Thursday, July 28, 2016

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin: Potential Partners – Not Allies or Even Friends

Reporters and pundits covering the presidential campaign of Donald Trump have been torn between two conflicting narratives: The first is that Trump is a reckless amateur and, as president with his finger on the nuclear button, he would bring the world to the brink of catastrophe. The second is that Trump is a cat’s paw for Russian President Vladimir Putin and, as president, he would, advertently or inadvertently, work to implement Moscow’s agenda for world domination.

The first narrative is a familiar one. Past Republican presidential candidates – Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan – have all had to fight off accusations that, if elected, they would waste no time before launching World War III. The second narrative however is somewhat unusual. It is not often that Republicans are accused of acting as witting or unwitting tools of the Kremlin – at least not by so-called liberals.

For it is liberal media outlets that are the most enthusiastic purveyors of this tale of Putin, the manipulative mastermind, and Trump, his would-be hand puppet. Most of these stories depict Trump as a buffoonish narcissist, easily susceptible to the empty flattery doled out by a predatory Putin. In a story titled “Putin’s Puppet,” Franklin Foer in Slate claimed that Putin “has a plan for destroying the West – and that plan looks a lot like Donald Trump.” Foer set the Red-baiting tone by announcing that Trump’s campaign is “the moral equivalent of Henry Wallace’s communist-infiltrated campaign for president in 1948….A foreign power that wishes ill upon the United States has attached itself to a major presidential campaign.” Trump’s ambition doesn’t go beyond fulfillment of a “longtime dream of planting his name in the Moscow skyline.” Putin’s dream is far more sinister:

If Putin wanted to concoct the ideal candidate to serve his purposes, his laboratory creation would look like Donald Trump. The Republican nominee wants to shatter our military alliances in Europe; he cheers the destruction of the European Union; he favors ratcheting down tensions with Russia over Ukraine and Syria, both as a matter of foreign policy and in service of his own pecuniary interests. A Trump presidency would weaken Putin’s greatest geo-strategic competitor. By stoking racial hatred, Trump will shred the fabric of American society.

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Tuesday, July 26, 2016

There Will Be No Second American Revolution: The Futility of an Armed Revolt

America is a ticking time bomb.

All that remains to be seen is who—or what—will set fire to the fuse.

We are poised at what seems to be the pinnacle of a manufactured breakdown, with police shooting unarmed citizens, snipers shooting police, global and domestic violence rising, and a political showdown between two presidential candidates equally matched in unpopularity.

The preparations for the Republican and Democratic national conventions taking place in Cleveland and Philadelphia—augmented by a $50 million federal security grant for each city—provide a foretaste of how the government plans to deal with any individual or group that steps out of line: they will be censored, silenced, spied on, caged, intimidated, interrogated, investigated, recorded, tracked, labeled, held at gunpoint, detained, restrained, arrested, tried and found guilty.

For instance, anticipating civil unrest and mass demonstrations in connection with the Republican Party convention, Cleveland officials set up makeshift prisons, extra courtrooms to handle protesters, and shut down a local university in order to house 1,700 riot police and their weapons. The city’s courts are preparing to process up to 1,000 people a day. Additionally, the FBI has also been conducting “interviews” with activists in advance of the conventions to discourage them from engaging in protests.

Make no mistake, the government is ready for a civil uprising.

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Friday, July 22, 2016

Trump Enrages the War Party

This election season is so much fun because Donald Trump keeps enraging all the right people – and his timing is perfect. Just as the Republican convention was at its height, with his running mate up there on the podium perorating about the alleged threat of Vladimir Putin, along comes Donald with an interview in the New York Times that has the War Party yelling and screaming bloody murder. The head of NATO; the foreign policy pundits; even some alleged “non-interventionists” – they’re all aghast that Trump is questioning the supposedly sacred tripwires that commit us to going to war if Lower Slobbovia invades Upper Slobbovia.

It started with this article, in which Trump’s views on NATO, the Turkey coup, and other matters were summarized, but it caused such a commotion that the Times published the entire interview, and it is really a sight to see – good news for us anti-interventionists, and very bad news for the internationalists, i.e. the entire foreign policy Establishment.

It starts off with Times reporter David Sanger trying to bait him into attacking Paul Ryan, who, he says, “presented a much more traditional Republican, engaged internationalist view of the world.” Sanger reminds him of his previous comments on NATO: that our shiftless “allies” need to start paying their fair share of the costs of the alliance. Sanger adds in Korea and Japan, and ask: what if they won’t pay? What then?

Trump’s answer is vintage Trump:  “Then yes, I would be absolutely prepared to tell those countries, ‘Congratulations, you will be defending yourself.’”

He is challenged by Sanger – who asks most of the questions, by the way – who avers that our system of alliances is in our interests as well, because of “trade.”

Does Sanger imagine Russia going to somehow stop trans-Atlantic commerce? It isn’t clear, but Trump comes back at him by saying it’s “a mutual interest” – in which our NATO allies are not doing their part. Stopped in his tracks – because even President Obama, as well as traditional Republicans like Robert Gates, have complained that our allies aren’t paying – Sanger reverts to the default interventionist argument:

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Wednesday, July 20, 2016

America Demands Law & Order: Trump Has Thumbs On Evil Party’s Windpipe (If RATS Don’t Stab Him In The Back)

There’s a reason the Main Stream Media/ Lying Press is obsessing on Melania Trump’s alleged plagiarism/ homage: the Trump convention has its thumbs on the Evil Party’s jugular.

It’s amazing how irrelevant Hillary Clinton has already become. In the hours after the murder of three police officers in Baton Rouge, Lousiana, Hillary Clinton was silent. However, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump had a simple message. “We demand law and order.”

When she did break her silence, she went to the NAACP convention to speak out against law and order.

As the Republican convention begins, the GOP is focusing on the theme of “Make America Safe Again”—a variation Trump sometimes uses as an alternative to use signature #MAGA slogan. As the simmering Fourth Generation Warfare that is Black Lives Matter shows no sign of receding, Trump is betting that his message of “law and order” will work as effectively for him as did for Richard Nixon.

A number of speakers at the convention in Cleveland are pushing this message, including Rudy Giuliani, Chris Christie and Sheriff David Clarke Jr. [On Eve of G.O.P. Convention, Law and order Takes the Floor, by Alexander Burns, New York Times, July 17, 2016]

The Main Stream Media has already pushed the latest massacre off the front pages in favor of more anti-Trump agitprop disguised as news articles. And the MSM is clearly aware of Trump’s strategy and the threat it represents.

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Monday, July 18, 2016

US Government Releases Redacted "28 Pages" Missing From 9/11 Report

Unleash the revisionist history. Congress released on Friday a long-classified report exploring the alleged ties of the Saudi Arabian government to the 9/11 hijackers.

The missing 28 pages from the 9/11 report begins as follows:

"While in the United States, some of the September 11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi Government..."

The "28 pages," the secret document was part of a 2002 congressional investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks and has been classified since the report's completion. As CNN reports, former Sen. Bob Graham, who chaired the committee that carried out the investigation and has been pushing the White House to release the pages, said Thursday he was "very pleased" that the documents would be released.

The pages, sent to Congress by the Obama administration, have been the subject of much speculation over what they might reveal about the Saudi government's involvement in the attacks masterminded by terrorist Osama bin Laden when he led al-Qaeda.The pages were used by the 9/11 Commission as part of its investigation into the intelligence failures leading up to the attacks.

A telephone number found in the phone book of al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaida, who was captured in Pakistan in March 2002, was for an Aspen, Colo., corporation that managed the "affairs of the Colorado residence of the Saudi Ambassador Bandar," the documents show.

Osama Bassnan, who the documents identify as a financial supporter of two of the 9/11 hijackers in San Diego, received money from Bandar, and Bassnan's wife also got money from Bandar's wife. "One at least one occasion," the documents show, "Bassnan received a check directly from Prince Bandar's account. According to the FBI, on May 14, 1998, Bassnan cashed a check from Bandar in the amount of $15,000. Bassnan's wife also received at least one check directly from Bandar."

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Thursday, July 14, 2016

NATO Reaffirms Its Bogus Russia Narrative

It’s unnerving to realize that the NATO alliance – bristling with an unprecedented array of weapons including a vast nuclear arsenal – has lost its collective mind. Perhaps it’s more reassuring to think that NATO simply feels compelled to publicly embrace its deceptive “strategic communications” so gullible Western citizens will be kept believing its lies are truth.

But here were the leaders of major Western “democracies” lining up to endorse a Warsaw Summit Communiqué condemning “Russia’s aggressive actions” while knowing that these claims were unsupported by their own intelligence agencies.

The leaders – at least the key ones – know that there is no credible intelligence that Russian President Vladimir Putin provoked the Ukraine crisis in 2014 or that he has any plans to invade the Baltic states, despite the fact that nearly every “important person” in Official Washington and other Western capitals declares the opposite of this to be reality.

But there have been a few moments when the truth has surfaced. For instance, in the days leading up to the just-completed NATO summit in Warsaw, General Petr Pavel, chairman of the NATO Military Committee, divulged that the deployment of NATO military battalions in the Baltic states was a political, rather than military, act.

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Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

The “New Cold War” is No Longer Cold: NATO Expands Military Presence along Russia’s Border, Lying All the Way to Barbarossa II

Despite claims made during NATO Summit Warsaw 2016, that “NATO remains a fundamental source of security for our people, and stability for the wider world,” it is clear that the threats and challenges NATO poses as existing to confront are in fact threats of its own, intentional creation and continued perpetuation.

From the ongoing refugee crisis triggered by NATO’s own global-spanning and ongoing military interventions, invasions, and occupations, to its continued expansion along Russia’s borders – violating every convention and “norm” that existed during the Cold War to keep it “cold,” NATO has proven that it is to the populations it poses as protector over, in fact, their greatest threat.

In particular, the summit in Warsaw, Poland centered on NATO’s expanding military presence along Russia’s borders, particularly in the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as in Poland itself.

The summit also covered ongoing NATO involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq, two nations so far beyond the Atlantic states the alliance allegedly was founded to protect, it would be comical if the consequences of their far-reaching meddling weren’t so serious.

Belligerence Vs Balance 

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Monday, July 11, 2016

Friday, July 8, 2016

Thoughts After Chilcot

I hope today that people will remember Elizabeth Wilmshurst, Carne Ross, and Katherine Gun, who were all prepared to give up excellent careers to stand against the war in Iraq.

Blair is still a creature of absolute self-serving slime. His attempt yesterday to justify the invasion of Iraq as an effort to prevent a 9/11 on British soil is dishonest in every way. Blair knew full well that Iraq had nothing at all to do with 9/11 – that was his still friends and financiers the Saudi elite. The intelligence advice in advance of the invasion he received was unequivocal that it would increase the threat to the UK, and it directly caused the attacks of 7/7.

The broadcast media seem to think the Chilcot report is an occasion to give unlimited airtime to Blair and Alastair Campbell. Scores of supporters and instigators of the was have been interviewed. By contrast, almost no airtime has been given to those who campaigned against the war.

Cameron’s speech to parliament was such an out and out, and dishonest, apologia for the invasion that it bore no relationship to the report. Corbyn is no orator, but his genuine moral outrage was justified. The Blairites who heckled him from behind during his speech are disgusting. If any meaningful democratic choice is to be offered to people in England and Wales, the Blairites have to be removed from the Labour Party to join with their fellow Tories.

The SNP are playing a blinder on Chilcot. I do hope Salmond moves forward with impeachment, not least because it will both force the Blairites to expose themselves, and reveal the deep feelings against Blair’s actions in the military linked wing of the Tory party.

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Wednesday, July 6, 2016

General Breedlove and the Russophobes

The Roman republic began its descent into empire as victorious generals – starting with one Julius Caesar – returned to claim the fruits of their victories, their final conquest being the republic itself. “Crossing the Rubicon” has today become a phrase meaning an event that cannot be undone, usually of ominous portent, and surely this applies to the machinations of one General Philip Breedlove, former Supreme Commander of NATO.

Revealed by hackers who broke into his email accounts, Breedlove’s plot to start World War III with Russia recalls the recklessness of Dr. Strangelove in a movie of the same name – except this isn’t a movie, it’s reality.

Coordinating with sympathetic retired military personnel, such as Wesley Clark, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Harlan Ullman, a top official of the Atlantic Council, the idea was – as Ullman put it – to “leverage, cajole, convince or coerce the U.S. to react” to an alleged Russian threat in Europe. Another academic contact, one Phillip Karber, head of the neoconservative Potomac Foundation, was involved in disseminating a crude forgery supposed to have depicted Russian tanks in Ukraine. Naturally, the Washington Free Beacon fell for it, as did Sen. James Inhofe. Confirmation bias is pandemic in these circles.

Breedlove has himself been at the center of similar hoaxes, claiming that tens of thousands of Russian troops are present in Ukraine, armed to the teeth with the latest advanced weaponry: this was an outright lie, as the German intelligence agency, the BND, pointed out.

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Monday, July 4, 2016

The Revolt Against Globalism

There was William Galston at the European Council on Foreign Relations, listening to his fellow elitists and foreign policy honchos caviling about the rise of Donald Trump and bemoaning the fate of the European Union (EU) at the hand’s of Britain’s Euro-skeptics. As the assembled luminaries had a collective sad in their five-star hotel, wondering how the proles could’ve gotten so far out of hand, Galtson – longtime Democratic party hack, former domestic advisor to Bill Clinton, and a senior fellow at the “centrist” Brookings Institution – heard a call to arms. It was almost as if Cecil Rhodes, the British imperialist and original founder and financier of the Council on Foreign Relations, had spoken to him from on high – or, rather, from below – and commanded him to spread the Word far and wide:

“I realized that the stakes in the U.S. presidential election are even higher than I had thought. The fate of the entire postwar order hangs in the balance, and with it the prospects for democracy world-wide. Without vigorous American leadership, the prospects are not bright.”

Oh, yes, those shortsighted Little People are “turning inward,” and “this is understandable,” but, hey, “liberal internationalism is back on its heels” and the dreaded “ethno-nationalist populism” – i.e. resistance to the One World “global governance” schemes of Galston and his comrades – “is on the march.” What’s a globalist to do?

And it’s not just the English-speaking world that’s resisting the globalist agenda. Those Frenchies are getting restive, too, and the rest of Europe is balking at “the obvious candidate for continental leadership” for “historical reasons.” After all, everyone remembers the last time the Germans tried to impose “union” on the Europeans, so there’s that. See how prejudiced the Little People can be? They just don’t have the foresight to worry about the New Hitler – Vladimir Putin, if you even have to ask – who “senses a historic opportunity to exploit Europe’s divisions for his own purposes.” Why, he actually wants to trade with Europe, and that would undermine the war plans of the CFR types, who are fixated on restarting the cold war. Of course, they don’t actually say that in so many words, but the intent is clear enough. They put it like this:

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Friday, July 1, 2016

The Clintons Make the Gambino Crime Family Look Like the Junior League

The Collapse of Western Democracy

Democracy no longer exists in the West. In the US powerful private interest groups, such as the military-security complex, Wall Street, the Israel Lobby, agribusiness and the extractive industries of energy, timber and mining, have long exercised more control over government than the people. But now even the semblance of democracy has been abandoned.

In the US Donald Trump has won the Republican presidential nomination. However, Republican convention delegates are plotting to deny Trump the nomination that the people have voted him. The Republican political establishment is showing an unwillingness to accept democratic outcomes.
The people chose, but their choice is unacceptable to the establishment which intends to substitute its choice for the people’s choice.

Do you remember Dominic Strauss-Kahn? Strauss-Kahn is the Frenchman who was head of the IMF and, according to polls, the likely next president of France. He said something that sounded too favorable toward the Greek people. This concerned powerful banking interests who worried that he might get in the way of their plunder of Greece, Portugal, Spain, and Italy. A hotel maid appeared who accused him of rape. He was arrested and held without bail. After the police and prosecutors had made fools of themselves, he was released with all charges dropped. But the goal was achieved. Strauss-Kahn had to resign as IMF director and kiss goodbye his chance for the presidency of France.

Curious, isn’t it, that a woman has now appeared who claims Trump raped her when she was 13 years old.

Consider the political establishment’s response to the Brexit vote. Members of Parliament are saying that the vote is unacceptable and that Parliament has the right and responsibility to ignore the voice of the people.

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