to
re-assess the situation. IMO this is the only way Iran will survive. If Trump wins another
term I can almost guarantee he will forge ahead with attempting another regime change. Iran
is already a pariah state in their eyes so really nothing much more for Iran to lose.
Tim Horton's has been foreign-owned (now Brazil) since 2014, but the rot started to set in as
expansion, particularly into the US, became a major goal. Once a reasonable quality purveyor
of coffee and made-from-scratch in-store donuts, now just another hawker of industrialized
brown swill and partly-cooked/frozen-then-shipped and finish-baked chemical-laced products.
I only patronize a Timmie's if I don't know of a decent quality local bakery/restaurant in
that particular area. The devil you know...
To William Gruff: Absolutely, Canada is a vassal state of the US.
Example 1: Cretien managed to keep Cdn troops out of Iraq, but dithering Paul Martin got
forced by the US to send non-combat troops into Afghanistan, then
bribery-cash-in-brown-envelopes Harper turned it into combat roles that persist to this
day.
Ex 2, Diefenbaker scrapped the nearly-complete AVRO Arrow project on direct orders from
the US that the total-crap BOMARC missile system was to be implemented instead.
Trudeau sorta confronted the US by legalizing pot, but other than that... the foreign
policy leash is very visible on the Canadian lapdog.
Iran doesn't react like the US psychopaths do..
They follow the letter of the law, as they have done with JCPOA.
But in my opinion, Iran should get its nuke capabilities up to par asap. Why continue to want
to look as though you're following the law of JCPOA by allowing the IAEA in who reports to
the EU/US to continue intrusive inspections when they all plan war against you leaving you
nuke defenseless while Israel and Saudis have or are getting nukes?
If Iran has nukes the US will back off. Nuff said.
In 70 years of illegal and violent occupation of Palestine through deportation,eradication
and no respect for human lives adding what zionist army and services have done through these
years and this is "some nasty stuff"..no israel it's the cancer of middle-east..just it!
The AVRO Arrow fiasco was criminal... "scrapping" doesn't even begin to tell the story...
utter destruction was more like it, with welding torches, right down to the last bolt. That
plane, with it's mach 2 Iroquois engine was en route to completely embarrassing the US
MIC
As well, few people know the AVRO Jetliner story, which preceded the Arrow - the first
North American passenger jet aircraft - years ahead of anything the US produced
This panel discussion explains how Congress is bought by the military industrial (mostly
oil) complex. Then again Eisenhower included Congress in the Cabal several years after he
overthrew the democratic leader of Iran. The dialogue of these panel members links all
Mideast invasions back to the initial destruction of Iranian government in 1953. Apparently,
we cannot have democracy in the Mideast as it is bad for the mafia business.
I recently heard a story on CBC radio about the Arrow. Not only did they destroy the
prototype and all parts, they even destroyed all the drawings, except for one set which was
smuggled out by a draftsman, who kept them secret for decades. But now they are on display at
the "Diefenbaker Canada Centre at the University of Saskatchewan until April 2020" (from
Wiki)
It's interesting to learn that Uncle Sam wanted the program stopped. Why didn't some US
company just buy Avro instead? Buying out the competition is standard operating procedure for
US corporate parasites.
wendy davis @154 Rouhani's tweet when accepting responsibility for the downing of the plane
stated:
Hassan Rouhani
@HassanRouhani
·
Jan 10
Armed Forces' internal investigation has concluded that regrettably missiles fired due to
human error caused the horrific crash of the Ukrainian plane & death of 176 innocent
people.
Investigations continue to identify & prosecute this great tragedy & unforgivable
mistake. #PS752
As you can see, Rouhani stated 'missiles' as in plural.
Great to run into you again. Indeed by signing on to the JCPOA Iran demonstrated a number
of things. 1) Iran keeps her word. 2) The US never does. 3) Europe's role is to smile while
preparing to stab you in the back. 4) The US will sacrifice her own interests for Israel's
everytime.
I think all of us could have predicted all that. But what I could never have predicted was
the complete in your face nature of American imperialism. It is one thing for there to be
overwhelming evidence against a suspect. It's quite another for him to openly brag about his
crimes and then promise to commit even more. That is why Trump's presidency is a blessing for
Iran. If you happen to be in Iran, please share with us any information about the national
mood and how people are coping in difficult circumstances.
Didn't know that about Merkel; yet another reason she qualifies as a cowardly poodle. It's
also clear, IMO, that Merkel lied to Putin and the press about her position on the JCPOA at
their post-talks
presser :
Putin: "We certainly could not ignore another issue which is vitally important not only
for the region but also for the whole world – the issue of preserving the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran's nuclear programme. After the United States withdrew
from this fundamental agreement, the Iranian side declared that they suspended some of their
voluntary commitments under the JCPOA. Let me underscore this – they only suspended
their voluntary commitments while they stress their readiness to go back to full compliance
with the nuclear deal.
"Russia and Germany resolutely stand for the continued implementation of the Joint Plan.
The Iranians are entitled to a support from European nations, which promised to set up a
special financial vehicle separate from the US dollar to be used in trade settlements with
Iran. The Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX) must finally begin working."
Merkel, statement: "Of course, we also discussed Iran. We agree that everything necessary
must be done to preserve the JCPOA. Germany believes that there should be no nuclear weapons
in Iran, and therefore we will use all the available diplomatic means to preserve this
agreement, even though it is not perfect, but it includes obligations of all the sides."
Merkel answering a question: " I have mentioned an issue on which we do not see eye to eye
with the Americans (JCPOA), even though they are our allies with whom we are working together
on many matters. But when it comes to German and European opinions, we are acting above all
in our own interests, while Russia is upholding its own interests, so we should look for
common interests in this process.
"Despite certain obstacles, we have found common interests in our bilateral relations
regarding the JCPOA with Iran. We have common opinions and different views, but a visit such
as this one is the best thing. It is better to talk with each other rather than about one
another, because it helps one to understand the other side's arguments."
It's very clear from Russia's reaction that the EU-3's action was a complete surprise. I
doubt Merkel will be invited to Moscow again. For Russians and the rest of humanity, there's
no trusting the West. IMO, it must always be treated as hostile regardless the smiles.
"
While it might work in domestic politics, this mad man negotiating tactic erodes trust in
international affairs and it will take decades for the US to recover from the harm done by
Trump's school yard bully approach.
Even the docile Europeans are beginning to tire of this and once they get their balls
stitched back on after being castrated for so long, America will have its work cut out
crossing the chasm from unreliable and untrustworthy partner to being seen as dependable and
worthy of entering into agreements with.
"... Another aspect of Trump's erraticness is making sudden shifts, or what we have called gaslighting. He'll suddenly and radically change his rhetoric, even praise someone he demonized. That if nothing else again is a power play, to try to maintain his position as driving the pacing and content of the negotiations, which again is meant to position his counterparty as in a weaker position, of having to react to his moves, even if that amounts to identifying them as noise. It is a watered-down form of a cult strategy called love bombing (remember that Trump has been described as often being very charming in first meetings, only to cut down the person he met in a matter of days). ..."
"... I would disagree with the "selecting staff" part. I can't really think of any of his appointees to any office while he is president that was a good pick. One worse than the other basically. Maybe in his private dealings he did better, but in public office it's a continuous horror show. Examples like Pence, Haley, "Mad Dog", Bolton, DeVos, his son in law, Pompeo. The list goes on. ..."
"... For me as a foreigner who detests the forever wars and most of the US foreign policy, this is a good thing: the more heavy handed, the more brutal, the more cruel, the more stupid the US policy is, the less is the chance for our euro governments to follow the US in today's war or other policy. ..."
"... They are not inept and incompetent at what they are trying to achieve. The GOP has long sought to privatize government to help the rich get richer and harm anyone who isn't rich by cutting services and making them harder to get. Trumps picks are carrying out that agenda very well. ..."
"... Trump is just a huge crude extension of the usual "exceptional" leaders, much more transparent by not pretending he is any sort of representative of democratic and cooperative values claimed by his predecessors. ..."
"... But what I think is noticeable is that his worst high profile staff picks, while horrible people, are generally those who are under his thumb and so he has control of. ..."
"... He got elected over the dead bodies of just about everyone who counts in the Republican Party. He pretty much did a hostile takeover of the GOP. So his ability to draw on seasoned hands was nil. And on top of that, he is temperamentally not the type to seek the counsel of perceived wise men in and hanging around the party. The people he has kept around are cronies like Wilbur Ross and Steve Mnuchin. ..."
"... The one notably competent person he has attracted and retained is Robert Lightizer, the US Trade Representative ..."
"... oderint, dum metuant ..."
"... Führerprinzip ..."
"... Hitler ran the Third Reich by a system of parallel competition among bureaucratic empire builders of all stripes. Anyone who showed servile loyalty and mouthed his yahoo ideology got all the resources they liked, for any purpose they proposed. But the moment he encountered any form of independence or pushback, he changed horses at once. He left the old group in place, but gave all their resources to a burgeoning new bureaucracy that did things his way. If a State body resisted his will, he had a Party body do it instead. He was continually reaching down 2-3 levels in the org charts, to find some ambitious firecracker willing to suck up to him, and leapfrog to the top. ..."
"... This left behind a complete chaos of rival, duplicated functions, under mainly unfit leaders. And fortunately for the world, how well any of these organizations actually did their jobs was an entirely secondary consideration. Loyalty was all. ..."
"... Hitler sat at the center of all the resource grabbers and played referee. This made everyone dependent on his nod and ensured his continued power. The message was: there are no superiors in the Reich. There is only der Führer, and his favor trumps everything ..."
"... The few over-confident generals he picked, except for Flynn, finally caved when they realized staying was an affront to the honor code they swore to back in OCS or their academy. ..."
"... I don't know how they selected staff in the Reagan years, but lately the POTUS seems to appoint based on who the plutocrats want. As has been noted Bary O took his marching orders from Citigroup if I remember right. I doubt if Trump had even heard of most of the people he appointed prior to becoming president. So at least some of Trump's turnover is due to him firing recommendations from others who didn't turn out how he'd like. That's one reason I didn't get all that upset over the Bolton hiring – I didn't think he'd last a year before Trump canned him. ..."
"... I would say that Trump, not acting in an intelligent way is doing very clever things according to his interests. My opinion is that his actions/negotiations with foreign countries are 100% directed for domestic consumptiom. He does not care at all about international relationships, just his populist "make America great again" and he almost certainly play closest attention to the impact of his actions in US opinion. ..."
"... Classic predatory behaviors: culling the herd and eating the weak. ..."
"... I think Trump understands that one of the basic tactics of negotiation (though forgotten by the Left(tm)) is to set out a maximalist position before the negotiation starts, so that you have room to make compromises later. ..."
"... But in domestic politics, there's no doubt that publicly announcing extreme negotiating positions is a winning tactic. You force the media and other political actors to comment and make counter-proposals, thus dragging the argument more in your direction from the very start. Trump remembers something that his opponents have willfully forgotten: compromise is something you finish with not something you start from . In itself, any given compromise has no particular virtue or value. ..."
"... Today's Democrats want to destroy those social programs you cite. They have wanted to destroy those social programs ever since President Clinton wanted to conspire with "Prime Minister" Gingrich to privatize Social Security. Luckily Monica Lewinsky saved us from that fate. ..."
"... A nominee Sanders would run on keeping Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid in existence. And he would mean it. A nominee Biden might pretend to say it. But he would conspire with the Republicans to destroy them all. ..."
"... The maintenance of fear, chaos and blowback are exACTLY the desired result. Deliberately and on purpose. ..."
"... It also helps him do some things quietly in the background ..."
Trump and
the Mad Negotiator Approach Posted on January
14, 2020 by Yves Smith Trump's numerous character
flaws, such as his grandiosity, his lack of interest in the truth, his impulsiveness, his
habitual lashing out at critics, have elicited boatloads of disapproving commentary. It's
disturbing to see someone so emotional and undisciplined in charge of anything, let alone the
United States.
Rather than offer yet more armchair analysis, it might be productive to ask a different
question: why hasn't Trump been an abject failure? There are plenty of rich heirs who blow
their inheritance or run the family business into the ground pretty quickly and have to knuckle
down to a much more modest lifestyle.
Trump's lack of discipline has arguably cost him. The noise regularly made about his
business bankruptcies is wildly exaggerated. Most of Trump's
bankruptcies were of casinos , and most of those took place in the nasty 1991-1992
recession. He was one of only two major New York City developers not to have to give meaningful
equity in some of their properties in that downturn. He even managed to keep Mar-a-Lago and
persuaded his lenders to let him keep enough cash to preserve a pretty flashy lifestyle because
he was able to persuade them that preserving his brand name was key to the performance of
Trump-branded assets.
The MarketWatch analysis shows a variety of lenders, all big banks or listed specialized
finance companies like Ladder Capital, that have provided lots of money to Trump over the
years in the forms of short-, medium- and long-term loans and at competitive rates, whether
fixed or variable.
"The Treasury yield that matches the term of the loan is the closest starting benchmark
for Trump-sized commercial real estate loans," said Robert Thesman, a certified public
accountant in Washington state who specializes in real estate tax issues. The 10-year
Treasury swap rate is also used and tracks the bonds closely, according to one expert.
Trump's outstanding loans were granted at rates between 2 points over and under the
matching Treasury-yield benchmark at inception. That's despite the well-documented record of
bankruptcy filings that dot Trump's history of casino investment.
The flip side is that it's not hard to make the case that Trump's self-indulgent style has
cost him in monetary terms. His contemporary Steve Ross of The Related Companies who started
out in real estate as a tax lawyer putting together Section 8 housing deals, didn't have a big
stake like Trump did to start his empire. Ross did have industrialist and philanthropist Max
Fisher as his uncle and role model, but there is no evidence that Fisher staked Ross beyond paying for his education .
Ross has an estimated net worth of $7.6 billion versus Trump's $3.1 billion.
Despite Trump's heat-seeking-missile affinity for the limelight, we only get snippets of how
he has managed his business, like his litigiousness and breaking of labor laws. Yet he's kept
his team together and is pretty underleveraged for a real estate owner.
The area where we have a better view of how Trump operates is via his negotiating, where is
astonishingly transgressive. He goes out of his way to be inconsistent, unpredictable, and will
even trash prior commitments, which is usually toxic, since it telegraphs bad faith. How does
this make any sense?
One way to think of it is that Trump is effectively screening for weak negotiating
counterparties. Think of his approach as analogous to the Nigerian scam letters and the many
variants you get in your inbox. They are so patently fake that one wonders why the fraudsters
bother sending them.
Everyone knows that Nigerian scam e-mails, with their exaggerated stories of moneys tied
up in foreign accounts and collapsed national economies, sound totally absurd, but according
to research from Microsoft, that's on purpose .
As a savvy Internet user you probably think you'd never fall for the obvious trickery, but
that's the point. Savvy users are not the scammers' target audience, [Cormac] Herley notes.
Rather, the creators of these e-mails are targeting people who would believe the sort of
tales these scams involve .:
Our analysis suggests that is an advantage to the attacker, not a disadvantage. Since
his attack has a low density of victims the Nigerian scammer has an over-riding need to
reduce false positives. By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the
scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select, and tilts the true to false positive
ratio in his favor.
Who would want to get in a business relationship with a guy who makes clear early on that he
might pull the rug out from under you? Most people would steer clear. So Trump's style, even if
he adopted it out of deep-seated emotional needs, has the effect of pre-selecting for weak,
desperate counterparties. It can also pull in people who think they can out-smart Trump and
shysters who identify with him, as well as those who are prepared to deal with the headaches
(for instance, the the business relationship is circumscribed and a decent contract will limit
the downside).
Mind you, it is more common than you think for businesses to seek out needy business
"partners". For instance, back in the day when General Electric was a significant player in
venture capital, it would draw out its investment commitment process. The point was to
ascertain if the entrepreneurs had any other prospects; they wouldn't tolerate GE's leisurely
process if they did. By the time GE was sure it was the only game in town, it would cram down
the principals on price and other terms. There are many variants of this playbook, such as how
Walmart treats suppliers.
Trump has become so habituated to this mode of operating that he often launches into
negotiations determined to establish that he had the dominant position when that is far from
clear, witness the ongoing China trade row. Trump did in theory hold a powerful weapon in his
ability to impose tariffs on China. But they are a blunt weapon, with significant blowback to
the US. Even though China had a glass jaw in terms of damage to its economy (there were signs
of stress, such as companies greatly stretching out when they paid their bills), Trump could
not tolerate much of a stock market downdraft, nor could he play a long-term game.
Another aspect of Trump's erraticness is making sudden shifts, or what we have called
gaslighting. He'll suddenly and radically change his rhetoric, even praise someone he
demonized. That if nothing else again is a power play, to try to maintain his position as
driving the pacing and content of the negotiations, which again is meant to position his
counterparty as in a weaker position, of having to react to his moves, even if that amounts to
identifying them as noise. It is a watered-down form of a cult strategy called
love bombing (remember that Trump has been described as often being very charming in first
meetings, only to cut down the person he met in a matter of days).
Voters have seen another face of Trump's imperative to find or create weakness: that of his
uncanny ability to hit opponents' weak spots in ways that get them off balance, such as the way
he was able to rope a dope Warren over her Cherokee ancestry claims.
The foregoing isn't to suggest that Trump's approach is optimal. Far from it. But it does
"work" in the sense of achieving certain results that are important to Trump, of having him
appear to be in charge of the action, getting his business counterparts on the back foot. That
means Trump is implicitly seeing these encounters primarily in win-lose terms, rather than
win-win. No wonder he has little appetite for international organizations. You have to give in
order to get.
I think this is pretty astute, thanks Yves. One reason I think Trump has been so
successful for his limited range of skills is precisely that 'smart' people underestimate him
so much. He knows one thing well – how power works. Sometimes that's enough. I've known
quite a few intellectually limited people who have built very successful careers based on a
very simple set of principles (e.g. 'never disagree with anyone more senior than me').
Anecdotally, I've often had the conversation with people about 'taking Trump seriously',
as in, trying to assess what he really wants and how he has been so successful. In my
experience, the 'smarter' and more educated the person I'm talking to is, the less willing
they are to have that conversation. The random guy in the bar will be happy to talk and have
insights. The high paid professional will just mutter about stupid people and racism.
I would also add one more reason for his success – he does appear to be quite good
at selecting staff, and knowing who to delegate to.
There is another figure from recent history who displayed similar astuteness about power
while manifesting generally low intelligence: Chile's Pinochet. He had near failing grades in
school but knew how to consolidate power, dominate the other members of the junta, and weed
out the slightest hint of dissidence within the army.
To the average viewer, Trump's branding extends to the negative brands that he assigns to
opponents. Witness Lyin' Ted , Pocahontas and similar sticky names that
make their way into coverage. He induces free coverage from Fake News as if they
can't resist gawking at a car wreck, even when one of the vehicles is their own. Manipulation
has worked quite a lot on people with different world views, especially when they don't
conceive of any different approaches.
Scott Adams touted that as one of Trump's hidden persuasionological weapons . . . that
ability to craft a fine head-shot nickname for every opponent.
If Sanders were to be nominated, I suppose Trump would keep saying Crazy Bernie. Sanders
will just have to respond in his own true-to-himself way. Maybe he could risk saying
something like . . .
" so Trashy Trump is Trashy. This isn't new."
If certain key bunches of voters still have
fond memories for Crazy Eddie, perhaps Sanders could have some operatives subtly remind
people of that.
Some images of Crazy Eddie, for those who wish to stumble up Nostalgia Alley . . .
I would disagree with the "selecting staff" part. I can't really think of any of his
appointees to any office while he is president that was a good pick. One worse than the other
basically. Maybe in his private dealings he did better, but in public office it's a continuous horror
show.
Examples like Pence, Haley, "Mad Dog", Bolton, DeVos, his son in law, Pompeo. The list goes
on.
Another indication how bad his delegation skills are is how short his picks stay at their
job before they are fired again. Is there any POTUS which had higher staff turnover?
Its a horror show because you don't agree with their values. After the last few
Presidents, too much movement to the right would catastrophic, so there isn't much to do. His
farm bill is a disaster. The new NAFTA is window dressing. He slashed taxes. He's found a way
to make our brutal immigration system even more nefarious. His staff seems to be working out
despite it not having many members of the Bush crime family.
Even if these people were as beloved by the press as John McCain, they would still be
monsters.
It's not their values that make them a horror show, it's their plain inaptitude and
incompetency. E.g. someone like that Exxon CEO is at least somewhat capable, which is why I
didn't mention him. Though he was quite ineffective as long as he lasted and probably quite
corrupt. Pompeo in the same office on the other hand is simply a moron elevated way beyond
his station. Words fail and the Peter principle cannot explain.
The US can paper over this due to their heavy handed application of power for now, but
every day he stays in office, friends are abhorred while trying not to show it, and foes
rejoice at the utter stupidity of the US how it helps their schemes.
For me as a foreigner who detests the forever wars and most of the US foreign policy, this
is a good thing: the more heavy handed, the more brutal, the more cruel, the more stupid the
US policy is, the less is the chance for our euro governments to follow the US in today's war
or other policy. So while I am sort of happy about the outcome, I don't see the current
monsters at the helm worse than the monsters 4 years ago under Obama. In fact I detested them
much more since they had the power to drag my governments into their evil schemes.
Evil and clearly despicable is always better than evil and sort of charismatic.
For me as a foreigner who detests the forever wars and most of the US foreign policy,
this is a good thing: the more heavy handed, the more brutal, the more cruel, the more stupid
the US policy is, the less is the chance for our euro governments to follow the US in today's
war or other policy.
Indeed, if you look at the trendline from the '80's to now, trump is, in some ways, the
less effective evil.
They are not inept and incompetent at what they are trying to achieve. The GOP has long
sought to privatize government to help the rich get richer and harm anyone who isn't rich by
cutting services and making them harder to get. Trumps picks are carrying out that agenda
very well.
I feel exactly the same. Trump is just a huge crude extension of the usual "exceptional"
leaders, much more transparent by not pretending he is any sort of representative of
democratic and cooperative values claimed by his predecessors.
But what I think is noticeable is that his worst high profile staff picks, while horrible
people, are generally those who are under his thumb and so he has control of. But in the
behind the scenes activities, they've been very effective – as an obvious example,
witness how he's put so many conservative Republicans into the judiciary, in contrast with Obamas haplessness.
That is not a Trump thing, getting more judges is a 100% rep party thing and only rep
party thing. Sure, he is the one putting his rubber stamp on it, but the picking and
everything else is a party thing. They stopped the placement for years under Obama before
Trump was ever thought about, and now are filling it as fast as they can. Aren't they having
complicit democrats helping them or how can they get their picks beyond congress? Or am I
getting something wrong and Obama could have picked his judges but didn't?
The people he chooses to run his administration however are all horrible. Not just
horrible people but horrible picks as in incompetent buffoons without a clue. Can you show a
evil, horrible or not but actually competent pick of his in his administration?
The only one I can think of is maybe the new FAA chief Dickson. Who is a crisis manager,
after the FAA is in its worst crisis ever right now. So right now someone competent must have
this post. All the others seem to be chickenhawk blowhards with the IQ of a fruitfly but the
bluster of a texan.
Is she effective? What has she done to make her a spy mastermind?
She is obviously a torturer, but is that a qualification in any way useful to be a
intelligence agency boss?
I have the suspicion Haspel was elevated to their office by threatening "I know where all
the bodies are buried (literally) and if you don't make me boss, I will tell". Blackmail can
helping a career lots if successful.
The outcomes of incompetence and malicious intent are sometimes indistinguishable from one
another. With the people Trump has surrounded himself with, horrible, nasty outcomes are par
for the course because these guys are both incompetent and chock full of malicious intent.
Instead of draining the swamp, he's gone and filled it with psychotic sociopaths.
Some time ago I heard Mulvaney answer the criticism about the Trump budget of the day
cutting so much money from EPA that EPA would have to fire half of its relevant scientists.
He replied that " this is how we drain the swamp".
Citing "corruption" was misdirection. Trump let his supporters believe that the corruption
was The Swamp. What the Trump Group ACTually means by "The Swamp" is all the career
scientists and researchers and etc. who take seriously the analyzing and restraining of Upper
Class Looter misbehavior.
I limited the post to his negotiating approach. One would think someone so erratic would
have trouble attracting people. However, Wall Street and a lot of private businesses are full
of high maintenance prima donnas at the top. Some of those operations live with a lot of
churn in the senior ranks. For others, one way to get them to stay is what amounts to a
combat pay premium, they get paid more than they would in other jobs to put up with a
difficult boss. I have no idea how much turnover there is in the Trump Organization or how
good his key lieutenants are so I can't opine either way on that part.
Regarding his time as POTUS, Trump has a lot of things working against him on top of his
difficult personality and his inability to pay civil servants a hardship premium:
1. He got elected over the dead bodies of just about everyone who counts in the Republican
Party. He pretty much did a hostile takeover of the GOP. So his ability to draw on seasoned
hands was nil. And on top of that, he is temperamentally not the type to seek the counsel of
perceived wise men in and hanging around the party. The people he has kept around are cronies
like Wilbur Ross and Steve Mnuchin.
The one notably competent person he has attracted and retained is Robert Lightizer, the US
Trade Representative
2. Another thing that undermines Trump's effectiveness in running a big bureaucracy is his
hatred for its structure. He likes very lean organizations with few layers. He can't impose
that on his administration. It's trying to put a round peg in a square hole.
I have no idea how much turnover there is in the Trump Organization or how good his key
lieutenants are so I can't opine either way on that part.
Is it just me or does nobody know? Does it seem to anyone else like there has been
virtually no investigation of his organization or how it was run?
Maybe it's buried in the endless screeds against Trump, but any investigations of his
organizations always seem colored by his presidency. I'd love to see one that's strictly
historical.
I am simply saying that I have not bothered investigating that issue. There was a NY Times
Magazine piece on the Trump Organization before his election. That was where I recall the bit
about him hating having a lot of people around him, he regards them as leeches. That piece
probably had some info on how long his top people had worked for him.
Congratulations Yves, on another fine piece, one of your best. I might recommend you
append this comment to it as an update, or else pen a sequel.
While Trump has more in common stylistically with a Borgia prince out of Machiavelli, or a
Roman Emperor ( oderint, dum metuant ) than with a Hitler or a Stalin, your note
still puts me in mind of an insightful comment I pulled off a history board a while ago,
regarding the reductionist essence of Führerprinzip , mass movement or no mass
movement. It's mostly out of Shirer:
Hitler ran the Third Reich by a system of parallel competition among bureaucratic
empire builders of all stripes. Anyone who showed servile loyalty and mouthed his yahoo
ideology got all the resources they liked, for any purpose they proposed. But the moment he
encountered any form of independence or pushback, he changed horses at once. He left the old
group in place, but gave all their resources to a burgeoning new bureaucracy that did things
his way. If a State body resisted his will, he had a Party body do it instead. He was
continually reaching down 2-3 levels in the org charts, to find some ambitious firecracker
willing to suck up to him, and leapfrog to the top.
This left behind a complete chaos of rival, duplicated functions, under mainly unfit
leaders. And fortunately for the world, how well any of these organizations actually did
their jobs was an entirely secondary consideration. Loyalty was all.
Hitler sat at the center of all the resource grabbers and played referee. This made
everyone dependent on his nod and ensured his continued power. The message was: there are no
superiors in the Reich. There is only der Führer, and his favor trumps everything
.
As you note, some of these tools (fortunately) aren't available to Cheeto 45 .
I hope this particular invocation of Godwin's avenger is trenchant, and not OT. Although
Godwin himself blessed the #Trump=Hitler comparison some time ago, thereby shark-jumping his
own meme.
It might be as simple as birds of a feather (blackbirds of course) flocking together.
Trump seems to have radar for corrupt cronies as we have seen his swamp draining into the
federal prison system. The few over-confident generals he picked, except for Flynn, finally
caved when they realized staying was an affront to the honor code they swore to back in OCS
or their academy.
I don't know how they selected staff in the Reagan years, but lately the POTUS seems to
appoint based on who the plutocrats want. As has been noted Bary O took his marching orders
from Citigroup if I remember right. I doubt if Trump had even heard of most of the people he
appointed prior to becoming president. So at least some of Trump's turnover is due to him
firing recommendations from others who didn't turn out how he'd like. That's one reason I
didn't get all that upset over the Bolton hiring – I didn't think he'd last a year
before Trump canned him.
My recollection of the Reagan years was that he had a lot of staff who left to "spend more
time with their families"; in other words they got caught being crooked and we're told to go
lest they besmirch the sterling reputation of St. Ronnie.
He early-on adopted the concept of "dismantle the Administrative State". Some of his
appointees are designed to do that from within. He appoints termites to the Department of
Lumber Integrity because he wants to leave the lumber all destroyed after he leaves the White
House.
His farm bill is only a disaster to those who support Good Farm Bill Governance. His
mission is to destroy as much of the knowledge and programs within the USDA as possible. So
his farm bill is designed to achieve the destruction he wants to achieve. If it works, it was
a good farm bill from his viewpoint. For example.
I would say that Trump, not acting in an intelligent way is doing very clever things
according to his interests. My opinion is that his actions/negotiations with foreign
countries are 100% directed for domestic consumptiom. He does not care at all about
international relationships, just his populist "make America great again" and he almost
certainly play closest attention to the impact of his actions in US opinion.
He calculates
the risks and takes measures that show he is a strong man defending US interests (in a very symplistic and populist way) no matter if someone or many are offended, abused or even killed
as we have recently seen. Then if it is appreciated that a limit has been reached, and the
limit is not set by international reactions but perceived domestic reactions, he may do a
setback showing how sensibly magnanimous can a strongman like him be. In the domestic front,
IMO, he does not give a damn on centrists of all kinds. Particularly, smart centrists are
strictly following Trumps playbook focusing on actions that by no means debilitate his
positioning as strongman in foreign issues and divert attention from the real things that
would worry Trump. The impeachment is exactly that. Trump must be 100% confident that he
would win any contest with any "smart" centrist. Of course he also loves all the noises he
generates with, for instance, the Soleimani killing or Huawei banning that distract from his
giveaways to the oligarchs and further debilitation of remaining welfare programs and
environmental programs. This measures don't pass totally unnoticed but Hate Inc .
and public opinions/debates are not paying the attention his domestic measures deserve.
Trump's populism feeds on oligarch support and despair and his policies are designed to keep
and increase both. Polls on Democrats distract from the most important polls on public
opinion about Trum "surprise" actions.
Trump has the rare gift of being able to drive his enemies insane – just witness
what's become of the Democrats, a once proud American political party.
Democrats have long been (what, 50 plus yrs. – Phil Ochs – Love Me I'm A
Liberal) exuding false pride of not appearing to be or sounding insane. Their place, being
the concern troll of the duopoly. All are mad. If the Obama years didn't prove it, the Dems
during Bush Cheney certainly did.
Yes, 50 years. Nixon played mad to get his Vietnam politics through, Reagan was
certifiable
"My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will
outlaw Russia forever." "We begin bombing in five minutes." live on air.
Etc.
I suspect only half of the post was posted? The last para seems to get cut in mid
sentence.
I'd add one more thing (which may be in the second half, assuming there's one). Trump's
massively insane demands are a good anchoring strategy. Even semi-rational player will not
make out-of-this-earth demands – they would be seen as either undermining their
rationality, or clearly meant to only anchor so less effective (but surprisingly, even when
we know it's only an anchor it apparently works, at least a bit). With irrational Trump, one
just doesn't know.
I think Trump understands that one of the basic tactics of negotiation (though forgotten
by the Left(tm)) is to set out a maximalist position before the negotiation starts, so that
you have room to make compromises later.
Sometimes this works better than others – I
don't know how far you can do it with the Chinese, for example. But then Trump may have
inadvertently played, in that case, into the tradition of scripted public utterances combined
with behind-the-scenes real negotiation that tends to characterize bargaining in Asia.
But in
domestic politics, there's no doubt that publicly announcing extreme negotiating positions is
a winning tactic. You force the media and other political actors to comment and make
counter-proposals, thus dragging the argument more in your direction from the very start.
Trump remembers something that his opponents have willfully forgotten: compromise is
something you finish with not something you start from . In itself, any
given compromise has no particular virtue or value.
There is actually two parts to a negotiation I should mention. There is negotiating a
deal. And then there is carrying it out. Not only Trump but the US has shown itself incapable
of upholding deals but they will break them when they see an advantage or an opportunity.
Worse, one part of the government may be fighting another part of the government and will
sabotage that deal in sometimes spectacular fashion.
So what is the point of having all these weird and wonderful negotiating strategies if any
partners that you have on the international stage have learned that Trump's word is merely a
negotiating tactic? And this includes after a deal is signed when he applies some more
pressure to change something in an agreement that he just signed off on? If you can't keep a
deal, then ultimately negotiating a deal is useless.
The incapability of the US to keep their treaties has been a founding principle of the
country. Ask any Indian.
Putin or the russian foreign ministry called the US treaty incapable a few years before
Trump, and they were not wrong. Trump didn't help being erratic as he is, but he didn't
cancel any treaty on his own: JCPOA, INF, etc. He had pretty broad support for all of these.
Only maybe NAFTA was his own idea.
He owes the fact he's President not to any skill he has, but to Democrats being so bad.
Many non establishment types could have beaten Hillary.
And Trump owes the fact that he's not DOA in 2020 re-election again because Democrats are
so bad. There are a handful of extremely popular social programs Democrats could champion
that would win over millions of voters and doom Trump's re-election. But instead, they double
down on issues that energize Trump's base, are not off-limits to there donors while ignoring
what the broad non corporate/rich majority support. For example impeaching him for being the
first recent President not to start a major new war for profit and killing millions and then
saying it's really because something he did in Ukraine that 95% of Americans couldn't care
less about and won't even bother to understand even if they could.
That leaves the fact he is rather rich and must have done something to become that. I
don't know enough about him to evaluate that. But I would never what to know him or have a
friend that acts like him. I've avoided people like that in my life.
Did you read the post as positive? Please read again. Saying that Trump's strategy works
only to the extent that he winds up selecting for weak partners is not praise. First, it is
clinical, and second, it says his strategy has considerable costs.
I find it interesting that the primary foreign entity who has played Trump like a violin
is Kim in North Korea. He has gotten everything he wanted, except sanctions relief over the
past couple of years.
However, Trump's style of negotiating with Iran has made it clear to Kim that North Korea
would be idiots to give up their nuclear weapons and missiles. Meanwhile, Iran has watched
Trump's attitude towards Kim since Kim blew up his first bomb and Trump is forcing them to
develop nuclear weapons to be able to negotiate with Trump and the West.
But other than the minor matter of US 8th Army (cadre) sitting in the line of fire, the
bulk of any risks posed by Li'l Kim are borne by South Korea, Japan and China. So for Trump,
it's still down the list a ways, until the Norks can nuke tip a missile and hit Honolulu. So
what coup has Kim achieved at Trump's expense, again?
Today's Democrats want to destroy those social programs you cite. They have wanted to
destroy those social programs ever since President Clinton wanted to conspire with "Prime
Minister" Gingrich to privatize Social Security. Luckily Monica Lewinsky saved us from that
fate.
A nominee Sanders would run on keeping Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid in existence.
And he would mean it. A nominee Biden might pretend to say it. But he would conspire with the
Republicans to destroy them all.
The ClintoBama Pelosicrats have no standing on which to pretend to support some very
popular social programs and hope to be believed any longer. Maybe that is why they feel there
is no point in even pretending any more.
Mind you, there's no reason to think that this negotiation approach wasn't an adaptation
to Trump's emotional volatility, as in finding a way to make what should have been a weakness
a plus. And that he's less able to make that adaptation work well as he's over his head, has
less control than as a private businessman, and generally under way more pressure.
I recall reading that Trump's empire would have collapsed during the casino fiasco were it
not for lending from his father when credit was not available elsewhere. NYT investigative
reporters have turned up evidence of massive financial support from Trump father to son to
the tune of hundreds of millions throughout the son's career. So much for the great
businessman argument.
Trump is nothing more or less than a reflection of the mind set of the US people. The left
wing resorts to the same tactics that Trump uses to gain their ends. Rational thought and
reasonable discussion seems to be absent. Everyone is looking for a cause for the country's
failing infrastructure, declining life expectancy, and loss of opportunity for their children
to have a better life than they were able to achieve.
They each blame the other side. But
there are more than two sides to most folks experience. If ever the USA citizens abolish or
just gets fed up with the two party system maybe things will change. In reality most people
know there is little difference between the two parties so why even vote?
This analysis of Trump reminded me of a story I heard from the founders of a small rural
radio station. Both had been in broadcasting for years at a large station in a major market,
one as a program director and the other in sales. They competed for a broadcasting license
that became available and they won.
With the license in-hand they needed to obtain
investments to get the station on-air within a year or they would lose the license. Even with
their combined savings and as much money as they could obtain from other members of their
families and from friends -- they were short what they needed by several hundred thousand
dollars.
Their collateral was tapped out and banks wouldn't loan on the broadcast license
alone without further backing. They had to find private investors. They located and presented
to several but their project could find no backers. In many cases prospects told them their
project was too small -- needed too little money -- to be of interest. As the deadline for
going on-air loomed they were put in touch with a wealthy local farmer.
After a long evening presenting their business case to this farmer in ever greater detail,
he sat back and told them he would give them the money they needed to get their station
on-air -- but he wanted a larger interest in the business than what they offered him. He
wanted a 51% interest -- a controlling interest -- or he would not give them the money, and
they both had to agree to work for the new radio station for a year after it went on-air.
The
two holders of the soon to be lost broadcast license looked at each other and told the farmer
he could keep his money and left. The next day the farmer called on the phone and gave them
the names and contact information for a few investors, any one of whom should be able and
interested in investing the amounts they needed on their terms. He also told them that had
they accepted his offer he would have driven them out of the new station before the end of
the year it went on-air. He said he wanted to see whether they were 'serious' before putting
them in touch with serious investors.
Sorry, assassination doesn't fit into this scenario. That is a bridge too far. Trump has
lost his effectiveness by boasting about this. It isn't just unpredictability. It is
dangerous unpredictability.
I never once said that Trump was studied in how he operates, in fact, I repeatedly pointed
out that he's highly emotional and undisciplined. I'm simply describing some
implications.
If our corrupt Congress had not ceded their "co-equal" branch of gov't authority over the
last 40 years thereby gradually creating the Imperial Presidency that we have now, we might
comfortably mitigate much of the mad king antics.
Didn't the Founding Fathers try desperately to escape the terrible wars of Europe brought
on by the whims and grievances of inbred kings, generation after generation? Now on a whim
w/out so much as a peep to Congress, presidential murder is committed and the
CongressCritters bleat fruitlessly for crumbs of info about it.
I see no signs of this top-heavy imperialism diminishing. Every decision will vanish into
a black hole marked "classified."
I am profoundly discouraged at 68 who at 18 years old became a conscientious objector,
that the same undeclared BS wars and BS lies are used to justify continuous conflct almost
nonstop these last 50 years as if engaging in such violence can ever be sucessful in
achieving peaceful ends? Unless the maintenance of fear, chaos and blowback are the actual
desired result.
Trump's negotiating style is chaos-inducing deliberately, then eventually a "Big Daddy"
Trump can fix the mess, spin the mess and those of us still in the thrall of big-daddyism can
feel assuaged. It's the relief of the famiy abuser who after the emotional violence
establishes a temporary calm and family members briefly experience respite, yet remain wary
and afraid.
Kim Jong Un uses similar tactics, strategy, perhaps even style. Clinically and
intellectually, it's interesting to watch their interaction. Emotionally, given their
weaponry, it's terrifying.
Great post! The part about selecting for desperate business partners is very insightful,
it makes his cozying up to dictators and pariah states much more understandable. He probably
thinks/feels that these leaders are so desperate for approval from a country like the US
that, when he needs something from them, he will have more leverage and be able to impose
what he wants.
"... Deal finishes October 2020 if I remember correctly. All sanctions will be lifted so long as Iran is in compliance at that time. This is a move to prevent this. ..."
"... Obviously, Merkel doesn't have the political strength to nix Nordstream 2. Until she's replaced by someone with greater vision, EU and German policy won't change toward Iran. IMO, the trio don't amount to the level of poodles as they're known to have courage. The Trio proudly display the fact that they're 100% Cowards. ..."
"... The EU cannot lead in anything - it is a completely owned and operated US tool. It is a big zero in providing humanity any help with the big problem of our time: the 'indispensable and exceptional' supremacist US. ..."
Deal finishes October 2020 if I remember correctly. All sanctions will be lifted so long
as Iran is in compliance at that time. This is a move to prevent this.
I always learn some thing here. For example imagine my surprise to learn the EU had a
reputation worth protecting. All you need to know about the EU is bitches will do what
bitches are told. This is just one more step on the road to war with China, is that really
what the citizens of the EU want? Are the people of the EU ready to die for the Trump and the
Republican party?
Think tanks, think tanks, think tanks. In 2009, the Brookings Institute's paper Which Path to
Persia, proposed offering Iran a very good deal and then sabotaging it. Good cop, Obama, bad
cop, Trump. Mission accomplished.
Only a matter of when and how. The warmongers have Trumps balls in a vice, he can't even
resign without making it worse by letting Pence take over. The art of the squeal, very high
pitched is whats happening in DC.
1st of all The UK was always going to side with DC over Iran. 2ndly for France and Germany
they probably aren't ready to put themselves plus their EU partners in the US doghouse for
Iran. When they break it will be a time of their own choosing.
Thanks b, for this detailed coverage of the 3 wimps' efforts to kill JCPOA. You did not
disappoint. Love the image showing mother residing in "occupied Palestine" .. (term coined by
MoA barfly)
I commented in the previous post, Russia warned of unintended consequences
LINK
Moscow is calling on the European parties to the Iran nuclear deal not to escalate tensions
and to abandon their decision to trigger the treaty's Dispute Resolution Mechanism, the
Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.
"We strongly urge the Eurotroika [of parties to the JCPOA] not to inflame tensions and
to abandon any steps which call the prospects of the nuclear deal's future into question.
Despite all the challenges it has faced, the JCPOA has not lost its relevance," the
ministry said in a statement.
Ex-US vice-president, Joseph Biden is also suspected of corruption, according to a
member of the Ukrainian parliament
KIEV, January 14. /TASS/. Ukraine's Supreme Anti-Corruption Court has obliged the
National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) to launch a probe into seizure of government power
and corruption suspicions. The cases mention the names of the United States' 44th
president, Barack Obama, former Ukrainian president, Pyotr Poroshenko and ex-US
vice-president, Joseph Biden, a member of the Ukrainian parliament from the Opposition
Platform - For Life party, Renat Kuzmin, said[.]
"investigate the suspicions over the seizure of government power in Ukraine and of the
embezzlement of state budget money and international financial assistance by members of the
Obama administration"
If it ever was possible to sign a treaty with the US and expect them to abide by it, it
hasn't been possible for a long time. Here as everywhere else, Trump merely openly proclaims
the systemic lawlessness he shares with the rest of the US political class. (His contemptuous
withdrawal from the JCPOA never has been one of the things the establishment and media
criticize him for.)
For as long as US imperial power lasts, anyone who doesn't want to be a poodle (or to get
regime-changed because they foolishly attempt to sit the fence) has to accept that there can
be no legitimate agreements with the US or its poodles. If you sign a treaty with them, you
have to view it exactly the same way you know they do, as nothing but propaganda, otherwise
not worth the paper it's written on. No doubt North Korea, if they were in any doubt before,
registered how Trump and the US media immediately proceeded to systematically lie about the
agreement they'd supposedly just concluded, before the ink was even dry.
Here's hoping that if Iran was in any doubt before, they too are getting the message: As
far as the US and Europe are concerned, the only purpose of the JCPOA is to serve as a weapon
against them.
Face it B, there will be blood. It's a matter of time. It's unavoidable. The empire will
force its own destruction - and perhaps the rest of humanity's. The demons of nihilism will
prevail.
(Sounds like I have been hearing death metal. I swear I did not. And I not under the
influence either.)
The Oct 2020 deadline is important for more than one reason- Irans application to the SCO is
being held up because of it. The SCO membership would obligate support from countries like
India in response to politically motivated sanctions.
Surprised at Germany since Merkel just met with Putin. When I read of this earlier this
morning, that it's based on lies was 100% clear, that the trio are feckless and deserve all
the social instability that will soon come their way. Why did I mention social instability:
"The Fed is considering a plan to allow them to lend cash DIRECTLY TO HEDGE FUNDS in order
to ease the REPO Crisis. [Emphasis original]
"Where is 'bailing out private investment funds' in their alleged 'dual mandate'?"
Which gets us back to the reason Iran's targeted: Because it lies outside the dollar
economy, refuses to engage in petrodollar recycling, and has a quasi-socialist economy with
no private banking. Plus, we now see that Iraq will pursue evicting NATO and Outlaw US Empire
forces and likely join the Arc of Resistance's/Iran's policies which are what the Outlaw US
Empire went to war over to begin with.
Obviously, Merkel doesn't have the political strength to nix Nordstream 2. Until she's
replaced by someone with greater vision, EU and German policy won't change toward Iran. IMO,
the trio don't amount to the level of poodles as they're known to have courage. The Trio
proudly display the fact that they're 100% Cowards.
The EU is a hopeless craven vassal of the US. The US dropping out of the JCPOA was the acid
test which the EU has spectacularly failed. We are in a historical pivot with the rise of the
coalescing multifarious East which is forcing the EU to make a decision: stay under the US
wing, go it alone, or ally with the East. The EU seems to know it at least should get more
distance between itself and the US but every time there is a major geopolitical event it
starts to talk like it is going independent but then always drops back into the US hand. How
many times does this have to happen for us to admit what the EU is about?
The EU cannot lead in anything - it is a completely owned and operated US tool. It is a big
zero in providing humanity any help with the big problem of our time: the 'indispensable and
exceptional' supremacist US.
Posted by: AriusArmenian | Jan 14 2020 19:58 utc |
15
If we accept that EU nations lack sovereignty and go further to suggest that such nations are
more simulations than real, what would an analysis of such events as the fallout from the
demise of the JCPOA look like? How should one talk about international events when corporate
sovereignty and oligarchical decision making are the real? How would we describe this exact
context based not on the simulation but on the real workings of power?
Yes indeed! At least blighty knows the score! The leash is no place for the British bulldog.
When brexit is complete they will be free to crawl straight up muricas bum! Lol!
Haha, great drawing. This pile on the left is incomparable. But the picture is incomplete -
there is not enough proudly walking in front of the masters of a small Polish poodle with a
bone in his teeth.
Agree with Nemo, #1. This is a matter of sovereignty. At the moment, European countries
are not sovereign, and, btw, this is a kind of double non-sovereignty: the submission of a
separate European country to the Americans, plus the submission of the same country to a
Brussels bureaucracy called the EU leadership. What independent, bold decisions can we talk
about? None.
The United States, like Israel, has become a pariah that shreds, violates or absents itself
from international law. We launch preemptive wars, which under international law is defined as
a "crime of aggression," based on fabricated evidence. We, as citizens, must hold our
government accountable for these crimes. If we do not, we will be complicit in the codification
of a new world order, one that would have terrifying consequences. It would be a world without
treaties, statutes and laws. It would be a world where any nation, from a rogue nuclear state
to a great imperial power, would be able to invoke its domestic laws to annul its obligations
to others. Such a new order would undo five decades of international cooperation -- largely put
in place by the United States -- and thrust us into a Hobbesian nightmare. Diplomacy, broad
cooperation, treaties and law, all the mechanisms designed to civilize the global community,
would be replaced by savagery.
Chris Hedges, an Arabic speaker, is a former Middle East bureau chief for The New York
Times. He spent seven years covering the region, including Iran.
"We have learned today from #Iraq Prime Minister AdilAbdl Mahdi how @realDonaldTrump uses
diplomacy:
#US asked #Iraq to mediate with #Iran. Iraq PM asks #QassemSoleimani to come and talk to him
and give him the answer of his mediation, Trump &co assassinate an envoy at the airport."
@ChuckOrloski
At the time I thought that it might be justified, if Al Qaida actually did 9/11. Now I know
that Al Qaida was and is a CIA operation and have my doubts regarding its involvement in
9/11.
Even if it was, that was on direct orders of its American handlers.
What's more, now I
know for sure that the US government spreads shameless lies, so you can't believe anything it
says. In fact, you can safely assume that everything it says is a lie and be right 99.9% of
the time.
So, I did not see it as a war crime back then, but I do now.
Europe is willing to defy the U.S. on Nordstream to the point of forcing the U.S. to openly and nakedly destroy its reputation
with European contractors and governments to stop one pipeline in a place where multiple gas pipelines will be needed for future
growth.
This is the diplomatic equivalent of the nuclear option. And the neocons in the Senate just pushed the button. Europe understands
what this is really about, the U.S. retaining its imperial position as the policy setter for all the world. If it can set energy
policy for Europe then it can set everything else.
And it's clear that the leadership in Europe is done with that status quo. The Trump administration from the beginning has used
NATO as an excuse to mask its real intentions towards Europe, which is continued domination of its policies. Trump complains that
the U.S. pays into NATO to protect Europe from Russia but then Europe buys its energy from Russia. That's unfair, Donald complains,
like a little bitch, frankly, even though he right on the surface. But if the recent NATO summit is any indication, Europe is no
longer interested in NATO performing that function. French President Emmanuel Macron wants NATO re-purposed to fight global terror,
a terrible idea. NATO should just be ended.
But you'll notice how Trump doesn't talk about that anymore. He wants more billions pumped into NATO while the U.S. still sets
its policies. This is not a boondoggle for the MIC as much as it's a Sword of Damocles to hold over Europe's head. The U.S.'s involvement
in should be ended immediately, the troops brought home and the billions of dollars spent here as opposed to occupying most of Europe
to point missiles at a Russia wholly uninterested in imperial ambitions no less harboring any of them.
And Trump also knows this but thinks stopping Nordstream 2 is the price Europe has to pay him for this privilege. It's insane.
The time has come for Europe to act independently from the U.S. As much as I despise the EU, to untangle it from the U.S. on energy
policy is the means by which for it to then deal with its problems internally. It can't do that while the U.S. is threatening it.
Circling the wagons against the immediate threat, as it were.
And that means protecting its companies and citizens from the economic depredations of power-mad neoconservatives in the U.S.
Senate like Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham.
Allseas, the Swiss company laying the pipe for Nordstream 2,
has halted construction for now
, awaiting instructions from the U.S. Gazprom will likely step in to finish the job and Germany will green light any of the necessary
permits to get the pipeline done. Those people will be put out of work just in time for Christmas, turning thousands of people against
the U.S. Commerce drives people together, politics drives them apart.
But, at the same time, the urgency to finish Nordstream 2 on time is wholly irrelevant now because Ukraine and Russia came to
terms on a new five-year gas transit contract. This ensures Gazprom can meet its contractual deliveries to Europe that no one thought
could be done on time. But when the Nazi threat to Zelensky meeting with Merkel, Macron and Putin in Paris failed to materialize,
a gas deal was on the horizon.
And, guess what? U.S. LNG will still not have the marginal lever over Europe's energy policy because of that. Putin and Zelensky
outmaneuvered Cruz, Graham and Trump on this. Because that's what this boils down to. By keeping Russian gas out of Europe, it was
supposed to constrain not only Russia's growth but also Europe's. Because then the U.S. government can control who and how much energy
can make it into European markets at critical junctures politically.
That was the Bolton Doctrine to National Security. And that doctrine brought nothing but misery to millions.
And if you look back over the past five years of U.S./EU relations you will see this gambit clearly for what it was, a way to
continue European vassalage at the hands of the U.S. by forcing market share of U.S. providers into European markets.
Again, it gets back to Trump's ideas about Emergy Dominance
and becoming the supplier of the marginal erg of energy to important economies around the world.
The smart play for the EU now that the gas transit deal is in place is to threaten counter-sanctions against the U.S. and bar
all LNG shipments into Europe. Gas prices are at historic lows, gas supplies are overflowing thanks to fears of a deal not being
in place.
So, a three to six month embargo of U.S. LNG into Europe to bleed off excess supply while Nordstream 2 is completed would be the
right play politically.
But, in reality, they won't need to, because the U.S. won't be able to import much into Europe under current prices and market
conditions. And once Nordstream 2 is complete, LNG sales to Europe should crater.
In the end, I guess it's too bad for Ted Cruz that economics and basic human ingenuity are more powerful than legislatures. Because
Nordstream 2 will be completed. Turkstream's other trains into Europe will be built. Venezuela will continue rebuilding its energy
sector with Russian and Chinese help.
There is no place for U.S. LNG in Europe outside of the Poles literally burning money virtue signaling their Russophobia. Nordstream 2 was a response to the revolt in Ukraine, to replace any potential losses in market share to Europe. Now Russia will
have what it had before passing through Ukraine along with Nordstream 2. By 2024 there will be at least two trains from Turkstream
coming into Europe.
Iran will keep expanding exports, settling its oil and gas trade through Russian banks. And the U.S. will continue to fulminate
and make itself even more irrelevant over time. What men like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump refuse to understand is that when you go nuclear you can't ever go back. If you threaten
the nuclear option, there's no fall back position.
And when those that you threaten with annihilation survive they are made all the stronger for passing through the eye of the needle. Looking at Gazprom's balance sheet right now, that's my take.
The
Washington Post , throughdocumentsreleased through the Freedom of Information Act, has published a long
investigation into Afghanistan. Journalists have collected over 400 testimonies from American
diplomats, NATO generals and other NATO personnel, that show that reports about Afghanistan
were falsified to deceive the public about the real situation on the ground.
After the tampering with and falsification of the report of the Organization for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons (OPCW), we are witnessing another event that will certainly discomfit those
who have hitherto relied on the official reports of the Pentagon, the US State Department and
international organizations like the OPCW for the last word.
There are very deliberate reasons for such disinformation campaigns. In the case of the
OPCW, as I
wrote some time back, the aim was to paint the Syrian government as the fiend and the
al-Qaeda- and Daesh-linked "moderate rebels" as the innocent souls, thereby likely justifying a
responsibility-to-protect armed intervention by the likes of the US, the UK and France. In such
circumstances, the standing and status of the reporting organization (like the OPCW) is
commandeered to validate Western propaganda that is duly disseminated through the
corporate-controlled mainstream media.
In this particular case, various Western capitals colluded with the OPCW to lay the
groundwork for the removal of Assad and his replacement with the al-Nusra Front as well as the
very same al-Qaeda- and Daesh-linked armed opposition officially responsible for the 9/11
attacks.
As if the massaging of the OPCW reports were not enough in themselves to provoke
international outrage, this dossier serves to give aid and comfort to jihadi groups supported by the Pentagon
who are known to be responsible for the worst human-rights abuses, as seen in Syria and Iraq in
the last 6 years.
False or carefully manipulated reports paint a picture vastly different from the reality on
the ground. The United States has never really declared war on Islamic terrorism, its
proclamations of a "War on Terror" notwithstanding. In reality, it has simply used this
justification to occupy or destabilize strategically important areas of the world in the
interests of maintaining US hegemony, intending in so doing to hobble the energy policies and
national security of rival countries like China, Iran and the Russian Federation.
The Post investigation lays bare how the US strategy had failed since its inception,
the data doctored to represent a reality very different from that on the ground. The inability
of the United States to clean up Afghanistan is blamed by the Post on incorrect military
planning and incorrect political choices. While this could certainly be the case, the
Post's real purpose in its investigation is to harm Trump, even as it reveals the
Pentagon's efforts to continue its regional presence for grand geopolitical goals by hiding
inconvenient truths.
The real issue lies in the built-in mendacity of the bureaucratic and military apparatus of
the United States. No general has ever gone on TV to say that the US presence in Iraq is needed
to support any war against Iran; or that Afghanistan is a great point of entry for the
destabilization of Eurasia, because this very heart of the Heartland is crucial to the
Sino-Russian transcontinental integration projects like the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and
the Belt and Road Initiative. In the same vein, the overthrow of the Syrian government would
have ensured Israel a greater capacity to expand its interests in the Middle East, as well as
to weaken Iran's main regional ally.
The Post investigation lays bare the hypocrisy of the military-industrial complex as
well as the prevailing political establishments of Europe and the United States. These parties
are not interested in human rights, the wellbeing of civilians or justice in general. Their
only goal is to try and maintain their global hegemony indefinitely by preventing any other
powers from being able to realize their potential and thereby pose a threat to Atlanticist
preeminence.
The war in Iraq was launched to destabilize the Middle East, China's energy-supply basin
crucial to fueling her future growth. The war in Syria served the purpose of further
dismantling the Middle East to favor Saudi Arabia and Israel, the West's main strategic allies
in the Persian Gulf. The war in Afghanistan was to slow down the Eurasian integration of China
and Russia. And the war in Ukraine was for the purposes of generating chaos and destruction on
Russia's border, with the initial hope of wresting the very strategically area of Crimea from
Russia.
The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and this has been on full display in
recent times. Almost all of Washington's recent strategic objectives have ended up producing
results worse than the status quo ante. In Iraq there is the type of strong cooperation between
Baghdad and Tehran reminiscent of the time prior to 1979. Through Hezbollah, Iran has
strengthened its position in Syria in defense of Damascus. Moscow has found itself playing the
role of crucial decider in the Middle East (and soon in North Africa), until only a few years
ago the sole prerogative of Washington. Turkey's problems with NATO, coupled with Tel Aviv's
open relation with Moscow are both a prime example of Washington's diminishing influence in the
region and Moscow's corresponding increase in influence.
The situation in Afghanistan is not very different, with a general recognition that peace is
the only option for the region being reflected in the talks between the Afghans, the Taliban,
the Russians, Chinese, Indians and Pakistanis. Beijing and Moscow have well known for over a
decade the real intent behind Washington's presence in the country, endeavoring to blunt its
impact.
The Post investigation only further increases the public's war weariness, the war in
Afghanistan now having lasted 18 years, the longest war in US history. Jeff Bezos, the owner of
the Post , is a bitter opponent of Trump and wants the president to come clean on the
Afghanistan debacle by admitting that the troops cannot be withdrawn. Needless to say,
admitting such would not help Trump's strategy for the 2020 election. Trump cannot afford to
humiliate the US military, given that it, along with the US dollar, is his main weapon of
"diplomacy". Were it to be revealed that some illiterate peasants holed up in caves and armed
with AK-47s some 40 years ago are responsible for successfully keeping the most powerful army
in history at bay, all of Washington's propaganda, disseminated by a compliant media, will
cease to be of any effect. Such a revelation would also humiliate military personnel, an
otherwise dependable demographic Trump cannot afford to alienate.
The Washington Post performed a service to the country by shedding light on the
disinformation used to sustain endless war. But the Post's intentions are also
political, seeking to undermine Trump's electoral chances by damaging Trump's military
credentials as well as his standing amongst military personnel. What Washington's elite and the
Post do not know, or perhaps prefer to ignore, is that such media investigations
directed against political opponents actually end up doing irreparable damage to the political
and military prestige of the United States.
In other words, when journalist do their job, the military industrial complex finds it
difficult to lie its way through wars and failures, but when a country relies on Hollywood to
sustain its make-believe world, as well as on journalists on the CIA payroll, on compliant
publishers and on censored news, then any such revelations of forbidden truths threaten to
bring the whole facade crashing down.
"... Today USA even is no more an entity. You can not negotiate a thing with "America" because there is no such institution any more, but a hellish swarm of infighting spiders, each delightfully breaking anything negotiated by a rival spider. ..."
US political "elites" are generally appallingly incompetent in matters of war and are
"educated" mostly through Hollywood and Clansiesque "literature". I am not even sure that
they comprehend what Congressional Research Service prepares for them as compressed
briefings. Neocon wing of US political elite is simply mentally inadequate.
Very true, especially the part about "Hollywood and Clansiesque 'literature.'" I used to
read Clancy's books and, while entertaining, in retrospect they appear ridiculous, even
childish. But they probably capture the popular notion of American military invincibility
better than any other.
Most of Hollywood's output is garbage anyway, and its grasp of real war and military
matters appears to be that of a not so precocious third grader.
Katyn, whoever did it, was much before Cold War and before even first relatively small
nuclear blast.
And if you want to go that far – why not remember crisis over West Berlin, where
tank armees were watching one another, but no one pulled trigger?
Afghanistan was attacking one's own ally. Same as Prague 1968 and Hungary 1956.
If you want to compare – that is like USA invading Panama to remove their no longer
reliable puppet Norriega.
Did American attack on their own Panama risk USSR going ballistic? Hardly so. There was no Soviet invasion into Pakistan nor there was Chinese/American invasion into
India.
And looking away from purely military events, there was no attempt to arrest the whole
embassy stuff them, neither in Moscow nor in DC. No killing Soviet ambassadors in NATO states
during official events.
Those dirty games had red lines, both sides maintained. Today? Today USA even is no more
an entity. You can not negotiate a thing with "America" because there is no such institution
any more, but a hellish swarm of infighting spiders, each delightfully breaking anything
negotiated by a rival spider.
> deploying conventional anti-ballistic missile defenses around their most important
cities.
No, by then effective treaty both USSR and USA had only ONE region they were allowed to
protect.
Those were some nuclear launchpads in USA i guess, and one single city (Moscow) in USSR. No
more.
> deterrence [did not] worked > See the last phrase in bullet 2.
You suppose USSR killed itself trying to keep deterrence working.
That does not show it did not work, already.
That shows it worked so well (at least from Soviet perspective) that they gambled all they
had on the futile effort of keeping that deterrence working into the future.
One reaction Americans are unaccustomed to is pity. When I meet them on the boats, traveling,
I am always extra nice to them, because I feel sorry for them. They have to go back. They're
nice people, mostly, they've never done anything to me personally. But sooner or later, they
have to go back to where those license plates were issued. They can't stay here. And I'm
sorry for them. But I would imagine most of them feel they are envied, and their citizenship
is coveted by the less-fortunate. That might be true in some third-world hellholes where
people would go anywhere to get out, but it certainly isn't so here.
The stars-and-stripes-wavers you meet in comment forums are usually blissfully ignorant,
happy in their fool's paradise where everyone wants to be an American, and resistance to
Uncle Sam's ruthless bullying is inspired by jealousy and inadequacy. For them, simply
acknowledging that Washington sometimes makes mistakes – which it's allowed to do,
because it's exceptional – is the essence of responsibility and fairness. There, I said
we aren't always right – what could be more fair? But when America invades a country
that did nothing to provoke it except refuse when it was ordered to do this or that,
sometimes things it couldn't do, like abandon the nuclear weapons program it didn't have
well, that was a mistake, but it was an honest mistake because no end of smart people the
world over agreed they did indeed have a nuclear weapons program. I mean, if you don't do
something quick, the consequences could be a mushroom cloud, ya know. And when it orders the
democratically-elected president of a country to stand down and make way for a hand-picked
replacement, it's not being arrogant. No; it's taking necessary on behalf of that leader's
benighted people, who suffer awful oppression at his hands, and America only wants them to be
free to make good choices.
A lot of those comments go unanswered; some because many of those forums now insist you
sign in with Facebook so they can go behind the scenes and see who and where you are and gain
all sorts of personal information about you, because dimwits love to blabber their entire
personal lives on Facebook. But some go unanswered simply because there is no real use in
trying to change such made-up minds. You will never dent the my-country-right-or-wrong
blathering of ignorant people who know nothing beyond what they see on CNN.
If bombing is/was punishment for use chemical weapons , US would have to keep bombing itself
to this day , as punishments for what they did to Vietnam ..And elsewhere.
As newly appointed US Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, was reported to have claimed about
wanting for Russia to ''behave like a normal country'', Sergey Lavrov urged for him to
clarify what he means by ''normality'' during a press conference in the Russian capital; if
Russia was to behave like the US, it would have had to bomb Iraq, Libya, supporting an armed,
anti-constitutional coup in Kiev, and allocating millions in the interference in the affairs
of other countries, as in the ''promotion of democracy'' in Russia.
Sergey Shoygu did not have much to add, but what he did add could not be clearer: Russia
will probably have to remain being ''not normal''.
"... For the detached observer the juvenile behavior of groups of Americans is plain to see, both in this comment section and in the world at large. ..."
"... This is somewhat curious as this "normal nation" seems to have hit the neocon talking points as SecDef Esper used similiar phrase as applied to Russia. Russian MinFin responded: "he called upon us to act as a normal country [as such] and not like the United States," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press briefing in the Russian capital: Otherwise, we should have been acting like the US, bombing Iraq and Libya in blatant violation of international law " ..."
"... If there is any country in the world that is less "normal" in the scope and ambitions of its foreign policy than ours, I can't think of which one it would be ..."
"... I can think of one in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. As a matter of fact, USA's foreign policy is their foreign policy. ..."
"... This is somewhat curious as this "normal nation" seems to have hit the neocon talking points as SecDef Esper used similar phrase as applied to Russia. ..."
"... Russian MinFin responded: "he called upon us to act as a normal country [as such] and not like the United States," Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press briefing in the Russian capital: Otherwise, we should have been acting like the US, bombing Iraq and Libya in blatant violation of international law " ..."
"... Similar to his rhetoric about other countries not following the "rules-based order". The US, which abandons and ignores treaties, or doesn't enter them in the first place but lectures others who have that they need to follow them. Who refuses to be judged by the ICC, UN and others yet wants them to hold others to account. And who call for regime-change of others based on rigged or suspect elections, yet refuses to fix its own crappy system and corruption. ..."
This can never happen. All Americans are inherently childish. They are all a product of the same environment, the same educational
system and the same all pervasive 'cultural' influences. This transcends ethnic boundaries for those born in the US or those who
arrived at an early age.
For the detached observer the juvenile behavior of groups of Americans is plain to see, both in this comment section and in
the world at large.
A recurring theme in international relations and diplomacy is that dealing with 'the Americans' is like dealing with children.
Of course when the American is trying to kill you, as they a often want to do, the actions of the petulant child take on new meaning.
This is somewhat curious as this "normal nation" seems to have hit the neocon talking points as SecDef Esper used similiar phrase
as applied to Russia.
Russian MinFin responded: "he called upon us to act as a normal country [as such] and not like the United States," Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov told a press briefing in the Russian capital: Otherwise, we should have been acting like the US, bombing Iraq and
Libya in blatant violation of international law "
" If there is any country in the world that is less "normal" in the scope and ambitions of its foreign policy than ours, I can't
think of which one it would be."
I can think of one in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. As a matter of fact, USA's foreign policy is their foreign policy.
This is somewhat curious as this "normal nation" seems to have hit the neocon talking points as SecDef Esper used
similar phrase
as applied to Russia.
Russian MinFin responded: "he called upon us to act as a normal country [as such] and not like the United States," Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov told a press briefing in the Russian capital: Otherwise, we should have been acting like the US, bombing Iraq and
Libya in blatant violation of international law "
" If there is any country in the world that is less "normal" in the scope and ambitions of its foreign policy than ours, I can't
think of which one it would be."
I can think of one in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. As a matter of fact, USA's foreign policy is their foreign policy.
Similar to his rhetoric about other countries not following the "rules-based order". The US, which abandons and ignores treaties,
or doesn't enter them in the first place but lectures others who have that they need to follow them. Who refuses to be judged
by the ICC, UN and others yet wants them to hold others to account. And who call for regime-change of others based on rigged or
suspect elections, yet refuses to fix its own crappy system and corruption.
This is also a thing about leftists with Trump Derangement Syndrome, who are oh-so-upset about Trump, either ignorant or lying
that he's at all an aberration. The US has consistently flouted international law, waged illegal wars and staged violent coups
and assassinations, and killed tens of thousands of innocents, under nearly all Presidents, including Obama.
"... I personally suspect that Trump has a negative net worth, and hopes that if he marches to Adelson's orders, he might get a nice pay-off at the end. It's the only thing that explains all this. ..."
I think it is highly unlikely Trump can pull off detente with the Chinese or anyone else before the next election. He has, unfortunately,
shown himself to be completely untrustworthy on the international stage. Under what circumstance are the Chinese going to sign
some agreement with him, when he might just throw out new tariffs a week later?
What are the Taliban going to agree to when the US wants to leave thousands of troops in Afghanistan?
I personally suspect that Trump has a negative net worth, and hopes that if he marches to Adelson's orders, he might get
a nice pay-off at the end. It's the only thing that explains all this.
"... Twice in the same sentence we get told what that assumption is: "America's technology leadership" which so clearly no longer exists in weaponry, electronics, nuclear engineering, rocketry, high speed rail and mass transportation, low energy building techniques, and a host of other realms. This same sort of thinking pervades every defense doctrine paper produced during Trump's administration--the planners have eaten and all too well digested their own propaganda about the backwardness of Russia, China and Iran. ..."
"... This does not imply some rabid anti-Americanism, but simply the experience that that path is pointless. If there is a 'clock being played out', it is that of the tic-toc of western political and economic hegemony in the Middle East is running down ..."
"... [with] Iran repeating the same old routines, whilst expecting different outcomes is, of course, one definition of madness. A new US Administration will inherit the same genes as the last. ..."
"... "And in any case, the US is institutionally incapable of making a substantive deal with Iran. A US President – any President – cannot lift Congressional sanctions on Iran. The American multitudinous sanctions on Iran have become a decades' long knot of interpenetrating legislation: a vast rhizome of tangled, root-legislation that not even Alexander the Great might disentangle: that is why the JCPOA was constructed around a core of US Presidential 'waivers' needing to be renewed each six months. Whatever might be agreed in the future, the sanctions – 'waived' or not – are, as it were, 'forever'. ..."
"... "If recent history has taught the Iranians anything, it is that such flimsy 'process' in the hands of a mercurial US President can simply be blown away like old dead leaves. Yes, the US has a systemic problem: US sanctions are a one-way valve: so easy to flow out, but once poured forth, there is no return inlet (beyond uncertain waivers issued at the pleasure of an incumbent President)." ..."
Speculation's abounded about the political loyalty of the head of Russia's central bank
Elvira Nabullina. Luongo simply explains:
"Nabullina has always been a controversial figure because she is western trained and because
the banking system in Russia is still staffed by those who operate along IMF prescriptions on
how to deal with crises.
"But those IMF rules are there to protect the IMF making the loans to the troubled nation,
not to assist the troubled nation actually recover....
"The fundamental problem is a miseducation about what interest rates are, and how they
interact with inflation and capital flow. Because of this, the medicine for saving an economy
in trouble is, more often than not, worse than the disease itself.
"If Argentina's fourth default in twenty years doesn't prove that to you, nothing will."
It sounds like he's been reading Hudson's J is for Junk Economics !
The real rescue is Putin's aggressive de-dollarization policy that's finally rid Russia of
"dollar-dependency":
"She [Nabullina] keeps jumping at the shadows of a dollar-induced crisis. But the Russian
economy of 2019 is not the Russian economy of 2015. Dollar lending has all but evaporated and
the major source of demand for dollars domestically are legacy corporate loans not converted to
rubles or euros."
The key for me is to weave the content emphasis of Putin's Eastern Economic Conference speech with
his increasing pressure on Nabullina for the bank to support this very important development
policy direction and show China and other nations that Russia's extremely serious about the
direction being taken. Just Putin's language about mortgage rate reductions as an attracter
ought to be a huge message for Nabullina to respond properly. And a further kick in the pants
was provided by the massive deal announced between China and Iran. Luongo briefly alludes to
foreign policy in his article, its regional economic aspects, while omitting aspects hidden by
the US-China Trade War, specifically Russia's now very clear technological supremacy to the
Outlaw US Empire.
This brings us to Crooke's article in which he inadvertently tells us the #1 false
assumption in Trump's Trade War policy with China:
"To defend America's technology leadership , policymakers must upgrade their toolkit
to ensure that US technology leadership can withstand the aftershocks." [My
Emphasis]
Twice in the same sentence we get told what that assumption is: "America's technology
leadership" which so clearly no longer exists in weaponry, electronics, nuclear engineering,
rocketry, high speed rail and mass transportation, low energy building techniques, and a host
of other realms. This same sort of thinking pervades every defense doctrine paper produced
during Trump's administration--the planners have eaten and all too well digested their own
propaganda about the backwardness of Russia, China and Iran.
I could write further about the supposed handcuffing of POTUS by the unconstitutional and
illegal sanction regime "imposed" by the US Congress. Crooke mentions as a significant
hindrance--but if it was indeed a hindrance, any POTUS could break it by suing to prove its
unconstitutional, illegal standing, yet no effort is put into that, begging the question Why?
Crooke spends lots of space about this but fails to see the above solution:
"The pages to that chapter have been shut. This does not imply some rabid
anti-Americanism, but simply the experience that that path is pointless. If there is a 'clock
being played out', it is that of the tic-toc of western political and economic hegemony in the
Middle East is running down , and not the 'clock' of US domestic politics. The old adage
that the 'sea is always the sea' holds true for US foreign policy.
And [with] Iran repeating the same old routines, whilst expecting different outcomes is,
of course, one definition of madness. A new US Administration will inherit the same genes as
the last.
"And in any case, the US is institutionally incapable of making a substantive deal with
Iran. A US President – any President – cannot lift Congressional sanctions on Iran.
The American multitudinous sanctions on Iran have become a decades' long knot of
interpenetrating legislation: a vast rhizome of tangled, root-legislation that not even
Alexander the Great might disentangle: that is why the JCPOA was constructed around a core of
US Presidential 'waivers' needing to be renewed each six months. Whatever might be agreed in
the future, the sanctions – 'waived' or not – are, as it were, 'forever'.
"If recent history has taught the Iranians anything, it is that such flimsy 'process' in
the hands of a mercurial US President can simply be blown away like old dead leaves. Yes, the
US has a systemic problem: US sanctions are a one-way valve: so easy to flow out, but once
poured forth, there is no return inlet (beyond uncertain waivers issued at the pleasure of an
incumbent President)."
Being British, we should excuse Crooke for not knowing about the crucial Supremacy Clause
within the US Constitution, but that doesn't absolve any POTUS if that person is really intent
on talking with Iran--or any other sanctioned nation. IMO, the Iranians know what I know and
have finally decided the Outlaw US Empire's marriage to Occupied Palestine won't suffer a
divorce anytime soon. The result is the recent very active change in policy direction aimed at
solidifying the Arc of Resistance and establishing a Persian Gulf Collective Security Pact that
will end in check mating the Empire's King thus causing further economic problems for the
Empire.
Crooke does a good job of summarizing my comment and many more made over the year regarding
the reasons for the utter failure of Outlaw US Empire policy:
"Well, here is the key point: Washington seems to have lost the ability to summon the
resources to try to fathom either China, or the Iranian 'closed book', let alone a 'Byzantine'
Russia. It is a colossal attenuation of consciousness in Washington; a loss of conscious
'vitality' to the grip of some 'irrefutable logic' that allows no empathy, no outreach, to
'otherness'. Washington (and some European élites) have retreated into their 'niche'
consciousness, their mental enclave, gated and protected, from having to understand – or
engage – with wider human experience."
The only real way for the Outlaw US Empire to regain its competitive "niche" with the rest
of the world is to mount a massive program of internal reform verging on a revolution in its
outcome. It's patently obvious that more of the same will yield more of the same--FAILURE--and
the chorus of inane caterwauling by BigLie Media over where to place the blame.
I'm about halfway through Putin's financial Times interview and suggest it be read by
all. There is much to be gleaned from it with a view to the 2020 Election Cycle and
candidate's positions. Just consider the following very small excerpt and its implications
for policy formulation by candidates:
"What we should be talking about is not how to make North Korea disarm, but how to ensure
the unconditional security of North Korea and how to make any country, including North Korea
feel safe and protected by international law that is strictly honoured by all members of
the international community . This is what we should be thinking about." [My
Emphasis]
Putin's insights into Trump's 2016 election strategy, IMO, is very enlightening and
essential reading as the conditions that contributed to Trump's victory have worsened under
his tenure and can be used against him if wisely pursued.
@ jayc 57 US Hook says Iran knew what getting into when struck deal
Yes they did, and now they regret it.
In 2013 Ali Khamenei said: "Certainly, we are pessimistic about the Americans. We do not
trust them. We consider the government of the United States of America as an unreliable,
arrogant, illogical, and trespassing government,"
The JCPOA was not a unilateral deal between USA and Iran, it was a multilateral
deal
That's correct de jure, but not de facto. The US all by itself is leading the current
attack on Iran, despite what the other members might think. Iran has not gotten any
significant support from other JCPOA participants.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jun 24, 2019 5:10:10 PM |
66
The Trump administration's special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook...
______________________________________
Brian Hook is a "special" envoy in the sense that the "Special Olympics" are
special.
news report
Bloomberg, Jun 24, 2019
Pompeo is starting a commission on human rights to rethink what they are and how they should
fit into U.S. foreign policy. . .
here
Office of the high Commissioner
United Nations Human Rights
May 6, 2019 US sanctions violate human rights and international code of conduct, UN expert
says
. . .On 17 April the United States banned the Central Bank of Venezuela from conducting
transactions in US dollars after 17 May, and will cut off access to US personal remittances
and credit cards by March 2020.
"It is hard to figure out how measures which have the effect of destroying Venezuela's
economy, and preventing Venezuelans from sending home money, can be aimed at 'helping the
Venezuelan people', as claimed by the US Treasury," the expert said.
His statements follow claims in a recent report published by the Washington-based Centre
for Economic and Policy Research that 40,000 people may have died in Venezuela since
2017 because of US sanctions .
Jazairy also said he was concerned the US would not renew waivers for international
buyers of Iranian oil, despite protests from NATO ally Turkey, among others. Washington has
demanded that all remaining States which benefited from waivers stop purchases on May 1, or
face sanctions.
"The extraterritorial application of unilateral sanctions is clearly contrary to
international law," the expert said. " I am deeply concerned that one State can use its
dominant position in international finance to harm not only the Iranian people, who have
followed their obligations under the UN-approved nuclear deal to this day, but also
everyone in the world who trades with them.
"The international community must come together to challenge what amounts to blockades
ignoring a country's sovereignty, the human rights of its people, and the rights of third
countries trading with sanctioned States, all while constituting a threat to world peace
and security.
"I call on the international community to engage in constructive dialogue with
Venezuela, Cuba, Iran and the United States to find a peaceful resolution in compliance
with the spirit and letter of the Charter of the United Nations before the arbitrary use of
economic starvation becomes the new 'normal'." . . here
Favorite lie Trump willing to meet w/no pre-conditions
100 Pinocchio's. He even says that he wants to negotiate about Iran's so-called nuclear
weapons program. If the premise of the talks is that Iran has to abandon the JCPOA then how
is this not a precondition?
Nothing left to sanction, what's next?
You will know that war is certain when the U.S. forbids Iranian tankers from leaving port
(a blockade) so that they cannot even sell oil to China. Iran will rightly call this an act
of war and declare that stopping a single tanker will result in them firing on a U.S. naval
ship. The morons in the U.S. MSM will bleat and call this Iranian aggression even though it
is the U.S. that is blocking the sacred right of 'international shipping'. The number one
excuse we use to send our navy to the shores of China and Iran.
Don Bacon #65
"The US all by itself is leading the current attack on Iran, despite what the other members
might think. Iran has not gotten any significant support from other JCPOA participants."
The American's bluff was called way back in Obama's first term when Turkey and Brazil
proposed a plan which would settle concerns over Iran's nuclear centrifuges. Sec State
Clinton shut that down quickly, confirming the nuclear concerns were merely a pretext for a
regime-change policy. That established, the overriding interest, internationally, became
preventing a shooting war involving US and Iran -to which the negotiating of the JCPOA played
a strong role. The Russians and Chinese were criticized for supporting this process,
including the UNSC directed sanctions. But the process strengthened multilateral cooperation
and highlighted the obvious downsides of a self-avowed hegemonic power. By rejecting the
JCPOA, the Americans rejected the UN and international law/agreements for the second time in
15 short years. The overriding concern remains to expose the negative consequences of a
hegemonic entity while avoiding, to the extent possible, an actual shooting war.
"... Before and during the nuclear negotiations that led to the JCPOA, American opponents of the talks kept insisting that Iran couldn't be trusted to keep their word and they would cheat on any agreement they made. ..."
"... It is fitting that they have been the ones to urge the U.S. to break its word and betray our negotiating partners, and in so doing guarantee that the U.S. is seen as the unreliable deal-breakers that Iran's government was supposed to be. In the future, other governments may want to have some "snap-back" mechanisms of their own to ensure that the U.S. will be penalized if it breaches its obligations. ..."
"... Iran isn't interested in photo-op summits ..."
"... A real negotiation would involve making a compromise and offering concessions to Iran. Iran would have to believe that it has something to gain from the exchange, and right now it has no reason to believe anything of the kind. Trump has no desire to make concessions, only to receive them, and he won't compromise because he can't conceive of a mutually beneficial agreement. Because he sees everything as a zero-sum contest, Trump perceives anything less than the other side's capitulation as a "loss" for the U.S. In the absence of a real "win," Trump is willing to settle for the made-up kind that he claims after every unsuccessful summit. ..."
"... The next administration will have their work cut out for them. A future president won't only have to repair the damage to America's reputation, but will have to rebuild tattered relationships with allies and other major economic powers that have been frayed by years of senseless economic warfare. Over the longer term, the U.S. will face the growing problem that our commitments will be called into question every time there is a change in party control. The seesaw between increasingly hard-line unilateralists that want to tear up one agreement after another regardless of the merits and the rest of us will make it so that no one will be able to trust the U.S. to commit to anything for more than four or eight years. That will give presidents strong incentives not to burn political capital on securing agreements that they know their successors will just throw away, and it will eventually mean that U.S. diplomacy continues to atrophy from lack of use. ..."
Zarif told CNN this week Iran had "acted in good faith" in negotiating the deal that Washington abandoned. "We are
not willing to talk to people who have broken their promises.".
Before and during the nuclear negotiations that led to the JCPOA, American opponents of the talks kept insisting that
Iran couldn't be trusted to keep their word and they would cheat on any agreement they made.
It is fitting that they have
been the ones to urge the U.S. to break its word and betray our negotiating partners, and in so doing guarantee that the
U.S. is seen as the unreliable deal-breakers that Iran's government was supposed to be. In the future, other governments
may want to have some "snap-back" mechanisms of their own to ensure that the U.S. will be penalized if it breaches its
obligations.
Iran hawks are always complaining about the "fatally flawed" nuclear deal, but they are the ones that
exploited what was perhaps its only true flaw, namely the built-in assumption that our government would observe the terms
of the agreement in good faith as long as Iran did what it promised to do. Other major powers and Iran now know they
shouldn't expect the U.S. to be a reliable partner in future talks, and they will reasonably conclude that offers to "talk"
from the administration that seeks to destroy the JCPOA are just so much hot air.
As I was
saying
yesterday,
Iran isn't interested in photo-op summits:
Trump has said Washington is not trying to set up talks but expects Tehran to call when it is ready. A U.S. official
said last week Americans "were sitting by the phone", but had received no call from Iran yet
Foad Izadi, a political science professor at Tehran University, told Reuters that phone call is not coming.
"Iranian officials have come to this conclusion that Trump does not seek negotiations. He would like a phone call
with Rouhani, even a meeting and a photo session, but that's not a real negotiation," Izadi said.
A real negotiation would involve making a compromise and offering concessions to Iran. Iran would have to believe that
it has something to gain from the exchange, and right now it has no reason to believe anything of the kind. Trump has no
desire to make concessions, only to receive them, and he won't compromise because he can't conceive of a mutually
beneficial agreement. Because he sees everything as a zero-sum contest, Trump perceives anything less than the other side's
capitulation as a "loss" for the U.S. In the absence of a real "win," Trump is willing to settle for the made-up kind that
he claims after every unsuccessful summit.
The next administration will have their work cut out for them. A future president won't only have to repair the damage
to America's reputation, but will have to rebuild tattered relationships with allies and other major economic powers that
have been frayed by years of senseless economic warfare. Over the longer term, the U.S. will face the growing problem that
our commitments will be called into question every time there is a change in party control. The seesaw between increasingly
hard-line unilateralists that want to tear up one agreement after another regardless of the merits and the rest of us will
make it so that no one will be able to trust the U.S. to commit to anything for more than four or eight years. That will
give presidents strong incentives not to burn political capital on securing agreements that they know their successors will
just throw away, and it will eventually mean that U.S. diplomacy continues to atrophy from lack of use.
Related to "America the Untrustworthy" is the economic total war that the U.S. has declared on the rest of the
planet. Very complex business relationships and supply chains are being destroyed. The Trump administration's
objectives are to economically strangle China and Russia and do economic beat-downs on any country that gets in
the way. No company or country wants to do business with that kind of political volatility. And what can't go on
forever – won't.
What the idiots in Washington don't realize is that the Chinese and the Russians have suffered
100x mores deprivation than Americans. They will suck it up now and then do whatever it takes to decouple
themselves economically from the United States. (See what happens in the U.S. when the Chinese tell Apple to pound
sand.)
And to think that the Chinese don't have the organic capability to technically compete with the U.S. now is
nuts. China has the resources and intellectual horsepower to compete with the U.S. regardless of what the arrogant
"City on a Hill" exceptionalists in Washington think. And given that China has 5X the number of STEM grads, it's
easy to do the math.
America the Untrustworthy on the economic front is telling the rest of the planet to find other partners
because doing business with an erratic Gorilla is more trouble than its worth.
At some point, Americans are going to be outraged when they realize that most of the world doesn't view us as
someone to admire but rather a rogue nation.
I wonder if it ever occurred to Trump–or any of his advisers–that pulling out of a deal for no other reason than
"we didn't like the terms that everyone agreed to" (rather than noncompliance by Iran) only makes it impossible
for anyone to trust a new deal he wants to make later. But I guess this is why it's unwise to govern based on what
Fox and Friends tells you each morning.
"A future president won't only have to repair the damage to America's reputation, but will have to rebuild
tattered relationships with allies and other major economic powers that have been frayed by years of senseless
economic warfare. "
I don't think that any future president will be able to do this. Dubya was a shock to the
rest of the world, in that they realized that there was indeed 'no there there'. Congress isn't helping.
Obama was a relief, but then along came Trump. At this point, all other countries know that (a) any competent
Democratic President will be followed by a destructive and reckless GOP president, and (b) that the GOP Congress
will aid and abet this.
A reputation for reliability has to be maintained.
Those are pretty strong words from the official agency...
Notable quotes:
"... The U.S. side is perhaps narcissistic about its "art of deal," yet its tainted records in failing to keep its own words have alarmed the world. ..."
"... As a matter of fact, China is not the first victim of America's acts of bad faith and trade bullyism. Over more than a year, the U.S. side has wielded a "big stick" of protectionism, and coerced many of its trade partners, including South Korea, Canada and Mexico, into re-negotiating their long-existing trade agreements. ..."
"... When Washington decided to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on the European Union (EU) last year, the European Commission rebutted in a tweet, saying that "The EU believes these unilateral U.S. tariffs are unjustified and at odds with World Trade Organization rules. This is protectionism, pure and simple." ..."
"... Since the Trump administration took power, Washington has backed away from a string of major international agreements and multilateral bodies, including the Paris climate accord, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, and the Universal Postal Union. ..."
"... In the aftermath of the World War II, the United States helped establish the existing global trade and finance order. As a result, Washington has benefited enormously from such a system that is based on the U.S. dollar's supremacy. However, Washington is in no way justified to abuse its superpower status. ..."
"... Instead, it needs to fulfill its duties as an equal member of the international community. It is worth noting that the U.S.-led global order may collapse once Washington's credibility goes bankrupt. This dangerous prospect is in no one's interests. ..."
Source: Xinhua | 2019-05-20 17:11:21 | Editor: Xiang Bo
BEIJING, May 20 (Xinhua) -- Modern international trade relations are based on credibility
and the spirit of the contract. However,in the year-long China-U.S. trade negotiations,
Washington repeatedly reneged on its promises and played "face changing" tricks, leaving stark
stains on its credibility.
During Chinese Vice Premier Liu He's visit to Washington last May, Beijing and Washington
agreed not to engage in a trade war. Only days later, the Trump administration said it will
impose a 25-percent tariff on 50 billion U.S. dollars' worth of Chinese imports which contain
industrially significant technology.
Soon after the recent setbacks in China-U.S. trade consultations, the Trump administration,
in the name of "national security," rolled out measures to hit Chinese tech firms. The White
House's executive order will kill many business contracts between Chinese and U.S. firms.
The U.S. side is perhaps narcissistic about its "art of deal," yet its tainted records in
failing to keep its own words have alarmed the world.
As a matter of fact, China is not the first victim of America's acts of bad faith and trade
bullyism. Over more than a year, the U.S. side has wielded a "big stick" of protectionism, and coerced
many of its trade partners, including South Korea, Canada and Mexico, into re-negotiating their
long-existing trade agreements.
These bullying behaviors have sent a clear signal: one can arbitrarily tamper with the
original contracts regardless of cooperation partners' interests and concerns, as long as it
has the power to do so. That is "the logic of gangsters" and "the law of jungle." Such bullying
tactic has stirred global opposition, including from Washington's allies in Europe.
When Washington decided to impose steel and aluminum tariffs on the European Union (EU) last
year, the European Commission rebutted in a tweet, saying that "The EU believes these
unilateral U.S. tariffs are unjustified and at odds with World Trade Organization rules. This
is protectionism, pure and simple."
Also, America's bullying actions have gone far beyond multilateral economic and trade
realms.
Since the Trump administration took power, Washington has backed away from a string of major
international agreements and multilateral bodies, including the Paris climate accord, the UN
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, and the
Universal Postal Union.
These self-serving moves have disgraced Washington's credibility as a responsible major
country, and seriously eroded the foundation for international cooperation.
In the aftermath of the World War II, the United States helped establish the existing global
trade and finance order. As a result, Washington has benefited enormously from such a system
that is based on the U.S. dollar's supremacy. However, Washington is in no way justified to
abuse its superpower status.
Instead, it needs to fulfill its duties as an equal member of the international community.
It is worth noting that the U.S.-led global order may collapse once Washington's credibility
goes bankrupt. This dangerous prospect is in no one's interests.
America's word has never been taken seriously. Ever heard of our treaties with the Native
Americans? Clinton abrogated the accords between Gorbachev and Reagan, that NATO would not
move one inch to the East. Clinton set up the drunken Yeltsin as his puppet, interfering with
Russia's elections and raping their economy.
Bush II desperately wanted to finish his father's Gulf War, ignoring the UN weapons
inspectors. He also unilaterally pulled the US out of the anti-ballistic missile treaty.
America promised Ghaddafi that if he did not pursue nuclear weapons and supporting
terrorists (like Saudi Arabia and Israel), he would be left alone. Soon he was dead from
bayonet rape with a gleeful chortling Hillary impressing American spooks with her "Libya
Model", touted by Bolton, Pence and Pompeo to Kim's face.
Obama's deal with Iran was hated even more by Hillary (and most members of Congress) than
by Trump, and was doomed when Obama left office (one of his few achievements, however
fleeting).
The Establishment clowns Bolton, Pence and Pompeo will keep Trump on track.
Colonel, I would appreciate your comments about John Huntsman and his remarks " each of the
carriers operating in the Mediterranean as this time represent 100,000 tons of
international diplomacy", "Diplomatic communication and dialogue, coupled with the strong
defenses these ships provide, demonstrate to Russia that if it truly seeks better relations
with the United states, it must cease its destabilizing activities around the world."
Strange words coming from a "diplomat". It might be informative to see the kind of a
reception he will get when he returns to Russia as "ambassador". Ishmael Zechariah
I found it particularly interesting that nations like Germany, Japan, Mexico and South Korea
which have traditionally been viewed as pro-American overwhelmingly found that the United
States was a greater threat to their nation than Russia. Not surprisingly, only a very small 15
percent of Israelis felt that the United States was a greater threat compared to 28 percent who
felt that Russia was a greater threat, however the percentage of Israelis that are concerned
about American power is up from only 9 percent in 2013.
Looking back in time, more people now believe that the United States is a greater threat to
their nation than in 2013 and 2017; in 2018, a median of 45 percent of all respondents believed
that the United States was a major threat to their nation, up from 38 percent in 2017 and 25
percent in 2013.
... ... ...
Once again, it is interesting to observe that nations like France and Germany that have
traditionally been viewed as pro-American have seen the highest increase in their assessment of
the threat posed by American power.
The growing power and influence wielded by the United States is now rather widely viewed by
the world as a far greater threat than the power and influence wielded by Russia, particularly
when one looks back to 2013. Respondents in just over 70 percent of the 26 nations in the study
feel that America forms a greater threat to their home nation than the much-vilified Russia, a
result that is not terribly surprising given the events of the past two years in
Washington.
Money quote (from comments): This GOP/Israel connection stinks to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with
Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling
pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain sight with Israel.
Notable quotes:
"... As usual, Trump made the announcement of recognizing Israel's claim to the Golan Heights without any consultation with any of the relevant administration officials: ..."
"... After more than two years of watching Trump's impulsive and reckless "governing" style, it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone that he makes these decisions without advance warning. There is no evidence that Trump ever thinks anything through, and so he probably sees no reason to tell anyone in advance what he is going to do. ..."
"... Trump almost never bothers consulting with the people who will be responsible for carrying out his policies ..."
"... There is absolutely no upside for the United States in endorsing illegal Israeli claims to the Golan Heights. It is a cynical political stunt intended to boost Netanyahu and Likud's fortunes in the upcoming election, and it is also a cynical stunt aimed at shoring up Trump's support from Republican "pro-Israel" voters and donors. ..."
"... Once again, Trump has put narrow political ambitions and the interests of a foreign government ahead of the interests of the United States. That seems to be the inevitable result of electing a narcissist who conducts foreign policy based on which leaders flatter and praise him. ..."
"... Bolton is usually the culprit responsible any destructive and foolish policy decision over the last year, and his baleful influence continues to grow. We can also see the harmful effects of the administration's Iran obsession at work. In the end, the Syria "withdrawal" hasn't happened and apparently isn't going to, but Trump nonetheless gives Israel whatever it wants in exchange for nothing so that they will be "reassured" of our unthinking support. ..."
"... I wonder what Mr. Kagan has to say now about "authoritarian" regimes?! ..."
"... Trump is making one hell of a mess for the next president to clean up. ..."
"... The decision to leave the INF treaty was taken in a similar way and with a total disregard for the consequences. The leaders of the European NATO countries have shown utter spinelessness in going along with it. ..."
"... I am shocked and horrified by what I've seen under Trump. I am deeply disappointed that so few Republicans (or Democrats, for that matter) have stood up to him on foreign policy, and I will never vote Republican again. This GOP/Israel connection stinks to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain sight with Israel. ..."
"... To be fair, it ain't just Team R that has the sloppy crush on Israel. Team D is just as bad, even if they don't gush quite so publicly. In fact, episodes such as this one are useful in a way, as they make it hard to pretend that this is just a one-off, a misguided decision that we have to go along with to appease a powerful friend. ..."
"... Nevertheless, Israel should be very concerned about Northern Syria. If war breaks out and the US is forced to go to war with its own NATO ally as a result, Israel should prepare to kiss its alliance with the US goodbye. ..."
"... Many (rightfully or not) will blame Israel due to its connections to neoconservatism and Saudi jingoism, and consequently we may end up seeing BOTH parties becoming unfriendly to Israel over the subsequent generation. ..."
"... All of this could be prevented if President Trump would just tell Saudi Arabia to STOP the nonsense. But no. He's too focused on MIC profits. He's not America First. And quite frankly, I'm starting to think Benjamin Netanyahu is not Israel-first either, because if he were he'd be warning Trump about the mess he's going to end up getting America, Israel, and much of Europe and the Middle East into. ..."
As usual, Trump
made the announcement
of recognizing Israel's claim to the Golan Heights without any consultation with any of the relevant administration officials:
President Donald Trump's tweet on Thursday recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory surprised members of his own
Middle East peace team, the State Department, and Israeli officials.
U.S. diplomats and White House aides had believed the Golan Heights issue would be front and center at next week's meetings
between Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. But they were unprepared for any presidential
announcement this week.
No formal U.S. process or executive committees were initiated to review the policy before Trump's decision, and the diplomats
responsible for implementing the policy were left in the dark.
Even the Israelis, who have advocated for this move for years, were stunned at the timing of Trump's message.
After more than two years of watching Trump's impulsive and reckless "governing" style, it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone
that he makes these decisions without advance warning. There is no evidence that Trump ever thinks anything through, and so he probably
sees no reason to tell anyone in advance what he is going to do.
Trump almost never bothers consulting with the people who will be responsible for carrying out his policies and dealing
with the international fallout, and that is probably why so many of his policy decisions end up being exceptionally poor ones. The
substance of most of Trump's foreign policy decisions was never likely to be good, but the lack of an organized policy process on
major decisions makes those decisions even more haphazard and chaotic than they would otherwise be.
There is absolutely no upside for the United States in endorsing illegal Israeli claims to the Golan Heights. It is a cynical
political stunt intended to boost Netanyahu and Likud's fortunes in the upcoming election, and it is also a cynical stunt aimed at
shoring up Trump's support from Republican "pro-Israel" voters and donors.
Whatever short-term benefit Israel gains from it, the U.S. gains nothing and stands to lose quite a bit in terms of our international
standing.
There has been no consideration of the costs and problems this will create for the U.S. in its relations with other regional states
and beyond because Trump couldn't care less about the long-term effects that his decisions have on the country.
Once again, Trump has put narrow political ambitions and the interests of a foreign government ahead of the interests of the
United States. That seems to be the inevitable result of electing a narcissist who conducts foreign policy based on which leaders
flatter and praise him.
Trump's bad decision can be traced back to Bolton's visit to Israel earlier this year:
Administration officials said that National Security Advisor John Bolton was instrumental to the decision, after visiting Israel
in January to assure officials there that the United States would not abandon them in Syria despite Trump's sudden withdrawal
of troops from the battlefield.
Nervous Israeli officials saw an opportunity. "It was an ask," one Israeli source said, "because of the timing -- it suddenly
became a relevant issue about Iran."
Bolton is usually the culprit responsible any destructive and foolish policy decision over the last year, and his baleful
influence continues to grow. We can also see the harmful effects of the administration's Iran obsession at work. In the end, the
Syria "withdrawal" hasn't happened and apparently isn't going to, but Trump nonetheless gives Israel whatever it wants in exchange
for nothing so that they will be "reassured" of our unthinking support.
Well, of course Trump puts America last. There is one and only one person he is interested in -- himself. As you say this is his
narcissistic personality at work.
My never ending question is always, "Why does any Republican with a conscience remain silent? Are they really all this shallow
and self absorbed? Is there nothing Trump does that will finally force them to put country before party and their own ambition?"
It's a really sad state of events that has put this country on the road to ruin.
Trump is making one hell of a mess for the next president to clean up. Straightening out all this stupidity will take
years. Here's hoping that Trump gets to watch his foreign policy decisions tossed out and reversed from federal prison.
The decision to leave the INF treaty was taken in a similar way and with a total disregard for the consequences. The leaders
of the European NATO countries have shown utter spinelessness in going along with it.
The administration says that a Russian missile violates the treaty but it will not tell us what the range of the missile is.
Nor will it allow its weapons inspectors to go and look at it.
The reason is clear: Fear that the weapons inspectors' findings would contradict the administration's claims.
I voted Republican ever since I started voting. I voted for Bush I, Dole, Dubya, and McCain. I couldn't vote for either Obama
or Romney, but I voted for Trump because of Hillary Clinton.
I am shocked and horrified by what I've seen under Trump. I am deeply disappointed that so few Republicans (or Democrats,
for that matter) have stood up to him on foreign policy, and I will never vote Republican again. This GOP/Israel connection stinks
to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm
bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain
sight with Israel.
To be fair, it ain't just Team R that has the sloppy crush on Israel. Team D is just as bad, even if they don't gush quite
so publicly. In fact, episodes such as this one are useful in a way, as they make it hard to pretend that this is just a one-off,
a misguided decision that we have to go along with to appease a powerful friend.
Europoliticians tell that last one a lot. "We really don't want to but the Americans twisted our arms ZOMG Special Relationship
so sorry ZOMG!" Only with a lot more Eurobureaucratese.
I agree with the article's premise, but not because of this move regarding Israel.
Personally, I believe this move will have little impact on the outcome of the crisis in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and the
other Arab monarchies are too focused on containing Iran and Turkey to give a crap about what Israel does. The only Arab states
that I can see objecting to this move are Syria (obviously) and the others who were already allied with Iran and/or Turkey to
begin with.
Right now, the REAL center of attention in the region should be Northern Syria. THAT's where the next major war likely will
begin. In that area, Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are the ones doing the major escalations,
while Israel has virtually no role at all aside from sideline cheer-leading. And of course, Trump is doing nothing to stop what
could become the next July Crisis. What's "America First" about that?
Nevertheless, Israel should be very concerned about Northern Syria. If war breaks out and the US is forced to go to war
with its own NATO ally as a result, Israel should prepare to kiss its alliance with the US goodbye.
There is no way our international reputation will come out of this war unscathed, and odds are we'll be in a far worse position
diplomatically than we were at any point in our history, even during the Iraq war. When that happens, the American people will
be out to assign blame. Many (rightfully or not) will blame Israel due to its connections to neoconservatism and Saudi jingoism,
and consequently we may end up seeing BOTH parties becoming unfriendly to Israel over the subsequent generation.
All of this could be prevented if President Trump would just tell Saudi Arabia to STOP the nonsense. But no. He's too focused
on MIC profits. He's not America First. And quite frankly, I'm starting to think Benjamin Netanyahu is not Israel-first either,
because if he were he'd be warning Trump about the mess he's going to end up getting America, Israel, and much of Europe and the
Middle East into.
I hate the Washington doublespeak about "rules-based international order."
When has the Imperial State ever followed any "rules?"
For instance, didn't the Nuremberg trials establish the principle that wars of aggression
constituted international war crimes? Wasn't the invasion of Iraq a violation of "rules-based
international order." And what about UN approval for the use of force. Did the US get UN
approval when they decided to overturn the Assad regime. Wasn't that a violation of
"rules-based international order."
The same can be said about the wars in Afghanistan, Libya and the coming war against
Venezuela.
What Washington really means when they talk about a "rules-based international order"
is "we make up the rules as we go along and those rules don't apply to us."
"... The Puppet show display by Pence & Pompeo to rap Europeans over the knuckles for everything from not exiting the Iran Nuclear deal to not stopping the Nordstream pupeline & trying to contain Hiawei is blowing up in the Trump Administration's faces as these so called Allies or Vassals of the American Empire are refusing to tow the line? ..."
"... A failure for US oligarchy foreign policy is a win for the US and the rest of the world. ..."
The "Exceptional Nation" has now become the "Detestable Nation"!
The Puppet show display
by Pence & Pompeo to rap Europeans over the knuckles for everything from not exiting the
Iran Nuclear deal to not stopping the Nordstream pupeline & trying to contain Hiawei is
blowing up in the Trump Administration's faces as these so called Allies or Vassals of the
American Empire are refusing to tow the line?
Trump has alienated & disgusted it's
Allies, so much that they can now see how deranged, unworkable & destructive is the
Americans Foreign Policy & its bankrupt disfunctional , delusional Policies?
It's
ridiculous, irrational & pathological hatred for Iran has shown that the US is the main
Terrorist Nation on Earth not Iran who has never invaded anyone unlike the hypocritical US
Empire!
Meanwhile in Sochi, the real Diplomacy for peace is taking place with Russia, Iran,
Turkey & Syria having won the War against the US Empire & its cowardly, crony white
helmeted, ragtag bunch of proxy Army misfits made up of Israel, ISIS, SDF & the Kurds now
scurrying out of the Country like rats leaving a sinking ship!
And what was really laughable
about VP Pences speech in Warsaw was the defeating silence to the pauses in that speech
expecting people to clap on demand which never happened?
How embarrassing & really showed
the lack of respect & utter contempt that everyone has for America these days!
Sam F, February 20, 2019 at 12:32 pm
A failure for US oligarchy foreign policy is a win for the US and the rest of the world.
Let's hope we see the end of NATO as an excuse for US bully tyrants to "defend" us with greedy aggression.
Perhaps that will lead to strengthening the UN and isolating it from the economic power of US tyrants.
The UN would be far stronger if it taxed its members instead of begging for support, on pain of embargo by all members, and
monitored for corrupt influence.
It'll eventually dawn on the Yanks that it was NK's Nukes which brought AmeriKKKa to the
negotiating table; NOT US sanctions which brought NK to the table.
The ability to "Manhattan" Manhattan is too strong a negotiating position to swap for some
insulting threats and vague non-binding promises. The biggest problem for the US now will be
the impossibility of "proving" that it can be trusted.
Just more grist for the bullshit mill that is US foreign policy, i.e. the US government can
never be trusted at the negotiating table. Ridiculous to demand N. Korea dismantle their
nuclear reactor before sanctions are lifted. Fucking ridiculous demand, why in the hell would
N. Korea do that? They need it to produce energy, and to make plutonium to defend themselves
from total asshole country USA which, as everybody knows has been on a 25 year
sanctioning/bombing/country destroying rampage, leaving entire countries laid to waste. Rest
assured, that if N. Korea gets rid of all its nukes as USA wants -- before the drop of a hat
USA will totally, completely wipe N. Korea off the map with its own nukes and massive military
buildup surrounding N. Korea. As usual, the USA is the biggest problem for the entire world's
progress towards peace and prosperity :-(((
The Korean people have paid a very heavy price simply because of their unfortunate
geographic location immediately adjacent to the world's largest Communist state.
"... Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010 , and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity . ..."
"... At this point the US government barely even bothers to cover itself with plausible stories but just goes ahead with it's open violence. Who is there to stop it? ..."
In 2011, the U.S. regime, then under a
different
nominal
leader than in the Iraq invasion,
invaded
and
destroyed
Libya -- also on the basis of lies that its press (which is controlled by the same billionaires
who control the nation's two political Parties) stenographically published from the Government and refused
ever to expose as being lies.
On February 8th, the Latin American
Geopolitical Strategic Center (CELAG) issued their study,
"The Economic Consequences of the Boycott of Venezuela"
, and reported that throughout the five-year
period of 2013-2017, Venezuela's "economy and society suffered a suffocation [of] $ 22.5 billion in annual
revenues, as a result of a deliberate international strategy of financial isolation [of Venezuela].
Evidently, this financial pressure intensified since 2015 with the fall in the price of crude oil." So:
that's a total loss of over $112 billion from Venezuela during the entire 5-year period, and the result has
become (especially after 2014) the impoverishment of the country. The U.S. regime and its allies and their
propaganda-media blame, for that, not themselves, but the very same Government they're trying to take down.
The U.S. regime and its allies have contempt for the public everywhere. The more that Venezuelans blame
their own Government for this impoverishment, instead of blame America's Government for it, the more that
their exploiters will have contempt for them, but also the more that their exploiters will benefit from
them, because the exploiters' taking control of the Government will then be much easier to do.
The U.S-and-allied exploiters are
attempting to install in Venezuela
a man who has absolutely no justification under the Venezuelan Constitution to be claiming to be the
country's 'interim President'
. For some mysterious reason, Venezuela's President isn't calling for that
traitor to be brought up on charges of treachery -- attempting a coup -- and facing Venezuela's Supreme
Judicial Tribunal on such a charge, which Tribunal is the Constitutionally authorized body to adjudicate
that matter. So, Venezuela's Government is incompetent -- but so too have been all of its predecessors since
at least 1980, and incompetence alone is
not
Constitutional grounds for replacing Venezuela's
President by
a foreign-imposed coup
. At least Venezuela's actual President is no traitor, such as his would-be
successor, Juan Guaido,
definitely
is
.
Did Venezuela invade America so as for
America's economic war against it
to be justified? Did Iraq invade America so as for America's
destruction of it to be justified? Did Libya invade America so as for America's destruction of it to be
justified? Did Syria invade America so as for America's destruction of it to be justified? Did Ukraine
invade America so as for America's destruction of it to be justified? None of them did, at all. In each and
every case, it was pure aggression, by America, the international rogue nation.
Back in 1986, regarding America's
international relations including its coups and invasions, the U.S. quit the International Court of Justice
(ICJ), when that Court ruled against the U.S. in the Iran-Contra case,
Nicaragua v. United States
, which concerned America's attempted coup in that country. But though
the U.S. propaganda-media reported the Government's rejection of that verdict in favor of Nicaragua, they
hid the more momentous fact: the U.S. Government stated that it would not henceforth recognize any authority
in the ICJ concerning America's international actions. The public didn't get to know about that. Ever since
1986, the U.S. Government has been a rogue regime, simply ignoring the ICJ except when the ICJ could be
cited against a country that the U.S. regime is trying to destroy ('democratize'). And then, when the ICJ
ruled on 9 March 2005 against the U.S. regime in a U.S. domestic matter where the regime refused to adhere
to the U.S. Constitution's due-process clause regarding the prosecutions and death-sentences against 51
death-row inmates, and the Court demanded retrials of those convicts,
the U.S. regime, in 2005, simply withdrew completely from the jurisdiction of the ICJ
. Ever since 9
March 2005, the U.S. regime places itself above, and immune to, international law, regarding everything.
George W. Bush completed what Ronald Reagan had started.
This rogue regime has
no real legitimacy
even as a representative of the American people. It
doesn't really represent the American public at all
. It is destroying the world and lying through its
teeth all the while. Its puppet-rulers on behalf of America's
currently 585 billionaires
are not in prison from convictions by the International Court of Justice in
the Hague. They're not even being investigated by the International Court of Justice in the Hague. That's a
U.N. agency. Does the U.N. have any real legitimacy, under such circumstances as this? Can an international
scofflaw simply refuse to recognize the authority of the international court? This mocks the U.N. itself.
The U.S. places itself above the U.N.'s laws and jurisdiction and yet still occupies one of the five
permanent seats on the U.N's Security Council and still is allowed to vote in the U.N.'s General Assembly.
Why doesn't the U.N. simply expel America? It can't be done? Then why isn't a new international legal body
being established to
replace
the U.N. -- and being granted legal authority everywhere
regardless
of whether a given national regime acknowledges its legal authority over matters of international law? Why
is Venezuela being internationally isolated and sanctioned, instead of the U.S. being internationally
isolated and sanctioned?
On top of all that, this is the same
U.S. regime that has blocked the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, and that has broken one international
agreement after another -- not only NAFTA, and not only the nuclear agreement on Iran, and not only many
nuclear agreements with first the Soviet Union and then Russia, but lots more -- and all with total impunity.
And it's not only the countries that
the U.S. invades or otherwise destroys, which are being vastly harmed by this international monster-regime.
How many millions of the flood of asylum-seekers who are pouring into Europe have done that in order to
reach safety from America's bombs and proxy-troops -- jihadists and fascist terrorists -- which have ravaged
their own homelands? What is that flood of refugees doing to Europe, and to European politics -- forcing it
ever-farther to the right and so tearing the EU apart? Why are not Europeans therefore flooding their own
streets with anti-American marches and movements for their own Governments to impose economic sanctions
against all major American brands, and demanding prosecution of all recent American Presidents, starting at
least with G.W. Bush -- or else to vote out of office any national politicians who refuse to stand up against
the American bully-regime?
It isn't only weak nations such as
Nigeria
that are corrupt and rotten to the core. The entire U.S. empire, and
especially
its U.S.
masters, are.
How much more will the peoples of the
world remain suckers to the vast corporate propaganda-operation by that out-of-control beast of a rapacious
regime, which displays the Orwellian nerve to label as being a 'regime' each and every Government that it
seeks to overthrow and to call itself a
'democracy'
? The U.S. regime is itself actually allied the most closely with the world's most barbaric
rulers, the Saud family, that own Saudi Arabia. The U.S. regime is also allied with the apartheid and
internationally aggressive regime in Israel. Is such an international gang, as this is, going to get off
scot-free, as if there were no international law -- or at least none that applies to itself?
And, if the U.S. regime is so concerned
to 'protect democracy' and 'protect human rights' all over the world (as that perennially lying bunch always
claim to be the 'justification' for their invasions and coups), then why isn't it starting first by
prosecuting itself? (Or, maybe, by prosecuting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman al-Saud, for his many crimes
-- and prosecuting his predecessors for
financing the 9/11 attacks
against Americans?) Well, of course, Hitler didn't do anything of the sort.
(Nor did he prosecute his allies.) He set the standard. Maybe, ideologically, Hitler and Mussolini and
Hirohito actually won the war, though this has happened after they first physically lost what everyone had
thought
was the end of WW II. After all, nobody is prosecuting the U.S. regime today. Isn't that
somewhat like a global victory for fascism -- the Axis powers -- after the fact? Maybe "we" won the war, only
to lose it later. Doesn't that appear to be the case? Mussolini
sometimes called fascism "corporationism"
, and this is how it always functions, and functions today by
agreement amongst the controlling owners of international corporations that are headquartered in the U.S.
and in its vassal-nations abroad.
Is this to go on interminably? When will
this international reign of fascism end?
What would happen if all the rest of
the world instituted an international legal and enforcement system (under a replacement U.N.) in which all
commitments and contractual proceeds to benefit American-based international corporations and the U.S.
Government were declared to be immediately null and void -- worthless except as regards the claims
against
the U.S. entities? (The owners of those entities have been the beneficiaries of America's international
crimes.) Contracts can be unilaterally nullified. The U.S. Government does it all the time, with no
justification except lies. Here, it would be done as authentically justifiable penalties, against actually
massive global crimes.
The U.S. militarily occupies the world;
this is a global empire; it has over a thousand military bases worldwide. Why aren't the people in all of
those occupied countries demanding their own governments simply to throw them out -- to end the military
occupation of their land?
You can't have a world at peace, and
anything like international justice, without enforcing international law. This is what doing that would look
like.
What we know right now is actually a
lawless world. That's what every international gangster wants.
America is a Corporate Fascist Military Industrial-Intelligence Police State. The Intelligence Agencies are
inseparable from the Corporations, The Bankers, and The Billionaires they work for. Most of the
economic-social-media pathways are controlled by the Magic Jews. Elections are a fraud. You have seen what
happened when the person they picked, Hillary didn't win. Trump may be an idiot but he won fair and square.
The entire Mueller Fiasco is a demonstration of the Intelligence State and a warning for anyone who doesn't
play their game. The Super Jew Zionist Senator Shumer warned Trump in a Freudian Slip about upsetting the
Intelligence agencies which the Jewish Media quickly tried to hide.
This is the county where dimwits like
Cortez complain about Mexican kids on the border while Obama and his associates bombed 7 Muslim countries,
murdered and starved hundreds of thousands of children including those in Yemen and not a fucking thing was
said by anyone on the left.
America and the world are headed for the dark ages. I doubt if anyone will really survive. Think Tanks
for the super rich run by Intel know this and are preparing for the worse case scenario are you!
"Total lockdown against truth and for internatio al conquest . . .mass murder and destruction on the basis
of sheer lies. That's today's U. S. Government, that's it's reality."
It worked so well in WWI and WWII,
why mess with a sure thing?
To behave otherwise, that is, honestly and decently would return a heap of millionaires to their
rag-picker tin-peddlar origins.
Ever since 1986, the U.S. Government has been a rogue regime
Why the leniency for a regime that has been led by gangsters of varying shades for the best part of the
post-WWII era, hands down? Unless the Vietnam war and the companion Gulf of Tomkin lie, the mass murder in
Laos and Cambodia and the Korean war are brushed aside. As was the kidnapping of Aristide of Haiti and
Panama's Noriega are trivial mobster rule blips and the sodomising of Ghadhafi's cadaver by "rebels" after
relentless bombing that left a once prosperous nation in utter ruin regarded as an unfortunate "aberration".
The tainting of American hands with the blood of millions of innocents extends well beyond the leaders who
presided over arguably the worst atrocities and crimes of the post-WWII era. For a nation that takes pride
in its slogan of a government of, for and by the people, the people cannot escape responsibility for the
horrendous crimes committed in their name.
Reasonable article but US a fascist country? And I was reading elsewhere that this same US is now a
communist country, with those billionaires apparently secret communists. Really!?! How can we have a
meaningful debate if we can't agree even on basic definitions of what we're arguing about?
I think some of this is over the top. However, I am not sure that one can excuse challenging the case based
on news reports. The case on its face had little of any supporting material. But there were news agencies
that provided a counter narrative, they just weren't the mainstream sources. Which is why I think your
giving an out where none exists.
Instead, a better case could be made as to how those that questioned the case got the boot and in some
cases got it good. Those voices were not only muted out by the media, the advocates, but the public as well.
One cannot ignore the palpable anger after 9/11. The country wanted revenge. And they would have it. Unlike
Mr. Neeson, we did not restrain ourselves from acting out, against anyone of we held suspect as similar in
nature -- we lashed out with few reservations.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -
Now I have to admit that the questions of international order are tricky. Who wants to take on enforcing
the rule of law against the US when she violates the very rules she helped create and espouses. When the
leadership bends, breaks or ignores the rules in the name of country. It's hard to make a case that everyone
else abide by the rules if you yourself breaks them. Maybe people pf conscience will hire people who
actually abide by what they say they will do when applying for the job of leadership.
But I have to be honest, I am cautious when it comes bodies of international order: UN, IMF, World Bank,
WTO, NAFTA, and others. I appreciate the value of NATO, but I am a bit dubious about the agitation that the
US take the lead in addressing Europe's security, at our expense. And while I would like to avoid what
about, most nations treat the international bodies of justice with no small amount of reticence on their own
account. I am unclear of China has backed away from provoking the Phillipines after the UNCLOS ruling
regarding commercial development zones. They have made a point to say they will abide by UNCLOS except where
they disagree. The short answer is that ultimately the developed world has to operate with some integrity.
There's a lot of complaining about the Saudis and Israel. But those states can simply point to the US or the
Europeans states and make a constituent claim,
"What's good for the gander . . ."
There is a manner of discipline and that is to our failures and the cost. We are at the moment large
enough to absorb them (not sure that is not more face saving facade than truth). Iraq is a failure. Libya is
a failure. Afganistahn most likely a failure, even we end up with some manner of negotiated settlement, it
will still be far short of our objective(s). The Ukraine still threatens to fall into a full blown civil
war. After five years plus of bombing Yemen, the end is nowhere in sight. If the Saudis think the Yemenis a
threat, then they should deal with it. The Syria gambit was never a smart move and it has cost us. I am a
firm believer that part of these issues results in not having a national draft system where our entire
population is bought in on the US project and in so doing have an incentive to hold its government
accountable. Because there is no body count to shock the public into reality as in previous military
engagements.
We simply are not electing enough men such as representative Walter Jones into office, who upon
recognizing an error will seek to change course. And I like him, I suspect, get increasingly restless about
how our unrequited hypocrisy (if continued) will play out for us in the end. I think there are signs of
trouble, just hints, that we need to get our ducks in order.
We honor and protect our sovereignty by respecting that of others (minus some outstanding extreme
circumstance).
Note: not all of the US military programs are about the use of force. The US does huge amounts of
humanitarian aide, independently and in conjunction with with are numerous aid depts. And as a nation we
remain the most effectively generous (giving nations) on the planet to others in need, including private
charitable organizations, no small number of them faith and practice based.
How many multitudes of sins that will cover is unknown to me.
A typical piece of American racism. Naturally, the peoples of all these countries are far too primitive and
far too stupid to see that they are being manipulated!
To quote your first para: 'In 2003, America (and its lap-dog UK) invaded and destroyed Iraq on
the basis of lies to the effect that the U.S. (and UK) regime were certain that Saddam Hussein had and was
developing weapons of mass destruction.'
It should read: 'In 2003, the UK (and its lap dog USA) invaded and destroyed Iraq. I know you Americans like to think that the USA is sovereign in its bullying of the world, but many
people apart from myself, see it differently.
Rothschild runs the 'free west' and he is based in The City of London where he operates the world's drug
money laundering operation. Yes, even all the drugs moved out of Afghanistan by his private drug army you
call the CIA, those profits are laundered in London.
It is Rothschild in London that decides who to invade and why. The USA is Rothschild's private supply of
canon fodder, weaponry and congenital idiots who think Jesus of Nazareth, that you erroneously call Jesus
Christ, condones the violence, the blood baths and the pure evil that is the USA.
Your nation and its corrupt state is the puppet of Rothschild. I can understand it is especially hard for
you to finger one of your own, especially as you consider yourself to be the goyim's friend, but that is not
actually true is it?
What sort of idiot would want to get involved in a three year old war in 1917? What sort of buffoon would
want to get involved in a Europe in the 1940s and in the Orient at the same time, if there were not vast
profits to be made?
Everything that has happened since 1914 when the Fed came in to existence right up to the attacks on
Venezula today, only make sense if you are Rothschild.
I'm not into America-bashing. Life's too short, and, besides, I did half-seriously think of
emigrating from the States, and didn't do it.
But–but–I think there's enough evidence to support the writing of a "black book" of American democracy
since 1945, a hit piece modeled on a similarly titled book about Communism's depredations that, I think, was
first published in France maybe thirty years ago.
Better observers than I can probably offer a laundry list of American cruelties worth including, and some
of those better observers comment here on
Unz Review
.
American military interventions, a Constitution drained of effectiveness and meaning, the "ethnic
cleansing" of American cities, the gratuitous cruelties of American health care,
etc
.
Keep the book short, about 250-350 pp., and include good front and back matter to focus the reader's
attention.
@niteranger
If the author of this piece a child who believes in fairy stories about American exceptionalism . America is
more powerful than other countries and if it is "The International Rogue Nation" then it is solely as a
result of being more powerful that other countries, for were they as strong as America they all would do the
same as America.
This is the county where dimwits like Cortez complain about Mexican kids on the border while Obama
and his associates bombed 7 Muslim countries, murdered and starved hundreds of thousands of children
including those in Yemen and not a fucking thing was said by anyone on the left.
The Democrats want future voters to swamp the votes of native-born Americans. The kids in Yemen are
irrelevant. So are the innocent kids in countries like Syria.
America is a Corporate Fascist Military Industrial-Intelligence Police State
That is just a long winded way of saying it is a state. Like any other state America can't call 911 if it
gets into trouble so it has to do its own dirty work. Or, of course. America could just surrender to moral
imperatives and live as tree huggers in perpetual peace. Except it would come to an end, just as it did for
the Tibetans (and their trees).
These U.S. allegations were based on provable falsehoods when they were stated and published, but the
regime's 'news'-media refused to publish and demonstrate (or "expose") any of these lies.
Back in the late summer of 2003, when Washington finally admitted there were no WMD in Iraq, the Danish
Public Broadcaster had invited four of the heaviest hitters in Danish MSM, four foreign policy editors of
the largest news outlets in Denmark.
The conversation was supposed to be about something else, but the WMD-news had dropped that same morning,
and at one point they discuss the missing WMD. One guy spontaneously says: "I never believed in the
WMD-story anyway." The three others quickly agree, because they don't want to be seen as the slow, gullible
kid in the class.
So they'd been peddling this WMD-nonsense aggressively since the invasion, but they didn't actually
believe that story themselves? The broadcast was taken off the internet 24 hours later, but I have their
names in my little book.
What we know right now is actually a lawless world. That's what every international gangster wants.
Well yes, but they also want not only a monopoly on violence and compliant tax, debt, wage and dollar
slaves, but also "legal" support for it all, hence "gubbermint." Keep payin' dem taxes and hoping for da Messiah in the forms of the likes of the Cacklin' Hyena, The
Trumpster, and "Bibi."
And another thing: back in the day, the PM, Anders "Fogh of War" Rasmussen spoke frequently about Saddam in
the Danish parliament. But he never said "weapons of mass destruction", he said "dangerous weapons" – didn't
want to be caught lying to the legislature, would you? Nobody ever called him out on it; you'd think
journalists were familiar with sleazy rhetoric, but not on this occasion. He went on to become secretary
general of NATO.
Rather than presenting a balanced viewpoint where we hear both sides of the story regarding nuclear
treaty violations by both sides, we are subjected to what can best be termed "fake news".
"Is this to go on interminably? When will this international reign of fascism end?"
The plutocrat criminal elite are working fast and furiously to import a new electorate and slave labour
force: At some point they will no longer be able to finance the machine, because you get what you pay for,
and bread and circuses aren't cheap, and at that point the machine will pull back from the world, if not
outright devolve into mayhem in its streets.
Just came across these powerful words from Kevin Tillman, Pat Tillman's brother.
Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the
world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade
uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to
establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil
war even though it is. Something like that.
Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons
around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them
with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few "bad
apples" in the military.
Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a
picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra
pad in a helmet. It's interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing
from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a
helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes
apart and his skin melts to the seat.
Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.
Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an
illegal invasion they started. Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and
illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the
ground.
Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.
Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.
Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.
Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.
Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.
Somehow torture is tolerated.
Somehow lying is tolerated.
Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.
Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.
Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.
Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that
it is.
Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most
irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.
Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active
ignorance.
Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge
of this country.
Somehow this is tolerated.
Somehow nobody is accountable for this.
In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don't be shocked when our
grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely,
they will come to know that "somehow" was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country
vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.
Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It
can start after Pat's birthday.
Global empires rise because of the desire for power, which is also their Nemesis. Power gives prestige,
status, wealth, security and a sense of invincibility: the opposite of what is feared most. But they cannot
hold that power forever, though they try, and eventually they end up getting the war they have always
dreaded: utter defeat. But their leaders are deluded, blindly leading their people to annihilation – even
nuclear – because power is the one thing they will destroy themselves and everyone else over. The pattern of
history is clear.
Feb 11, 2019 Venezuelans' message to the US: Hands off our country
The Grayzone reports from inside
Venezuela, where millions of people waited in long lines to sign an open letter to the US public, strongly
rejecting foreign intervention in their country.
15.04.2017 Americans Are No Different Than Germans Were (and Are)
Daniel Goldhagen blamed the Holocaust on "the Germans" (by which he meant the German people), and said
that they perpetrated the Holocaust because they positively enjoyed murdering "the Jews".
Feb 18, 2013 Corporatocracy, Globalization, An Empire Expands
A short video clip from the Documentary
Zeitgeist: Addendum, in it a Corporatocracy is explained. "A Incredible cozy relationship between Government
and Corporations"
@niteranger
I think this sums up things pretty well:
"All the other stuff, the love, the democracy, the floundering
into lust, is a sort of by-play. The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer. It has
never yet melted." D. H. Lawrence.
Reasonable article but US a fascist country? And I was reading elsewhere that this same US is now a
communist country, with those billionaires apparently secret communists. Really!?! How can we have a
meaningful debate if we can't agree even on basic definitions of what we're arguing about?
Fascist country, Communist country – a more understandable definition would be a Mafia run state.
The US regime uses violence and threats (local and international) to get its way. It corrupts and
terrorizes politicians and forces through its projects. It's all about money and power and it rubs
traditional Anglo society's face in the mud while its getting looted.
@Justsaying
You have a pointy head, but rubbish conclusions I am also tired of hearing 'sodomy' or 'sodomized' re.
Ghaddafi, assaulting the anus and rectum with bayonets is not 'sodomy'.
Hillary Clinton enjoyed it, I world prefer not to repeat her moronic statement, but will because of the
many morons are on this site now, 'we came, we saw, he died, (cackle, cackle, cackle'). She liked to pretend that this is her classical education. She clearly has none.
But she sure has an ugly pair of cankles.
Fifth Column:
Is any group of people who undermine a larger group from within, usually in
favour of an enemy group or nation. The activities of a fifth column can be overt or clandestine. Forces
gathered in secret can mobilize openly to assist an external attack. This term is also extended to
organised actions by military personnel. Clandestine fifth column activities can involve acts of
sabotage, disinformation, or espionage executed within defense lines by secret sympathizers with an
external force.
He's a
lying
New York idiot Israel firster who demonstrates a new meaning to the concept of
winning fair and square and "won" the position as Cuck-in-Chief of the Corporate Fascio-Commie Military
Industrial-Intelligence Police State, that's all. He should have saved us all a lot of trouble and just eloped with the Cackling Hyena instead.
Mrs Ilhan Omar Is the voice from the graves of Millions of Muslims murdered by US Military under leadership
of US politicians (purchased for pennies), and ordered by Israel.
@exiled off mainstreet
Interesting for me it's all known for several years, so I was about to say myself "same old, same old".
Then I read your comment and think to myself "well, contrary to my belief, obviously publishing this article
does make sense"
@Asagirian
Most of the european business and population do NOT agree with the yankee sanctions to Russia ( or to
Venezuela , or to Iran , Cuba .. ) . Nothing ideological , it is just that the EU has no oil , the EU needs
russian , iranian , venezuelan oil and gas , and the EU countries NEED to sell products to any country
willing to buy them . The abusive yankee pressure on the EU to santion any country that the US wants will
backfire .
"This rogue regime has no real legitimacy even as a representative of the American people. It doesn't
really represent the American public at all. It is destroying the world and lying through its teeth all
the while."
Words seem insufficient to describe the situation, don't they? What we're witnessing, apparently, is the
fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. The Satanic cult known from the Book of Revelation as the "beast from the
sea" is attempting to rise to the top of the world by "giving worth to evil" (i.e. worshiping Satan). To put
it another way, the beast rises to the top by bringing everyone and everything else down.
Being relatively small in number, the Satanic cult operates primarily by deception, corruption and
manipulation. If the beast cannot get the people to destroy themselves, it resorts to mass murder, but the
end result is always destruction.
"Its puppet-rulers on behalf of America's currently 585 billionaires are not in prison from
convictions by the International Court of Justice in the Hague."
Money has nothing to do with it (other than being another tool in the Satanists' tool box). They do what
they do because they're evil. Evil is both the means and the end. To put it in Biblical terms, the Satanists
seek to do to the whole world what Satan did to Eve. Only when whole world is brought down can evil claim
victory over good (as per the Satanic agenda set forth in Isaiah 14:13,14).
How can we have a meaningful debate if we can't agree even on basic definitions of what we're arguing
about?
Excellent question, but the two, fascism and the various forms of big "C" Communism, are not necessarily
mutually exclusive even though fascism as often used today was intended as a catch-all smear word by the
Marxist cornballs a century ago.
In fact, Marxism, Bolshevism and Stalinism are can all be or become forms of fascism. Likewise, as Orwell
saw, there is no essential difference between various iterations of capitalism and the various forms of
communism that they oftentimes supported and promoted and still do.
Also, I highly doubt whether a meaningful debate regarding politics is possible whether or not
definitions are agreed upon.
[During the war]words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them.
Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious
cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question,
inaptness to act on any.
– Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, Chap X, ~400 BC
"Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and
division of society."
– John Adams, letter to J. H. Tiffany, Mar. 31, 1819.
Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to
Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of
solidity to pure wind.
George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1946
IOW, it's pretty much all bullsh!t. Reader and listener beware.
The gangster laughs in your face: "Whadda going to do about it, kid?". Answer is nothing can be done.
At
this point the US government barely even bothers to cover itself with plausible stories but just goes ahead
with it's open violence. Who is there to stop it?
The pattern actually goes back 121 years to the
Spanish-American war when the US smelled weakness and pounced. It's been on a roll ever since, sometimes
slowly, sometimes quickly. The barriers to the US having a completely free hand are Russia, China, Iran,
countries about which there's much heavy propaganda being thrown about. Their areas are limited though and
they can't help the Venezuelans or most of the others. The US has a huge budget for internal spying and
security to ensure that the people in charge stay that way so don't get optimistic. This supposed democracy
is rigged from start to finish. The US has been very efficient in brainwashing it's residents into thinking
it is all legit.
What sort of idiot would want to get involved in a three year old war in 1917? What sort of buffoon
would want to get involved in a Europe in the 1940s and in the Orient at the same time, if there were not
vast profits to be made?
Talk about sweet summaries; yours is masterful!
Anyone who doubts it would do well to read Fish's,
Tragic Deception,
FDR and America's involvement in World War II
@Stephen Paul Foster
This thread is uncommonly full of great comments and yours is another. Excellent.
This question [about the UN] is proof that the author needs psychiatric assistance.
And more than a brief stay in a reprogramming (anti-brainwashing) camp.
The UN was formed by the usual One World (globalist) crowd to serve their ends and theirs only. Anyone
who fails to see that needs to be questioned deeply, no matter how correct he or she is about other matters.
Like any other state America can't call 911 if it gets into trouble so it has to do its own dirty
work. Or, of course. America could just surrender to moral imperatives
This is exactly right. The UN member nations are ready to replace the UN with an organization that can curb
criminal regimes like the US. This has been the case since the 80s.
Considering the terminal degeneracy of the criminal enterprise that runs the US, it's going to take a
war. Classified US policy is to use urban populations as human shields for the CIA COG autocracy. COIN
drills like Watertown are dry runs for CIA martial law during war with Russia.
The one hopeful sign is superior SCO missile technology, which allows kinetic warheads to be substituted
for nuclear ones. This permits regime decapitation by somewhat less destructive means. Most of you are still
going to die, of course. But Russia and China will leave some habitable zones for people they can trust.
Make sure you know human rights and humanitarian law,
and you can demonstrate a record of sticking up for them, and the postwar criminal tribunals will let you
reconstruct a peaceful and lawful American state.
It's a shame it's going to take a couple hundred million dead, mostly American, to stop the CIA regime,
but the world knows it's got to be done. If we're too chicken to storm Langley and hang those criminal
scumbags, we're going to have to pay.
This continuous harping on international law should be wearing thin even with you, Mr. Zuesse. The US
outspends the next 24 nations combined on arms, I understand. For the US might is right. Until you and those
who oppose US policy have an army that can break the US military might you have no hope.
You really need
to think this through and stop the empty posturing. The bird flipped to the International Court of Justice
by John Bolton for the third time apparently should teach you a lesson. Three strikes and you're out. Go
home.
"Elections are a fraud. You have seen what happened when the person they picked, Hillary didn't win.
Trump may be an idiot but he won fair and square."
If elections are a fraud (which they obviously are) how can orange clown be said to have won "fair and
square"? It's a contradiction. The evil orange clown had to lie to win the election; he had to completely
misrepresent himself. What orange clown did was tantamount to stealing ballots/rigging voting machines.
Orange clown is nothing but Satanic low-life scum.
Also, how do you know Clinton was "the person they picked [to win]"? That's very speculative, IMO. A
solid argument can be made that orange clown was actually the chosen one.
"What sort of idiot would want to get involved in a three year old war in 1917?"
An evil idiot.
"What sort of buffoon would want to get involved in a Europe in the 1940s and in the Orient at the
same time, if there were not vast profits to be made?"
An evil buffoon.
"Everything that has happened since 1914 when the Fed came in to existence right up to the attacks on
Venezula (sic) today, only make sense if you are Rothschild."
@Commentator Mike
Fascists, communist, liberal and conservative. Those terms don't have as much meaning as you might think. In
fact they are used as tools.
@Harold Smith
The Rothschild's are the Kings of the Jews. They have conquered the Bourbon, Habsburgs, the Hohenzollern,
the Romanovs. They have merged with the house of Windsor. They have been mercilessly harvesting the entire
planet for 200 years. They send Moslems against Christians, Christians agains Moslems, Moslems against
Hindu's, Chirstians against Christians, Christians against Chinese, Christians against Hindus, Japanese
against Chinese, US Christians against Japanese, Zulu against white, and on and on. Wars are the jews
harvest.
They also sent all of these groups to get slaves from each other in raids and wars to provide
human material from all the other races, except jewish, to sell on these jewish run slave markets. For
centuries.
They extracted blood and organs from the children of the victims for use in the kabalistic rituals.
America's lying to get us into wars goes farther back than the 1950's to 2000's. The reasons for WW2 against
Germany was based on devilish lies. So we claimed Hitler had to be stopped because he planned on taking over
the whole world and that he had killed millions of innocent people(which he hadn't) but then turned around
and helped the real murderers of millions of people which was the Soviet Union. And it goes on and on and
there will be more lies and more wars to follow.
@DESERT FOX
You can almost tell just how important the issue of private central banking is by the fact that you can't
get anyone to really explain it, or even talk about it. Right now I would settle for just knowing exactly
who owns it.
America's lying to get us into wars goes farther back than the 1950's to 2000's. The reasons for WW2
against Germany was based on devilish lies
All true.
So we claimed Hitler had to be stopped because he planned on taking over the whole world
When in fact it was a handful of mafiosi financial oligarchs, many based in New Yoik, who desired to
control the whole world via co-opted Marxist principles. One of their tools was the "holy" UN which the
author seems to think is some sort of Messiah. A Rockefeller "donated" the land for the UN Headquarters
building, and the UN was formed under the direction of Commies and their sympathizers associated with FDR.
I'm convinced that WW2 was instigated partly to begin imposing globalism on the rest of us, just as the
constitution of Uncle Shylock was rammed down our throats. All for the benefit of us lowly proles, peasants
and peons, of course.
I'm giving about 1.8 cheers for this piece. I agree with much of it, but I surely don't share the author's
enthusiasm for this International Court of Justice, not for the workings of the United Nations in general.
Give one of these international legal outfits any actual power in America, and "hate crime" laws? You
ain't seen nothin' yet. In much of the world, "anti-Semitism" (whatever that's construed to mean) is already
a criminal offense. Hell, leave it up to these international bodies, and the Unz Review goes dark -- and
quickly, too. No, thanks.
@Hank
The owners are the Rothschilds, the Rockerfellers. the Warburgs , the Schiffs, etc., all satanic zionists
and they control every central bank in the world including the FED and the Bank of England.
"They send Moslems against Christians, Christians agains Moslems, Moslems against Hindu's, Chirstians
against Christians, Christians against Chinese, Christians against Hindus, Japanese against Chinese, US
Christians against Japanese, Zulu against white, and on and on. Wars are the jews harvest."
The Satanists are small in number and generally cowardly so their general modus operandi is to get their
victims to destroy themselves. To put it in Biblical terms, their goal is to do to the whole world what
Satan did to Eve; they deceive, corrupt, manipulate and ultimately stand tall over the destruction they've
brought about. They're destroyers.
Speaking of the UN and war, Douglas Reed provides a lot of great info about the two; too much to summarize
here, but I offer a sample for the curious.
The Second War produced a third result, additional to the advance of the [Marxist permanent]
revolution into Europe and the establishment by force of the Zionist state: namely,
the second attempt
to set up the structure of a "world government", on the altar of which Western nationhood was to be
sacrificed.
This is the final consummation to which the parallel processes of Communism and Zionism
are evidently intended to lead; the idea first emerged in the Weishaupt papers, began to take vigorous
shape in the 19th Century, and was expounded in full detail in the Protocols of 1905. In the First War it
was the master-idea of all the ideas which Mr. House and his associates "oozed into the mind" of
President Wilson, and sought to make the president think were "his own". It then took shape, first as
"The League to Enforce Peace" and at the war's end as "The League of Nations".
Well yeah. The Anglo/Zionist Empire is an evil empire indeed. I've known that since serving under President
Johnson in the mid sixties.
The geniuses over at ZeroHedge will be surprised to learn about imperial aggression against Venezuela.
They believe the explanation for Venexuela's troubles is "Socialism doesn't work".
I'm a Nationalist. So I say screw your International Court of Justice. What the U.S. needs is a New
Republic complete with a new constitution. Failing that, secession will be the way forward.
"... American imperialists (and many Americans) truly believe that they are superior and that the world would become a better place if nations submitted to their leadership ..."
"... Early promoters of American intervention were zealous patriots. They proclaimed love of country and loyalty to the flag. Yet they could not imagine that people from non-white countries might feel just as patriotic. ..."
"... Americans have been said to be ignorant about the world. ..."
"... Violent intervention in other countries always produces unintended consequences. ..."
"... Generations of American foreign policy makers have made decisions on three assumptions: the US is the indispensable nation that must lead the world; this leadership requires toughness; and toughness is best demonstrated by the threat or use of force. ..."
"... Most American interventions are not soberly conceived, with realistic goals and clear exit strategies. ..."
"... Foreign intervention has weakened the moral authority that was once the foundation of America's political identity. Today many people around the world see it as a bully, recklessly invading foreign lands. ..."
"... Nations lose their virtue when they repeatedly attack other nations. ..."
"... America is the HIGHLY narcissistic, high functioning, psychopathic garden variety neighbor, highly destructive businessman you work hard to avoid. ..."
"... As Taleb nicely put: Our political leaders have no skin in the game and are completely unaccountable. Best preconditions for disaster! ..."
"... They even call the idea of not mass murdering people 'isolationism'. Hey, well guess what? I don't want to murder other people who never bothered me. ..."
As the world watches aghast at another US and allies' attempt to engineer a coup in
Venezuela, I would like to offer a few insights from Stephen Kinzer' provocative chapter, "The
deep hurt," (pp. 227-250) in his book, The True Flag: Theodore
Roosevelt, Mark Twain, and the Birth of the American Empire (2017). This remarkable text
carries some hope and lessons for all of us. It tells the story of the great conflict around
the turn of 20th century about the role that the US might play in either dominating the world
or building a cosmopolitan democracy where all people feel secure that they reside in one
country, the earth.
Indeed, Kinzer states:
"Anti-imperialists decisively influenced American history by helping to ensure that the
first burst of American annexation would be the last" (p. 228).
Even swash-buckling Teddy Roosevelt was influenced, losing his zest for the idea of
conquest. When he charged into the White House he held two views simultaneously, intervene to
help other people, without oppressing them. Kinzer thinks that this dichotomy "torments our
national psyche" (p. 229). In the early parts of the book Kinzer sets out the anti-imperialist
(Mark Twain) and pro-imperialist visions (Henry Cabot Lodge). These speeches are worth
gathering round for reflection.
During the following hundred years much of what the anti-imperialists predicted has come to
pass. The United States has become an "actively interventionist power. It has projected
military or covert power into dozens of countries on every continent except Antarctica"(ibid.).
George Frisbie Hoar was right, Kinzer points out, when he "warned that intervening in other
lands would turn the United States into a 'vulgar, commonplace empire founded upon physical
force"" (ibid.).
Anti-imperialists also predicted that an "aggressive foreign policy would have pernicious
effects at home" (ibid.). Military budgets have soared to heights unimaginable in the days of
fervent expansionism in the 1898 war with the Philippines. The armaments industries wield
extraordinary clout. The wealth-soaked elites dominate politics. The invasion and overthrowing
of distant regimes resides in the hands of a few decision-makers. And militaristic values and
rituals saturate American life and expunge peaceful ones.
To be sure, American intervention brought some material blessings (good schools and orderly
systems of justice, etc) and rising American power was perceived as "good for everyone simply
because it means strengthening the world's most beneficent nation" (p. 230). The expansionists
of 1898 believed that America was "inherently benevolent," and subject nations would rally
around the May pole in celebratory dance. "The opposite happened .Carl Schurz was right when he
warned that dominating foreigners would ultimately force Americans to 'shoot them down because
they stand up for their independence'" (p. 231).
Kinzer states that: " In the face of profound new challenges, Americans are once again
debating the role of the United States in the world. Should it intervene violently in other
countries? This remains what Senator William V. Allen called it in 1899: 'The greatest question
that has ever been presented to the American people'" (p. 231). American culture carries a
current of anti-imperialism and commitment to an international legal order. They played a big
role in the establishment of the UN and nurturing global governance. They remain the world's
only superpower with enormous capacity to move towards building the cosmopolitan world order.
What is evident now in this dark moment of history is that the world as it is, is not the way
it has to be.
It is difficult, I think, for the United States with its inordinate military might and
present delusionary self-understanding to wrench itself free from wanting to intervene for
political and economic reasons. Many in the post-WW I world had placed their bet for a better
world on the Presbyterian professor Woodrow Wilson. Famously, Wilson triggered immense
hopefulness to the disenfranchised in the colonies of European powers. He preached that they
should "choose the sovereignty under which the shall live" (p. 232). In office, American troops
were dispatched to intervene in Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Russia .Like
his predecessors -- and successors -- Wilson insisted that he was doing it for the good of the
target countries. Americans would leave them alone, he promised, as soon as they learned 'to
elect good men'" (ibid.). Today scholars speak of the "shattered peace" of the post-WW I world.
Was the desire to begin building, slowly, carefully, a cosmopolitan world order, as Jan Smuts
thought, an "impossible dream"?
Kinzer observes that "this most compassionate of presidents not only invaded countries that
defied the United States, but studiously ignored appeals from colonized people outside Europe,
notably in Egypt, India, Korea, and Indochina. His hypocrisy set the stage for generations of
war and upheaval" (ibid.). Margaret MacMillan's lively and densely detailed book, Paris 1919
(2001) , provides the stories for these outcast colonized countries.
Today, the US has intervened one more time. The difference now may well be that there is
little pretence that the US is engaging in the bully politics of "might is right." They don't
care two hoots about what the world thinks. They do not give a damn about the
self-determination of all countries and peoples. This invasion is stripped of any moral or
legal justification. The US has decided to declare the Speaker of the House, Juan Guaido,
president. This is unheard of! And Canada has forsaken the best of its liberal and social
democratic traditions of adherence to rule of law to hitch its caboose to the US's rampaging
imperialist train.
There are several lessons that Kinzer draws from American history of intervention that our
worth careful reflection.
1) American imperialists (and many Americans) truly believe that they are superior and
that the world would become a better place if nations submitted to their leadership . The
United States would be better off, Kinzer says, if it became a learning nation and not a
teaching one.
2) Early promoters of American intervention were zealous patriots. They proclaimed love of
country and loyalty to the flag. Yet they could not imagine that people from non-white
countries might feel just as patriotic. Love of country was a mark of civilization. Lesser
peoples, therefore, couldn't grasp it.
3) Americans have been said to be ignorant about the world. They are, says Kinzer, but so
are other peoples. The difference is that American leaders, puffed with a sense of mission,
acted on ignorance. American leaders see little reason to bother learning about the nations
whose affairs they intrude.
4) Violent intervention in other countries always produces unintended consequences. Cuba
was turned into a protectorate in 1901. A fine idea? It led ultimately to a bitter
anti-American regime. Intervention in the Philippines sparked waves of nationalism across
East Asia that contributed to the Communist revolution in China in 1949. Later American
interventions also had terrible results planners never anticipated. From Iran and Guatemala
to Iraq and Afghanistan, intervention has devastated societies and produced violent
anti-American passion.
5) Generations of American foreign policy makers have made decisions on three assumptions:
the US is the indispensable nation that must lead the world; this leadership requires
toughness; and toughness is best demonstrated by the threat or use of force. Thus: America is
inherently righteous; its influence on rest of world always benign.
6) Most American interventions are not soberly conceived, with realistic goals and clear
exit strategies. But violent invasions always leave so-called "collateral damage": families
killed, destroyed towns, ruined lives, damaged land.
7) The argument that the United States intervenes to defend "freedom" rarely matches facts
on the ground. Many (most?) interventions prop up predatory regimes. The goal is simply to
increase American power rather than to liberate the suffering.
8) Foreign intervention has weakened the moral authority that was once the foundation of
America's political identity. Today many people around the world see it as a bully,
recklessly invading foreign lands. The current invasion of Venezuela is such an example. The
name "United States" is associated with bombing, invasion, occupation, night raids, covert
action, torture, kidnapping, and secret prisons. Who wants to be saved by America? John
Bolton recently threatened Maduro with prison in Guantanamo if he doesn't get the hell out of
Venezuela.
9) Nations lose their virtue when they repeatedly attack other nations. That loss, as
Washington predicted, has cost the United States its felicity. Kinzer says that the US can
regain it only by understanding its own national interests more clearly. He thinks it is late
for the United States to change its course in the world -- but not too late.
America has not become an interventionist power. What has happened is a Coup d'Etat has
been staged through Congressional rules that give unconstitutional powers to a tiny group on
the basis of their 'seniority' and reconcilliation committee appointment. These few, not the
American people want intervention, war, you name it. They spent $5 trillion in the Middle
East alone. So, let's not blame the American people.
5) Generations of American foreign policy makers have made decisions on three assumptions:
the US is the indispensable nation that must lead the world; this leadership requires
toughness; and toughness is best demonstrated by the threat or use of force. Thus: America is
inherently righteous; its influence on rest of world always benign.
6) Most American interventions are not soberly conceived, with realistic goals and clear
exit strategies. But violent invasions always leave so-called "collateral damage": families
killed, destroyed towns, ruined lives, damaged land.
7) The argument that the United States intervenes to defend "freedom" rarely matches facts
on the ground. Many (most?) interventions prop up predatory regimes. The goal is simply to
increase American power rather than to liberate the suffering.
8) Foreign intervention has weakened the moral authority that was once the foundation of
America's political identity. Today many people around the world see it as a bully,
recklessly invading foreign lands. The current invasion of Venezuela is such an example. The
name "United States" is associated with bombing, invasion, occupation, night raids, covert
action, torture, kidnapping, and secret prisons. Who wants to be saved by America? John
Bolton recently threatened Maduro with prison in Guantanamo if he doesn't get the hell out of
Venezuela."
America is the HIGHLY narcissistic, high functioning, psychopathic garden variety
neighbor, highly destructive businessman you work hard to avoid. How any American can see the US and it's people as exceptional is beyond me. No yellow vests anti WAR protests have evolved to STOP the US genocidal killing
machine.
The US, the white supremacist nation has zero trouble killing maiming and displacing
millions of brown Muslims & Christians in 3 world countries. This WILL come home to roost as what the Zionazi empire of psychopaths does to other
countries they will do to US
9) "Nations lose their virtue when they repeatedly attack other nations. That loss, as
Washington predicted, has cost the United States its felicity. Kinzer says that the US can
regain it only by understanding its own national interests more clearly. He thinks it is late
for the United States to change its course in the world -- but not too late."...
I don't even think Teddy as self righteous and psychopathic as he was at the turn of the
20th Century would have ponied up to cannibalizing his own ( https://wikispooks.com/wiki/9-11/Israel_did_it
) in order to build ever more "pretexts" through the torture and murder of other sovereign
nations simply as a means to "control" resources for the good of his $currency and it's banks
and not a Country and it's peoples under the rule of law to a parasite/cyst that it is
willing to die for (
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-19/top-us-general-says-american-troops-should-be-ready-die-israel
) before it's own Nation!...
Another gr8 lesson about American freedom and democracy is in book: The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism. Americans should know that before slaves from Africa white trash from Britain was shipped
as slaves. See: They were white and they were slaves.
" Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.
... In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate
antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be
excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all should be
cultivated....
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow
citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and
experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican
government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial, else it becomes the
instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive
partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they
actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of
influence on the other....
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our
commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as
we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us
stop. ... GEORGE WASHINGTON
Foreign intervention has weakened the moral authority that was once the foundation of
America's political identity. Today many people around the world see it as a bully,
recklessly invading foreign lands.
Indeed, as that's the nature of the state in any and all its iterations. Reform it? Yes. But only by eradicating it altogether. Why? Because, as the great Albert
Jay Nock said,
"Sending in good people to reform the state is like sending in virgins to
reform the whorehouse."
McCabe, evil whitey on the front line here too? ; chickens coming home to roost
finally? Guess there are two kind of people, those who work for a living, and the barbarians who
appropriate the fruits of other's labor.
Mark Twain wrote savagely and derisively about the Moro Massacre, where the US killed
around a thousand Filipino natives who were hiding in a dormant volcano, they just rimmed it
with artillery and killed everyone.
Because they would not pay tribute. We waterboarded about 200 important people, the
equivalent of mayors and councilmen, ranking officers in militias we had no business
disbanding.
1898 was lies and deceit from the outset. We promised the Philippine General Aguinaldo
that if he fought the Spanish on land, then we would fight them at sea. In exchange for
victory over the Spanish, the Philippines would be freed from colonization.
Except then we took it ourselves and killed anyone who disagreed. Slaughter, rape,
torture, it was never for one moment noble. The USA granted the Philippines its independence
after the Japanese conquered them, lol.
Empires do not give up power, their grip weakens ... Empires do not devolve back into "republics", they crash and burn ... And there are really only two options: a) soft collapse b) hard collapse (there is no [c] option)
Exactly -The article was written by another delusional trying to reconstruct/masquerade
the US criminal empire behind the a new facelift, too little too late. The guy didn't get the
memo from Putin/Xi, telling him tat it is a multipolar world & that the US criminal
empire is death & that it will never come back in any shape, way or form, to violate
international law & carry out war crimes.
American or uk coups are not beneficial. Very sad. Checking USA coups online there is a huge list, after the Allende govt in Chile, comes
Australia, the Whitlam govt, much loved, but ousted in a coup, bloodless by his choice. The
people were waiting for Gough to call them out. Newspaper staff arrived from overseas.
first day in office his govt had let the conscientious objectors out of the 2 years they
were serving in jail. There had been mass demonstrations against Aus participation and
incarceration to no avail with the previous govt. Brought back our Australians from Vietnam,
and twenty or 30 or more major things. Every day.
We have learned nothing. Apparently we are using the taming of the lion method which has
been used for thousands of years to take control of countries on Venezuela. The apparent goal
is to take over several Latin and south American countries. Will this be good or bad? Our
past history indicates it will be a disaster. Have we had any successes?
Craving for respect. This started after the first bite in the apple, history said.
Religion is based on that happening. Americans invented the extra load called fastest. Watch
Hollywood portraying it. Respect shown all over the show for plain murderers. Graveyard
managers and priest making the picture complete. Making that part of the world the right
place for a second coming. Resulting in sending all believers to the place named hell.
The fact that this is not taken for granted is exactly what is wrong with America. If only
we could just learn to leave other people alone unless attacked. They even call the idea of
not mass murdering people 'isolationism'. Hey, well guess what? I don't want to murder
other people who never bothered me. I can't say I'm a Christian, but aren't they supposed to
disagree with this sort of thing? They're also supposed to be like 80% of the population, why
don't we ever hear, 'murder bad' from them?
I don't know why so many people are having trouble realizing that the United States intends
to make the rules, not follow them, and to be the ultimate arbiter of its own behaviour. And
at its very core, this is an intent that recognizes no equal. Allies are great, America loves
to have them so that it can employ them as it sees fit, but does not recognize their
authority to hold Americans to any standard of conduct. Certainly this does not hold true at
the administrative levels – no American is going to get away with speeding on the
autobahn by saying indignantly, "Of course I wasn't speeding – I'm an AMERICAN!" But
speeding by an individual is hardly a national embarrassment. In any international context,
allies and enemies alike are going to have to just accept that no international rules
supersede American self-regulation, and you'll just have to be good with the concept that
America is scrupulously fair in meting out justice to its own subjects.
Oddly enough, American military members and contractors who are accused of various crimes
– which it stands to reason they committed, since Americans as a society are no better
and no worse than any other social group on the planet – their government elevates
their motivation to patriotism, the defending of home and family values. Presumably these
transcendent laws protect Americans who blast Iraqi civilians off of balconies for the hell
of it, as they did at Nisour Square in 2007. Please note that although eventually four
Blackwater employees were tried and convicted in US Federal Court, (a) it was 7 years after
the fact, (b) only one employee was found guilty of murder, while the remainder pleaded down
to manslaughter and lesser firearms charges which implied they were careless rather than
vicious, (c) 14 of 17 Iraqis killed were agreed by the USA to have been entirely without
cause, and (d) the original conviction was overturned by a US District Judge on the grounds
that all charges against Blackwater had been improperly built on testimony given in exchange
for immunity. The entire process weighed heavily in favour of Iraq just giving up in disgust,
and had it not persevered, there is every reason to believe Blackwater would have escaped any
prosecution. No doubt they were characterized throughout the process as American patriots who
were simply protecting their families and their nation and safeguarding American values.
One of the first moves in a humanitarian or policing mission involving the USA will be the
establishment of a status-of-forces agreement in which American soldiers accused of any crime
must be tried by a US court or under American authority. When American citizens are killed in
such scenarios, such as the four Blackwater contractors killed and whose burnt bodies were
hung from a bridge in Fallujah, Iraq, a disproportionate vengeance is enacted which punishes
the whole population.
You all remember what happened to Fallujah; the American-led coalition invaded it twice,
and razed it to the ground in a display of violence that made even US allies nervous.
American contractors in Iraq were earning about $600.00 a day. It is pretty hard to
imagine they were all motivated by patriotism and family values.
"... In the normal legal world, if one party breaches an agreement, the other party is not bound by this agreement any more. ..."
"... No wonder the Russians came finally to understand that US is non-agreement capable: sign an agreement, immediately start breaching the agreement, unleash an army of presstitutes and trolls who will keep accusing the other party of the breach of agreement. ..."
@cs17 This is an old point of information abuse by the Western government trolls. I cannot
count how many times I have disputed one-sided claims such as yours.
The truth is relatively simple - yes, the Budapest Memorandum specifies the inviolability
of the Ukrainian border including Crimea, but it also specifically addresses the
non-interference into Ukrainian affairs (I used to quote the sections of the Memorandum, but
I will skip here). Then the small matter of a coup against a dully elected and recognized
government using the $5B by the usual US regime changers represents the original breach of
the signed Budapest Memorandum. Unless, of course, the signatory is an exceptional nation for
who the international laws and signed agreements do not apply. In the normal legal world, if
one party breaches an agreement, the other party is not bound by this agreement any more.
No wonder the Russians came finally to understand that US is non-agreement capable:
sign an agreement, immediately start breaching the agreement, unleash an army of presstitutes
and trolls who will keep accusing the other party of the breach of agreement.
But there is a third party to these agreements--South Korea--and we certainly know South
Koreans stand to lose as much as their kin in the North should war again erupt.
I'm sure
Korean press have asked President Moon for his reaction, but it's likely published in Korean.
At this point Moon must choose between his nothing to gain alliance with the Outlaw US Empire
or his excellent opportunity to make Korea whole again and the outstanding economic gains
that will bring.
I must also wonder if in his meetings with Kim they discussed the very
likely prospect that this situation would arise and how to counter.
In two weeks, the Far Eastern Economic Conference will begin in Vladivostok where sideline
talks will likely occur on this issue, but I'd hope we'd see a few statements in reaction
well before then. Also, prior to Mattis's announcement, the following event was reported by
DPRK news outlet Rodong Sinmun and
subsequently reported by EurasiaFuture :
"According to a south Korean radio, U.S. special units in Japan staged a drill of flying 1
200 km to the Philippines through air transport.
"The radio said one can confirm that the drill would be the drill aimed at "the
infiltration into Pyongyang" in case of change of direction.
"Prior to the exercise, it was disclosed that the Michigan, the nuclear submarine
belonging to the U.S. Navy, transported Green Berets, Delta Force and other special units
present in Okinawa, Japan to the Jinhae naval base of south Korea in late July or early in
August.
"In this regard, Rodong Sinmun in a commentary on Sunday says that it was extremely
provocative and dangerous military moves to mar the hard-won atmosphere of the peace on the
Korean peninsula and the dialogue between the DPRK and the U.S. and prevent the
implementation of the Singapore DPRK-U.S. Joint Statement.
"Such acts prove that the U.S. is hatching a criminal plot to unleash a war against the
DPRK and commit a crime which deserves merciless divine punishment in case the U.S. fails in
the scenario of the DPRK's unjust and brigandish 'denuclearization first'.
"We can not but take a serious note of the double-dealing attitudes of the U.S. as it is
busy staging secret drills involving man-killing special units while having a dialogue with a
smile on its face.
"The U.S. would be sadly mistaken if it thinks that it can browbeat someone through trite
"gunboat diplomacy" which it used to employ as an almighty weapon in the past and attain its
sinister intention.
"The U.S. should ponder over its deeds."
Clearly, the US had already pondered for as soon as the ink was dry in Singapore, the
Outlaw US Empire unilaterally moved denuclearization from step 3 to step 1 and has kept that
stance.
"... further signs of the usa coming apart at the seams and getting closer to some type of war.. ..."
"... the msm only holds trumps feet to the fire domestically to let him know that if he strays from supporting the financial/military complex, he is toast.. they never do it when he is carrying water for this same complex... ..."
"... i think it is hard to hold out any hope for trump being different then the ongoing succession of presidents.. that are all serving the plutocracy at this point, and trump is no exception... the only difference is we are getting closer to the wheels coming off the usa here.. ..."
thanks b.. further signs of the usa coming apart at the seams and
getting closer to some type of war.. it seems like a reckless ride
from here on in..
there is no way anyone in their right mind would enter into an agreement
with the usa.. and even when they do, as in the examples of north korea
here, or iran recently - the usa backs out of them!! that is not the kind
of dance partner anyone would want to tango with..
the msm only holds trumps feet to the fire domestically to let him
know that if he strays from supporting the financial/military complex, he
is toast.. they never do it when he is carrying water for this same complex...
it is hard to tell the difference between trump and the hawks in his
present gov't especially in light of his tweets.. maybe someone hacked his
twitter account, but i doubt it.. those are his tweets, not bolton or pompeo's..
i think it is hard to hold out any hope for trump being different
then the ongoing succession of presidents.. that are all serving the plutocracy
at this point, and trump is no exception... the only difference is we are
getting closer to the wheels coming off the usa here..
In near simultaneous statements addressed to the Iranian public in a speech aired on state TV, the supreme leader who has the
final word over all affairs in the Islamic republic, issued the directive: "I ban holding any talks with America... America never
remains loyal to its promises in talks."
"America's withdrawal from the nuclear deal is a clear proof that America cannot be trusted," state TV quoted Khamenei further.
As part of his series of tweets, some of which mocked Trump's policy in the Middle East, Khamenei published an infographic presenting
his position on ratcheting tensions with the U.S.
He also slammed the idea that this was the first such offer of talks, saying that Iran has proudly resisted unfair and imbalanced
U.S. offers of negotiations for decades, and even cited President Ronald Reagan's sending his national security advisor, Robert McFarlane
to Tehran for failed negotiations.
Notably, he appeared to troll Trump personally as well as his cabinet in the following:
A stupid man tells the Iranian nation that 'your government spends your money on Syria'. This is while his boss-- the U.S.
president-- has admitted he spent 7 trillion dollars in the Middle East without gaining anything in return!
The top Iranian cleric also briefly referenced Iran's domestic crisis, which has included sporadic protests and clashes with the
police throughout the summer in response to a plummeting rial and inability of people to access imported goods, stating "Today's
livelihood problems do not emerge from outside; they are internal."
He urged the country to resist sanctions and erect "prudent" ways shielding from their effects.
It will be interesting to see if Trump responds to this directly in a tweet, or if any official reaction will be forthcoming from
the White House.
But in the meantime it appears the possibility of any renegotiation after Trump's official pullout of the JCPOA last May has just
had to the door slammed on it.
The mullahs are going to be quite the whiny bitches for a while. The anti-American pro Islam President Obama, Commie CIA director,
for sale Sec of State, gay agenda Pentagon director and Ben Rhodes and ValJar, Rice and their ill will not be returning. Islamic
socialism will be performing the economic wonders you can expect, putting a strong clamp on you their foreign subversion and domestic
payrolls too. Meanwhile, they've got a middle class that hates them and views Islam as foreign dirty Arabs' inhuman sect. Good
luck with that.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei banned holding any direct talks with the United
States, state TV reported, rejecting an offer last month by U.S.
He said "It was my mistake to allow the government for starting The Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action. I gave the permission for the negotiations because of the insistence of the
gentlemen".
President Donald Trump for talks with no preconditions with Tehran.
"I ban holding any talks with America ... America never remains loyal to its promises in
talks ... just gives empty words ... and never retreats from its goals for talks," Khamenei
was quoted as saying by TV.
Iran's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif told Al Jazeera that Iran will not change
its policies in the Middle East because of US sanctions and threats.
Posted by: partizan | Aug 13, 2018 8:50:05 AM |
38
"The US has a history of sabotage, violation and withdrawal with respect to bilateral and
multilateral international commitments." Iran's Foreign Ministry is urging Pyongyang to
"exercise complete vigilance" when the 34-year-old Kim negotiates with the 71-year-old Real
Estate tycoon who literally wrote a book on making
deals.
Kim Jong-un should watch out for Trump's "America First" agenda and Washington's tendency to
"betray international agreements and unilaterally withdraw from them," said a spokesman for
Iran's Foreign Ministry, Bahram
Qassemi .
"Tehran believes that the North Korean government should be quite vigilant as the US by
nature could not be judged in an optimistic way," Qassemi added.
"The US has a history of sabotage, violation and withdrawal with respect to bilateral and
multilateral international commitments," the spokesman said.
He also pulled out of the 2015 Paris climate deal - and is stoking international tensions
over a current trade war that has caused Britain, Germany and France to reassess the
transatlantic bond. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire wondered if Europe should continue
to be "vassals who obey decisions taken by the United States."
Trump imposed tariffs on EU steel and aluminum, while Mexico and Canada were hit with
similar tariffs on June 1. He refused to endorse the joint communique during the G7 summit in
Quebec - calling the hose, Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, "very dishonest and weak."
... the Iranians, I'm quite sure, are hinting about this "conference" held more than 10
years ago as reported by the "Saker" ... and this conference was "planning" a war with Iran,
but perhaps the "agreement" with Iran (nullified recently by Trump) got in the way ... and
now, it would be too late for the empire to strike Iran, having Russia, China and, perhaps
other countries, supporting Iran ...
Take a guess: where would the Empire's puppeteers meet to finalize and coordinate their
plans to attack Iran?
Washington? New York? London? NATO HQ in Brussels? Davos?
Nope.
In Herzilia. Never heard of that place?
The Israeli city of Herzliya is named after Theodor Herzl, the father of modern Zionism,
and it has hosted a meeting of the Empire's Who's Who over the past several days at the
yearly conference of the Herzilia Institute for Policy and Stragegy. For a while, Herzilia
truly became the see of the Empire's inner core of heavy hitters.
(Non-Israeli) speakers included:
Jose Maria Aznar Former Prime Minister of Spain, Matthew Bronfman, Chair of the Budget
and Finance Commission, World Jewish Congress, and member of the World Jewish Congress
Steering Committee, Amb. Nicholas Burns US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs,
Prof. Alan Dershowitz Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, Senator
John Edwards Head of the One America Committee and candidate for the 2008 Democratic
presidential nomination, Gordon England US Deputy Secretary of Defense, Dr. Marvin C. Feuer
Director of Policy and Government Affairs, AIPAC, Newt Gingrich Former U.S. Speaker of the
House of Representatives, Rudolph Giuliani, Former Mayor of New York City and candidate for
the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, General the Lord Charles Guthrie of
Craigiebank GCB LVO OBE. Former Chief of the Defense Staff and Chief of the General Staff
of the British Army, Amb. Dr. Richard Haass President of the Council on Foreign Relations,
Stephen E. Herbits Secretary-General of the World Jewish Congress, Amb. Dr. Robert Hunter
President of the Atlantic Treaty Association and Former U.S. Permanent Representative to
NATO. Senior Advisor at the RAND Corporation in Washington (also serves as Chairman of the
Council for a Community of Democracies, Senior International Consultant to Lockheed Martin
Overseas Corporation), Amb. Dr. Richard H. Jones United States Ambassador to Israel (also
served as the Secretary of State's Senior Advisor and Coordinator for Iraq Policy), Col.
(res.) Dr. Eran Lerman Director, Israel and Middle East Office, American Jewish Committee
(also served in the IDF Intelligence Directorate for over 25 years), Christian Leffler
Deputy Chief of Staff of the European Commissioner for External Relations and Director for
Middle East and Southern Mediterranean, European Commission, The Hon. Peter Mackay Canadian
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Senator John McCain U.S. Senator (R) from Arizona and
candidate for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, Dr. Edward L. Morse Chief Energy
Economist, Lehman Brothers, Dr. Rolf Mützenich Member of the German Federal Parliament
(SPD) and member of the Committee on Foreign Policy of the Bundestag (and Board Member of
the "Germany-Iran Society"), Torkel L. Patterson President of Raytheon International, Inc.,
Richard Perle Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (previously served as
Chairman of the Defense Policy Board and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International
Security Policy), Amb. Thomas R. Pickering Former U.S. Under Secretary of State for
Political Affairs (previously served as Senior Vice President of Boeing), Jack Rosen
Chairman of the American Jewish Congress (and member of the Executive Committee of AIPAC
and of the Council on Foreign Relations), Stanley O. Roth Vice President for Asia,
International Relations of the Boeing Company (member of the Council on Foreign Relations),
James Woolsey Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and many others.
Pretty much the entire Israeli "Defence" establishment (why does nobody call it
"Aggression establishment?) was present too.
Not bad for a "conference"?!
Of course, the main topic at the conference was the upcoming war with Iran. Richard
Perle, the "Prince of Darkness", delivered the keynote and conclusion: "If the Israeli
government comes to the conclusion that it has no choice but to take action, the reaction
of the U.S. will be the belief in the vitality that this action must succeed, even if the
U.S. needs to act with Israel in the current American administration".
Noticed anything funny in his words? It's the "world only superpower" which will have
the "belief" (?) in the action of a local country and, if needed, act with it. Not the
other way around. Makes one wonder which of the two is the world only superpower, does it
not?
Anyway – if anyone has ANY doubts left that the Empire will totally ignore the
will of the American people as expressed in the last election and strike at Iran, this
conference should settle the issue.
North Korea doesn't need this warning. They've experienced it. We promised to build them
non-proliferation reactors in exchange for de-nuclearization in the 90's, but Congress never
funded it.
Yeah, just ask any Native American Indian about the treaties the U.S. had ever signed and
reneged on. From 1778 to 1904, the United States government entered into more than 500
treaties with the Native American tribes; all of these treaties have since been violated in
some way or outright broken by the US government. The list of treaties can be found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_treaties
.
Iran is very right in what it says, the U.S. is not a country to be trusted. And to think
that the U.S. will be anymore honest with North Korea! It will never happen.
"But thus I counsel you, my friends: Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is
powerful. They are people of a low sort and stock; the hangmen and the bloodhound look out of
their faces. Mistrust all who talk much of their justice! Verily, their souls lack more than
honey. And when they call themselves the good and the just, do not forget that they would be
pharisees, if only they had -- power."
The hypocrisy is especially evident in Washington's approach to Saudi
Arabia and other Middle East 'allies.' President Donald Trump poses for photos with
ceremonial swordsmen on his arrival to Murabba Palace, as the guest of King Salman bin
Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia, Saturday evening, May 20, 2017, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
(Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead) American leaders like to portray the United
States as an exemplar of ethical conduct in the international system. The reality is far
different, and it has been for decades. Throughout the Cold War, the United States embraced extremely repressive
rulers , including the Shah of Iran, Nicaragua's Somoza family, Taiwan's Chiang Kai-shek,
and Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, all the while portraying them as noble members of the "Free World."
Such blatant hypocrisy and double standards continue today regarding both Washington's own
dubious behavior and the U.S. attitude toward the behavior of favored allies and friends.
The gap between professed values and actual policy is especially evident in the Middle East.
U.S. officials routinely excoriate Syria and Iran, not only for their external behavior, but
for manifestations of domestic abuse and repression. Some of those criticisms are valid. Both
Bashar al-Assad's regime and Iran's clerical government are guilty of serious international
misconduct and human-rights violations. But the credibility of Washington's expressions of
outrage is vitiated when those same officials remain silent, or even excuse, equally serious --
and in some cases, more egregious -- abuses that the United States and its allies commit.
Following the Syrian regime's alleged use of chemical weapons in early April, President
Trump painted Assad as an exceptionally vile enemy. He immediately issued a tweet describing
the Syrian leader as "an animal" who gassed his own people. In his subsequent
address to the American people announcing punitive air and missile strikes , Trump charged
that the incident confirmed "a pattern of chemical weapons use by that very terrible regime.
The evil and despicable attack left mothers and fathers, infants and children thrashing in pain
and gasping for air. These are not the actions of a man. They are crimes of a monster instead."
The president also blasted Russia and Iran for their longstanding sponsorship of Assad. "To
Iran and to Russia, I ask: What kind of a nation wants to be associated with the mass murder of
innocent men, women and children?"
TAC 's Daniel Larison provided an apt
response to that question. "Trump should know the answer, since he just hosted one of the
chief architects of the war on Yemen that the U.S. has backed to the hilt for the last three
years. Britain welcomed the Saudi crown prince earlier on, and France just hosted him in the
last few days. All three have been arming and supporting the Saudis and their allies in Yemen
no matter how many atrocities they commit."
Indeed, the United States has been an outright accomplice in those atrocities, which among
other tragic effects, has led to a
cholera epidemic in Yemen. The U.S. military
refuels Saudi coalition warplanes and
provides intelligence to assist them in their attacks on Yemen -- attacks that have
exhibited total indifference about civilian casualties. A recent revelation implicates
Washington in even more atrocious conduct. Evidence has emerged that Saudi forces have employed
white phosphorous munitions, and that the United States supplied those foul weapons that
inflict horrible burns on their victims. For U.S. leaders to criticize Syria for using chemical
weapons in light of such behavior may reach a new level of hypocrisy.
Washington's double standard also is evident regarding the international conduct of another
U.S. ally: Turkey. U.S. officials reacted with
a vitriolic denunciation of Russia's annexation of Crimea, but the reaction was -- and
remains -- very different regarding Ankara's invasion of Cyprus in 1974 and the occupation of
that country's northern territory. Washington's criticism was tepid even at the beginning, and
it has become more so with the passage of time. Indeed, there is greater U.S. pressure on the
government of Cyprus to accept a peace settlement that would recognize the legitimacy of the
puppet Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus that Ankara established (and has populated with
settlers from the Turkish mainland) and countenance the continued presence of Turkish troops.
Although the United States initially imposed mild sanctions on Turkey for invading and
occupying its neighbor, they were
soon lifted . Sanctions imposed against Russia are stronger, and there is little prospect
that they will be lifted, or even eased, in the foreseeable future.
Washington's criticism of Turkey's repeated military incursions into northern Iraq and
northern Syria likewise have been barely audible. That has been the case even though the
targets in Syria are Kurdish forces that aided the United States and its allies in their war
against ISIS.
The flagrant U.S. double standard also is apparent in the disparate assessments of the
domestic conduct of Iran and such U.S. allies as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. UN Ambassador Nikki
Haley verbally eviscerates Tehran at every opportunity for repressing its population. When
anti-government demonstrations erupted in several Iranian cities earlier this year, Haley was
quick to embrace their cause. "The Iranian regime's contempt for the rights of its people has
been widely documented for many years,"
she stated during a Security Council session. Haley added that the United States stood
"unapologetically with those in Iran who seek freedom for themselves, prosperity for their
families, and dignity for their nation."
Iran certainly does not resemble a Western-style democracy, but its political system is
vastly more open than either Egypt's or Saudi Arabia's. Although the clerical Guardian Council
excludes any candidate for office that it deems unacceptable, competing elections take place
between individuals with often sharply contrasting views. President Hassan Rouhani won a new
electoral mandate over a decidedly more hardline opponent in the May 2017 presidential
election. Compared to some U.S. allies in the Middle East, Iran resembles a Jeffersonian
democracy.
The Saudi royal family does not tolerate even a hint of domestic opposition. People have
been imprisoned or beheaded merely for daring to criticize the regime. Saudi Arabia's overall
human-rights record is easily one of the worst in the world, as Human Rights Watch
and
Amnesty International have documented. It is a measure of just how stifling the system is
that the government finally allowing women to drive is considered a radical reform. A similar
suffocating
miasma of repression exists in Egypt, where President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has
imprisoned thousands of political opponents, executed hundreds, and wins rigged elections
by
absurd margins reminiscent of those in Soviet satellite countries during the Cold War.
Yet, President Trump and other U.S. officials express little criticism of those brutal,
autocratic allies. Trump's demeanor during his state visit to Riyadh last year bordered on
fawning. Washington approves multi-billion-dollar arms deals for both Saudi Arabia and Egypt,
despite their legendary human-rights abuses. As noted, the United States even continues to
assist Saudi Arabia in its atrocity-ridden military intervention in Yemen.
There may be plausible geo-strategic reasons for persisting in such double standards. Iran,
for example, has been openly hostile to the United States and its policy objectives since the
fall of the Shah. It is not illogical for Washington to be intent on countering the influence
of Tehran and its Syrian ally, even if that requires making common cause with other repressive
regimes in the region. But U.S. leaders need to be candid with the American people and
acknowledge that their decisions are based on cold calculations of national interest, not
ethical considerations. They should at least spare us their pontificating and the pretense that
they care about the rights or welfare of Middle Eastern populations. Washington's policies
indicate otherwise.
Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute
and a contributing editor at The American Conservative , is the author or coauthor of
10 books on international affairs, including Perilous Partners: The Benefits and Pitfalls
of America's Alliances with Authoritarian Regime. MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR
"Evidence has emerged that Saudi forces have employed white phosphorous munitions, and
that the United States supplied those foul weapons that inflict horrible burns on their
victims. For U.S. leaders to criticize Syria for using chemical weapons in light of such
behavior may reach a new level of hypocrisy."
Gah! I am so ashamed of having voted for this man. I really thought he was going to get us
out of there. I can't believe he's selling the Saudis white phosphorus bombs at the same time
he's justifying missile strikes against Syria because of "alleged" use of chemical
weapons.
"I can't believe he's selling the Saudis white phosphorus bombs at the same time he's
justifying missile strikes against Syria because of "alleged" use of chemical weapons."
You don't have anything to be ashamed about. One can be disappointed that the candidate of
their choice by hook or by crook has gone astray. But those are his choices. And those
choices are to the delight of those we opposed in the election. I suspect that if we sold WP,
it's a sale that took place long before the election.
I thought he would reduce our footprint as well. In fact, I suspected he was going to less
with less. Other states are entitled to work out their issues with one another. As a nation
we have some shame to bear, but Pres. Trump is far down the least.
The author torpedoes his own argument when he says "there may be plausible geo-strategic
reasons for persisting in such double standards. Precisely! Ultimately, all the author wants
is that US politicians spare Americans their pontificating and the pretence that they care
about the rights or welfare of populations. In other words, he has no quibble with the
foreign policy, he just wants US politicians to be open about what they're doing.
"Iran, for example, has been openly hostile to the United States and its policy objectives
since the fall of the Shah."
Iran has been openly hostile to the US since Eisenhower engineered the fall of Mosaddegh,
and for good reasons. The Shah and his torturers fit right in with MbS and al-Siri, or the
Bush/Tenet CIA and its Haspels.
"Evidence has emerged that Saudi forces have employed white phosphorous munitions, and
that the United States supplied those foul weapons "
Talk about burying the lede along with the bodies.
"A wolf, meeting with a Lamb astray from the fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him,
but to find some plea to justify to the Lamb the Wolf's right to eat him. He thus addressed
him: "Sirrah, last year you grossly insulted me."
"Indeed," bleated the Lamb in a mournful tone of voice, "I was not then born."
Then said the Wolf, "You feed in my pasture."
"No, good sir," replied the Lamb, "I have not yet tasted grass."
Again said the Wolf, "You drink of my well."
"No," exclaimed the Lamb, "I never yet drank water, for as yet my mother's milk is both
food and drink to me."
Upon which the Wolf seized him and ate him up, saying, "Well! I won't remain supperless,
even though you refute every one of my imputations."
Moral: The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny."
**************************
For a few more years, the US will have absolute power over other people and we will use that
power in an absolutely corrupt way at the behest of our overlords in Riyadh and Jerusalem.
When retribution finally comes our way, no one will shed a tear for us.
You really do have virtually none left in your long march to empire.
It has been almost nothing but lies and manipulation for decades.
Yes, you still have subservient countries like Britain or France who parrot your stuff,
but that's only because they are afraid of the consequences of not doing so.
You cannot be both a decent country and a world empire, and almost everyone in the world
outside the United States understands that.
Great article in my opinion. I disagree with the comment of Michael Kenny: I don't think the
author just wants the U.S. politicians to stop lyinf and to start to admit that they -U.S.
politicians and the other U.S. people with power- do what they do because of their interests.
I think the author wants to denounce the fact that all the ethical arguments presented by
those with power -not only in the U.S., by the way- are "necessary lies".
How necessary lies? Simple: no president, or ruller, can face his polity's people to say
that they are going to war on economics or political interests; the only way to justify, I
would dare to say emotionaly more than morally, all the horrors of war, is with the excuse of
the "Greater Good". To do evil is justified if it is done in order to check a bigger evil",
so to speak.
But obvoisully, no one accepts all the spenditures of war "just to do good".
And I think the author points to another, maybe more profound matter: it is like the tale
of the lier shepperd who, when the wolf was really coming, no one believed him, and well, the
tale didn´t end too well for the shepperd; but I will leave it as an open end.
Now the other countries arround the world are also interets´guided, and therefore
can be considered schemers aswell. The problem is that even schemers need to be able to feel
trust, or common action becomes immpossible.
Good article, but a bit off-base on the criticism of Turkey's annexation of northern Cyprus.
As you may or may not recall, in 1974 the Greek military junta planned to annex all of Cyprus
to Greece, which would have violated the treaty then in force and brought northern Cyprus,
which was predominantly inhabited by Turks, under Greek rule. Turkey responded accordingly by
taking northern Cyprus. Greece and Turkey have had a long history of conflict; it is a
mistake to make a simple good guys vs bad guys story out of it. I know it was a long time
ago, but history is important.
"... There is no "Western consensus" in support of "rewriting" the deal. Germany has no interest in revising the agreement, and has said so explicitly. If the U.S. and France cook up some other agreement between themselves, none of the other parties will respect its terms. If one or two parties to the agreement can go back and "rewrite" the parts they don't like whenever they want, none of the other parties will see any reason to abide by its requirements. Thinking that the U.S. can "rewrite" a deal and that the other side simply has to go along with it is as arrogant as it is stupid. ..."
"... Iran isn't going to agree to make additional concessions when the other parties have no intention of offering them anything more, and Iran already gave up as much as it was prepared to concede the first time. ..."
The Wall Street Journal editors make
a ludicrous argument in favor of a "revised" deal with Iran:
This is a major advance, and it offers hope that the U.S. and France, Britain and Germany
can agree on a revised pact. Contrary to common misunderstanding, Iran, Russia and China
wouldn't have to agree to these changes. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the deal
is known, isn't a treaty. Mr. Obama never submitted it for Senate approval because he knew it
would be defeated. The deal is essentially a set of assurances agreed to at the United
Nations that lack the force of U.S. law.
The JCPOA was endorsed by a U.N. Security Council resolution (UNSCR
2231), so all member states are obliged to respect the deal as it was written. The deal wasn't
a treaty, but that doesn't give the U.S. license to violate it or arbitrarily change it after
the fact. Indeed, every attempt to "rewrite" an agreement once it has already been made is a
violation that makes U.S. promises seem worthless.
There is no "Western consensus" in support of "rewriting" the deal. Germany has
no interest in revising the agreement, and has said so explicitly. If the U.S. and France
cook up some other agreement between themselves, none of the other parties will respect its
terms. If one or two parties to the agreement can go back and "rewrite" the parts they don't
like whenever they want, none of the other parties will see any reason to abide by its
requirements. Thinking that the U.S. can "rewrite" a deal and that the other side simply has to
go along with it is as arrogant as it is stupid.
Iran would have to agree to any changes because Iran would be the one implementing those
changes, and their government has
said many times in no uncertain terms that this isn't going to happen. The reason for this
should be obvious: Iran isn't going to agree to make additional concessions when the other
parties have no intention of offering them anything more, and Iran already gave up as much as
it was prepared to concede the first time. Iran isn't going to give up more when they are under
less pressure and have more international support. Besides, if they accepted a "rewrite" of the
deal now, it would just be a matter of time until the U.S. came back with another "rewrite" and
then another after that.
"Rewriting" the requirements of an agreement made in good faith is a dishonest and treacherous way to deal with other
governments. Other governments can see that for what it is, and they will know that the U.S. can't be trusted to keep its end of
a bargain. All of this talk about a "new deal" is just a bit of kabuki to distract from the fact that the U.S. is about to
renege on its international commitments for no good reason. Hawks are desperate to spread blame around for their reckless
scrapping of a working nonproliferation agreement, but everyone can see through this. When the deal falls apart, the Trump
administration and its hawkish allies will be the only ones responsible.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the deal is known, isn't a treaty. Mr. Obama
never submitted it for Senate approval because he knew it would be defeated.
By that standard (ratified by 2/3 vote in Senate) most of our trade treaties are not
treaties. They're passed by the normal legislative process. (TPP would have been an example;
NAFTA was passed that way, too.)
Of course, given the rabid AIPAC-inspired hatred of Iran, I'm not saying the JCPOA would
have passed that way, either.
" a violation that makes U.S. promises seem worthless."
Russia has defined the US as a nation who cannot be negotiated with because its promises
are meaningless. They have a word for it which goes beyond "untrustworthy," and means someone
who makes promises with no intention of keeping them even at the time they are made.
More and more nations will reach the same conclusion.
By that standard (ratified by 2/3 vote in Senate) most of our trade treaties are not
treaties. They're passed by the normal legislative process. (TPP would have been an
example; NAFTA was passed that way, too.)
Of course, given the rabid AIPAC-inspired hatred of Iran, I'm not saying the JCPOA would
have passed that way, either.
Not sure what the debate is they aren't treaties by strict Constitutional standards.
Treaties are passed without ratification just like wars are entered without a Declaration of
War.
Maybe the outcome of all this is that foreign leaders who want solid agreements will try
to get real treaties from the US government instead of convincing the US to do some
extra-Constitutional measure that they think should be treated like a treaty when it
isn't.
And that would be a good thing, from a conservative perspective.
Don't you understand, all international agreements are bound by U.S. law because all of the
nations of the earth must bow down to us.
We are such an egotistic, narcissistic people. We will get our comeuppance when we least
expect it. I keep hoping for us to wake up but I hope in vain.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board thinks like a sleazy lawyer – what a surprise.
The honor of thieves – and I would not count on Germany maintaining its "splendid
isolation" either.
Back in the day, Schroeder pretended to oppose Bush's Iraq invasion for electoral gain,
while carefully pretending any of the actual options he had to work against it. The options
included using Germany's then-membership in the USNC to unilaterally invoke UN Resolution 377
to force a meeting of the UN General Assembly, with the goal of pass a resolution opposing
and disavowing the planned invasion of Iraq. Other, smaller and less powerful countries
without much affliction of "Western values and civilization" were trying to organize such a
step outside the USNC, and US "diplomats" spent a lot of effort making threats to coerce the
more vulnerable nations that participated into dropping out.
Today, Merkel declares that Germany "supports" the repeated illegal bombing of Syria, and
has little to say regarding the Turkish and US invasions and Israeli acts of aggression.
Should we consider Israel, undeclared nuclear state, or India, non-signatory to the NPT?
Or the failure of the US and Russia to follow the example set by China and settle for minimum
means of reprisal even in the face of US forward based missile defense designed to neutralize
any deterrent of a "reasonable" size and number?
Should we consider Iraq, Libya, Yemen – those crimes of aggression perpetrated by
"the West"?
Nobody can look at the historic record, and with a straight face claim that the US and its
various "allies" and hanger-ons and co-belligerents have any standing with respect to the
conduct of Iran. Neither Trump nor Macron believes for a moment that the "new deal" is the
objective of all this "diplomacy". The only ones fooled are the dupes that take these
contortions at face value, and believe that either "leader" is acting in good faith.
Don't you understand, all international agreements are bound by U.S. law because all of
the nations of the earth must bow down to us.
All international agreements are based on legal processes established by the existence of
nations as sovereign entities operating on their own principles, through
self-determination.
This is recognized and established in the UN Charter, by the way.
In effect, it practically means the US needs to acknowledge Iranian law, and Iran needs to
acknowledge American law.
Globalists who have wanted to act outside this framework have been the arrogant ones, in
different ways and different forms, over the decades.
Again, can't Iran Leader just visit Trump at his hotel during one of weekends and enjoy the
best tasting chocolate ever? Or better yet, deliver a Boeing plane to the Iran/Trump summit
where Trump takes all the credit for the jobs? Maybe Iran can state how big Trump's hands
are. (or Something)
Really I can't tell if Trump is really against the Iran deal or just wants a couple
Iranian concessions (or complements on his golfing game) to not back out of the deal. Trump
loves to talk loudly and do very little. (It is a very weird way to be a dove.)
I can only surmise that Trump's plan is to destroy America's standing as the indispensable
party, and instead make us the poison pill. I really do think if the US walks back from this
we will see the rest of the world open the doors to Iran further to make up the shortfall. It
would be the only way to save the deal and encourage Iran to uphold it end of the deal.
This of course would push the US to implement trade sanctions against the EU, Russia, and
China. Further isolating the US as the rest of the world turns its back on us.
The ethnic cleansing of Cherokees and the seizure of the Black Hills from the Sioux after
gold was discovered there are just two of the more notorious examples.
The US violated treaties with impunity because the Native Americans were powerless. Today
the US is a client state of the Saudis and Israelis, and it violates international law in the
Middle East at their behest for the same reason – because it can.
When it comes to nations or people, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts
absolutely.
Our elites get away with whatever they can, and there is no law beyond, whatever cane be
done, will be done.
Since international trade is conducted in US dollars, which are backed by the full faith
and power of the US military, there is little junior partners can do other than to obey to
avoid punishing economic sanctions, or at worst election interference, regime change, covert
military action and ultimately open war.
France, always a rival of Britain, senses Brexit weakness and an opportunity to cosy up to
the US to its own advantage in the globalist system. As an international bankster, this fits
Macron's own elitist agenda well.
"Our friends here in China and in Russia tell us that we should not say this. Nevertheless,
we do not respect the UN. It is controlled by many players, but in the end the master of
puppets who pulls all the strings in the UN is the US.
[...]
So these are the major supporters of the terrorist groups in Syria: Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
Turkey, France, Great Britain and the US. [...]
Each one of them has its own terrorist groups. [...] They are warlords. Their true
doctrine and ideology is money . It depends on who is paying them.
They get their money from the Saudi Arabia and they follow Wahhabi model of Islam, which is
not the model accepted by the majority of the Muslim people across the world."
...President Barack Obama, who had run a quasi-antiwar liberal campaign for the White House, had embraced the assassination program
and had decreed, "the CIA gets what it wants." Intelligence budgets were maintaining the steep upward curve that had started in 2001,
and while all agencies were benefiting, none had done as well as the CIA At just under $15 billion, the agency's budget had climbed
by 56 percent just since 2004.
Decades earlier, Richard Helms, the CIA director for whom the event was named, would customarily
refer to the defense contractors who pressured him to spend his budget on their wares as "those bastards." Such disdain for commerce
in the world of spooks was now long gone, as demonstrated by the corporate sponsorship of the tables jammed into the Grand Ballroom
that evening. The executives, many of whom had passed through the revolving door from government service, were there to rub shoulders
with old friends and current partners. "It was totally garish," one attendee told me afterward. "It seemed like every arms manufacturer
in the country had taken a table. Everyone was doing business, right and left."
In the decade since 9/11, the CIA had been regularly blighted by scandal-revelations of torture, renditions, secret "black site"
prisons, bogus intelligence justifying the invasion of Iraq, ignored signs of the impending 9/11 attacks-but such unwholesome realities
found no echo in this comradely gathering. Even George Tenet, the CIA director who had presided over all of the aforementioned scandals,
was greeted with heartfelt affection by erstwhile colleagues as he, along with almost every other living former CIA director, stood
to be introduced by Master of Ceremonies John McLaughlin, a former deputy director himself deeply complicit in the Iraq fiasco. Each,
with the exception of Stansfield Turner (still bitterly resented for downsizing the agency post-Vietnam), received ringing applause,
but none more than the night's honoree, former CIA director and then-current secretary of defense Robert M. Gates.
Although Gates had left the CIA eighteen years before, he was very much the father figure of the institution and a mentor to the
intelligence chieftains, active and retired, who cheered him so fervently that night at the Ritz-Carlton. He had climbed through
the ranks of the national security bureaucracy with a ruthless determination all too evident to those around him. Ray McGovern, his
supervisor in his first agency post, as an analyst with the intelligence directorate's soviet foreign policy branch, recalls writing
in an efficiency report that the young man's "evident and all-consuming ambition is a disruptive influence in the branch." There
had come a brief check on his rise to power when his involvement in the Iran-Contra imbroglio cratered an initial attempt to win
confirmation as CIA director, but success came a few years later, in 1991, despite vehement protests from former colleagues over
his persistent willingness to sacrifice analytic objectivity to the political convenience of his masters.
Gates's successful 1991 confirmation as CIA chief owed much, so colleagues assessed, to diligent work behind the scenes on the
part of the Senate Intelligence Committee's staff director, George Tenet. In 1993, Tenet moved on to be director for intelligence
programs on the Clinton White House national security staff, in which capacity he came to know and esteem John Brennan, a midlevel
and hitherto undistinguished CIA analyst assigned to brief White House staffers. Tenet liked Brennan so much that when he himself
moved to the CIA as deputy director in 1995, he had the briefer appointed station chief in Riyadh, an important position normally
reserved for someone with actual operational experience. In this sensitive post Brennan worked tirelessly to avoid irritating his
Saudi hosts, showing reluctance, for example, to press them for Osama bin Laden's biographical details when asked to do so by the
bin Laden unit back at headquarters.
Brennan returned to Washington in 1999 under Tenet's patronage, initially as his chief of staff and then as CIA executive director,
and by 2003 he had transitioned to the burgeoning field of intelligence fusion bureaucracy. The notion that the way to avert miscommunication
between intelligence bureaucracies was to create yet more layers of bureaucracy was popular in Washington in the aftermath of 9/11.
One concrete expression of this trend was the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, known as T-TIC and then renamed the National Counter
Terrorism Center a year later. Brennan was the first head of T-TIC, distinguishing himself in catering to the abiding paranoia of
the times. On one occasion, notorious within the community, he circulated an urgent report that al-Qaeda was encrypting targeting
information for terrorist attacks in the broadcasts of the al-Jazeera TV network, thereby generating an "orange" alert and the cancellation
of dozens of international flights. The initiative was greeted with malicious amusement over at the CIA's own Counterterrorism Center,
whose chief at the time, José Rodríguez, later opined that Brennan had been trying to build up his profile with higher authority.
"Brennan was a major factor in keeping [the al-Jazeera/al-Qaeda story] alive. We thought it was ridiculous," he told a reporter.
"My own view is he saw this, he took this, as a way to have relevance, to take something to the White House." Tellingly, an Obama
White House spokesman later excused Brennan's behavior on the grounds that though he had circulated the report, he hadn't believed
it himself.
Exiting government service in 2005, Brennan spent the next three years heading The Analysis Corporation, an obscure but profitable
intelligence contractor engaged in preparing terrorist watch lists for the government, work for which he was paid $763,000 in 2008.
Among the useful relationships he had cultivated over the years was well-connected Democrat Anthony Lake, a former national security
adviser to Bill Clinton, who recommended him to presidential candidate Barack Obama. Meeting for the first time shortly after Obama's
election victory, the pair bonded immediately, with Obama "finishing Brennan's sentences," by one account. Among their points of
wholehearted agreement was the merit of a surgical approach to terrorist threats, the "need to target the metastasizing disease without
destroying the surrounding tissue," as Brennan put it, for which drones and their Hellfire missiles seemed the ideal tools. Obama
was initially balked in his desire to make Brennan CIA director because of the latter's all-too-close association with the agency's
torture program, so instead the new president made him his assistant for counterterrorism and homeland security, with an office down
the hall from the Oval Office. Two years into the administration, everyone in the Ritz-Carlton ballroom knew that the bulky Irishman
was the most powerful man in U.S. intelligence as the custodian of the president's kill list, on which the chief executive and former
constitutional law professor insisted on reserving the last word, making his final selections for execution at regularly scheduled
Tuesday afternoon meetings. "You know, our president has his brutal side," a CIA source cognizant of Obama's involvement observed
to me at the time.
Now, along with the other six hundred diners at the Helms dinner, Brennan listened attentively as Gates rose to accept the coveted
award for "exemplary service to the nation and the Central Intelligence Agency." After paying due tribute to previous honorees as
well as his pride in being part of the CIA "family," Gates spoke movingly of a recent and particularly tragic instance of CIA sacrifice,
the seven men and women killed by a suicide bomber at an agency base, Forward Operating Base Chapman, in Khost, Afghanistan, in 2009.
All present bowed their heads in silent tribute.
Gates then moved on to a more upbeat topic. When first he arrived at the Pentagon in 2007, he said, he had found deep-rooted resistance
to "new technology" among "flyboys with silk scarves" still wedded to venerable traditions of fighter-plane combat. But all that,
he informed his rapt audience, had changed. Factories were working "day and night, day and night," to turn out the vital weapons
for the fight against terrorism. "So from now on," he concluded, his voice rising, "the watchword is: drones, baby, drones!"
But when [Lang] bristles that "I confess that I was unaware that this is a forum for people
who hate America," I won't be getting my hopes up too high.
That does sound like something parroted by Slumlord Hannity and other Fox News
types. What is America? Land? People? Government? If I don't like the government and its
policies (purchased by moneyed interests and non-Americans) am I an "America hater"? I lived
all my life in America. I have close relatives and immediate family who fought in wars and
immediate family buried at Arlington. How does one qualify as an America hater? Not to
genuflect to the military and their illegal and gravely immoral wars and actions? To disagree
with the neocon/neolib policies and policymakers? Policies which run counter to Christian
morality and natural law? If so then I'm an America hater in good standing.
I dislike the policies of my government as much as you appear to dislike the policies of
yours. So we're on the parallel tracks there. But it's possible to do that and still be a
patriot. That's democracy.
Democracy's not working at present, certainly not in my country and maybe not quite as
expected for all those Americans patriots who voted anti-neocon. But it's still a good idea,
democracy, wouldn't you agree?
it's a wonder there's anything left of this country at all.
spiritually, there isn't
just as morally, the ZUSA is a dead husk. This country has absolutely zero credibility or
standing in the world anymore. All they've got is a military they can use to menace and bully
the rest of the planet into submission. Which is a specialty of the Clintons.
It's wasn't just the Branch Dravidians who were burned alive (no doubt to the cackling of
the war hag), or just Gadhafi who was murdered by her sub-human orcs, but this man also had
his country illegally bombed and was dragged off to a mock kangaroo court until he was given
a chance to speak, whereupon he humiliated his tormentors
the reason I post this image of the hag is to remind readers of what the alternative to Trump
actually was.
Fred likes to fulminate over all things Trump (and us Deplorables – calling us 'gas
station louts, and much worse ; ), for his own dubious agenda (biological warfare ; ), but
the fact remains that even as Trump adopts all the traits of a neocon war pig, and always has
been an egotistical and superficial man, he's still a gazillion times to the n'th power
preferable to the gorgon war hag.
For all of Trump's many foibles and failings, he isn't the root cause of all the things
Fred is lambasting in this article. Rather it's the ((deepstate)) that Trump has made a
devil's bargain with, which does not change with presidents. If we're ever to prevent the
looming war with Russia, then it would behoove us to look behind the curtain at the fiend
pulling the levers. Talking about Trump, as if he's the cause of it all, is like being
enthralled over the theatrics of the wizard of Oz.
What Freedland and others are advocating is illegal. They have no moral or legal
authority.
For the avoidance of any doubt or confusion, attacking a foreign country without legal
basis under international law represents the "supreme international crime". The launching
of an "aggressive war" is the "supreme crime" because it is the overarching offense which
contains within itself "the accumulated evil of the whole" (e.g. rape, torture, murder,
mass murder, ethnic cleansing, etc).
People were tried, convicted and hung at Nuremberg for the crime of waging wars of
aggression (as well as crimes against humanity).
Regardless of how unpalatable we may find it, even the verified use of chemical weapons
-be they by state or non-state actors - is not a legal basis to attack a country, any
country.
As Phyllis Bennis, Fellow and Director of the New Internationalism Project at the
Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., clearly explained (following the last
alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government, and subsequent military strike on
the Syrian air base ordered by President Trump):
"The UN Charter is very vague about a lot of things, but it's very clear about one
thing, and that is, when is it legal to go to war? When is it legal to use a military
strike? There's only two occasions according to the UN Charter The UN Charter says, "A
country can use military force under two circumstances: Number one, if the Security Council
authorizes it." Number two, Article 51 of the UN Charter, which is about self-defence. But
it's a very narrowly constrained version of self-defence It says very explicitly, "If a
country has been attacked." "until the Security Council can meet, immediate self-defence is
allowed." Neither of those two categories applied here. So, it was clearly an illegal
act."
"... How about some basic honesty about the role the US and it's allies have played in fostering and continue if this civil war. That, coupled by a complete retreat of US imperial neoliberal ambitions across the entire region, you know, might just be incredibly effective ..."
"... Are we seriously going to pretend we and our allies haven't provided financial, technological, diplomatic, political and military support to this extremely heterogenous group of rebels, without which the whole uprising (a legitimate uprising, sure, but certainly not a viable one) would have been over in a few months, without any of the atrocities, tragedies and destruction of the past 6 years? ..."
"... For Europe and the US to have any credibility the double standards applied has to come to an end ..."
"... Sorry but the arguments in the article don't hold water. Reeks of the longstanding agenda of the war profiteers and the Clinton gang to invade this country. On hypocritical reasons. ..."
Here's an idea Jonathan for another solution. How about some basic honesty about the role
the US and it's allies have played in fostering and continue if this civil war. That, coupled
by a complete retreat of US imperial neoliberal ambitions across the entire region, you know,
might just be incredibly effective
But nor can we watch the brutal dictator slaughter his own people
Why not? We're watching Israelis shoot and kill unarmed Palestinians, we're
watching our favourite Saudis bomb and kill Yemeni civilians, we're watching our
Nobel-winning inspirational Myanmar leader oversee the persecution, massacre and forced
displacement of an entire people, we're watching the North Korean leader oppress and starve
his people while stepping closer to a nuclear war against a currently volatile superpower,
we're watching the Philipino head of state launching a literal war against low-level drug
dealers and junkies, we're watching several central Asian dictators imprison and torture
dissidents and oppress their people while robbing them of their national wealth, we're
watching the Chinese and Russian leaders do pretty much the same, we're watching the Turkish
leader kidnap dissidents from EU countries, imprison thousands of alleged dissidents and
invade a neighbouring country to fight against part of said countries' inhabitants, we're
watching corrupt politicians, media and judges completing the final touches of a coup in the
fifth largest country in the world, and then there's Africa, which is a whole other chapter.
What specifically is it about Syria that made you decide that yeah, all these things are
pretty bad, but that's the one thing we really have to do something about?
Perhaps that was why, five years ago, the House of Commons voted to leave the Assad
regime untouched. Back then the death toll in Syria stood at around 100,000. More than
400,000 have died since that day. The proof is there if we can bear to look at it. Inaction,
too, can be deadly.
Inaction? Really? Are we seriously going to pretend we and our allies haven't provided
financial, technological, diplomatic, political and military support to this extremely heterogenous group of rebels, without which the whole uprising (a legitimate uprising, sure,
but certainly not a viable one) would have been over in a few months, without any of the
atrocities, tragedies and destruction of the past 6 years?
For Europe and the US to have any credibility the double standards applied has to come to an
end. Israel has to comply with UN resolutions and the US has to stop using its veto to block
those resolutions that seek to make Israel comply to international standards of acceptable
behaviour.
If we can't do that we can forget getting Assad or Putin or anyone else to respect
anything we have to say. As it stands the so called West has no moral authority in the Middle
East.
But nor can we watch the brutal dictator slaughter his own people
Why is this supposed slaughter such an imperative when we seem to approve of and even
profit from selling weapons to slaughters elsewhere in the region
Sorry but the arguments in the article don't hold water. Reeks of the longstanding agenda
of the war profiteers and the Clinton gang to invade this country. On hypocritical
reasons.
Supposedly according to a statement by South Korean National Security Adviser Chung
Eui-yong, Kim Jong-un is 'ready' to negotiate away with the US his nuclear deterrance and has
asked to meet Trump. The allegations in the above report cannot be true, they would be
suicidal. Kim Jong-un is far too intelligent for that. I think more likely the report is
seriously distorted by Chung Eui-yong as a means of stupid and naive manipulation - if so that
would be a sinister development.
The US is not capable of entering into any legal agreement under which it can be trusted to
abide by the terms for more than 5 minutes - that has been proved multiple times over in the
recent years. Qadhafy also negotiated away his nuclear programme with legal agreements and
where did he end up? And that was before the more recent TOTAL renunciation of adherence to
international law by the US which is no longer even covered by a fig leaf!
Kim has claimed (reasonably) before that IF North Korea's security COULD be adequately
guaranteed he would be ready to give up his nuclear weapons. That does NOT mean it is POSSIBLE
to achieve any such guarantee - who could ever make any such guarantee and how could it be
enforced, and what would the interests of the enforcers be? It seems impossible to me.
Certainly any bilateral agreement between the US and Kim has no relevance whatsoever to with
Kim's offer - it would be like signing his own death warrant.
What makes the report especially implausible by many orders of magnitude is the pitiful
allegation in the statement:
"I told President Trump that in our meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said he is
committed to denuclearization. Kim pledged that North Korea will refrain from any further
nuclear or missile tests; he understands that the routine joint military exercises between the
Republic of Korea and the United States must continue. And he expressed his eagerness to meet
President Trump as soon as possible."
...
"Along with President Trump we are optimistic about continuing a diplomatic process to test
the possibility of a peaceful resolution. The Republic of Korea, The United States and our
partners stand together in insisting that we not repeat the mistakes of the past; and that the
pressure will continue until North Korea matches it's words with concrete actions. Thank
You."
In other words, according to (what I presume is a US puppet and beneficiary of the
warmongering) Chung Eui-yong, Kim Jong-un bows down to the supreme military superiority of the
US and humbly begs for promises that are not worth writing on toilet paper. Anybody who
believes that is a moron. Chung Eui-yong is obviously deliberately distorting Kim's position,
as an attempt to sabotage the peace negotiations, the treacherous monster. I can well
understand that Kim Jong-un would be horrified by Chung Eui-yong's statement which would
massively increase distrust and undermine the tremendous recent diplomatic advances between
North and South Korea, but hopefully Kim will navigate around it. Chung Eui-yong must be fired
immediately.
I cannot see how North Korea's security could possibly be guaranteed without its nuclear
weapons, unless the US gives up all its weapons, navy and worldwide bases. If any such
possibility exists it would certainly be dependent on guarantees from many parties including
(most crucially) Russia and China, but also the SCO, EU, NATO and the US. The Iran agreement
already had multiple guarantors but even that is threatening to unravel, and the US is
threatening to tear it up. How could Kim trust that he will not end up sodomised with a bayonet
like Qadhafy? The real problem is how can any agreement be enforced if the US tears it up?
Probably any solution if it exists must include arming North Korea with the latest Russian
non-nuclear defence equipment with guarantees to upgrade them, combined with defence
agreements, investments in the economy, and certainly with multi-year transition arrangements
before nuclear weapons are actually removed.
Forget about signing a piece of toilet paper with the US - it is meaningless unless North
Korea has POTENT means to enforce US compliance with any such agreement. Such enforcement
cannot rely on legal channels because the US is a rogue state with no respect for the law.
"he understands that the routine joint military exercises between the Republic of Korea and
the United States must continue" - bad joke, bad taste.
Why We're Underestimating American Collapse The Strange New Pathologies of the World's First Rich Failed State
You might say, having read some of my recent essays, "Umair! Don't worry! Everything will be fine! It's not that bad!"
I would look at you politely, and then say gently, "To tell you the truth, I don't think we're taking collapse nearly seriously enough."
Why? When we take a hard look at US collapse, we see a number of social pathologies on the rise. Not just any kind. Not even troubling,
worrying, and dangerous ones. But strange and bizarre ones. Unique ones. Singular and gruesomely weird ones I've never really seen
before, and outside of a dystopia written by Dickens and Orwell, nor have you, and neither has history. They suggest that whatever
"numbers" we use to represent decline -- shrinking real incomes, inequality, and so on -- we are in fact grossly underestimating
what pundits call the "human toll", but which sensible human beings like you and I should simply think of as the overwhelming despair,
rage, and anxiety of living in a collapsing society.
Let me give you just five examples of what I'll call the social pathologies of collapse -- strange, weird, and gruesome new
diseases, not just ones we don't usually see in healthy societies, but ones that we have never really seen before in any modern society.
America has had 11 school shootings in the last 23 days. That's one every other day, more or less. That statistic is alarming
enough -- but it is just a number. Perspective asks us for comparison. So let me put that another way. America has had 11 school
shootings in the last 23 days, which is more than anywhere else in the world, even Afghanistan or Iraq. In fact, the phenomenon of
regular school shootings appears to be a unique feature of American collapse -- it just doesn't happen in any other country --
and that is what I mean by "social pathologies of collapse": a new, bizarre, terrible disease striking society.
Why are American kids killing each other? Why doesn't their society care enough to intervene? Well, probably because those kids
have given up on life -- and their elders have given up on them. Or maybe you're right -- and it's not that simple. Still, what
do the kids who aren't killing each other do? Well, a lot of them are busy killing themselves.
So there is of course also an "opioid epidemic". We use that phrase too casually, but it much more troubling than it appears on
first glance. Here is what is really curious about it. In many countries in the world -- most of Asia and Africa -- one can buy
all the opioids one wants from any local pharmacy, without a prescription. You might suppose then that opioid abuse as a mass epidemic
would be a global phenomenon. Yet we don't see opioid epidemics anywhere but America -- especially not ones so vicious
and widespread they shrink life expectancy. So the "opioid epidemic" -- mass self-medication with the hardest of hard drugs --
is again a social pathology of collapse: unique to American life. It is not quite captured in the numbers, but only through comparison
-- and when we see it in global perspective, we get a sense of just how singularly troubled American life really is.
Why would people abuse opioids en masse unlike anywhere else in the world? They must be living genuinely traumatic and desperate
lives, in which there is little healthcare, so they have to self-medicate the terror away. But what is so desperate about them? Well,
consider another example: the "nomadic retirees". They live in their cars. They go from place to place, season after season, chasing
whatever low-wage work they can find -- spring, an Amazon warehouse, Christmas, Walmart.
Now, you might say -- "well, poor people have always chased seasonal work!" But that is not really the point: absolute powerlessness
and complete indignity is. In no other country I can see do retirees who should have been able to save up enough to live on now living
in their cars in order to find work just to go on eating before they die -- not even in desperately poor ones, where at least families
live together, share resources, and care for one another. This is another pathology of collapse that is unique to America -- utter
powerlessness to live with dignity. Numbers don't capture it -- but comparisons paint a bleak picture.
How did America's elderly end up cheated of dignity? After all, even desperately poor countries have "informal social support
systems" -- otherwise known as families and communities. But in America, there is the catastrophic collapse of social bonds. Extreme
capitalism has blown apart American society so totally that people cannot even care for one another as much as they do in places
like Pakistan and Nigeria. Social bonds, relationships themselves, have become unaffordable luxuries, more so than even in poor countries:
this is yet another social pathology unique to American collapse.
Yet those once poor countries are making great strides. Costa Ricans now have higher life expectancy than Americans -- because
they have public healthcare. American life expectancy is falling, unlike nearly anywhere else in the world, save the UK -- because
it doesn't.
And that is my last pathology: it is one of the soul, not one of the limbs, like the others above. American appear to be quite
happy simply watching one another die, in all the ways above. They just don't appear to be too disturbed, moved, or even affected
by the four pathologies above: their kids killing each other, their social bonds collapsing, being powerless to live with dignity,or
having to numb the pain of it all away.
If these pathologies happened in any other rich country -- even in most poor ones -- people would be aghast, shocked, and
stunned, and certainly moved to make them not happen. But in America, they are, well, not even resigned. They are indifferent, mostly.
So my last pathology is a predatory society. A predatory society doesn't just mean oligarchs ripping people off financially. In
a truer way, it means people nodding and smiling and going about their everyday business as their neighbours, friends, and colleagues
die early deaths in shallow graves. The predator in American society isn't just its super-rich -- but an invisible and insatiable
force: the normalization of what in the rest of the world would be seen as shameful, historic, generational moral failures, if not
crimes, becoming mere mundane everyday affairs not to be too worried by or troubled about.
Perhaps that sounds strong to you. Is it?
Now that I've given you a few examples -- there are many more -- of the social pathologies of collapse, let me share with
you the three points that they raise for me.
These social pathologies are something like strange and gruesome new strains of disease infecting the body social. America has
always been a pioneer -- only today, it is host not just to problems not just rarely seen in healthy societies -- it is pioneering
novel social pathologies have never been seen in the modern world outside present-day America, period. What does that tell us?
American collapse is much more severe than we suppose it is. We are underestimating its magnitude, not overestimating it. American
intellectuals, media, and thought doesn't put any of its problems in global or historical perspective -- but when they are seen
that way, America's problems are revealed to be not just the everyday nuisances of a declining nation, but something more like a
body suddenly attacked by unimagined diseases.
Seen accurately. American collapse is a catastrophe of human possibility without modern parallel . And because the mess that America
has made of itself, then, is so especially unique, so singular, so perversely special -- the treatment will have to be novel, too.
The uniqueness of these social pathologies tell us that American collapse is not like a reversion to any mean, or the downswing of
a trend. It is something outside the norm. Something beyond the data. Past the statistics. It is like the meteor that hit the dinosaurs:
an outlier beyond outliers, an event at the extreme of the extremes. That is why our narratives, frames, and theories cannot really
capture it -- much less explain it. We need a whole new language -- and a new way of seeing -- to even begin to make sense
of it.
But that is America's task, not the world's. The world's task is this. Should the world follow the American model -- extreme
capitalism, no public investment, cruelty as a way of life, the perversion of everyday virtue -- then these new social pathologies
will follow, too. They are new diseases of the body social that have emerged from the diet of junk food -- junk media, junk science,
junk culture, junk punditry, junk economics, people treating one another and their society like junk -- that America has fed upon
for too long.
And he speaks it with an ease and decorum that only a confident but measured individual is
capable of - quite frankly, in many ways like President Trump. The problem here is, daring to
speak truth and calling a spade a spade has been made to look like one is speaking like a mad
man.
I would like to see The Donald or any other Western Leader having a Q& A televised
address, for > 4 hrs,answering without a teleprompter all types of questions,mostly from
unfriendly foreign journalists ,without babbling and wiping the floor with idiots like
Charlie Rose and comp.
If USSA gets too loopy with its ongoing financial collapse as the toilet paper Saudi
Mercan dollah gets flushed, don't worry Mr. Bear will rip the entire carcass apart and devour
it whole like it did NAZI Germany. Count on it. Russians don't boast and never run off at the
mouth like USSANS. Russians never threaten but when it's time to strike they ride hard and
hammer fast and furious. Ask the Germans the exceptionals the last time round!.
Yeah, those Russkies need to dismantle all those military bases that surround our happy,
peaceful little chunk of North America and stop knocking over all our neighbors to install
hostile puppet regimes on our doorstep.
The Western cabal will not use tactical nukes nukes, and for a land war in Eastern Europe
they are far from being ready, nor would they likely win it. But Russia has no such ambitions
unless there is a continuation of confrontation against Syria and Iran in the ME further
isolating, fragmenting, and economically harming Russia and its allies.
The big concern right now for Putin is not the use of nukes or even the constant
provocations in Syria attempting to escalate that war. Rather, it is the upcoming Russian
election which the West, led by the US deep state, is clearly interfering in and intends to
rig with the billions being spent. The US intends to justify its interference based on the
unrelenting, deep-state-generated fake news and political propaganda that the Russians
interfered in the 2016 US Presidential election, and with the soft-sell mantra being
currently spread through the alleged alternate media that "all major powers these days
interfere with foreign elections".
The Norks are the fake enemy to keep to keep MIC pumped. The western fiat faction needs to
eat Russia for its survival. The gold kings (Putin and Xi) know that the West is dying, and
like a starving man, it wants to prolong the inevitable by consuming Russia first, then it
will be China's turn. The gold kings know they are on the menu, they know the West is
bleeding out and that if they can block the West from doing something stupid (like a first
strike nuclear attack on Russia using the stealth drones from the bases in Ukraine and
Afghanistan that have already been established for this purpose) then time will take care of
the collapse of the West for them...
But understand, without Russia's resources, the West is dead sooner rather than later. So
will a starving man attack his innocent neighbor to steal his food and thus prolong his own
death? This is the only question that matters and I think we know what the psychos will do.
This is why I found Putin's speech the other day to be so revealing, true or not, he is
creating doubt as to the winnable nature of our first strike nuclear plans for
Russia...pouring sand into the West's vaseline, so to speak...
Will it be enough? Will the West die gracefully or do we take everyone else with us?
Absolutely agree Rico. Since Nixon took the world off the gold standard in 1971, the West
has had to transform from a real economy making things into a financial services economy.
Problem is that 90% have become slaves to the Private banking cartel supported by the Central
banks in each country. The politicians, media conglomerates, big business, intelligence
agencies, and the MIC are all in bed together. They know that they have collectively ruined
the world's eco system, ruined the worlds monetary system, and that after the world financial
crisis mapped out for the rest of this year, they will usher in a limited world war. Limited
to depopulating small parts of the west, large parts of the 3rd world (freeing up resources)
and large parts of China, India and the middle east. The system has been built on lies and
deceit, and those in power are desperate to keep their crimes and money laundering hidden.
They would rather destroy the world with nuclear weapons than lose control of the system. The
stupid neocons built up China hoping for it to transform into a market economy. Now China is
turning against them, and aligning with Russia, and setting up a gold based monetary system
(no gold of any decent quantity or quality in Fort Knox by the way). On another level the
nuclear rhetoric may just be fear based theater for the masses, and after the financial storm
hits the puppet masters will usher in a one world currency and one world totalitarian
government. After all, Trump did praise Xi Jinping on being appointed for life.
Sociopathic politicians and their Attorneys are not good for business or ethics. Looks
like we will revisit the same cyclical Zenith of Ill Repute we have throughout known history,
eventually reset and then start the game again...
this all has it roots in the Crimean thing.. and the following:
Turning his attention to a particularly sensitive topic, Putin said he was dismayed by
what he described as the U.S. role in the ouster of Ukraine's Russia-friendly president in
February 2014 amid massive protests.
Putin charged that the U.S. had asked Russia to help persuade then-President Viktor
Yanukovych not to use force against protesters and then "rudely and blatantly" cheated
Russia, sponsoring what he called a "coup." Russia responded by rushing through a referendum
in Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, whose result was an overwhelming majority voting to join
Russia.
"Few expected us to act so quickly and so resolutely, not to say daringly," Putin
said.
He described the Western sanctions over Crimea and the insurgency in eastern Ukraine as
part of "illegitimate and unfair" efforts to contain Russia, adding that "we will win in the
long run." He added that "those who serve us with poison will eventually swallow it and
poison themselves."
Responding to a question about Russia's growing global leverage, Putin responded: "If we
play strongly with weak cards, it means the others are just poor players, they aren't as
strong as it seemed, they must be lacking something."
What i wish Russia would say is: Yes we used what internet and information persuasion we
could when we invaded/intervened in Crimea.
And then say: There will be no tampering with elections though we of course have foreign
policy objectives.
And finally : That the arguments in your neighbor's house belong inside the house and
please don't drag them out onto the lawn.
The whole issue boils back to the debate and wtf to do in respect to arming Ukraine, and
that time Russia was in newsgroups and targeting information along with the Buk debacle. It
happened, it was for real, no bullshit. Even some of the NFL websites had the content and the
posting comes from supposedly far right or far left however the hallmark is always an
identity politics message , trolling for the lowest common denominator. Some of the work was
sooo damn bad it was almost comical but mostly it was drivel and off-topic, misdirecting any
meaningful discussion, that was most often used when crowdsourcing the Buk and proof of
deployed green men.. the posts were just disruptive in nature and designed to make the
posting environment as fucked up as possible. Trump said some things somewhat favorable to
the Russians in the debates and that was when McCains knickers went into flames and Lindsey
Graham got worked up.
There was this thing called the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, which
effectively said: heh Ukraine give up your nukes and we'll make sure that that doesn't come
back to bite your ass.. and at that time Obama was like.. we'll send blankets and rations..
and Germany and France were like.. well here is the photo
Now fast forward to the elections.. Some of the facebook ads were back material and if you
follow that timeline were in fact the basis of the Ukraine campaign, similar to Rendon
group.. etc.. now the difference is that the topics changed and there is no controlled
narrative like in the good old days when you'd find a baby in an incubator and that was the
story.. or a C130 broadcasting something flying in circles was the message.. so the stuff
that surrounded the activity morphed as the larger US based internet discussed the rather
"phenomenon" of the elections...
Now if or how, or perhaps there was collusion or more succinctly a quid-pro-quo between
Putin and Trump? I don't know.. however the broader incrimination is what is being made. My
hunch without all the facts is that the crowd that I call hollywood for ugly people suddenly
found the rules changed, couldn't deliver a pinch hit on Brexit, couldn't control the
narrative for Hillary, and that they are still floundering around on the issues. They feel
cheated as they didn't get their way.
Did Russia troll and perform information campaigns? yes they did.. have I seen a stolen
election? Nope.. Hillary really lost that on her own and though she sees the analytics on the
email as the issue it was actually when she was too fucking cute and said: "Like with a
cloth?"
you can watch and remember.. the analytics topics email, but it was her fucking dishonesty
and her mannerism that sunk her, no matter what she says or does, you can't rollback that
verdict
I think some people are taking this way too fucking far, and if Americans violated laws..
well fucking charge em
But if meddling in other peoples elections or having an opinion is illegal then we need to
completely redo our foreign policy with some middle east nations.. serious the fuck up..
>The whole issue boils back to the debate and wtf to do in respect to arming
Ukraine
Respectfully, I don't think that's the real debate here. IMHO that ship sailed long ago.
Figuratively, it sank to the bottom of the ocean. Everyone involved is now in the process of
sorting out their insurance claims.
It's similar to someone parking an expensive motorcycle in his backyard, with the gate
unlocked and the keys in the ignition. It's been more than a year since the bike was jacked.
But the property owner is still foaming at the mouth and ranting about setting up tripwire
perimeter machine guns and setting up minefields in his flower beds.
It's gone and it isn't coming back. Fighting this battle with the Donetsk rebels even down
to the last Western Ukrainian isn't going to do much except to produce a few million
childless Ukrainian women. The last census in Ukraine was such a shock that portions of it
that will likely never be released.
If our government wasn't bought off by defense contractors and bankers then fair
compromise would be possible. Put the people first and money second. That's how Putin stays
in power. Learn and change.
I can tell you this as someone who left USA 50 years ago;
The USA reputation right now for bullying and warmongering is so extreme that most people
in the world feel admiration and affection for anyone who tries to stand up for his country's
independence from US full spectrum domination. Putin benefits from that, plus many find him
charismatic and humorous.
I don't think he is delusional enough to believe that Russia can really survive a US
attack or carve out a rival empire, in fact I don't think he is delusional at all.
Putin has a practically impossible task, which is to provide rational deterrence to the
Anglo-American (Zionist) Finance Empire, which is dominated by increasingly psychotic
psychopaths.
The doctrine of MAD Mutual Assured Destruction was the only policy that could be proposed
and promoted in order to attempt to cope with weapons of mass destruction becoming trillions
of times more powerful than ever before in human history. However, that threat of force from
atomic weapons, etc., was the continuation of the historical trends of the combined
money/murder systems based upon the public powers of governments being used to enforce frauds
by private banks, and the big corporations that grew up around those big banks.
The MAD Mutual Assured Destruction threats continued to back up the MAD Money As Debt
systems. The international bankers, behind the globalized dominance of the Anglo-American
(Zionist) Finance Empire became the best organized gangsters, the banksters, who effectively
captured control over all NATO governments, and especially recaptured control over the
government of the USA for more than a Century.
The social successfulness based upon being able to enforce frauds has been enabled by
about exponentially advancing technologies to become about exponentially more fraudulent.
That is the context inside of which the combination of MAD Money As Debt, backed by MAD
Mutual Assured Destruction, is automatically becoming MADDER & MADDER. Indeed, that
overall MAD situation has already become too MAD to be completely comprehended anymore by
anyone!
The underlying issues were that Globalized Neolithic Civilization was based on
Civilization being effectively controlled by applying the methods of organized crime on
larger and larger scales, until those became globalized privatization of public powers, in
order that money based on measurement backed by murder could spin out of human control,
because the collective MADNESS became runaway criminal insanities.
All over the world, it is painfully obvious that various societies integrated into
Globalized Neolithic Civilization are manifesting various forms of runaway social psychoses,
due to Civilization becoming based on the excessively successful applications of the methods
of organized crime, which have reached the point of the MAD Mutual Assured Destruction
seeming to fail to rationally deter the dominate gangsters, the banksters, from attempting to
consolidate their globalized control over their MAD Money As Debt systems, which thereby
effectively consolidate control over the world's natural resources.
Putin has a practically impossible political problem, which is to provide rational
material deterrence against the globalized ruling classes, whose previous privatization of
the planet has allowed them to indulge in runaway psychotic attitudes towards themselves, as
well as everyone and everything else.
Any attempt to wage overt warfare against Russia would result in the destruction of
Globalized Neolithic Civilization. For all practical purposes, that kind of criminal insanity
would mean that Civilization had committed collective suicide.
The history of the previous social successfulness of the Anglo-American (Zionist) Finance
Empire has reinforced the ruling classes of their organizations to become too criminally
insane to recover from the degree to which that has become so, while, at the same time, most
of those who have been more and more ruled over by those increasingly psychotic psychopaths
have gradually adapted, for generation after generation, to living inside those systems by
becoming increasingly incompetent political idiots.
Putin keeps on warning both the rulers, as well as those ruled over, in NATO countries,
not to be so criminally insane. However, as Putin points out, those warnings are more and
more falling upon deaf ears. Putin is stuck inside the problematic predicament of attempting
to maintain the precarious balancing of MAD Mutual Assured Destruction, despite that doing so
allows the MAD Money As Debt problems to continue to get about exponentially worse.
Theoretically, since it was the series of intellectual scientific revolutions and profound
paradigm shifts in mathematical physics that enabled the development of globalized electronic
monkey money frauds, backed by the threat of force from apes with atomic weapons, it "should"
be imperative for series of intellectual scientific revolutions and profound paradigm shifts
to be applied to the public perception of the combined money/murder systems.
Theoretically, after weapons become trillions of times more powerful, then militarism
"should" be radically transformed. Since militarism is the ideology of the murder system,
while the murder system has been radically transformed by about exponentially advancing
technologies, based on profound paradigm shifts in physics, therefore, militarism "should" go
through series of profound paradigm shifts in the perception of the death control systems
that back up the debt control systems. However, the only things which are actually happening
are the ways in which the collective runaway MADNESS is getting MADDER & MADDER!
Well written, fascinating, but too verbose my friend.
Here it is in a nutshell for you:
The MAD Money Banksters are losing control of the MAD Bombs and vice versa so that the
understanding of which is "wagging the proverbial dog's tail", the dog or the tail, "The
Money or The Bombs" is blurring into a surreal landscape of money and power the end of which
is MAD in every sense.
Let's please do try to remember to be succinct, my friend.
Do not expect that once taking advantage of Russia's weakness, you will receive dividends
forever. Russian has always come for their money. And when they come - do not rely on an
agreement signed by you, you are supposed to justify. They are not worth the paper it is
written. Therefore, with the Russian is to play fair, or do not play.
More hot air from Putin without any actions.
Putin is getting bullied in Syria now. Even Russia says the US has 20 military bases IN
Syria. From RT just today:
"That's after it was revealed the Pentagon plans to spend around $300 million to train and
equip a 60,000-strong army in Syria. "
Yesterday RT had a story that ZH is avoiding. That a Russian transport crashed in Syria
killing over 30 troops. Which was especially interesting for this reason:
A russian transport plane just crashed in Syria killing all the troops on board.
Some group of people really like their numbers to send messages.
The model number of the Russian airliner that recently crashed was AN 148 = 13
The call number of the Iranian airliner that recently crashed is EP-ATS. MSN 391 = 13
This russian transport drops on landing due to "technical issues" on March 6 = 3/6 = 3 -
6's = 666
All 3 planes just dropped suddenly. This plane lost control on approach to where it could
not attempt to glide in. Someone's having fun with Russia and Iran. (Let's not forget how the
Russian military choir suddenly dropped out of the sky, on Christmas I believe.)
Yesterday we also found out Putin's claims about a hypersonic nuke was BS and he used
photo's of a slightly modified run of the mill missile. Add to that the BS story of a super
hypersonic nuke torpedo. And the totally BS story about the new super fighter jet.
What is consistent is increased noise from Putin without any action to confront NATO.
Yawn... The USA has hundreds of military bases all over the world and a military budget
larger than the next 12 countries combined yet it still keeps getting its sorry azzz whipped
in Third World shitholes all over the planet.
In fact, with the notable exception of Ronny Raygun's daring invasion of mighty Grenada in
1984, the USA hasn't won a war since WW2. The only thing that's happened is that its "Empire"
is now 20 trillion bucks in debt and rapidly collapsing after just a few decades of
existence.
In the grand sweep of human history, where many Empires have lasted a millennia or longer,
the USA's pretend Empire will be barely a blip on the radar screen.
You do not understand their goals.
How many times has Russia/Soviet Union fallen during the time of the US existence?
A decade is 10 yrs, the US has existed more than 2 or 3 decades.
The US is on the path to ruin in many ways. But Russia is no powerhouse and may well crumble
from within yet again. And if Russia fails yet again TPTB will dice it up and haul away the
resources this time. And then there will be no Russia, even it the US crumbles later.
Right now Putin is so desperate he tries to change history and make Stalin a hero for the
Russian people to rally around. Do they not know who Stalin was or maybe Putin honors him due
to the religious purges he enforced. Putin pushed into law new legislation making it a
serious crime to deny the holohoax. hmmm Are they going to do it Again?
He strikes me as very calm ,collected,intelligent .
He took Russia from a total disaster done by chosen gang during the Yeltsin years and
elevated it to a superpower in 16 years.
Russians have been through Hell and back. During the Color Revolution which was Bolshevism
and during the shock therapy applied to them by the Haaavard jooo gang working in synchrony
with the Russian chosen. They have seen the wanders of Bolshevism and of American so called
capitalism.
And they chose neither.
They chose Mr. Putin ,not because he is a Communist ,or a zionist , red or white ,they
chose him because he is RUSSIAN.
Russia has learned from past mistakes. The future is on Russia's side. Not so for US . US
has not learned anything . When it makes a mistake ,it doubles,triples down.
Remember ,even if you lose a battle ,wining the war is more important. And this is
precisely what Russia is doing.
I really don't understand,do you want a hot war ,that will annihilate the world? You do
not seem stupid . Which leaves only one other explanation
God Damn but I wish he were my President and "Russia" was the United States!...
The only thing that needs to be said with the gloves clearly off for good with Uncle
Shlomo is... When does Putin announce his formal dislocation and departure from the UN after
terrorism on his borders and in his Country courtesy of the "Union" since 1992?...
Calling home his diplomatic corps in the U.S. and sending Amerikansy packing from
Russia... Either he speaks the embarrassing truth that the West needs to hear with an
announcement to the UN that it's the worst farce that mankind has ever conceived... and that
he will work with the SCO/BRICS members to build a new "Home" for the rule of law that it
deserves?... Or he continues to acquiesce to unconvicted mass murderers through "diplomatic
channels" that no longer exist that only wear camo and that he knows he will inevitably never
win over anyway!
ENOUGH is "ENOUGH"!!!
P.S.
Vlad FYI... Make my suntan "extra crispy"... And scatter me over a very large part of
Washington D.C. where I reside!
Like all Americans THAT HAVE CHOSEN TO BE COLLECTIVE PSYCHOPATHS since this ( http://www.ae911truth.org/ )... We're fucking
cowards that will take the easiest and worst way out when we LOSE!!!
The US is so utterly obvious in it's WARMONGERING, particularly toward Putin and Russia.
People in other countries think we are the biggest dumbasses and we are.
The other day, RT had an article about the election in Italy and within the article was a
tweet from Samantha power blaming Russia for the election outcome. The blowback from Italians
reading that Tweet was outstanding. They know Russiagate is bullshit and the blowback on
Americans who buy into this highly propagandized subject we're mercilessly ridiculed.
We should be talking diplomacy, but the US doesn't make money or try to even hide the fact
that they want WAR. Our population has been so depleted of critical thinking skills and so
deeply complacent, they will sit and watch Maddow continue her assault upon Russia, with
American idiots parked in front or their computer or TV sets, as the nuke from Russia heads
this way while Maddow beelines it to a bunker.
Americans have descended so far into madness, a reset is required to bring them to a
reality that shows them who their ZIONIST masters really are. Maddow being one of the most
dangerous among the propagandist serving the see eye aye,EFF BEE EYE, EAT.AL.
Putin appears SANE compared to the insane psychopaths running the country. I mean has
anyone bothered to read up about Putin? The documentary of his interview? Anyone read up on
RUSSIAN culture or it's people?? I have been and it's really interesting.
What Democrats are doing is INCITEMENT to genocide which is a war crime under
international law. They dehumanize, demonizes millions of people and their leader. Think
about it, what if this were in reverse? If Putin and his parliament were accusing the US of
meddling in their elections and then spend two years threatening to murder our entire
population??
After Mr. Putin speech ,where he tipped the balance of power on Russia's side ,we are
witnessing ,in all its glory , the 5 stages of American grief.
-first stage was denial : Putin lied,Russians are drunk and incapable ,those were fake
missiles
-then the angry response : the weapons sent to Ukraine , extending of sanctions for
another year by the Donald ,continuing vilification of Russia/Putin ; hey ,the Donald 's
State Department Troll Farm received a 40 Mil injection recently.
-then will be the bargaining stage : US will try to offer something ,like let's say the
used and discarded Porkoshenko in return for transforming Sarmat into scrap metal
-then it's depression time after Russia says they can shove their offer up their
assesky
-will we reach a cold acceptance or a very hot nuclear acceptance ?
Career politicians and bureaucrats are the problem.
-Recall legislation for politicians to remove the worst of the worst.
-Term limits of 2 for politicians at any one level of government and contract limits of 8
years for bureaucrats at any one level of government. If the legislators know they will spend
the majority of their working careers in the private sector they won't be passing laws that
strictly benefit the public sector.
-Balanced budget laws that require referendums to repeal.
It is not hard to understand Russia's concern a mishap might occur. When it comes to our
nuclear arsenal, not only is America ready to launch but we are also about to spend a great
deal of money to increase that ability. What the world would look like following a nuclear
war has been the subject of much speculation.
A great number of variables feed into such scenarios but we should be troubled that today
it seems many people consider nuclear weapons as an acceptable tool or option for us to use
in our defense if we are attacked. More on the size of our arsenal and the plans to spend a
huge amount to upgrade the delivery system in the article below.
1. It appears to me that Putin has a better grasp of American politics than millions of
Americans of all colors and religions, who I think would even fail the basic civics test
given to legal immigrants who apply for US citizenship.
2. Victoria Nuland, who was Secretary of State Clinton's point person on Ukraine, helped
stir up the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution which ended up in the ouster of its Russia-friendly
President. Did anyone in a senior position in NATO really expect Russia to sit idly by while
Ukraine developed ever closer ties to NATO and possibly oust the Russians from their only
warm water military base at Sevastopol?
LFC
John Kerry agreed the terms of a ceasefire. President Obama gave it his imprimatur. The
Secretary of Defence said he didn't think the US should comply (publicly defied his
commander-in-chief!). The USAF then accidentally bombed Syrian troops. Oops.
(We can get into the bombing of the relief convoy if you wish, and the Western media's
practice of broadcasting as fact without verification jihadi propaganda. The reporting of
the siege of Aleppo has been one of the very lowest points in our media's lamentable
career. Compare and contrast Mosul. It appears to be a principle with us that our enemies
can always be trusted to act against their own interests at precisely the moment when it
will cause them maximum damage and justify us in doing whatever it is we wanted to do all
along. For example, Syria use chemical weapons thus crossing the US "red line" the jihadis
want it to cross, precisely when it has invited in the UN chemical weapons inspectors...
D'oh!)
Russia and Iran are acting within the law in coming to the aid of an ally at that ally's
request. The US and its allies are acting contrary to the law in funding, arming, training
etc. jihadists, mostly not even Syrians, to overthrow the Syrian government. What may very
well have started as a civil war, soon morphed into a proxy war by the Saudis, Turkey, the
US, UK and France to overthrow a government they do not like. Such interference is what
treaties they have all signed deem illegal. If we are to believe Messrs. Annan and Ibrahimi
of the UN, a negotiated settlement in 2012 was thwarted by the jihadis at the behest of the
US and the Saudis. The killing of civilians could have ceased long since but for that. We
have encouraged the prolongation of the killing of civilians. Given the record of both the
Saudis and the US, it is in any event not for us to be lecturing anyone, even the
Ba'athists in Syria. We are in the process of driving 19m Yemenis to starvation. We killed
what the UN estimated to be half a million Iraqi children in the 1990s (no-one bothered to
count the adults). The US Secretary of State called it a "price worth paying". We have
killed more than a million civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen since
2001. And we aren't finished.
"Not grown-up" is maybe not most apt to describe those who complain righteously that
their enemies kill thousands as a pretext to kill hundreds of thousands themselves.
And maybe you do not like the term applied to US policy on Syria. Fair enough - but that
policy is surely not coherent. The US has signed agreements with Russia it has failed to
honour. It has condemned Russia for doing legally in Syria what it is itself doing
illegally. It has proclaimed its determination to defeat Islamism - by allying itself with
the main source and sponsor of Islamism. It insists on identifying as its chief enemies the
only forces on the ground able to fight the jihadis effectively. It has allied itself with
those its allies are fighting. It has even been reduced to pretending that a change of name
has rendered al qaeda a "moderate rebel force" worthy of US tax dollars. I could go on!
You may think it unhelpful to characterise US behaviour as "not grown-up". Fair enough.
It still scares the bejeesus out of the rest of us to no good purpose. Or are you able to
tell me what purpose has been served by turning Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen,
Somalia into a chaos of death and destruction with no end in sight and at the expense of
several trillion dollars?
US foreign policy for at least a hundred years has been about making the world safe for
"free enterprise". Quite how does the current chaos further that policy?
Ewan said...
LFC
I have gone on too long.
A few points:
"If the U.S. is bent on overthrowing Assad, it has an odd way of demonstrating that."
This is startling. The US makes no bones about it.
I'm also surprised you don't see the difficulty in us deciding who is legitimate and who
illegitimate. If we were indeed the good guys, maybe... but, as it is, it is really not on
for us to label Assad worse than the Saudis, or Saddam a good guy when we support him but
the new Hitler when he disobeys us. The Russian insistence on the rule of law seems to me
the best of a bad job. I can't think of any other way to curb them all even slightly.
On al qaeda in Syria, there are specialists who try to detail the various jihadi groups
and affiliations. Al Nusra, ahrar al-Sham etc are all inter-related and all subsidiaries
and rebrandings and divisions and factions of the same jihadis. As indeed is ISIS/Daesh.
They are all the spawn of the US/Saudi cunning plan to use Islamists against secular Arab
states. Brzezinski was actually proud of it!
Mosul: I meant the whole shebang. You refer to one incident we happen to have heard of.
Aleppo was "genocide!!!!!"; Mosul - mainly silence.
I hold no brief for any thug or princeling or prime minister in the Middle East. I do
think the stream of drivel about Russia needs stopping. It is dangerous to us all.
Widespread anti-American sentiment is as stupid and reactionary as any other form of nationalism. It's just another 'divide
and rule' ideology to keep ordinary people at each others' throats, rather than see them united against their common enemy, the global
so-called 'elite'/ oligarchs.
Notable quotes:
"... For all the haters of us ugly Americans, just remember that we at this blog are suffering in our country standing up for the truth, pitted against our neighbors, coworkers, and friends in the arena of political debate and decrying the massive injustice of our foreign aggression. ..."
"... The world knows the military industrial complex that has worked over years, and year to create the ugly tentacles throughout what was once our government has been usurped. Dollars. All these bastards see is dollars. Not human life. Not the potential of that lost life in science, math, technology. Just dollars. ..."
"... or heavens sakes the voters in Arizona returned the worst of ALL Warmongers to Congress. ..."
"... We can't even get the voters to learn that their votes equal WAR pushed by both Parties they are aligned with. Get real. Our challenge is yours. Help us! ..."
"... I know there are many highly intelligent Americans, who are already today suffering and paying a price. And I agree that (widespread) anti-American sentiment is as stupid and reactionary as any other form of nationalism. It's just another 'divide and rule' ideology to keep ordinary people at each others' throats, rather than see them united against their common enemy, the global so-called 'elite'/ oligarchs. ..."
"... Playing groups of people against one another is the oldest domination trick in the world, but it seems to work every single time...sad! ;-) ..."
"... I'm from California. Technically the USA. My take on things is we United States of Americans are exceptional. Most of us are exceptionally ignorant and violent. That is exceptionally sad. ..."
For all the haters of us ugly Americans, just remember that we at this blog are suffering in our country standing up for the
truth, pitted against our neighbors, coworkers, and friends in the arena of political debate and decrying the massive injustice
of our foreign aggression.
I won't call ya out by name, but lumping us forlorn sacks into your "untouchable" category reeks of reactionary arrogance that
is, to pay patrons at this fine blog their due, beneath you.
In the mean time, American issues = issues concerning the empire they we all want to see destroyed. Liberating Americans should
also be on your wish list.
The world knows the military industrial complex that has worked over years, and year to create the ugly tentacles throughout
what was once our government has been usurped. Dollars. All these bastards see is dollars. Not human life. Not the potential of
that lost life in science, math, technology. Just dollars.
For heavens sakes the voters in Arizona returned the worst of ALL Warmongers to Congress. And you, the World, think
for a moment we, citizens in this colony, have a snowball's chance in hell reeling these creatures in all by ourselves are sorely
mistaken.
We can't even get the voters to learn that their votes equal WAR pushed by both Parties they are aligned with. Get real. Our
challenge is yours. Help us!
I know there are many highly intelligent Americans, who are already today suffering and paying a price. And I agree that
(widespread) anti-American sentiment is as stupid and reactionary as any other form of nationalism. It's just another 'divide
and rule' ideology to keep ordinary people at each others' throats, rather than see them united against their common enemy, the
global so-called 'elite'/ oligarchs.
Playing groups of people against one another is the oldest domination trick in the world, but it seems to work every single
time...sad! ;-)
I'm from California. Technically the USA. My take on things is we United States of Americans are exceptional. Most of us
are exceptionally ignorant and violent. That is exceptionally sad.
I am very glad to have found MoA and the crew of experts. I have learned so very much.
Big up b! Booyakah as they say in JA. God help us.
"... the numbers of America fans have plummeted, while the percentage of Russians with actively negative views emerged essentially out of nowhere to constitute majority opinion. ..."
"... For their part, Americans would have to acknowledge that Russians do not have a kneejerk hatred of America, and that the "loss of Russia" was largely of their own doing. ..."
"... The arrogant refusal to take into account Russian interests after the Cold War, instead bombing their allies, expanding NATO to Russian borders in contravention of verbal commitments made to the USSR, and for all intents and purposes treating it as a defeated Power, may have made sense when it seemed that the US would be the world's dominant hyperpower for the foreseeable future and Russia was doomed to die anyway – as was conventional wisdom by the late 1990s. ..."
At the tail end of the Cold War, there was an incredible atmosphere of Americanophilia
throughout the USSR, including amongst Russians.
Blue – approve of USA; orange – disapprove.
Around 75%-80% of Russians approved of the United States around 1990, versus <10%
disapproval.
By
modern standards , this would have put Russia into the top leagues of America fans , such
as Poland, Israel, and the United Kingdom. It was also around 10%-15% points higher than contemporary US approval of
Russia.
The blogger genby dug
up a VCIOM poll
from 1990 asking Russians – that is, Russians within the RSFSR, i.e. the territory of
the modern day Russian Federation – what they thought about Americans.
The poll was redone in 2015, keeping the same questions, which allows a direct comparison
between the two dates.
What in your opinion characterizes the United States?
1990
2015
High criminality and moral degradation
1
15
No warmth in people's relations
1
15
High living standards
35
12
Large gap between rich and poor
5
11
Racial discrimination
1
9
Highly developed science and technology
15
7
Success depends on personal effort
20
7
Free society
13
5
Other
.
6
Can't say for sure
10
12
I would wager Russian opinions on America were more positive c.1990 than the opinions of the
average American on his own country today!
Is US government friendly or hostile to Russia?
1990
2015
Friendly
35
3
Not very friendly
40
32
Hostile
2
59
Can't say
23
6
These results speak for themselves and hardly need more commentary.
Nowadays, of course, things are rather different. Suffice to say the numbers of America fans
have plummeted, while the percentage of Russians with actively negative views emerged essentially out of nowhere to constitute majority opinion.
What I think is more significant is that nobody likes to talk about it now, because it
reflects badly on pretty much everyone.
Russians would have to acknowledge that they were naive idiots who threw away an empire
centuries in the making to end up within the borders of old Muscovy in exchange for jeans and
"common human values."
These figures testify to the complete and utter failure of Soviet
propaganda, which spent decades spinning tales about American criminality, unemployment, and
lynched Negroes only to end up with a society with some of the most Americanophile sentiments
in the entire world.
It also makes it much harder to scapegoat Gorbachev, or the mythical
saboteurs and CIA agents in power that feature prominently in sovok conspiracy theories, for
unraveling the Soviet Union, when ordinary Soviets themselves considered America the next best
thing since Lenin
and the US government to be their friend.
For their part, Americans would have to acknowledge that Russians do not have a kneejerk
hatred of America, and that the "loss of Russia" was largely of their own doing.
The arrogant
refusal to take into account Russian interests after the Cold War, instead bombing their
allies, expanding NATO to Russian borders
in contravention of verbal commitments made to the USSR, and for all intents and purposes
treating it as a defeated Power, may have made sense when it seemed that the US would be the
world's dominant hyperpower for the foreseeable future and Russia was doomed to die anyway
– as was conventional wisdom by the late 1990s. And from a purely Realpolitik
perspective, the results have hardly been catastrophic; the US gained a geopolitical foothold
in Eastern Europe, tied up further European integration into an Atlantic framework, and closed
off the possibility of the "Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok" envisaged by Charles de Gaulle.
On the other hand, in a world where China is fast becoming a peer competitor – with the
implicit backing of a resentful Russia – this may, in retrospect, not have been the best
long-term play.
Well, this Americanophobia plays well for Americans, who afford a new arms race. Yes, you may
think that America is deep in debt, but its creditors see it as an investment. When the
Exxons of the West will milk the Siberian mineral riches, America will pay everything back.
The alternative, a world where they would invest in Rosneft in order to get a share of the
plunder of, idk, Gulf of Mexico, is silly. As we saw in the 80′s, the best form of war
against Russia is not to bomb and starve Moscow. That won't scare the locals. Let Kremlin do
it instead.
If Putin is not careful, if he doesn't go low tech, low cost, the Americans will win the
long game.
Russians would have to acknowledge that they were naive idiots who threw away an empire
centuries in the making to end up within the borders of old Muscovy in exchange for jeans and
"common human values."
Your 'empire' fell to pieces as rapidly as the Hapsburgs' in 1918 and you had to expend
handsome sums in an attempt just to hold onto Chechenya (populaiton 1.1 million). You have
150 million people as is and can do without having to stomp on recalcitrant minorities and to
craft institutions which function in multilingual environments. You never had much of a
constituency in Austria for attempting to reassemble the Hapsburg dominions and Hungary's
ambitions haven't in the last century gone beyond attempting to capture Magyar exclaves.
Look at the other principals in the 1st world war: overseas dependencies retained by them
consist of a portfolio of insular territories which prefer their current status and whose
total population hardly exceeds that of Switzerland. The only one which has retained
contiguous peripheral provinces predominantly populated by minorities would be Turkey. You're
not injured for the loss of an opportunity to replicate the Turkish experience with ethnic
cleansing (of Greeks and Armenians) conjoined to abuse (of Kurds). Everyone lost their
empire, and they're not generally the worse for it.
You have a large national state. Kvetching that you don't have Azerbaijan or Estonia is
inconsistent with good sense.
Russians would have to acknowledge that they were naive idiots who threw away an empire
centuries in the making
What's remarkable to me about that graph of opinion over time is how pig-headedly
resilient Russian naivety about the US has been. Time after time it appears the scales
would fall from Russians' eyes after the US regime disgraced itself particularly egregiously
(Kosovo, Iraq, Georgia), and within a few months approval would be back up to 50% or above.
It took the interference in the Ukraine in 2014 to finally make the truth stick.
There are no disgraces incorporated into any of these events
That might be your opinion, but Kosovo and Iraq were openly illegal wars of aggression in
which the US shamelessly flouted its own treaty commitments, and supporting Georgia was, like
NATO expansion in general and numerous other consistently provocative US foreign policy
measures directed against post-Soviet Russia, a literally stupid matter of turning a
potential ally against the real rival China into an enemy and ally of said rival.
You are perfectly entitled to endorse mere stupidity on the part of your rulers, but the
fact that you so shamelessly approve of waging illegal wars counter to treaty commitments
discredits any opinions you might have on such matters.
Russians would have to acknowledge that they were naive idiots who threw away an empire
centuries in the making to end up within the borders of old Muscovy
Actually, present Russian borders are more those of Peter the Great, circa 1717, than Old
Muscovy. Russia, unlike nearly all the Great Powers of the C20th, has retained its Empire
– Siberia, the Russian Far East, Kamchatka, South Russia and the Crimea ( first
acquired as recently as 1783 ).
Once those dim-witted Ukies finally implode the Ukrainian economy, Russia will be able to
gobble up the rest of southern and eastern Ukraine – all the way to Odessa.
The places that seceded from the Soviet Union are places that Russians don't want ( Northern
Kazakhstan excepted ) and are urgently required to receive all those Central Asian immigrants
who will be deported by sensible Russian governments in the near future. ( I exclude
Armenians from the last clause )
Yes, US had squandered a lot of good will in exchange for extremely valuable "geopolitical
foothold in Eastern Europe."
Incidentally, Soviet propaganda was never anti-American. It was anti-capitalist, an
important distinction. Whereas in America, anti-Russian propaganda has always been anti-
Russian .
@RandalThat might be your opinion, but Kosovo and Iraq were openly illegal wars of aggression in
which the US shamelessly flouted its own treaty commitments,
We had no treaty commitments with either Serbia or Iraq and both places had it coming.
Correction: Russian Federation is not a nation state. It is a rump state . Its
Western borders are artificial, drawn by the Communists in the 20th century, they exclude
those parts of Russia, which the Communists decided to incorporate into separate republics of
Belarus and Ukraine.
I don't know of any Russian nationalist, who wants Azerbaijan back, but reclaiming Belarus
and Ukraine is absolutely essential to have a country, we could all proudly call 'home'
– an actual Russian nation-state. Again, what really matters here is not the size of
the country, it's that all the land that's historically Russian should be fully within the
borders of this country.
PS: just because we had trouble holding onto Chechnya doesn't mean that annexing Belarus
will be hard. Sure, we can expect blowback in the form of Western sanctions, but I don't
anticipate much resistance from inside Belarus.
@Art
Deco With that kind of thinking I don't see how you can criticise Russia's incursions
into the Ukraine. At least Russia has an actual reason to fight a war in the Ukraine.
US invaded and destroyed Iraqi state for no reason whatsoever. US interests suffered as a
result of its ill-advised aggression, they ended up empowering their avowed enemy –
Iran.
@Felix
KeverichWith that kind of thinking I don't see how you can criticise Russia's
incursions into the Ukraine. At least Russia has an actual reason to fight a war in the
Ukraine.
They dissed you. La di dah. My own countrymen have put up with that from an array of
Eurotrash and 3d world kleptocrats every time we open the newspaper.
US invaded and destroyed Iraqi state for no reason whatsoever.
No, we did so because that was the best alternative. The other alternative was a sanctions
regime which Big Consciences were assuring the world was causing a six-digit population of
excess deaths each year or taking the sanctions off and letting Saddam and the other Tikritis
to follow their Id. Iraq was a charnel house, and the world is well rid of the Tikriti
regime, especially Iraq's Kurdish and Shia provinces, which have been quiet for a decade. You
don't take an interest in the ocean of blood for which the Ba'ath Party was responsible, but
you're terribly butthurt that politicians in Kiev don't take orders from Moscow. Felix, I can
taste teh Crazy.
Your 'rump state' extends over 6.6 million sq miles and has a population of 152
million.
Exactly, and you're missing the point. Re-read my previous comment again:
I don't know of any Russian nationalist, who wants Azerbaijan back, but reclaiming Belarus
and Ukraine is absolutely essential to have a country, we could all proudly call 'home'
– an actual Russian nation-state. Again, what really matters here is not the size of
the country, it's that all the land that's historically Russian should be fully within the
borders of this country.
Russians know more about these things than you do. The vast majority of us do not regard
Belarus and Ukraine as part of
"заграница" – foreign countries.
Ukrainians and in particular Belorussians are simply variants of us, just like regional
differences exist between the Russians in Siberia and Kuban'.
I don't care, because this isn't a popularity contest. There were similar polls in Crimea
showing majority support for the EU, just before the peninsula voted overwhelmingly to rejoin
Russia. LOL
The question that matters to me is will there be a vast resistance movement inside Belarus
following the annexation, and to be honest I don't expect one.
"... (Full transcript follows below with key points in bold.) ..."
"... When Donald Trump became President, he received the people's mandate to build a rational relationship with Russia, and to implement a more rational policy in the world. ..."
"... He wasn't supposed to overthrow foreign governments . Right now , Trump acts in direct opposition to his voters' expectations. ..."
Particularly guilty are the media, because they are in the business of selling this horror
show to the unsuspecting public.
Take a few minutes and listen to what this man has to say.
He says it well, and he hits the nail on the head, as painful as it might be to admit
it.
Time for a change of leadership, America.
(Full transcript follows below with key points in bold.)
Isn't this how how the US acts all over the world though? They destroy countries, cause civil wars, bring sorrow and poverty to entire nations. Just
like that. They seem to not even notice the consequences of their actions. They blame others for everything, and then gloat about being sinless. With this simple, carefree mentality, they can allow themselves everything.
America fines European banks and companies, to punish them for defying America. They impose unilateral sanctions in Europe against those who want to buy cheaper Russian
gas, instead of the more expensive American gas. They tap phones and read emails of billions of people on the planet, including the leaders
of US allied countries. They arrest foreign citizens all over the world and throw them in secret jail outside of
the US. Outside of the US of course, so that they can torture them , without fear of breaking
any of their own laws. They plan and execute coup d'etats and color revolutions. They usually time them with the
elections in the victim country.
They de facto continue to militarily occupy Germany and Japan . The US has a huge number
of military bases in these countries. A base, by the way, is a foreign military force. It
directly limits the sovereignty and the ability of the occupied country to act in their own
national interests.
They start and execute military operations without sanctions from the UN. They falsely justify their own actions and act on false pretenses . For cover, they gather
fake coalitions And all of this is done with that simple American air of naďveté. That same mindset allows them to be allied with what is left of Islamic State in
Deir-ez-Zor.
With the same simple-mindedness, Trump threatened to destroy an entire country at the UN
General Assembly. The Americans have already announced that they are pulling out of the the nuclear
agreement with Iran. Without any justifiable reasons, in spite of everything and everyone.
Just like that.
When Donald Trump became President, he received the people's mandate to build a rational
relationship with Russia, and to implement a more rational policy in the world.
He wasn't supposed to overthrow foreign governments . Right now , Trump acts in direct
opposition to his voters' expectations.
Is there, at least , one problem in the world which the US has helped solve this year? -
No.
What's worse, he made North Korea even more dangerous and non-complying. South Korea and Japan are in clear danger now. He has deployed more troops to Afghanistan , but we don't know what he is trying to
accomplish there either. In Syria, the US has lost its strategic goals and started to directly oppose Russia and
the anti-terrorist forces. He is on bad terms with Turkey, he has scared off Europe, and nothing good is happening in
South America, either. Tensions between the US and China are growing. Relations with Russia are at an all-time
low.
It's bad enough that the US took over Russian diplomatic residencies, but they are also
tearing through them like nobody's business. How else one would label the actions of those
agents in our Consulate in San Francisco? Does it mean that Russia must respond in a mutual manner? Perhaps as simple-mindedly as
the US does? If Russia did, it would ruin the very concept of diplomacy. What would be next? Or does
Washington prefer not to think about that? Or do they? The less diplomacy there is, the less politeness and nice words, the higher the demand for
US weapons. That's much better.
It's not like diplomacy is very lucrative. It's about airing concerns, which leads
to...unneeded restrictions. Taking the high road is difficult, and the low road is always
there . It is coarser, but it does have elements of cheap theatricality.
Take for example what Trump did when he went to Puerto Rico after the hurricane. For appearances sake, he brought his wife along. She wasn't wearing her usual high heels ,
but specially bought yellow Timberlands. He made the local Americans happy, personally throwing paper towels into the crowd. It looked like one big ridiculous show.
And it all took place on a day of nationwide mourning in honor of the mass shooting in Las
Vegas.
Chris Hedges published this book eight years ago and the things he predicted have sadly been
realized
Notable quotes:
"... his screed is a liberating tonic against the crazy-making double-speak and the lies Americans are sold by our country's elite in order to distract us from the true threat and nature of the Corporate State, from the cult of celebrity, to how our nation's Universities have been hijacked to serve the interests, not of the public, but of our corporate overlords. It explains the self-same conditions in all aspects of our society and culture that we now must face, the ever-shrinking flame of enlightenment being exchanged for the illusory shadows on a cave wall. ..."
"... He fearlessly and incisively calls us out on the obvious farce our democracy has become, how we got here, and highlights the rapidly closing window in which we have to do something to correct it. It is a revelation, and yet he merely states the obvious. The empire has no clothes. ..."
"... One of the most powerful aspects of this book was in regard to how our Universities are run these days. I may be in the minority, but I experienced a life-changing disillusionment when I gained entrance to a prestigious "elite" University. Instead of drawing the best and the brightest, or being a place where scholarship was valued, where students were taught critical thinking skills, the University I attended was nothing more than an expensive diploma mill for the children of the wealthy. In the eyes of the University, students were not minds to be empowered and developed, but walking dollar signs. ..."
"... Instead of critical thinking, students were taught to OBEY, not to question authority, and then handed a piece of paper admitting them to the ruling class that is destroying America without a moral compass. Selfishness, deceit, disregard for the common good, and a win-at-all-costs attitude were rewarded. Empathy, curiosity, dissent, and an honest, intellectually rigorous evaluation of ourselves and our world were punished. Obviously I am not the only one to whom this was cause to fear for the future of our country. ..."
"... The chapter involving the porn trade that is run by large corporations such as AT&T and GM (the car maker, for crying out loud) was an especially dark, profanity-laced depiction of the abuse and moral decay of American society . ..."
"... He is correct in his belief that the continual barrage of psuedo-events and puffery disguised as news (especially television) has conditioned most of Americans to be non-critical thinkers. ..."
"... Entertainment, consumption and the dangerous illusion that the U.S. is the best in the world at everything are childish mindsets. ..."
"... The are the puppet masters." As extreme as that is, he is more credible when he says, "Commodities and celebrity culture define what it means to belong, how we recognize our place in society, and how we conduct our lives." I say 'credible' because popular and mass culture's influence are creating a world where substance is replaced by questionable style. ..."
"... Celebrity and connectivity are both ways of becoming known. This is what the contemporary self wants. It wants to be recognized, wants to be connected: It wants to be visible. If not to the millions, on Survivor or Oprah, then to the hundreds, on Twitter or Facebook. ..."
"... Visibility has replaced substance and accomplishment; packaging over product, sizzle not steak. Chris Rojek calls this "the cult of distraction" where society is consumed by the vacuous and the vapid rather than striving for self-awareness, accomplishment and contribution ("Propaganda has become a substitute for ideas and ideology."). Hedges builds on Rojek's descriptor by suggesting we are living in a "culture of illusion" which impoverishes language, makes us childlike, and is basically dumbing us all down. ..."
"... Today's delusionary and corrupted officials, corporate and government, are reminiscent of the narratives penned by Charles Dickens. Alexander Hamilton referred to the masses as a "great beast" to be kept from the powers of government. ..."
"... Edmund Burke used propaganda to control "elements of society". Walter Lippmann advised that "the public must be kept in its place". Yet, many Americans just don't get it. ..."
"... Divide and conquer is the mantra--rich vs. poor; black vs. white. According to Norm Chomsky's writings, "In 1934, William Shepard argued that government should be in the hands of `aristocracy and intellectual power' while the `ignorant, and the uninformed and the antisocial element' must not be permitted to control elections...." ..."
"... The appalling statistics and opinions outlined in the book demonstrate the public ignorance of the American culture; the depth and extent of the corporatocracy and the related economic malaise; and, the impact substandard schools have on their lives. ..."
"... This idea was recently usurped by the U.S. Supreme Court where representative government is called to question, rendering "our" consent irrelevant. Every voting election is an illusion. Each election, at the local and national level, voters never seemingly "miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity" to eliminate irresponsible and unresponsive officials. ..."
"... Walt Kelly's quote "We have met the enemy and he is us" prevails! ..."
"... It's also hard to follow at times as Hedges attempts to stress the connections between pop culture and social, political. and economic policy. Nor is Hedges a particularly stylish writer (a sense of humor would help). ..."
"... The stomach-turning chapter on trends in porn and their relationship to the torture of prisoners of war is a particularly sharp piece of analysis, and all of the other chapters do eventually convince (and depress). ..."
Hedges cogently and systematically dismantles the most pernicious cultural delusions of
our era and lays bare the pitiful truths that they attempt to mask. This book is a
deprogramming manual that trims away the folly and noise from our troubled society so that
the reader can focus on the most pressing matters of our time.
Despite the dark reality Hedges excavates, his screed is a liberating tonic against
the crazy-making double-speak and the lies Americans are sold by our country's elite in order
to distract us from the true threat and nature of the Corporate State, from the cult of
celebrity, to how our nation's Universities have been hijacked to serve the interests, not of
the public, but of our corporate overlords. It explains the self-same conditions in all
aspects of our society and culture that we now must face, the ever-shrinking flame of
enlightenment being exchanged for the illusory shadows on a cave wall.
As a twenty-something caught in the death-throes of American Empire and culture, I have
struggled to anticipate where our country and our world are heading, why, and what sort of
life I can expect to build for myself. Hedges presents the reader with the depressing, yet
undeniable truth of the forces that have coalesced to shape the world in which we now find
ourselves. The light he casts is searing and relentless. He fearlessly and incisively
calls us out on the obvious farce our democracy has become, how we got here, and highlights
the rapidly closing window in which we have to do something to correct it. It is a
revelation, and yet he merely states the obvious. The empire has no clothes.
One of the most powerful aspects of this book was in regard to how our Universities
are run these days. I may be in the minority, but I experienced a life-changing
disillusionment when I gained entrance to a prestigious "elite" University. Instead of
drawing the best and the brightest, or being a place where scholarship was valued, where
students were taught critical thinking skills, the University I attended was nothing more
than an expensive diploma mill for the children of the wealthy. In the eyes of the
University, students were not minds to be empowered and developed, but walking dollar
signs.
Instead of critical thinking, students were taught to OBEY, not to question authority,
and then handed a piece of paper admitting them to the ruling class that is destroying
America without a moral compass. Selfishness, deceit, disregard for the common good, and a
win-at-all-costs attitude were rewarded. Empathy, curiosity, dissent, and an honest,
intellectually rigorous evaluation of ourselves and our world were punished. Obviously I am
not the only one to whom this was cause to fear for the future of our country.
Five stars is not enough. Ever since I began reading Empire of Illusion, I have insisted
friends and family pick up a copy, too. Everyone in America should read this incredibly
important book.
Mr. Hedges is in one heck of a foul mood. His raging against the evolving of American
democracy into an oligarchy is accurate, but relentlessly depressing. The author focuses on
some of our most horrid characteristics: celebrity worship; "pro" wrestling; the brutal porn
industry; Jerry Springer-like shows; the military-industrial complex; the moral void of elite
colleges such as Yale, Harvard, Berkeley and Princeton; optimistic-ladened pop psychology;
and political/corporate conformity.
Mr. Hedges grim assessment put me in a seriously foul mood. The chapter involving the
porn trade that is run by large corporations such as AT&T and GM (the car maker, for
crying out loud) was an especially dark, profanity-laced depiction of the abuse and moral
decay of American society .
He is correct in his belief that the continual barrage of psuedo-events and puffery
disguised as news (especially television) has conditioned most of Americans to be
non-critical thinkers.
Entertainment, consumption and the dangerous illusion that the U.S. is the best in the
world at everything are childish mindsets.
The oddest part of Mr. Hedges' book is the ending. The last three pages take such an
unexpectedly hard turn from "all is lost" to "love will conquer," I practically got whiplash.
Overall, the author should be commended for trying to bring our attention to what ails our
country and challenging readers to wake up from their child-like illusions.
Now, time for me to go run a nice, warm bath and where did I put those razor
blades?...
I must say I was captivated by the author's passion, eloquence and insight. This is not an
academic essay. True, there are few statistics here and there and quotes from such and such
person, but this is not like one of those books that read like a longer version of an
academic research paper. The book is more of author's personal observations about American
society. Perhaps that is where its power comes from.
Some might dismiss the book as nothing more than an opinion piece, but how many great
books and works out there are opinion pieces enhanced with supporting facts and
statistics?
The book is divided into five chapters. Chapter one is about celebrity worship and how far
people are willing to humiliate themselves and sacrifice their dignity for their five minutes
of fame. But this is not just about those who are willing to make idiots out of themselves
just to appear on television. This is about how the fascination with the world of rich and
famous distracts the society from the important issues and problems and how it creates
unhealthy and destructive desire to pursue wealth and fame. And even for those few who do
achieve it, their lives are far from the bliss and happiness shown in movies. More than one
celebrity had cursed her life.
Chapter two deals with porn. It offers gutwrenching, vomit inducing descriptions of lives
and conditions in the porn industry. But the damage porn does goes far beyond those working
in the "industry". Porn destroys the love, intimacy and beauty of sex. Porn reduces sex to an
act of male dominance, power and even violence. Unfortunately, many men, and even women, buy
into that and think that the sex seen in porn is normal and this is how things should be.
After reading this chapter, I will never look at porn the same way again. In fact, I
probably will never look at porn at all.
Chapter three is about education. It focuses mostly on college level education and how in
the past few decades it had increasingly changed focus from teaching students how to be
responsible citizens and good human beings to how to be successful, profit seeking, career
obsessed corporate/government drones. The students are taught that making money and career
building are the only thing that matters. This results in professionals who put greed and
selfishness above everything else and mindlessly serve a system that destroys the society and
the whole planet. And when they are faced with problems (like the current economic crisis)
and evidence that the system is broken, rather than rethink their paradigm and consider that
perhaps they were wrong, they retreat further into old thinking in search of ways to
reinforce the (broken) system and keep it going.
Chapter four is my favorite. It is about positive thinking. As someone who lives with a
family member who feeds me positive thinking crap at breakfast, lunch and supper, I enjoyed
this chapter very much. For those rare lucky few who do not know what positive thinking is,
it can be broadly defined as a belief that whatever happens to us in life, it happens because
we "attracted" it to ourselves. Think about it as karma that affects us not in the next life,
but in this one. The movement believes that our conscious and unconscious thoughts affect
reality. By assuming happy, positive outlook on life, we can affect reality and make good
things happen to us.
Followers of positive thinking are encouraged/required to purge all negative emotions,
never question the bad things that happen to them and focus on thinking happy thoughts.
Positive thinking is currently promoted by corporations and to lesser extent governments to
keep employees in line. They are rendered docile and obedient, don't make waves (like fight
for better pay and working conditions) and, when fired, take it calmly with a smile and never
question corporate culture.
Chapter five is about American politics and how the government and the politicians had
sold themselves out to corporations and business. It is about imperialism and how the
government helps the corporations loot the country while foreign wars are started under the
pretext of defense and patriotism, but their real purpose is to loot the foreign lands and
fill the coffers of war profiteers. If allowed to continue, this system will result in
totalitarianism and ecological apocalypse.
I have some objections with this chapter. While I completely agree about the current state
of American politics, the author makes a claim that this is a relatively recent development
dating roughly to the Vietnam War. Before that, especially in the 1950s, things were much
better. Or at least they were for the white men. (The author does admit that 1950s were not
all that great to blacks, women or homosexuals.)
While things might have gotten very bad in the last few decades, politicians and
governments have always been more at the service of Big Money rather than the common
people.
And Vietnam was not the first imperialistic American war. What about the conquest of Cuba
and Philippines at the turn of the 20th century? And about all those American "adventures" in
South America in the 19th century. And what about the westward expansion and extermination of
Native Americans that started the moment the first colonists set their foot on the
continent?
But this is a minor issue. My biggest issue with the book is that it is a powerful
denunciation, but it does not offer much in terms of suggestions on how to fix the problems
it is decrying. Criticizing is good and necessary, but offering solutions is even more
important. You can criticize all you want, but if you cannot suggest something better, then
the old system will stay in place.
The author does write at the end a powerful, tear inducing essay on how love conquers all
and that no totalitarian regime, no matter how powerful and oppressive, had ever managed to
crush hope, love and the human spirit. Love, in the end, conquers all.
That is absolutely true. But what does it mean in practice? That we must keep loving and
doing good? Of course we must, but some concrete, practical examples of what to do would be
welcome.
An excellent and sobering view at the decline of reason and literacy in modern society
This is an absolutely superb work that documents how our society has been subverted by
spectacle, glitz, celebrity, and the obsession with "fame" at the expense of reality,
literacy, reason, and actual ability. Hedges lays it all out in a very clear and thought
provoking style, using real world examples like pro wrestling and celebrity oriented
programming to showcase how severely our society has declined from a forward thinking,
literate one into a mass of tribes obsessed with stardom and money.
Even better is that the author's style is approachable and non judgemental. This isn't an
academic talking down to the masses, but a very solid reporter presenting findings in an
accurate, logical style.
Every American should read this, and then consider whether to buy that glossy celebrity
oriented magazine or watch that "I want to be a millionaire" show. The lifestyle and choices
being promoted by the media, credit card companies, and by the celebrity culture in general,
are toxic and a danger to our society's future.
The various ills impacting society graphically painted by Chris Hedges are attributed to a
lack of literacy. However, it is much more complex, layered, and inter-related. By examining
literacy, love, wisdom, happiness, and the current state of America, the author sets out to
convince the reader that our world is intellectually crumbling. He picks aspects of our
society that clearly offer questionable value: professional wrestling, the pornographic film
industry (which is provided in bizarre repetitive graphic detail), gambling, conspicuous
consumption, and biased news reporting to name a few.
The front of the end of the book was the most compelling. Especially when Hedges strays
into near conspiracy with comments such as this: "Those who manipulate the shadows that
dominate our lives are the agents, publicists, marketing departments, promoters, script
writers, television and movie producers, advertisers, video technicians, photographers,
bodyguards, wardrobe consultants, fitness trainers, pollsters, public announcers, and
television news personalities who create the vast stage for illusion. The are the puppet
masters." As extreme as that is, he is more credible when he says, "Commodities and celebrity
culture define what it means to belong, how we recognize our place in society, and how we
conduct our lives." I say 'credible' because popular and mass culture's influence are
creating a world where substance is replaced by questionable style.
What resonated most in the book is a passage taken from William Deresiewicz's essay The
End of Solitude: "What does the contemporary self want? The camera has created a culture of
celebrity; the computer is creating a culture of connectivity. As the two technologies
converge -- broadband tipping the Web from text to image, social-networking sites spreading
the mesh of interconnection ever wider -- the two cultures betray a common impulse.
Celebrity and connectivity are both ways of becoming known. This is what the
contemporary self wants. It wants to be recognized, wants to be connected: It wants to be
visible. If not to the millions, on Survivor or Oprah, then to the hundreds, on Twitter or
Facebook. This is the quality that validates us, this is how we become real to ourselves
-- by being seen by others. The great contemporary terror is anonymity. If Lionel Trilling
was right, if the property that grounded the self, in Romanticism, was sincerity, and in
modernism it was authenticity, then in postmodernism it is visibility."
Visibility has replaced substance and accomplishment; packaging over product, sizzle
not steak. Chris Rojek calls this "the cult of distraction" where society is consumed by the
vacuous and the vapid rather than striving for self-awareness, accomplishment and
contribution ("Propaganda has become a substitute for ideas and ideology."). Hedges builds on
Rojek's descriptor by suggesting we are living in a "culture of illusion" which impoverishes
language, makes us childlike, and is basically dumbing us all down.
This is definitely a provocative contribution and damning analysis of our society that
would be a great choice for a book club. It would promote lively debate as conclusions and
solutions are not easily reached.
A book that needs to be read, even if it's only half true.
Empire of Illusion might be the most depressing book I've ever read. Why? Because it
predicts the collapse of America and almost every word of it rings true.
I don't know if there's really anything new here; many of the ideas Hedges puts forth have
been floating around in the neglected dark corners of our national discourse, but Hedges
drags them all out into the daylight. Just about every social/cultural/economic/political ill
you can think of is mentioned at some point in the text and laid at the feet of the villains
whose insatiable greed has destroyed this once-great country. Hedges is bold. He predicts
nothing less than the end of America. Indeed, he claims America has already ended. The
American Dream is nothing more than an illusion being propped up by wealthy elites obsessed
with power and the preservation of their lifestyle, a blind academia that has forgotten how
to critique authority, and a government that is nothing more than the puppet of corporations.
Meanwhile, mindless entertainments and a compliant news media divert and mislead the working
and middle classes so they don't even notice that they are being raped to death by the
power-elite and the corporations.
(Don't misunderstand. This is no crack-pot conspiracy theory. It's not about secret
quasi-mystical cabals attempting world domination. Rather, Hedges paints a credible picture
of our culture in a state of moral and intellectual decay, and leaders corrupted by power and
greed who have ceased to act in the public interest.)
At times Hedges seems to be ranting and accusing without providing evidence or examples to
substantiate his claims. But that might only be because his claims have already been
substantiated individually elsewhere, and Hedges's purpose here is a kind of grand synthesis
of many critical ideas. Indeed, an exhaustive analysis of all the issues he brings forth
would require volumes rather than a single book. In any case, I challenge anyone to read this
book, look around honestly at what's happening in America, and conclude that Hedges is
wrong.
One final note: this book is not for the squeamish. The chapter about pornography is
brutally explicit. Still, I think it is an important book, and it would be good if a lot more
people would read it, discuss it, and thereby become dis-illusioned.
Chris Hedges book, "Empire of Illusion" is a stinging assessment and vivid indictment of
America's political and educational systems; a well-told story. I agree with his views but
wonder how they can be reversed or transformed given the economic hegemony of the
corporations and the weight of the entrenched political parties. Very few solutions were
provided.
Corporations will continue to have a presence and set standards within the halls of
educational and governmental institutions with impunity. Limited monetary measures, other
than governmental, exist for public educational institutions, both secondary and
post-secondary. Historically, Roman and Greek political elitists operated in a similar manner
and may have set standards for today's plutocracy. Plebeian societies were helpless and
powerless, with few options, to enact change against the political establishment. Given the
current conditions, America is on a downward spiral to chaos.
His book is a clarion call for action. Parents and teachers have warned repeatedly that
too much emphasis is placed on athletic programs at the expense of academics. Educational
panels, books and other experts have done little to reform the system and its intransigent
administrators.
Today's delusionary and corrupted officials, corporate and government, are reminiscent
of the narratives penned by Charles Dickens. Alexander Hamilton referred to the masses as a
"great beast" to be kept from the powers of government.
Edmund Burke used propaganda to control "elements of society". Walter Lippmann advised
that "the public must be kept in its place". Yet, many Americans just don't get it.
They continue to be hood-winked by politicians using uncontested "sound bites" and
"racially-coded" phrases to persuade voters.
Divide and conquer is the mantra--rich vs. poor; black vs. white. According to Norm
Chomsky's writings, "In 1934, William Shepard argued that government should be in the hands
of `aristocracy and intellectual power' while the `ignorant, and the uninformed and the
antisocial element' must not be permitted to control elections...."
The appalling statistics and opinions outlined in the book demonstrate the public
ignorance of the American culture; the depth and extent of the corporatocracy and the related
economic malaise; and, the impact substandard schools have on their lives. This is
further exemplified by Jay Leno's version of "Jaywalking". On the streets, he randomly
selects passersby to interview, which seems to validate much of these charges.
We are all culpable. We are further susceptible to illusions. John Locke said, "Government
receives its just powers from the consent of the governed".
This idea was recently usurped by the U.S. Supreme Court where representative
government is called to question, rendering "our" consent irrelevant. Every voting election
is an illusion. Each election, at the local and national level, voters never seemingly "miss
an opportunity to miss an opportunity" to eliminate irresponsible and unresponsive
officials.
Walt Kelly's quote "We have met the enemy and he is us" prevails!
There are many flaws with Hedges' book. For one thing, he is given to writing sermons (his
father was a minister), hurling down denunciations in the manner of the prophet Amos. The
book also tends to be repetitious, as Hedges makes the same general statements over and over.
It's also hard to follow at times as Hedges attempts to stress the connections between
pop culture and social, political. and economic policy. Nor is Hedges a particularly stylish
writer (a sense of humor would help).
His last-second "happy ending" (something like: we're all doomed, but eventually,
somewhere down the line, love will prevail beacuse it's ultimately the strongest power on
earth) is, to say the least, unconvincing.
SO why am I recommending this book? Because in spite of its flaws (and maybe even because
of them), this is a powerful depiction of the state of American society. The book does get to
you in its somewhat clumsy way.
The stomach-turning chapter on trends in porn and their relationship to the torture of
prisoners of war is a particularly sharp piece of analysis, and all of the other chapters do
eventually convince (and depress).
This book will not exactly cheer you up, but at least it will give you an understanding of
where we are (and where we're heading).
The problem with neocon chickenhawks is that they all want money from MIC. So their jingoism is
a king of prostitution...
Notable quotes:
"... "Saving Realism" is the handiwork of Hal Brands and Peter Feaver, well-connected scholars employed by elite institutions. Brands teaches at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and, according to his bio, has "consulted with a range of government offices and agencies in the intelligence and national security communities." Feaver teaches at Duke University. During the George W. Bush administration, he served on the staff of the National Security Council. They are classic policy intellectuals, one foot planted in academe, the other in the corridors of power. ..."
"... Especially since the end of the Cold War, reality itself is impinging on the prerogatives to which members of the American foreign-policy establishment have grown accustomed and to the arrangements that sustain those prerogatives. It therefore becomes incumbent upon scholars who serve that establishment to deflect such threats. They do so by contriving a "reality" conducive to affirming existing prerogatives and arrangements. ..."
"... The only past that matters is the Cold War, carefully curated as a narrative of American triumphalism. Anything that happened before the Cold War qualifies as irrelevant. Cold War episodes that turned out to be less than triumphal!Vietnam, for example!receive the barest acknowledgment. As for misfortunes that may have befallen the United States since the Cold War ended almost three decades ago, Brands and Feaver shrug them off as insignificant. Sure, "the invasion and occupation of Iraq did prove far costlier than expected." But so what? Stuff happens! ..."
"... Stripped to its essentials, their argument reduces to a brazen tautology: Approaches to policy that worked during the Cold War will work today because they worked during the Cold War. Of course, the argument presumes that the world in which we live today is more or less comparable to the world that existed back in the Forties and Fifties. As to how the supple, nuanced doctrine advanced by realists during that Golden Age yielded such dubious propositions as bipolarity, the domino theory, and the bogus enterprise known as nuclear strategy, Brands and Feaver are conveniently silent. ..."
In the September issue of Commentary, a magazine of distinguished lineage, there appears
an essay bearing the title
"Saving Realism from the So-Called Realists." Once upon a time, essays published by Commentary
, penned by such eminences as Jeane Kirkpatrick, Hans Morgenthau, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Robert
C. Tucker, shaped the debate over U.S. foreign policy. Those days have long since passed. If "Saving
Realism" serves any purpose, it is to expose the intellectual exhaustion of the foreign-policy establishment.
Those who fancy themselves the source of policy-relevant ideas have given up on actually thinking.
"Saving Realism" is the handiwork of Hal Brands and Peter Feaver, well-connected scholars
employed by elite institutions. Brands teaches at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International
Studies and, according to his bio, has "consulted with a range of government offices and agencies
in the intelligence and national security communities." Feaver teaches at Duke University. During
the George W. Bush administration, he served on the staff of the National Security Council. They
are classic policy intellectuals, one foot planted in academe, the other in the corridors of power.
The chief purpose their essay is to mount a frontal assault on a group of individuals they deride
as "academic realists." Of course, when not occupying positions on the fringes of power, Brands and
Feaver are themselves academics. Here, however, their use of the term drips with ridicule and condescension.
"Academic" becomes a synonym for naďve or wooly-headed or simply irresponsible.
To their credit, Brands and Feaver do not balk at naming names, fingering Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer,
Barry Posen, and Christopher Layne, prominent political scientists, as dangerous proponents of academic
realism.
Take the claims made by Brands and Feaver at face value and this Gang of Four poses a direct threat
not only to U.S. national security but to the very possibility to creating a decent global order.
"Today's academic realists essentially argue," they write, "that the United States should dismantle
the global architecture that has undergirded the international order" ever since World War II. Academic
realists seek "the deliberate destruction of arrangements that have fostered international stability
and prosperity for decades." They are intent on tearing down "the pillars of a peaceful and prosperous
world." They are, in short, a wrecking crew.
Brands and Feaver do not explain what motivates Walt et al., to undertake this nefarious plot,
merely hinting that personal pique is probably a factor. "Having lost policy arguments that they
thought they should have won," on issues such as NATO expansion and invading Iraq, "academic realists
decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater." They are, in effect, soreheads.
For this reason alone, their critique of U.S. policy, suggesting that since the end of the Cold
War the United States has squandered a uniquely advantageous position, is without merit. So too with
their complaint that in recent decades the United States has misused its military power. What academic
realists are actually proposing, Brands and Feaver charge, is to "stake everything on a leap into
the unknown." Their calls for greater restraint amount to little more than a pose. In reality, they
advocate unvarnished recklessness.
Worse still, Brands and Feaver see worrisome signs that the Gang of Four is making headway. In
Donald Trump's White House academic realism "seems to be finding a sympathetic hearing." Indeed,
they write, "One of the least academic presidents in American history may, ironically, be buying
into some of the most misguided doctrines of the ivory tower."
This is pretty wild stuff. Let me acknowledge that I know each member of this Gang of Four and
hold them in high regard. That said, whether individually or collectively, they wield about as much
clout in present-day Washington as Karl Marx.
Indeed, the reader will search "Saving Realism" in vain for evidence actually linking the Gang
of Four to President Trump. To my knowledge none of the four are Trump supporters. I am unaware of
any of them having endorsed the policies of the Trump administration. As for Trump himself, my bet
is that he could care less about anything Walt, Mearsheimer, Posen, and Layne have to say. If our
president has absorbed the Gang of Four's policy perspective, he must be doing it by osmosis.
In short, the case presented by Brands and Feaver comes precariously close to being a McCarthyite
smear!guilt by association without even establishing that any association actually exists.
To which the average American citizen, tested by the trials of everyday life, might well respond:
Who cares? An intramural tiff among privileged members of the professoriate might merit a panel at
the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. But should it qualify as a matter
of general interest?
In one specific sense, perhaps it ought to. While it may not be their intended purpose, by mounting
their overheated attack on "academic realism," Brands and Feaver succeed in demonstrating why genuine
realism rarely receives a serious hearing inside the Beltway. The answer is simply this: Especially
since the end of the Cold War, reality itself is impinging on the prerogatives to which members of
the American foreign-policy establishment have grown accustomed and to the arrangements that sustain
those prerogatives. It therefore becomes incumbent upon scholars who serve that establishment to
deflect such threats. They do so by contriving a "reality" conducive to affirming existing prerogatives
and arrangements.
Brands and Feaver do their very best to conjure up such a "reality." Having established to their
own satisfaction that Trump and the Gang of Four are somehow colluding with each other, they offer
their own prescription for a "reformed realism" to be built on "seven bedrock insights."
The seven insights share this common quality: They are unflaggingly banal. Yet the last of the
seven manages to be both banal and immensely instructive: Realism, Brands and Feaver write, "requires
not throwing away what has worked in the past."
Here we come to the heart of the matter. What exactly is the "the past" that remains relevant
to the present and that provides the basis for their version of authentic (as opposed to academic)
realism?
On this point, Brands and Feaver, are admirably candid. The only past that matters is the
Cold War, carefully curated as a narrative of American triumphalism. Anything that happened before
the Cold War qualifies as irrelevant. Cold War episodes that turned out to be less than triumphal!Vietnam,
for example!receive the barest acknowledgment. As for misfortunes that may have befallen the United
States since the Cold War ended almost three decades ago, Brands and Feaver shrug them off as insignificant.
Sure, "the invasion and occupation of Iraq did prove far costlier than expected." But so what? Stuff
happens!
Rather than get hung up on Iraq or Afghanistan or the ongoing debacle of U.S. interventionism
in the Islamic world, Brands and Feaver keep their focus on the early Cold War, which they depict
as a veritable Golden Age of realism and by extension of American statecraft. Peppering their account
are favorable references to "Cold War-era realism" and "Cold War realists." After World War II, "realist
thinkers understood that America was uniquely capable of stabilizing the international order and
containing Soviet power." Back then, serious realists!in contrast to today's academic types!were
the very inverse of wooly-headed. "Cold War realists were willing to see the world as it was," according
to Brands and Feaver. "During the Cold War, then, realism was a supple, nuanced doctrine."
Stripped to its essentials, their argument reduces to a brazen tautology: Approaches to policy
that worked during the Cold War will work today because they worked during the Cold War. Of course,
the argument presumes that the world in which we live today is more or less comparable to the world
that existed back in the Forties and Fifties. As to how the supple, nuanced doctrine advanced by
realists during that Golden Age yielded such dubious propositions as bipolarity, the domino theory,
and the bogus enterprise known as nuclear strategy, Brands and Feaver are conveniently silent.
"Contemporary academic realists," Brands and Feaver charge, "sit atop a pyramid of faulty assumptions."
They themselves require no such pyramid. Their version of realism rests on just a single assumption:
That history is a menu from which Americans can pick and choose. To escape from currently bothersome
predicaments, in no small part the product of our folly, Brands and Feaver would have the United
States choose from that menu only those bits that we find congenial. The rest we can simply ignore.
Come to think of it, that's an approach that might find favor with Donald Trump himself.
Andrew J. Bacevich is The American Conservative 's writer-at-large.
Strawman, that many here, including Mark and PO, have tried using against me. First, I have
criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, like the 2003 Iraq war, intervention in Libya, and the war
in Afghanistan. This debunks the first part of your post.
As for the second: anyone who blames the U.S. for something it is not responsible for, in
an attempt to distract from the country's economic issues for example, is an anti-American.
Ditto for anyone who wants the U.S. to collapse, be destroyed, or makes fun of its people
with stereotypes.
The above paragraph can be applied to any country in the world and is standard fare for
defining phobia against a country. You and your ilk are quick to whine about "Russophobia",
but when similar tactics are used against the U.S., you start calling anyone who calls them
out an "imperialist".
Such extreme over-simplifications do nothing except twist my words and make it easier for
you to avoid critically self-assessing your views on U.S. foreign policy. An easy way to
avoid debate.
"Ditto for anyone who wants the U.S. to collapse, be destroyed, or makes fun of its people
with stereotypes."
That's too simplistic. The USA simultaneously represents a country and a global neoliberal
empire led from Washington. The latter gave us all those wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya,
Yemen and Syria (KSA is a part of the empire).
You may want prosperity for the USA proper, and the collapse of this neoliberal empire at
the same time. This is essentially Bannon's position and the position of other "economic
nationalists" in the USA, who are now tarred and feathered as "Putin friends" (Putin's
position is also somewhat closer to economic nationalism then to neoliberalism, although in
certain areas he sits between two chairs).
The USA is a great country which among other things gave the world Internet, as we know
it. As well as modern CPUs and computers ( although here British scientists and Germans made
important contributions too, often as staff of foreign subsidiaries of the US companies such
as Intel, and IBM) . Due to which such forums are possible.
Neoliberalism and US governed global neoliberal empire will most probably shrink or even
collapse after the end of cheap oil and due to the rise of nationalist movements in almost
all EU countries and elsewhere, which partially reverses the trend toward neoliberal
globalization that existed before. That's uneven process. In the USA neoliberalism
demonstrated amazing staying power after financial crisis of 2008, which buried neoliberal
ideology.
Recently in some countries (not without some help from the USA) neoliberalism staged
revenge (Argentina, Brazil), but the general trend now does not favor neoliberal
globalization and, by extension, kicking the can down the road via color revolutions and
such.
The typical forecast for end of cheap oil is a decade or two. KSA is the canary in the
mine here. It should collapse first.
The USA as a country probably will be OK because it is rich in hydrocarbons, but the
neoliberal empire will collapse as the USA probably it will not be able or willing to serve
as armed enforcer of multinationals around the globe any longer. The set of ideas known as
neoliberalism are already on life support. See https://www.amazon.com/dp/0199283273 A Brief
History of Neoliberalism by David Harvey. Also see http://softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Political_skeptic/Neoliberalism/index.shtml
Neoliberals who control the US state after Reagan coup (or even starting with Carter)
still push down the throats of Americans those dead ideas due to power of propaganda machine,
but they are less and less effective. Trump election means that allergic reaction to
neoliberal propaganda already is a factor in the US political life. Hillary positioned
herself as quintessential globalist and warmonger for the USA led neoliberal empire and lost.
Trump proved to be no better then the king of "bait and switch" Barak Obama and shed all his
election promises with ease. But the fact remains. .
For the same reason we also need to distinguish between neocons, who currently determine
the US foreign policy (and dominate the State Department) and the rank-and-file Americans who
suffer from this imperial overreach, from outsourcing, with some of them returning home dead
or maimed. There nothing bad in denigrating neocons.
I would view the current round of hostilities between Russia and the USA through the prism
of the fight for the preservation of the US neoliberal empire. They need an external enemy to
squash mounting resistance to neoliberalism with the USA. And Ukraine gambit was designed
explicitly for that. If they can take out Russia (by installing Yeltsin-style regime, which
is the goal) the life of empire might be prolonged (they tried and failed in 2012). The
second round of looting also might help with paying external debt. The shot in the arm which
the USA got from the collapse of the USSR led to [fake] prosperity in 1994-2000.
Is not this a blowback of Washington neocons organized Kiev coup d'état of February 22, 2014 ?
Neocons sowed the teeth of dragon. Now wait...
Notable quotes:
"... The anger is a challenge for U.S. policymakers seeking to reach out to a shrinking pool of friendly faces in Russia. ..."
"... The anti-Western anger stands to grow even stronger if President Obama decides to send lethal weaponry to the Ukrainian military, as he has been considering. The aim would be to "raise the cost" of any Russian intervention by making the Ukrainian response more lethal. But even some of Putin's toughest critics say they cannot support that proposal, since the cost is the lives of their nation's soldiers. ..."
"... "The United States is experimenting geopolitically, using people like guinea pigs," said Sergey Mikheev, director of the Kremlin-allied Center for Current Politics, on a popular talk show on the state-run First Channel last year. His accusations, drawn out by a host who said it was important to "know the enemy," were typical of the rhetoric that fills Russian airwaves. ..."
"... Soviet rhetoric was officially anti-Western, but it couldn't repress ordinary Russians' passion for the Beatles or their enthusiasm for getting news from jammed Voice of America broadcasts. Those positive feelings spilled over after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. ..."
"... But the list of perceived slights from the United States has long been building, particularly after the United States and NATO bombed Serbia, a Russian ally, in 1999. Then came the war in Iraq, NATO expansion and the Russia-Georgia conflict. Each time, there were smaller spikes of anti-American sentiment that receded as quickly as they emerged. ..."
"... The years of perceived humiliations have "led to anti-Americanism at the grass-roots level, which did not exist before," said Vladimir Pozner, a journalist who for decades was a prominent voice of the Soviet Union in the United States. More recently, he has to explain the United States inside Russia. "We don't like the Americans, and it's because they're pushy, they think they're unique and they have had no regard for anyone else." ..."
"... Many Russians tapped into a deep-rooted resentment that after modeling themselves on the West following the breakup of the Soviet Union, they had experienced only hardship and humiliation in return. ..."
After a year in which furious rhetoric has been pumped across Russian airwaves, anger toward the
United States is at its worst since opinion polls began tracking it. From ordinary street vendors
all the way up to the Kremlin, a wave of anti-U.S. bile has swept the country, surpassing any time
since the Stalin era, observers say.
The indignation peaked after the assassination of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov, as conspiracy
theories started to swirl - just a few hours after he was killed - that his death was a CIA plot
to discredit Russia. (On Sunday, Russia charged two men from Chechnya, and detained three others,
in connection with Nemtsov's killing.)
There are drives to exchange Western-branded clothing for Russia's red, blue and white. Efforts
to replace Coke with Russian-made soft drinks. Fury over U.S. sanctions. And a passionate, conspiracy-laden
fascination with the methods that Washington is supposedly using to foment unrest in Ukraine and
Russia.
The anger is a challenge for U.S. policymakers seeking to reach out to a shrinking pool of
friendly faces in Russia. And it is a marker of the limits of their ability to influence Russian
decision-making after a year of sanctions. More than 80 percent of Russians now hold negative views
of the United States, according to the independent Levada Center, a number that has more than doubled
over the past year and that is by far the highest negative rating since the center started tracking
those views in 1988.
Nemtsov's assassination, the highest-profile political killing during Vladimir Putin's 15 years
in power, was yet another brutal strike against pro-Western forces in Russia. Nemtsov had long modeled
himself on Western politicians and amassed a long list of enemies who resented him for it.
The anti-Western anger stands to grow even stronger if President Obama decides to send lethal
weaponry to the Ukrainian military, as he has been considering. The aim would be to "raise the cost"
of any Russian intervention by making the Ukrainian response more lethal. But even some of Putin's
toughest critics say they cannot support that proposal, since the cost is the lives of their nation's
soldiers.
"The United States is experimenting geopolitically, using people like guinea pigs," said Sergey
Mikheev, director of the Kremlin-allied Center for Current Politics, on a popular talk show on the
state-run First Channel last year. His accusations, drawn out by a host who said it was important
to "know the enemy," were typical of the rhetoric that fills Russian airwaves.
"They treat us all in the same way, threatening not only world stability but the existence
of every human being on the planet," Mikheev said.
Soviet rhetoric was officially anti-Western, but it couldn't repress ordinary Russians' passion
for the Beatles or their enthusiasm for getting news from jammed Voice of America broadcasts. Those
positive feelings spilled over after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
But the list of perceived slights from the United States has long been building, particularly
after the United States and NATO bombed Serbia, a Russian ally, in 1999. Then came the war in Iraq,
NATO expansion and the Russia-Georgia conflict. Each time, there were smaller spikes of anti-American
sentiment that receded as quickly as they emerged.
Putin cranked up the volume after protest movements in late 2011 and 2012, which he blamed on
the State Department. It wasn't until last year, when the crisis started in Ukraine, that anti-Americanism
spread even among those who once eagerly hopped on planes to Miami and Los Angeles.
Fed by the powerful antagonism on Russian federal television channels, the main source of news
for more than 90 percent of Russians, ordinary people started to feel more and more disillusioned.
The anger seems different from the fast-receding jolts of the past, observers say, having spread
faster and wider.
The years of perceived humiliations have "led to anti-Americanism at the grass-roots level,
which did not exist before," said Vladimir Pozner, a journalist who for decades was a prominent voice
of the Soviet Union in the United States. More recently, he has to explain the United States inside
Russia. "We don't like the Americans, and it's because they're pushy, they think they're unique and
they have had no regard for anyone else."
... ... ...
Many Russians tapped into a deep-rooted resentment that after modeling themselves on the West
following the breakup of the Soviet Union, they had experienced only hardship and humiliation in
return.
"Starting from about 1989, we completely reoriented toward the West. We looked at them as a future
paradise. We expected that once we had done all that they demanded, we'd dance for them and they
would finally hug and kiss us and we would merge in ecstasy," said Evgeny Tarlo, a member of Russia's
upper house of parliament, on a Russian talk show last year. Instead, he said, the West has been
trying to destroy Russia.
The anti-Americanism makes it harder for American culture to make inroads through its traditional
means - soft-power routes such as movies, music and education. Last year, Russian policymakers ended
a decades-old high school exchange program that offered their nation's best and brightest the chance
to spend semesters at U.S. schools. Few Western artists now perform on Russian soil.
Western diplomats also say privately that they find themselves frozen out of speaking engagements
and other opportunities to explain their countries' positions to Russian audiences. And Russians
who work for local outposts of Western companies say their friends and neighbors increasingly question
their patriotism.
... ... ...
Even McDonald's, long an embodiment of Russian dreams about the West, was targeted for supposed
health violations in the fall. Some of its most prominent locations were forced to shut down temporarily.
When they reopened, McDonald's started an advertising campaign emphasizing its local ties and its
25-year history in Russia, playing down the Golden Arches' global significance as a bright beacon
of America.
Last week, one McDonald's billboard in the heart of Moscow read: "Made in Russia, for Russians."
Michael Birnbaum is The Post's Moscow bureau chief. He previously served as the Berlin correspondent
and an education reporter.
In regards to Time Magazine, it's no surprise. Time apparently thinks that most everyone in
the world is thoughtful and intelligent–except for Americans–who are mostly at the intellectual
level of narcissistic, mentally-handicapped imbeciIes who just escaped from an asylum after receiving
a lobotomy. Or at least that's what one would gather after looking at
this.
Well, they might not be wrong.
Jim Haygood
"Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders … didn't make it on [Time's] shortlist"
for 2015 Person of the Year."
If Time considered Sanders a serious threat, they could dispatch him in a trice by putting
his mug on a Person of the Year cover.
The most recent example of the cover story jinx in action came from Mexico. At the start
of this year Time profiled president Enrique Pena Nieto as the man 'Saving Mexico',
and that was the sentiment at the time. The writer of that story quoted me to the effect that,
"In the Wall Street investment community, I'd say that Mexico is by far the favourite nation
just now."
Since then it has been all downhill for Pena Nieto and Mexico, with the president embroiled
in a series of scandals and economic growth coming in at a disappointing 2.2% this year.
I still remember that smug look on his face, followed by the matter-of-fact remarks that had western journalists laugh out loud.
"I'm now going to show you a picture of the luckiest man in Iraq," General Norman Schwarzkopf, known as "Stormin" Norman, said
at a press conference sometime in 1991, as he showed a video of US bombs blasting an Iraqi bridge, seconds after the Iraqi driver
managed to cross it.
But then, a far more unjust invasion and war followed in 2003, following a decade-long siege that cost Iraq a million of its children
and its entire economy.
It marked the end of sanity and the dissipation of any past illusions that the United States was a friend of the Arabs. Not only
did the Americans destroy the central piece of our civilizational and collective experience that spanned millennia, it took pleasure
in degrading us in the process. Their soldiers raped our women with obvious delight. They tortured our men, and posed with the dead,
mutilated bodies in photographs – mementos to prolong the humiliation for eternity; they butchered our people, explained in articulate
terms as necessary and unavoidable collateral damage; they blew up our mosques and churches and refused to accept that what was done
to Iraq over the course of twenty years might possibly constitute war crimes.
Then, they expanded their war taking it as far as US bombers could reach; they tortured and floated their prisoners aboard large
ships, cunningly arguing that torture in international waters does not constitute a crime; they suspended their victims on crosses
and photographed them for future entertainment.
Their entertainers, media experts, intellectuals and philosophers made careers from dissecting us, dehumanizing us, belittling
everything we hold dear; they did not spare a symbol, a prophet, a tradition, values or set of morals. When we reacted and protested
out of despair, they further censured us for being intolerant to view the humor in our demise; they used our angry shouts to further
highlight their sense of superiority and our imposed lowliness.
They claimed that we initiated it all. But they lied. It was their unqualified, inflated sense of importance that made them assign
September 11, 2001 as the inauguration of history. All that they did to us, all the colonial experiences and the open-ended butchery
of the brown man, the black man, any man or woman who did not look like them or uphold their values, was inconsequential.
All the millions who died in Iraq were not considered a viable context to any historical understanding of terrorism; in fact,
terrorism became us; the whole concept of terror, which is violence inflicted on innocent civilians for political ends, abruptly
became an entirely Arab and Muslim trait. In retrospect, the US-Western-Israeli slaughter of the Vietnamese, Koreans, Cambodians,
Palestinians, Lebanese, Egyptians, South Americans, Africans, was spared any censure. Yet, when Arabs attempted to resist, they were
deemed the originators of violence, the harbingers of terror.
Furthermore, they carried out massive social and demographic experiments in Iraq which have been unleashed throughout the Middle
East, since. They pitted their victims against one another: the Shia against the Sunni, the Sunni against the Sunni, the Arabs against
the Kurds, and the Kurds against the Turks. They called it a strategy, and congratulated themselves on a job well done as they purportedly
withdrew from Iraq. They disregarded the consequences of tampering with civilizations that have evolved over the course of millennia.
When their experiments went awry, they blamed their victims. Their entertainers, media experts, intellectuals and philosophers
flooded every public platform to inform the world that the vital mistake of the Bush administration was the assumption that Arabs
were ready for democracy and that, unlike the Japanese and the Germans, Arabs were made of different blood, flesh and tears. Meanwhile,
the finest of Arab men were raped in their jails, kidnapped in broad daylight, tortured aboard large ships in international waters,
where the Law did not apply.
When the Americans and their allies claimed that they had left the region, they left behind bleeding, impoverished nations, licking
their wounds and searching for bodies under rubble in diverse and macabre landscapes. Yet, the Americans, the British, the French
and the Israelis, continue to stage their democratic elections around the debate of who will hit us the hardest, humiliate us the
most, teach the most unforgettable lesson and, in their late night comedies, they mock our pain.
We, then, sprang up like wild grass in a desert, multiplied, and roamed the streets of Rabat, Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo, calling
for a revolution. We wanted democracy for our sake, not Bush's democracy tinged with blood; we wanted equality, change and reforms
and a world in which Gaza is not habitually destroyed by Israel and children of Derra could protest without being shot; where leaders
do not pose as divinities and relish the endless arsenals of their western benefactors. We sought a life in which freedom is not
a rickety dingy crossing the sea to some uncertain horizon where we are treated as human rubbish on the streets of western lands.
However, we were crushed; pulverized; imprisoned, burnt, beaten and raped and, once more, told that we are not yet ready for democracy;
not ready to be free, to breathe, to exist with even a speck of dignity.
Many of us are still honorably fighting for our communities; others despaired: they carried arms and went to war, fighting whoever
they perceive to be an enemy, who were many. Others went mad, lost every sense of humanity; exacted revenge, tragically believing
that justice can be achieved by doing unto others what they have done unto you. They were joined by others who headed to the West,
some of whom had escaped the miseries of their homelands, but found that their utopia was marred with alienation, racism and neglect,
saturated with a smug sense of superiority afflicted upon them by their old masters.
It became a vicious cycle, and few seem interested now in revisiting General Schwarzkopf's conquests in Iraq and Vietnam – with
his smug attitude and the amusement of western journalists – to know what actually went wrong. They still refuse to acknowledge history,
the bleeding Palestinian wound, the heartbroken Egyptian revolutionaries and the destroyed sense of Iraqi nationhood, the hemorrhaging
streets of Libya and the horrifying outcomes of all the western terrorist wars, with blind, oil-hungry dominating foreign policies
that have shattered the Cradle of Civilization, like never before.
However, this violence no longer affects Arabs alone, although Arabs and Muslims remain the larger recipients of its horror. When
the militants, spawned by the US and their allies, felt cornered, they fanned out to every corner of the globe, killing innocent
people and shouting the name of God in their final moment. Recently, they came for the French, a day after they blew up the Lebanese,
and few days after the Russians; and, before that, the Turks and the Kurds, and, simultaneously, the Syrians and the Iraqis.
Who is next? No one really knows. We keep telling ourselves that "it's just a transition" and "all will be well once the dust
has settled". But the Russians, the Americans and everyone else continue bombing, each insisting that they are bombing the right
people for the right reason while, on the ground, everyone is shooting at whoever they deem the enemy, the terrorist, a designation
that is often redefined. Yet, few speak out to recognize our shared humanity and victimhood.
No – do not always expect the initials ISIS to offer an explanation for all that goes wrong. Those who orchestrated the war on
Iraq and those feeding the war in Syria and arming Israel cannot be vindicated.
The crux of the matter: we either live in dignity together or continue to perish alone, warring tribes and grief-stricken nations.
This is not just about indiscriminate bombing – our humanity, in fact, the future of the human race is at stake.
The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War by
Andrew Bacevich
Oxford, 270 pp, Ł16.99, August 2005, ISBN 0 19 517338 4
A key justification of the Bush administration's purported strategy of 'democratising' the Middle East is the argument that democracies
are pacific, and that Muslim democracies will therefore eventually settle down peacefully under the benign hegemony of the US. Yet,
as Andrew Bacevich points out in one of the most acute analyses of America to have appeared in recent years, the United States itself
is in many ways a militaristic country, and becoming more so:
at the end of the Cold War, Americans said yes to military power. The scepticism about arms and armies that informed the original
Wilsonian vision, indeed, that pervaded the American experiment from its founding, vanished. Political leaders, liberals and conservatives
alike, became enamoured with military might.
The ensuing affair had, and continues to have, a heedless, Gatsby-like aspect, a passion pursued in utter disregard of any
consequences that might ensue.
The president's title of 'commander-in-chief' is used by administration propagandists to suggest, in a way reminiscent of German
militarists before 1914 attempting to defend their half-witted kaiser, that any criticism of his record in external affairs comes
close to a betrayal of the military and the country. Compared to German and other past militarisms, however, the contemporary American
variant is extremely complex, and the forces that have generated it have very diverse origins and widely differing motives:
The new American militarism is the handiwork of several disparate groups that shared little in common apart from being intent
on undoing the purportedly nefarious effects of the 1960s. Military officers intent on rehabilitating their profession; intellectuals
fearing that the loss of confidence at home was paving the way for the triumph of totalitarianism abroad; religious leaders dismayed
by the collapse of traditional moral standards; strategists wrestling with the implications of a humiliating defeat that had undermined
their credibility; politicians on the make; purveyors of pop culture looking to make a buck: as early as 1980, each saw military
power as the apparent answer to any number of problems.
Two other factors have also been critical: the dependence on imported oil is seen as requiring American hegemony over the Middle
East; and the Israel lobby has worked assiduously and with extraordinary success to make sure that Israel's enemies are seen by Americans
as also being those of the US. And let's not forget the role played by the entrenched interests of the military itself and what Dwight
Eisenhower once denounced as the 'military-industrial-academic complex'.
The security elites are obviously interested in the maintenance and expansion of US global military power, if only because their
own jobs and profits depend on it. Jobs and patronage also ensure the support of much of the Congress, which often authorises defence
spending on weapons systems the Pentagon doesn't want and hasn't asked for, in order to help some group of senators and congressmen
in whose home states these systems are manufactured. To achieve wider support in the media and among the public, it is also necessary
to keep up the illusion that certain foreign nations constitute a threat to the US, and to maintain a permanent level of international
tension.
That's not the same, however, as having an actual desire for war, least of all for a major conflict which might ruin the international
economy. US ground forces have bitter memories of Vietnam, and no wish to wage an aggressive war: Rumsfeld and his political appointees
had to override the objections of the senior generals, in particular those of the army chief of staff, General Eric Shinseki, before
the attack on Iraq. The navy and air force do not have to fight insurgents in hell-holes like Fallujah, and so naturally have a more
relaxed attitude.
To understand how the Bush administration was able to manipulate the public into supporting the Iraq war one has to look for deeper
explanations. They would include the element of messianism embodied in American civic nationalism, with its quasi-religious belief
in the universal and timeless validity of its own democratic system, and in its right and duty to spread that system to the rest
of the world. This leads to a genuine belief that American soldiers can do no real wrong because they are spreading 'freedom'. Also
of great importance – at least until the Iraqi insurgency rubbed American noses in the horrors of war – has been the development
of an aesthetic that sees war as waged by the US as technological, clean and antiseptic; and thanks to its supremacy in weaponry,
painlessly victorious. Victory over the Iraqi army in 2003 led to a new flowering of megalomania in militarist quarters. The amazing
Max Boot of the Wall Street Journal – an armchair commentator, not a frontline journalist – declared that the US victory
had made 'fabled generals such as Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian seem positively incompetent by comparison'. Nor was this kind of
talk restricted to Republicans. More than two years into the Iraq quagmire, strategic thinkers from the Democratic establishment
were still declaring that 'American military power in today's world is practically unlimited.'
Important sections of contemporary US popular culture are suffused with the language of militarism. Take Bacevich on the popular
novelist Tom Clancy:
In any Clancy novel, the international order is a dangerous and threatening place, awash with heavily armed and implacably
determined enemies who threaten the United States. That Americans have managed to avoid Armageddon is attributable to a single
fact: the men and women of America's uniformed military and its intelligence services have thus far managed to avert those threats.
The typical Clancy novel is an unabashed tribute to the skill, honour, extraordinary technological aptitude and sheer decency
of the nation's defenders. To read Red Storm Rising is to enter a world of 'virtuous men and perfect weapons', as one
reviewer noted. 'All the Americans are paragons of courage, endurance and devotion to service and country. Their officers are
uniformly competent and occasionally inspired. Men of all ranks are faithful husbands and devoted fathers.' Indeed, in the contract
that he signed for the filming of Red October, Clancy stipulated that nothing in the film show the navy in a bad light.
Such attitudes go beyond simply glorying in violence, military might and technological prowess. They reflect a belief – genuine
or assumed – in what the Germans used to call Soldatentum: the pre-eminent value of the military virtues of courage, discipline
and sacrifice, and explicitly or implicitly the superiority of these virtues to those of a hedonistic, contemptible and untrustworthy
civilian society and political class. In the words of Thomas Friedman, the ostensibly liberal foreign affairs commentator of the
ostensibly liberal New York Times, 'we do not deserve these people. They are so much better than the country … they are
fighting for.' Such sentiments have a sinister pedigree in modern history.
In the run-up to the last election, even a general as undistinguished as Wesley Clark could see his past generalship alone as
qualifying him for the presidency – and gain the support of leading liberal intellectuals. Not that this was new: the first president
was a general and throughout the 19th and 20th centuries both generals and more junior officers ran for the presidency on the strength
of their military records. And yet, as Bacevich points out, this does not mean that the uniformed military have real power over policy-making,
even in matters of war. General Tommy Franks may have regarded Douglas Feith, the undersecretary of defense, as 'the stupidest fucking
guy on the planet', but he took Feith's orders, and those of the civilians standing behind him: Wolfowitz, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the
president himself. Their combination of militarism and contempt for military advice recalls Clemenceau and Churchill – or Hitler
and Stalin.
Indeed, a portrait of US militarism today could be built around a set of such apparently glaring contradictions: the contradiction,
for example, between the military coercion of other nations and the belief in the spreading of 'freedom' and 'democracy'. Among most
non-Americans, and among many American realists and progressives, the collocation seems inherently ludicrous. But, as Bacevich brings
out, it has deep roots in American history. Indeed, the combination is historically coterminous with Western imperialism. Historians
of the future will perhaps see preaching 'freedom' at the point of an American rifle as no less morally and intellectually absurd
than 'voluntary' conversion to Christianity at the point of a Spanish arquebus.
Its symbols may be often childish and its methods brutish, but American belief in 'freedom' is a real and living force. This cuts
two ways. On the one hand, the adherence of many leading intellectuals in the Democratic Party to a belief in muscular democratisation
has had a disastrous effect on the party's ability to put up a strong resistance to the policies of the administration. Bush's messianic
language of 'freedom' – supported by the specifically Israeli agenda of Natan Sharansky and his allies in the US – has been all too
successful in winning over much of the opposition. On the other hand, the fact that a belief in freedom and democracy lies at the
heart of civic nationalism places certain limits on American imperialism – weak no doubt, but nonetheless real. It is not possible
for the US, unlike previous empires, to pursue a strategy of absolutely unconstrained Machtpolitik. This has been demonstrated
recently in the breach between the Bush administration and the Karimov tyranny in Uzbekistan.
The most important contradiction, however, is between the near worship of the military in much of American culture and the equally
widespread unwillingness of most Americans – elites and masses alike – to serve in the armed forces. If people like Friedman accompanied
their stated admiration for the military with a real desire to abandon their contemptible civilian lives and join the armed services,
then American power in the world really might be practically unlimited. But as Bacevich notes,
having thus made plain his personal disdain for crass vulgarity and support for moral rectitude, Friedman in the course of
a single paragraph drops the military and moves on to other pursuits. His many readers, meanwhile, having availed themselves of
the opportunity to indulge, ever so briefly, in self-loathing, put down their newspapers and themselves move on to other things.
Nothing has changed, but columnist and readers alike feel better for the cathartic effect of this oblique, reassuring encounter
with an alien world.
Today, having dissolved any connection between claims to citizenship and obligation to serve, Americans entrust their security
to a class of military professionals who see themselves in many respects as culturally and politically set apart from the rest
of society.
This combination of a theoretical adulation with a profound desire not to serve is not of course new. It characterised most of
British society in the 19th century, when, just as with the US today, the overwhelming rejection of conscription – until 1916 – meant
that, appearances to the contrary, British power was far from unlimited. The British Empire could use its technological superiority,
small numbers of professional troops and local auxiliaries to conquer backward and impoverished countries in Asia and Africa, but
it would not have dreamed of intervening unilaterally in Europe or North America.
Despite spending more on the military than the rest of the world combined, and despite enjoying overwhelming technological superiority,
American military power is actually quite limited. As Iraq – and to a lesser extent Afghanistan – has demonstrated, the US can knock
over states, but it cannot suppress the resulting insurgencies, even one based in such a comparatively small population as the Sunni
Arabs of Iraq. As for invading and occupying a country the size of Iran, this is coming to seem as unlikely as an invasion of mainland
China.
In other words, when it comes to actually applying military power the US is pretty much where it has been for several decades.
Another war of occupation like Iraq would necessitate the restoration of conscription: an idea which, with Vietnam in mind, the military
detests, and which politicians are well aware would probably make them unelectable. It is just possible that another terrorist attack
on the scale of 9/11 might lead to a new draft, but that would bring the end of the US military empire several steps closer. Recognising
this, the army is beginning to imitate ancient Rome in offering citizenship to foreign mercenaries in return for military service
– something that the amazing Boot approves, on the grounds that while it helped destroy the Roman Empire, it took four hundred years
to do so.
Facing these dangers squarely, Bacevich proposes refocusing American strategy away from empire and towards genuine national security.
It is a measure of the degree to which imperial thinking now dominates US politics that these moderate and commonsensical proposals
would seem nothing short of revolutionary to the average member of the Washington establishment.
They include a renunciation of messianic dreams of improving the world through military force, except where a solid international
consensus exists in support of US action; a recovery by Congress of its power over peace and war, as laid down in the constitution
but shamefully surrendered in recent years; the adoption of a strategic doctrine explicitly making war a matter of last resort; and
a decision that the military should focus on the defence of the nation, not the projection of US power. As a means of keeping military
expenditure in some relationship to actual needs, Bacevich suggests pegging it to the combined annual expenditure of the next ten
countries, just as in the 19th century the size of the British navy was pegged to that of the next two largest fleets – it is an
index of the budgetary elephantiasis of recent years that this would lead to very considerable spending reductions.
This book is important not only for the acuteness of its perceptions, but also for the identity of its author. Colonel Bacevich's
views on the military, on US strategy and on world affairs were profoundly shaped by his service in Vietnam. His year there 'fell
in the conflict's bleak latter stages … long after an odour of failure had begun to envelop the entire enterprise'. The book is dedicated
to his brother-in-law, 'a casualty of a misbegotten war'.
Just as Vietnam shaped his view of how the US and the US military should not intervene in the outside world, so the Cold War in
Europe helped define his beliefs about the proper role of the military. For Bacevich and his fellow officers in Europe in the 1970s
and 1980s, defending the West from possible Soviet aggression, 'not conquest, regime change, preventive war or imperial policing',
was 'the American soldier's true and honourable calling'.
In terms of cultural and political background, this former soldier remains a self-described Catholic conservative, and intensely
patriotic. During the 1990s Bacevich wrote for right-wing journals, and still situates himself culturally on the right:
As long as we shared in the common cause of denouncing the foolishness and hypocrisies of the Clinton years, my relationship
with modern American conservatism remained a mutually agreeable one … But my disenchantment with what passes for mainstream conservatism,
embodied in the Bush administration and its groupies, is just about absolute. Fiscal irresponsibility, a buccaneering foreign
policy, a disregard for the constitution, the barest lip service as a response to profound moral controversies: these do not qualify
as authentically conservative values.
On this score my views have come to coincide with the critique long offered by the radical left: it is the mainstream itself,
the professional liberals as well as the professional conservatives, who define the problem … The Republican and Democratic
Parties may not be identical, but they produce nearly identical results.
Bacevich, in other words, is sceptical of the naive belief that replacing the present administration with a Democrat one would
lead to serious changes in the US approach to the world. Formal party allegiances are becoming increasingly irrelevant as far as
thinking about foreign and security policy is concerned.
Bacevich also makes plain the private anger of much of the US uniformed military at the way in which it has been sacrificed, and
its institutions damaged, by chickenhawk civilian chauvinists who have taken good care never to see action themselves; and the deep
private concern of senior officers that they might be ordered into further wars that would wreck the army altogether. Now, as never
before, American progressives have the chance to overcome the knee-jerk hostility to the uniformed military that has characterised
the left since Vietnam, and to reach out not only to the soldiers in uniform but also to the social, cultural and regional worlds
from which they are drawn. For if the American left is once again to become an effective political force, it must return to some
of its own military traditions, founded on the distinguished service of men like George McGovern, on the old idea of the citizen
soldier, and on a real identification with that soldier's interests and values. With this in mind, Bacevich calls for moves to bind
the military more closely into American society, including compulsory education for all officers at a civilian university, not only
at the start of their careers but at intervals throughout them.
Or to put it another way, the left must fight imperialism in the name of patriotism. Barring a revolutionary and highly unlikely
transformation of American mass culture, any political party that wishes to win majority support will have to demonstrate its commitment
to the defence of the country. The Bush administration has used the accusation of weakness in security policy to undermine its opponents,
and then used this advantage to pursue reckless strategies that have themselves drastically weakened the US. The left needs to heed
Bacevich and draw up a tough, realistic and convincing alternative. It will also have to demonstrate its identification with the
respectable aspects of military culture. The Bush administration and the US establishment in general may have grossly mismanaged
the threats facing us, but the threats are real, and some at least may well need at some stage to be addressed by military force.
And any effective military force also requires the backing of a distinctive military ethic embracing loyalty, discipline and a capacity
for both sacrifice and ruthlessness.
In the terrible story of the Bush administration and the Iraq war, one of the most morally disgusting moments took place at a
Senate Committee hearing on 29 April 2004, when Paul Wolfowitz – another warmonger who has never served himself – mistook, by a margin
of hundreds, how many US soldiers had died in a war for which he was largely responsible. If an official in a Democratic administration
had made a public mistake like that, the Republican opposition would have exploited it ruthlessly, unceasingly, to win the next election.
The fact that the Democrats completely failed to do this says a great deal about their lack of political will, leadership and capacity
to employ a focused strategy.
Because they are the ones who pay the price for reckless warmongering and geopolitical megalomania, soldiers and veterans of the
army and marine corps could become valuable allies in the struggle to curb American imperialism, and return America's relationship
with its military to the old limited, rational form. For this to happen, however, the soldiers have to believe that campaigns against
the Iraq war, and against current US strategy, are anti-militarist, but not anti-military. We have needed the military desperately
on occasions in the past; we will definitely need them again.
Note the the author never used the word "neoliberalism" in the article. This is what
"identity politic" is about. for example tony Blair essentially sold his party to banksters and was
royally remunerated for that. He also served as lapdog for Bush II neoconservative adventures.
Personalities serve as a smoke screen to hide issues of attack of banksters on wellbeing of people.
And the key task of neoliberal politician is to deceive people. Quote from comments: "Beyond terrible, an irrelevant article. There is simply no point being made,
just a slapdash bundle of clichés thrown out in sequence in the vain hope of forming an argument."
and another "Mr Powell kindly take my advice and fuck off, give your old china
another award for his international legacy, shut up and be grateful you'll never face a criminal
investigation for your part in the Iraq war."
We yearn for politicians to fill the shoes of their all-powerful predecessors. But there
are terrible dangers in trying to be superman
There is a general lament about the Lilliputian nature of our current leaders. Where are the
towering figures of the past? Why do we have such uninspiring leaders who can't even eat a bacon
sandwich, or resist chillaxing on the job, or, in the case of the Greens, even remember their
policies?
There is, of course, nothing new about this. If you look back at the newspaper columns of the 1960s
you will find commentators demanding to know where were the current-day Churchills and Bevans, and
in the 1930s they wanted to know where leaders of the stature of Gladstone and Disraeli had gone.
It is the familiar syndrome – from which I suffer – that as you get older, policemen look younger
and younger.
Nonetheless it is indisputably true that at the moment there is an unusual lack of strong,
charismatic leaders, not just in the UK but in Europe too.
It has come to something when Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, is the dominant figure in
Europe. I admire her quiet and subtle style of leadership, and she towers over her colleagues, but
she is scarcely a colossus in the mould of a De Gaulle or even a Kohl. I vividly remember the first
time Tony Blair met her, in the new British embassy in Berlin in 2004. Then the leader of the
opposition in Germany, the soon-to-be chancellor plonked herself down in front of him and said
disarmingly, "I have 10 problems" – and then began to list them, starting with a lack of charisma.
The dearth of strong leaders is more than just the usual feast and famine – or it wouldn't
extend across the west
... ... ...
So maybe we should be careful what we wish for. Maybe strong leaders are not quite as alluring
as we think, and we should celebrate the fact that our leaders are just like us. Just because one
candidate can't remember his whole speech and the other likes to put his feet up on the job doesn't
mean they can't govern. It could be that in the more constrained environment of developed
democracies and a globalised economy, we actually want and need leaders in shades of grey rather
than the towering figures of the past.
Dani123 15 Mar 2015 01:09
I don't want a "Führer", it's good for war and bloodshed only.
In peaceful times grey technocrat manager are maybe abit color- but also bloodless.
People from the past would envy us for our oh-so-boring kind of politicians.
You wish for interesting times with interesting "personalities", well I don't.
I like my lame and uninteresting times quite well, thank you....
VelvetRevolutionary 14 Mar 2015 12:44
Do you want to know why our political "...leaders can't be heroes anymore."? Our 21st century
leaders are sorely lacking in human integrity, and they have completely lost their moral compass.
That's why.
dilawar 14 Mar 2015 02:20
The French political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville, a great observer of man's affairs, while
witnessing the birth of democracy in America, thought that the age of democracy will be the age of
mediocrity. There will be a dead level plane of achievement in almost every kind of activity. A
democratic person, due to various reasons he explains lucidly, does everything in hurry. He is
always satisfied with "pretty well" and does not pause for an instance to think what he is doing.
"His curiosity is at once insatiable and cheaply satisfied; for he cares more to know a great
deal quickly than to know anything well: he has no time and but little taste to search things to
the bottom". To make matter worse, "men of democracy worship chance, and are much less afraid of
death than of difficulty".
Despite his strong attachment to democracy, Tocqueville took great pains to point out what he
thought to be a negative side of democracy: it will be an unheroic age. Tocqueville maintained
that there wont be heroes in democratic societies because democracies are inherently incapable of
producing them.
But modern democracies were not able to do without heroes and this was also foreseen by
Tocqueville with much misgivings. He believed, rightly or wrongly, that unlike aristocracy,
there will not be a proper place for heroes or hero-worshipers in democracies, and when they arose
they would sooner or later turn into despots. Modern democracy may or may not do without
heroes but they certainly can not do without leaders. And in this modern age, which breeds them in
great profusion, the problem is to know what to do with them.
Democracies are no longer restricted to Europe or United States. They are now in many parts of
this world in their own peculiar forms. They have acquired some distinct features of the societies
in which they are able to grow. Human societies value heroes or charismatic personalities but some
among are always more obsessed with them. These days, people seems to be somewhat tired of their
politicians but it is not that people are tired for charisma; it only moves from politics to other
area of public life. People reserve their praise and transfer their adulation for movie starts,
sadhus and sants, sports-personalities and sometimes, for man of sciences.
Here in India and neighbourhood, charismatic people from various fields have been using their
charisma in politics. Some have been quite successful. NTR missed becoming the prime minister of
India, Imran Khan is trying the same in Pakistan. The appeal of charisma, by which I mean the
personal quality that secure instant and unquestioned devotions to the leader of his followers, is
in decline everywhere. Not only there is no Nehru today, there is no de Gaulle and Winston
Churchill. The consideration of this for the prospect of democracy and health of its institutions
deserves some serious attention.
Banditolobster 14 Mar 2015 01:37
I don't particularly want our leaders to be heroic or devastatingly charismatic, I would settle
for them being quietly competent and un corrupt, it amuses me that Merkel gets some stick in this
article, she strikes me as a better leader by simply getting on with it, than many other leaders
who are trying to summon up shades of Churchill and De Gaulle
danielarnaut -> StTrevorofIlford 13 Mar 2015 17:17
Thank you for your interest, though I lived in Britain most of my life I am of Catalan origin
so I have always been interested in the ill fortune of some of the men and women who scape the
Franco regime on the other side of the Pyrenees, so I started visiting the many concentration
camps the Vichy regime built for the republican Spaniards in French soil.
My neighbour in Newbury told me a weird story of Austrians in Frith Hill, or Frimley, near
Camberley in Surrey. I heard of concentration camps for Irish freedom fighters in Shewsbury and
Bromyard. I haven't got any information about those apparently in Tipperary and Southend. However,
there are lots of information and literature on several concentration camps near Douglas and Peel
in the Isle of Man which were built during the II WW.
The BBC reported about a concentration camp near Leicester, Donnington Hall.
But the most bizarre discovery I made was this one : I was just driving in the Dordogne (France)
in 2010 when I came across a program in France Inter (radio) called " La bas si j'y suis ", I was
speechless.
A British historian was being interviewed about thirty concentration camps where more than two
hundred thousand unemployed British guys were deported and put to hard labour, after the 1929
crash; these camps were in use up to 1939 ; that means the period under the labour government of
Ramsey MacDonald. The idea was called: a New Deal (does it remind you of Tony's campaign for
power?)
People were forced to go these camps maybe to stop riots in certain cities. If they refused to
go to the camps they had their benefit stopped at once. The inmates lived under awful conditions.
They were treated like slaves and put to work for ten hours a day, forced to build roads, chop
trees and crack stones.
These were the years previous to the II WW and these concentration camps provided cheap labour
before being sent to fight for king and country.
HolyInsurgent, 13 Mar 2015 23:06
Jonathan Powell: In part this vacuum is the result of a
familiar pattern that normally a strong leader is immediately followed by a weak one. Margaret
Thatcher was followed by John Major, Blair by Gordon Brown, Ronald Reagan by George Bush Sr, and
so on.
The theory is obviously meaningless. In each case, which one was the strong leader and which
the weak one? Who decides?
Without a substantial army they cannot take a leading role in world affairs. And as part of
Nato and the European Union, their scope for independent foreign policy initiatives is severely
limited.
Considering NATO is America's military branch to enforce its foreign policy, the UK is simply
an American client state. There is nothing to stop NATO from being dissolved and the EU pooling
its separate countries' militaries as a united force. But of course America won't allow NATO to be
dissolved. Why would it?
No one in Russia would complain that they suffer from weak leaders at the moment.
The Russian people voted for Putin. The West can think what they like of him, but he was
elected.
In China, with "Papa Xi", the cult of personality has returned virtually to the levels under
Mao.
What does the author suggest be done about it?
Beyond terrible, an irrelevant article. There is simply no point being made, just a
slapdash bundle of clichés thrown out in sequence in the vain hope of forming an argument.
VarmintRaptScallion 13 Mar 2015 14:11
I don't think you can get through Michael Sandal's Justice lecture series without acknowledging
that the battle between moral principles and moral utilitarianism forces a leader to wade into
some pretty grey areas.
As a society it is probably better that we accept the inevitable corruption that takes hold in
leaders and design political systems that take account of this. The concept of heroes and villains
is at the heart of propaganda and only serves the status quo.
Just like the erroneous belief that the current political paradigm is somehow the pinnacle of
human evolution.
BlogAnarchist 13 Mar 2015 13:23
Got up to here and realised this article was a joke piece.
In part this vacuum is the result of a familiar pattern that normally a strong leader is
immediately followed by a weak one. Margaret Thatcher was followed by John Major, Blair by Gordon
Brown, Ronald Reagan by George Bush Sr, and so on. It is very hard for a new strong leader to
grow up in the shadow of an existing strong leader. Their successors are nearly always lower-key
figures.
Nathaniel P -> Cape7441 13 Mar 2015 13:21
I noticed this. Politicians are basically allowed no respite, and their very characters are
dissected in the media. It is almost as if they are not allowed to be human. It seems to me that
the rivalry is just too strong- while debating and having different views is of course central to
democratic politics, politicians should never be spiteful and nasty to rival politicians because
they have a different political view- they should even feel comfortable complimenting their
rivals' ideas and promises if they feel the need, but this never happens because the rivalry was
too strong.
Apparently, PM Stanley Baldwin used to politely chat to politicians in Parliament buildings,
regardless of their party- maybe if this kind of thing was increased, politicians would be
followed and seen as 'heroes' as they would be seen as human beings like the rest of us and not
participants in slagging matches!
greyskies 13 Mar 2015 13:15
A politician should be a hero. They have the power to affect the lives of millions and should
feel the weight of that responsibility every day. There are thoughtful and responsible MPs in our
current parliament: Rory Stewart, Douglass Carswell, David Davis, Sarah Wollaston, Tom Watson,
Margaret Hodge to name a few that I can respect. Unfortunately thoughtful MPs are rarely seen
because they feel they should be loyal to their party or because they are rightfully afraid of
being misunderstood. We need our MPs to be more heroic and put themselves out there and argue for
their visions of the future of the country.
socialistnotnulabour -> TwigTheWonderKid 13 Mar 2015 13:01
You don't live in the real world if you think anyone just basing their arguments on evidence.
I make my arguments based on evidence but I'm not so conceited to believe my beliefs don't have
some effect on how I view the evidence.
Zealots seem to believe they are the ones with the only correct view of evidence and are inflexible
to believe anything else despite being shown they have come to the wrong conclusion.
You should always be open to the fact that your conclusion from the evidence may actually be wrong.
Even in the scientific world, evidence and facts are not always used in a truthful way.
Bryced 13 Mar 2015 12:38
The Labour Party. A man of the stature of Nye Bevin to the likes of puppet Tony B-lair
and his collaborators. Yikes. Times have certainly changed. Deep, no deeper than that, endless
bloody sigh. Makes you want to weep.
HumanistLove 13 Mar 2015 12:17
Accountable, intelligent, promise keeper, not beholden to special interests, consensus
oriented, domestic issues as priority, sensitive to the most vulnerable in society...a mensch for,
by and of the people.
I believe a leader's personal life should be respected as private, as we all wish for ourselves.
kippers 13 Mar 2015 11:42
The Butler Report into the lack of WMD in Iraq criticised "sofa government". This was a polite
way of criticising the way decisions were taken by Tony Blair and a small group of unelected
advisors without the knowledge of Cabinet (and sometimes contrary to what had been decided in
Cabinet). Jonathan Powell was one of those advisors. His response to that criticism was that this
was the way things were done these days.
Few people want leaders to be heroes. They want accountable government. That would reduce the risk
of small groups of people seizing the controls and making erroneous assumptions like "it is an
established fact that Iraq has WMD" and "the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan will be short and
sharp".
Krishnamoorthi 13 Mar 2015 11:20
This a typical syndrome affecting every aspect of capitalist society. Individuals have their
limitations and it is the system of government and the state apparatus which makes or unmakes an
individual! Even if Churchill was not there there would have been another one to replace him.
Giving too much of credit to individuals is just flattery! Individuals like Mandela are products
of a wider Picture! To reduce the achievements or failures on a single person is just a
simpleminded argument!
stuartMilan 13 Mar 2015 11:07
and the Graun stands up for British decency again..?
Mr Powell kindly take my advice and fuck off, give your old china another award for his
international legacy, shut up and be grateful you'll never face a criminal investigation for your
part in the Iraq war.
Ricardo111 13 Mar 2015 10:50
Competent would be good. And honest. And principled.
Instead what we have is corrupt, two-faced snake-oil salesmen in posh style.
As for the "superhero" politicians of the past, they were no such thing: only the ignorant of
history and weak of spirit would deify past leaders.
weematt 13 Mar 2015 10:36
We do not need leaders.It is silly to expect politicians to be leaders in the class
struggle.
Politicians are elected to run capitalism in the interests of the business class 1-5%. In a
representative democracy this is diametrically opposed to the interests of workers 95-99%.
All the economic clout is with the corporations and landowners, owned by a tiny minority of
people, possibly around 5 percent. Owning the means of production allows them to cream off a
profit or a surplus for themselves, and they do this by exploiting the rest of us. Their economic
power is backed up by political power. The state is there to try and manage the status quo, and
protect the interests of those with all the wealth. This doesn't mean that they have control over
the economy, though. Market forces fluctuate between growth and slump regardless of what
politicians and corporate strategists want.
This arrangement leads to massive inequalities in wealth, not just within this country, but across
the globe. Goods and services only go to those who can afford them, not to those who need them.
Those who can't afford the basics risk falling into a lifestyle of poverty it's hard to escape
from. Living in an unequal world where everything is rationed creates divisions between us,
leading to prejudice and discrimination. Even those of us with a reasonable standard of living
never have enough real involvement or sense of ownership in where we work and live.
To solve the problems in society, we have to change the way society is structured. This means
going from our world where the means to produce and distribute wealth are owned by a minority, to
one where those resources and facilities are owned by everyone in common. Then, goods would be
produced and services would be run directly for anyone who wants them, without the dictates of the
economic market. Industries and services would be run just to satisfy people's needs and wants.
All this could only be achieved by fundamentally changing the way society is organised, a
revolution. The kind of revolution we want is one which involves the vast majority of people
across the world. Every country now is part of an integrated global economy and class structure.
So, people across the world would have to want to change society. The only legitimate and
practical way this could be achieved is by organising equally and democratically. This means
voluntary, creative work, with decisions and responsibilities agreed through everyone having an
equal say. This would mean a much broader and more inclusive use of democracy than we're used to
today. Different democratic organisations or procedures would apply in different circumstances.
This doesn't mean having leaders or groups with more authority than others.
"I would not lead you into the promised land if I could, because if I led you in, some one else
would lead you out. You must use your heads as well as your hands, and get yourself out of your
present condition; as it is now the capitalists use your heads and your hands." Eugene Debbs
mespilus 13 Mar 2015 10:14
If you are one of the 1%,
there have been several Supermen in the last 5 years;
George Osborne has lowered the upper rate of income tax, and given a bountiful tax break to
hedge funds.
Andrew Lansley has made it much easier to divert public funds towards contracted out private
health care providers.
Michael Gove has given away untold wealth by handing over school premises to Academy chains,
and diverted local authority destined funds towards 'Free School's.
Vince Cable sold the Royal Mail for a song, and the share in Eurostar will soon join HS1 in
private hands.
Supermen one & all.
I'm sure you can add a few more.
Matthew2012 13 Mar 2015 10:14
I think that our modern politicians read Nietzsche and decide that they are supermen (ubermensch)
not men.
It matters little to them what we want - if they can get our vote.
The problem is that they don't think that they need to listen
ClericPreston 13 Mar 2015 10:09
Leaders are not leaders of much any more.
They don't have to be strong, they have to be fair, consistent and honest. The difficulty arises
in the 2 dimensional thought that they have to do something big, stamp their mark, start some war
or other to be the Big man (or woman in the case of Thatch).
Cameron will never appear strong because he's obviously a bought man, too many vested
interests leaning on him. How can you look up to a person who can be "swayed" so readily for
donations and has lied on so many occasions?
A lot of the day to day business of the country is now run by outsourcing companies, they don't
answer to any elected leader, you would think this would allow a leader to develop in a more
focused way, but this hasn't materialised, far from Cameron rolling up his sleeves at an
appropriate time (rather than an opportunistic moment) and getting on with something for the
people he seems to have spent his entire premiership publicising his party and raising funds to
further drive that process not just for the last month or two but since the day he took office, 5
years! I don't think that even at the height of Thatcher's time can it be said that so much time
has been spent on such things by a PM.
Our leader, imho, is a Publicity machine first, a Tory second and a PM last. To me that is the
wrong way around.
Caroline Kennedy 13 Mar 2015 10:09
As we all know, Jonathan Powell is one of Tony Blair's most simpering apologists. He, like many
other Blair sycophants, ended up on the board of Save the Children.
Hence the tainted "Global Legacy Award" for Blair, a man responsible for the deaths, injuries
and long term disabilities of literally tens of thousands of children in Iraq, Afghanistan and
across areas of the Middle East. Not to mention the number of orphans he has created.
To compare Tony Blair with any politician other than those we already despise for their
despotic rule, such as Robert Mugabe, Emperor Bokassa, Ferdinand Marcos etc is to insult those we
admire such as Roosevelt, Kennedy and Mandela.
Matthew2012 JayEnn 13 Mar 2015 10:09
or about Gordon Brown being ugly?
Media influence and vacuums in real substance.
In WWII no one really cared what Churchill looked like in comparison to his policies.
When we see so little integrity in our politicians, no accountability, ignoring expert advice
and influence of vested interests? How do we judge the difference in our politicians?
We have issues such as climate change where we are being failed in the most fundamental respect by
politicians everywhere. And rather then debate it - we are faced with a 3 party agreement not to
discuss it.
The ideologies have become stale and the centre vote is all that is pursued. So whether you agree
with issues or not it is no longer a matter of principles but about getting voted in.
The UK government is being treated like a middle manager job and we don't see a great deal of
proven competence by any of them.
danielarnaut 13 Mar 2015 09:32
Quite ingenuously, or lack of knowledge, Churchill is described by most of you as a great war
leader. I am surprised people don't remember the famine provoked in southern Asia, the threat of
military heavy handed action against the miners, or simple his own declarations admitting adhering
to fascism. Without a Furher, Britain could have easily slipped into a dictatorship. And we had
all the ingredients such as inflicting fear, massacres, starvation, imposition of twisted rules,
concentration camps built even in the north of England for the unemployed and wherever a country
fell on the hands of the sacro saint british empire people were forced to change behaviour,
culture, language... to embrace the new deal and be civilised. Human loss was considerable.
Churchil could have continue this trend.
excathedra 13 Mar 2015 09:20
Thatcher wasn't a strong leader, she was a lunatic hell bent on destroying the working
class and the social advantages the post war consensus had brought.
As for leaders I, and I suspect many others, just want honesty, decency and an end to the greed,
hubris and vanity projects. If they want war then they ought to be in the front not organising and
garnering contacts for future use.
Wishful thinking I know but the alternatives are not worth continuing with.
tobymoore 13 Mar 2015 08:57
Trapped in an economic system which is clearly no longer capable of providing the society that
people want, or could have if it we were solely limited by human ingenuity, the main job of our
so-called leaders is to "manage expectation", i.e. to tell us what we can't have.
There is no room left for visions of a better future. In any case, the obsession with
leaders is infantile and leaves the door wide open for frauds and demagogues.
crinklyoldgit 13 Mar 2015 06:56
This article is hopeless. The issue here is that politicians and their appointees have become
able to evade accountability by legal clever stepping . Blair is untouchable, legally speaking,
but no one is under illusions about his abuse of privilege. All else is meaningless drivel until
we can claw some meaningful accountability into the way affairs are managed, and make those who
would abuse their powers think twice.
Jimcomment 13 Mar 2015 04:50
The difference with the Press shows the key difference here - international corporations have
huge power these days. Politicians whose interests do not align with theirs find that media and
funding strategies quickly go against them.
Right or wrong, previous leaders held firm convictions. Cameron shows very clearly that he has
none - he is a PR man with no interest in working as a politician, let alone being PM. But this
suits those who wield economic and media power, and so he is financially backed and applauded by
much of the Press.
JonPurrtree 13 Mar 2015 04:23
I'm not sure Hollande ever was on a pedestal. And if it wasn't for those pesky americans,
Strauss-Kahn would have been President, no questions asked about his wandering hands and worse.
But how on earth did we end up with the likes of Hollande and Milliband2 ?
I'd be happy with boring yet competant looking people like Darling or Major, but such people seem
to have been culled.
It is accompanied by another view, increasingly common among pundits, which holds that America is losing its allure as a model
society. Whereas much of the rest of the world once looked to the United States as a beacon, it is argued, non-Americans are now
turning away.
George Bush will encounter a more complex animosity than is often portrayed when he ventures abroad next week
EVER since the days of the Founding Fathers, America has regarded what George Washington called "the foreign world" with a degree
of suspicion, and the foreign world has often reciprocated. Never more than now, it seems. Under George Bush, anti-Americanism is
widely thought to have reached new heights-and, in the view of the Pew Research Centre, a Washington surveyor of world opinion, new
depths. Its latest report says that "anti-Americanism is deeper and broader now than at any time in modern history." But though
anti-Americanism spans the globe, the phenomenon is not everywhere the same. It mutates according to local conditions, and it is
seldom straightforward.
No wonder. Most people's feelings about America are complicated. "America", after all, is shorthand for many other terms: the Bush
administration, a Republican-dominated Congress, Hollywood, a source of investment, a place to go to study, a land of economic opportunity,
a big regional power, the big world power, a particular policy, the memory of something once done by the United States, a set of
political values based on freedom, democracy and economic liberalism, and so on. It is easy to be for some of these and against others,
and some may wax or wane in importance according to time, circumstance, propaganda or wishful thinking. So it should be no surprise
that some people can hold two apparently contradictory views of America at once. The incandescent third-world demonstrator, shrieking
"Down with America!" in one breath and "Can you get me a green card?" in the next, has become a commonplace.
As Mr Bush may discover when he meets his French counterpart over dinner on Monday, no country contains this mixture of attitudes
in greater abundance than France. France is a longstanding ally of the United States (since 1778); it gave America the Statue of
Liberty; it conferred honorary citizenship on Madison; it was the country of Lafayette (American revolutionary hero), of Montesquieu
(profound influence on Jefferson) and of L'Enfant (designer of Washington, DC).
Yet France is also the country that rails against American hyperpuissance (hyperpowerdom), cheers when rustic thugs lay waste
McDonald's and laps up books like "11 Septembre 2001: l'Effroyable Imposture", whose thesis, that the attacks on the twin towers
were "an appalling deception" to justify American adventurism, won it sales of 100,000 in its first week of publication. France,
moreover, is the home of Gaullism, a form of nationalism saturated with anti-American bilge-and the well-spring of Mr Chirac's political
creed.
All this has made France the locus classicus of anti-Americanism. Yet many ordinary French people, as distinct from their more
politically-minded countrymen, are rather pro-American. They go to American movies, take holidays in the United States, eat in McDonald's
(rustics permitting) and shop in places that look much like American giant stores. In a poll conducted in 21 countries by the BBC
World Service last month, only a small majority (54%) of those interviewed in France said they viewed American influence unfavourably-not
much more than in Australia (52%), and rather less than in Mexico (57%), Canada (60%) and Germany (64%).
The repulsion of similars
So what explains France's reputation for anti-Americanism? The main answer is that it is proclaimed bombastically by so many of
those in France who strike political attitudes. They do this partly because of the rivalry between France and America, based on their
remarkably similar self-images: the two countries both think they invented the rights of man, have a unique calling to spread liberty
round the world and hold a variety of other attributes that make them utterly and admirably exceptional. Jealousy also plays a part.
America is often better than France at activities that the French take great pride in, such as making movies or even cooking-at least
if popular taste is the judge. And French politicians are not blind to the value of criticising someone else in order to divert attention
from their own failures: French anti-Americanism tends to rise when France has just suffered a setback of some kind, whether defeat
at the hands of the Germans, a drubbing in Algeria or the breakdown of the Fourth Republic.
Not many countries share all these characteristics, but several have some of them. Take Iran, where political diatribes, religious
sermons, rent-a-mob demonstrations and heroic graffiti regularly denounce the Great Satan and all his doings. Anti-Americanism is
central to the ideology of Iran's ruling Shia clerics. Yet Iranians at large, like the French, are not noticeably hostile to America.
The young in particular seem thoroughly pro-American, revelling in America's popular culture, yearning for its sexual freedoms, some
even hoping for an American deliverance from their oppression. Whether the affection runs deep is another matter: pro-Americanism
among the young is a form of anti-regime defiance that might evaporate quickly if their country were attacked.
Great Satan cramps Little Satan
Yet why should the clerics bang on so relentlessly about the United States when the British were just as deeply involved in the
overthrow of Mohammed Mossadegh's regime in 1953, when Iraq under Saddam Hussein posed a much greater threat, and when, recently
at least, America has shown itself ready to get rid of the Baathists next door and pave the way for a Shia-led government in Iraq?
The main explanation, as in France, is rivalry. Iran's theocratic regime has clear ambitions to be a leader not just of the Middle
East but of the entire Muslim world. America, now avowedly bent on spreading democracy across the region, is in the way.
The regime has other reasons as well, no doubt: to divert attention from its many failures; to keep alive the thought that the wicked
shah, restored to power in the 1953 coup, was the creature of the Americans, even though memories of his rule glow ever more brightly
for many older Iranians; and, inevitably, to exploit the widespread feeling among Muslims almost everywhere that the United States
is pro-Israel, anti-Palestine and indeed anti-Islam, a feeling that has intensified, according to the polls, since September 11th
2001. Pew says anti-Americanism is nowhere more acute than in the Muslim world.
Even here, though, the picture is not uniform. In Indonesia, the biggest Muslim country, anti-Americanism is largely an armchair
affair. People are happy to curse the United States-a current rumour suggests it could have given warning of the December tsunami
but chose not to-yet none of the recent terrorist attacks in Indonesia seems to have been directed at Americans. In Arab countries,
by contrast, some people are clearly ready to take up arms in pursuit of al-Qaeda's jihad.
Arab anti-Americanism is a much younger phenomenon than its European counterpart
Arab anti-Americanism is a much younger phenomenon than its European counterpart. Although it shares with European left-wingery much
claptrap about the wickedness of American materialism, it became widespread in the Middle East only with America's open support for
Israel after the 1967 six-day war. Eleven years earlier, Arabs had been all for the United States: it had just put a stop to the
Suez affair, the British-French-Israeli attempt to overthrow the Nasser regime in Egypt. But since 1967 America has been considered
by Arabs to be incomprehensibly pro-Israeli. The potency of this view probably owes more to Arab failures than to anything else-failures
to deal with Israel, to establish democracies, to create modern economies, to produce heroes in virtually any field of respectable
human endeavour. This must be someone's fault. Whose? Why, the local thug (Israel) and its sponsor (America), of course.
A seminal event, akin to the 1967 war for Arabs, may be found in plenty of other places where anti-Americanism flourishes. In Greece
it was America's backing for the rule of the colonels (1967-74). In Spain, it was the support-implicit, if not explicit-of the Franco
regime that came with America's military bases in the 1950s. Some say Spain's dislike for America dates back to the Spanish-American
war of 1898, but in truth that made little impact on the left, which saw the war as an agent of Spain's modernisation. When American
soldiers arrived at Torrejón and other bases in the 1950s, though, the Spanish left saw them as collaborators, not liberators.
Most of the far left in Europe is still anti-American, for familiar reasons: America is materialist, imperialist, interventionist,
etc. But right-wingers, too, are sometimes hostile. The ideas of the American revolution have inevitably challenged anciens régimes
and anti-democrats of any stripe (including Franco's, until the bases). As conservatives have come to terms with democracy, those
who have taken against America have done so mostly for snobbish or cultural reasons: hence the antagonism of such British writers
as Evelyn Waugh and Kingsley Amis.
Latin Americans may think they have better reasons to harbour a grudge. Mexico, for instance, lost about half its territory to the
United States in the war of 1846-48. In the BBC survey last month, only 11% of the Mexicans polled had a mainly favourable view of
the influence of their northern neighbour, less even than the proportion of Argentines, who are in other respects even more hostile.
Cubans have resented the United States ever since 1898, when their hard- and long-fought war of independence against Spain was in
effect stolen from them by the yanquis prosecuting the Spanish-American war. The United States then made some 30 military interventions
in and around the Caribbean in the next 30 years, many of them under Smedley Butler, a marine corps general, who summed up his career
thus:
I helped make Honduras "right" for American fruit companies in 1903. I helped make Mexico...safe for American oil interests
in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping
of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street...I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking
house of Brown Brothers in 1909-12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China,
I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
For most of the 19th century, Latin Americans-including their great liberator, Simón Bolívar-had drawn inspiration from the American
colonists' anti-British revolt. But the war of 1898 and the interventions that followed turned most of them against the great power
next door. The hostility remains, in varying degrees, though 15 years of democratisation, emigration to and trade with the United
States have done much to soften attitudes, especially in Central America.
Other nations that have experienced American meddling also continue to resent it. For evidence, just go to Congo, where Mobutu Sese
Seko ruled imperiously for decades courtesy of the United States, or to Angola, whose long wars were drawn out by the superpower
sponsorship of its local tyrants. Yet anti-Americanism in such places does not seem to run deep. This is not just a matter of distance.
The Philippines is hardly adjacent, yet its experience as an American colony for half a century has left it with a persistent strain
of anti-Americanism-as well as an infatuation, among the young at least, with basketball and country music.
Proximity makes the heart grow colder
That suggests that the intensity of the American experience may be the decisive factor in the creation of lasting anti-Americanism.
It would explain why Indians, for instance, though their governments were long hostile to America in foreign policy, have never shown
much antagonism in other ways. Yet the intensity test certainly does not provide an iron rule. On the one hand, Canada, which has
never suffered anything worse from its neighbour than cultural imperialism, ignoration and disdain, is perpetually critical of the
United States. If it were not-if it did not define itself in opposition to its neighbour-Canada, it seems, would have no reason to
exist. On the other hand, Vietnam, less than 30 years after a long war against the Americans in which it lost about 5m of its people,
seems to harbour little hostility towards its old foe. Perhaps it is just too busy to hate.
It may help, too, that Vietnam has not had any subsequent reason, real or imaginary, to resent America. In many of the places where
the embers of anti-Americanism burn brightest, some event has taken place to rekindle them.
For Arabs, the war in Iraq is one. For Latin Americans, it was the United States' support for Augusto Pinochet's coup
in Chile (and now its stomp-all-over-the-place war on drugs).
For Greeks, it was the American-led interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo-interventions on behalf of Muslims, though many Muslims
seem to forget it. The Greeks, though, did not. They were outraged by NATO's attacks on the Serbs, another Orthodox Christian
people.
In the Philippines, America was considered far too friendly to the kleptocratic and ruthless Ferdinand Marcos.
In every country with American bases, any outrage by American servicemen-the rape of a Japanese child, the running over of
two South Korean girls, the severing of an Italian cable-car's wires-tends to strengthen latent hostility.
The vigour of anti-American feeling varies strongly even among peoples who, to the casual observer, seem to have no good reason
for their differing reactions. The Japanese, for example, defeated in war-Tokyo fire-bombed, Hiroshima and Nagasaki triturated with
atomic bombs-seem far more pro-American than the South Koreans, who owe much of their freedom to American force of arms. Why? Perhaps
because the Japanese feel, rightly or wrongly, much more threatened by China and North Korea than do the South Koreans, and are therefore
much more grateful to a protective Uncle Sam.
Hostility to America is often mitigated by feelings of friendship and gratitude
Certainly, hostility to America is often mitigated by feelings of friendship and gratitude. Plenty of elderly Frenchmen remember
America's role in liberating their country. Plenty of Germans remember the Berlin airlift. Plenty of elderly Iranians are proud that
they once studied in the United States. Many, if not most, of the reformist democrats in Latin American governments have been to
American universities, as have several of their east and central European counterparts.
An American diaspora may also have a mollifying effect in the old country. France, which has sent few emigrants to North America
since before the European Enlightenment, is unusual in providing no hyphenated Americans (which may help to explain why French anti-Americanism
is matched by American anti-Frenchism). Huge communities of Latin Americans, Indochinese, Greeks, Koreans, Iranians, you name it,
have grown up in recent decades in the United States and ensure that a constant flow of money, ideas and hope flow from America to
other parts of the world.
This background of ties, aspirations and shared values means that in some places anti-Americanism can be dissipated quite quickly
with a visit (such as Bill Clinton's trip to India in 2000) or some other gesture (debt forgiveness perhaps, or some post-tsunami
assistance). In other places, though, it would take much more to change attitudes: an American-engineered peace between Israel and
the Palestinians, say, or a credible commitment to tackle global warming, and even these might prove ineffective without other policy
changes sustained over many years. And in some places it may well be impossible for America to do very much. The mere fact of being
a great power ready to intervene (in, say, Kosovo) is enough to make enemies. And then some states, like some people, have chips
on their shoulders. Anti-Americanism in Argentina and parts of the Arab world has as much to do with the inadequacies of these countries
as with anything done by the United States.
Why, anyway, should America care if a bunch of foreigners dislike it, or affect to? Maybe, as a military and economic power without
rival, it should not be too worried. Yet America needs the co-operation of other governments if it is to conduct trade, combat drugs,
reduce pollution and fight terrorism. Moreover, Mr Bush is now committed to spreading "freedom" across the Middle East, indeed across
the world. If foreigners, disillusioned with America, believe this is merely a hypocritical justification for getting rid of regimes
he dislikes, the task may be harder. It is striking that Mr Bush's 49 mentions of liberty or freedom in his inaugural address last
month do not seem to have struck the sort of chord round the world that Jack Kennedy's quixotic commitments did in the 1960s.
Shining city loses lustre
That may reflect the greater cynicism of the worldwide audience 40 years on. But the polls suggest it also has something to do
with Mr Bush. Last month's BBC poll found that opposition to Mr Bush was stronger than anti-Americanism in general, and that the
particular had contributed to the general. Asked how Mr Bush's election had affected their views of the American people, 42% said
it had made them feel worse towards Americans.
That is the, perhaps short-term, view of some non-Americans. It is accompanied by another view, increasingly common among pundits,
which holds that America is losing its allure as a model society. Whereas much of the rest of the world once looked to the United
States as a beacon, it is argued, non-Americans are now turning away. Democrats in Europe and elsewhere who once thought religiosity,
a belief in capital punishment and rank hostility to the United Nations were intermittent or diminishing features of the United States
now see them as rising and perhaps permanent. Such feelings have been fortified by Mr Bush's doctrine of preventive war, Guantánamo,
opposition to the world criminal court and a host of other international agreements. One way or another, it is said, people are turning
off America, not so much to hate it as to look for other examples to follow-even Europe's. If true, that could be even more insulting
to Americans than the rise in the familiar anti-Americanism of yesteryear.
If the outpouring of condolences emanating from the upper echelons of the U.S. government over the death of King Abdullah last
week are anything to go by, one could easily be led to believe that the world lost a truly humane, wise, perhaps even visionary leader.
In fact, Secretary of State John Kerry tweeted as much, calling Abdullah a "man of wisdom and vision." President Obama issued a statement
calling the deceased despot "a force for stability and security in the Middle East" while the UK's David Cameron-in addition to ordering
flags to fly at half-mast-praised Abdullah's role in "strengthening understanding between faiths." The IMF's Christine Lagarde even
went so far as to claim Abdullah was "strong advocate of women." Gloria Steinem, call your office!
But this really is all a bit de trop.
Making matters worse is the fact that President Obama is rushing off to Riyadh to pay his respects in person. This is all the more
egregious since the administration sent no senior officials to the Je Suis Charlie solidarity march in Paris earlier this month,
which the ever tin-eared presidential confidante Valerie Jarrett dismissed as a mere "parade." Further, Mr. Obama, as the New York
Times pointed out on Sunday, rarely travels abroad solely to pay his respects to departed foreign leaders, one notable exception
being his decision to travel to South Africa on the occasion of Nelson Mandela's passing. This, it hardly needs pointing out, is
not that.
... ... ...
According to Human Rights Watch, the Abdullah regime beheaded 19 people over the course of 16 days last August; one of the executed
was, according to a report issued by Amnesty International, mentally ill, while another was beheaded for the crime of "black magic
sorcery." Meanwhile, a blogger by the name of Raif Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes, while only recently
a video emerged of a Saudi policeman beheading a Burmese woman in the middle of a street in Mecca as she screamed for her life. She
is one of 10 people beheaded in Saudi Arabia so far this year.
Then of course there is Saudi Arabia's role in providing material support for the 9/11 atrocity that took the lives of nearly 3,000
Americans. Obama continues to protect the Saudis by refusing to release the 28 pages of the 9/11 Commission report having to do with
Saudi Arabia's funding of and complicity in the attacks. This despite his own promises to the 9/11 families that he would do so.
Efforts by U.S. Congressmen Walter Jones (R-N.C.) and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) to force the administration to release the redacted
pages are ongoing. In addition, former senator and Intelligence Committee chairman Bob Graham (D-Fla.) has also called on the administration
to release the 28 redacted pages, whose content he says, "points a finger in the direction of Saudi Arabia."
... ... ...
Meanwhile, the Saudis continue to fund - to the tune of billions of dollars a year - the propagation of the most sinister and
violent branch of Islam throughout the world, leading to, among other things, the ritual slaughter of a staff of cartoonists in the
very heart of Europe, hostage taking in Sydney, and murderous rampages in Ottawa and Brussels, to say nothing of a series of subway
bombings in Madrid, London, and Moscow.
It is by now bindingly clear that the regime in Riyadh will resort to the most medieval of measures towards anyone-within or without
its borders-who is not in thrall to the violent tenets of Wahhabi Islam. So the question remains: why does our own government pretend
that this is not so?
Meanwhile, we are treated to the spectacle of certain of our own Middle East experts worrying that the Obama administration-because
it supposedly has paid insufficient attention to the wishes of the Saudi tyranny-faces "an uphill struggle to regain the full trust
of the royal family." Pardon me, to regain their trust?
James W. Carden served as an advisor to the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission at the State Department from 2011-2012.
Recall that about a month ago we reported that shortly after France was stunned to see its largest bank slammed by its bestest
buddy, the US, with a record $9 billion fine, "France
responded to the fine by announcing it will train hundreds of Russian seamen to operate the French-Made Warship", the Mistral.
In other words, for all the angry rhetoric of sanctions against Russia, France was merely the latest country to admit that it too
can't exist without Russian business (not to mention natural gas) even if, or especially if, it means incurring US wrath
which is taken out on its banking institutions. After all, if the US is engaging in scorched earth tactics France needs a stable
trade partner, especially if it is one who turns on the gas, so to speak.
As a reminder, this is what all the commotion is about:
However, it turns out that was only a small part of the story.
Earlier today, when speaking to Russian diplomats in Moscow, Vladimir Putin accused the U.S. of blackmailing France to
scrap a contract to sell Russia Mistral warships by offering to cut a record $8.97 billion fine against BNP Paribas.
From Bloomberg:
France's largest bank agreed to plead guilty in court documents yesterday to processing almost $9 billion in banned transactions
involving Sudan, Iran and Cuba from 2004 to 2012. The company will be temporarily barred from handling some U.S. dollar transactions.
French President Francois Hollande has refused to cancel a contract to sell two Mistral-class helicopter carriers to Russia
in the face of criticism from the U.S.
"We know about the pressure which our U.S. partners are applying on France not to supply the Mistrals to Russia," Putin told
Russian diplomats in Moscow today. "And we even know that they hinted that if the French don't deliver the Mistrals, they would
quietly get rid of the sanctions against the bank, or at least minimize them," he said without naming BNP Paribas.
"What is that if not blackmail?" Putin said.
Well it is blackmail, but what's worse it shows to what depths the US will fall when it fails to get
its way in the international arena even with its so-called allies, which under Obama, is essentially always.
But one wonders: since the biggest opponent of Russian sanctions in Europe is, by and far, Germany - despite what Merkel spouts
any given day - and since Russia is sure to antagonize the US in the coming months, one wonders: just what legal and criminal action
will the US reveal against Deutsche Bank in the coming months as first blackmail, then "punishment" for daring to engage America's
suddenly most hated superpower adversary?
And perhaps a better question: with US foreign policy set to continue its disastrous ways, does this mean that the best way to
profit from the incompetence of John Kerry et al is merely to short a basket of European banks? After all, if it happened with BNP
it is sure to happen elsewhere in Europe - a continent which, for better or worse, is now wrapped around Putin's gas finger.
During the Cold War, American propaganda was a tool in an anticommunist crusade; today, it is a facet of the U.S. "war on terrorism."
Now, as then, it is characterized as a remedy for anti-Americanism.
In addition, the essay details the various propaganda techniques and avenues that were employed to project a friendly and supportive
U.S. attitude and a hostility towards the Soviet Union and communism. For example, techniques included the use of:
Foreign Aid
Posters and Brochures
Newspapers, Magazines, Newsreels
Cultural Influences
Exchange Programs and Associations
Semiotics (using signs and symbols)
Inter government collaboration
U.S. collaboration with
U.S. media
Academia
Private Associations
Publishing Industry
The types of themes promoted included projection of:
Freeedom, emphasizing to the world America's role as a beacon of freedom for the world.
Prowess, demonstrating "the overwhelming and increasing industrial and military strength of the United States"
Peace-loving, by also being admired as a peace-loving nation, differentiating itself from a violent and disruptive Soviet
Union
Promoting nuclear and other scientific advances
Religion as a propaganda asset, as for decades, "religious tradition was viewed as a valuable asset that could be exploited
to achieve American ends". This included Saudi Arabia's conservative interpretation of Islam, as "an important asset in promoting
Western objectives," including anticommunism, in the Middle East.
Yet, of course it was not easy, as today's often militant and anti-American feelings testify. Some of the problems included:
The Palestine issue -- the priorities and concerns of many people of the Middle East (such as Palestinian refugees early on)
and U.S. priorities were seen as being at odds with each other.
Competing national interests also complicated U.S. plans for anticommunist propaganda directed at the Kurds.
Anticolonialism feeling was high and the U.S. was seen as a close ally with British and French.
"Anti-western" nationalism was viewed as one of the principal threats to U.S. interests in the Middle East. Efforts to impress
Middle East audiences with U.S. popular culture and display of material success, were not always going as smoothly as hoped.
Demands for change -- many were unhappy with the U.S. support for a repressive status quo.
Disillusionment with U.S. policies
In drawing parallels to the current war on terror, the Archives concludes:
During the Cold War, American propaganda was a tool in an anticommunist crusade; today, it is a facet of the U.S. "war on terrorism."
Now, as then, it is characterized as a remedy for anti-Americanism. Now as in the past, U.S. policy toward Palestine is the primary
source of Arab and Muslim dislike for the U.S., generated as well by apparent American indifference to the suffering of Iraqi civilians
under sanctions and the pervasive presence of U.S. military forces, viewed by many as protectors of autocratic and unpopular regimes
rather than as defenders against external aggression.
Methods for disseminating propaganda are vastly more sophisticated today than in the past: there is now widespread access to radio
and satellite television, videos, popular music, and the Internet. But the effectiveness of America's propaganda apparatus is limited
by inadequate knowledge of Middle Eastern languages, culture, and social mores. The U.S. government seeks help from the private sector
in targeting the region, but a predilection for cartoonish depictions of Middle Easterners and Middle East issues is likely to limit
the appeal of products created by the American entertainment industry. For the foreseeable future, exchange-of-person programs will
be hindered by visa restrictions, the inconvenience of travel for those from the region, hostility, and grass roots movements among
Arabs and Muslims encouraging the rejection of U.S. influence.
...Propaganda strategies developed in tandem with war plans will include those arguments explaining and defending U.S. actions
that have the widest popular appeal. As has become the rule for U.S. military operations, information will be controlled and filtered
by the Pentagon. In Iraq, some will welcome an overthrow of the present repressive government, even if brought about by a foreign
invasion; the U.S. government will do what it can to ensure that this reaction monopolizes news coverage. The administration has
reason to be confident that a passive opposition party, a pro-war mainstream press, all the apparatus of news manipulation available
to the government, and a public and mass media predisposed to view the motives of their country in a favorable light, and to hope
that their sense of insecurity will be lessened by an attack on a designated enemy, are likely to ensure that a U.S. invasion of
Iraq will be judged a success - at least in the short term.
And, as N. Janardhan highlights in an Inter Press Service news report, (January
2, 2003) "As anti-American sentiments rise in the Middle East, Washington is stepping up its propaganda battle through new radio
stations that are airing restyled programs designed to woo the hearts and minds of the region's youth."
The Clinton doctrine was that the United States is entitled to resort to unilateral force to ensure "uninhibited access to key markets,
energy supplies, and strategic resources."
By 1970, the world was already what was called tripolar economically, with a U.S.-based North American industrial center, a German-based
European center, roughly comparable in size, and a Japan-based East Asian center, which was then the most dynamic growth region in
the world. Since then, the global economic order has become much more diverse. So it's harder to carry out our policies, but the
underlying principles have not changed much.
Take the Clinton doctrine. The Clinton doctrine was that the United States is entitled to resort to
unilateral force to ensure "uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources." That goes
beyond anything that George W. Bush said. But it was quiet and it wasn't arrogant and abrasive, so it didn't cause much of an uproar.
The belief in that entitlement continues right to the present. It's also part of the intellectual culture.
For the faction that controls the Pentagon, the military industry and the oil industry, the Cold War never ended. It went on 'below
the radar' creating a global network of bases and conflicts to advance their long-term goal of Full Spectrum Dominance, the total
control of the planet: land, sea, air, space, outer space and cyberspace. Their methods included control of propaganda, use of NGOs
for regime change, Color Revolutions to advance NATO east, and a vast array of psychological and economic warfare techniques, a Revolution
in Military Affairs as they termed it. The events of September 11, 2001 would allow an American President to declare a war on an
enemy who was everywhere and nowhere, who justified a Patriot Act that destroyed that very freedom in the name of the new worldwide
War on Terror. This book gives a disturbing look at that strategy of Full Spectrum Dominance.
FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE is a rare and essential book -- one that orients readers quickly and deeply to the world we live in,
and how we arrived here. William Engdahl presents the historical background of policy making and decision analysis that explains
how the United States arrived at its present "mission" in the world. The value of Engdahl's brilliant book is not only that it
familiarizes American readers with a history that is not usually revealed to us, but it also guides us through the many overt
and covert tactics employed by the US for regime change-- primarily via the Pentagon and its nefarious weapons contractors, but
also through various think tanks and foundations with innocuous names disingenuously referring to "democracy" and "freedom."
The "full spectrum" of tactics and deceptions and tricks -- both violent and non-violent -- is revealed here. Needless to say,
this book falls within the honorable tradition of political histories that blow the cover off America's much vaunted pretense
and propaganda about serving the cause of "freedom" and "democracy" around the world! It is the only book available today that
covers ALL of this, with ample quotations and documents from the architects of US policies, in just 250 well written pages.
FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE is unique in presenting the evolution of CIA tactics, ranging from its crude "coups" of yesteryear
(as in Iran and Guatemala) to its current -- and perhaps more insidious -- use of "non-violent" electronically manipulated technological
"crowd control" via cell phones and (as is currently evident on the streets of Tehran) Twitter. If Americans are woefully ignorant
of the full range and dangerous extremes of American violence around the world, of American interventions into and manipulations
of other countries' elections and environments and economics, then there is no longer any excuse for such ignorance.
FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE is a "must read." To understand pipeline politics, the critical importance of Eurasia to US defense
contractors, read this book. To understand how and why America has become such a rapacious and violent empire with bases all over
the world and tens of thousands of agents provocateurs doing its dirty work from Tibet to Tehran, manipulating elections, staging
phony "revolutions" to surround Russia with hostile Made-in-USA regimes, propping up American-trained puppets or fomenting chaos
from Myanmar to Congo and from Ukraine to Iran -- read this book!
Luc REYNAERT (Beernem, Belgium) An obsessive military agenda, January 23, 2010
As in his other books, F. William Engdahl exposes vital aspects of the world today and, in the first place, the battle for
total control of our planet and the space around it.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, important segments of the US establishment panicked as their power base (national security
and the Cold War) fell apart: how to justify the huge arms spending and a massive intelligence apparatus without a direct enemy?
The solution for them was to replace the Cold War by a geopolitical agenda: Full Spectrum Dominance. Crucial aspects of this agenda
are control of the Eurasian Heartland, the encircling of Russia and control of China's lifelines (oil tanker traffic). With the
help of their diabolical media machine, this agenda was sold to the public under the veil of colonial liberation, democracy and
free markets, and partly realized by false flag operations. A major aspect of this agenda is also Nuclear Primacy (First Strike).
As V. Putin stated: `today almost uncontained hyper use of military force in international relations is plunging the world
into an abyss of permanent conflicts.' Adds Russian general L. Ivashov: `terrorism is simply a new type of war in order to install
a unipolar world, a pretext to establish the rule of a world elite.'
According to Z. Brzezinski, those who control Eurasia control Africa, the Middle East and global oil and gas flows (the economic
artery system of the world).
The Balkan, Kossovo and Afghanistan wars, as well as the installation of military bases in the `Stans' were (are) major pieces
in an encircling network of Russia. The Yukos - Khodorkovsky affair was a battle for the control of Russian oil and gas (Yukos
would have been partly sold to foreign private interests).
The wars in Africa (Congo, Darfur) as well as the Myanmar issue (control of the coastline of the Strait of Malacca, good for
85 % of Chinese oil tanker traffic) are indirect confrontations with China and its vital economic interests.
Ultimately, F. William Engdahl poses the cardinal question: can the US survive this obsessive and
costly military agenda?
This book is a must read for all those who want to understand the world we live in.
David Harvey teaches at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and is the author of many books including Social
Justice and the City, The Condition of Postmodernity, The Limits to Capital, A Brief History of Neoliberalism and Spaces of Global
Capitalism: Towards a Theory of Uneven Geographical Development.
In the last thirty years or so, there has been a growing body of thought and literature in the world that
America is the next Empire, maybe not in the Roman mold, but surely as powerful as the old English
empire. Contributions to this train of thought have come from numerous corners; peace activists protesting the
Vietnam War, anti-globalization groups protesting US corporations, French farmers protesting McDonalds, Muslim scholars and
clerics throughout the world, and isolationists within American politics. These groups and their arguments have tended to emphasize
the how of empire; how America came to empire, how it is an Empire, and of course, how we will fall like other Empires. This
book tries to give a why, and does so from the oldest of corners opposing the American Way: socialism, and the writings of
Marx and his followers. As such, it does an impressive job within a very short number of pages.
To be brief, this book proposes several points. First, America has gradually turned into an empire over the last fifty years.
As evidence, the author points to the dozens of military bases the US has around the world. American now has more military
installations in more places than any other nation that has ever existed. Many of these bases are located in countries that
are not democratic; i.e. the citizens of these countries did not vote to invite America's military in. The only possible conclusions
are that the local government stays in power through America's support (financial or otherwise), or are outright puppet governments.
Second, this is not an empire built on the control of land and the founding of colonies in say the English mold, but instead
is an empire built on opening up consumer markets for American corporations and controlling non-renewable natural resources
such as oil, again for domestic consumption. The first part of this argument is self-evident; America has no colonies in the
most literal sense and our ambassadors in most countries are holed-up in concrete fortresses instead of prancing around like
local kings of the hill. The second part of this argument is also as self-evident, to those whose eyes and ears are open. Specifically,
America's aid, money, attention and soldiers often end up in places that are either important trade posts (Suez and Panama
Canals), have oilfields (the entire Middle East), or have a large business community which we do business with (Japan, Taiwan,
South Korea, Germany).
Third, America has made this transformation to the ignorance of most of its citizens, but to the alarm and suspicion of
almost everyone else. This is probably the most important point of this book. Pull over any American on the street, give her
a map of the world and ask her to point out all the countries which have been militarily attacked (bombed, invaded, occupied,
etc...) by the US since 1900 (excluding the two World Wars). She should answer Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and might recall
North Korea, Somalia and Serbia. She will probably leave out Haiti, Cuba, Panama, Philippines, Libya and Mexico, and will surely
be unawares of Russia (US troops invaded during the Russian Revolution), Cambodia (secret bombings ordered by Nixon during
the Vietnam War) and China (prior to World War II). No other nation in the history of the world has intruded upon the soil
of so many other countries as has the USA. If this does not qualify America as an empire, than nothing can.
Fourth, this growth of empire has been fueled by the same historical reasons and processes that fueled the growth of the
British Empire, the Nazis, the Roman Empire, and other great empires. War serves as a way to divert the public attention from
domestic troubles; usually economic. To be exact, the fruits and costs of war alleviate various economic pressures that could
doom a nation's leadership if otherwise left to fester. The centuries prior to England's Age of Empire was marked by a stratification
of English society. Most of the livable land in England passed into the ownership of a small, wealthy minority. You were either
born into it or outside of it. Those born into it were not going to give up wealth to their less privileged brethren, so colonial
expansion provided a way by which those born outside of it could achieve wealth and status in life. Population growth was relieved
by sending people off to other lands. The poor benefited because emigration kept the labor pool small, thereby keeping up wages.
The rich benefited because English colonies provided an outlet for their produced goods, and a source of natural resources
(e.g. tea from India) and cheap labor (cotton from the American south). Similarly, war and the resulting influence of other
countries economic and political policies help the US economy grow.
Fifth, all of this is not unexpected. The path America has taken was described over a century ago by Karl Marx and his followers
as the path all capitalist countries take. After the end of the Cold War, intellectuals the world over concluded that Marxist
thought was over; relegated to the trash heap of history. Actually, the historical processes described my Marx have played
themselves out numerous times in the 20th century.
Sixth, the current Bush administration marks a watershed in the history of America, akin to the rule of Augustus in Rome.
Specifically, the latter's rule marked the official transition from Roman Republic to Roman Empire. The Bush administration,
with either the consent or ignorance of the American electorate, have quickly exited the numerous treaties it had bound itself
to in the previous five decades, has openly called out enemies to oppose, and has invaded two countries (so far). As such,
the span from 2001 - 2008 is when America, in the eyes of others, has decided to transform from world leader to world bully,
akin to the transition from Roman Republic to Roman Empire.
Seventh, like all empires, America clothes its actions abroad (i.e. foreign policy) in morals and ethics, but they are mostly
driven by self-interest. The author does not argue this point fully, primarily because it is elaborated elsewhere. This keeps
the page count down, but reduces the impact and persuasiveness of the book. In response to the other (incredibly ignorant)
review for this book, I will take up this argument here.
a. In World War II, the US declared war on the Nazis ONLY AFTER they declared war on the US. If the US was such a high-minded
nation as the other review implies, America would have declared war on Germany the moment Nazi troops entered Poland. Related
to this, millions of Jews tried to flee Europe during the 1930's and 1940's. Many of them tried to enter the US. The US rejected
most of them and only allowed in those with political connections, those with money, and those with training in quantum physics,
nuclear physics, weapons technology (Einstein, Oppenheimer, etc...), and others that could help US science and technology.
If the US was such a moral nation, it would have allowed in all the Jews. We, America, defeated the Nazis because they declared
war on us, and posed a mortal threat to us. This is no different and no better than one street gang eliminating another street
gang that steps on its turf.
b. During the Cold War, the US intervened militarily in other countries to prevent the spread of communism. This was often
and usually done without the explicit consent of the populations of the host countries. Vietnam is a prime example. Throughout
the 1960s, the US military frequently held secret, mock elections in villages throughout South Vietnam. The Communist candidates
nearly always won, even when the US-backed candidates had more funding and resources to bribe the electorate. Why? Because
the Communist candidates offered what the people wanted. This is why there was never an election in South Vietnam during the
US occupation. America did not care about what the South Vietnamese wanted; we only cared about what we wanted.
c. During the Cold War, the US provided aid to other countries that publicly supported the fight against communism. An example
is South Africa. As long as the white government publicly opposed communism, the US government and US corporations turned a
blind eye towards apartheid. It was only the civil rights movement, and especially black activists that brought this to a halt
in the 1980s.
These and other experiences in countries around the world prove beyond a doubt that America did not care about liberty,
justice, freedom and democracy in other countries, but only that they oppose communists. The question then begs as to why America
was so interested in opposing communism. This leads to the last point argued in this book. Every empire needs an opposite;
Greece had Persia, Rome had Carthage, the English had first the Spanish and then later Napoleon. We had communists. Communists
are bad for business because they believe in communal, non-transferable rights to everything, which is anathema to the concept
of individual, transferable ownership of anything, the basis of capitalism and business. Who runs America? Not civil rights
leaders like Caeser Chavez or Martin Luther King Jr. Not progressive politicians like Eugene Debs or Ralph Nader. No, America
is run by businessmen (current and ex) and those who cater to business interests. It was Robert McNamara, JFK and others connected
to the business world who led America and its naďve president LBJ into Vietnam, not those who were fighting for freedom and
liberty like MLK Jr. or Malcolm X.
In all, this is a great book to read, though the text is tough and hard to work through.
Picking up on a few key theoretical points not included in other reviews. Harvey is pressing an academic point within the
broad Marxian tradition-- a point which also has broad practical consequences for confronting imperialism's latest incarnation.
A central contention is that the capitalist world has been experiencing a crisis of overaccumulation since about 1973, as evidenced
by a lack of opportunities for profitable investment (for which, by the way, he offers no statistical data, but which is not
at issue here). Growth prior to the 1973 watershed, he argues, was driven by expanded reproduction with the US exercising hegemonic
authority as a result of its WWII reorganization of old European colonialism. However, for various reasons (chiefly Vietnam
era inflation) this regime broke down. At that point, he argues, the much-marginalized neo-liberal thinking of von Mises and
von Hayek began to get a sympathetic hearing and commenced its long march through the institutions of the capitalist world.
This new strategy utilizes neo-liberal measures, such as trade and finance liberalization (IMF, World Bank, GATT, et al.) to
force open hitherto closed or regulated foreign markets, thereby helping to employ surplus capital. A related tool is to force
devaluation upon a target economy, enabling foreign investors to buy cheaply and improve opportunity for increased profit margins.
Thus, in broad outline, a new form of imperialism has arisen, one that remains similar to its classic colonial predecessor
in that it still seeks to relieve accumulation problems at home by shifting profitability problems abroad, sometimes forcibly
so.
Harvey descibes this new imperialism as accumulation by dispossession, a controversial description since dispossession in
classic Marxist thinking is supposed to be restricted to the primitive forms of accumulation of times gone by. Still, the evidence
is considerable given the wave of privatization of formerly public assets (water and education, in particular) in many parts
of the world, (think also of recent attacks on Social Security). Indeed, these institutional measures inside and outside the
US, do in fact resemble the classic "enclosues" of capital's earlier, more primitive stage. Recent attacks on formerly state-sponsored
economies such as Yugoslavia's and Iraq's amount to further cases in point. But, again, this revived dispossession need not
depend on military invasion; the subtler form attacks through the avenues of capital markets and state-sponsored privatization.
Though the current period is dominated by dispossession, Harvey points out that accumulation by reproduction still continues.
In fact, he asserts, the two are `organically' related and `dialectically' connected, for which however he offers scant elaboration.
The practical upshot of imperialism by dispossession is to force a shift in anti-imperialist thinking away from the familiar
strategies that challenged the pre-1973 expanded reproduction regime. That earlier response stressed organizing the proletariat
into a political force in order to seize state power in behalf of socialist principles. Movements outside that exclusive strategy
were considered secondary at best, and counter-revolutionary at worst. Though this effort failed in its primary task, the author
points out that it's hard to conceive of Europe's social democracies or America's New Deal as taking place without the single-minded
drive of communist party politics. However, these methods are now clearly inadequate for confronting neo-liberalism and its
capacity to bypass both organized labor and state power (consider neo-liberalism's sabotage of France's Mitterand in his effort
to deepen socialist programs in the 1980's). Instead, current forms of resistance are much more diverse and localized, as evidenced
by Mexico's Zapatista movement or Bolivian resistance to water privatization schemes. If there's a central rallying cry among
these diverse groups, it's opposition to `globalization', at least in neo-liberal form. Generally, the central challenge facing
anti-imperialists, as Harvey sees it, is to combine the wisdom of former strategies with the developing modes of today-- a
not inconsiderable task, to say the least.
All in all, this is a stimulating read. There is much to digest, especially in grappling with the theoretical aspects. It's
important to point out that Harvey approaches the topic as a critical observer and not as an economist, a fact which some may
count as a fault since many of the conclusions rest on economic data. Still and all, the work remains an important prism for
examining current trends.
D. Harvey places in context the recent developments in US foreign policy. He wrote this book before
April 2003 yet, he could still easily see through the smoke screen arguments of WMD, democracy!
Concerning Iraq, Harvey argued that the main goal of USA was regime change and to establish a client state there to control
the oil reserves & routes of Middle East. He reminds the US had plans set up for a conflict with Iraq much before the first
Gulf War.
Harvey notes the existence of a US empire was long recognized by leftists long ago. It was only
after 9/11 when the conservatives started also to recognize this empire and in fact argued for the benefits of one.
During Clinton years, this American empire was more like the old Ottoman Empire, a tolerant one with light footprints. Now,
it is more like the hard-pressing Roman Empire, trying to change cultures wholesale, not satisfied with only the consent of
governments. Most Americans don't understand this, but the pressure by USA in less developed countries
in fact causes only resentment and anger there.
He also speculates the war may be a method to distract Americans from rebelling against the government because of deteriorating
conditions in economy.
Overall, it is an easy short read containing substantial arguments.
They seek him here, they seek him there,
The G-Men seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven, or is he in hell?
Where's that damned elusive Pimpernel?
(with apologies to Baroness Orczy)
The famed fictional Pimpernel, Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart., enraged revolutionary France by snatching aristocrats from the jaws
of the guillotine. Our modern version, a curious Australian name Julian Assange, has outraged the United States and given its
citizens a chance to see its government at work abroad – and it's not a pretty sight.
Ignore all the screams from official Washington and angry Republicans about violations of security. Bureaucrats the world over
hate like crazy to see their blunders, double-dealing and incompetence exposed to public gaze.
But far from the "9/11 of diplomacy," as Italy's overexcited Italian foreign minister proclaimed, so far the WikiLeaks revelations
don't offer much that is new – at least to this veteran journalist and intelligence observer. Lots of amusing gossip, yes, but no
bombshells – yet. And a rather melancholy view of an empire that seems on its way out.
Decent people may be shocked by reading about Washington's heavy-handed treatment of friends and foes alike, its bullying, use
of diplomats as junior-grade spies, narrow-minded views, and snide remarks about world leaders. But more Americans seem annoyed by
the leaks than by the imperial diplomatic hubris of their elected government.
The 19th century American cynic Ambrose Bierce aptly defined diplomacy as, "the patriotic art of lying for one's country."
WikiLeaks has given the public a badly needed sharper view of Afghanistan as a cesspool of corruption and drug-dealing. Americans
who believe government agitprop about building democracy and human rights in Afghanistan, should be particularly shocked and dismayed.
It was also interesting to see US diplomatic cables showing many of Pakistan's politicians and senior generals as little better
than obsequious house servants for Uncle Sam. More Pakistanis will now believe their nation has indeed been virtually occupied by
the United States.
The new anthem of Pakistan's government should be the old calypso song, "Working for the Yankee dollar!"
For cynical professionals, WikiLeaks showed business as usual in US foreign policy. They reaffirm that great powers really want
obedience, not international cooperation or improved relations.
Even the British came across looking more like Jeeves the Butler than our equal partners in the hallowed – and quite spurious
– "special relationship." The French will take special delight in this embarrassing portrait of "perfide Albion."
Having almost joined the US State Department many eons ago, I understood that the cables released by WikiLeaks were written by
career diplomats who invariably follow the State Department's current party line. These cables are official bureaucratic reporting,
not independent fact, as most people wrongly believe. They tell Washington exactly what it wants to hear.
Gone for good are the days when outspoken senior diplomats used to advise Washington it was badly mistaken, or present a very
different view of events.
For a diplomat, telling Washington it's wrong is a surefire way to get transferred to the US Embassy in Ulan Bator, Mongolia,
or Monrovia, Liberia. Or face the end of one's career. That's why I decided not to take up a job offered me on State's Mideast desk.
I've seen US and British diplomats fired or sidelined who dared speak the truth or oppose the party line. When Hillary Clinton
tells you Uzbekistan is a flowering democracy, you better believe her and keep repeating this canard.
That's why so far there have been no big surprises from WikiLeaks. Note the total absence of any criticism of Israel in spite
of the fact that it is so deeply involved in making US Mideast policy. In fact, we have seen Israel's viewpoint, particularly towards
Iran, woven through WikiLeaks – and no dissenting opinions.
Sound foreign policy should be built on the productive conflict of thesis, antithesis, and the resulting synthesis. When every
diplomat sings from the same script, something is very wrong.
US Arab allies were also treated with kid gloves. Not a peep to date about rigged elections in Egypt, human rights violations
by Israel, torture by Morocco or about Algeria's exceptionally brutal regime that even proudly called itself, "the eradicators."
The Saudis were depicted as snarling in private about Iran's nuclear program. In fact, the Gulf Arabs do not fear Iran's nuclear
policies so much as the threat of Iranian-style Islamic revolution that would sweep away the corrupt Arab oil monarchs, our local
satraps, and replace them by populist Islamic regimes that would not jump to Washington's tune or buy tens of billions of American
arms they cannot use.
But what we get is all Iranian nuclear threat, all the time. The Arab oil monarchs do not speak for their people, any more than
Egypt's US-backed dictator, Husni Mubarak, represents his heavily-police people. Note there was not a peep of protest from Washington
over this weekend's crudely rigged "election" farce in Egypt.
Leaks about Turkey being a "terrorist state" were absurd. Turkey is fast emerging as a major power under the most effective democratic
government it has ever had and should remain a key US ally.
So was the claim that China favorably views a US-South Korean takeover of North Korea. This is either arrant nonsense or a devious
Chinese ploy to confuse US policy makers.
There's also something about WikiLeaks that smells nasty to me. I sense the leaks have been heavily censored, or cherry-picked
before the public saw them. Much seems to be missing. But what these missing pieces are remains an unknown.
For example, the New York Times, one of the recipients of the entire leak package of thousands of cables, appeared to use
them selectively to push its pro-war position in Afghanistan and press for war against Iran. The "revelations" brought cheers from
the war party.
But where was information about involvement of Afghanistan's Tajik-Uzbek Northern Alliance, the key US ally there, in running
the drug trade? Or the influential Afghan Communist Party?
Call them the dogs that didn't bark.
The US media and Congress have been blasting WikiLeaks for "treason" or "terrorism," and demanding it be silenced – while gleefully
using parts of the leaks to promote war against Iran. US media and Congress seem to have forgotten about free speech. Or the right
of Americans to know what their government is really up to around the globe.
Some of America's dimmer Republican politicians called for charges of "terrorism" against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Terrorism
has become America's catch-all charge for annoying or rebellious activity, much as the Soviets used to charge people with being "enemies
of the state."
Any people or groups forcefully opposing US policy abroad is now branded "terrorist" and added to Washington's blacklist. I refuse
to use the term, "terrorist," preferring instead, "anti-American," which is far more accurate. President George W. Bush made the
US detested or scorned around the globe. After a surge of hope, President Barack Obama failed to ameliorate America's battered image.
Lots of anti-Americans out there, but we can't brand them all "terrorists" or we will be fighting the world in a hopeless struggle.
The uproar over WikiLeaks may also well spur efforts by the hard right to impose censorship on the Internet, which has replaced
the fawning corporate media as the people's tribune.
Interestingly, the WikiLeaks furor comes as the combined 16 US intelligence agencies are reportedly preparing to release a new
National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) unanimously concluding Iran is not building nuclear weapons. Quite a coincidence, to say the
least.
Washington sources say this latest NIE reconfirms the previous 2007 NIE finding that Iran had ceased all development of nuclear
arms four years earlier. Before the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, CIA and UN reports that Saddam Hussein's regime had no weapons of mass
destruction were ignored or covered up by the Bush White House, which was racing toward war.
Now, a fierce struggle over the next NIE is raging in Washington between groups urging war against Iran and the US intelligence
community and elements in the Pentagon. There are still officials in Washington who put America's national interests first and resist
bending to political pressure or financial inducements.
The upright Adm. Dennis Blair, the last US national intelligence director, was reportedly ousted because he refused to endorse
claims Iran was making nuclear weapons.
President Barack Obama appears to have ducked this explosive issue. Politically wounded and unable to fully control all the levers
of presidential power, Obama seems unwilling or unable to stand up to the pro-war party.
Meanwhile, WikiLeaks is at least doing in part what America's elected leaders and supposed free media should have been doing:
telling citizens what's really going on.
The WikiLeaks revelations have shined a light on the dark nature of U.S. foreign policy. As
Eric Margolis recently described it: "Washington's
heavy-handed treatment of friends and foes alike, its bullying, use of diplomats as junior-grade spies, narrow-minded views, and
snide remarks about world leaders."
As much as I, an American, hate to say it, U.S. foreign policy is actually much worse. It is aggressive, reckless, belligerent,
and meddling. It sanctions the destabilization and overthrow of governments, the assassination of leaders, the destruction of industry
and infrastructure, the backing of military coups, death squads, and drug traffickers, and imperialism under the guise of humanitarianism.
It supports corrupt and tyrannical governments and brutal sanctions and embargoes. It results in discord, strife, hatred, and terrorism
toward the United States.
The question, then, is simply this: Can U.S. foreign policy be fixed? Although I am not very optimistic that it will be,
I am more than confident that it can be.
I propose a four-pronged solution from the following perspectives: Founding Fathers, military, congressional, libertarian. In
brief, to fix its foreign policy the United States should implement a Jeffersonian foreign policy, adopt Major General Smedley Butler's
Amendment for Peace, follow the advice of Congressman Ron Paul, and do it all within the libertarian framework of philosopher Murray
Rothbard.
Thomas Jefferson, our first secretary of state and third president, favored a foreign policy of "peace, commerce, and honest friendship
with all nations - entangling alliances with none." This policy was basically followed until the Spanish-American War of 1898. Here
is the simple but profound wisdom of Jefferson:
No one nation has a right to sit in judgment over another.
We wish not to meddle with the internal affairs of any country, nor with the general affairs of Europe.
I am for free commerce with all nations, political connection with none, and little or no diplomatic establishment.
We have produced proofs, from the most enlightened and approved writers on the subject, that a neutral nation must, in all
things relating to the war, observe an exact impartiality towards the parties.
No judgment, no meddling, no political connection, and no partiality: this is a Jeffersonian foreign policy.
U.S. Marine Corps Major General Butler was the most decorated Marine in U.S. history. After leaving the military, he authored
the classic work War Is a Racket. Butler proposed an Amendment for Peace to provide an "absolute guarantee to the women of
America that their loved ones never would be sent overseas to be needlessly shot down in European or Asiatic or African wars that
are no concern of our people." Here are its three planks:
1. The removal of members of the land armed forces from within the continental limits of the United States and the Panama Canal
Zone for any cause whatsoever is hereby prohibited.
2. The vessels of the United States Navy, or of the other branches of the armed service, are hereby prohibited from steaming,
for any reason whatsoever except on an errand of mercy, more than five hundred miles from our coast.
3. Aircraft of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps is hereby prohibited from flying, for any reason whatsoever, more than seven
hundred and fifty miles beyond the coast of the United States.
Butler also reasoned that because of "our geographical position, it is all but impossible for any foreign power to muster, transport
and land sufficient troops on our shores for a successful invasion." In this he was echoing Jefferson, who recognized that geography
was one of the great advantages of the United States: "At such a distance from Europe and with such an ocean between us, we hope
to meddle little in its quarrels or combinations. Its peace and its commerce are what we shall court."
And then there is our modern Jeffersonian in Congress, Rep. Ron Paul, the only consistent voice in Congress from either party
for a foreign policy of peace and nonintervention. In a speech on the House floor several months before the invasion of Iraq, Ron
Paul made the case for a foreign policy of peace through commerce and nonintervention:
A proper foreign policy of non-intervention is built on friendship with other nations, free trade, and open travel, maximizing
the exchanges of goods and services and ideas.
We should avoid entangling alliances and stop meddling in the internal affairs of other nations - no matter how many special
interests demand otherwise. The entangling alliances that we should avoid include the complex alliances in the UN, the IMF, the
World Bank, and the WTO.
The basic moral principle underpinning a non-interventionist foreign policy is that of rejecting the initiation of force against
others. It is based on non-violence and friendship unless attacked, self-determination, and self-defense while avoiding confrontation,
even when we disagree with the way other countries run their affairs. It simply means that we should mind our own business and
not be influenced by special interests that have an ax to grind or benefits to gain by controlling our foreign policy. Manipulating
our country into conflicts that are none of our business and unrelated to national security provides no benefits to us, while
exposing us to great risks financially and militarily.
For the libertarian framework necessary to ensure a foreign policy of peace and nonintervention, we can turn to libertarian political
philosopher and theoretician Murray Rothbard:
The primary plank of a libertarian foreign policy program for America must be to call upon the United States to abandon its
policy of global interventionism: to withdraw immediately and completely, militarily and politically, from Asia, Europe, Latin
America, the Middle East, from everywhere. The cry among American libertarians should be for the United States to withdraw now,
in every way that involves the U.S. government. The United States should dismantle its bases, withdraw its troops, stop its incessant
political meddling, and abolish the CIA. It should also end all foreign aid - which is simply a device to coerce the American
taxpayer into subsidizing American exports and favored foreign States, all in the name of "helping the starving peoples of the
world." In short, the United States government should withdraw totally to within its own boundaries and maintain a policy of strict
political "isolation" or neutrality everywhere.
The U.S. global empire with its 1,000 foreign military bases and half a million troops and mercenary contractors in three-fourths
of the world's countries must be dismantled. This along with the empire's spies, covert operations, foreign aid, gargantuan military
budgets, abuse and misuse of the military, prison camps, torture, extraordinary renditions, assassinations, nation building, spreading
democracy at the point of a gun, jingoism, regime changes, military alliances, security guarantees, and meddling in the affairs of
other countries.
U.S. foreign policy can be fixed. The United States would never tolerate another country building a string of bases around North
America, stationing thousands of its troops on our soil, enforcing a no-fly zone over American territory, or sending their fleets
to patrol off our coasts. How much longer will other countries tolerate these actions by the United States? We have already experienced
blowback from the Muslim world for our foreign policy. And how much longer can the United States afford to maintain its empire?
It is time for the world's policeman, fireman, security guard, social worker, and busybody to announce its retirement.
Laurence M. Vance is a free-lance writer in central Florida. He is the author of The Revolution That Wasn't. Visit his
website: www.vancepublications.com. Send him
email.
Why America Is Losing Valuable Friends and Allies By Rod McNair
Why is the United States losing credibility with the Philippines-one of its most dependable Pacific Rim allies? Base closures,
pollution and military misconduct have strained relations between two traditional friends and allies. What does this portend for
the future?
Base closures, toxic waste disputes, distrust of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank as American "pawns"
and concern over conduct of United States servicemen: these issues have strained United States/ Philippines relations in the 1990s.
What does the future hold for these traditional friends and allies? And why is the United States losing credibility with one of its
most dependable and most important strategic partners in the Pacific Rim?
American troops have once again landed on Philippine soil. But this landing was only for a joint military exercise, held from January
31 to March 3 of this year, by approximately 2,500 United States troops and their Filipino counterparts. The name of the exercise
was "Balikatan 2000"-a Filipino phrase which means, "shouldering the load together." It is an appropriate description of the
cooperation and good will these two nations have experienced, as friends and allies, for most of this century.
The United States and the Philippines have historically enjoyed an unusually warm and intimate relationship. "Filipino-Americans
are our largest overseas population. Filipinos of all ages love the United States," former President Fidel Ramos said in a 1997 interview
by former U.S. Secretary of the Navy James Webb ("Our Friend-the Philippines," Parade Magazine, May 25, 1997, p. 5).
According to the article, as of 1997, an estimated 30,000 Americans were visiting the Philippines each month. Approximately 2
million Filipino-Americans were living in the United States, making them the largest Asian-American population nationwide. As of
1997, the United States has been the Philippines' biggest trading partner, accounting for 33 percent of the Philippines' exports
and 20 percent of its imports. Former Secretary Webb commented, "With almost every Filipino, one finds an affection for the U.S.
and a desire to continue our unique historical relationship."
Yet that "unique historical relationship" is being strained. The recent Balikatan 2000 exercises belie a growing undercurrent
of distrust of American involvement in the Philippines. Although this year's Balikatan exercises were the 16th
since the series began in 1981, nearly five years had passed since the last exercise. Bitter anti-American protests rocked the nation
in 1998 as the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), which laid the legal groundwork for the American troops' visit, was vigorously debated
but ultimately ratified by the Philippine Senate.
What does the future hold for these long-time allies? And why is the credibility of the United States waning in the eyes of many
in a nation that has been, historically, a trusted friend and loyal supporter?
Roots of Tension, Bells of Heroism
The history of the two countries' intimate but sometimes tense relationship goes back to the turn of the 20th century.
When the United States declared war on Spain in 1898, Filipinos were also fighting a desperate struggle to overturn more than 300
years of Spanish domination. U.S. Commodore George Dewey steamed into Manila Bay and was at first considered an ally by Emilio Aguinaldo
of the Filipino resistance movement. Dewey used the resistance movement to help defeat the Spanish.
However, Filipino hopes of independence were dashed when the United States declared the Philippines a protectorate. Many Americans
are not aware that several years of war followed-a war that pitted American occupation forces against Filipino guerillas.
Although the Filipino rebellion was eventually put down, this period of history left deep scars. One wound which causes pain yet
today was the controversy of the "Bells of Balangiga." During the Filipino resistance movement, church bells were used to warn local
resistance fighters of oncoming American forces. During one skirmish, on September 28, 1901, 48 American soldiers were surprised
and killed by Filipino guerillas. In retaliation, the 9th Infantry Battalion Commander, U.S. Brig. Gen. James Smith ordered
his men to kill all the male natives of the island of Samar aged 10 years and above. This action came to be known as the "Samar Massacre."
As a prize of war, American forces from this battalion took some of the church bells home with them, two of which are installed at
the U.S. Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Numerous Philippine government efforts to reclaim the bells, especially during the
Centennial celebrations in 1998, have fallen on deaf ears among veterans groups in Wyoming. Senate President Pro Tempore Blas Ople
said he hoped "the Philippines will soon be the rightful owner and custodian of the two bells that symbolize the heroism of Filipino
and American soldiers during the dark period of our history" ("Senate supports return of Balangiga bells," Balita, March 9,
1998).
Retired Major Daniel Tarter, who in the 1980s commanded the same unit that was involved in the raid, has been a proponent of returning
the prized bells. He commented on the damaging effects of this controversy on United States-Philippines relations:
"I don't think they understand the damage they are causing to the image of the United States and the American military in Southeast
Asia, not just the Philippines. It is high time to let the Balangiga bells go home" ("Former U.S. Army Officer Laments Delay of
Balangiga Bells Return," Balita, March 13, 1998).
Despite the good relations between the United States and the Philippines, it is controversies like the "Bells of Balangiga" that
continue to cause ongoing friction.
Calls for Independence, Closure of Bases
With the close of World War II, the Cold War standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union showed the importance of
strategic Clark Air Force Base and Subic Naval Base in the Philippines. During the 1980s, 16,000 American troops were stationed in
the Philippines. The reason for this strong presence was the large fleet of Soviet ships kept in the Pacific Ocean-two dozen warships
and a formidable air force were stationed at nearby Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam (Webb, p. 4). But with the disintegration of the Soviet
Union and the end of the Cold War, strident opponents of an American military presence demanded the closure of United States bases.
Rising nationalism and calls for independence from American influence were two of the reasons.
In 1990, then-President Corazon Aquino rejected a United States plan for a 10-year extension of the bases' lease, which expired
in 1991. Instead, she required all forces to leave within three years. In a Los Angeles Times article, President Aquino was
quoted as saying, "[The bases] are not the heart of our economy, nor the soul of our political well-being. Certainly, they do not
define our society... They are important, but they are not everything." In the same article, base opponent Sen. Wigberto E. Tanada
complained, "They are the worst part of our national problems and not the solution." ("Aquino Calls for Orderly Pullout of
U.S. Forces," Los Angeles Times, Bob Drogin, September 18, 1990). The base closings coincided with a general military reduction
in three crucial Pacific Rim countries-the Philippines, South Korea and Japan.
A growing number of Filipinos today are deeply conscious of not wanting to be seen as cowing to the United States, but rather
as a fully-independent nation in its own right. When President Joseph Estrada pledged support for the VFA to U.S. Secretary of Defense
William Cohen, the New Nationalist Alliance (Bayan) called the meeting a "complete sell-out of the Philippine interests." The leftist
group said, "If there is one thing in grave peril to this country, it is the undermining of our national sovereignty through the
ratification of the U.S.-RP [Republic of the Philippines] Visiting Forces Agreement. There is no immediate threat to this country."
The group also accused Estrada, Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado and Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon of being United States "lackeys"
who have "embraced the U.S. military strategic security in the region hook, line and sinker" ("Philippine Leftists Slam Estrada-Cohen
Meeting as a 'Sell-Out,'" Balita, August 4, 1998).
Former Secretary Webb described well the contradiction. On the one hand, most Filipinos, especially from the older generation,
are proud of the role their country played in World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War. On the other hand, many Filipinos today
are "now adamant about showing their independence from the U.S." (Webb, p. 4).
Toxic Waste and Social Irresponsibility
But old wounds and calls for nationalism are not the only reasons that a growing number of Filipinos are expressing chagrin over
continued American involvement in the Philippines. Another reason is the social repercussions of the almost 100-year American presence.
One such effect of United States involvement is the issue of toxic waste left by the exiting forces.
Recent reports have exposed the United States military as the source of many environmental disasters in countries hosting its
bases. But some experts fear the worst may be former bases found in Third World countries, such as the Philippines. Reports
point to tons of toxic waste dumped into Subic Bay. One Air Force official in Washington, when asked about environmental compliance
at Clark Air Force Base, said that since there was no legal necessity to assess ecological damage on the sprawling base, no such
survey was done. He added: "We comply with host country laws. In the Philippines, there are none, so we are not in violation of
any" ("U.S. Military Leaves Toxic Trail Overseas," Los Angeles Times, John M. Broder, June 18, 1990).
Throughout the 1990s, ongoing environmental issues have strained relations between the United States and the Philippines. When
Secretary Cohen visited the Philippines to lobby for passage of the VFA, reporters asked him when the United States would do something
about base clean-up ("Visiting Forces Agreement Would Benefit Region." U.S. Department of State, Manila, August 3, 1998). During
his visit with Vice President Al Gore during the 1998 APEC meetings in Kuala Lumpur, President Joseph Estrada brought up the same
environmental issue, asking if the United States would help clean up the former bases ("U.S. Tells Erap RP Remains a Very Important
Ally," Balita, November 24, 1998).
Although the American forces in the Balikatan 2000 exercises engaged in many community projects, such as giving free medical,
dental and veterinary services to Filipinos, the media focused on how victims of toxic exposure were left out of the treatment ("US
Medics Leave Out Toxic Waste 'Victims,'" The Philippine Star, Ding Cervantes, February 25, 2000).
While military might was a welcome deterrent against Communist aggression from the 1950s through the 1980s, the environmental
question soured relations in the 1990s. It is another reason why American credibility in the Philippines has taken a turn for the
worse.
Personal Conduct of Visiting Forces
During the vigorous and sometimes angry debates and protests prior to the return of American soldiers for joint exercises, one
of the most emotional issues was the conduct of American soldiers. In particular, many opposed the introduction of American troops
on the grounds that it would encourage prostitution.
The implication was also given that American troops would be granted total immunity in Philippine courts, even if arrested for
wrongdoing. A September 17, 1998 article in the Today newspaper, entitled "Bases Treaty Rejection Recalled," pointed out that
"the ratification of the VFA is facing strong opposition from different cause-oriented groups and the [Catholic] Church because of
the provision which grants United States military personnel special privileges and access into the country, including alleged immunity
from criminal prosecution by Philippine courts." The article briefly mentioned that legal immunity only applied to personnel while
on duty. Off-duty personnel were fully responsible for their conduct and could be tried in the Philippine justice system.
It also noted that the United States had been refused a similar request to exempt its overseas military personnel from the jurisdiction
of a United Nations court accepted by 137 other countries.
Whether the VFA provided undue legal protection for American soldiers or not, the sad and deplorable issue was that the conduct
of visiting forces was a major point of contention. United States military personnel are seen, not as good examples of high moral
conduct, but rather the contrary.
Tools of American Imperialism?
Even though the United States and the Philippines enjoy a great deal of economic cooperation, this, too, is becoming a source
of consternation to some Filipinos.
In some anti-American camps, the United States is identified as a hindrance to the Philippines' economic success. In a statement
before the Preparatory Commission on Constitutional Reformson October 19, 1999, President Joseph Estrada was quoted
as saying that 11 major industrial projects in the 1980s did not succeed because the plan "was sabotaged by the Americans. They didn't
want us to be strong economically, because a strong economy would spur nationalism, which means people would be against the U.S.
bases." ("The Roots of Poverty," Today, Alejandro Lichauco, October 23, 1999). He went on to say that "we must not antagonize
the Americans," but his previous statement showed there is a powerful movement in the country which is distrustful of American
economic intervention and involvement. The article went on to say that these initiatives were resisted by the IMF and the World
Bank-which some in Asia see as pawns of American economic policy. The author mentioned that the same thing happened during the Aquino
administration, when the IMF and the World Bank discouraged plans for a full-scale integrated steel industry.
Regardless of the truth of the matter, the unmistakable perception among some is that the IMF and the World Bank are United
States tools to keep Third World countries in subjection to the dominant economies of the West, not to promote their development
and growth.
Some blamed the 1997 Asian currency disaster on economic policies and intervention of the West. In an article entitled, "The Asian
Man's Burden," by Herman Tiu Laurel (Today, December 9, 1997), the author stated that free trade between East and West is
just a new method of "colonization." "Asia should never allow the colonial history to be repeated. It can never fully develop
until it is free of Western imperialism. Asia can prosper and grow without the West; it is self-sufficient in science and technology,
in markets and resources. This is why the West has tried to destroy every proposition of Asia to be left alone... What that
currency crisis has triggered, and championed by the likes of Mahathir, is the final stage of the struggle to throw off the yoke,
the Asian man's burden, since the 17th-century colonialism of the West."
Why the Loss of Credibility?
Why this perception? Why has the United States lost much of its credibility in the Philippines-one of its closest friends and
allies? Is it because of the sometimes-bittersweet history between these two nations? Is it the issue of toxic waste? Is it the issue
of immunity and conduct of American soldiers? Is it the perception of IMF "meddling" in the economy? Is it simply the desire of an
increasingly independent-minded nation to throw off the last yoke of "Western imperialism?"
Although these are all components of the United States-Philippines relationship today, are they the real, underlying reasons
for the United States' loss of credibility in the Philippines? The surprising answer is "no!" It is much larger than that-it was
prophesied! The United States, like Great Britain before it, was prophesied to lose the pride of its power (Leviticus 26:19),
to lose its powerful sea gates that have enabled it to achieve global domination in this century! (For more information on
the identities and future of the American and British-descended nations, write for our free booklet, What's Ahead for America
and Britain?)
The United States and Great Britain have enjoyed unprecedented success in the past two centuries. They have had power over the
"gates of their enemies," as prophesied in Genesis 22:17: "...in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy
seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies"
(KJV). "Gates" refer to chokepoints or strategic bases-Clark Air Force Base and Subic Naval Base have been two vital elements
in the American military presence in the Pacific. Analysts say the removal of a United States military presence in the Philippines
represented "the most significant security realignment in Asia since the American retreat from Vietnam..." When voices in
the Philippines first began demanding the removal of American troops from Clark and Subic, the Pentagon insisted that its Philippine
bases were "key to protecting vital sea lanes in the Indian and Pacific Oceans" ("Aquino Calls for Orderly Pullout of U.S.
Forces," Los Angeles Times, Bob Drogin, September 18, 1990).
Long ago, because of Abraham's obedience, God made certain temporal promises to him and to his descendants. He said in Genesis
12:3, "I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
Yet because of U.S. national and personal sins, its blessings are being taken away one by one. Instead of being a good
example, Israel (including today's United States) was prophesied to become a byword. Deuteronomy 28:37 says, "And you shall become
an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword among all nations where the Lord will drive you." The NIV says "you will become... an object
of scorn and ridicule."
Why is the U.S. losing credibility among its most staunch supporters and its most loyal allies? It is because it has turned its
back on God, so God is turning His back on the United States and the British-descended peoples all over the earth. Jeremiah 4:22
says: "For My people are foolish, they have not known Me. They are silly children, and they have no understanding.
They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge." The direct result of this rampant immorality and materialism
is the loss of allies. Verse 30 goes on to say, "And when you are plundered, what will you do? Though you clothe yourself
with crimson, though you adorn yourself with ornaments of gold, though you enlarge your eyes with paint, in vain you will
make yourself fair; your lovers will despise you; they will seek your life." It is going to get worse before it gets better.
But it is not too late! If the U.S. repents, seeks God and endeavors to use its national and material blessings not "as an opportunity
for the flesh, but through love serve one another" (Galatians 5:13), it can be a powerful example of the type of servant leadership
God intended! Otherwise the American people will have to be punished in the worst time of trouble ever to come upon the face
of the earth (Matthew 24:21).
It is not likely that the U.S., as a whole, will repent. However, if Americans individually begin to reallywalk with God, and serve and obey Him, they can be protected from the coming prophesied calamities. And, more importantly, they
will be training as firstfruits to rule with Christ at His return. That will be a glorious time when all nations, including the United
States and the Philippines-though historical allies-will, for the first time, really experience the mutual respect, deep understanding
and real lasting national friendship that God intended them to have!
America is not a Democracy - it never was. It was designed intentionally as a Republic by the founding fathers. [knew this before
Skywalker TOS yapped about it incessantly]
We do not vote on line item basis for what our government does.
That fact agreed upon, your post might be reworded and posed about the American government. I would disagree if it was regarding
the US government in 1944.
The people of the US *do* have a history of caring. They have poured out their hearts and dollars generously to many others on
this planet. Certainly they were less predatory than the Europeans during the colonial era (perhaps because they joined the feeding
frenzy late).
They relate far better to suffering of a single person than a group of people suffering (why is that?). But they also have tried
to solve perceived injustice without knowing the facts well and used meataxe tactics at times - to the deep resentment of peoples
they affected.
But Americans DO care and Americans and their government and its actions should be distinquished.
Anatol Lieven is senior associate at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. A journalist, writer, and historian, Mr Lieven writes on a range of security
and international affairs issues. He was previously editor of Strategic Comments published by the International Institute
for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London.
Anatol Lieven's journalism career includes work as a correspondent for the Times (London) in the former Soviet Union
from 1990 to 1996. Prior to 1990, Lieven was correspondent for the Times in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He also
worked as a freelance journalist in India.
Mr Lieven's articles have been published in a number of journals and newspapers, among them The Financial Times, The
London Review of Books, The Nation, and The International Herald Tribune.
In this interview with AsiaSource, Mr Lieven addresses the urgent foreign policy issues confronting the United States in
the theoretical context laid out in his recent book, America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism (New York:
Oxford UP, 2004).
You argue in your book, America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism that American policies following
the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, "divided the West, further alienated the Muslim world and exposed
America itself to greatly increased danger." You suggest that this response must be understood in the context of the particular
character of American nationalism. What are the features of American nationalism that are important in this respect?
In the book I suggested that there are two principal features of American nationalism, both of which were evident in the response
to 9/11. These are, in spirit, to a great extent contradictory but they often run together in American public life.
The first is a certain element of American messianism: the belief in America as a 'city on the hill', a light to the
nations, which usually takes the form of a belief in the force of America's example. But at particular moments, and especially
when America is attacked, it moves from a passive to an active form: the desire to go out and actually turn the world into America,
as it were, to convert other countries to democracy, to the American way of life.
In principle, the desire to spread democracy in the world is of course not a bad thing. But there are two huge problems with it.
One is that because this element of American messianism is so deeply rooted in American civic nationalism, in what has been called
the "American Creed", and in fundamental aspects of America's national identity, it can produce - and after 9/11 did produce
- an atmosphere of debate in America which is much more dominated by myth than by any serious look at the reality of the outside
world. Myths about American benevolence, myths about America spreading freedom, myths about the rest of the world wanting America
to spread freedom, as opposed to listening to what the rest of the world really has to say about American policies.
national chauvinism, hatred of outsiders, and fear and contempt of the outside world. The second feature that
cuts across this American messianism, however, is what I have called the "American antithesis", that is to say, those elements
in the American nationalist tradition which actually contradict both American civic nationalism and the American Creed. These elements, which are very strong in parts of America, include national chauvinism, hatred of outsiders, and fear
and contempt of the outside world. This is particularly true in the case of the Muslim world, both because America has
been under attack from Muslim terrorists for almost two generations now, but also because of the relationship with Israel, and
the way in which pro-Israeli influences here have contributed to demonizing the Muslim world in general.
This results in an incredible situation: on the one hand - and I am speaking here particularly of the neo-cons - the Bush administration
wants to democratize the Muslim world, while on the other, neo-conservatives do not even bother to hide their contempt for Muslims
and Arabs. Sometimes you hear, and even read, phrases like, "The only language that Arabs understand is force," "Let them hate us
so long as they fear us" and so on. This is utterly contradictory: people saying they want to democratize the Arab world but displaying
utter contempt for Arab public opinion. Of course this is not just a moral failing, or a propaganda failing. It also leads to practical
disasters, like the extraordinary belief that you could pretend at least to be introducing democracy, and on the other hand, you
could somehow impose Ahmed Chalabi on Iraqis as a pro-American strongman, and that somehow the local population would line
up to salute you and happily accept this.
So these are very dangerous aspects of American nationalism. And these aspects by the way used to be very sharply and profoundly
analyzed by great figures in the American intellectual tradition, conservative as well as liberal: figures like Reinhold Niebuhr,
Richard Hoftstadter, Louis Hartz, George Kennan and William Fulbright. Though most of these figures were strong anti-Communists,
they directed their critique at the reasons for the particular anti-Communist hysteria of the early 1950s, and at the reasons which
led America to become involved in the war in Vietnam. And their arguments and insights are of tremendous importance to America today
in understanding American behavior after 9/11.
But one of the striking and tragic things about the debate leading up to the Iraq war - although one can hardly call it a "debate"
- was that the vast majority of it, outside certain relatively small left-wing journals, was conducted with almost no reference to
the genesis of the Vietnam war, the debates which took place then, and the insights which were generated about aspects of the American
tradition. Instead of analyzing what it was about their own system which was pulling them in the direction of war with Iraq,
too many members of the American elite, including leading Democrats as well as Republicans, talked only about the Iraqi side.
Even that, of course, they got completely wrong, but they did not even once ask the obvious question: "What is it about our
system that may make this a disaster?" After all is this not a general pattern of American behavior in the whole world by now? This
business of a Green Zone in Baghdad, American officials bunkered down behind high-protective walls, with no contact with Iraqis,
is this not part of a larger trend? Yet somehow it was assumed that in the case of Iraq it would be different, that America would
go in, be welcomed with open arms, quickly reshape Iraq in accordance with American norms, and then quickly leave again.
You have said that, "Belief in the spread of democracy through American power is not usually consciously insincere. On
the contrary, it is inseparable from American national messianism and the wider 'American Creed'". You have just talked about some
of this, but could you elaborate your definition of American national messianism? And what do you think enables such naiveté - or
perhaps cynicism?
As the American historian Richard Hofstadter said, "It has been our fate as a nation not to have ideologies but to be one." What
really marks out America from the other Western democracies is not the content of America's democratic creed - because the basic
principles are commonly held in all the democracies. Rather, it is the intensity and conformity with which these beliefs are held.
This is because, precisely as Hofstadter said, these principles are or are felt to be essential to holding America together;
that is, they are an essential part of the American national identity in a way that they are not to the British or the French or
the German national identities.
This difference between the US and Europe may change of course because of the huge immigrant populations in Western Europe now.
Western European countries too are having to rethink their identities and emphasize common values rather than common heritage or
ancestry. But certainly up to now, America has stood out because of the extent of its commitment to this so-called American Creed.
I should say here that the word 'creed' was chosen for this advisedly by a series of American thinkers (though the original phrase
was G.K.Chesterton's) as suggesting an almost religious form of belief.
The extent to which this is fundamental to the American national identity and is widely believed to keep Americans together
means that it is very difficult in this country to challenge these myths. They are also remarkably impervious to experience.
Vietnam did not fundamentally change them, it only battered them for a while. Endless lessons in the Middle East have failed to change
them. Now, despite the lesson of Iraq, there are still leading Democrats writing about the need to create alliances of democracies
and spread democracy in the region. Not to ask what the people of the region actually want, not to ask about a sensible diplomatic
strategy, but to use democratization as a substitute for any real strategy. This comes again from a central part of
the American national and nationalist heritage.
There is some continuity in American foreign policy, as you suggest, from the Bush Sr. administration through Clinton
to the present Bush administration. Although you argue that Clinton's multilateralism was more befitting of a stable hegemonic state,
is it not the case that as far as policy is concerned, this was only a change in form rather than substance? And if so, what accounts
for this extraordinary unanimity in foreign policy between the only two serious political parties in this country (further evidence
of which was the Kerry campaign's inability to offer any policy alternatives to the most pressing foreign policy issues presently
confronting the US: Iraq and Israel-Palestine)?
On the Middle East, both of the American parties are, frankly, crippled above all by their inability to confront the question
of America's relationship with Israel. Indeed not just to confront it, but even to mention it, as we saw in the presidential
debate.
On a range of other issues, though, Bush has not actually been as bad as many people think, or at least he has been much closer
to Clinton - whatever that means. In the case of China, for example, the Bush administration came in with a very un-Clintonesque
policy of confronting China, of containing China - and this could have led to some extremely dangerous results. But then 9/11 came
along and ever since, the Bush administration has been pursuing an extremely Clintonesque policy of engaging China, of putting pressure
on Taiwan not to declare independence, and so on. There was that moment in the presidential debates when it was Bush who was saying
that the US needs a multilateral policy towards the threat of North Korea with a key role for China; a curious irony given the Bush
administration's frequent celebration of its own unilateralism, but not actually wrong. Similarly with Russia, while I would
not necessarily describe the Bush administration's policy as multilateralist, they have certainly been pursuing a very traditional,
pragmatic, realist policy, and not an aggressive one.
The area where the Clinton and Bush administrations have moved farthest apart is in relations with Europe. Clearly the Bush administration
is not nearly as interested in Europe as Clinton was, and it is not nearly as interested in NATO. I should emphasize here that it
was not interested even in the eight months before 9/11, let alone afterwards. If Gore had won in 2000, there would have been
a very real difference: he would have made a much greater effort to engage NATO and to consult with European governments after 9/11.
That does bring out certain key differences between Bush and the Clinton tradition. Of course they are both interested in expanding
America's power in the world; they are both imperialists, in a certain sense. They both profess at least their belief in spreading
democracy. But Clinton, I think, was much more of a genuine Wilsonian. Bush in many ways is a fake Wilsonian because while he professes
this messianic, democratization line, he has completely ignored the other key aspect of Wilson's strategy: international cooperation,
international institutions, creating a web of alliances and so forth. Clinton talked about this a great deal and was savagely attacked
by the right-wing in this country for doing so. Clinton's idea was to place "America at the center of every world network" - a position
which implies influence, leadership, and even hegemony, but also consultation and negotiation.
So when it comes to the differences between Bush and Clinton, and the similarities, one requires a rather nuanced picture in which
in some ways they are closer than it appears, but in other ways, they are genuinely quite different.
In several articles and in your book, you point out that unlike in previous empires, the vast majority of ordinary Americans
do not think of themselves as imperialist, or as possessing an empire. At the same time, you mention repeatedly the extent to which
the American population is unaware of the policies pursued in its name, is indeed alarmingly ignorant of world affairs. Given this,
how could they conceive of the United States as an imperial power? And why is the perception of "ordinary" Americans relevant to
understanding the place of America in the world today?
If I remember rightly, according to a poll in Britain in the 1930s, a very small proportion of the British population could remember
the name of more than two British colonies. They could remember maybe India and Australia, or probably they remembered the white
colonies, but most of them could not remember the name of a single African colony. No one would ever have used that as an argument
that the British people did not believe in empire; they were just ignorant.
In the book, I quote C. Vann Woodward on this subject, another great American critic of the past, whose insights I wanted to try
to revive for contemporary Americans. Woodward talked about the American people as being bellicose but not militarist, and I think
it is also true that they are bellicose but not imperialist. That said, this kind of bellicosity, this instinctive reaction to lash
out if attacked or even if insulted, has been repeatedly, and by the way quite explicitly on the part of the neo-cons, used as a
way of whipping up nationalist anger, and nationalist commitment to what are in fact imperialist projects.
This is a very old tradition in imperialism. In my book, I cite many examples from history to show that in general even at the
height of the Western empires, ordinary Western people were not really very interested in great imperial projects if they were going
to be expensive. They liked the idea of power and glory but they were very dubious about losing lives and spending large amounts
of money to go out and conquer bits of Africa and so forth. If they could be convinced that this was not simply an imperialist project,
but rather part of national rivalry with France or Germany, then it was possible to generate much more support.
In some ways, the American people do fit into this tradition. It is quite clear, for example, that even most of the ones who do
consider themselves imperialist would be dead against the reintroduction of conscription in America. Even if it were proved to them
that conscription was absolutely necessary in order to maintain America's imperial power in the world, they would not be persuaded.
Equally the assorted jackasses who bray in the media about the American empire and the need for great sacrifices in its cause have
shown no very ardent desire to go and serve themselves in Afghanistan or Iraq or anywhere else.
There is therefore a good deal of lack of underlying commitment to American power on the part of Americans themselves. More commitment
certainly than exists almost anywhere else in the world by now but still not enough to generate a really full-scale imperial project.
This also explains in part the relative pragmatism of the Bush administration in some areas of the world. After all even this administration
recognizes that it cannot simultaneously run its present program in the Middle East and risk war with China and radically
alienate Russia. If there were war with China or with North Korea then America would have to reintroduce conscription. Then the end
of the American imperial project would be very close indeed.
Another differentiating feature of 19th century empires and the American empire is that the former were characterized
by the so-called "civilizing mission" whereas the latter, in its self-conception, is motivated by the purely benevolent aspiration
of spreading democracy and freedom. Are these two imperial strategies not more similar than they at first appear?
Well in some ways, yes, of course. The 19th century liberal-imperialist strategy was also enormously benevolent in its own esteem.
The European powers conquered most of Africa while assuring their own populations and everybody else who would listen that this was
all part of the process of ending slavery, expanding progress, bringing peace, spreading Christianity and so forth. Even the most
ghastly European colonial project of all, King Leopold of Belgium's conquest of the Congo, professed benevolent goals: Belgian propaganda
was all about bringing progress, railways and peace, and of course, ending slavery. In other words, hypocrisy is completely common
to both, as it was to the Soviet or communist imperial project. So in that way they are very close.
But there is a critical difference. There was no absolutely intrinsic or self-evident clash between what the 19th century liberal
imperialists said that they were going to do - leave aside what they actually did in terms of massacres, land theft, etc. - in terms
of bringing progress and the inherent nature of their project, these were not radically incompatible because the 19th century liberal
imperialists never talked about quickly bringing democracy to the countries they conquered. To have done so would have been
logically completely counter to the assumptions of Western superiority and "native" cultural inferiority and incapacity for self-rule
upon which the entire ideology of the "civilizing mission" was based.
When they did talk of bringing democracy, they only did in the context of the far future, something that might come about after
several generations; in Africa, they talked about a thousand years of British or French rule eventually leading to self-government
and democracy. In other words, they were absolutely clear and logical. These countries would need a long period, centuries literally,
of Western authoritarian, imperial rule before they would be capable of self-government, constitutional rule, democracy and so forth.
Indeed to an extent this was the way that it actually worked out: the British had ruled India or parts of India for 150 years before
they introduced the first very limited local, district elections with fairly circumscribed powers and a franchise of less
than 0.5 per cent of the population. They started doing that only from the 1880s on. They and the other liberal imperialists had
a policy of what one might call authoritarian progress, not of democratization.
Now, of course, it is completely different. The liberal imperialists of today, because of the completely different ideological
era in which we are living, have to say that what they are bringing is democracy. So they conquer a place and then within
a year or two, they have to hold elections, they have to claim to be introducing free government and so forth. That is just, once
again, absolutely, manifestly contradictory. There would have been nothing contradictory in the 19th century about imposing
Ahmed Chalabi on Iraq; the British and French did that kind of thing again and again. They had some client ruler, some dissident
prince or whatever, whom they wanted to make emir of Afghanistan or of somewhere in Africa, and they just marched in and imposed
him. People may have criticized it, but there was no suggestion that this was incompatible with what they were setting out to do.
Of course, if you say that you are bringing democracy, if you preach about democracy, if you say your whole moral position is
based on democracy, and then you impose a puppet leader, then frankly you look not just hypocritical but ridiculous,
which is essentially how the US appears in much of the Muslim world.
In the wake of nationalist movements in the colonial world, imperial powers - in particular Britain - slowly ceded a variety
of powers to local elites, in effect developing sophisticated ways of ruling through them (what Marxists called a "comprador
elite"). Is it possible to say that the US empire runs the Third World - of which the Muslim world is an important part - through
such a model of what has been called "indirect rule"?
Yes, to a considerable extent this is the case. Of course the comprador model, in the strict Latin American sense, never quite
fits because very few governments elsewhere in the world have been so completely subservient as some of the Latin American elites
in the past. After all, Egypt still tries to take a different line on Israel; Jordan supported Saddam Hussein in 1991; Saudi Arabia
could be seen as a comprador state in that it exists to produce and export oil, but clearly in its internal arrangements, it is not
at all responsive to what America would like.
Perhaps it may be more difficult these days to run such manifestly comprador systems given that, as I suggested earlier, there
does tend to be more democratic pressure from below than in the 19th century. A good example is Russia, although admittedly Russia
also has its tradition of Great Power status and so forth which prevents it from becoming completely subservient to America. As I
wrote in a previous book on the reasons for Russia's defeat in Chechnya between 1994 and 1996, there was a real attempt by America
in the 1990s, with tremendous help from the Russian elites themselves, to turn Russia into a kind of comprador state, whose elites
would be subservient to America in foreign policy and would exist to export raw materials to the West and transfer money to Western
bank accounts. In the end, neither the Russian state nor the Russian people would accept that. The Yeltsin order was replaced by
a kind of authoritarian, nationalist backlash under Putin. One sees the same thing in a rather different form in Venezuela, for example.
So I think there are strong elements of this comprador tradition in the present American-dominated international system but at
the same time it is a troubled and contested setup.
You have said that the era inaugurated by the attacks of September 11th, 2001, brought out into the open "the complete
absence of democratic modernization, or indeed any modernization, in all too much of the Muslim world." What do you mean by modernization,
and how is its absence related to the professed motivations for earlier imperial conquests?
How many hours do I have! Modernization is after all such a tricky concept. If we take our canonical attitudes to modernization
from Max Weber, as most of us do, unconsciously at least, then of course, as I wrote in the book, America itself today does not conform
to Eurocentric patterns of modernization!
Certainly much of the Muslim world - not all by any means, there are exceptions, but certainly large parts of the Middle East
- does not conform to many of the criteria laid down by Weber for successful modern states. These countries have clearly not been
able to imitate some of the East Asian countries in bringing about radical economic growth and reform. Many of these countries remain
ruled by what are essentially clans. The famous unkind phrase of Charles Glass of Arab states being "tribes with flags" is, I am
afraid, rather accurate. Syria is a monarchy of the Alawite clan. The Ba'ath started very much as a modernizing fascistic movement,
like fascists in Italy, but broke down into a kind of monarchical oligarchy. Then there are the formal autocratic monarchies in Jordan,
Saudi Arabia and Morocco. As East Asia has demonstrated, authoritarian rule as such is not necessarily an obstacle to economic modernization
and progress. But then again, this has not worked in the Middle East either.
One of the tragedies is precisely that so many different models have been tried in the region and all in a sense have failed,
if not absolutely then certainly to bring the countries concerned up to the economic level of the West or East Asia. The failure
to compete successfully with the West has been horribly demoralizing in view of the Muslim world's past cultural and economic superiority,
now followed by several hundred years of relative decline. Just as for several centuries Muslim states exploited the relative weakness
of the Christian world to expand their power, so later Western states took advantage of Muslim weakness to conquer most of the Muslim
world. This was followed by the establishment in the heart of the Muslim world of Israel, a tremendously militarily and economically
successful Western surrogate power. Israel's successes, and Israel's oppression of the Palestinians, have underlined various aspects
of Arab failure. Israel is in no sense the originator of these historical feelings of resentment and humiliation, but in recent decades
has acted as a catalyst and focus for these older and deeper feelings.
If you take the example of Pakistan, the part of the Muslim world that I know best, that country of course is in some ways a vastly
more modern society than it was 50 years ago, but then again in some ways it is not. In this context, it is interesting to ask what
constitutes "modernity" in the case of political religion. Radical Islam in Pakistan and elsewhere is after all in many ways a modern
force. It is not just a reaction to modernity, but also uses modern methods so one certainly cannot say that it is purely reactionary
or regressive.
But certainly so far there has been in Pakistan a failure of political modernization in the form of democracy. Pakistan has essentially
remained a state that is run by the military and the civil service. The political elites, with the exception of the MQM and to some
extent the Islamists, cannot really be described as modern political parties with a serious mass base. The PPP is a cult of personality
party presiding over an alliance of big landowners and urban bosses. And while the military and civil service have held the country
together, they have obviously failed to develop Pakistan as a successful modern state.
The weakness of political culture, when added to economic and military weakness, lays the Muslim world open to the threat of physical
intervention by the new world imperialist power, and it also weakens Muslim states morally and ideologically in terms of resisting
such intervention.
You have pointed out several times the authoritarian character of most states in the Arab and Muslim worlds but do not
mention the fact that a majority of these regimes depend for their existence on continued American patronage. Is it not the case
that a number of these states are viewed as client regimes of the United States and that this is one of the major sources of Muslim
resentment against the US? This is particularly true of your comments about Pakistan, where the US supported the Zia regime for over
a decade and now supports the military government of General Musharraf.
As I have often said with regard to American and British professed support for democratization: we can all believe in a human
capacity for redemption even if we are not born-again Christians, but most of us, not being saints, do not ask reformed burglars
to guard our houses! We should not therefore ask Arabs and Muslims, given the British-American record on democracy in the Muslim
world, to trust our professions today that we are sincere in our wish to bring democracy.
By contrast, I have always believed and continue to believe in the force of the US and Western example when it comes to spreading
democracy. If we can go on demonstrating to the world that our societies are more peaceful, more stable, less oppressive and more
economically successful than authoritarian or theocratic states, then there will be a strong tendency for democracy to spread without
our having to intervene in other places to bring this about. In this sense, I am a strong believer in the American tradition stretching
from President Adams to George Kennan which takes immense and justifiable pride in the American political system, but believes that
America spreads democracy best when it maintains the health and strength of its own system. By the way, President Eisenhower said
much the same thing at the end of his second term, so this is hardly a radical position, let alone an anti-American one.
As to US (and British) support for dictatorships, and the resentment this has caused, this is true. On the other hand, I think
it cuts both ways. Does one believe that if these authoritarian regimes fell then viable democracies would follow? In Pakistan, unfortunately,
this did not happen. Of course it is true that the army always stepped in eventually but then again look at the PPP government under
Bhutto in the 1970s - certainly not a regime that was strongly supported by Washington - and its extremely brutal treatment of dissent.
Look at the fact that when Musharraf took power he was supported by the great majority of the population, because of the outrageous
corruption of governments in the 1990s.
I think that is a rather misleading claim. How do we know what proportion of Pakistan's population supported Musharraf's
coup?
Quite right. Opinion polls are not necessarily reliable in a country like Pakistan. Let me put it another way: a great majority
of the people certainly did not protest against it. If there had been true faith in democracy and its record in Pakistan, they presumably
would have done so. My point is that when Musharraf assumed power, he was certainly not acting on behalf of America. Clearly, several
of these authoritarian regimes do not stand because of American support but because of local tradition and domestic support: Iran,
which is directly opposed to America; Libya; and the House of Saud, which is in some sense America's tool but who also have their
own tradition and legitimacy which has nothing to do with American support.
Well the argument could be made that the Americans are only interested in Saudi Arabia's domestic political setup to the
extent that it continues to serve their interests: oil, and in the case of the first Gulf war, the provision of military bases. Therefore
the present arrangement works rather better for them than any subsequent setup might.
Until 9/11, this was true. But since then, there has been a strong and widespread belief in the US that the Saudi system is incubating
terrorism, which of course is a somewhat belated realization. I met Saudi-backed extremists in Afghanistan while I was based in Peshawar
in the late-80s and it was already apparent that we were building up a monster for ourselves. Since 9/11 this has been recognized.
I do not believe that America will improve its image in the Muslim world just by abandoning its present allies and preaching democracy,
because I do not believe that given its geopolitical and other interests America will ever be truly sincere in this regard. America's
professed ideals of democracy and freedom are always likely to come to a screeching halt at Israel's occupation of the Palestinian
territories but also whenever American ideals seem likely to lead to a result which will be really harmful for American geopolitical
interests. One of the images which has been seared into American elite consciousness is what happened to Carter. When Carter tried
to pursue a more moral policy, by putting pressure on the Shah over Savak atrocities, by putting pressure on Central American governments,
was he thanked for it by the American establishment? No, he was pilloried as naďve, weak, as supporting communism, as giving opportunities
to America's enemies, and so forth.
If a US President were to push Saudi Arabia really hard, for example, over democratic reform, and the Saudi regime collapses and
there is an Islamist takeover, that American president would simply fall in the next election, as Carter did. Ditto with Pakistan.
So America is trapped in this.
Looking beyond the publicly stated goals for the American invasion of Iraq, you said that the neo-conservative nationalists
were all more or less unanimous in their agreement on one basic plan: "unilateral world domination through absolute military superiority".
To what extent did the Iraq invasion have the intended results and what is the likelihood that such policies will continue to be
pursued in the second term of the Bush presidency?
Iraq has been a disaster for their aims. They have gotten away with it of course in that they have been re-elected but it is perfectly
obvious that they cannot launch another war of choice, another invasion of Iran, say. They simply do not have the troops. With almost
150,000 men pinned down in Iraq, they could not launch another war on that scale without introducing conscription. That would tear
American society apart and for the first time since Vietnam lead to a significant anti-imperialist movement in this country. It would
also, for the first time, lead to really serious questions about what America is doing in the Middle East at all.
From that point of view, Iraq really has not worked out as they had anticipated and has greatly reduced their plans. After all,
in the immediate aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, all the neo-cons were going around saying: "Next stop: Iran". Or Syria.
This kind of rhetoric has not disappeared completely - they are still refusing to talk to the Iranians - but the agenda on Iran has
really narrowed just to the issue of nuclear weapons. So Iraq has had a major effect in this respect .
You suggest that various practices and institutions put into place during the Cold War make the constant threat of war
a virtual necessity for the American foreign policymaking and security establishment. This may account in part for why Islam came
very quickly to replace communism as the great ideological enemy of the United States. Given that Islam has no locus, that there
are a billion Muslims spread out across the world, how is the US security establishment likely to continue to deal with this kind
of enemy?
I say in the book that what seems essential is not the imminent threat of war, but rather constant belief in the possibility
of war. There are all these institutions and economic interests which were put in place by the Second World War and still more by
the Cold War. Eisenhower's original phrase apparently was "military-industrial-academic-complex". There are so many people
in my world of think tanks in American universities with a deep stake in all these foreign policy agendas. In the book I also point
out that - and this has been mentioned in other forms by people like James Mann, Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neill and others - one of
the reasons why 9/11 was able to happen was that the security elites under Clinton, and very much under Bush, were not looking seriously
at the terrorist threat because, due to their Cold War backgrounds, they were obsessed with the very much lesser threat from major
rival states.
When the Bush administration came to power, they had radical anti-Chinese agendas of containing China, of rolling back China,
of creating a new Cold War with China. On the other hand, now there is this tremendous effort, certainly among the neo-cons, to present
Islam or the Muslim world as the new Cold War enemy. You see all this nonsense by people like Norman Podhoretz about the Fourth World
War. The interesting thing is precisely because, as you say, Islam is not a superpower like the Soviet Union, nor does it represent
a relatively clear set of social, economic, and political principles like communism. One is dealing with an extremely diverse
world with different cultures and societies and multiple motivations.
Even if you narrow the war on terror down to Al Qaeda and its allies, which of course the Bush administration and Israeli lobby
have deliberately and manifestly failed to do, even then one is speaking of a web, a network of many, many different groups and nodes
in this web which sometimes cooperate, sometimes act independently, with varying degrees of relative importance. Zarqawi's group
in Iraq, like the international forces fighting in Chechnya, are in no sense subordinate to Al Qaeda.
To combat these groups requires a really detailed and acute knowledge of the societies concerned. Something once again that America
failed to generate in the case of Vietnam before going to war there, failed to generate about Iraq before going to war there, and
is indeed failing to generate in the case of large parts of the Muslim world. It does seem that there is a natural pull towards concentration
on alleged threats from states. This was especially clear after 9/11: the astonishing speed with which the Bush administration turned
its attention from the actual terrorist perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks to confront the "axis of evil" states and draw up plans
for war with Iraq.
It is clearly much easier to threaten and invade Iraq than to think seriously about how to combat the appeal of groups like Al
Qaeda and its allies in the Muslim world. Similarly it is much easier to concentrate on preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons
than having to think seriously about the Shia-Sunni relationship, or what to do about the Hezbollah in Lebanon. This is part of the
built-in bias of military bureaucracies, but also owes much to the effects of the Cold War and the present intellectual configuration
of American academia.
You explain in your book why the Cold War legacy has made it difficult for US policymakers, trained for the most part
in the so-called "Realist" tradition, to conceive of a security threat as emanating from somewhere other than a nation-state, an
assumption that is rather inadequate for addressing the threat of terrorism, as you just pointed out (and may account in part for
why, as you say, quoting Bob Woodward, the Bush administration seemed incapable of staying focused on a terrorist threat, before
and after the attacks on the US, and started planning for war on Iraq on November 21st, 2001; that is, 72 days after 9/11). Yet you
supported the American invasion of Afghanistan when it seemed clear that Al Qaeda was a diffuse, dynamic network, with no state to
claim as its own. Why was Afghanistan, then, a legitimate - morally, but also pragmatically - target for military strike?
The invasion of Afghanistan was justified by absolutely traditional and universally accepted traditions of self-defense. Al Qaeda
had launched this attack; this was generally accepted by every rational person in the world. Al Qaeda were quickly and clearly identified
as the perpetrators, and indeed subsequently made no real attempt to deny it. When it comes to the responsibility of the Taliban,
Al Qaeda after all was functioning very much as part of the Afghan state under the Taliban, and provided the Taliban's praetorian
guard.
It is true that, had I been in a position of authority, I would have made a greater effort to get the Taliban to extradite the
Al Qaeda leadership if not directly to America then to somewhere else in the Muslim world from where they could be passed on to America.
This was partly because I was afraid of what to some extent has in fact happened which is that by going in to Afghanistan with the
Northern Alliance, America would alienate the Pashtuns.
Nonetheless, I thought the invasion of Afghanistan was covered by self-defense. Al Qaeda launched this attack, Al Qaeda was functioning
as part of the Taliban and was being protected by the Taliban. Al Qaeda had, after all, also launched a series of attacks previously
on American targets, which one should not forget: they were responsible for the massacre of very large numbers of Africans and others.
I also regarded their Taliban protectors as a genuine "rogue" regime in a way that Iran certainly is not. They really were in the
business of spreading instability, radicalism and terrorism (especially of course anti-Shia terrorism) in their area.
On a personal note, I detested what the Taliban stood for, and the damage that they and their allies were doing to Pakistan. Above
all, I supported the US invasion of Afghanistan as legitimate self-defense and because of genuine shock at 9/11, shock at the idea
that this could happen to a great modern city, and the belief that forces like Al Qaeda are a real threat to modern civilization
- Muslim as well as Western. America did also enjoy a general international consensus behind its invasion of Afghanistan. To some
extent the US even managed to gain some support in the Muslim world for the invasion, at least as far as states and elites are concerned.
This is largely because the Sunni revolutionary element represented by Al Qaeda and the Taliban is of course a threat to every organized
Muslim state as well.
So I felt that both on what Kerry called the "global test" and on the traditional test of self-defense, Afghanistan passed. Iraq
did not.
You have suggested that radical American nationalists - many of who will continue in the present Bush administration -
either wish to 'contain' China by overwhelming military force and the creation of a ring of American allies, or "in the case of the
real radicals, to destroy the Chinese Communist state as the Soviet Union was destroyed." Have these radical elements in the present
administration been sufficiently chastened by their experience in Iraq to relinquish such aspirations?
Yes, I believe so. Not to permanently relinquish their aspirations in principle: obviously they would still very much like to
destroy China if they could, or at least destroy China as a potential future threat to American hegemony. But as long as they are
tied down in the Middle East in the way they are, they will not have the military forces to do so.
Therefore, I believe that the Bush administration and future Democrat administrations will continue the existing line. That said
of course there is always room for mistakes either on the part of Washington or of Beijing or of Taipei or most likely of all three
simultaneously. The Taiwanese can go too far, and the Chinese can overreact, not because the Chinese want war but because they would
trap themselves into a position where they would have to do something. If they were sensible of course the Chinese leadership would
not react militarily, they would just tell any power that recognized Taiwan that China would break off diplomatic and trade relations
the next day. Nobody would in fact recognize Taiwanese independence and then the Chinese could simply declare that these people have
declared independence but no one recognizes them so why does it matter. This is by the way what Russia should have done in the case
of Chechnya before 1994. But the Chinese could of course miscalculate and use force, and then the US, and particularly the American
Congress, have put themselves in such a position that they would be forced to fight as well.
So I certainly do not rule out some kind of stumbling towards conflict. If that happens, of course, then all the old agendas would
come back. Then the anti-Chinese hardliners in the bureaucracy, the think tanks and Congress would start roaring again about Communist
aggression, they would gain greater influence and the Cold War agenda vis-ŕ-vis China would be re-established. But I do not believe
that any really powerful forces in Washington today actually want that.
In a recent article, you say that, "The Bush administration may be stumbling toward an attack on Iran's nuclear program
that could have the most disastrous consequences for Iraq, Afghanistan and the entire American position in the Middle East." What
is the likelihood of such an attack being carried out in the near future either by the Americans or the Israelis?
It is still a possibility. Not I believe such a strong possibility now because apart from everything else the Iranians do seem
very anxious to play along with Europe, and are willing at least to suspend their nuclear weapons plans in response to a mixture
of European pressure and incentives with American threats. But if America were to attack Iran, it would be a catastrophe. Poor old
Tony Blair has accepted so many shattering blows already maybe nothing will finish him, but having invested so much in this process
with Iran, if it were to end in an American attack, it seems likely that there would be a serious revolt within his government and
party and he would have to resign. There are leading members of the British government briefing in private that whatever Tony Blair
says, if America attacks Iran, that is the end. They will resign. This would almost certainly be the end of Blair's tenure as prime
minister. It would also create a massive crisis with the Europeans. Moreover, given the fact that Iran's nuclear sites are dispersed
and buried, America would very likely miss, at which point we will have the worst of all possible worlds. As the American
military know very well, Iran in these circumstances would have numerous means of retaliation against American forces and plans in
Iraq - whereas an American invasion of Iran looks impossible because of America's lack of troops.
So I am less worried on that score than I have been in the past. There is however a wild card involved: this is that the Israeli
government appears implacably determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, without themselves offering any concessions
in return; and may either attack itself or exert irresistible pressure on the US to reject a deal with the Iranians. The present
deal between Iran and the West Europeans could also break down for a number of other reasons. It is not inconceivable that there
could emerge some disastrous quid pro quo whereby Israel will make certain concessions towards the Palestinians and in return
America go after Iran's nuclear weapons. But of course the consequences might be frightful because of course Iran would then have
every incentive to try to really destabilize Iraq. Hezbollah could be reactivated as an international terrorist force. Iran would
set out to destabilize Afghanistan, and so forth and so on.
All this is known to the American security elites. The uniformed military is certainly extremely opposed to anything like this.
Of course they were also opposed to Iraq, but it still happened.
Could you elaborate on your argument regarding what accounts for the special relationship between Israel and America:
namely the parallel between the situation of Palestinians and Native Americans?
This is not the core either of my argument or of the relationship itself, but only a subsidiary factor. At the core of the relationship
lie completely legitimate sympathies and identifications between a majority of Americans and the state of Israel. These are rooted
in old features of religion and culture, and more recent admiration for the achievements of the Israeli state. I should say by the
way that I believe strongly in US support for Israel within the borders of 1967. in my book I express a number of positions which
are certainly extremely unpopular in the Muslim world, and on the Left in Europe: support for the Jewish character of the Israeli
state, opposition to all but the most limited Palestinian refugee return, and opposition to ideas of a binational state. I also accept
that given the tragic circumstances of 1948, and the imperatives created by the Holocaust, a measure of ethnic cleansing was probably
inevitable and would also undoubtedly have been carried out in the other direction if the Arab side had won.
So I am not arguing against sympathy for Israel as such, but only against certain forms of this identification. Sympathy rooted
in comparisons between the American and Israeli settlement processes are generally confined to the American Right. Leo Strauss made
land-theft the founding principle of every state, which, it must be said, if you go back far enough historically, is actually true
to a considerable extent. Admittedly you have to go back in Britain 1,500 years. Certainly in the US there is a very interesting
contrast in attitudes to this issue between Americans on the East Coast and in the South or the West of the country. East Coast Americans
are either embarrassed about the dispossession of the Indians or have simply forgotten it. For most it is totally irrelevant, since
they never encounter any Native Americans and since their ancestors in many or even most cases arrived in the US long after the East
Coast Indians were dispossessed. In the South and the West, however, the frontier tradition is so much stronger. There is no real
embarrassment over the dispossession; there is basically a celebration of the fact that their ancestors conquered this land and turned
it, as the phrase used to be, into a "white man's country".
It does seem to me - and I am not original in pointing this out; there have been leading Israelis like Amos Elon who have done
so - that this began by creating a certain community of sentiment between sections of the conservative Christian heartland in America
and the rightwing in Israel, or Israel in general. In other words, it is a mistake when looking at this community of sentiment just
to look at the apocalyptic element: millenarian religion. This is present but it would not have nearly the resonance that it does
if it were not set in a wider context.
Now of course here I am talking about the conservative tradition in the American heartland, the Christian tradition, but of course
sympathy with Israel is much broader: it has a great deal to do with the Holocaust, it has to do with the perception of Israel as
a modern, democratic society, as a very successful society. This goes together, obviously, with tremendous support from the Jewish
community for Israel on the whole. So all these factors work in concert.
There is nothing at all in principle wrong with people here supporting Israel as such, or admiring Israel for its tremendous success
as a society. But on the American Right there are very much darker elements to this affinity, one of which is precisely the radical
religious one but the other is a kind of sublimated racism.
You have also argued that American nationalism has become increasingly entwined with the nationalism of the Israeli Right.
What are the historical reasons for the alliance between Christian fundamentalists in this country and Zionists? In other words,
how should we understand the words of Jerry Falwell when he says, "The Bible belt of the United States is the security belt of Israel"?
If one just looks at the Christian fundamentalist issue, leaving the millenarian question aside, American evangelical Protestantism
is Old Testament Protestantism - just as its forbearers in English radical Protestantism and Scottish radical Protestantism were
in the 16th and 17th centuries. This creates a natural affinity with the Jewish religious tradition. When evangelical Christian Lieutenant-General
William Boykin was quoted last year as saying, "My God is bigger than his," in reference to a Muslim, he was directly citing from
Isaiah and this is obviously a man who spends a lot of his time in the Old Testament.
It is fascinating the degree to which the Old Testament eclipses the New Testament in the thought of evangelical Christians and
this automatically leads one to a sympathy with Israel. Cromwell was the first ruler of England who allowed Jews to settle again
in England after the Middle Ages. He was very much influenced in this by his Old Testament-based Christianity. But also it seems,
from the time of Cromwell on, there has been this millenarian idea as well: the restoration of Israel is essential to bringing about
the Apocalypse. Given the influence of millenarian thought on a minority of Evangelicals, but a very significant minority, one cannot
deny this influence. Look at the immense popularity of the "Left Behind" series, for example.
Finally, there is also a considerable element of straight political opportunism. The Republicans are already well on their way
to putting the Democrats in a very difficult position from the point of view of political demographics. The Republicans have this
tremendously solid base. Mostly white, not just Protestant anymore but Protestant and Catholic conservative, including many Latinos.
Unlike the deeply fractured Democrat base, the Republican base agrees on a majority of important issues. The Democrats by contrast
are trying to tie together the remnants of the white working classes in the northern cities, the blacks, the Latinos, more progressive
women and the various cultural liberals - groups which often detest each other.
If on top of this advantage the Republicans can take away a majority of the Jewish vote and campaign financing from the Democrats,
they stand a chance of actually destroying the Democratic Party's chances of power for a generation to come. This hope is not a secret.
It has been written about quite openly by conservative commentator Robert Novak and others. If the Republicans can conclusively seize
the issue of support for Israel from the Democrats, then they can rule for the foreseeable future. Rightly or wrongly, that at least
is the calculation the Republicans are making.
You point out the complicity of the American media in both supporting the government in various foreign policy adventures
- you say in fact that the "propaganda program" in the wake of the Iraq war has few parallels in peacetime democracies for the systematic
mendacity of its reportage - and for the most part, keeping silent on the excesses of the Israeli state. What accounts for this blindness
in the context of a free press in a democratic country?
This is a little stronger than what I actually said. What I said was that the Bush administration's propaganda program had few
parallels in peacetime democracies and that the American media had not criticized this. I did not mean to suggest that the American
media as a whole were all part of the same propaganda machine. Even in some of the papers which supported the war, dissenting voices
appeared.
When it comes to keeping silent on the excesses of the Israeli state, the reporting as such has not been very unfair or inaccurate
- certainly if you look at the respectable media: the serious newspapers and some of the serious television channels. Israeli bombing
raids are reported, shooting of Palestinian civilians is reported, and the issue of settlements too is reported to an extent. There
are two things which are completely missing, as Michael Lind pointed out in Prospect magazine in England last year. The first
is historical context and the second is the almost complete absence of analysis or critique. One of the questions I raise in my book
has to do with why Palestinians were expected to have peacefully acquiesced to what was being done to them in the 1940s. According
to any historical precedent, this would have been absurd. No other people would have ever accepted this. Are we suggesting that the
Palestinians should have been insane? This is ridiculous. So that is the context. Secondly, as Michael also pointed out, in terms
of analysis, the violence and its causes are always presented as Palestinian "terrorism", not Israeli occupation. Finally
the number of opinion pieces seriously criticizing Israeli policies are simply heavily outnumbered, even in the mainstream and liberal
media, by expressions of support.
On Iraq, why did the media not stand out against the war? It was partly because of the role of the Israel lobby. It is very difficult
to conduct a truly searching analysis of the underlying reasons for American policy in the Middle East, and very difficult to draw
up really serious alternatives to existing policies, if you are not prepared to address the question of Israeli policies and the
part they play in damaging American interests in the Middle East. This does not mean that Israel must be at the heart of the argument
but its influence cannot be denied: it is there not just in the form of the effects of the struggle with the Palestinians but in
relations with Iran, Syria and the Muslim world in general. If this is to be swept aside, as it so often is by the accusation of
anti-Semitism, it just makes the entire debate here much, much more difficult. You could as well ask why there was no really serious
debate in the presidential campaign over the "War on Terror" as a concept. The Israel factor is a part of that too.
I should say by the way that I never wrote about this issue before 9/11. I have no history whatsoever of attacking Israel. But
after the terrorist attacks on America, the Carnegie Endowment asked me to concentrate on the war on terror and on aspects of the
situation in the Muslim world. After that, it would have been intellectually dishonest and morally cowardly not to discuss this critical
issue. I may add, as a British citizen, that it would have been unpatriotic, since my country is fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan
alongside America and is running the same risks of terrorist attack. British citizens therefore have both a right and a duty to speak
out against policies and attitudes which are undermining the war on terror and endangering British security.
Concerning the behavior of the media and intelligentsia in the US, the second point is that after 9/11 people were clearly running
scared. There was this tremendous militant nationalist wave sweeping the country. This is not unique to America - the same would
have been true in most countries which suffered an attack of this kind. However, in the US the response took certain forms which
have precedents in US history. The silencing effects of such a wave have been seen before: McCarthyism most recently, and the anti-German,
then the anti-communist hysteria in the First World War and the 1920s. People were to a considerable degree intimidated into silence.
Finally, there was a very good piece by Russell Baker about AJ Liebling in the November 18th issue of the New York Review of
Books in which Baker was talking about how journalists used to regard themselves as just hacks. I used to be a journalist myself,
essentially writing for money, trying to be accurate in my reporting and as amusing and intelligent as possible. Now there is this
ghastly tendency of journalists, particularly those who get to the top of the US media, to regard themselves not as hacks but as
pillars of the state. So they begin to behave almost as if they were senior officials not hacks like the rest of us; and not just
that, but as if they had occupied a great office of state during some great crisis in American affairs, as if they had been Acheson
during the Second World War or the Korean War. So many of these columnists and television journalists are like that now.
One last point, and this may appear at first sight contradictory: the figure of Bob Woodward bridges these two things. After Watergate,
on the one hand journalists got an exaggerated sense of their own importance as the Fourth Estate, a political force which makes
and breaks administrations. On the other hand, they became more and more addicted to being given enormous dollops of constructed
information and "spin" on a plate - instead of doing real fieldwork and investigative reporting like Woodward did. So Woodward is
turned from an investigative reporter into a court chronicler. He has fascinating information and very good insights but is nonetheless
essentially a praise-singer of the American system. I think a lot of American journalists are like that now. When they depend for
leaks and for information on either the government in power or the opposition they are clearly not going to say anything that will
wreck their chances of getting what they regard as scoops.
You have said that, "The younger intelligentsia [in the United States] has also been stripped of any real knowledge of
the outside world by academic neglect of history and regional studies in favour of disciplines which are often no more than a crass
projection of American assumptions and prejudices…. This has reduced still further their capacity for serious analysis of their own
country and its actions." In addition, you point out the very close links that exist between relevant university departments and
government institutions. What are the implications of this?
Well it contributes enormously to the conformism when it comes to debates like that about the Iraq war or about Israel. As Henry
Kissinger pointed out almost thirty years ago, too many people in the academic world are either defending previous records when in
government or aiming to be in the next administration. This is not a situation likely to produce radical critiques or really strong
alternative policies. These people are not at all anxious to say something which will either lead to them not being selected or to
their being vetoed by a Senate committee.
I used to think that it is wonderful that the American state can recruit from people in academia but I have come to find it deeply
corrupting. I almost prefer the British system now, of career civil servants who serve one administration after another. But one
needs a strong ethos of the independence of the civil service and a very strong ethos that people cannot be sacked or penalized for
political views as long as they maintain the discipline of their service. This actually leaves the public debate in the UK freer
than in the US, particularly in the strange, solipsistic world of Washington DC. It is amazing in a republic with a strong tradition
of individualism and cultural egalitarianism, that in DC the sense of hierarchy, of sometimes obsequious deference, of the court
game, who is in, who out, dominates everything just as much as it did in an early medieval court. It does contribute to this lack
of debate in America.
This is compounded by the tremendously strong power of American national myths. As previous American authors like Loren Baritz
pointed out, Vietnam knocked these myths off their pedestal, but many Americans spent a whole generation resuscitating them. Reagan
was elected very much to do just that, to restore America's image of itself. It would seem that these myths are so important to America's
national identity and image of itself that the American political and intellectual establishment is simply incapable in the end of
seriously examining them and asking what flaws they may embody. Of course, there are dissidents - even some very senior ones like
Senator Fulbright; but it is striking how little influence they seem to have had in the long run.
In consequence, there are all these people running around Washington - very much among the Democratic intellectual elites as well
as the Republicans - who really believe that all America has to do is try harder to generate and display a sense of will.
If only America wants something badly enough, anything can be achieved. Any society in the world can be transformed, irrespective
of the wishes and traditions of its people. Any country can become not just a democracy, but a pro-American democracy, irrespective
of its own national interests or ideals.
This is part of a deep inability to see America as others see it. It is incredible but again and again I have found myself at
meetings discussing Russia and China in Washington at which I have been the only person to point out that America does after
all have its own sphere of influence in Central America and the Caribbean. Not just that, but a sphere of influence which is not
doing very well either economically, or to a great extent, in terms of real democracy either. The rest of the world sees this perfectly
well, and as a result, develops a belief in American hypocrisy which is itself very bad for American prestige and influence.
After all, how much did Haiti get after floods which killed thousands of people and devastated the country? Peanuts. A mere fifty
million dollars or so from America. And Haiti is only a few hundred miles from America's own shores. Haiti also has a very large
population here in the US and they got virtually nothing. Yet when I point this out to people in DC, and suggest that pouring money
into the Middle East when countries close to America's shores and within America's old sphere of influence are suffering so badly,
they often become furious. There is this strange moral bubble, it seems, and of course it is particularly bad in Washington, but
then again, outside Washington and the universities, nobody thinks about these issues at all!
You end your recent article in The Nation with the following quote from Arnold Toynbee: "Great empires do not die
by murder, but suicide." Is that the present trajectory of the United States?
I must state very strongly that in principle, and when thinking of the historical alternatives, I do not want the American empire
to end. I have never been against a moderate, civilized and rational version of American hegemony. I certainly would not want to
replace it with Chinese hegemony!
But it is easy to see how a combination of different events could bring American hegemony down over the next generation. America
at present has no serious strategy for the Middle East. It has a series of ad hoc strategies for dealing with bits of the
terrorist threat, and for trying to contain Iran, and manage Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. It does not however have anything approaching
a general strategy. If America continues to infuriate more and more Muslims, if then there is either a revolution elsewhere in the
Middle East or a terrorist attack on the American mainland again, then it is very easy to see America lashing out in a way which
will not only spread chaos and instability still further, but will lead to a complete breakdown of the alliance with Europe.
If America gets involved in another major war of occupation, then conscription will be back. When conscription comes back, Americans
will come out on to the streets and start demanding answers: maybe even about energy saving and about the relationship with Israel.
Even given the profound weaknesses of America's strategy and position in the Middle East, however, the American empire has immense
underlying strengths. In the Far East, for example, as long as the US does not grossly overplay its hand, most of the East Asian
states actually want America to stay there as a balancer against China. In Europe, East Europeans in particular are anxious for the
US to remain strongly present, whether out of continued fear of Russia or resentment at French and German domination. In Central
America and the Caribbean, the US will always be predominant through sheer force of economic and military might.
But if the Bush administration were feeling suicidal, and were actually in the mood to throw itself over a cliff, like the Hapsburgs
in 1914, there are a number of ways it could do that. It could invade Iran, that would do it very quickly. Or it could invade Saudi
Arabia. Or it could support Taiwanese independence. I don't believe they will actually do any of those things. Unfortunately, one
can much more easily imagine the Bush administration doing something like bombing Iran, which would not lead to immediate disaster
but which could begin a spiral of retaliation leading ultimately to catastrophic conflict.
It has become increasingly clear that world oil reserves are depleting and their exhaustion is within sight. In addition,
global oil and energy resources have formally been a "national-security" concern of the United States since Carter. How, and to what
extent, will the geopolitics of oil determine US foreign policy in the coming decade?
To a great extent, they already do. One has seen the tremendous attempt to build up the Caspian as an alternative to the Persian
Gulf as a source of oil. But the striking thing is that this has to a great extent failed. It has failed both because there is not
enough oil in the Caspian really to compete with the Persian Gulf but also because there are other buyers: a great deal of that oil
will go east to China and even to Japan. If the Chinese economy continues to grow, it is likely that oil prices will rise and rise
- until, perhaps, environmental disaster destroys the present world economy and forces the world to limit its consumption.
So America's presence in the Middle East is of course not just about Israel. A tremendous amount of it is about oil - and not
just the interests of the oil companies, but genuinely, in the view of many Americans, the preservation of the American way of
life. It will be interesting if one sees serious instability in several of the major oil-producers simultaneously. If there were
major instability in the Persian Gulf and some kind of meltdown in Nigeria, which is entirely possible, and in a very
different way of course serious instability in Venezuela, then there is the possibility that somewhere at least America would intervene
with its own troops on the ground to guarantee its oil supplies. Then once again we will be confronted with the whole question of
whether America has enough troops, what this will lead to, etc. In some places in Africa American intervention could be presented
as a peacekeeping operation, and indeed could even have genuine elements of that.
I am not saying that any of this will happen, but the geopolitics of oil will be absolutely central to America's global strategy
in the years to come. Of course what I would like to see would be an approach to the same issue from the other end which is simply
to reduce America's dependence on oil. This has been one of the very worst things that Bush has done, or rather not done:
his complete failure to use 9/11 to make an argument for decreasing America's reliance on oil. Instead we have just seen American
consumption going up and up. There is a strong possibility in future that just as in Iraq, America could again be drawn into occupying
a country (or countries) in a way that would be perceived by the rest of the world as just about keeping its grip on oil supplies.
The thing that might discourage a US administration from this however is that as Iraq has demonstrated, there is nothing easier to
blow up than an oil pipeline.
Such a contingency has been widely discussed in the case of Saudi Arabia. If the US were to occupy other countries in order to
secure its oil supplies, then every suspicion of the rest of the world concerning the US and its motives for the invasion of Iraq
would essentially be confirmed. The US would begin to shed its last elements of true international idealism. It would become much
more like a classical empire preoccupied with seizing raw materials and controlling them, irrespective of the wishes or the well-being
of the populations concerned. In this case, America's ancient and very positive role as a beacon of democracy and progress for mankind
would be destroyed. We should all pray, therefore, that this does not happen.
Interview conducted by Nermeen Shaikh of AsiaSource
The United States is currently locked into a global war whose primary battleground is not Iraq, Afghanistan or the tribal areas of
Pakistan but in that ill-defined terrain of the mind where the beliefs, convictions and passions of men reside. As difficult and
unpleasant as it is to admit, America is not winning on this psychological battlefield; if we do not reverse this trend quickly we
may someday find ourselves in danger of losing on a physical battlefield.
In a recent interview, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli - the
senior military adviser to the secretary of defense and a highly decorated combat veteran - told me he believed only 40 percent of
winning a war was based on the "kinetic fighting" at which American Forces excel, while fully 60 percent was predicated on winning
the battle of ideas. "Look at our enemy in Iraq and Afghanistan," the general explained. "He is cutting people's heads off, murdering
women and children, blowing up religious sites - and yet we say he is winning the information war? That's got to change."
Another highly decorated veteran of combat in both Iraq and Afghanistan, Col. Lee Fetterman, said of this battle of the mind,
"Wars are won in the will, and if someone or a group of someone's hates another group with enough passion, it can be a very long
and difficult struggle."
If some of the Army's most accomplished battle leaders of today understand the critical value of ideas and how important they
are to winning wars, why do we seem to be lagging behind an enemy who, as Gen. Chiarelli points out, butchers women and children?
Many in the United States shake their heads in incredulity, particularly when American efforts to care for the dispossessed are contrasted
so sharply against such brutality. Upon closer examination, however, we find the reasons may not be so hard to understand.
There was a time in the not-too-distant past when America possessed considerable admiration and respect in the minds of people
across the world. But over time that prestige has tarnished while at the same time our domestic condition improved to unprecedented
heights. It seems we began to believe all the stories about how great we were while inversely showing less and less consideration,
respect and appreciation for those beyond our borders. This undesirable condition has worsened over the past decade, and as is now
becoming very clear, works against our self-interest.
Shortly after Desert Storm, when the Soviet Union dissolved and the Cold War ended, instead of working to further diminish
tensions and develop a partner relationship with Moscow, we took the unnecessary step of expanding the NATO military alliance toward
a weakened Russia, we unilaterally abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty because it suited our preference and in the run-up
to Operation Iraqi Freedom we diplomatically bludgeoned longtime allies France and Germany, completely disregarding their opinions
and concerns.
Today, we need Russian diplomatic help with North Korea and Iran, but now that Russia is no longer weak, Moscow is much less inclined
to act in ways that benefit the United States. We need French and German help in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and true to our historic
friendship they have helped - but that help was much delayed in coming and has been less than it could have been as a result of the
way we ignored them in the run-up to the Iraq war. And, ominously, because of perceived double standards, even popular opinion in
Turkey - one of our most critical allies in that part of the world - has turned sharply against the United States.
I could offer a number of specific policy and organizational recommendations for reform, but frankly none of that will matter
unless there is first a fundamental change in the mind of Americans. If we do not accept that along with our many and substantial
virtues we are also guilty of sometimes not insignificant pride, arrogance and hubris, no reform is even possible.
It is imperative that our national leaders concede the fact that part of the reason we're not winning the global battle of the mind
is our past behavior, our insistence on having things our way and our unwillingness to compromise on non-critical issues to our friends
and allies.
We can't undo the past, but we most assuredly can change what we do from here forward. Perhaps a slice of "humble pie" with a
holiday meal would be in order to facilitate a fresh start in the new year.
Our success on future battlefields could depend on it.
I do not believe that someone who disagrees with me should be criticized for that reason alone," Schmidt said at a ceremony to celebrate
his 85th birthday in 2003. And he added: "But he must be criticized if he states an opinion that is not real." Let us subject the
various opinions to a reality test. Schmidt says: "Russia poses far less of a threat to world peace today than, for example, the
United States. You can go ahead and print that." These were the words Schmidt uttered in an interview with his own paper, the weekly
Die Zeit. He also said that, although he does not view Russian President Vladimir Putin as a flawless democrat, he does consider
him an "enlightened potentate."
But why are the Americans more dangerous than the Russians? Why should we be more afraid of the cradle of democracy than of a
potentate, no matter how "enlightened" Schmidt says he is? And is it even relevant whether the censor is educated, disadvantaged,
harsh or amiable? What is important, however, is that the censor engages in censorship, while the potentate gives arbitrariness free
rein.
Isn't precisely the opposite of what Schmidt says true? That the experienced American democracy is fundamentally less dangerous
than Russia, which, after surviving czarism and communism, has experienced only a few years of Putin-style democracy? Even the loud
and sometimes insufferable America of President George W. Bush is already significantly less dangerous than it was when he came into
office. Today Bush is a dog that barks but can no longer bite. He is limited by four factors, which, in their absoluteness, are foreign
to Putin: his own people, the US Constitution, the independent judiciary and the free press. All four factors lend legitimacy to
the United States -- and withdraw it again. This is precisely the beauty of a democracy: the people have the first and last word.
Schmidt rightfully characterizes the Iraq war as "a war of choice, not a war of necessity." But even this choice is no longer available
to the outgoing president. Another ground war is no longer an option. Even the military is tired of war. "We are overstretched,"
the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff recently said. Preparations are already underway for a partial withdrawal from Iraq.
The man in the White House may be gritting his teeth, but he is bringing the first troops home -- reluctantly and gruffly -- but
bringing them home he is.
Bush would be truly dangerous if he could do as he wished. But he can't. This is precisely the difference. In a democracy, the
will of the individual is answerable to the people, and not the other way around. I, in any case, prefer narrow-minded democrats
over enlightened potentates any day. Of course, enlightened democrats -- the kind of person Helmut Schmidt once was and will hopefully
remain for a long time -- are the best thing for the country.
It is hard to articulate, let alone justify hatred. It is, by definition, irrational and one is immediately suspected of intellectualizing
that which is really visceral and counterfactual. It is politically incorrect to hate, an insensitive and "primitive" "gut" reaction.
Hating is widely decried as counterproductive.
Collective hatred is reserved to "hate figures" designated by the media and the elite and rendered
obnoxious and abominable by ceaseless indoctrination, often tinged with falsities. One hates a Hitler or a bin Laden.
One is exhorted in most Western media to merely disagree with the United States, or to criticize Americans - but never to hate them.
Mercifully, larges swathes of humanity - being less synthetic and fake - are still prone to the unbridled expression of their
emotions. One of the most frequent and all-pervasive sentiments among them seems to be anti-Americanism - a spectrum of reactions
ranging from virulent aversion, through intense dislike, to vocal derision.
The United States is one of the last remaining land empires. That it is made the butt of opprobrium and odium is hardly surprising,
or unprecedented. Empires - Rome, the British, the Ottomans - were always targeted by the disgruntled, the disenfranchised and the
dispossessed and by their self-appointed delegates, the intelligentsia.
Yet, even by historical standards, America seems to be provoking blanket repulsion.
The Pew Research Center published last December a report titled "What the World Thinks in 2002". "The World", was reduced by the
pollsters to 44 countries and 38,000 interviewees. Two other surveys published last year - by the German Marshall Fund and the Chicago
Council on Foreign Relations - largely supported Pew's findings.
The most startling and unambiguous revelation was the extent of anti-American groundswell everywhere: among America's NATO allies,
in developing countries, Muslim nations and even in eastern Europe where Americans, only a decade ago, were lionized as much-adulated
liberators.
"People around the world embrace things American and, at the same time, decry U.S. influence on their societies. Similarly, pluralities
in most of the nations surveyed complain about American unilateralism."- expounds the Pew report.
Yet, even this "embrace of things American" is ambiguous.
Violently "independent", inanely litigious and quarrelsome, solipsistically provincial, and fatuously ignorant - this nation of
video clips and sound bites, the United States, is often perceived as trying to impose its narcissistic pseudo-culture upon a world
exhausted by wars hot and cold and corrupted by vacuous materialism.
Recent accounting scandals, crumbling markets, political scams, technological setbacks, and rising social tensions have revealed
how rotten and inherently contradictory the US edifice is and how concerned are Americans with appearances rather than substance.
To religious fundamentalists, America is the Great Satan, a latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah, a cesspool of immorality and spiritual
decay. To many European liberals, the United states is a throwback to darker ages of religious zealotry, pernicious bigotry, virulent
nationalism, and the capricious misrule of the mighty.
According to most recent surveys by Gallup, MORI, the Council for Secular Humanism, the US Census Bureau, and others - the vast
majority of Americans are chauvinistic, moralizing, bible-thumping, cantankerous, and trigger-happy. About half of them believe that
Satan exists - not as a metaphor, but physically.
America has a record defense spending per head, a vertiginous rate of incarceration, among the highest numbers of legal executions
and gun-related deaths. It is still engaged in atavistic debates about abortion, the role of religion, and whether to teach the theory
of evolution.
According to a series of special feature articles in The Economist, America is generally well-liked in Europe, but less so than
before. It is utterly detested by the Moslem street, even in "progressive" Arab countries, such as Egypt and Jordan. Everyone - Europeans
and Arabs, Asians and Africans - thinks that "the spread of American ideas and customs is a bad thing".
Admittedly, we typically devalue most that which we have formerly idealized and idolized.
To the liberal-minded, the United States of America reified the most noble, lofty, and worthy values, ideals, and causes. It was
a dream in the throes of becoming, a vision of liberty, peace, justice, prosperity, and progress. Its system, though far from flawless,
was considered superior - both morally and functionally - to any ever conceived by Man.
Such unrealistic expectations inevitably and invariably lead to disenchantment, disillusionment, bitter disappointment, seething
anger, and a sense of humiliation for having been thus deluded, or, rather, self-deceived. This backlash is further exacerbated by
the haughty hectoring of the ubiquitous American missionaries of the "free-market-cum-democracy" church.
Americans everywhere aggressively preach the superior virtues of their homeland. Edward K. Thompson, managing editor of "Life"
(1949-1961) warned against this propensity to feign omniscience and omnipotence: "Life (the magazine) must be curious, alert, erudite
and moral, but it must achieve this without being holier-than-thou, a cynic, a know-it-all, or a Peeping Tom."
Thus, America's foreign policy - i.e., its presence and actions abroad - is, by far, its foremost vulnerability.
According to the Pew study, the image of the Unites States as a benign world power slipped dramatically in the space of two years
in Slovakia (down 14 percent), in Poland (-7), in the Czech Republic (-6) and even in fervently pro-Western Bulgaria (-4 percent).
It rose exponentially in Ukraine (up 10 percent) and, most astoundingly, in Russia (+24 percent) - but from a very low base.
The crux may be that the USA maintains one set of sanctimonious standards at home while egregiously and nonchalantly flouting
them far and wide. Hence the fervid demonstrations against its military presence in places as disparate as South Korea, Japan, the
Philippines, and Saudi Arabia.
In January 2000, Staff Sergeant Frank J. Ronghi sexually molested, forcibly sodomized ("indecent acts with a child") and then
murdered an 11-years old girl in the basement of her drab building in Kosovo, when her father went to market to do some shopping.
His is by no means the most atrocious link in a long chain of brutalities inflicted by American soldiers overseas. In all these cases,
the perpetrators were removed from the scene to face justice - or, more often, a travesty thereof - back home.
Americans - officials, scholars, peacemakers, non-government organizations - maintain a colonial state of mind. Backward natives
come cheap, their lives dispensable, their systems of governance and economies inherently inferior. The white man's burden must not
be encumbered by the vagaries of primitive indigenous jurisprudence. Hence America's fierce resistance to and indefatigable obstruction
of the International Criminal Court.
Opportunistic multilateralism notwithstanding, the USA still owes the poorer nations of the world close to $200 million - its
arrears to the UN peacekeeping operations, usually asked to mop up after an American invasion or bombing. It not only refuses to
subject its soldiers to the jurisdiction of the World Criminal Court - but its facilities to the inspectors of the Chemical Weapons
Convention, its military to the sanctions of the (anti) land mines treaty and the provisions of the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty,
and its industry to the environmental constraints of the Kyoto Protocol, the rulings of the World Trade Organization, and the rigors
of global intellectual property rights.
Despite its instinctual unilateralism, the United States is never averse to exploiting multilateral institutions to its ends.
It is the only shareholder with a veto power in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), by now widely considered to have degenerated
into a long arm of the American administration. The United Nations Security Council, raucous protestations aside, has rubber-stamped
American martial exploits from Panama to Iraq.
It seems as though America uses - and thus, perforce, abuses - the international system for its own, ever changing, ends. International
law is invoked by it when convenient - ignored when importune.
In short, America is a bully. It is a law unto itself and it legislates on the fly, twisting arms and breaking bones when faced
with opposition and ignoring the very edicts it promulgates at its convenience. Its soldiers and peacekeepers, its bankers and businessmen,
its traders and diplomats are its long arms, an embodiment of this potent and malignant mixture of supremacy and contempt.
But why is America being singled out?
In politics and even more so in geopolitics, double standards and bullying are common. Apartheid South Africa, colonial France,
mainland China, post-1967 Israel - and virtually every other polity - were at one time or another characterized by both. But while
these countries usually mistreated only their own subjects - the USA does so also exterritorialy.
Even as it never ceases to hector, preach, chastise, and instruct - it does not recoil from violating
its own decrees and ignoring its own teachings. It is, therefore, not the USA's intrinsic nature, nor its self-perception,
or social model that I find most reprehensible - but its actions, particularly its foreign policy.
America's manifest hypocrisy, its moral talk and often immoral walk, its persistent application of
double standards, irks and grates. I firmly believe that it is better to face a forthright villain than a masquerading saint. It
is easy to confront a Hitler, a Stalin, or a Mao, vile and bloodied, irredeemably depraved, worthy only of annihilation. The subtleties
of coping with the United States are far more demanding - and far less rewarding.
This self-proclaimed champion of human rights has aided and abetted countless murderous dictatorships. This alleged sponsor of
free trade - is the most protectionist of rich nations. This ostensible beacon of charity - contributes less than 0.1% of its GDP
to foreign aid (compared to Scandinavia's 0.6%, for instance). This upright proponent of international law (under whose aegis it
bombed and invaded half a dozen countries this past decade alone) - is in avowed opposition to crucial pillars of the international
order.
Naturally, America's enemies and critics are envious of its might and wealth. They would have probably acted the same as the United
States, if they only could. But America's haughtiness and obtuse refusal to engage in soul searching and house cleaning do little
to ameliorate this antagonism.
To the peoples of the poor world, America is both a colonial power and a mercantilist exploiter. To further its geopolitical and
economic goals from Central Asia to the Middle East, it persists in buttressing regimes with scant regard for human rights, in cahoots
with venal and sometimes homicidal indigenous politicians. And it drains the developing world of its brains, its labour, and its
raw materials, giving little in return.
All powers are self-interested - but America is narcissistic. It is bent on exploiting and, having
exploited, on discarding. It is a global Dr. Frankenstein, spawning mutated monsters in its wake. Its "drain and dump" policies consistently
boomerang to haunt it.
Both Saddam Hussein and Manuel Noriega - two acknowledged monsters - were aided and abetted by the CIA and the US military. America
had to invade Panama to depose the latter and plans to invade Iraq for the second time to force the removal of the former.
The Kosovo Liberation Army, an American anti-Milosevic pet, provoked a civil war in Macedonia two years ago. Osama bin-Laden,
another CIA golem, restored to the USA, on September 11, 2001 some of the materiel it so generously bestowed on him in his anti-Russian
days.
Normally the outcomes of expedience, the Ugly American's alliances and allegiances shift kaleidoscopically. Pakistan and Libya
were transmuted from foes to allies in the fortnight prior to the Afghan campaign. Milosevic has metamorphosed from staunch ally
to rabid foe in days.
This capricious inconsistency casts in grave doubt America's sincerity - and in sharp relief its unreliability
and disloyalty, its short term thinking, truncated attention span, soundbite mentality, and dangerous, "black and white", simplism.
In its heartland, America is isolationist. Its denizens erroneously believe that the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave
is an economically self-sufficient and self-contained continent. Yet, it is not what Americans trust or wish that matters to others.
It is what they do. And what they do is meddle, often unilaterally, always ignorantly, sometimes forcefully.
Elsewhere, inevitable unilateralism is mitigated by inclusive cosmopolitanism. It is exacerbated by
provincialism - and American decision-makers are mostly provincials, popularly elected by provincials. As opposed to Rome, or Great
Britain, America is ill-suited and ill-equipped to micromanage the world.
It is too puerile, too abrasive, too arrogant - and it has a lot to learn. Its refusal to acknowledge its shortcomings, its confusion
of brain with brawn (i.e., money or bombs), its legalistic-litigious character, its culture of instant gratification and one-dimensional
over-simplification, its heartless lack of empathy, and bloated sense of entitlement - are detrimental to world peace and stability.
America is often called by others to intervene. Many initiate conflicts or prolong them with the express purpose of dragging America
into the quagmire. It then is either castigated for not having responded to such calls - or reprimanded for having responded. It
seems that it cannot win. Abstention and involvement alike garner it only ill-will.
But people call upon America to get involved because they know it rises to the challenge. America should make it unequivocally
and unambiguously clear that - with the exception of the Americas - its sole interests rest in commerce. It should make it equally
known that it will protect its citizens and defend its assets - if need be by force.
Indeed, America's - and the world's - best bet are a reversion to the Monroe and (technologically updated) Mahan doctrines. Wilson's
Fourteen Points brought the USA nothing but two World Wars and a Cold War thereafter. It is time to disengage.
THE Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the United States wields its power in a way that is worse than Britain during its imperial
heyday.
Rowan Williams claimed that America's attempt to intervene overseas by "clearing the decks" with a "quick burst of violent action"
had led to "the worst of all worlds".
In a wide-ranging interview with a British Muslim magazine, the Anglican leader linked criticism of the United States to
one of his most pessimistic declarations about the state of western civilisation.
He said the crisis was caused not just by America's actions but also by its misguided sense of its own mission. He poured scorn
on the "chosen nation myth of America, meaning that what happens in America is very much at the heart of God's purpose for humanity".
Williams went beyond his previous critique of the conduct of the war on terror, saying the United States had lost the moral high
ground since September 11. He urged it to launch a "generous and intelligent programme of aid directed to the societies that have
been ravaged; a check on the economic exploitation of defeated territories; a demilitarisation of their presence".
He went on to suggest that the West was fundamentally adrift: "Our modern western definition of humanity is clearly not working
very well. There is something about western modernity which really does eat away at the soul."
Williams suggested American leadership had broken down: "We have only one global hegemonic power. It is not accumulating territory:
it is trying to accumulate influence and control. That's not working."
He contrasted it unfavourably with how the British Empire governed India. "It is one thing to take over a territory and then pour
energy and resources into administering it and normalising it. Rightly or wrongly, that's what the British Empire did - in India,
for example.
"It is another thing to go in on the assumption that a quick burst of violent action will somehow clear the decks and that you
can move on and other people will put it back together - Iraq, for example."
In the interview in Emel, a Muslim lifestyle magazine,
Williams makes only mild criticisms of the Islamic world. He said the Muslim world must acknowledge that its "political solutions
were not the most impressive".
He commends the Muslim practice of praying five times a day, which he says allows the remembrance of God to be "built in deeply
in their daily rhythm".
The comments on this story tell a sorry tale: each one eager to invoke the Marshall Plan as a grand sign of U.S. largesse toward
Europe, but apparently having forgotten that that's the kind of thing that we did fifty years ago under a Democratic administration.
Today, we have spent more money destroying Iraq than we spent during the ENTIRE Marshall Plan, even after having adjusted for
inflation -- and instead of winning the goodwill of the Europe and the whole world as we did then, we have alienated everyone.
Silly people, the Archbishop isn't some kind of lone left-wing voice shouting into the wind; it is you who are the tiny reactionary
minority who still imagine that there is something good to be said about George Bush's debacle in Iraq.
David Cunningham, Holland, Michigan
===
How predicatable and how utterly depressing. Dr. Williams must live in a parallel universe. There are malign, despotic, corrupt
regimes aplenty and he can only criticise the US. It is infantile, lefty student hogwash. Williams and his ilk have never, ever,
levelled the same public damnation on a single crackpot or dispicable left wing regime. And he would certainly not want to offend
the Islamists ( or whatever it is we are permitted to call them these days) who would have us all dead. No, far easier to blame the
world's woes on the Americans. After all they are not likely to take such offence that it would demand they decapitate you in public.
This joker certainly doesn't speak for the whole of Britain.
tony, london, uk
===
What the Archbishop says is findamentally true. Of course we need the USA strength along side our other allies in Europe and around
the world, but we should all be singing from the same hymn sheet, not pressing ahead with our own adgendas and motives. Have we leant
nothing from the past? The Archbishop is right to mock the "God is on our side" notion of the US. God in whichever religion you care to name,
is always there. How well do the American people know the beliefs and aspirations of the average Muslim, or of the average Hindu,
Sikh, Buddist?
American policy reminds me of an Engishman abroad, shouting at the French cafe owner to make himself understood, without the slightest
thought of trying to speak a word of French. If he doesn't understand, shout louder and then hit him to get your point over.
Simon Cotton, West Mersea, Essex
===
The United States is behaving like the Soviet Union did before: it is intervening in other countries in an imperialistic way,
at the same time accusing them of being "imperialists" or "racists", i.e. it is using basically Marxist rhetoric (presently
called "political correctness") in order to undermine countries it views as competitors. Hence the dismantling of Yugoslavia,
the support of Bosnian Muslim, Kosovo Albanian and Chechen terrorists, as wel as the "liberation" of Iraq (that is, from 655,000
inhabitants).
Arthur Rambler, Yushnokurilsk, Russia
===
As an american i am deeply ashamed of the current administration. As a democracy, we asked for what we got by not voting the right
way. I dislike though his reference on islam being a good belief system. Its a very violent religion calling for holy wars. Makes
the catholic inquistion look like a field day in the park. As to our manufacturing muscle during world war 2, it was not an easy
taski getting our industry into a war effort. Also world war 2 ended the US depression.
Philip B Kirschner, Brooklyn,NY, USA
===
He has struck a blow against the biggest travesty of Christianity in recent times -- the hijacking of its language for the
nefarious purposes of American imperialism. The naivety and genuine innocence of many of the American responses on this thread
show how deep is the enthrallment of Americans to this idol. The adhominem attacks on the speaker, his church and Christianity itself
actually suggest to me that all three are more relevant that is sometimes imagined. The Gospel was surely never more verified
nor more clearly needed than in these times where the largest allegedly Christian nation is openly justifying torture and fomenting
war. To most Europeans the Archbishop will seem to be pointing out the obvious, though they may be happy that a churchman
says it, and to most Americans he will seem to be gratuitously insulting their country. The divide of perception here is vast --
vaster than that between Sunni and Shiite!
Joseph S. O'Leary, Tokyo, Japan
Генри Миллер: США между гениями и лунатиками ("La Jornada", Мексика)
Мы с самого начала проводили геноцид! Долой всех тех, кто с нами не согласен!
Генри Миллер / Henry Miller, 16 марта 2007
4 года назад, 16 марта 2003 года, США начали военную операцию против Ирака. Публикация из
архива ИноСМИ.Ru
_________________________________
Последние два столетия, пролетевшие как единый миг, мы словно скатывались по водосточной трубе. Там-то мы и сломаем себе шею!
И никто не всплакнет по нам; даже те, кому мы помогли выжить. В какой-то момент нашей истории мы просто стали отравлять весь мир.
Мы отравляли его нашими идеями о прогрессе, продуктивности и механизации. Наших сильных духом пионеров-первооткрывателей мы превратили
в роботов. Мы провели дегуманизацию мира, в котором живем.
Aборигены, прежде населявшие наш континент, сначала приняли колонизаторов из Старого Мира за богов. Но очень скоро разочаровались.
Очень скоро они научились бояться и ненавидеть нас (именно мы, бледнолицые, научили индейцев рубить головы своим врагам!). Точно
с такой же жестокостью поступали и мы сами с теми, кто не разделял наших взглядов на жизнь. Именно мы уничтожили удивительную общину
Онейда, так же как и многие другие религиозные общины. Мы отобрали у индейцев их земли и сделали все возможное, чтобы уничтожить
эти народы. И мы ни разу даже не попытались компенсировать им наши деяния.
Кажется, что все мы были зачаты среди ненависти и насилия, и рождены, чтобы грабить, насиловать и убивать. Книги по нашей истории
стараются залакировать все те жестокость, мерзость и аморальные поступки, совершенные нашими предводителями. Достаточно привести
единственный пример - один из самых великих людей, рожденных нашей нацией, Томас Джефферсон (Tomas Jefferson), имел незаконнорожденного
сына от своей чернокожей рабыни. Почти все великие политики, что возводили здание нашей демократии, были рабовладельцами. Это они
придумали для нашей нации названия республика и демократия, но на самом деле их у нас никогда не было, даже сейчас. Этой страной
управляет всего лишь несколько патрициев из влиятельных семейств. Еще во времена
Уолта Уитмена (Walt Whitman) вся эта территория была поражена коррупцией. Поэзия Уитмена в "Листьях травы" - великолепная песнь
во имя "Я", но все его прозаические произведения - это обвинительный приговор в адрес американского общества.
Не так давно мне на глаза попались фотографии всех наших вице-президентов, помещенные в одну рамку: они могли бы стать прекрасным
примером для иллюстрации дурного вкуса. Кто-то из них походил на преступников, кто-то - на тупиц, а кто-то и просто на идиотов. По
правде говоря, президенты выглядели не намного лучше. Вот уж точно, что государственные мужи всего мира кажутся тупоголовыми и пройдохами.
И Черчилль (Churchill) не был исключением.
К имени Линкольна (Lincoln) многие относятся с благоговением, хотя, по моему мнению, именно он во многом несет ответственность
за начало гражданской войны, потому как в его силах было не допустить развязывания войны между Севером и Югом. Та гражданская война,
как и все прочие, подобные ей столкновения, стала примером страшной жестокости, от которой страна по-прежнему полностью не оправилась.
Участие в первой мировой войне было - как бы так помягче сказать - страшным безумством. Достаточно лишь вспомнить, что стало с
тем прежним, страшным врагом всего человечества!
Война, война-. С самых ранних лет своего детства я помню то, что было связано с войной между Испанией и Соединенными Штатами,
русско-японской войной, войной на Балканах - и так без конца. Как написал в своем "Отказе от повиновения" ("Refus d'Obeissanse")
Жан Жионо (Jean Giono), войны питают капитализм, без них он вообще не может существовать.
Сегодня все партии ведут войну: партии либеральные, партии реакционные, партии какие угодно. Коммунисты такие же убийцы, как капиталисты
или фашисты. Кажется, что человек рожден, чтобы убивать. Наша страна занималась тем, что учила весь оставшийся мир заниматься самоуничтожением,
умерщвляя все, в том числе флору и фауну.
В какой-то момент общество заинтересовалось полетом на Луну. Сейчас складывается впечатление, что тот эксперимент не преследовал
никаких благих целей - все плоды собрал Пентагон. Очень скоро окажутся ненужными ни форма, ни военная подготовка, ни военные дисциплины.
Мы усядемся там, где нам будет удобно, и со своего места сможем управлять самым смертоносным оружием. И все войны будет проходить
вдалеке от нашего кресла-качалки! И не будет никакой необходимости в генералах, адмиралах и прочих командующих. Все вместе и каждый
в отдельности - будь то мужчина, женщина или ребенок - превратятся в потенциальные бомбы.
Когда я говорю, что мы катимся по водосточному желобу, я имею в виду и всех наших последователей во всем мире. Мы упадем все вместе.
Холокост, возможно, смогут пережить самые примитивные организмы и некоторые представители диких тварей. И лишь тогда, возможно,
мы станет свидетелями зарождения нового человечества. Мы - те, кто в настоящее время и составляет общество, на самом деле пока не
готовы привести в порядок корабль Государства. Любое преследование прогрессистской идеи уводит нас все дальше и дальше в прошлое.
С самых первых лет своего существования у нас были свои гангстеры, свои убийцы и свои же коррумпированные политики. Когда мы жили
в счастливые, добрые и чистые времена? Согласно моим подсчетам - никогда. Я был еще ребенком, когда впервые услышал рассказы о Таммани-Холл.
Когда я был еще ребенком, то видел, как конные полицейские разгоняли толпу безоружных людей на Юнион-Сквер (они походили на хорошо
тренированных казаков). Когда я был еще совсем маленьким, мне рассказывали о таких "героях" как адмирал Дьюи (Dewey) - настоящий
простак - и Тедди Рузвельт (Teddy Roosevelt) , участвовавший в сражении при Сан-Хуан Хилл. Но мне ничего не рассказывали об Эмерсоне
(Emerson), Торо (Thoreau) или Уитмене. В те времена моим "героем" был Уильям Дженнингс Брайан (William Jennings Bryan) - "оратор
с серебряным языком". Уже позднее я узнал о тюрьмах Синг-Синг, Даннемора, Ливенворт и прочих, им подобных. Самым любимым моим писателем
в юности был О'Генри, но никто при этом не рассказал мне о человеке, который подтолкнул его к писательству - Але Дженнингсе (Al Jennings)
- с которым писатель-кумир моей юности сидел в одной камере в тюрьме в Огайо.
В нашем районе не было ни публичных библиотек, ни книжных магазинов. Только в двадцать один год мне повезло и я встретил в Калифорнии,
в Сан-Диего Эмму Голдман (Emma Goldman), открывшую мне существование такого слова как культура. И лишь благодаря ей, я смог
совершить поворот от
Марка Твена (Mark Twain) к Фридриху Ницше (Friederich Nietzsche).
И не только наши вице-президенты были толпой тупиц и простаков, но и - почти вся страна в целом. Скольких великих писателей, художников,
музыкантов породила наша страна за эти два столетия? Гораздо легче вспомнить количество знаменитых бездельников, порожденных ею!
Стоит вспомнить весь тот цирк под названием Уотергейт. Если судить по реакции нашего общества, так может сложиться впечатление,
что наши политики могут совершать лишь самые тривиальные ошибки, что они не совершили ни одного преступления. Мы много раз поступали
так, словно были твердо убеждены, что зло можно искоренить раз и навсегда.
Когда Линкольн (Lincoln) издал свою "Декларацию об освобождении", мы решили, что положили конец рабству. Мы и представить себе
не могли, что на севере существуют гораздо более серьезные расовые проблемы, чем на юге. Мы не только создали черных рабов, мы придумали
и рабов белых - рабов эры господства машин. Ку-клукс-клан существует до сих пор. И до сих пор существует мафия! У нас не бывает
погромов, но антисемитизм по-прежнему растет и крепнет.
И вполне очевидно, что из-за всей этой нашей болтовни о прогрессе мы страдаем узостью сознания, всяческими предрассудками и жажда
крови в нас сильна так же, как и прежде. Одного лишь упоминания военного ведомства - Пентагон! - достаточно, чтобы напугать. Война
во Вьетнаме была настоящей низостью! Тамерлан (Tamerlane) и Аттила (Attila) - младенцы по сравнению с монстрами наших дней, вооруженных
атомными бомбами и напалмом. Если Гитлера (Hitler) обвиняют в геноциде, то в чем же обвинять нас?
Мы проводили геноцид с самого начала! Долой всех тех, кто с нами не согласен! Мы проводили геноцид в отношении индейцев, негров,
мексиканцев. А затем появились кино и телевидение, и там можно увидеть все, что угодно. Дети растут и видят, как на экранах совершаются
преступления, убийства, грабежи, пытки и все мыслимое и немыслимое, что связано со злодейством, обскурантизмом и жестокостью. Все,
что является частью столь любимого нами "прогресса". И мы по-прежнему задаемся вопросом, почему мы (как нация и как народ) разваливаемся.
Я действительно пытаюсь понять, существует ли что-то в американской "цивилизации", достойное похвалы. И не могу ничего вспомнить.
Тюрьмы - это гнездилища порока. Знание в школах добывается лишь высиживанием на заднице, но что это может быть за знание, когда
учителя боятся своих учеников?! Каждый кого-нибудь боится и так, по цепочке, этот страх передается самим зародышам. Ни один
смельчак не отважится выйти на улицу ночью в одиночку и уж тем более безоружным. И потому, само собой разумеется, что тот, кто ночью
оказывается на улице, вызывает подозрение.
Теперь опять все чаще обсуждаются такие темы, как венерические заболевания и культура потребления наркотиков. Болезни, передающиеся
половым путем, получают все большее распространение среди подростков. То же самое происходит с наркотиками и алкоголем. Целая нация
алкоголиков и наркоманов! О чем можно говорить, если напиваются даже бабушки!
Ну а что сказать о наших доблестных полицейских, наших предполагаемых защитниках? В скольких преступлениях они виновны! Они навязывают
нам подозрения и ненависть!
Коррупция - вот подходящее жесткое слово, чтобы охарактеризовать их! Где они, все эти наши герои? Стоит поискать среди
спортсменов, и тогда мы найдем там Мохаммеда Али (Mohammed Ali). Потом ими станут какой-нибудь игрок американского футбола или пинчер-левша.
Да, у нас были настоящие герои, но большинство из них либо оказались в тюрьме, либо были убиты. У нас было много безымянных героев.
Но воспоминания о вьетнамской войне вызывают у меня приступы тошноты. А ведь до сих пор некоторые называют "героями" ветеранов той
войны. Да простит их Господь.
И хотя мои слова могут казаться едкими, я не испытываю ненависти ни к Соединенным Штатам, ни к американцам. Оглядываясь на наше
бурное прошлое, мы могли бы то же самое сказать и о других, так называемых, цивилизованных странах. Я не могу думать о гражданах
любой великой страны мира, что рассуждают как пигмеи: "Мы счастливы оттого, что мы такие как есть. Нам не надо ничего менять". И
среди всех цивилизованных стран мира американская нация кажется мне самой беспокойной, самой неудовлетворенной, тем идиотом, который
стремится изменить мир по своему образу и подобию. И вот занимаясь этим, как ему кажется, улучшением мира, он не понимает, что разрушает
и отравляет его. Поэт Уолт Уитмен осознал это более ста лет назад и назвал нас нацией идиотов. Возможно, именно Уолт Уитмен
и является самым великим американцем, жившим на нашей земле!
Вот слова самого Уитмена, написанные им больше стал лет назад: "Вперед, мои возлюбленные американцы, еще дальше гоните своих коней
- волнение! деньги! политики! Открывайте все затворы, пусть они раскачиваются и дальше, давя всех остальных. Очень скоро и ты окажешься
там, и захочешь сдержать их, но только не сможешь. Вы лишь вовремя отдайте указ (старым и новым странам), чтобы строили тысячи сумасшедших
домов. Потому как вы выбрали лучший путь для создания нации идиотов".
Писатель Генри Миллер, автор таких произведений, как "Тропик Рака" и "Тихие дни в Клиши", скончался 7 июня 1980 года.
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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© REUTERS / RONEN ZVULUN Snub or No Snub? Netizens Laugh Off Prince Charles' Explanation After Not Shaking Hands With Mike Pence When world leaders addressed the Holocaust memorial held in Israel last Wednesday it was obvious – albeit implicitly – from their words that the US has become an isolated rogue state owing to its inveterate belligerence.
© Sputnik / Alexey Nikolsky World War II for Dummies? US Vice President Hails Liberators of Auschwitz Death Camp, 'Forgets' to Name Them It was an odious spectacle to see Pence don a somber face as he talked about the victims of the Holocaust , while his own state wages war against any foreign nation whenever and wherever Washington deems. At an event that was supposed to reflect on the horror and evil of war, Pence showed he had no understanding or self-awareness.
© AP Photo / Czarek Sokolowski If One's Outraged by Words About Polish Anti-Semitism, One Should Delve Into History – Ex-Polish MP The American national myth, evolved over recent decades since 1945, views itself as "exceptional" from all other nations. That translates as the US presuming to be "superior" and "above the law that others are bound by".
