Friday, December 30, 2016

Israel First or America First

And once U.S. pressure ends and settlement building in the West Bank proceeds, Netanyahu his hawkish Cabinet, the Israeli lobby, the neocons and the congressional Republicans will start beating the drums for Trump to terminate what he himself has called that "horrible Iran deal."

Calls are already coming for the cancellation of the sale of 80 Boeing jets to Iran. Yet, any U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal, or reimposition of sanctions on Iran, will further split us off from our European allies. Not only did Britain and France vote for the Security Council resolution, both are party, as is Germany, to the Iran deal.

Having America publicly reassert herself as Israel’s best friend, with "no daylight" between us, could have us ending up as Israel’s only friend – and Israel as our only friend in the Middle East.

Bibi’s Israel First policy must one day collide with America First.

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Wednesday, December 28, 2016

What Israel Fears Most: An Encroachment to “Greater Israel”?

Israel has strong US-led Western support. Security Council Resolution 2334, affirming the illegality of its settlements, changed nothing on the ground – nor will it any time ahead as far as it’s reasonable to predict.

Eventual Palestinian self-determination based on pre-June 1967 borders is another matter entirely. The possibility of it happening any time ahead concerns Israel most of all.

Longstanding state policy calls for maximum land with minimum Arabs – dispossessing them extrajudicially for exclusive Jewish development, achieving the goal through one bulldozed Palestinian home at a time, eliminating entire communities longer term, settlement expansions continuing unabated on stolen land.

A near-century ago, the World Zionist Organization’s plan for a Jewish state included:

• historic Palestine;

• South Lebanon up to Sidon and the Litani River;

• Syria’s Golan Heights, Hauran Plain and Deraa; and

• control of the Hijaz Railway from Deraa to Amman, Jordan as well as the Gulf of Aqaba.

Some Zionists wanted more – land from the Nile in the West to the Euphrates in the East, comprising Palestine, Lebanon, Western Syria and Southern Turkey.

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Monday, December 26, 2016

There Are No Terrorists? Counterterrorism = Supporting Terrorism? Western Governments Are Supporting Terrorist Organizations Which They are Allegedly Combating

The Western media in chorus is accusing the Syrian government and its allies including Russia and Iran of “crimes against humanity” for having liberated Aleppo from the clutch of Al Qaeda terrorists. “Putin and Assad could face justice for war crimes in Syria” according to the Washington Post. 

In the media coverage of  Aleppo, the Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists are casually described as opposition “rebels” waging a “revolution” against the government of Bashar al Assad, who is portrayed as a “dictator”. 

The media propaganda campaign has gone into high gear. The words “Al Qaeda”, “Al Nusra” or “terrorists” are simply not mentioned in recent media reports.  It never happened. “Opposition rebels” committed to democracy have been crushed by the Russians, according to “authoritative” media sources.

According to reports, there were no terrorists in Aleppo. The “rebels” are now being portrayed as the victims of Russian aggression.  These are the same terrorists who are the object of Obama’s alleged “counterterrorism” campaign, which is largely intent upon protecting the terrorists. 

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Thursday, December 22, 2016

The Threat Against Trump Rises

The use of the presstitute media to deny Trump the Republican presidential nomination failed.

The use of the presstitute media to deny Trump victory in the presidential election failed.

The vote recount failed.

The effort to sway the Electoral College failed.

But the effort continues.

The CIA report on Russia’s alleged interference in the US presidential election ordered by Obama is in process. Faked evidence is a hallmark of CIA operations.

In their determination to seal Trump’s ears against environmental concerns, a group of environmentalists plan to disrupt the inauguration. This in itself is of little consequence, but chaos presents opportunity for assassination.

Trump himself seems to think he is in danger. According to MSNBC, Trump intends to supplement his Secret Service protection with private security. As there is evidence of CIA complicity in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (film shows Secret Service agents ordered away from JFK’s limo immediately prior to his assassination), Trump, who is clearly seen as a threat by the military/security complex, is not being paranoid. MSNBC implies that Trump’s private security is to suppress protesters, as if government security forces have shown any compunction about suppressing protesters. LINK

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Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Russophobia and Sinophobia

It's by now crystal clear the coup-in-progress against Donald Trump is a made in USA regime change op using standard hybrid war techniques such as manipulation of public opinion by mainstream media.

The coup has been articulated by the usual suspects, from neocons to neoliberalcons, "humanitarian" imperialists included, with a special starring role for their pet agency, the CIA, which during the Bush-Obama continuum further specialized in fake "intelligence".

And yet the whole "Russia hacked our freedoms" narrative was thoroughly debunked by former UK diplomat and close WikiLeaks contributor Craig Murray; he even knows where the leak – not hack – came from. 

Adding (infantile) insult to (juvenile) injury, Queen of War cum sore loser Hillary Clinton, at a private donor event, blamed it all on a President Putin vendetta. She may have internalized too many Tarantino flicks – and her dialogue lines are far from quirky; but still she delivered a "He Came, He Saw, I Was Toast" narrative according to which "Vladimir Putin himself directed the covert cyber attacks against our electoral system, against our democracy, apparently because he has a personal beef against me."

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Friday, December 16, 2016

The Leak That Came in From the Cold

As the frantic attempts by die-hard Democrats, the media, and the CIA to prevent Donald Trump by being sworn into office reach a fever pitch, Hillary Clinton’s anguished cry seems like the only appropriate response. Trump won the election, he’s now announcing his Cabinet, and that’s the end of the matter.

Or is it only the beginning?

When the CIA targets a country for regime change, I wouldn’t bet the farm on the targeted government surviving. And while this isn’t quite Allende’s Chile, America’s increasing resemblance to a banana republic is augured in the CIA’s refusal to appear at a congressional oversight committee to explain leaks in the press charging that Russian intelligence actively worked to elect Trump. So who’s in charge here – the CIA or the people’s elected representatives?

The White House has joined the fray, implying that the PEOTUS is directly colluding with Moscow. White House spokesman Josh Earnest stated that Trump was “obviously” aware, “based on whatever sources were available to him,” that the Russians were behind the alleged hacking of the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta. Because, you see, Trump has a direct line to the Kremlin: after all, how else could the Russians issue their marching orders?

It’s unlikely, albeit possible, that this brouhaha is going to prevent Trump from taking office: the “Hamilton electors” campaign doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, in spite of the best efforts of  Christine Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s daughter – gee, how did she become an elector, I wonder?

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Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Why They Hate Rex Tillerson

While the Democrats morph into a neoconservative party of paranoiacs whose main issue is hating on Russia, and the John McCain-Lindsey Graham duo arises to make its last stand in a Trumpified GOP, Rex Tillerson is the perfect target of their ire. Seeking to delegitimize the President-elect as a Russian-controlled Manchurian candidate, the CIA-Clinton-Saudi axis of “resistance” is on the warpath, and Tillerson’s alleged ties to Vladimir Putin are taking center stage in what is bound to turn into a knock-down drag-out fight on the Senate floor.

What’s noteworthy about this gathering storm is that Trump seems to welcome it: despite the rising tide of cold war hysteria, the Trump team is determined to have this fight right out of the starting gate. Instead of waiting for the inevitable assault, they’re going on the offensive against  the War Party  – and that is a welcome development for those of us who support détente with Russia.

President-elect Donald Trump’s choice for Secretary of State is the CEO of Exxon, a company that has always opposed the American empire’s favorite ploy short of war: economic sanctions. Exxon is one of the principal supporters of USA Engage, a business lobby that has for years argued against Iranian and Iraqi sanctions, and that believes in “positively engaging other societies through diplomacy, multilateral cooperation, the presence of American organizations,” and that “the best practices of American companies and humanitarian exchanges better advances U.S. objectives than punitive unilateral economic sanctions.”

Contrary to the brainless leftist narrative that characterizes Big Oil as the driving force behind the War Party – remember “No Blood for Oil!”? – the reality is that the oil industry, including Exxon, opposed the Iraq war, just as they opposed the economic sanctions that preceded it. Iran sanctions are equally unpopular with the oil industry, and, as a New Yorker profile of Tillerson put it: “In general, Tillerson and ExxonMobil have argued against economic sanctions as an instrument of American foreign policy.”

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Monday, December 12, 2016

Stop the CIA Coup

The CIA is up to its old tricks: overthrowing a democratically elected government. Only this time it’s our government.

As they are now legally allowed to do ever since the law against covert CIA propaganda in the United States was repealed, the Agency has leaked to the Washington Post reports – via anonymous third parties – of its alleged assessment of a Russian campaign to hand Donald Trump the White House:

“The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.

“Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to US officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.

“’It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,’ said a senior US official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to US senators. “That’s the consensus view.”

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Thursday, December 8, 2016

Trump's Meeting With Kissinger; Internationalism and American Foreign Policy

On Tuesday, president-elect Donald Trump — who campaigned on an anti-establishment platform — sat down with the quintessential establishment insider, Henry Kissinger (shown). The meeting is cause for concern. Kissinger is well-known as a self-avowed globalist. He is also a long-time member of the Council of Foreign Relations and has been involved in the Trilateral Commission — both of which are pro-globalist organizations. Both as secretary of state and since, his foreign policy has always favored his internationalist bent. He is also a regular attendee of the highly secretive — and entirely globalist — annual Bilderberger Conference.

Kissinger favors everything Trump campaigned against (and against everything Trump campaigned for). For instance, Trump has promised to stop the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and negotiate trade deals which favor American interests. TPP is the poisoned fruit that hangs from the branches of the poisoned tree of previous trade agreements, such as NAFTA. Kissinger famously said that NAFTA “represent[s] the most creative step toward a new world order taken by any group of countries since the end of the Cold War” and that it “is not a conventional trade agreement, but the architecture of a new international system.” Telegraphing the plans of the insiders to use NAFTA as a launching pad for bigger and broader agreements, such as TPP, Kissinger said at the time of the passage of NAFTA that it was the “first step toward an even larger vision of a free-trade zone for the entire western hemisphere.” Stopping TPP is necessary, but it is not enough. NAFTA must be dismantled, and the ground from which it sprang must be plowed under so that no root of that poisoned tree remains to spring up again later. That ground is internationalism, and Henry Kissinger is one of its chief gardeners.

Tuesday’s meeting between Trump and Kissinger is not the first between the two. In fact, it is at least the third such meeting since Trump began his bid for the White House. The two met in May, before Trump had even secured the GOP nomination. That meeting — requested by Trump — was held at Kissinger’s home and lasted about an hour. In that meeting, Trump appeared to be courting Kissinger’s approval or at least attempting to appear well-connected by being seen meeting with the granddaddy of foreign policy. The week before that, Trump met with another well-connected insider and former secretary of state, James Baker.

The week after winning the election, Trump again sat down with Kissinger. This time, the meeting was on Trump’s home court — Trump Tower. ABC News reported that Trump said he has “tremendous respect for Dr. Kissinger and appreciates him sharing his thoughts with me." In a statement after the meeting, the presidential transition team said, "President-elect Trump and Dr. Kissinger have known each other for years and had a great meeting. They discussed China, Russia, Iran, the EU and other events and issues around the world."

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Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Chosen Leaders, Proven Failures and Political Debacles

With a few notable exceptions, political leaders are chosen by political leaders, and not by electorates or community-based organizations or popular assemblies.  Popular media figures and the so-called ‘pundits’, including academics and self-declared experts and ‘think-tank’ analysts reinforce and propagate these choices.

A collection of terms and pseudo concepts are essential in validating what is really an oligarchical process.  These concepts are tagged onto whoever is chosen by the elite for electoral candidates or for the seizure of political power.  With this framework in mind, we have to critically analyze the symbols and signs used by popular opinion-makers as they promote political elites.  We will conclude by posing an alternative to the ‘propaganda of choice’, which has so far resulted in broken pre-election promises and political debacles.

Language and Pseudo-Concepts:  Subterfuges for Manipulated Choices

The usual suspects in the business of mass-manipulation describe their political leaders in the same folksy or pseudo-serious terms that they attribute to themselves:  Experts/ intuitive improvisers/ trial and error ‘muddlers’.  The ‘experts’ often mean wrong-headed policymakers and advisers whose decisions usually reflect the demands of their current paymasters.  Their stated or unstated assumptions are rarely questioned and almost never placed in the context of the contemporary power structures.  The experts determine the future trajectory for their political choices.  In this way, the views expressed by ‘experts’ are primarily ideological and not some disembodied scholarly entity floating in an indeterminate space and time.

Pundits often promote ‘experience’ in describing the ‘experienced’ leader, adviser or cabinet member. They denigrate the opposition candidate adversary as ‘lacking experience’.  The obvious questions to this platitude should be: ‘What kind of experience?  What were the political results of this experience?  Who did this experience serve?

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Friday, December 2, 2016

Fake News and War Party Lies

"I have in my possession a secret map, made in Germany by Hitler’s government – by the planners of the New World Order," FDR told the nation in his Navy Day radio address of Oct. 27, 1941.

"It is a map of South America as Hitler proposes to reorganize it. The geographical experts of Berlin, however, have ruthlessly obliterated all the existing boundary lines … bringing the whole continent under their domination," said Roosevelt. "This map makes clear the Nazi design not only against South America but against the United States as well."

Our leader had another terrifying secret document, "made in Germany by Hitler’s government. …

"It is a plan to abolish all existing religions – Protestant, Catholic, Mohammedan, Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish alike. … In the place of the churches of our civilization, there is to be set up an international Nazi Church…

"In the place of the Bible, the words of ‘Mein Kampf’ will be imposed and enforced as Holy Writ. And in place of the cross of Christ will be put two symbols – the swastika and the naked sword. … A god of blood and iron will take the place of the God of love and mercy."

The source of these astounding secret Nazi plans?

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Thursday, December 1, 2016