Depending on what criteria one uses, there are between 200 and 600 groups in the United States that wholly or in part are dedicated to furthering the interests of Israel. The organizations are both Jewish, like the Zionist Organization of America, and Christian Zionist to include John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel, but the funding of the Israel Lobby and both its political and media access comes overwhelmingly from Jewish supporters and advocates.
Many of the groups are registered with the Internal Revenue Service for tax purposes as 501(c)3 “educational” or “charitable” foundations, which enables them to solicit tax exempt donations. One might dispute whether promoting Israeli interests in the United States is actually educational, but as of right now the Department of the Treasury believes it can be so construed, protected by the First Amendment.
But there is a more serious consideration in terms of the actual relationships that many of the groups enjoy with the Israeli government. To be sure, many of them boast on their promotional literature and websites about their relationships with the Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet, so the issue of dual loyalty or, worse, acting as actual Israeli government agents must be considered.
There is a legal remedy to hostile foreigners acting against American interests and that is the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA). Originally intended to identify and monitor agents of Nazi Germany propagandizing in the United States, it has since been applied to individuals and groups linked to other nations. Most recently, it was used against Russian news agencies RT America and Sputnik, which were forced to register. It is also being considered for Qatar based al-Jazeera.
FARA requires identified agents to be transparent in terms of their funding and contacts while also being publicly identified as representing the interests of a foreign nation. They must report to the Department of Justice every contact they have with congressmen or other government officials. The text of the Act defines a foreign agent as
“any person who acts as an agent, representative, employee, or servant, or any person who acts in any other capacity at the order, request, or under the direction or control, of a foreign principal or of a person any of whose activities are directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed, or subsidized in whole or in major part by a foreign principal, and who directly or through any other person— (i) engages within the United States in political activities for or in the interests of such foreign principal; (ii) acts within the United States as a public relations counsel, publicity agent, information-service employee or political consultant for or in the interests of such foreign principal; (iii) within the United States solicits, collects, disburses, or dispenses contributions, loans, money, or other things of value for or in the interest of such foreign principal; or (iv) within the United States represents the interests of such foreign principal before any agency or official of the Government of the United States.”
In spite of language that would presumably cover many of the hundreds of Jewish organizations acting for Israel, FARA has never been used to compel registration of any such groups or individuals even when it was public knowledge that they were working closely with the Israeli government to coordinate positions and promote other Israeli interests. That failure is at a minimum a tribute to Jewish power in the United States, but it is also due to the fact that the organizations are funded from within the United States by wealthy American Jews, not by Israel, which is the argument sometimes inaccurately made by the groups themselves to demonstrate that they are not being directed by the Israeli government.
The difficulty in proving that one is directed by a foreign government has been definitively resolved regarding one group the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), which has become the leading neoconservative bastion seeking a war with Iran, Israel’s bête noir. The recent al-Jazeera expose on the activities of the Israeli lobbies in both Britain and the United States, which I wrote about last week, included a surreptitiously filmed conversation with Sima Vaknin-Gil, a former Israeli intelligence officer who now heads the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, which is tasked with countering what is perceived to be anti-Israeli activity worldwide. The Ministry is particularly focused on the non-violent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), which is increasingly active in both the United States and Europe.
Vaknin-Gil was discussing his activities with Tony Kleinfeld, an undercover investigative reporter who was secretly recording and filming his encounters with various members of the Israel Lobby as well as of the Israeli government. Vaknin-Gil provided explicit confirmation that the FDD works directly with the Israeli government, making it an Israeli agent by the definition of FARA.
For those who are unfamiliar with FDD, it is probably currently the most prominent neocon organization though it nevertheless claims to be a non-partisan “research group.” It focuses on foreign policy and security issues by “Fighting Terrorism and Promoting Freedom,” as it informs us on its website masthead. It works to “defend free nations against their enemies,” which frequently means in practice anyone whom Israel considers to be hostile, most particularly Iran. FDD’s Leadership Council has featured former CIA Director James Woolsey, Senator Joe Lieberman, and Bill Kristol. Its Executive Director is Canadian import Mark Dubowitz, who is obsessed with Iran. Its advisors and experts are mostly Jewish and most of its funding comes from Jewish oligarchs.
FDD’s auditorium has become a preferred venue for senior officials of the Trump Administration to go and make hardline speeches, just as the American Enterprise Institute was under George W. Bush. Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Nikki Haley have all spoken there recently, frequently focusing on Iran and the threat that it allegedly constitutes.
FDD aside, Vaknin-Gil also confirmed that there were other groups in the United States doing the same sorts of things on behalf of Israel. He said “We have FDD. We have others working on this,” elaborating that FDD is “working on” projects for Israel including “data gathering, information analysis, working on activist organizations, money trail.”
So Vaknin-Gil was admitting that FDD and others were working as Israeli proxies, collecting information on U.S. citizens, spying on legal organizations, and both planning and executing disinformation at Israeli direction. Kleinfeld also spoke with a Jonathan Schanzer, a senior official in FDD, who filled in a bit more of what the foundation is up to in terms of discrediting groups in the U.S. that support the BDS movement.
Schanzer admitted “BDS has taken everybody by surprise” before complaining that the Jewish response has been “a complete mess. I don’t think that anybody’s doing a good job. We’re not even doing a good job.” He then complained that attempts to discredit Palestinian groups by linking them to terrorist groups had failed, as also had the use of the label anti-Semitism. “Personally I think anti-Semitism as a smear is not what it used to be.”
So, when will the Justice Department move on FDD now that its true colors have been exposed by al-Jazeera? The group must be required to register if justice be done, but will it? Its principal partner in crime the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has avoided registering for more than sixty years by claiming that it is an American organization working to educate the U.S. public about the all the good things connected to Israel. Even though it meets regularly with Israeli government officials, it claims not to be representing Israeli interests. But just as in the case of FDD, it is time to require AIPAC to register as what it really is: a foreign agent. As a registered agent, it will still be able to exercise First Amendment rights to defend Israel but it would not be able to be involved in lobbying on Capitol Hill and directing money to politicians who are described as pro-Israeli, as it does now. Its finances will be transparent and it will be perceived as an official advocate for Israel, not as an educational resource for what is happening in the Middle East. Hopefully, when AIPAC stops throwing money around, the politicians and media types will find another place to roost.
To be sure the lovefest for Israel in government extends far beyond FDD and AIPAC. It can be found in many dark corners. National Security Advisor John Bolton recently received the “Defender of Israel” award from the Zionist Organization of America. And one might suggest that the U.S. United Nations delegation, headed by Ambassador Nikki Haley, is directed by the Israeli government, particularly given events of last Friday whereby the U.S. voted against a motion condemning Israel’s continued illegal occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, thereby recognizing for the first time Israel’s sovereignty over the area. Whether Haley was speaking for herself or for the administration was characteristically unclear, but it hardly matters. Nikki Haley might be referred to as a useful idiot, as Lenin put it, but her consistent pattern of extreme loyalty in defense of Israel marks her out as being particularly beholden to the Jewish state, which will no doubt arrange to richly reward her through some position in financial services for which she is totally unqualified when she leaves her post in January. And then she will be well funded to run for president in 2020. Having Haley in charge, one might just as well vote for Benjamin Netanyahu.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
So-called Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces (FIDF) hold annual gala fundraisers for its killing machine in US cities nationwide – a way to extort money from naive and supportive donors.
Guests include high-ranking Israeli military and government officials. Well-known Americans attend.
Event raise millions of dollars annually for Israeli militarism, belligerence, and cold-blooded murder.
It’s shocking that anyone would contribute to what demands condemnation – donors complicit with Israeli crimes of war, against humanity, and other forms of apartheid ruthlessness.
The FIDF Los Angeles chapter says it aims “to raise money for the young men and women soldiers of the IDF and to create a community that cares for and supports Israel and its soldiers” – mindless of the pain and suffering they inflict on defenseless Palestinians and other victims of their high crimes.
On November 4 at the Beverly Hilton, the FIDF said it raised a record $60 million at its annual star-studded gala, attracting 1,200 attendees, including actor Andy Garcia and other celebrities.
Billionaires Haim Saban and Sheldon Adelson were the largest donors – each giving $10 million to Israel’s killing machine.
Saban said “(w)e are thrilled that so many members of our community, including major Hollywood figures, are coming together to help us support the brave (IDF) men and women…Standing behind these heroes is one of the greatest honors in my life.”
There’s nothing heroic about occupation harshness, Gaza’s suffocating blockade, IDF snipers murdering peaceful Palestinians in cold blood, naked aggression at Israel’s discretion, terror-bombing Syria, aiding ISIS and likeminded jihadists, along with other forms of apartheid ruthlessness.
Israeli General (Res.) Meir Klifi-Amir serves as FIDF national director and CEO, a position he assumed in September 2014.
In 33 years of active duty, he was directly involved in enforcing occupation harshness, including as military secretary to prime ministers Ehud Olmert and Netanyahu – also as their special security advisor and partner in national security decisions.
He was involved in Israel’s 2006 premeditated Lebanon war, along with naked aggression on Gaza.
He and other IDF commanders have much to answer for. So do FIDF supporters for contributing funds for Israeli mass slaughter and destruction.
During 2012 Israeli Pillar of Cloud naked aggression in Gaza, FIDF said the following:
Its members “worked around the clock to ensure the IDF’s hardworking soldiers were taken care of.”
“Whether it was by sending packages of snacks and much-needed clothing or by sending a ‘Break from the Battlefield’ package including an LCD TV screen and board games, soldiers were able to uphold hygiene and were kept entertained in their few moments off from the battlefield and during the difficult task of keeping Israel safe under fire.”
Callous support for IDF premeditated mass slaughter and destruction demands the harshest condemnation – not funding to aid its naked aggression.
Hollywood celebrities raised a record breaking $60 million for the Israeli military at the Friends of the Israel Defence Forces (FIDF) annual gala last week.
This year’s sold-out Western Region event at the Beverly Hilton Hotel welcomed more than 1,200 supporters of Israel, including prominent actors and singers like Ashton Kutcher, Pharrell Williams, Gerard Butler, and Katharine McPhee.
“We are thrilled that so many members of our community, including major Hollywood figures, are coming together to help us support the brave men and women of the [Israeli army].” said FIDF National Board Member and Chairman of the event, Haim Saban. “Standing behind these heroes is one of my greatest honours in my life.”
The event featured a programme that told the 70-year history of Israel through the accounts of soldiers and the military’s various campaigns against the Palestinians.
It also included several contributions from former and current Israeli soldiers.
Last year, FIDF raised $53.8 million at the same event; contributions have been increasing annually for the past three years. In 2015 the gala raised $31 million, half of this year’s total.
According to a press release by the organisation, the funds raised will be used to “provide much-needed and well-deserved services such as academic scholarships to combat veterans, financial assistance for soldiers in need … crucial aid for wounded veterans and the families of fallen soldiers, weeks of rest and recuperation for entire IDF units, as well as educational, cultural, and recreational facilities.”
Last month, the FIDF’s New York event raised $32 million for members of Israel’s occupation forces, attended by many of the city’s most prominent business people and philanthropists.
Among the biggest donors to the gala were Or Lachayal – an organisation which works to “strengthen the Jewish identity of the Israeli army” – which pledged $2.5 million and Nefesh B’Nefesh – which promotes Jewish immigration to Israel – which pledged $1.3 million.
FIDF has a long history of fundraising for Israel’s occupation forces; it operates 20 offices across the United States and Panama, according to its own website.
Support for the army from US organisations and the US government has been a cornerstone of Israel’s ability to continue its ongoing occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In October, the largest ever US military aid package to Israel – worth $38 billion over a ten year period – entered into force.
Media headlines have been dominated for the last two days by the news that pipe bombs are being sent to Democratic Party elites and their allies, a list of whom as of this writing consists of Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack and Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, George Soros, Maxine Waters, Eric Holder, Robert De Niro, and the CNN office (addressed to former CIA Director John Brennan who actually works for NBC). As of this writing nobody has been killed or injured in any way by any of these many explosive devices, and there is as of this writing no publicly available evidence that they were designed to. As of this writing there is no evidence that the devices were intended to do anything other than what they have done: stir up fear and grab headlines.
And of course it is a good thing that nobody has been hurt by these devices. Obviously targeting anyone with packages containing explosive materials is terrible, even if those devices were not rigged with the intention of detonating and harming anyone, and it is a good thing that not a single one of them has done so. It is a good thing that none of America’s political elites were targeted by the sort of explosive device that America drops on people in other countries every single day. You know, the kind that actually explode.
It is good that Barack Obama was never sent anything resembling the 26,171 bombs that his administration dropped in the final year of his presidency, for example. It is good that neither the first US president to serve every minute of his administration under wartime, nor those who served as part of that administration like Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton, were targeted with the kinds of weapons which were deployed against impoverished people in other nations every single day for all eight years. People would have been killed and badly injured if anyone had been sent anything like those kinds of explosive devices, their bodies ripped to shreds like the countless civilians killed in the airstrikes which resulted from the Obama administration’s expansion of Bush’s so-called “war on terror”.
President Trump, whose administration has been dropping even more bombs than its predecessor after expanding the use of drone strikes and peeling back regulations on air strikes designed to protect civilians, was quick to condemn the headline-grabbing pipe bomb campaign which did not hurt anyone whatsoever.
“A major federal investigation is now underway,” said the president who continues to assist Saudi Arabia in murdering untold tens of thousands of civilians in Yemen. “The full weight of our government is being deployed to conduct this investigation and bring those responsible for these despicable acts to justice.”
Right now the only political debate happening over these bomb scares is who is responsible for them. I am being told by everyone to the left of Ted Cruz that I am required to believe that this was with 100 percent certainty a terrorist plot orchestrated by a Trump supporter due to the president’s hateful rhetoric against the people who’ve been targeted, and if I don’t subscribe to that belief it means I’m a Nazi. Meanwhile Trump supporters are telling me this is a deep state false flag designed to get Democrats elected in the midterms, because <sarcasm> Republicans are totally not in bed with the alliance of plutocrats and government agencies known as the deep state.</sarcasm>
But the fact of the matter is that next to nothing is known about this case; as of this writing there isn’t even a suspect yet. The proper thing to do when the mass media is telling us with a unified voice to be afraid of something is to remain agnostic and very, very skeptical of everything we are being told. There are any number of possible explanations for this spate of impotent pipe bombs, many of which don’t involve a partisan explanation at all. Without endorsing any particular one, there are for example a few sociopathic government agencies in the US which would love nothing more than to manufacture support for more intrusive domestic “counter-terrorism” powers.
But partisan explanations are possible as well; maybe there really is a Trump supporter out there who either (A) wanted to scare Democratic elites without hurting them and didn’t realize doing so would only generate sympathy and unify Democrats right before midterms, or (B) is really, really consistent in being really, really bad at making pipe bombs. Who knows. The important thing is to remain agnostic and skeptical.
Meanwhile, while we wait for copious amounts of facts and evidence before forming a solid opinion one way or the other, how about a little interest in the people who are being targeted with actual bombs that actually explode by the empire these Democratic elites serve? That, in my opinion, is one debate we should all always be having.
Serena Shim (R.A.) was a heroine. Not only in her field but in general. She laid her life on the line for the highest honor anyone could pursue: The truth. As a journalist for Press TV, she exposed Turkey’s premier intelligence agency, MIT, using UN WFP “humanitarian aid” trucks as cover to deliver heavy weaponry to ISIS, Al-Qaeda and other Takfiri terrorist groups in Syria. For her efforts, she was threatened, targeted and killed in a “mysterious” car accident that is such an obvious assassination coupled with a subsequent cover-up, it could’ve been a plot to one of those terrible low-budget spy movies from the 80s that Zionist Hollywood was pumping out every other week.
The culprits, undoubtedly, are Turkey and ‘Israel’–the neo-Ottoman regime in Ankara’s overlord and central partner in keeping the Syrian state destabilized. Verily, the usurping Zionist entity needed the weapons supply line from Turkey to Syria’s north to remain open and unbothered. Not just for arms but oil. Thus, Serena Shim was jeopardizing the entire ‘Israeli’-led regime change scheme. Yet, with her 4th martyrdom anniversary upon us on October 19th, how many American mainstream media outlets are covering the Lebanese-American daughter of Detroit’s murder, asking questions, highlighting her accomplishments, saluting her bravery and demanding justice?
NONE. ZILCH. NOT A ONE.
Meanwhile, how many American media outlets are, depending on the tone of the article, all up in arms or waxing lyrical (or both) about how much they love Jamal Khashoggi as well as how upset they are at his grizzly killing at the hands of a Saudi hit team and the laughable story concocted–a fight broke out and Khashoggi got murked outta the frame by accident, Al-Saud says–to bury what really took place?
ALL OF THEM. EVERY. SINGLE. LAST. ONE OF THEM.
If you needed an indictment of how the corporate press works in America, you won’t be able to find a more damning one. The lifelong Saudi regime apologist, Takfiri stenographer, Ikhwanji stalwart and US-UK-Zionist intelligence asset is praised and celebrated, mourned and cried about. The young Shi’a Muslim reporter who challenged the status quo and shined an all-beaming light on the criminality of an ‘Israeli’-aligned NATO regime which is arming terrorists that desecrate shrines, dig up bodies, burn churches, execute suicide bombings against civilians and enslave children is ignored–not partially but totally.
Which is why it is imperative to remember her. And her sacrifice. And her heroism. And her steadfastness under tremendous pressure–never wavering as she got down into the grime, the guck and the muck to dig out the truth no matter what rested deep within such immense filth; no matter the danger it put her very person in. And we should bow our heads in respect to everyone like her too.
… Robert Friedman, the gallant Jewish-American investigative reporter who took the veil off the Jewishness of the “Russian” mafia (aka Red Mafiya aka Organizatsiya) and also exposed the JDL-ADL-Mossad nexus in two groundbreaking books. He was murdered by the “chosenite” mobsters he unmasked; Khaled al-Khatib (R.A.), a Syrian RT journo murdered by ISIS in Homs; and too many Palestinian journalists to name here, dauntless souls who are routinely targeted by the Zionist enemy for exposing the evil of the ongoing Nakba that has raged since ‘Israel’ criminally came into existence. Ahmed Abou Hussein (R.A.) and Yasser Murtaja (R.A.) were slaughtered by the usurping Jewish entity this year alone. Dozens of others have been wounded, maimed and arrested. We salute them all in humbleness.
And in turn, through her tremendous reporting, she has changed the lives of us all–especially those in Syria–because she decided to report the truth amid the worst fog of lies that modern warfare has ever seen. During her funeral, thousands on top of thousands poured into the streets to greet the Shahida, chanting, “The hero’s here! The hero’s here! The hero’s here!” She still is too. Right here with us. The Martyrs are alive. Guiding us and inspiring us. As for Jamal Khashoggi and all the Zionist, Imperialist and Wahhabi miscreants shrieking about him across the Shlomo-controlled establishment press? They weren’t, aren’t and will never be good enough to even clean the dirt off the bottom of her shoes. Zio-MSM may continue to ignore Serena Shim (R.A.) four years on since her martyrdom. But Moustazafeen the world over recognize her unequivocal valor and will not be deterred from lionizing her forever. Rest deeply o’ truth-teller; o’ tyrant-breaker; o’ heroine. Rest in power and pristineness.
This was hell week in New York City. Traffic was paralyzed from one end of the narrow island to the other as bigwigs and their entourages flocked to the city for the fall opening of the United Nations.
Making matters worse, President Donald Trump chose the occasion to lambaste nations he does not like in a crude display of boorishness not seen since Soviet boss Nikita Khrushchev banged his shoe on his desk at the General Assembly back in 1960.
Trump reserved special venom for his pet bêtes noirs, Iran and China. His jeremiad against Iran was reportedly written by senior aide Stephen Miller, a rabidly anti-Muslim extremist who speaks with the voice of Israel’s expansionist far right.
Trump reiterated his doctrine of American ultra-nationalism. Political and economic nationalism are his credo. The president claimed he had indeed made America great again, whatever that means.
The president’s speech was greeted by derisive laughter from the General Assembly, a first in UN history.
I was reminded of Dr. Samuel Johnson’s famous bon mot, ‘patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.’ Indeed it is.
And of the words of the late British professor, A.P. Thornton: ‘Patriotism is the first platform of fools.’
Patriotism is poison. Dictators, despots, lunatics – and too many democratic politicians – use it to inflame popular passions to enhance their power. There is nothing wrong with loving and respecting one’s homeland. Canadians offer a fine example of quiet national pride without obnoxious flag-waving and bullying.
But everything is wrong with unleashing toxic nationalist emotions to promote empire-building or eradicating whole peoples. Look at the current horrors in Burma and the recent mass crimes in Bosnia.
As a former soldier and war correspondent, I cringe when I see all the faux patriotism of sports events, chants of ‘USA, ‘USA,’ and pro-war propaganda on TV. Having walked many of the battlefields of World War I, on which millions died, I detest the kind of patriotic cant that ended the civilized glories of pre-war, 19th Century Europe. The idiotic cries in 1914 of ‘on to Berlin’ and ‘on to Paris’ haunt us. Their modern version was ‘Get Saddam’ and ‘bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.’
Trump, who sees himself as more an emperor than democratic president, continues to press for war with Iran, egged on by the cabal of pro-Israel advisors that surround him. Billionaire gambling king Sheldon Adelson pulls the strings from just backstage.
Now, in a new eruption of paranoia, President Trump just claimed that China was trying to rig this fall’s elections. How? By placing tariffs on US agricultural exports to China to punish Trump’s many supporters in the farm belt.
Add Trump’s economic war against Turkey which had locked up an American evangelical pastor accused of involvement in the attempted 2016 coup against the elected government. This contrived furor was clearly aimed at pleasing Trump’s core evangelical supporters. No matter that America was spitting in the face of old ally Turkey whose soldiers had saved many American GI’s during the 1950-53 Korean War and allows the US to keep nuclear weapons at its Incirlik air base.
Unfortunately, many Americans who have never known war at home since 1865 are all too eager to follow a path to war provided it’s far away and a turkey shoot. But now, having bombed all the usual Muslims and ravaged the Mideast, our national security state has to face the ominous reality that the US may have to confront real, big-time enemies, Russia and China. This clearly invokes the nightmare threat of a nuclear confrontation.
President Trump, who thundered at North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, ‘my nuclear button is bigger than yours,’ is not the best pilot to guide his nation through dangerous waters. While Trump has some solid advisors – generals Mattis and Kelly – he is also surrounded by a coterie of political fanatics, many plucked from the political gutter. Trump’s unnecessary trade wars and embargoes could easily lead to shooting wars.
We don’t need nationalism, we need wise, cautious leadership.
Eric S. Margolis is an award-winning, internationally syndicated columnist. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune the Los Angeles Times, Times of London, the Gulf Times, the Khaleej Times, Nation – Pakistan, Hurriyet, – Turkey, Sun Times Malaysia and other news sites in Asia. ericmargolis.com
21ST CENTURY HOAX PRESENTS A CINEMATIC ACHIEVEMENT OF THE FIRST MAGNITUDE A FILM PRODUCED BY ACCLAIMED SCHLOCKMEISTER GEORGE LOONEY IN ASSOCIATION WITH HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE AND THE CENTRAL SPOOKS OF MCLEAN, VIRGINIA THEDIRECTION GENERAL DE LA SECURITE INFERIEURE MOSSAD KHAZARIAN-SCHMALTZ PRODUCTIONS AND MIT
STARRING: Amal Looney as “Kitten”, Usama Al-‘Absi Al-Waahidi as “The Mixer”, Muhammad ‘Alloosh as “King Rat”, Avigdor Liebermann as “Uncle Judas” and Benjamin Mileikowski as “Benjamin Netanyahu”, Theresa May as “Slag Booty”, Angela Merkel as “Die Schlampe”. DIRECTOR: James Le Mesurier, SCREENPLAY: Bandar bin Sultan MUSIC: Alfred E. Newman conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra LYRICS: Al-Jazeera TV, EDITING: MSM Productions and Chris Wallace PRODUCER: George Looney ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Robert Ford, SPECIAL EFFECTS: Industrial Blight and Magic, CINEMATOGRAPHY: Igor Abdo of the BBC, FILMED ON LOCATION IN: Shepperton Studios, Warner Brothers in Burbank, CA, the British RAF Base in Akrotiri and Jisr Al-Shughoor, Syria, MAKE-UP: Danny the Syrian SOUND: A cast of a thousand children crying after being sprayed pitilessly with garden hoses
THE CRITICS ARE RAVING!!:
“I’ve never seen anything like it. The dead children are really dead or they are the best actors I’ve ever seen. Each frame seems it was directed from a real script. But, one of the kids got up and started playing. I just don’t get it.” Roger Filbert, Chicago Sun Times
“The cameo scenes are worth the money. Anderson Cooper’s appearance was uplifting. Using John McCain’s cadaver was a brilliant master stroke.” Vincent Bambi, Los Angeles Times
“Those White Helmets are real show-stoppers. I thought the scene where they practiced a rescue five times was really precious. The make-up was fantastic. The laughter was infectious. The hosing down of the children with chlorine was especially poignant.” Pauline Snail, The New Yorker
“You gotta hand it to George Looney. When it comes to intricate deception, special effects and outright lying, nobody can match his talent.” Frank Ditch, Newsweek
THIS MOVIE IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF SHOKO ASAHARA OF AUM SHINRIKYO
AND IT’S COMING TO A TELEVISION SET NEAR YOU!!
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NEWS AND COMMENT:
Brandon’s truly profound study of the psyops methodologies in the war on Syria. A must-read:
IDLIB: 3 containers of Sarin Gas killed an undisclosed number of White Helmets who were transporting them in order to give them to ISIS or Nusra terrorists near the Aleppo Provincial border.
Also, Sputnik reports that Nusra has given to ISIS and Ansaar Al-Tawheed 6 containers of Sarin Gas. This report is accurate and my source says the Sarin gas was manufactured in Turkey.
Zionists have always been controlling the politics of European strongholds through both, economy and terror. Where the first fails to twist arms, the second ensures success. They are, by far, the masters of this pair of dark practices.
The manipulation of key economic factors in a country can bring it to its knees; depending on how they (the Zionists) assault the system, they can have the general population indulge in bloody revolutions or become so preoccupied with making ends meet that citizens ignore politics and the wrongdoings of their government – bread is more precious than gold when your children cry of hunger.
When the government is the target, the highest official is assaulted in such a grotesque fashion that he ends up serving as an example to any other leader who dares contemplate, even remotely, challenging the will of Zionists.
The royal children of Tsar Nicholas II were shot and stabbed to death before mutilating their bodies when it would have been enough to just hang him alone. This was a strong and clear message to all the other royals who weren’t under the control of the Rothschilds, telling them that safeguarding their children and dynasty meant adhering to the politics of the deep “state of Zion”.
Zionists are ruthless. There is no known ethical philosophy that they follow. As individuals, they are born into different religions but are sworn to uphold the best interest of their organization – in their doctrine, religious teachings may and shall not restrict murder where deemed necessary to further the cause of global domination. Murder has been deemed necessary by them for centuries and in some instances, murder was on a mass scale. World War II is an example of that. 50 to 80 million humans perished directly and indirectly during that war. The reader can answer the question of how do we know it was the Zionists who orchestrated that war by researching which banks and mega-financial establishments had funded it and which excessively rich European royalty lent money to the Third Reich. A good starting point of the research would be looking into the historical financial ledgers of the United States’ Federal Reserve bank; the amount of transactions in favor of Nazi Germany is stunning. There is, however, a debate among historians as to which financial institution had funded Adolf Hitler more, some say The Bank of England was the bigger investor in the Third Reich’s agenda.
Contrary to the general belief that the most powerful mafia in the US is the Italian one, the real mafia muscle is the Jewish one. The film industry in Hollywood, being yet another powerful device of Zionism, brainwashed people into thinking that the Italians made up the mafia with movies like The God Father and shows like the Sopranos introducing iconic Italian mafia figures to the world.
The Jewish mafia is the one and only superpower within the United States. It is a multi-billion dollar operation that yields trillions for the Zionist movement. It is what President Kennedy was scheming to bring down. The fathers of the American mafia, the likes of Meyer Lansky and Gurrah Shapiro were not Sicilian; they were Jewish born Zionists who employed men with Italian names to be a front for their crimes so as to divert attention from them. They were the predecessors of those who killed JFK and ran the government by means of, again, economy and terror. They threatened those they could not bribe. Bankers, CEOs, Pentagon officials, judges, police chiefs, and even presidents are among the people under the Jewish mafia umbrella.
So, who is the father of Zionism? It is thought to be Theodor Herzl. They would like for the world to think so. They chose a well versed, highly educated, and charismatic young man to bring the centuries-old terrorist movement to light. Very few know that his speeches were inspired by the words of his masters during his preparation and that one of them was actually present in the first congress held in Basle in the year 1897 to give him the necessary confidence. His masters were the Rothschilds.
The father of Zionism has always been a Rothschild; at least during the past two centuries. They own the Jewish mafia and the thrones of many kings and queens. They own the generals of the armies of many countries. They own the secret societies that recruit future Zionist leaders. They own a Christian sect of over 300 million worshippers being programmed to bring down the Vatican from within.
They have systematically hijacked the message of Moses, battled the message of Jesus, and defamed the message of Mohamed. They used the star of David on warplanes that kill children, they spread slanderous stories about Mary of Nazareth, and they picture Islam to look like the opposite of what it really is.
Theodor Herzl was nothing but a spokesman for the Rothschilds. He was a higher-level member of their terrorist secret society on whose shoulders fell the responsibility of unifying and mobilizing their European lodges (the choice of the word LODGE was chosen very carefully here.)
Theodor Herzl spoke a lot and he meant what he said. He prophesized events that had been planned for at least two decades before the first World Zionist Congress took place in 1897. That very first congress was where the declaration of the rollout of their plan was made. They wanted a country of their own so as to, finally, operate under their own institutions. It was time for Zion to become a nation out in the open. Their movement had the chance to incubate within the Jewish society and so, most of the Zionists were Jews. It should be kept in mind though, as mentioned earlier, they don’t really believe in any religion. Should Moses and David come back to defy them, they would have them beheaded.
One should stop and think for a second. If those claiming Palestine to be the one true land of the Jews were so biblically set on it, why did they try to turn Uganda into their promised land? The truth is plain and simple. They occupied Palestine as a second and perhaps a third option. And, here comes the rarely spoken of revelation.
The Arab Jews, the ones who are originally Jewish in identity and belief were aware of the Zionist plans. As in any other religious group, they have the good and the bad. Some went ahead with the demonic plans in exchange for financial gains and promises of higher positions. Others remained true to their country and religion even though they had suffered for decades at the hands of the Ottomans. Those Jews comprehended the fact that if they allowed the Zionists to hijack the Jewish faith, that their religion would lose its authenticity. Those Jews were taken care of, one way or another.
Many of them were forced to flee the land of their ancestors. They traveled mostly to Europe and some to the United States. Those who stayed and resisted were killed without remorse. In their place, Zionist families began immigrating to Palestine under the pretense of making Aliyah. So as to give their gradual theft of Palestine some kind of credibility.
The Jews of Palestine were the victims of the Zionist terror just as much as the Muslims. It was all hinted in Herzl’s speeches. He said it clearly several times; namely that those Jews not going along with the Zionist plan will be made to do so. Just as he prophesized the Holocaust decades before it occurred. Herzl stressed the importance of such a catastrophic event so as to ensure and haste the plan of creating a Zionist country. He praised Anti-Semitism publicly and repeatedly because it was the catalyst for the creation of the terror nation that Zionists needed in order to formally house their gangs. They succeeded – the Mossad became the name of the union of their gangs.
It is obvious that, had the primary Zionist supporting superpower at the time not invaded Palestine, the Zionists would have created “Israel” in another geographical location. If Uganda was the first option, then any other spot on Earth would have been the second option. It just happened that Palestine was an easier bite to swallow. They would have misinterpreted the bible they hijacked again and perhaps even modified every copy to give them the false authenticity they needed to occupy the land they could put their hands on.
The ethnic cleansing of Jews in Europe and Palestine earlier in the previous century was done exclusively by Zionists. The ethnic cleansing of Palestinians now is also done exclusively by them. They are the terrorists of our planet.
The so-called state/entity of “Israel” is not the home of the Jews, it is the home of the Zionist global movement. Zionists are thugs. Human life is worth nothing to them. They feed on human misery.
In a world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to own a house and feed your family, they offer free houses and secured job opportunities to those who would agree to leave their countries on the expense of Palestinians. The lie has become so old that some Jews actually believe that Palestine is the “Promised Land”. They believe that Palestinian children are “goyim” and that killing one of them is equal to slaying a chicken for lunch.
For those readers who doubt that European Jews were actually killed by Zionists, they can look up the names of Oppenheimer and Warberg. For those who doubt that America was and still is run by the Zionist Jewish mob, dig into the history of George Bush the father who is a known Zionist and his mafia accomplices who, by the way, were the real assassins of President Kennedy. To centralize the research though, just read the transcripts of Herzl’s speeches.
Lenin, who gave the order to stab the royal children of the Russian Tsar and then shoot them right before cutting them to pieces, made his Bolshevik revolution declaration only five days after the Belfour one. Lenin had Jewish roots. A coincidence? The manner of the killing of the Romanov’s was done in a very similar way to the current killings done by ISIS who were created by Zionists. A bigger coincidence?
There is no defeating Zionism as a macro counter movement because it is what they have prepared themselves for. The wars of ‘48, ‘67, and ‘73 prove that. The only way to end their terror is by organizing micro resistance movements that rely on values unfathomable to Zionists and hence, values they cannot prepare against. Those values would become the essence of the defense strategy.
It is no secret that the Zionist organizational body comprises highly educated terrorists – they hold doctorate degrees in one thing or another from the most prestigious and exclusive universities. After all, terror includes, but is not limited to, physical violence. They have always studied others and have succeeded, to a great extent, in developing a system of intelligently guessing reactions. They have a whole science dedicated to forecasting human character patterns. This shows through their historical skill of reeling in target victims into situations where the outcome of the fight is ensured.
Hezbollah did to “Israel” what a coalition of huge armies failed to do on several occasions. The humble Lebanese resistance depended on being small in size and more importantly, depended on the kind of love that Zionist textbooks don’t teach and, hence, can’t possibly counter – the love of the grandson of the Prophet Mohamed. The grandson who knew that he would be martyred in his campaign against corruption and immorality but still pressed ahead. Imam Hussein understood that the future of humanity needed powerful examples of selfless sacrifice. The men of the Lebanese resistance recognize Imam Hussein’s victory over the earlier version of Zionism; they walked in his steps and turned the “Israeli” army’s infamous might into a joke.
Doubting Imam Hussein’s victory or arguing against it is a sign of Zionist mental conditioning. Imam Hussein’s legacy lives to our day and his message, written with his blood almost fourteen centuries ago, is still read and memorized by those fighting global Zionism. Victory is not living in shame; it is dying with pride in defense of righteousness: a concept keeping the successors of the masters of Herzl from global domination.
The martyrdom of Imam Hussein made him live in the hearts of hundreds of millions and with him, live the desire to stand up against all forms of injustice and terrorist organizations like Zionism.
This exclusive Grayzone investigative mini-doc by Dan Cohen exposes the cynical deceptions and faux humanitarianism behind the campaign to sell the dirty war on Syria. It will demonstrate the lengths that the US and its allies have gone to develop new ploys to tug at Western heartstrings and convince even liberal minded skeptics of war that a US intervention was necessary — even if it meant empowering Al Qaeda’s largest franchise since 9/11 and its theocratic allies among the insurgency. Big lies and little children have formed the heart of what is perhaps the most expensive, sophisticated, and shameless propaganda blitz ever conducted. Welcome to the Syria Deception.
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Paul Manafort’s guilty plea might bring down the Trump Administration. But it should also take down a more powerful and dangerous gang of crooks and extremists: the unregistered agents of the Israel lobby.
According to The Washington Post, the key admission in Manafort’s guilty plea is his acknowledgement that as the agent of a foreign government (Ukraine) he was required to register with the Justice Department.
“Seldom enforced until recently” is an understatement. The US government has been overrun by a swarm of lobbyists paid by Israel and its appendages, the “major Jewish organizations.” According to James Petras, there are roughly 500,000 foot soldiers of the Israel lobby in the USA. These fanatics can be relied on to unleash a torrent of angry calls and letters any time Israel’s interests are threatened. They are organized and deployed by groups flush with Israeli cash. (Israel uses its control of Congress to extract double-digit billions of dollars worth of tribute every year; according to the Christian Science Monitor, Israel had already cost the US more than a trillion dollars by 2002, and has used much of those ill-gotten gains to complete its takeover of the USA.)
Why should Paul Manafort have to register as an agent of a Ukrainian regime that posed no threat to the US, while Paul Wolfowitz seems to have helped orchestrate the 9/11 attacks on behalf of Israel—among his other duties as an unregistered agent—without suffering any consequences?
Why should Philip Zelikow, sole author of the 9/11 Commission Report and presumed author of the script for 9/11 itself, be allowed to “create and maintain public myths” on behalf of Israel without registering as a foreign agent?
Why should Rabbi Dov Zakheim be allowed to serve as comptroller of the Pentagon and “lose” 2.3 trillion dollars the night before 9/11 on behalf of the state of Israel, without ever having to register?
Why should IDF veteran and presumed Mossad honcho Rahm Emmanuel be allowed to run Obama’s presidency from his perch as White House Chief of Staff, torpedoing Obama’s plan to end wars, close Guantanamo, and prosecute torturers, without registering as a foreign agent?
Why should Larry Silverstein be allowed to blow up his own buildings on 9/11 on behalf of Israel, confess to the deed on national television, and walk away with more than five billion cash profits, without even registering as an Israeli agent?
Why should Judge Alvin Hellerstein be given complete control of almost all 9/11-related litigation so he can quash discovery and cover up the truth on behalf of Israel, without ever registering with the Department of Justice as a Zionist agent?
These are just a few of the questions raised by Manafort’s guilty plea. One of these days Americans—meaning people loyal to the USA not Israel—are going to demand some answers.
The stars came out in Hollywood on November 2nd, or at least some of them did. The gala event celebrated the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and raised funds to support its mission in Israel itself and on the occupied West Bank. The organization being fêted was the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces (FIDF), which has fourteen regional offices in the United States and operates under the slogan “Their job is to look after Israel. Our job is to look after them.” In attendance were Arnold Schwarzenegger and actor Gerald Butler. Entertainment was provided by the singer Seal.
Hollywood Jewish royalty was thick on the ground, the grub was strictly kosher and billionaires competed to see who could give the most to such a worthy cause. The 1,200 attendees at the Beverly Hilton Hotel donated a record $53.8 million, with Oracle founder Larry Ellison leading the pack with a contribution of $16.6 million. Israeli media mogul Haim Saban, Hillary Clinton’s most generous supporter, served as host of the event and donated $5 million. Two weeks ago, a similar gathering of 1,200 in New York City dubbed “A Night of Heroes,” attended by GOP major donor casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, raised $35 million, $7 million coming from Adelson personally. FIDF reportedly was sitting on $190 million in contributions for the year before the Hollywood and New York events.
Donations to FIDF are tax deductible as the organization is registered with the U.S. Treasury as a 501(c)3 educational and charitable non-profit foundation. One might well ask how it is possible that the American taxpayer should subsidize a foreign military organization that is regularly accused of war crimes in its ongoing brutal and genocidal occupation of the Palestinian West Bank and East Jerusalem? One might also wonder how an organization that continues a military occupation in opposition to multiple United Nations resolutions that have been endorsed by Washington gets any kind of tax break at all? And finally, one might reasonably ask why an organization that already gets in excess of $3.8 billion annually directly from the U.S. Treasury needs more money to allegedly provide creature comforts for its soldiers?
The answer to all of the above would be that Jewish power in the United States makes it happen. But more particularly, it is Jewish money that does the trick since cash on the table provides access both to the media and to the people that matter in Washington. A tight circle of billionaire oligarchs, including Saban, Ellison and Adelson as well as Paul Singer and Bernard Marcus directly support organizations like FIDF as well as major pro-Israel groups like the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the America Israel Political Action Committee, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. The billionaires are not shy about where their loyalty lies, boasting as does Saban, that he is a one issue guy and that issue is Israel. Adelson has stated that he wishes that he had served in the Israeli army instead of the U.S. military and wants his son to grow up to “be a sniper for the IDF.” Both have publicly advocated bombing Iran. In Adelson’s case, the bomb would be nuclear.
Sometimes both the Israel agenda and the financial support is deliberately hidden, as in the case of the recently launched “Christian engagement in the Middle East” anti-Iran Philos Project, which was funded by Singer. The billionaires also directly donate to the campaigns of politicians and support projects that engage in the message management that is used to justify pro-Israel policies in Congress and the media.
Much of the current agitation to “do something” about Iran comes, for example, from these groups and media assets. In truth, American aid to Israel has become virtually untouchable and is something like a goose that keeps on laying golden eggs. The operation of “The Lobby,” generally regarded as the most powerful voice on foreign policy in Washington, led Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer to ask,
“Why has the U.S. been willing to set aside its own security … in order to advance the interests of another state? [No] explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the U.S. provides.”
They observed that
“Other special interest groups have managed to skew foreign policy, but no lobby has managed to divert it as far from what the national interest would suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. interests and those of the other country—in this case, Israel—are essentially identical.”
The money committed by the Jewish oligarchs on behalf of Israel has turned out to be a good investment, returning billions for millions spent. Since the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948, it has been “the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II,” according to the Congressional Research Service. The United States has provided Israel with $233.7 billion in adjusted for inflation aid between 1948 through the end of 2012, reports Haaretz.
The $38 billion over ten years in military assistance that the Obama recently promised to Israel is far less than what will actually be received from the United States Treasury and from other American sources, including handouts from Congress. To cite only one recent example, in September Congressman Alcee Hastings proposed a legislative amendment that would give $12 million to help settle Israel’s Ethiopian community. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), speaking in the most recent legislative discussion over Israeli aid, stated that the $38 billion should be regarded as a minimum amount, and that Congress should approve additional funds for Israeli defense as needed.
At its most recent meeting in March 2017, AIPAC announced the latest windfall from America, applauding “the U.S. House of Representatives for significantly bolstering its support of U.S.-Israel missile defense cooperation in the FY 2017 defense appropriations bill. The House appropriated $600.7 million for U.S.-Israel missile defense programs.” And there is a long history of such special funding for Israeli-connected projects. The Iron Dome missile-defense system was largely funded by the United States, to the tune of more than $1 billion. In the 1980s, the Israeli Lavi jet-fighter development program was funded by Washington, costing $2 billion to the U.S. taxpayer before it was terminated over technical and other problems, part of $5.45 billion in Pentagon funding of various Israeli weapons projects through 2002.
How Israel gets money from the United States Treasury is actually quite complex and not very transparent to the American public, going well beyond the check for $3.8 billion handed over at the beginning of the fiscal year on October 1st. Even that check, uniquely given to aid recipient Israel as one lump sum on the first day of the year, is manipulated to produce extra revenue. It is normally immediately redeposited with the U.S. Treasury, which then, because it operates on a deficit, borrows the money to pay interest on it as the Israelis draw it down. That interest payment costs the American taxpayer an estimated $100 million more per year. Israel has also been adept at using “loan guarantees,” an issue that may have contributed to the downfall of President George H.W. Bush. The reality is that the loans, totaling $42 billion, are never repaid by Israel, meaning that the United States Treasury picks up the tab on principle and interest, a form of additional assistance. The Bush-era loan amounted to $10 billion.
Department of Defense co-production projects, preferential contracting, “scrapping” or “surplusing” of usable equipment that is then turned over to the IDF, as well as the forward deployment of military hardware to an Israeli base, are considerable benefits to Tel Aviv’s bottom line. Much of this assistance is hidden from view.
In September 2012, Israel’s former commander-in-chief, Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, admitted at a conference that between 2009 and 2012 American taxpayers had paid for more of his country’s defense budget than had Israeli taxpayers. Those numbers have been disputed, but the fact remains that a considerable portion of the Israeli military spending comes from the United States. It currently is more than 20 percent of the total $16 billion budget, not counting special appropriations.
Through tax exemptions, the U.S. government also subsidizes the coordinated effort to provide additional assistance to Israel. Like FIDF, most organizations and foundations that might reasonably be considered active parts of the Israel Lobby are generally registered with the Department of the Treasury as tax-exempt foundations. Grant Smith, speaking at a conference on the U.S. and Israel on March 24th, explained how the broader Israel Lobby uses this legal framework:
“Key U.S. organizations include the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Hundreds more, including a small number of evangelical Christian organizations, play a role within a vast ecosystem that demands unconditional U.S. support for Israel. In the year 2012 the nonprofit wing of the Israel lobby raised $3.7 billion in revenue. They are on track to reach $6.3 billion by 2020. Collectively they employed 14,000 and claimed 350,000 volunteers.”
The $3.7 billion raised in 2012 does not include the billions in private donations that go directly to Israel, plus billions in contributions that are regarded as “religious exemptions” for groups that don’t file at all. There are also contributions sent straight to various Israeli-based foundations that are themselves often registered as charities. The Forward magazine investigated 3,600 Jewish tax-exempt charitable foundations in 2014 and determined that they had net assets of $26 billion, $12–14 billion in annual revenue, and “focuse[d] the largest share of [their] donor dollars on Israel.” The Forward added that it is “an apparatus that benefits massively from the U.S. federal government and many state and local governments, in the form of hundreds of millions of dollars in government grants, billions in tax-deductible donations and billions more in program fees paid for with government funds.”
Money being fungible, some American Jews have been surprised to learn that the donations that they had presumed were going to charitable causes in Israel have instead wound up in expanding the illegal settlements on the West Bank, an objective that they sometimes do not support. Donald Trump’s son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushnerhas a family foundation that has made donations to Israel, including funding of West Bank settlements, which is illegal under U.S. law, as has Ambassador David Friedman.
Israel also benefits in other ways, frequently due to legislative action by Congress. It enjoys free and even preferential trade status with the United States and runs a $9 billion trade surplusper annum. Its companies and parastatal organizations can, without any restrictions, bid on U.S. defense and homeland-security projects—a privilege normally only granted to NATO partners. It’s major defense contractor Elbit recently was awarded a multi-million dollar contract to apply technologies to defend American tanks. It was a prime example of U.S. aid subsidizing an Israeli industry that then competes directly with American companies, producing a loss of jobs in the United States.
And the transfer of public money to Israel is common even at state and local levels. Some state treasuries and pension funds have purchased Israel Bonds, which are a bad investment, putting retirees at risk, as they have to be held to maturity and therefore have no secondary market and lack liquidity. Most recently, the Ohio Treasurer’s office bought a record $61 million in Israel Bonds on April 3rd. Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel admitted the purchase was in response to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, meaning that Ohio taxpayers are unsuspecting participants in a risky investment scheme largely intended to punish critics of Israel. Mandel is, not surprisingly, hardly a disinterested party on the subject of Israel. He was a member of AIPAC while attending Ohio State University and spoke at its 2008 Policy Conference in Washington. After denouncing Iran, he said that “Israel is our best friend and ally in the Middle East and it’s important that we maintain a strong and lasting relationship with them.” Eighty other state and municipal public employee pension and treasury funds have also reportedly bought the bonds.
The U.S.-Israeli bilateral relationship has been an expensive proposition for Americans, yet another instance where the perceived needs of a U.S. “ally” take precedence over genuine national interests. Tens of billions of dollars need not necessarily be spent to placate a wealthy foreign country and its powerful domestic lobby or to satisfy the pretensions of the billionaires who grease the machinery to keep Israel’s money machine operating.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is http://www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
There are many ironies in the RussiaGate drama, but none greater than this: The U.S. becomes more like the former U.S.S.R. every day. Longtime correspondent Bart D. sketches out the irony:
I look at the US economy and what I see in actual everyday life is that corrupted capitalism has resulted in the same problems for average citizens as what crony communism did for the citizens of the USSR.
Poor consumer choice. Poor resource allocation. Poor quality consumer products. Poor environmental management/outcomes. Hyper-vigilance and hyper-control of Government over its people. Dodgy Utilities. The difference is that the Soviet Union had a better healthcare system than USA currently has and better housing availability for common people.
How’s the irony! Capitalism and Communism ultimately end up with similar outcomes and for the same reason: Cartel behaviours and cronyism.
Exactly. When the system is rigged to benefit insiders, cartels, cronies and elites at the expense of the many “outsiders,” the status quo must mask this reality with propaganda and Big Lies: that is, keep repeating the lie until people believe it due to its embrace by “experts” and authorities.
Case in point: inflation. The masses consuming the mainstream media apparently accept the Big Lie that inflation (i.e. loss of purchasing power of our money) is 2%, i.e. near zero.
But the reality is quite different: stagnant wages + soaring real-world inflation = lower standards of living, which is precisely what the bottom 80% of American households have been experiencing for the past decade of “growth” and “recovery.”
The citizens of the old Soviet regime had a wry saying: they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work. I propose a variation for the hapless US citizenry:
They pretend inflation is low and we pretend to be prosperous.
The current clampdown on social media and alternative media in America is ripped right from the playbook of the Soviet regime. We must “protect” you from “fake news,” lest you start questioning the official narratives of strong growth, prosperity, low inflation, etc.
Then there’s the case of Julian Assange, in exile for releasing what everyone concedes is factual evidence on par with The Pentagon Papers in the 1970s which blew up the false (but convenient to the elites) narratives of the Vietnam War.
They can’t paint Assange with the “fake news” brush, so they exile him just as the old Soviet regime exiled Andrei Sakharov in 1980, a hero of the Soviet Union and laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.
Please note that the Soviet Union collapsed a decade after exiling Sakharov.Ramping up repression and official propaganda, strangling dissent and marginalizing independent skeptics are the desperate, last-ditch tactics of a doomed regime that only serves the interests of insiders and elites.
There are many pathways to collapse, with financial collapse being a favorite of regimes that print/borrow immense sums to buy off their populace and enrich the insiders/elites– for example, Venezuela:
When the Soviet regime exiled Sakharov in 1980, everybody assumed the USSR was permanent and impregnable to collapse. In other words, “it can’t happen here.” But it did happen, and believing “it can’t happen here” did nothing but hasten the collapse.
My new book Money and Work Unchained is now $6.95 for the Kindle ebook and $15 for the print edition.
What if everything we’ve been told about 9/11 is a lie? What if it wasn’t 19 Muslim terrorist hijackers that flew those planes into the Twin Towers and Pentagon? What if the Muslims had nothing whatsoever to do with the attacks on 9/11? What if everything we’ve been told about the reasons we invaded two sovereign nations (Afghanistan and Iraq) is a lie? What if the 17-year-old, never-ending “War on Terror” in the Middle East is a lie? What if our young soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who have given their lives in America’s “War on Terror” died for a lie? What if G.W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump have been nothing but controlled toadies for an international global conspiracy that hatched the attacks of 9/11 as nothing more than a means to institute a perpetual “War on Terror” for purposes that have nothing to do with America’s national security? Would the American people want to know? Would the truth even matter to them?
The sad reality is that the vast majority of Americans who would read the above paragraph would totally dismiss every question I raised as being unrealistic and impossible—or even nutty. Why is that? Have they studied and researched the questions? No. Have they given any serious thought to the questions? No. They have simply swallowed the government/mainstream media version of these events hook, line and sinker.
It is totally amazing to me that the same people who say they don’t believe the mainstream media (MSM) and government (Deep State) versions of current events—which is why they voted for and love Donald Trump—have absolutely no reservations about accepting the official story that the 9/11 attacks were the work of jihadist Muslims and that America’s “War on Terror” is completely legitimate. These “always Trumpers” are dead set in their minds that America is at war with Islam; that Trump’s bombings of Syria were because President Assad is an evil, maniacal monster who gassed his own people; and that Trump’s expansion of the war in Afghanistan is totally in the interests of America’s national security.
BUT WHAT IF ALL OF IT IS A BIG, FAT LIE?
What if the Muslims had NOTHING to do with 9/11?
What if Bashar al-Assad did NOT gas his own people?
What if America’s “War on Terror” is a completely false, manufactured, made-up deception?
What if America’s military forces are mostly fighting for foreign agendas and NOT for America’s national security or even our national interests?
What if America’s war in Afghanistan is a fraud?
What if the entire “War on Terror” is a fraud?
The Trump robots have bought into America’s “War on Terror” as much as Obama’s robots and Bush’s robots did. Bush was elected twice, largely on the basis of America’s “War on Terror.” Obama campaigned against the “War on Terror” and then expanded it during his two terms in office. Trump campaigned against the “War on Terror” and then immediately expanded it beyond what Obama had done. In fact, Trump is on a pace to expand the “War on Terror” beyond the combined military aggressions of both Bush and Obama.
But who cares? Who even notices?
America is engaged in a global “War on Terror.” Just ask G.W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX News, The Washington Post, the New York Times and the vast majority of America’s pastors and preachers. They all tell us the same thing seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. Liberals scream against Trump, and conservatives scream against Maxine Waters; but both sides come together to support America’s never-ending “War on Terror.”
But what if it’s ALL a lie? What if Obama and Trump, the right and the left, the MSM and the conservative media are all reading from the same script? What if they are all (wittingly or unwittingly) in cahoots in perpetuating the biggest scam in world history? And why is almost everyone afraid to even broach the question?
Left or right, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, secular or Christian, no one dares to question the official story about the 9/11 attacks or the “War on Terror.” And those who do question it are themselves attacked unmercifully by the right and the left, conservatives and liberals, Christians and secularists, Sean Hannity and Chris Matthews. Why is that? Why is it that FOX News and CNN, Donald Trump and Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer and Ted Cruz equally promote the same cockamamie story about 9/11 and the “War on Terror?”
Why? Why? Why?
Tell me again how Donald Trump is so different from Barack Obama. Tell me again how Ted Cruz is so different from Chuck Schumer. They all continue to perpetuate the lies about 9/11. They all continue to escalate America’s never-ending “War on Terror.” They are all puppets of a global conspiracy to advance the agenda of war profiteers and nation builders. The left-right, conservative-liberal, Trump-Obama paradigm is one big giant SCAM. At the end of the day, the “War on Terror” goes on, bombs keep falling on people in the Middle East who had absolutely NOTHING to do with 9/11 and the money keeps flowing into the coffers of the international bankers and war merchants.
All of the above is why I am enthusiastically promoting Christopher Bollyn’s new blockbuster book The War on Terror.
Of course, Bollyn is one of the world’s foremost researchers and investigators into the attacks on 9/11. He has written extensively on the subject. But unlike most other 9/11 investigators, Bollyn continued to trace the tracks of the attacks on 9/11. And those tracks led him to discover that the 9/11 attacks were NOT “the event” but that they were merely the trigger for “the event.” “What was the event?” you ask. America’s perpetual “War on Terror.”
As a result, Mr. Bollyn published his findings that the attacks on 9/11 were NOT perpetrated by Muslim extremists but by a very elaborate and well financed international conspiracy that had been in the planning for several decades. Bollyn’s research names names, places and dates and exposes the truth behind not just 9/11 (many have done that) but behind America’s “War on Terror” that resulted from the attacks on 9/11.
IT’S TIME FOR THE TRUTH TO COME OUT!
And Christopher Bollyn’s investigative research brings out the truth like nothing I’ve read to date. His research connects the dots and destroys the myths.
Mr. Bollyn’s research is published in a book entitled (full title): The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East. I mean it when I say that if enough people read this book, it could change the course of history and save our republic.
This is written on the book’s back cover:
The government and media have misled us about 9/11 in order to compel public opinion to support the War on Terror.
Why have we gone along with it? Do we accept endless war as normal? Are we numb to the suffering caused by our military interventions?
No. We have simply been propagandized into submission. We have been deceived into thinking that the War on Terror is a good thing, a valiant struggle against terrorists who intend to attack us as we were on 9/11.
Behind the War on Terror is a strategic plan crafted decades in advance to redraw the map of the Middle East. 9/11 was a false-flag operation blamed on Muslims in order to start the military operations for that strategic plan. Recognizing the origin of the plan is crucial to understanding the deception that has changed our world.
Folks, 9/11 was a deception. The “War on Terror” is a deception. The phony left-right paradigm is a deception. FOX News is as much a deception as CNN. The “always Trump” group is as much a deception as the “never Trump” group. America has been in the throes of a great deception since September 11, 2001. And this deception is being perpetrated by Republicans and Democrats and conservatives and liberals alike.
I do not know Christopher Bollyn. I’ve never met him. But I thank God he had the intellectual honesty and moral courage to write this book. I urge readers to get this explosive new book. If you don’t read any other book this year, read Mr. Bollyn’s investigative masterpiece The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East.
Again, I am enthusiastically recommending this book to my readers, and I make no apologies for doing so. The truth contained in this research MUST get out, and I am determined to do all I can to help make that possible.
Order Christopher Bollyn’s blockbuster book The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East here:
I am confident that after you read this book, you will want to buy copies for your friends and relatives. The book is under 200 pages long and is not difficult reading. However, the facts and details Bollyn covers are profound and powerful. I have read the book three times so far and I’m not finished.
Frankly, Bollyn’s book made so many things make sense for me. His book dovetails and tracks with much of my research on other topics. Truly, his book helped me get a much fuller understanding of the “big picture.”
What if everything we’ve been told about 9/11 and the “War on Terror” is a lie? Well, Bollyn’s book proves that indeed it is.
Again, here is where to find Christopher Bollyn’s phenomenal new book The War On Terror: The Plot To Rule The Middle East:
Everybody understands the importance of the dollar system as the Achilles heel for the US empire yet oddly, when analysing imperial action of Warshington of the last decades, the focus is usually on ideologies like Zionism or American exceptionalism, or on at most partial aspects such as fossil fuels and pipelines. Another focus, favored mainly among Americans, is that America once was great but now has lost track somehow. I still think that the means of production, or in case of the US selling dollar annotated debt masked as investment, is far more paramount for US decision-making than ideology or oil, and that America hadn’t lost track but instead desperately tries to hold on to its track.
First, a few words about America’s track. The imperialists of the US regime desperately cling to their empire, that’s a classic, that’s what imperialists do. The Nazis clung to their short-lived empire until Germany was in ruins, the Romans clung to theirs until defeated, and the British struggle during WW2 was far more about preserving theirs than it was about defeating Nazi Germany. Empires usually don’t dismantle themselves. But it’s also the American people, serfs to the empire, who are desperately clinging. That’s what I found so appalling about the Occupy movement. These millennial brats had no political agenda but to demand their cheap flat screens back from the banksters. They didn’t want change, they wanted continuity. The same is true for the so-called “alt-right” movement who have zero political agenda for a better future. They lament the present while dreaming of a past 1950s/1960s America that has never even really existed. When they say America has lost its track, they might have Middle Eastern wars in mind, but that’s rubbish because there is nothing new or different in these wars than in any wars Warshington had fought before against the Natives, their own Southern brethren, Mexico, Spain, Philippines, Korea, Vietnam, you name it, and the meddling on Maidan is in no way different to what they’ve been doing in Latin American countries since the mid 19th century. Psychologically, I think, what they mourn is that the mask has fallen off and that they cannot go back to that cozy, simple, and ignorant lifestyle they had been able to enjoy up until 9/11.
To me the US empire is an historic aberration of humanity. With its genesis, its unparalleled level of violence, the categorically insolidary and segregated society and surreal consumer culture it has created, and the delusional ideology and mythology with which it justifies itself based on a borderline psychotic Messiah complex (Manifest Destiny), it represents an exceptional oddity among nations. But beyond its mental problems there is a cold, hard fact – at least within the realm of capitalism – that explains the actions and reactions of US imperialism throughout the years, especially in recent decades. It is both fuel and failure of the empire: the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, or rather the system behind it which consists of masquerading and selling debt as investment.
Many people consider the US to be a proper republic with a valid constitution, separation of powers, rule of law and all that jazz. I think that is baloney. In truth the US government is a front for a criminal enterprise and it has been like that ever since the US Constitution has been created and passed by whom Gore Vidal rightfully dubbed as “frightened men of property”. While the American Revolution in itself was a truly unique and valuable moment in human history, the system that resulted from it was and still is designed by men of wealth for men of wealth to obtain as much wealth as possible at the expense of everybody else without the tedious social responsibilities the French republicans came up with. In fact, this lack of social responsibility is what they mean when they say freedom. The American nation never had a chance to develop to its potential, because it was hijacked early on by networks/cartels of the rich. What is commonly referred to as the American dream should therefore rather be named the American deception. In my view, the Pursuit of Happiness is the largest middle-finger ever erected in human history. America has never lost its track, I think it has always been on the same track, yet it is about to derail hard.
While Europe has managed (more or less) to develop, kill and struggle itself into a bunch of societies in which solidarity, social justice and rule of law remain core cultural and social concepts – to a certain extent even for the rich (Napoleonic Code) -, America has developed into a rat race society based on property, materialism and a general save-your-own-ass mentality. A smart guy from New York once described his own country to me as money talks, bullshit walks. The fish rots or rather trickles down from the head. America is run by a bunch of mafia cartels no better than street gangs – Wall St, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Media, Military-Industrial-Complex etc. – with the Federal Reserve as their giant money laundering corporation, a bureaucracy of ridiculous proportions as both the mafia’s hitmen (CIA, Pentagon) and legal front (Congress), and the US president as the constantly changing promotion mascot. There is very often no love lost between these cartels or their players, but there are two things that unite them. First, the US dollar system, the single largest Ponzi scheme in human history and, second, an extremely elitist self-concept inherited from English aristocracy asserting that it is them, and only them, who shall rule the world. Take the infinite callousness and arrogance of the English upper class, offer them a vast country and endless influx of human material for exploitation and what you get is the United States of America and its WASP regime. The US has been an imperialist project right from the start, because it was founded out of (British) imperialism.
From their elitist perspective the American or any other people serve as human cattle to be duped, exploited and used. It is the ultimate Fordist nightmare, which Aldous Huxley could only vaguely anticipate in his novel A Brave New World. The people are made to live under conditions comparable to that of farm cattle with TV screens flickering in their stables. To the regime they are nothing but salary and consume cattle, cynically dubbed as human resourcesin the business world, a euphemism for slaves if you ask me. Lives, thoughts and views, food, medicine and drug use, culture, or the fairy tale people are supposed to believe as history are determined and conditioned by a gigantic propaganda industry that makes Joseph Goebbels drool in his coffin. Hollywood is the manifestation of what he could only dream of.
Europeans suffer from pretty much the same state of shallow and philistine slave existence, but it’s mostly a post-WW2 imported American thing for us. We still have a choice and we have all the necessary cultural, nutritional and intellectual roots to free ourselves from it. I might be dead wrong in my observations, but I don’t see how Americans with what I consider as their still prevalent settler mentality could really do that. I hope they will find a way and if only after the collapse of the empire. Regardless, you cannot properly understand US imperialism, let alone the so-called “West” in general, unless you fully appreciate the manufactured fake that it really is. Therefore let’s start with the only real thing about it – at least in a capitalist sense – the dollar system.
Empire of Snakes and Weasels
Through their dubious actions and policies of supporting all sides before and during WW2 the US cartels managed to weasel their host country’s way from the world’s number one debtor before the war to the world’s number one creditor after the war. With this leverage at their disposal the US entered the Bretton Woods negotiations in 1944. The Bretton Woods conference was in essence the result of Anglo-American establishments contemplating on how to rule and dominate the world after WW2. British imperialists, the other oddballs of human history and well worth an article of their own, and America’s ruling cartels had already united their criminal enterprises, although from different perspectives. While the British were mostly interested in using American muscle to preserve their empire which had been struggling especially against Germany’s rising economic power since the late 19th century, the American cartels were eager to establish themselves on a global and especially European stage, an endeavor for which Britain served well as springboard.
It is therefore no surprise that the English speaking imperialists on both sides of the Pond had different views on how to run future currency-based world domination. England was represented by British economist John Maynard Keynes – himself one of the initiators of the Bretton Woods conference – who put forward the idea of an international bank called International Clearing Union which would issue its own currency – the bancor – as an account currency between nations. The idea was to have trade surplus or creditor nations invest in the economies of trade deficit or debtor nations and so to even out global economic imbalances. Lord Keynes was one of the few if not the only competent of capitalist economists.
Keynes proposed that any country racking up a large trade deficit (equating to more than half of its bancor overdraft allowance) would be charged interest on its account. It would also be obliged to reduce the value of its currency and to prevent the export of capital. But – and this was the key to his system – he insisted that the nations with a trade surplus would be subject to similar pressures. Any country with a bancor credit balance that was more than half the size of its overdraft facility would be charged interest, at a rate of 10%. It would also be obliged to increase the value of its currency and to permit the export of capital. If, by the end of the year, its credit balance exceeded the total value of its permitted overdraft, the surplus would be confiscated. The nations with a surplus would have a powerful incentive to get rid of it. In doing so, they would automatically clear other nations’ deficits. (source)
This is – within the realm of capitalism – a pretty neat idea, one that would have, for example, prevented the flaws of the euro system, in which the common currency is undervalued for Germany (great for exports, pretty shit for the domestic market) but overvalued for pretty much everyone else with the result of German industry and its retailers Lidl and Aldi literally eating up the rest of Europe. Had the euro been designed as a common account currency with a proper multilateral treaty based on Keynes’s ideas while preserving national currencies, we wouldn’t have had to experience the euro crisis with all its terrible humanitarian consequences, and Germany would not have had the chance to abuse its imperialist power within Europe the way it did. I don’t think that the crappy euro design was a mistake but rather one deliberately made by German bankers and industrialists who prevailed over French and others when drafting the euro – but that’s something others have already written extensively and are more skilled about. The same flaws we can see in the euro system persist in the dollar system on a global scale since Bretton Woods, when one country can dominate the rest using the leverage of currency.
In the beginning of the conference everyone was with the ideas of Lord Keynes for they were as reasonable as it can get within a capitalist frame. But it was the American imperialists, represented by Harry Dexter White, who had quite different ideas for their currency-based world domination. They wanted to seize the opportunity by establishing an International Stabilization Fund which would put the whole burden of economic imbalance on the debtor nations. Instead of a global account currency like the bancor they wanted to establish their own US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. It is not documented how many arms the US cartels had to twist in how many directions at Bretton Woods, but eventually they prevailed and the notorious Bretton Woods system with the US dollar as sole reserve currency was implemented with the infamous IMF at its core, an institution that evidently turns everything it touches into deep shit as it keeps working along utmost economic illiteracy – even for capitalists – designed only to withdraw further capital from already troubled nations.
Having one country’s currency as the world’s sole reserve currency was and is so far unique in history. It is often and commonly believed that the US dollar had just replaced the British pound as the world’s reserve currency, but this is not quite accurate. British pound, German mark, French franc or Portuguese escudo had at their respective times always been reserve currencies alongside each other. Some were more regionally focused, like the French franc in Africa, with the British pound playing the major but not singular role globally. Bretton Woods, however, introduced the US dollar as the world’s or rather capitalist world’s sole reserve currency with all other currencies having fixed exchange rates to it. The US cartels gained tremendous political and economic clout by that, especially since it later allowed them to run a much larger and longer state and trade deficit than they could have, had the dollar been just been one garden variety currency among others. But how did it go and what does it mean today, when the world appears to be returning to a “normal” state of affairs again with the rise of euro and yuan?
A Roller Coaster That Only Goes Downhill
Many of America’s grumpy nostalgics who thought that a billionaire with a terrible hairdo would help them out of their misery by building a wall consider America to have been great in the past. Of course, it was never great at all. Those were times of heinous crimes against humanity by the US regime against the world and its own people, earlier even inspiring other villains. On principle it was just like today and how it has always been. The USAF was carpet bombing Asian countries and everybody was scared of Russians. Still, the times felt great, because the country was surfing the big post-war Kondratieff wave and enjoyed a Brave New World of Fordist pleasure based on hard work and hedonistic obedience to advertisement. Milkshakes tasted sweet, Rock’n’Roll pounded loud, and Cadillacs rolled big. Universities were negro-free and retards were sterilized. America was great and Jesus in love with you. The share of household consumption to GDP was already around 60%, but that wasn’t a problem because most of what Americans consumed was also made in America by Americans. But then the wave turned into swash and started lapping against the shore of reality. The markets were saturated. Everyone had a fridge and one or two cars and TVs by then. No new major technological innovation for further consumer goods lurked around the corner to drive the economy. The Kondratieff wave backwashed. Capitalism had once again reached its regular growth limits and the usual meltdown was looming. Voracious for more profits corporations started the big outsourcing frenzy in the 1970s to get their fix by having to share less with their workers in exchange for cheaper products from cheaper countries. Now, outsourcing as such is not a problem if the CEOs know what they’re doing and have a long-term strategy such as using profits generated from saving to invest in research for new innovation, for example. The problem is that the US is for the most part a shareholder economy and CEOs and their corporations are legally obliged to provide profits for them. I am talking about short-term quarterly or yearly profits, not profits for long-term visions. Even if the odd business school graduate working as CEO has a long-term vision, the American cartel model of economy won’t allow him or her to implement it without providing for shareholder profits first. Keep that in mind when you wonder where US industry went compared to German industry, apparently a core part of Trumpish penis envy triggering infantile feelings of unfair.
Over the course of the 1970s to the 1990s American workers increasingly turned into burger flippers, janitors and cashiers, while Mexicans, Filipinos and Chinese started to increasingly sweat in their shops. The purchasing powerof American consumers declined and that threatened the colossal GDP. Reaganomics didn’t trickle down at all, but it made sure that lumberjack shirts presented something non-existent, and banks and corporations got another decade-long profit fix. By the late 1990s, it became obvious that to keep the machine running Americans had to have their credit cards loaded and their stock markets bloated. Therefore, Bill “Never-Inhaled-and-Didn’t Have-Sex” Clinton deregulated the banks so that they could provide Americans with cheap mortgage credits for their consumerist pleasure. Advertisement went on hyperdrive to make Americans buy junk and sprawl suburbanly. Another profit fix for banks and corporations for yet another decade had been conjured up. GDP and plebeian excitement were saved for the day. The result of this policy was the much feared massive trade deficit, because economies in Europe, Asia and Latin America managed to replace American manufacturing globally either with their own products or simply by producing American ones.
In reality it is all a bit more complex, of course, but I’m deliberately keeping it simple to highlight America’s economic failure by design. It’s the sparkler among empires, having burnt so bright for three decades between 1945 and 1975 yet violently fizzling out ever since. What is important to understand at this point is that without Bretton Woods the US cartels would have never been able to run it this far, almost half a century on debt and delusions by now, because even when Nixon ditched the gold standard to free the empire from its shackles to run mile-high deficits, the US dollar remained the world’s reserve currency, first, in lack of another major currency to challenge it, and, second, as a result of a dirty deal made with the Saudi Barbarians: you sell your oil only in US dollars and make the rest of OPEC follow suit and we build up your stone or rather sand aged country American style. Goats as the common garbage disposal system in Riyadh had been replaced by white trucks, skyscrapers built, American weapons bought, and US debt sold to European and Asian oil junkies. John Perkins described this dirty deal perfectly well in his Confessions of An Economic Hitman. With the petrodollar established this way the US cartels could continue their criminal enterprise and it is the only reason why the Saudis have come as close to US imperialism as airplanes into tall buildings.
The US cartels are dependent on the dollar as the world’s sole reserve currency to be able to run the deficits necessary to fuel their criminal enterprise of world domination. In order to do that they need other countries to hoard dollars in the form of US debt, which they will only do if they believe the US was a thriving economy. But since the 1980s the US cartels can hold up the illusion of presiding over an economic powerhouse pretty much only with plebeian consumption running on debt. Currently about 70% of the GDP is private household consumption which is nominally not much more than during America’s self-felt greatness, but it has now turned into the last, almost lost engine rattling to keep if not America’s success at least its success story going. Virtually none of the consumed products are made in America anymore. Industry, engineering, and manufacturing went down the toilet and despite their constant attention whoring neither the narcissists in Hollywood nor Silicon Valley could make up for it. The only industry still pumping hard to inflate the GDP is the bogus financial sector and so the American economy hovers from one bubble to the next, each one inflated with the illusion of a working economy based on a bloated GDP. The question is: why is it so important for the US cartels to keep up a colossal GDP even at the cost of its own economic foundation and what does it have to do with US aggression all around the world, at least in the past two decades?
Welcome to the Dark Side
As the ever so astute American philosopher Homer Simpson once said, “People can come up with statistics to prove anything […]. Forfty percent of all people know that.”, so I will toss some stats at you. Please bear with me. I chose to compare military spending, trade deficit, household consumption, household debt, government debt, and GDP – all numbers are in billion dollars.
Numbers are from the World Bank and United Nations and from this site.
The curves aren’t what is striking, they’re obvious, what strikes are the correlations between different data:
Correlation of:
Military Spending
Trade Balance
Household Consumption
Household Debt
Government Debt
GDP
Military Spending
1.00
0.22
0.83
0.89
0.78
0.82
Trade Balance
0.22
1.00
0.11
0.39
-0.12
0.12
Household Consumption
0.83
0.11
1.00
0.91
0.97
0.99
Household Debt
0.89
0.39
0.91
1.00
0.79
0.91
Government Debt
0.78
-0.12
0.97
0.79
1.00
0.96
GDP
0.82
0.12
0.99
0.91
0.96
1.00
I’ll just arrogantly assume that you know what correlation is. The important thing to note is that it’s about whether two data sets are related or not. The first thing that strikes the eye is that US trade deficit is hardly related to any other indicators, except perhaps for the relation to household debt. Therefore, the question arises if the Trump administration really is about trade deficit at all, as Mr Orange likes to claim, since it is mainly debt that cripples the country and shareholder values dependent on a high GDP that drive it. I don’t see Trump battling debt at all, but I modestly assume that there are at least one or maybe even two staffers in Warshington who read and analyse economic data.
The strongest correlation exists between household consumption, household debt, government debt and GDP. They are all above the 0.9 mark, even reaching almost full correlation between GDP and household consumption. In other words, the massive GDP of the US goes hand in hand with household consumption, which goes hand in hand with both private and public debt. The US appears to produce its GDP colossus mostly by investors buying dollar annotated debt. The irony – and eventually system failure – arises from the fact that the US cartels need to fake high economic productivity and reliability by financing high consumption of mostly imported goods on credit to show off a colossal GDP necessary to attract financial investors, both domestic and foreign, whose investments are then again used to finance aforementioned credits. This is what I call a vicious circle and kind of what I imagine to feel like hugging a pork half.
When we put military spending into the mix, the actions of US imperialism become even clearer. It correlates strongly or even very strongly to the other four indicators, yet military spending is hardly the cause of high public debt or GDP. After all, military spending amounts only to about 3.5% of GDP (not counting the totality of national security spending, let alone money made by CIAdrugtrafficking). Apparently, and in some magical way, US military action, or at least military spending, guarantees high consumption and thus a high GDP.
Bombing for Debt
It is a rather mundane insight, that what one wants and what one can do to get it are two different things. What the US cartels want is clear: Full World Domination (FWD), which even if they got it, would still be a system designed to fail as it cannot survive without a foe. Regardless, Brzezinski formulated it in 1997 in his pamphlet The Grand Chessboard, an American version of Uncle Adolf’s Mein Kampf. Like Mein Kampf was in many parts bootlegging Henry Ford’s The International Jew, Brzezinski hadn’t had one original thought either. His ideas were almost identical to those that British geostrategist Halford Mackinder formulated as Geographical Pivot of History in 1904. This idée fixe, never to let any land power take control in Eurasia or let any kind of Eurasian integration happen, seems to be engraved on the crazed minds of Anglo-American elites since the 19th century and is guideline to their politics ever since then. Germany and Russia had been and still are the main adversaries and targets, but also Iran and China. The whole history of the 20th century can only be understood under this premise. This, however, is not part of the official fairy tale that is bourgeois history. No wonder I didn’t learn about it at school. Anyway, it is also related to the preservation of the dollar system.
When the ever so humble Anglo-American crazies were convinced they had defeated the Soviet Union they started acting right away. The goal was to destroy any possible Silk Road and/or cooperation between the land powers of Germany, France, Russia, China, and Iran. Let me first briefly summarize the pre-millennial actions:
They nationally endowed democracy and Russophobia in what today has become the Idiot Belt (Baltics, Poland, Ukraine, Scandinavia) to shape a cordon sanitaire between Germany and Russia.
They literally ate up Russia economically during the 1990s and meddled with the aim to once and for all get rid of it as a power to reckon with.
They gave Saddam the green light to invade Kuwait in order to have a pretext to set foot in the Middle East – the first step against Iran after Saddam had screwed up the 1980s Gulf War.
They broke apart Yugoslavia, the last standing and just too large socialist country in Europe – this time with the help of Germany which had and still has its own imperial ambitions in Europe.
They bombed Serbia and sliced out Kosovo in order to establish a military base at the historical end of the Silk Road from China – first step in preventing Eurasian integration (and to control heroin trafficking to Europe as a sweet cherry on top).
So far, so good. But as I already mentioned, by the end of the millennium the dying horse of US economy had turned into a leaky horse-shaped balloon that needed to be constantly inflated with loans and foreign dollar investments, so that they now had to fight two fronts: inflate the balloon and conquer the world. At the same time the EU was about to establish the euro, the first currency able to challenge the dollar as the world’s sole reserve currency. They must have realized that time is running out. I assume this had let them to make an extremelyfilthy deal with the Zionists and Saudi Barbarians to demolish the World Trade Center in a staged terrorist attack to have political carte blanche for the next couple of years. The attack on Afghanistan was surely still part of the masterplan to encircle Iran, Russia, and China, and to set foot in Central Asia, and thus to block the historical Silk Road at the Chinese end. It was crafted two months before 9/11 after all. However, the following actions became increasingly erratic and, I believe, they were in part deviating from the original plan. The aggressions against Iraq, Iran and Libya, be it bombs or sanctions, all had a monetary background as well. Hussein announced already in 2000 that he wanted to price oil in euro, Iran announced in 2006 to open an oil bourse trading in euro, yuan, rial and rubel, and Libya wanted to introduce a gold backed currency, the dinar, as a joined currency for the African Union (which also heavily undermined French colonial interests in Africa). This can’t be a coincidence. These aggressions, while still more or less in accordance with the original plan yet conducted hastily and often without much of a detailed plan at all, had the primary aim to save the petrodollar by preventing any alternative from emerging. Without the primal petrodollar they wouldn’t be able to run the massive deficit needed to struggle for Full World Domination (FWD). The dollar must remain the world’s primary reserve currency or the house of cards masquerading as empire masquerading as democracy will crumble. It was and still is a rat race against their own demise.
All this bombing, chaos and destruction launched upon the world since 2001 had less PNAC, let alone “Israel”, in mind, but increasingly the assurance of further dollar investments in their debt, the most precious “natural resource” to keep the colossus colossal. Imagine a big fat drug-addicted bully who pummels weaker school children to prove that he is theoretically solvent because he could theoretically take anyone’s lunch money, so that, therefore, other junkie kids borrow him money which he then uses to buy more dope to be fit enough to pummel more kids. This is how the global economy has been working in the early 21st century before Russia and China started to collude effectively to ensure Eurasian integration and a multipolar, post-dollar world.
The difference between the US regime’s pre- and post-millennial actions have been that the former had been carried out carefully, quite successfully and according to plan, while the latter had been executed extremely sloppily and, except for the case of Libya, essentially failed (if the mess is on Europe it is a success to US cartels). Russia “snatched” Crimea, EU and Iran now want to trade oil in euro, Germany is increasingly free-trading with China, Iraq is colluding with Iran, which is selling its oil in yuan to China, and Saudi Barbaria is about to follow suit. The mercenary war against Syria, last hope for the imperialists, has failed because Russia, which has resurrected under pesky Putin, has ruined it for them. If you ask me, ever since the millennium the US regime acts under increasing panic of losing not only their precious PNAC, but also their imperial lifeline: the dollar. The fact alone that the empire is now increasingly relying on mercenaries, be it Academi or ISIS, shows the desperation. The Anglo-American establishments have for about five centuries followed Machiavellian principles and the use of mercenaries is not one of them. When (not if) the dollar crumbles, the empire will never resurrect from the rubble that will be left. This was pretty much the exact situation under which the Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump Punch and Judy show was performed.
Realpolitik in a World of Delusions
I must admit, I still can’t quite figure out Trump, but I am convinced that the cartels’ original plan was to install Hillary in order to blind liberals with her pink hat the same way they had before blinded them with O’Bomber’s dark complexion. To liberals women and minorities are fluffy teddy bears unable to do evil stuff and if they go to war then it will be nothing but a humanitarian pillow fight. Rednecks and conservatives, however, have never caused much trouble for the cartels since they had always been patriotically following their leaders and happily joined any mayhem as the cartels’ cannon fodder. However, the latter now were so discontent with their dire social and economic situation, a domestic consequence that is inevitable for any empire, that after generations of patriotic cheering for war they had become a reliability as well. From the cartels’ view Trump turned out to be the better choice. The liberals are now too focused on his chauvinist personality and imagined Russian collusion to notice his disastrous policies, while the grumpy nostalgics still at large view him as their big Orange Hero. While the plebs are in this way tamed and focused, he surely seems to be compliant enough on issues like Syria, Iran, Korea or Zionist apartheid not to be assassinated. But he also keeps antagonizing the US cartels’ core allies in Europe, even the UK now, and that seems rather weird, doesn’t it? I consider it to be a massive sign of the deep perplexity the cartels are in.
If the US regime was a proper republic instead of a criminal enterprise and its deep state as pragmatic as, say, the German deep state, they would surely do the only right thing there is to do in their very host country: dismantle the US military empire and invest heavily in infrastructure at home. The economy would get a boost from such mundane tasks as repairing bridges and highways, but there is plenty of more room to invest. The US doesn’t even have high speed trains, it has a 3rd world power grid, and its family homes still mostly consist of heat wasting carpet boxes. There are also vast possibilities for renewable energies in sunny and windy U.S.A. which, regardless of whether you choose to believe Exxonmobil or science, offer great economic value. Imagine the number of proper jobs that could be created by just bringing the domestic US into the 21st century. That would be realpolitiks. And hopefully will be the future of the United States.
The military highway has been bloating GDP with a certain success for the cartels for years, but it’s a dead end now. Even if they had installed cattish, insane Hillary in Warshington, the US would still not be able to attack Iran – the Europeans would still not have followed, and it would still turn out a ruinous endeavor. The US empire has simply ran out of attackable enemies to pretend to be powerful. Even Venezuela would be too hard for them to attack as they’d entangle themselves in an endless guerrilla war in the jungle, something they’re not exactly brilliant at. Besides, the times when the American people still “cattled” behind every given war are over, and I don’t see any significant European nation to follow. So, what’s left to do? If they went down the road of realpolitiks, the cartels’ would lose their more than two centuries old absolute power over the US. For example, if the US brought their energy regime more closely to the 21st century, the big oil and big nuke cartels would lose out a lot to the more decentralized renewables which then belonged to farmers or local communities (a struggle that is still far from over here in Germany). Large central investments are as key in corporate capitalism round table style as they were in state capitalism Soviet style. The empire cannot be saved, but everything that could save the domestic US from its demise and collapse would in the end mean the end of the iron grip of power of Wall St, Big Oil, Big Pharma, Military-Industrial-Complex, etc. The criminal enterprise that we have known as the U.S.A. is about to come to an end either way – involuntarily and violently destroying the country or voluntarily and peacefully preserving the country. If you haven’t seen the film Der Untergang yet, I assume you should do now by all means.
The cartels don’t give a rat’s arse over the country. That’s why, instead of focusing on domestic issues, they are now going for desperate measures to try to “discipline” Europeans, Chinese, and even Rwanda with silly tariffs in order to somehow keep the global dollar regime by asserting an illusion of power – and with Europeans they’ll always find pleasurable surrender monkeys. But the dollar regime is ending. The greenback will surely remain an important currency (unless it fully collapses), but only next to others like the euro and yuan. I think, they’re still trying to figure out what to do next, not realizing that there is nothing to do next but to deviate from imperialism. The one thing they can count on, however, appears to be the infinite asininity of the American public who now seem to be less divided over Democrat vs Republican groupthink, over empire vs domestic, but more between the Great Russia Panic and the Great Jew Panic. This is painfully facepalming to watch from over here, I can tell you that with all my benevolent heart.
Collapse, civil war, disintegration seem to be ahead for the US. The world in the 2030s might even be a world without the U.S.A., entirely. Instead there might be several new countries on the North American map. And why not? Texas, California and Florida could surely do alone economically, and Hawai’i and their “howdies” don’t even belong to the US one single bit. The smartest grassroot movements in America would call for segregation of their respective state or states such as the Pacific ones. I hate to say it but my money is on a violent collapse and disintegration of the US hopefully not tearing Canada down with them. The erratic empire is downfalling, and while that’s a great thing for humanity in the long run, including for Americans who I believe will eventually benefit from such catharsis, it will at first turn out to be extremely ugly.
Sergio’s Bio: Born to a Portuguese mother and a German father Sergio was raised in Northern Germany, just two kilometers away from a British-German NATO air base. The daily sonic boom and thunder of low altitude Tornados was the sound of his childhood. They years when NATO wanted to station Pershing-2 missiles with nuclear warheads at the air base, were formative for him and he can still vividly remember the Cold War, Reagan, Thatcher, Chernobyl, the claustrophobic atmosphere, and the relief when the Berlin Wall finally fell. He makes his living as a web-programmer and IT consultant but still avidly studies studies history, geopolitics, economic theories, monetary theory, Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx and music.
The Essential Saker II: Civilizational Choices and Geopolitics / The Russian challenge to the hegemony of the AngloZionist Empire
Most Americans are ill-informed, dis-informed, and uninformed easy marks to be fooled time and again – no matter how many previous times they were duped.
They’re victims of falsified state narratives and scoundrel media propaganda repeating it, along with what the late Gore Vidal and Studs Terkel called the United States of amnesia, real information on vital issues passing through their minds like water through a sieve – understanding something today, erased from their memory later on.
Polls when conducted well can be revealing. Key is choosing a well-defined universe, using a statistically accurate methodology, wording questions properly for clear understanding, asking them in the right order, and taking great pains to avoid bias.
So-called man-on-the-street interviews used by some news organizations are worthless and deceptive because proper methodology isn’t used. Comments by individuals briefly interviewed signify nothing but their views, unrelated to the general consensus.
Gallup, Inc. has been conducting public opinion polls since 1935, currently operating in America and abroad in many countries.
Days before Putin/Trump summit talks, Gallup polling revealed 40% of Republicans view Russia as a US ally or friendly – compared to 22% in 2014 during Obama’s tenure.
Only 25% of Dems hold the same positive view – compared to 28% in 2014. Among all Americans, 31% say Russia is an ally or friendly to the US.
Gallup: “Overall, 6% of Republicans now describe Russia as a US ally, 34% as friendly but not an ally, 38% as unfriendly and 20% as an enemy.”
“Among Democrats, 8% say Russia is an ally, 17% say it is friendly, 33% unfriendly, and 42% describe it as an enemy.”
Overall in 2014, 26% of Americans said Russia is an ally or friendly to the US.
Throughout its post-Soviet history since December 1991, the Russian Federation never attacked another country or threatened belligerent confrontation against anyone – actions America does repeatedly, currently at war in multiple theaters against invented enemies.
Russia champions world peace and stability. America is perpetually at war at home and abroad, peace and stability considered anathema notions.
A post-Helsinki CBS News poll showed only 32% of Americans approve how Trump handled summit talks with Putin, despite knowing little or nothing about what was discussed or agreed on – other than what’s fed them by media scoundrels hostile to both leaders.
Over two-thirds of Americans polled (70%) believe falsified US intelligence claims that Russia interfered in the nation’s political process – despite not a shred of evidence proving it.
Most Americans feel Trump is too friendly toward Russia, getting along with the country considered a negative, not a positive based on this data.
Nearly four in 10 Americans feel less confident about Trump standing up for US interests, largely reflecting the view of Dems. Republicans are more confident or feel about the same as pre-summit.
Overall, Republicans are more positive about Russia than Dems. Over 60% of Americans fear Russian interference in upcoming November midterm elections, despite no evidence suggesting it.
Americans are mixed on how Washington should engage with Russia. Slightly more than 50% favor pressure over dialogue and cooperation.
Americans are influenced by their sources of information. Most are brainwashed to believe utter rubbish they’re fed by scoundrel media print and electronic media.
Opinion polls consistently show it. An uninformed electorate is easily manipulated to believe most anything they’re fed repeatedly – no matter how egregiously untrue.
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Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the CRG, Correspondent of Global Research based in Chicago.
The FBI is in possession of a recording between President Donald Trump and his former personal attorney Michael Cohen in which the two men prior to the election discuss a payment to a former Playboy model who has alleged an affair with Trump, Rudy Giuliani and a source familiar with the matter told CNN Friday.
Cohen has other recordings of the President in his records that were seized by the FBI, said both a source with knowledge of Cohen’s tapes and Giuliani, who described the other recordings as mundane discussions. Another source with knowledge of the tape, however, said the conversation is not as Giuliani described and is not good for the President, though the source would not elaborate.
The recording about the former Playboy model, Karen McDougal, was among the troves of documents and materials seized in the FBI raid of Cohen’s hotel, residence and office earlier this year amid a criminal investigation of Cohen by the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York. A transcript of the recording was reviewed by the Trump legal team, which does not believe it poses a legal problem for the President.
“Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours…. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.”— Professor Neil Postman
Americans have a voracious appetite for TV entertainment, and the Trump reality show—guest starring outraged Democrats, power-hungry Republicans, and a hodgepodge of other special interest groups with dubious motives—feeds that appetite for titillating, soap opera drama.
After all, who needs the insults, narcissism and power plays that are hallmarks of reality shows when you can have all that and more delivered up by the likes of Donald Trump and his cohorts?
Yet as John Lennon reminds us, “nothing is real,” especially not in the world of politics.
In other words, it’s all fake, i.e. manufactured, i.e. manipulated to distort reality.
Much like the fabricated universe in Peter Weir’s 1998 film The Truman Show, in which a man’s life is the basis for an elaborately staged television show aimed at selling products and procuring ratings, the political scene in the United States has devolved over the years into a carefully calibrated exercise in how to manipulate, polarize, propagandize and control a population.
Likewise, “The Trump Show” keeps the citizenry distracted, diverted and divided.
This is the magic of the reality TV programming that passes for politics today.
As long as we are distracted, entertained, occasionally outraged, always polarized but largely uninvolved and content to remain in the viewer’s seat, we’ll never manage to present a unified front against tyranny (or government corruption and ineptitude) in any form.
The more that is beamed at us, the more inclined we are to settle back in our comfy recliners and become passive viewers rather than active participants as unsettling, frightening events unfold.
Reality and fiction merge as everything around us becomes entertainment fodder.
We don’t even have to change the channel when the subject matter becomes too monotonous. That’s taken care of for us by the programmers (the corporate media).
“Living is easy with eyes closed,” says Lennon, and that’s exactly what reality TV that masquerades as American politics programs the citizenry to do: navigate the world with their eyes shut.
As long as we’re viewers, we’ll never be doers.
Studies suggest that the more reality TV people watch—and I would posit that it’s all reality TV, entertainment news included—the more difficult it becomes to distinguishbetween what is real and what is carefully crafted farce.
This doesn’t bode well for a citizenry able to sift through masterfully-produced propaganda in order to think critically about the issues of the day, whether it’s fake news peddled by government agencies or foreign entities.
Those who watch reality shows tend to view what they see as the “norm.” Thus, those who watch shows characterized by lying, aggression and meanness not only come to see such behavior as acceptable and entertaining but also mimic the medium.
This holds true whether the reality programming is about the antics of celebrities in the White House, in the board room, or in the bedroom.
A term coined by media scholars Brad Waite and Sara Booker, “humilitainment” refers to the tendency for viewers to take pleasure in someone else’s humiliation, suffering and pain.
“Humilitainment” largely explains not only why American TV watchers are so fixated on reality TV programming but how American citizens, largely insulated from what is really happening in the world around them by layers of technology, entertainment, and other distractions, are being programmed to accept the brutality, surveillance and dehumanizing treatment of the American police state as things happening to other people.
The ramifications for the future of civic engagement, political discourse and self-government are incredibly depressing and demoralizing.
This not only explains how a candidate like Donald Trump with a reputation for being rude, egotistical and narcissistic could get elected, but it also says a lot about how a politician like Barack Obama—whose tenure in the White House was characterized by drone killings, a weakening of the Constitution at the expense of Americans’ civil liberties, and an expansion of the police state—could be hailed as “one of the greatest presidents of all times.”
This is what happens when an entire nation—bombarded by reality TV programming, government propaganda and entertainment news—becomes systematically desensitized and acclimated to the trappings of a government that operates by fiat and speaks in a language of force.
Ultimately, the reality shows, the entertainment news, the surveillance society, the militarized police, and the political spectacles have one common objective: to keep us divided, distracted, imprisoned, and incapable of taking an active role in the business of self-government.
Look behind the political spectacles, the reality TV theatrics, the sleight-of-hand distractions and diversions, and the stomach-churning, nail-biting drama, and you will find there is a method to the madness.
We have become guinea pigs in a ruthlessly calculated, carefully orchestrated, chillingly cold-blooded experiment in how to control a population and advance a political agenda without much opposition from the citizenry.
This is mind-control in its most sinister form.
How do you change the way people think? You start by changing the words they use.
In totalitarian regimes—a.k.a. police states—where conformity and compliance are enforced at the end of a loaded gun, the government dictates what words can and cannot be used.
In countries where the police state hides behind a benevolent mask and disguises itself as tolerance, the citizens censor themselves, policing their words and thoughts to conform to the dictates of the mass mind.
Even when the motives behind this rigidly calibrated reorientation of societal language appear well-intentioned—discouraging racism, condemning violence, denouncing discrimination and hatred—inevitably, the end result is the same: intolerance, indoctrination, infantilism, the chilling of free speech and the demonizing of viewpoints that run counter to the cultural elite.
Donald Trump is no exception to this Orwellian manipulation of language for dubious ends: labelling something as “fake news” is a masterful way of dismissing truth that may run counter to the ruling power’s own narrative.
As George Orwell recognized, “In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
Orwell understood only too well the power of language to manipulate the masses. In Orwell’s 1984, Big Brother does away with all undesirable and unnecessary words and meanings, even going so far as to routinely rewrite history and punish “thoughtcrimes.” In this dystopian vision of the future, the Thought Police serve as the eyes and ears of Big Brother, while the Ministry of Peace deals with war and defense, the Ministry of Plenty deals with economic affairs (rationing and starvation), the Ministry of Love deals with law and order (torture and brainwashing), and the Ministry of Truth deals with news, entertainment, education and art (propaganda). The mottos of Oceania: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
Orwell’s Big Brother relied on Newspeak to eliminate undesirable words, strip such words as remained of unorthodox meanings and make independent, non-government-approved thought altogether unnecessary.
Where we stand now is at the juncture of Oldspeak (where words have meanings, and ideas can be dangerous) and Newspeak (where only that which is “safe” and “accepted” by the majority is permitted).
Truth is often lost when we fail to distinguish between opinion and fact, and that is the danger we now face as a society. Anyone who relies exclusively on television/cable news hosts and political commentators for actual knowledge of the world is making a serious mistake.
Unfortunately, since Americans have by and large become non-readers, television has become their prime source of so-called “news.” This reliance on TV news has given rise to such popular news personalities who draw in vast audiences that virtually hang on their every word.
In our media age, these are the new powers-that-be.
Yet while these personalities often dispense the news like preachers used to dispense religion, with power and certainty, they are little more than conduits for propaganda and advertisements delivered in the guise of entertainment and news.
Given the preponderance of news-as-entertainment programming, it’s no wonder that viewers have largely lost the ability to think critically and analytically and differentiate between truth and propaganda, especially when delivered by way of fake news criers and politicians.
While television news cannot—and should not—be completely avoided, the following suggestions will help you better understand the nature of TV news.
1. TV news is not what happened. Rather, it is what someone thinks is worth reporting. Although there are still some good TV journalists, the old art of investigative reporting has largely been lost. While viewers are often inclined to take what is reported by television “news” hosts at face value, it is your responsibility to judge and analyze what is reported.
2. TV news is entertainment. There is a reason why the programs you watch are called news “shows.” It’s a signal that the so-called news is being delivered as a form of entertainment. “In the case of most news shows,” write Neil Postman and Steve Powers in their insightful book, How to Watch TV News (1992), “the package includes attractive anchors, an exciting musical theme, comic relief, stories placed to hold the audience, the creation of the illusion of intimacy, and so on.”
Of course, the point of all this glitz and glamour is to keep you glued to the set so that a product can be sold to you. (Even the TV news hosts get in on the action by peddling their own products, everything from their latest books to mugs and bathrobes.) Although the news items spoon-fed to you may have some value, they are primarily a commodity to gather an audience, which will in turn be sold to advertisers.
3. Never underestimate the power of commercials, especially to news audiences. In an average household, the television set is on over seven hours a day. Most people, believing themselves to be in control of their media consumption, are not really bothered by this. But TV is a two-way attack: it not only delivers programming to your home, it also delivers you (the consumer) to a sponsor.
People who watch the news tend to be more attentive, educated and have more money to spend. They are, thus, a prime market for advertisers. And sponsors spend millions on well-produced commercials. Such commercials are often longer in length than most news stories and cost more to produce than the news stories themselves. Moreover, the content of many commercials, which often contradicts the messages of the news stories, cannot be ignored. Most commercials are aimed at prurient interests in advocating sex, overindulgence, drugs, etc., which has a demoralizing effect on viewers, especially children.
4. It is vitally important to learn about the economic and political interests of those who own the “corporate” media. There are few independent news sources anymore. The major news outlets are owned by corporate empires. Moreover, even those “fake” news outlets denounced by Trump are enjoying significant sales and ratings boosts as a result of Trump’s so-called war on the media. Indeed, as one trade journal reports, “Trump, of course, has become the greatest source of lead generation the American press has ever seen.” In other words, to a dying news industry, the Trump presidency has been great for business.
5. Pay special attention to the language of newscasts. Because film footage and other visual imagery are so engaging on TV news shows, viewers are apt to allow language—what the reporter is saying about the images—to go unexamined. A TV news host’s language frames the pictures, and, therefore, the meaning we derive from the picture is often determined by the host’s commentary. TV by its very nature manipulates viewers. One must never forget that every television minute has been edited. The viewer does not see the actual event but the edited form of the event. For example, presenting a one- to two-minute segment from a two-hour political speech and having a TV talk show host critique may be disingenuous, but such edited footage is a regular staple on news shows. Add to that the fact that the reporters editing the film have a subjective view—sometimes determined by their corporate bosses—that enters in.
6. Reduce by at least one-half the amount of TV news you watch. TV news generally consists of “bad” news—wars, torture, murders, scandals and so forth. It cannot possibly do you any harm to excuse yourself each week from much of the mayhem projected at you on the news. Do not form your concept of reality based on television. TV news, it must be remembered, does not reflect normal everyday life. Studies indicate that a heavy viewing of TV news makes people think the world is much more dangerous than it actually is.
7. One of the reasons many people are addicted to watching TV news is that they feel they must have an opinion on almost everything, which gives the illusion of participation in American life. But an “opinion” is all that we can gain from TV news because it only presents the most rudimentary and fragmented information on anything. Thus, on most issues we don’t really know much about what is actually going on. And, of course, we are expected to take what the TV news host says on an issue as gospel truth. But isn’t it better to think for yourself? Add to this that we need to realize that we often don’t have enough information from the “news” source to form a true opinion. How can that be done? Study a broad variety of sources, carefully analyze issues in order to be better informed, and question everything.
The bottom line is simply this: Americans should beware of letting others—whether they be television news hosts, political commentators or media corporations—do their thinking for them.
As I make clear in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, a populace that cannot think for themselves is a populace with its backs to the walls: mute in the face of elected officials who refuse to represent us, helpless in the face of police brutality, powerless in the face of militarized tactics and technology that treat us like enemy combatants on a battlefield, and naked in the face of government surveillance that sees and hears all.
It’s time to change the channel, tune out the reality TV show, and push back against the real menace of the police state. If not, if we continue to sit back and lose ourselves in political programming, we will remain a captive audience to a farce that grows more absurd by the minute.
Another brilliant essay from Orlov in which he addresses the incredible bumbling incompetence of the US in contrast to Russia’s intelligent competence – Orlov is spot on.
A whiff of World War III hangs in the air. In the US, Cold War 2.0 is on, and the anti-Russian rhetoric emanating from the Clinton campaign, echoed by the mass media, hearkens back to McCarthyism and the red scare. In response, many people are starting to think that Armageddon might be nigh—an all-out nuclear exchange, followed by nuclear winter and human extinction. It seems that many people in the US like to think that way. Goodness gracious!
The curtain is falling on a country in serious trouble
But, you know, this is hardly unreasonable of them. The US is spiraling down into financial, economic and political collapse, losing its standing in the world and turning into a continent-sized ghetto full of drug abuse, violence and decaying infrastructure, its population vice-ridden, poisoned with genetically modified food, morbidly obese, exploited by predatory police departments and city halls, plus a wide assortment of rackets, from medicine to education to real estate… That we know.We also know how painful it is to realize that the US is damaged beyond repair, or to acquiesce to the fact that most of the damage is self-inflicted: the endless, useless wars, the limitless corruption of money politics, the toxic culture and gender wars, and the imperial hubris and willful ignorance that underlies it all… This level of disconnect between the expected and the observed certainly hurts, but the pain can be avoided, for a time, through mass delusion.This sort of downward spiral does not automatically spell “Apocalypse,” but the specifics of the state cult of the US—an old-time religiosity overlaid with the secular religion of progress—are such that there can be no other options: either we are on our way up to build colonies on Mars, or we perish in a ball of flame. Since the humiliation of having to ask the Russians for permission to fly the Soyuz to the International Space Station makes the prospect of American space colonies seem dubious, it’s Plan B: balls of flame here we come!And so, most of the recent American warmongering toward Russia can be explained by the desire to find anyone but oneself to blame for one’s unfolding demise. This is a well-understood psychological move—projecting the shadow—where one takes everything one hates but can’t admit to about oneself and projects it onto another. On a subconscious level (and, in the case of some very stupid people, even a conscious one) the Americans would like to nuke Russia until it glows, but can’t do so because Russia would nuke them right back. But the Americans can project that same desire onto Russia, and since they have to believe that they are good while Russia is evil, this makes the Armageddon scenario appear much more likely.
But this way of thinking involves a break with reality. There is exactly one nation in the world that nukes other countries, and that would be the United States. It gratuitously nuked Japan, which was ready to surrender anyway, just because it could. It prepared to nuke Russia at the start of the Cold War, but was prevented from doing so by a lack of a sufficiently large number of nuclear bombs at the time. And it attempted to render Russia defenseless against nuclear attack, abandoning the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, but has been prevented from doing so by Russia’s new weapons. These include, among others, long-range supersonic cruise missiles (Kalibr), and suborbital intercontinental missiles carrying multiple nuclear payloads capable of evasive maneuvers as they approach their targets (Sarmat). All of these new weapons are impossible to intercept using any conceivable defensive technology. At the same time, Russia has also developed its own defensive capabilities, and its latest S-500 system will effectively seal off Russia’s airspace, being able to intercept targets both close to the ground and in low Earth orbit.
In the meantime, the US has squandered a fantastic sum of money fattening up its notoriously corrupt defense establishment with various versions of “Star Wars,” but none of that money has been particularly well spent. The two installations in Europe of Aegis Ashore (completed in Romania, planned in Poland) won’t help against Kalibr missiles launched from submarines or small ships in the Pacific or the Atlantic, close to US shores, or against intercontinental missiles that can fly around them. The THAAD installation currently going into South Korea (which the locals are currently protesting by shaving their heads) won’t change the picture either.
There is exactly one nuclear aggressor nation on the planet, and it isn’t Russia. But this shouldn’t matter. In spite of American efforts to undermine it, the logic of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) remains in effect. The probability of a nuclear exchange is determined not by anyone’s policy but by the likelihood of it happening by accident. Since there is no winning strategy in a nuclear war, nobody has any reason to try to start one. Under no circumstances is the US ever going to be able to dictate its terms to Russia by threatening it with nuclear annihilation.
If a nuclear war is not in the cards, how about a conventional one? The US has been sabre-rattling by stationing troops and holding drills in the Baltics, right on Russia’s western border, installing ABM systems in Romania, Poland and South Korea, supporting anti-Russian Ukrainian Nazis, etc. All of this seems quite provocative; can it result in a war? And what would that war look like?
Here, we have to look at how Russia has responded to previous provocations. These are all the facts that we know, and can use to predict what will happen, as opposed to purely fictional, conjectural statements unrelated to known facts.
When the US or its proxies attack an enclave of Russian citizens outside of Russia’s borders, here are the types of responses that we have been able to observe so far:
1. The example of Georgia. During the Summer Olympics in Beijing (a traditional time of peace), the Georgian military, armed and trained by the US and Israel, invaded South Ossetia. This region was part of Georgia in name only, being mostly inhabited by Russian speakers and passport-holders. Georgian troops started shelling its capital, Tskhinval, killing some Russian peacekeeping troops stationed in the region and causing civilian casualties. In response, Russian troops rolled into Georgia, within hours completely eliminating Georgia’s war-making capability. They announced that South Ossetia was de facto no longer part of Georgia, throwing in Abkhazia (another disputed Russian enclave) for good measure, and withdrew. Georgia’s warmongering president Saakashvili was pronounced a “political corpse” and left to molder in place. Eventually he was forced to flee Georgia, where he has been declared a fugitive from justice. The US State Department recently gave him a new job, as Governor of Odessa in the Ukraine. Recently, Russian-Georgian relations have been on the mend.
2. The example of Crimea. During the Winter Olympics in Sochi, in Russia (a traditional time of peace) there occurred an illegal, violent overthrow of the elected, constitutional government of the Ukraine, followed by the installation of a US-picked puppet administration. In response, the overwhelmingly Russian population of the autonomous region of Crimea held a referendum. Some 95% of them voted to secede from the Ukraine and to once again become part of Russia, which they had been for centuries and until very recently. The Russians then used their troops already stationed in the region under an international agreement to make sure that the results of the referendum were duly enacted. Not a single shot was fired during this perfectly peaceful exercise in direct democracy.
3. The example of Crimea again. During the Summer Olympics in Rio (a traditional time of peace) a number of Ukrainian operatives stormed the Crimean border and were swiftly apprehended by Russia’s Federal Security Service, together with a cache of weapons and explosives. A number of them were killed in the process, along with two Russians. The survivors immediately confessed to planning to organize terrorist attacks at the ferry terminal that links Crimea with the Russian mainland and a railway station. The ringleader of the group confessed to being promised the princely sum of $140 for carrying out these attacks. All of them are very much looking forward to a warm, dry bunk and three square meals of day, care of the Russian government, which must seem like a slice of heaven compared to the violence, chaos, destitution and desolation that characterizes life in present-day Ukraine. In response, the government in Kiev protested against “Russian provocation,” and put its troops on alert to prepare against “Russian invasion.” Perhaps the next shipment of US aid to the Ukraine should include a supply of chlorpromazine or some other high-potency antipsychotic medication.
Note the constant refrain of “during the Olympics.” This is not a coincidence but is indicative of a certain American modus operandi. Yes, waging war during a traditional time of peace is both cynical and stupid. But the American motto seems to be “If we try something repeatedly and it still doesn’t work, then we just aren’t trying hard enough.” In the minds of those who plan these events, the reason they never work right can’t possibly have anything to do with it being stupid. This is known as “Level III Stupid”: stupidity so profound that it is unable to comprehend its own stupidity.
4. The example of Donbass. After the events described in point 2 above, this populous, industrialized region, which was part of Russia until well into the 20th century and is linguistically and culturally Russian, went into political turmoil, because most of the locals wanted nothing to do with the government that had been installed in Kiev, which they saw as illegitimate. The Kiev government proceeded to make things worse, first by enacting laws infringing on the rights of Russian-speakers, then by actually attacking the region with the army, which they continue to do to this day, with three unsuccessful invasions and continuous shelling of both residential and industrial areas, in the course of which over ten thousand civilians have been murdered and many more wounded. In response, Russia assisted with establishing a local resistance movement supported by a capable military contingent formed of local volunteers. This was done by Russian volunteers, acting in an unofficial capacity, and by Russian private citizens donating money to the cause. In spite of Western hysteria over “Russian invasion” and “Russian aggression,” no evidence of it exists. Instead, the Russian government has done just three things: it refused to interfere with the work of its citizens coming to the aid of Donbass; it pursued a diplomatic strategy for resolving the conflict; and it has provided numerous convoys of humanitarian aid to the residents of Donbass. Russia’s diplomatic initiative resulted in two international agreements—Minsk I and Minsk II—which compelled both Kiev and Donbass to pursue a strategy of political resolution of the conflict through cessation of hostilities and the granting to Donbass of full autonomy. Kiev has steadfastly refused to fulfill its obligations under these agreements. The conflict is now frozen, but continuing to bleed because of Ukrainian shelling, waiting for the Ukrainian puppet government to collapse.
To complete the picture, let us include Russia’s recent military action in Syria, where it came to the defense of the embattled Syrian government and quickly demolished a large part of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh/Islamic Caliphate, along with various other terrorist organizations active in the region. The rationale for this action is that Russia saw a foreign-funded terrorist nest in Syria as a direct threat to Russia’s security. Two other notable facts here are that Russia acted in accordance with international law, having been invited by Syria’s legitimate, internationally recognized government and that the military action was scaled back as soon as it seemed possible for all of the legitimate (non-terrorist) parties to the conflict to return to the negotiating table. These three elements—using military force as a reactive security measure, scrupulous adherence to international law, and seeing military action as being in the service of diplomacy—are very important to understanding Russia’s methods and ambitions.
Turning now to US military/diplomatic adventures, we see a situation that is quite different. US military spending is responsible for over half of all federal discretionary spending, dwarfing most other vitally important sectors, such as infrastructure, public medicine and public education. It serves several objectives. Most importantly, it is a public jobs program: a way of employing people who are not employable in any actually productive capacity due to lack of intelligence, education and training. Second, it is a way for politicians and defense contractors to synergistically enrich themselves and each other at the public’s expense. Third, it is an advertising program for weapons sales, the US being the top purveyor of lethal technology in the world. Last of all, it is a way of projecting force around the world, bombing into submission any country that dares oppose Washington’s global hegemonic ambitions, often in total disregard of international law. Nowhere on this list is the actual goal of defending the US.
None of these justifications works vis-à-vis Russia. In dollar terms, the US outspends Russia on defense hands down. However, viewed in terms of purchasing parity, Russia manages to buy as much as ten times more defensive capability per unit national wealth than the US, largely negating this advantage. Also, what the US gets for its money is inferior: the Russian military gets the weapons it wants; the US military gets what the corrupt political establishment and their accomplices in the military-industrial complex want in order to enrich themselves. In terms of being an advertising campaign for weapons sales, watching Russian weaponry in action in Syria, effectively wiping out terrorists in short order through a relentless bombing campaign using scant resources, then seeing US weaponry used by the Saudis in Yemen, with much support and advice from the US, being continuously defeated by lightly armed insurgents, is unlikely to generate too many additional sales leads. Lastly, the project of maintaining US global hegemony seems to be on the rocks as well. Russia and China are now in a de facto military union. Russia’s superior weaponry, coupled with China’s almost infinitely huge infantry, make it an undefeatable combination. Russia now has a permanent air base in Syria, has made a deal with Iran to use Iranian military bases, and is in the process of prying Turkey away from NATO. As the US military, with its numerous useless bases around the world and piles of useless gadgets, turns into an international embarrassment, it remains, for the time being, a public jobs program for employing incompetents, and a rich source of graft.
In all, it is important to understand how actually circumscribed American military capabilities are. The US is very good at attacking vastly inferior adversaries. The action against Nazi Germany only succeeded because it was by then effectively defeated by the Red Army—all except for the final mop-up, which is when the US came out of its timid isolation and joined the fray. Even North Korea and Vietnam proved too tough for it, and even there its poor performance would have been much poorer were it not for the draft, which had the effect of adding non-incompetents to the ranks, but produced the unpleasant side-effect of enlisted men shooting their incompetent officers—a much underreported chapter of American military history. And now, with the addition of LGBTQ people to the ranks, the US military is on its way to becoming an international laughing stock. Previously, terms like “faggot” and “pussy” were in widespread use in the US military’s basic training. Drill sergeants used such terminology to exhort the “numb-nuts” placed in their charge to start acting like men. I wonder what words drill sergeants use now that they’ve been tasked with training those they previously referred to as “faggots” and “pussies”? The comedic potential of this nuance isn’t lost on Russia’s military men.
This comedy can continue as long as the US military continues to shy away from attacking any serious adversary, because if it did, comedy would turn to tragedy rather quickly.
If, for instance, US forces tried to attack Russian territory by lobbing missiles across the border, they would be neutralized in instantaneous retaliation by Russia’s vastly superior artillery.
If Americans or their proxies provoked Russians living outside of Russia (and there are millions of them) to the point of open rebellion, Russian volunteers, acting in an unofficial capacity and using private funds, would quickly train, outfit and arm them, creating a popular insurgency that would continue for years, if necessary, until Americans and their proxies capitulate.
If the Americans do the ultimately foolish thing and invade Russian territory, they would be kettled and annihilated, as repeatedly happened to the Ukrainian forces in Donbass.
Any attempt to attack Russia using the US aircraft carrier fleet would result in its instantaneous sinking using any of several weapons: ballistic anti-ship missiles, supercavitating torpedos or supersonic cruise missiles.
Strategic bombers, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles would be eliminated by Russia’s advanced new air defense systems.
So much for attack; but what about defense? Well it turns out that there is an entire separate dimension to engaging Russia militarily. You see, Russia lost a huge number of civilian lives while fighting off Nazi Germany. Many people, including old people, women and children, died of starvation and disease, or from German shelling, or from the abuse they suffered at the hands of German soldiers. On the other hand, Soviet military casualties were on par with those of the Germans. This incredible calamity befell Russia because it had been invaded, and it has conditioned Russian military thinking ever since. The next large-scale war, if there ever is one, will be fought on enemy territory. Thus, if the US attacks Russia, Russia will counterattack the US mainland. Keeping in mind that the US hasn’t fought a war on its own territory in over 150 years, this would come as quite a shock.
Of course, this would be done in ways that are consistent with Russian military thinking. Most importantly, the attack must be such that the possibility of triggering a nuclear exchange remains minimized. Second, the use of force would be kept to the minimum required to secure a cessation of hostilities and a return to the negotiating table on terms favorable to Russia. Third, every effort would be made to make good use of internal popular revolts to create long-lasting insurgencies, letting volunteers provide the necessary arms and training. Lastly, winning the peace is just as important as winning the war, and every effort would be made to inform the American public that what they are experiencing is just retribution for certain illegal acts. From a diplomatic perspective, it would be much more tidy to treat the problem of war criminals running the US as an internal, American political problem, to be solved by Americans themselves, with an absolute minimum of outside help. This would best be accomplished through a bit of friendly, neighborly intelligence-sharing, letting all interested parties within the US know who exactly should be held responsible for these war crimes, what they and their family members look like, and where they live.
The question then is, What is the absolute minimum of military action—what I am calling “a thousand balls of fire,” named after George Bush Senior’s “a thousand points of light”—to restore peace on terms favorable to Russia? It seems to me that 1000 “balls of fire” is just about the right number. These would be smallish explosions—enough to demolish a building or an industrial installation, with almost no casualties. This last point is extremely important, because the goal is to destroy the system without actually directly hurting any of the people. It wouldn’t be anyone else’s fault if people in the US suffer because they refuse to do as their own FEMA asks them to do: stockpile a month’s worth of food and water and put together an emergency evacuation plan. In addition, given the direction in which the US is heading, getting a second passport, expatriating your savings, and getting some firearms training just in case you end up sticking around are all good ideas.
The reason it is very important for this military action to not kill anyone is this: there are some three million Russians currently residing in the US, and killing any of them is definitely not on strategy. There is an even larger number of people from populous countries friendly to Russia, such as China and India, who should also remain unharmed. Thus, a strategy that would result in massive loss of life would simply not be acceptable. A much better scenario would involve producing a crisis that would quickly convince the Russians living in the US (along with all the other foreign nationals and first-generation immigrants, and quite a few of the second-generation immigrants too) that the US is no longer a good place to live. Then all of these people could be repatriated—a process that would no doubt take a few years. Currently, Russia is the number three destination worldwide for people looking for a better place to live, after the US and Germany. Germany is now on the verge of open revolt against Angela Merkel’s insane pro-immigration policies. The US is not far behind, and won’t remain an attractive destination for much longer. And that leaves Russia as the number one go-to place on the whole planet. That’s a lot of pressure, even for a country that is 11 time zones wide and has plenty of everything except tropical fruit and people.
We must also keep in mind that Israel—which is, let’s face it, a US protectorate temporarily parked on Palestinian land—wouldn’t last long without massive US support. Fully a third of Israeli population happens to be Russian. The moment Project Israel starts looking defunct, most of these Russian Jews, clever people that they are, will no doubt decide to stage an exodus and go right back to Russia, as is their right. This will create quite a headache for Russia’s Federal Migration Service, because it will have to sift through them all, letting in all the normal Russian Jews while keeping out the Zionist zealots, the war criminals and the ultra-religious nutcases. This will also take considerable time.
But actions that risk major loss of life also turn out to be entirely unnecessary, because an effective alternative strategy is available: destroy key pieces of government and corporate infrastructure, then fold your arms and wait for the other side to crawl back to the negotiating table waving a white rag. You see, there are just a few magic ingredients that allow the US to continue to exist as a stable, developed country capable of projecting military force overseas. They are: the electric grid; the financial system; the interstate highway system; rail and ocean freight; the airlines; and oil and gas pipelines. Disable all of the above, and it’s pretty much game over. How many “balls of flame” would that take? Probably well under a thousand.
Disabling the electric grid is almost ridiculously easy, because the system is very highly integrated and interdependent, consisting of just three sub-grids, called “interconnects”: western, eastern and Texas. The most vulnerable parts of the system are the Large Power Transformers (LPTs) which step up voltages to millions of volts for transmission, and step them down again for distribution. These units are big as houses, custom-built, cost millions of dollars and a few years to replace, and are mostly manufactured outside the US. Also, along with the rest of the infrastructure in the US, most of them are quite old and prone to failure. There are several thousand of these key pieces of equipment, but because the electric grid in the US is working at close to capacity, with several critical choke points, it would be completely disabled if even a handful of the particularly strategic LPTs were destroyed. In the US, any extended power outage in any of the larger urban centers automatically triggers large-scale looting and mayhem. Some estimate that just a two week long outage would push the situation to a point of no return, where the damage would become too extensive to ever be repaired.
Disabling the financial system is likewise relatively trivial. There are just a few choke points, including the Federal Reserve, a few major banks, debit and credit card company data centers, etc. They can be disabled using a variety of methods, such as a cruise missile strike, a cyberattack, electric supply disruption or even civil unrest. It bears noting that the financial system in the US is rigged to blow even without foreign intervention. The combination of runaway debt, a gigantic bond bubble, the Federal Reserve trapped into ever-lower interest rates, underfunded pensions and other obligations, hugely overpriced real estate and a ridiculously frothy stock market will eventually detonate it from the inside.
A few more surgical strikes can take out the oil and gas pipelines, import terminals, highway bridges and tunnels, railroads and airlines. A few months without access to money and financial services, electricity, gasoline, diesel, natural gas, air transport or imported spare parts needed to repair the damage should be enough to force the US to capitulate. If it makes any efforts to restore any of these services, an additional strike or two would quickly negate them.
The number of “balls of flame” can be optimized by taking advantage of destructive synergies: a GPS jammer deployed near the site of an attack can prevent responders from navigating to it; taking out a supply depot together with the facility it serves, coupled with transportation system disruptions, can delay repairs by many months; a simple bomb threat can immobilize a transportation hub, making it a sitting duck instead of a large number of moving targets; etc.
You may think that executing such a fine-tuned attack would require a great deal of intelligence, which would be difficult to gather, but this is not the case. First, a great deal of tactically useful information is constantly being leaked by insiders, who often consider themselves “patriots.” Second, what hasn’t been leaked can be hacked, because of the pitiable state of cybersecurity in the US. Remember, Russia is where anti-virus software is made—and a few of the viruses too. The National Security Agency was recently hacked, and its crown jewels stolen; if it can be hacked, what about all those whose security it supposedly protects?
You might also think that the US, if attacked in this manner, could effectively retaliate in kind, but this scenario is rather difficult to imagine. Many Russians don’t find English too difficult, are generally familiar with the US through exposure to US media, and the specialists among them, especially those who have studied or taught at universities in the US, can navigate their field of expertise in the US almost as easily as in Russia. Most Americans, on the other hand, can barely find Russia on a map, can’t get past the Cyrillic alphabet and find Russian utterly incomprehensible.
Also consider that Russia’s defense establishment is mainly focused on… defense. Offending people in foreign lands is not generally seen as strategically important. “A hundred friends is better than a hundred rubles” is a popular saying. And so Russia manages to be friends with India and Pakistan at the same time, and with China and Vietnam. In the Middle East, it maintains cordial relations with Turkey, Syria, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt and Iran, also all at the same time. Russian diplomats are required to keep channels of communication open with friends and adversaries alike, at all times. Yes, being inexplicably adversarial toward Russia can be excruciatingly painful, but you can make it stop any time! All it takes is a phone call.
Add to this the fact that the vicissitudes of Russian history have conditioned Russia’s population to expect the worst, and simply deal with it. “They can’t kill us all!” is another favorite saying. If Americans manage to make them suffer, the Russian people would no doubt find great solace in the fact they are making the Americans suffer even worse, and many among them would think that this achievement, in itself, is already a victory. Nor will they remain without help; it is no accident that Russia’s Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigu, previously ran the Emergencies Ministry, and his performance at his job there won him much adulation and praise. In short, if attacked, the Russians will simply take their lumps—as they always have—and then go on to conquer and win, as they always have.
It doesn’t help matters that most of what little Americans have been told about Russia by their political leaders and mass media is almost entirely wrong. They keep hearing about Putin and the “Russian bear,” and so they are probably imagining Russia to be a vast wasteland where Vladimir Putin keeps company with a chess-playing, internet server-hacking, nuclear physicist, rocket scientist, Ebola vaccine-inventing, polyglot, polymath bear. Bears are wonderful, Russians love bears, but let’s not overstate things. Yes, Russian bears can ride bicycles and are sometimes even good with children, but they are still just wild animals and/or pets (many Russians can’t draw that distinction). And so when the Americans growl about the “Russian bear,” the Russians wonder, Which one?
In short, Russia is to most Americans a mystery wrapped in an enigma, and there simply isn’t a large enough pool of intelligent Americans with good knowledge of Russia to draw upon, whereas to many Russians the US is an open book. As far as the actual American “intelligence” and “security” services, they are all bloated bureaucratic boondoggles mired in political opportunism and groupthink that excel at just two things: unquestioningly following idiotic procedures, and creatively fitting the facts to the politics du jour. “Proving” that Iraq has “weapons of mass destruction”—no problem! Telling Islamist terrorists apart from elderly midwestern grandmothers at an airport security checkpoint—no can do!
Russia will not resort to military measures against the US unless sorely provoked. Time and patience are on Russia’s side. With each passing year, the US grows weaker and loses friends and allies, while Russia grows stronger and gains friends and allies. The US, with its political dysfunction, runaway debt, decaying infrastructure and spreading civil unrest, is a dead nation walking. It will take time for each of the United States to neatly demolish themselves into their own footprints, like those three New York skyscrapers did on 9/11 (WTC #1, #2 and #7) but Russia is very patient. Russia is ready to respond to any provocation, but the last thing the Russians want is another war. And that, if you like good news, is the best news you are going to hear. But if you still think that there is going to be a war with Russia, don’t think “Armageddon”; think “a thousand balls of flame,” and then—crickets!
The past couple of weeks saw a number of truly tectonic events taking place simultaneously in the USA, in Russia, in Israel, in Syria, in Iran and in the EU. I think that it would also be reasonable to say that most of those who opposed the AngloZionist Empire have felt feelings ranging from mild disappointment to total dismay. I sure did not hear many people rejoicing, but if somebody was, they were in the minority (uncharacteristically, Mikhail Khazin, for example). These reactions are normal, we all form expectations which can be, and often are, disappointed. Still, even when the news is clearly bad it is helpful to keep a number of things in mind.
First, people, countries and events are not frozen in time. They are processes. Processes, by definition, are subject to change, evolution and (even radical) changes in direction.
Second, each process carries within itself the seeds of its own contradiction. This is what makes processes dynamic.
Third, people are imperfect. Even good people make mistakes, sometimes with tragic consequences. Yet it would be wrong to separate them all into either “infallible hero” or “abject villain and loser”. In fact, I would argue that any kind of mistake, especially a serious one, carries within itself its own contradiction which, in turn, can end up “energizing” the original process by creating a different set of circumstances.
All this is to say that the real world is not like Hollywood when the outcome of the story is only 90 minutes or so away. The real world is at war with the Empire and in this war, like in any other wars, there are mistakes and losses on both sides Both sides make mistakes and the results of these mistakes affect the future course of the war.
I would argue that in the past couple of weeks Russia suffered not one, but several PR disasters. I would also argue that the Zionists have had some tremendous PR successes. I will list them further below, but I want to suggest to you that PR disasters and successes are not quite the same as real-world, tangible victories. Furthermore, PR disasters and successes can sometimes be useful, as they reveal to the world previously overlooked, or underestimated, weaknesses. Finally, PR disasters and successes, while existing mostly in the realm of perceptions, can have a real-world effect, sometimes a dramatic one.
The usual chorus of Putin-haters who immediately declared final victory is completely mistaken and their reaction is the reflection of an infantile understanding of the complex world we live in. In the real world, a person like Putin can, and usually does, commit mistakes (PR and real-world mistakes) and the enemy can mount very effective counter-attacks. But the outcome of the war is not decided on a single battle. Furthermore, in politics, like in regular warfare, tactical mistakes and successes do not at all imply operational or, even less so, strategic successes. During WWII the German military usually performed better than the Soviet one on the tactical level, but the Soviets were superior on the operational and strategic levels. We all know how that war ended. If you want to read a good analysis and debunking of the “Putin caved in” nonsense, I recommend the article ”Russia Betrayed Syria”: Geopolitics through the eyes of a fearful “pro-Russia” Westerner” by Ollie Richardson.
The other extreme is to deny, against all evidence, that there is a problem or that mistakes have been made. That kind of stubborn flag-waving is actually unhelpful as mistakes are inevitable, and the first step towards mitigating them is to recognize them. The extreme version of that kind of flag-waving (pseudo-)patriotism is to denounce a person brining up problems as a traitor or a defeatist.
It is with all this in mind that I would like to revisit what has taken place and try to gauge what the real-world consequences of these PR events might be.
Part one: Putin disappoints
Quick summary: Putin re-appointed Medvedev, appointed Alexei Kudrin as Chairman of the Accounts Chamber of Russia and Vitalii Mutko as Deputy Prime Minister in charge of construction, he then hosted Bibi Netanyahu in the Kremlin while the latter bombed Syria right before, during and after Netanyahu’s visit. Finally, there is the disgraceful zig-zag about the S-300 for Syria: first, yes we will do it, then, no we won’t. All these events can, and should, be carefully analyzed and explained, but I don’t think that it makes sense to deny that most people feel a sense of disappointment over it all (except, of course, the bright geniuses who will claim that they knew all along that Putin was “fake”, but this is precisely the “Hollywood-thinking” types on whom any real analysis would be lost in the first place).
I would argue that even those who think that this is no big deal and that nothing terrible happened will not, if they are honest, deny that Putin must have known, without any doubt, that his decisions would be unpopular with the Russian public and that, very uncharacteristically for him, he deliberately chose to ignore his only public opinion and favor other considerations. That is something very new and, I think, something important.
There are roughly two camps vying for power inside the Kremlin: I call them the Atlantic Integrationists and the Eurasian Sovereignists. The former group is a pure product of the 1990s. We can think of them as “liberals”, IMF/Washington Consensus/WTO/WB types; folks who came to power thanks to the regime of oligarchs which ran Russia from about 1990 to 2000 and which was both deeply pro-American and which had extremely close ties to Israel and the various political Jewish and Zionist organizations in the West. The latter group is primarily a product of the armed forces and the security services. The “bridge” between the two is, by the way, the Russian military industrial complex in which both groups are represented. Unsurprisingly, most Russian “elites” (defined simply as people who made their fortune or, at least, a good living in the 1990s and after) support the Atlantic Integrationists, while most “regular” Russian people overwhelmingly support the Eurasian Sovereignists. This is why Putin is so popular and Medvedev never was. What is interesting is to look into how these groups relate to Israel and Zionism.
Atlantic Integrationists: unsurprisingly, they are pro-Israeli to the hilt. For them, Israel is a totally normal country, even to be admired, as they all have personal/family and business ties to Israelis in Israel and in the USA. While there is no official version of AIPAC in Russia, let’s just say that the ADL would give the Atlantic Integrationists a perfect score for loyalty and service.
Eurasian Sovereignists: here, things are much more complicated. Some Eurasian Sovereignists are profoundly anti-Zionist ideologically, while others don’t really care. But even for those who have no love for Israel, or who are deeply opposed to the Zionist influence in Russia in the 1990s or even today (especially in the Russian media), do not necessarily find it useful to say much about it. Why? Primarily because they think, and I would say correctly so, that being pro-Russian (in the sense of patriotic and wanting a truly sovereign Russia) does not have to entail being anti-Zionist, anti-Israeli or anti-Jewish. Furthermore, there are, and have always been, patriotic Russian Jews who have been an integral part of the Russian culture and history. Just like I often write that for Russians, Muslims are not “aliens” in the way many westerners perceive them, and Jews are not “aliens” for Russians either. This is why you can often meet the following Russian type: they will bitch and complain about all the Jewish “crooks and politicians”, but have “good” Jews as their closest and best friends. This is not blindness at all, this is the expression of the fact that to loathe an ideology is one thing, but to collectively feel hostility towards a group of people you know very well is a completely different proposition. I will never cease to repeat it: Russia is, has always been, and still remains a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society in which the presence of “others” simply is a fact of life.
Then there is the WWII factor, which the Israelis and Russians Zionists have been extremely skilled at exploiting to the max: Russians and Jew are united in a common memory of the horrors the Nazis inflicted upon them and they also often sense that West Europeans and US Americans are, well, maybe not quite as sincerely sympathetic to their plight even if political correctness forces them to pretend to be. As a result, you will find that most anti-Zionist Russians, while surely not “ADL compatible” in their views, hate the Nazis and everything western racism stands for no less than Jews would. If fact, when faced with the modern wave of rabid russophobia, many Russians say “we are the new Jews”, meaning that everything evil on the planet is blamed on them regardless of fact or logic. Like it or not, but that common memory does bind Russians and Jews in a profound way.
I can already imagine the rage and disgust my words above will trigger in western Jew-haters for whom the world is split into two groups: Jew-haters (good) and all those who “sold out” to “the Jews” (as if there was such monad as “the Jews”). All I can tell them is this: don’t project your reductionist world view on others, especially not on Russia. If you do, you will never “get” Russia and you will be stuck with the kind of proverbial nonsense like “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”.
Part two: The Empire Strikes back
The past couple of years have been terrible for the Zionists, both in the USA and in the rest of the world. First, there was the crushing defeat of their candidate in the USA and the election of a candidate they rabidly hated. Then there was the Russian military intervention in Syria which prevented them from overthrowing the last secular “resistance” regime in the Arab world. In Russia, “their” Atlantic Integrationists were slowly but surely losing power and all in all, the western sanctions turned out to be a blessing for Russia. Putin’s popularity was soaring to new heights and the the global “Zionist house” was on fire. In the USA, the Zionists counter-attacked with lightening speed and with a devastating effectiveness, breaking Trump in about 30 days (as shown by Trump’s betrayal of Flynn and later Bannon). After that, Trump made appeasing AIPAC his full-time job.
But that left another problem: while the US was re-taken under control, Russia, in the meantime, had succeeded in developing the capabilities to completely negate the entire US ABM system, to make much of the surface fleet obsolete and severely to impair the ability of US airpower to operate in airspace contested by modern Russian air defenses. In other words, in purely military terms, this was “game, set, match for Russia”.
[Sidebar: to those shocked by this statement and who would dismiss this as “Russian propaganda” I will submit the following: US military power is predicated on the following:
The ability to deploy a carrier strike group anywhere on the planet.
The ability to protect that carrier strike group from any major counter-attack.
The ability to strike any country in the world with enough missile and airstrikes to break its will to continue to fight.
The complete and total control of the skies (air supremacy). US forces simply never train for a combat scenario where they don’t control the skies or, even less so, when their enemy does.
The very strong belief that no enemy would dare attack major overseas US bases.
The very strong, quasi religious, belief that US military technology is superior.
The absolute certitude that the US mainland would never be hit in a counter-attack.
None of the previous beliefs are based in reality anymore and, in fact, their opposite is true. This is why when dealing with a near-peer or peer enemy the US armed forces are more or less useless. The only very notable exception is the US nuclear triad and the US submarine fleet. The current situation in Syria (and by implication, Iran and Russia) is finally gradually bringing this new reality to the awareness of US decision-makers and military commanders.]
This is why Russia, albeit with only a tiny contingent, succeeded in turning the tide of the war in Syria and even now presents the AngloZionists with a frustrating challenge:
a (comparatively) tiny contingent of Russian forces completely derailed the Empire’s plans for the entire Middle-East: not only is there a real change of peace breaking out in Syria, but the situation is far from having the Takfiris and Shia killing each other in Syria and Lebanon (a key part of the Israeli plan for the region). Hezbollah, Iran and the Syrians are now in a victorious coalition on the ground with the “Axis of Kindness” forces roundly defeated.
So the Israelis decided on a simple, very effective and very dangerous counter offensive plan: 1) start a war between the USA and Iran by creating an acute crisis as a result of the US reneging on its legal obligations and 2) bait Iran into a counter-attack in response to Israel air operations against Iranian and pro-Iranian forces in Syria. But for that plan to succeed, Russia needed to stay out.
So far, at least, it looks like the Israelis have convinced the Russians to stay out. But is that perception really well founded?
Part three: factors inhibiting Russia
First and foremost, as I have already explained in great detail in the past, Russia has absolutely no legal or moral obligation to support, protect, arm, train or otherwise assist anybody in the Middle-East. None. Russia has already done more for Syria than the entire Arab/Muslim world combined with the notable exception of Iran and Hezbollah. As for the Arab/Muslim world, it has never done anything for Russia and still is doing nothing. So those who like to whine about Russia not doing enough simply have no case whatsoever.
Second, the Russian air defense and air forces in Syria have only one mission: to protect the Russian task force in Syria. Whoever got the idea that Russia is supposed to shoot down Israeli aircraft or missiles over Syria has not been paying attention to public Russian statements about this. The notion that the Russian task force in Syria is there to engage US/NATO/CENTCOM forces is just as ridiculous.
Third, and contrary to a frequently held misconception, the Syrian government, Iran, Hezbollah and Iran have different agendas in the Middle-East. Yes, they are de-facto allies.They also have the same enemies, they often work together, but they all think of their own interests first. In fact, at least in the case of Iran and Russia, there are clear signs that there are several ‘camps’ inside the Russian and Iranian government and the ruling elites which have different agendas (I highly recommend Thierry Meyssan’s recent articles on this topic here and here). To think that any or all of them will instantly come to the defense of any one of them is supremely naïve, especially when the aggressor (Israel) is backed by the full power of an already warmongering Empire run amok.
Fourth, the sad reality is that Russia, unlike Iran, never took a principled position concerning the nature and behavior of the state of Israel. I very much deplore that, and I consider it a shame,but I hasten to add that this shame is shared by every single country on the planet except Iran, Boliviaand, maybe, to some extent Turkey. Not to excuse anything, but only to explain, there is very little awareness amongst Russians about the true nature and behavior of the Israelis, and most of what makes it to the media is hopelessly pro-Israeli (hence the almost constant presence of the likes of Iakov Kedmi, Avigdor Eskin, Evgenii Satanovskii and other Israeli agents – they don’t even really bother to deny it – on Russian TV). The Russian media, especially the TV stations, could easily get a “ADL seal of approval”. Simply put: the vast majority of Russians don’t feel that the plight of the Palestinians or the constant Israeli attacks on neighboring countries is their problem.
[Sidebar: such a view can appear very self-centered until you recall the kind of “gratitude” Russia got in the past from her former interventions. There are countries out there who exist only because Russia decided that they should exist and which today are members of NATO. I won’t even go into the “Slavic brotherhood” or, for that matter, “Orthodox brotherhood” nonsense. The only people with whom Russia truly has a strong bond are the Serbs. The rest of them were more than happy to backstab Russia as soon as convenient. Thus history has taught Russia a painful lesson: give up on any naïve notions of gratitude or brotherhood. Very sad, but true. Today, even countries like Kazakhstan, Armenia or Georgia are showing a very ambivalent (and even ambiguous) attitude towards Russia. As a result the idea that Russia owes some form of protection to anybody out there has almost no support in Russia.]
Fifth, even the Eurasian Sovereignist’s analysts and media in Russia have this absolutely amazing “blind spot” about Israel and the Zionist ideology: I think of analysts whom I sincerely admire and respect (like Sergei Mikheev or Ruslan Ostashko) and whose analysis is superb on pretty much everything and who simply never mention the power and influence of what is clearly a powerful pro-Israeli lobby inside Russia, especially in the Russian media (even when they mention the power of the Israel lobby in the USA). Considering how different the tone of much of the Russian Internet is, the only explanation I have for this situation is that any public anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist statements are career-terminators in Russia (we also clearly see the same phenomenon at work with RT and Sputnik). You can completely forget about any Russian religious figures speaking up, and that goes both for the Orthodox and Muslims: they all take their orders from the Kremlin and have no personal opinion on anything (I am only talking about the “official” senior religious leaders – the rank and file faithful do not display this type of behavior).
Sixth, there are plenty of people in Russia who fully realize two simple things: first, a war between Iran and the Empire would be disastrous for the Empire (and therefore great for Russia) and, second, the Iranians are also “problematic” allies at best who have their own version of “Atlanticists” (remember the “Gucci Revolution”?) and “Sovereignists”, which means that tensions, or warfare, between Iran and the USA would be greatly advantageous for the anti-US camp inside Iran (just like the rabid russophobia of western politicians did more to re-elect Putin than any of his own campaign rhetoric). To put it crudely, if the Israelis are dumb enough to attack the Iranians, and if the US Americans are subservient enough to Israel to join into the fight – why should Russia take great risks and openly stand in the way? Finally, any conflict with Iran (which will most likely also involve the KSA) will have oil prices skyrocket. What do you think this will do to the Russian economy?
Seventh, the war which Israel is currently waging against Iran and pro-Iranian forces in Syria is entirely a symbolic war. Even the Pantsir which was recently destroyed by the Israelis (with the usual pro-Israeli PR campaign) was not even on combat alert: the unit was not even camouflaged and its crew was standing around and smoking. The Israelis are masters at making this look all very impressive and heroic, but in military terms, this is nonsense: they clearly hit a unit which was not even part of the action (whatever that “action” was).
The basic rule of warfare still remains valid today: unless you can put boots on the ground, your efforts will never have a decisive military effect. And thank God for the fact that nobody in the “Axis of Kindness” has any credible ground forces; not the Israelis (remember 2006?); not the Saudis (look at Yemen); and most definitely not the USA (when is the last time they beat somebody capable of resisting?). That is why the AngloZionist Empire always tries to use proxies like the Kurds or the “good terrorists” to fight on its behalf. Thus the Russian military specialists fully understand that even if the Israelis bombed Syria for the next several months, they would not be able to change the fundamental correlation of forces on the ground. Hence, the Israeli strikes are mostly about PR.
Still, for all these reasons, and more, we all have to come to terms with the fact that Russia is what I would call a “limited actor” in the Middle-East. I have been saying from day 1 – when some were having visions of Russian airborne divisions (supported by MiG-31s!) landing near Damascus – that “the Russians are not coming” (see here, here, here, here and here). Furthermore, I tried to explain that the Russians are under no obligation whatsoever to protect or save anyone anywhere, including in the Middle-East (see here). Finally, I tried to explain that the Russian-Israeli relationship is a multi-layered and complex one (see here) and that Putin is facing some tremendous internal opposition which he has failed to successfully tackle (see here). But trying to describe a complex reality is often a futile task in a world in which simple, black and white, binary-kind of representations are the rule and where every complex argument is immediately turned into a long list of straw-man misrepresentations. This is still very much the case with the latest developments.
Those who say that “Putin sold out” are wrong, but so are those who think that “the Russians are coming” to save anybody. It is just not going to happen. Russia will not fight a war against Israel (unless she is attacked first) and Russia will only support Iranian operations and policies insofar as the Iranians negotiate a deal with the Russian and coordinate their efforts. As soon as Iran, or Hezbollah, make a move without prior consultations with Moscow, they will be on their own to deal with the consequences.
Part four: is Russia caving in to Western and Israeli pressure?
Setting aside the issue of the Russian role in the Middle-East, there remains the issue of why Putin failed to deliver on what was clearly a mandate of the Russian people to get rid of at least of the most hated personalities in the Russian government. Most folks in the West know how toxic Kudrin is, but the promotion of Mutko is nothing short of amazing too. This is the man who is most to blame for the gross mismanagement of the entire “Russia doping scandal” operation and who is absolutely despised for his incompetence. Now he is in charge of construction. There is even a good joke about this: Putin put Mutko in charge of the construction industry because the Russian construction market badly needs some doping. Funny, sure, but only so far. When I see Rogozin removed for his “poor management” (now put in charge of the Russian rocket and space industry) and Mutko promoted, I wonder if they have all gone crazy in the Kremlin.
We can all argue ad nauseam why exactly this has happened, but let’s first agree on one simple fact: Putin has failed to purge the Atlantic Integrationists. The big expectation of him getting a strong personal mandate from the people and then finally kicking them out of the Kremlin has, alas, been proven completely unfounded. There are a couple of interesting explanations out there such as:
Objectively, the Medvedev government has done a very decent, if not good job, with the economy. True, some/many believe that mistakes were made, that there were better economic policies available, but it would be hard to argue that the government completely failed. In fact, there are some pretty strong arguments which indicate that the Medvedev government (see this article discussing this in detail and it’s machine translation here and this article and its machine translation here)
Putin’s very ambitious internal economic growth program needs the support of the interests represented by the Atlantic Integrationists. In fact, internal development and economic growth are the core of his very ambitious political program. Possibly not the best time to purge the Kremlin from those who represent the interests of Russian big business.
The Medvedev “clan” has been weakened (see here for details) and now that it has been put on a much shorter “technocratic” leash, it is far less dangerous. In fact, it has been been subdued by Putin and his allies. Lavrov and Shoigu are both staying, by the way.
Trump’s reckless behavior is deeply alienating the Europeans to whom Putin is now presenting negotiation partners which they would trust (imagine Merkel and Rogozin in the same room – that would not go well!). Check out this excellent article by Frank Sellers in The Duran looking at the immense potential for Russia-EU cooperation.
Meh. I am personally unconvinced. How can Putin say that he wants serious reforms while keeping the exact same type of people in command? If indeed the Medvedev government did such a great job, then we is there any need for such major reforms? If Putin’s power base is indeed, as I believe it to be, in the people, then why is he trying to appease the financial elites by catering to their interests and agenda? Most crucially, how can Russia free herself from the financial and economic grip of the Empire when the Empire’s 5th column agents are (re-)appointed to key positions? And in all of Russia was there really nobody more qualified than Mutko or Kudrin to appoint to these positions?
Of course, there always this “Putin knows something you don’t” but I have always had a problem with that kind of logic which is essentially an open-ended universal cop-out. I hope that I am wrong, but to me this does strongly suggest that Putin is on the retreat, that he has made a major mistake and that the Empire has scored a major victory. And I will gladly admit that I have yet to hear an explanation which would explain this, never mind offer one of my own.
On the external front, has Russia caved in to Israeli pressure? Ruslan Ostashko offers a very good analysis of why this is hardly the case: (I don’t necessarily agree with his every conclusion, but he does make a very good case:
Yes, Netanyahu *did* with his repeated strikes on Syria, thumb his nose at Putin (that famous Israeli chutzpah at work for you!), and yes, Putin wining and dining Netanyahu was a painful sight and a PR-disaster. But on substance, did Israel get Russia to “betray Iran”? No, and not because the Russians are so heroically principled, but because Israel really has nothing to offer Russia. All Israel has is a powerful pro-Isreal lobby inside Russia, that is true. But the more they use that lobby the more visible it becomes, the more questions at least Eurasian Sovereignists will ask.
The Israelis sure don’t want to give the impression that the run Russia the way they run the USA, and Netanyahu’s reception in the Kremlin recently has already raised a lot of eyebrows and the impression that Putin caved in to the demands of this arrogant bastard are not helping Putin, to put it mildly. A lot of Russian analysts (Viktor Baranets, Maksim Shevchenko, Leonid Ivashov) wonder what kind of arguments Netanyahu used with Putin, and the list of possibilities is an outright uninspiring one.
Part five – another truism: there is a difference between excellent, good, average, bad and terrible
Even if the situation in Russia has changed for the worse, this is hardly a reason to engage in the usual “Putin sold out” hysteria or to declare that “Russia caved in”. Even when things are bad, there is still a huge difference between bad and worse. As of right now, Putin is not only the best possible person to be the President of Russia, Russia also continues to be the objective leader of the resistance to the Empire. Again, the black-and-white “Hollywood” type of mindset entirely misses the dynamic nature of what is going on. For example, it is quite clear to me that a new type of Russian opposition is slowly forming. Well, it always existed, really – I am talking about people who supported Putin and the Russian foreign policy and who disliked Medvedev and the Russian internal policies. Now the voice of those who say that Putin is way too soft in his stance towards the Empire will only get stronger. As will the voices of those who speak of a truly toxic degree of nepotism and patronage in the Kremlin (again, Mutko being the perfect example). When such accusations came from rabid pro-western liberals, they had very little traction, but when they come from patriotic and even nationalist politicians (Nikolai Starikov for example) they start taking on a different dimension. For example, while the court jester Zhirinovskii and his LDPR party loyally supported Medvedev, the Communist and the Just Russia parties did not. Unless the political tension around figures like Kudrin and Medvedev is somehow resolved (maybe a timely scandal?), we might witness the growth of a real opposition movement in Russia, and not one run by the Empire. It will be interesting to see if Putin’s personal ratings will begin to go down and what he will have to do in order to react to the emergence of such a real opposition.
Much will depend on how the Russian economy will perform. If, courtesy of Trump’s megalomaniacal policies towards Iran and the EU, Russia’s economy receives a massive injection of funds (via high energy prices), then things will probably stabilize. But if the European leaders meekly cave in and join the sanctions against Iran and if the US succeeds in imposing even further sanctions on Russia, then the Medvedev government will face a serious crisis and the revival of the Russian economy promised by Putin will end up in an embarrassing failure and things could also go from bad to even worse. As for right now, our always courageous Europeans are busy handing the latest Eurovision prize to an Israeli (Eurovision prizes are always given to countries the EU leaders want to support) while the self-same Israelis “celebrate” the new US Embassy in Jerusalem by murdering 55 Palestinians (and promised to kill many more). So let’s just say that I am not very hopeful that the Europeans will grow a spine, some balls, a brain or, least of all, acquire some moral fiber anytime soon. But maybe they will be greedy enough to reject some of the most outrageous US demands? Maybe. Hopefully. After all, the European supine subservience to the USA has to the EU billions of dollars already…
Part six: dealing with the S-300 fiasco
The entire S-300 business for Syria has been an ugly mess but, again, more in the PR realm than in the real world. The constant “we will deliver, no we won’t, yes we will, no we won’t” creates a terrible impression. The explanations for this zig-zag make things only worse. Let’s take a look at what those who do not disapprove of this zig zag are saying. Their arguments go more or less as follows.
The S-300s would place the Israeli Air Force at risk not only over Syria, but also over Lebanon and even Israel. This is overkill because Russia never moved into Syria to fight a war against Israel. So the entire idea of delivering S-300s to Syria was a bad idea in the first place.
Syria does not really need S-300s. Lavrov and others mention the S-300s as a threat (because the Israelis really fear these systems), but in reality what Syria needs are Buk-M2E (see analysis in Russian and it’s machine translation here).
The Russians made a deal with Israel and in exchange for the non-delivery of the S-300s (see analysis in Russian here and the machine translation here) they are getting something very tangible: Israel will stop supporting the “good terrorists” in Syria thereby making it much easier for Damascus to finish them off.
I don’t like these arguments very much except for the 2nd one. First, I do agree that the Buk-M2E is a very modern and capable system with some advantages over the S-300 in the Syrian context, but I would still add that the infamous sentence “Syria has got all it needs” is an absolutely terrible and ridiculous statement (read Marko Marjanović devastating critique of it in his article “Israel Took out a Syrian Pantsir Air Defense Unit, S-200 Radars. Russia: ‘No S-300 Transfer, Syria Has All It Needs’” for Russia Insider). I think that this “Syria has all it needs” is yet another of these self-inflicted PR disasters and an absolutely ridiculous statement until you take it one step deeper.
So, if by “Syria has all it needs” you mean “Syria has no need for any other help” or “the Syrian air defenses can deal with any Israeli or US attack” – then this is total nonsense. Agreed. But if you just rephrase it and say “Syria has all the types of weapons it needs”, then I think that this is basically true. By far the single most important air defense system for the Syrians is the Pantsir-S1, not the S-300 or any other system.
As early as June of last year I wrote a column for the Unz Review entitled “Russia vs. America in Syria” in which I had a section entitled “Forget the S-300/S-400, think Pantsir”. I wrote that at a time when most observers were paying no attention to the Pantsir at all, and the entire world seemed obsessed with the S-300 and S-400s. I still believe that the Pantsir is the key to the outcome of the struggle for the Syrian airspace. But Syria, and Iran, need many more of them. Basically, the ideal situation is numerous Russian, Iranian and Syrian Pantsirs all over Syria, all of them integrated with already existing Russian long radar capabilities and supported by modern electronic warfare. With enough Pantsirs deployed and on full alert (not like the one the Israelis recently destroyed) and fully integrated into a single air defense network, the Syrians would be able to mount a very robust air defense capability, at a relatively cheap cost, without offering the Israelis any high value and lucrative targets.
Pantsirs can deal with most of the US and Israeli threats even if, unlike their S-300/S-400 counterparts, they cannot engage aircraft at long distance (hence the suggestion to deploy some Buk-M2E’s to approximate that capability). The truth is that S-300’s were never designed to operate more or less autonomously or to intercept cruise missiles or bombs. Yes, they *can* do that, but they were designed to deal with long range high value targets and within a multi-layered system which included many other systems, such as the Buks, Tors, Pantsirs and even Iglas and Verbas MANPADs. That multi-layered air defense system is currently abscent in Syria and would take a lot of time and money to deploy. In contrast the Pantsirs can function completely autonomously, can detect any target up to 50km away, track and engage it 20km away, protect itself and others with its 30mm guns up to 3km away. Pantsirs can even do that while moving up to 30km/h on rough terrain. This makes it an extraordinarily effective and survivable air defense system, which is relatively easy to hide, deploy and engage with no warning for the enemy. By the way, the Pantsir can also use both its 30mm canons and its missiles against ground targets, including tanks. No current air defense system can boast such a combination of capabilities.
Russia needs to deliver as many of those Pantsir-S1 systems to Syria as physically possible. A large number of Pantsir’s in Syria would present Israel and the USA with a far bigger headache than a few S-300s. Currently there is something in the range of 40-60 of such Pantsir’s in Syria. This is far from enough considering the magnitude of the threat and the capabilities of the threat. That number needs to be at least doubled.
However, and regardless of the real-world technical and military aspects of the issue, the Russian zig-zags gave the world a terrible impression: the Israelis attack a Russian ally, then the Russian promise to do something about it, then Netanyahu goes to Russia, and Putin meekly caves in. This is all a massive self-inflicted political faceplant and yet another major mistake by Putin and other Russian leaders.
Frankly, the main Russian mistake here was to *ever* mention S-300s deliveries to the Syrians.
Part Seven: the lessons from the Divine Victory of 2006 – survival is victory
In 2006 Hezbollah inflicted a massive and most humiliating defeat upon Israel. And yet, there is some pretty good evidence that it all began by a mistake. Not by Israel, by Hezbollah. Check out this now often forgotten statement made by Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah:
“We did not think, even one per cent, that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me, if I had known on July 11 … that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not”
Amazing, no? Hassan Nasrallah spoke these words after Hezbollah’s superb victory against the “invincible Tsahal”. The truth is that Hezbollah had underestimated the violence and magnitude of the Israeli attack. Not only that, but Israel did not lose a single inch of its territory while all of Lebanon, not just the south, was viciously bombed and scores of civilians died. Hezbollah did destroy a few “indestructible” Merkava tanks and almost sank the Israeli Navy’s flagship. But compared to the damage and pain inflicted by the Israelis, this was nothing. Even Hezbollah’s missiles had a comparatively small effect on the Israeli population (mostly just the typical Israeli panic). And yet, even if politicians did not want to admit it, it was as clear as can be for both sides:
Hezbollah had won a “Divine Victory” while the Israelis had suffered the worst defeat in their history. Why? For a very simple reason: Hezbollah survived.
That’s it and that’s crucial. Olmert and his goons had set out to destroy Hezbollah (or, at least, disarm it). This is what Trump will probably try to do to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and this is what the AngloZionist Empire is trying to do to Russia: eliminate it.
Once the goals are thus defined, then the definition of victory is also obvious: surviving. That’s it.
For Hezbollah, Iran or Russia to defeat Israel, the USA or the entire Empire, there is no need to plant a flag on the enemy’s main symbolic building like what Soviet soldiers did in Germany. All they need to do to win is simply to survive because the other’s sides survival is predicated upon their elimination, it’s really that simple. Israel cannot claim victory as long as Hezbollah exists, the USA cannot claim world Hegemony if Iran openly defies it, and the AngloZionist Empire cannot clain world hegemony over the our planet as long as the Russian civilizational realm openly challenges it. So while all the talk about the Iranians wanting to “wipe Israel off the map” is just a typical ziomedia invention, it is true that by their very existence Hezbollah, Iran and Russia do represent an existential threat to Israel, the USA and the Empire.
This is the biggest and the fatal weakness of the AngloZionist Empire: its survival depends on the colonization or destruction of every other country out there. Every independent country, whether big and powerful, or small and weak, represents an unacceptable challenge to the hegemony of the “indispensable nation” and the “chosen people”, which now try to rule over us all. This might well be the ultimate example of Hegelian dialectics at work in geopolitics: an Empire whose power generates it’s own demise. Many empires have come and gone in history, but the globalized world we live in, this dialectical contradiction is tremendously potentialized by the finite conditions in which empires have to operate.
Conclusion one: support for Putin and Russia must only be conditional
Over the past few years, Putin and Russia haters were predicting doom and gloom and all sorts of betrayals (or Novorussia, Syria, Iran, etc.) by Putin and Russia. Then time passed and all their predictions proved false. Instead of just talking, the Russians took action which proved the nay-sayers wrong. This time however, the Russians said and did a number of things which gave *a lot* of fuel to the Putin-haters and the only way to undo that is to take real action to prove them wrong. Right now as a result of these self-inflicted PR-disasters Russia looks very bad, even inside Russia were many Putin supporters are confused, worried and disappointed.
Externally, the Syrian and, especially, the Iranians need to come to terms with the fact that Russia is an imperfect ally, one which sometimes can help, but one which will always place its personal interests above any other consideration. In a personal email to me Eric Zuesse wrote “I think that Putin and Netanyahu are negotiating how far Israel can go and what Russia can accept — and what cooperation each will provide to the other — drawing the red lines of acceptability, for each side”. I think that he is spot on, but I also think that Putin is wrong in trying to make a deal with Israel, especially if a deal is at the expense of Iran. Ostashko is right. Objectively Israel has very little to offer Russia. But if this kind of collaboration between Russia and Israel continues, especially if Iran is attacked, then we will know that the Israel lobby inside Russia is behind these policies which go counter to the Russian national interest. We will soon find out.
In the meantime, Lavrov can’t try to get a deal going with Israel and, at the same time, whine about the “US Plan on Arab Troops Deployment in Syria ‘Sovereignty Violation’”! How about the never-ending violation by Israel of Syria’s sovereignty? How it is less repugnant than the one being perpetrated by the USA? Are such statements not fundamentally hypocritical?
We can observe a paradox here: Putin has criticized the evil immorality of the western society and imperial policies many times (most famously in Munich and at the UN). But Putin has never said anything about the evil immorality of the state of Israel. And yet Israel is the center of gravity, the nexus, of the entire AngloZionist Empire, especially since the Neocons turned Trump into their subservient lackey. In this, and in so many other areas, Russia needs to follow the example of Iran whose leaders have shown far more morality and principled policies in spite of Iran being much smaller and comparatively weaker than Russia.
In 2006 a thousand men or so of Hezbollah dared to defy the entire AngloZionist Empire (the US was, as always, backing Israel to the hilt) and they prevailed. Russian soldiers have shown time and again, including recently in Syria, they they have the same type of courage. But Russian politicians really seem to be of a much more tepid and corruptible type, and there is always the risk that Putin might gradually become less of an officer and more of a politician. And this, in turn, means that those of us who oppose the Empire and support Putin and Russia must imperatively make that support conditional upon a clearly stated set of moral and spiritual principles, not on a “my country right or wrong” kind of loyalty or, even less so, on a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” kind of fallacy. Should Putin continue in his apparent attempts to appease the Israelis a new type of internal opposition to his rule might gain power inside Russia and new internal tensions might be added to the already existing exernal ones.
Right now Putin still has a lot of “credibility capital” left in spite of his recent mistakes. However, Putin recent decisions have raised a lot of unpleasant questions which must be answered and will so in time. In the meantime, as they say in the USA, “hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and settle for anything in the middle”. The Scripture also warns us not to make idols of leaders: “Trust not in princes, nor in the children of men, in whom there is no safety” (Ps 145:3 LXX). The worldly evil we are fighting, today in the shape of the AngloZionist Empire, is but a manifestation of a much deeper, spiritual evil: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12). The young men and women from the Shia movement Amal got it right when they chose the name “Party of God” for their movement when they created Hezbollah in 1985. And Iran was right when it became an Islamic Republic: if we want to defeat the Empire we need to always let spiritual matters and moral crieria remain above any of our “pragmatic” worldly political considerations or national/ethnic loyalties: that is how we can defeat those who place a dollar value on absolutely everything they see in their narrow materialistic worldview.
Conclusion two: the quest for “Russian values”
Russian political ambiguities are the direct result of the fact that Russia, as whole, has yet to define what “Russian values” really are. The historical Russia was founded on Patristic Christianity and the Roman civilizational model and the Soviet Union on Marxism-Leninism. The 1990s marked the total triumph of materialism run amok. But unlike Hezbollah or Iran, the “New Russia” (as I like to call it) is not based on anything other than a Constitution written mostly by US advisors and their proxies and a general opposition to the western civilizational model (especially since 2014). Being against something is not an inspiring, or even tenable, political or moral stance (as the White Guards discovered during the Russian civil war). Furthermore, in her confrontation with an AngloZionist Empire which stands for absolutely nothing besides base instincts, Russia needs to stand *for* something, not just against something else. As long as Russia will not firmly define and proclaim a set of spiritual/moral values she stands for, the current zigs-zags will continue and Russian policies will prove to be inconsistent, at best.
[Sidebar: here I want to contrast the Russian society at large with the Russian armed forces who, besides having a lot of good equipment, have a very strong and clear ethos and a rock solid understanding and clarity about what they stand for. This is why Russian soldiers have consistently and spontaneously been willing to sacrifice their lives. The Russian civilian society still lacks that kind of clarity, and Russian politicians, who are no better in Russia than elsewhere, often make use of that. The Russian armed forces are also the one institution with the strongest historical memory and the deepest roots in Russian history. I would argue that they are the only institution in modern Russia whose roots truly go back to before the 1917 Revolution and even much further back than that. As descendant of “White Russians” myself I have always found it uncanny and, frankly, amazing how much closer I have felt to Russian military officers than to Russian civilians. To me it often feels as if there were two types of Russians simultaneously coexisting: the “new Russian” type (still in the process of being defined) and the military officer corps (Soviet or post-Soviet). That latter type almost instinctively made sense to me and often felt like family. This is hardly a scientific observation, but this has been my consistent personal experience].
There is a very high likelihood that Israel will succeed in triggering a US attack on Iran. If/when that happens, this will trigger a political crisis inside Russia because the space for the current political ambiguities will be dramatically reduced. On moral and on pragmatic grounds, Russia will have to decide whether she can afford to be a bystander or not. This will not be an easy choice as their shall be no consensus on what to do inside the ruling elites. But the stakes will be too high and the consequences of inaction prohibitive. My hope is that a major military conflict will result in a sharp increase of the power and influence of the military “lobby” inside the Kremlin. Eventually and inevitably, the issue of Israel and Zionism will have to be revisited and the pro-Israeli lobby inside Russia dealt with, lest Russia follow the same path to self-destruction as the USA. For this reason the concept of “true sovereignization” is the one patriotic slogan/goal that Eurasian Sovereignists must continue to promote (regardless of the actual terminology used) because it points towards the real problems in Russian internal and foreign policies which must be addressed and resolved. This will be a long and difficult process, with victories and setbacks. We better get used to the idea that what happened in the past couple of weeks will happen again in the future.
The US State Department’s support for the White Helmets operating in Syria is “under active review,” a CBS News report said.
The group reportedly hasn’t received funding in weeks, but neither has it received formal confirmation that Washington’s financial assistance has come to a complete halt. This would mean a significant blow for the group, as the US money accounts for about one-third of the controversial group’s overall funding.
An internal State Department document cited by CBS said that its Near East Bureau needed confirmation from US President Donald Trump’s administration by April 15 in order to approve funding for the White Helmets. If that wasn’t received, the department would initiate “shut-down procedures on a rolling basis.”
The report comes amid major controversy surrounding the White Helmets, after residents of Douma, Syria, testified in The Hague at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons [OPCW]. The hearing centered on the alleged chemical attack that was used as a justification for the April 14 strikes by the US, Britain, and France.
In a press conference following the hearing, hospital staff and 11-year-old Hassan Diab – who is seen in troubling White Helmets footage following the alleged attack – said there was no sign of a chemical incident at the time and that the White Helmets’ video with children was apparently staged.
The footage, which showed Diab and other children being hosed down with water, was the only publicly available “evidence” that the attack ever took place.
Still, Trump and his British and French counterparts deemed it sufficient proof to launch over 100 missiles on Syria on April 14, claiming that Syrian President Bashar Assad was behind the alleged attack.
The three allies were so keen to bomb Syria that they refused to wait for the results of an OPCW investigation before doing so.
Although the White Helmets says it acts solely as a makeshift emergency response team in a time of crisis, claiming to have heroically saved more than 70,000 lives in war-torn Syria, others disagree with its motives.
Footage from Syria repeatedly showed members of the White Helmets assisting terrorist groups, while multiple accounts from civilians suggested they only helped “their own” and used civilians caught in the battle only for publicity.
According to CBS, the US government accounted for about a third of the overall funding of White Helmets. CBS stressed that “the US State Department said the support is ‘under active review,’” adding that the organization had not been receiving financial funds from Washington for several weeks already.
The leader of White Helmets Raed Saleh stated that there had been no signs of stopping the financing two months ago during the visit of the organization’s members to the US, CBS reported.
“Our meetings in March were very positive. There were even remarks from senior officials about long-term commitments even into 2020,” Saleh said.
“There were no suggestions whatsoever about stopping support.”
“Ultimately, this will negatively impact the humanitarian workers ability to save lives,” claimed the White Helmets official quoted by CBS.
CBS reported that the internal State Department document had said that its Near East Bureau had needed confirmation from the administration to green light funding for the White Helmets in Syria by April 15 or the department would initiate “shut-down procedures on a rolling basis.” CBS stated that it had inquired, which programs had been still receiving funding and the date of its freezing, but the US State Department did not respond.
The fact over the freezing of the White Helmets seems to be interesting as this organization was one of the first to make allegations that there was a chemical weapon attack carried out by the Syrian government in Douma on April 7. Russia dismissed that as fake news. On April 9, the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of the Warring Sides examined Douma to find no traces of chemical weapons.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) visited two sites in Douma on April 21 and 25 collecting samples there. The results haven’t been provided yet.
The United Kingdom will continue to support the activities of the White Helmets organization in war-torn Syria, a Foreign Office spokesperson told Sputnik on Friday commenting on the reported suspension of assistance to the non-governmental group by Washington.
“The UK remains committed to supporting the White Helmets and the vital work they do, providing life-saving assistance to civilians affected by Syria’s conflict,” the spokesperson said.
The statement was made in wake of the CBS report broadcasted on Thursday, saying that the US Department of State halted funding for the White Helmets in Syria. According to the media outlet, the US share in the funding of the group stands at about a third of its budget. The broadcaster added, citing a group representative, that provision of funds had stopped in recent weeks.
The situation in Syria significantly escalated, when the White Helmets, a Western-backed NGO, released a video showing alleged victims of the “chemical attack” in the city of Douma on April 7, which the US immediately blamed on the troops of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Damascus denied the allegations, while Moscow considered whole “attack” to be a false flag provocation carried out to justify the followed aggression against the country. Later Russian journalists found alleged victims of the “chemical attack”, who asserted they were forced into the staged video.
July 16, 2018
The curtain is falling on a country in serious trouble
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 
